Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
2
Chapters
255
Words
240.5 K
Comments
0
Reading
20 h, 2 m
Last evening we all went to the Hotel Murat and from there escorted the President to the station which was beflagged in his honor. The red carpet was spread and the waiting rooms with palms and evergreen plants and flowers had been converted into a tropical garden; a cheering sight after the drizzling rain that had been falling all day. President Poincare and his lady were there and Clemenceau and his cabinet. All the American delegates were on hand and most of the foreign ambassadors and delegates. As the…- 128.6 K • Completed
- In his speech at the Plenary Session yesterday, moving the adoption of the League of Nations resolution, the President said things that were far from welcome to the ears of many listeners here as well as in Washington. He made it quite plain that he was not inclined to “pull his punches.” He repeated what he had said at the first Conclave but with increased emphasis. “The United States in entering the war never for a moment thought it was intervening in the politics of Europe, Asia, or of any part of…
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- The tenth and last meeting of the Drafting Commission, Lord Robert Cecil presiding in the absence of Mr. Wilson, was held on the afternoon of February 13th. It was marked by protracted debates on the French amendments. In the strongest form they called for an international force, a sheriff’s posse to enforce the decisions of the League Council. In the mildest form they provide an international staff to prepare for and to cope with military emergencies as they arise. They were all voted down, but the…
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- Absit omen! Some do think it ominous, but the Colonel and I are determined to laugh it off. Yet, it cannot be denied that yesterday, within a very few hours after signing the pact of peace and the Covenant, the members of the League of Nations Commission fell openly into inharmonious groups. The question that divided them was how and where their “counterfeit presentment” should be achieved. Of course this is an important matter. The faces of those who have fought for peace in this the first Parliament…
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- Today, on the eve of his departure, the President gave House, and in my presence, very definite instructions for his guidance while he was away. He said: “During my unavoidable absence I do not wish the questions of territorial adjustments or those of reparations to be held up.” I would have concluded from these words that the President left House in control, but House did not so interpret them. “The President does not mean that I am authorized to definitely settle anything,” he explained, “but…
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- Irritated by a statement in an English paper today to the effect that the disapproval of many Senators already formally, if not officially, expressed boded no good to the Covenant and made its acceptance by Congress uncertain, the President expressed his dissent—indeed his indignation. “Those Senators do not know what the people are thinking,” he insisted. “They are as far from the people, the great mass of our people, as I am from Mars. Indeed they are out of touch with the thinking,…
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- The President showed today unmistakable signs of irritation with his co-workers on the Peace Treaty. Attempts are being made, and they are many and subtle, to separate the Treaty from the Covenant, but they are not as many or quite as Machiavellian as the President chooses to assume. Much can be said in favor of rushing ahead with a settlement of territorial and reparation matters. Foch reports, no doubt correctly, that the Germans are “welshing” on all the disarmament clauses of the Armistice…
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- For the second time the admission of India to the League, which had been on several occasions sidetracked, was brought up again, and, of course, by Cecil. “Does the President propose to admit India, or does he oppose her admission? It seems to me it should not be forgotten that during the war India mobilized a million men. The British Government has treated India according to her Colonial program, long tested in the school of experience. It is true that part of India is autocratically governed, yet it…
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- After the religious clause was today again postponed, M. Batalha Reis (Portugal), Professor at the University of Coimbra, who loved to bring to light forgotten pages of history, approached the President and said: “If you permit, I would like to make an inquiry of you, in your personal capacity as a world-renowned teacher of, as well as a maker of, history. What interpretation should be placed on this undoubted fact to which I venture to call your attention? The Treaties of Westphalia (1648), which…
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- One might assume that with all his tremendous responsibilities the President would not find the time for the petty attitudes and gestures which disfigure his character as they do, I fear, so many great men. But, unfortunately, he finds the time. He takes every opportunity of sowing ill feeling between House and Lansing, and they deserve great credit in refusing to participate in a personal feud, which the President apparently seeks to provoke. Why the President brought Mr. Lansing to Paris is an enigma,…
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