April 12th

Last night M. Larnaude again drooled along for hours in criticism or rather in misrepresentation of the Monroe Doctrine reservation, and many of his hearers feared that a filibuster was under way, but such was not the case. Suddenly pulling out his watch with an expression of alarm that was comical to behold, the learned dean muttered: “Ciel! I have only twelve minutes to catch my train, but I warn you, M. le Président, that I shall resume the statement of my objections at the next Plenary Session.” So it happened, as often before, that domestic arrangements impinged on international proceedings of great moment! The fact is that Larnaude always becomes nervous when the sessions are prolonged after midnight. He lives in a distant suburb of Paris to which at midnight all transportation facilities are discontinued. The President intimated more than once that the discussions would be humanized and above all shortened if some permanent and reliable arrangement could be made to restore Larnaude to the bosom of his family every evening. “He would call the attention of our transportation pool to this opportunity for service.”

On this occasion the President again made an eloquent speech in defense of the Monroe Doctrine, its purpose and its limitations, but unfortunately a stenographic report of it is not available.¹

House was deeply impressed, indeed we all were, with the President’s defense of the All-America Doctrine, and while the President had no notes he helped the Colonel to draw up for his records the substantial paragraphs of this address, which in the opinion of American listeners, at least, was the most eloquent speech delivered during the Conference. And we ought to be grateful for the vitriolic heckling of Larnaude which provoked these extemporaneous and historic remarks. The President was pleased but modestly admitted that his effort should not be regarded as extempore. “To me at least,” he said with a chuckle, “it had a very familiar ring. I was, or professed to be, a teacher of American history for twenty years, and rarely a month passed that I did not preach what the Monroe Doctrine meant to me, and now we are offering it to the world.”

Here follow the words of the President’s appeal to Europe which House retrieved:

“A century ago, when the nations of Europe were crushed by absolutism, the United States declared that that system should not prevail in the Western Hemisphere. That declaration was the first international charter of human liberty, certainly the first in modern times, and the real forerunner of the League of Nations. In this last war against absolutism in Europe which has brought about its fall throughout the world, the United States entered the struggle in accordance with the principles and precepts of liberty which it had announced and adhered to for a century, indeed throughout its history.

“And now I ask you, is she to be denied recognition of the fact that she was the first in this glorious field? Is there to be denied her the small gift of a few words which, after all, only state the undoubted fact that her policy for the past hundred years has been devoted to principles of liberty and independence? Indeed are we not assembled here to consecrate and extend the horizon of this document as a perpetual charter for all the world?”