April — undated

I should not, and do not, claim to have firsthand information as to the initial stages of the Irish problem as presented at the Conference —with it I lived on friendly but distant terms. I only came in at what might be called the comic-strip page of the proceedings. I do know, however, that in March three distinguished Irish-Americans arrived in Paris in the hope of placing the long-unsolved problem on the agenda and to secure the support of the President to having De Valera and Count Plunkett recognized as delegates to the Conference from the ever-verdant and ever-turbulent isle.

This would have been a difficult task at any time. There were many and most troublesome problems before the great World Assizes without this additional load. But it was particularly difficult at this moment, when, at the insistence of the President (with a goodly number of United States Senators in the visible background), the delegates were being asked in the Monroe Doctrine reservation to exclude all American questions from their field of operations. With what grace, then, could he barge in with Ireland? Further, the President had had quite a set-to with Judge Cohalan on the subject before leaving New York. He had vetoed the Irish plan then and there was little reason to hope that he would reconsider his attitude now, when, as was apparent, the only hope of a successful issue to his labors was to pour barrels, even hogsheads, of conciliatory oil upon the troubled waters.

House, however, did succeed in having the President receive Frank Walsh. He proved to be a reasonable and a very intelligent man, and the interview went off without fireworks. But neither he nor his colleagues were what you would call shrinking violets, and soon it became known to the press that they were in Paris and also some details of the difficult mission upon which they had come—and its purpose. Unfortunately for him, as it proved, these notices were brought to the attention of Lloyd George by his press bureau, and still more unfortunately there was bom in his mercurial breast the hope that an opportunity was near at hand to settle the century-old problem that had so often affected disastrously Anglo-American relations. House having turned his deaf diplomatic ear to several verbal suggestions from the British Prime Minister that he would like to meet the distinguished visitors, Lloyd George wrote a formal letter requesting House to bring about an interview. Nothing could have been easier. The Irish-Americans called; Lloyd George found that they were indeed “very high-class men.” He was not only delighted with them but a few days later he ordered passports for them to visit Ireland (which had hitherto been refused) made out for them, and also a destroyer to be placed at their disposal to facilitate their journey.

And now I entered the scene; I had gone to a party, apparently like all the other members of the staff. Not finding it to my liking, I had returned about nine o’clock to the Crillon and found the Colonel pacing up and down the corridor in a condition which, for one so invariably calm and collected, could only be described as perturbed. His face brightened as he saw me. “I’m sorry for you-but I’m glad too. I must entrust you even at this hour with a mission which is important for me, for Lloyd George, indeed for all of us. The Irish delegates have been raising Cain in Dublin, as was indeed to be expected, and the result is a tremendous row in London. Lloyd George has forgotten that he brought it all on himself and announces that, although with great regret, he will have to make public what he calls ‘my responsibility’ in the matter. He has arranged to publish his version of the incident in the papers tomorrow. He writes cheerfully: ‘Dear House: It will soon blow over. It is just one of those things which we public men have to expect—and must grin and bear. Take these letters, read them carefully, and read them also aloud to Lloyd George, and then hold on to them like grim death. You must see him tonight and save the man—from himself. But make it quite plain that if he publishes the statement he proposes to make tomorrow I will have to make the real facts plain, perfectly plain.”

Before I left I read the letter from Lloyd George asking House to induce the Irish-Americans to call and the carbon from House telling Lloyd George he had passed on his request, also the letter of Lloyd George thanking House for his friendly good offices and his gratification at meeting such reasonable people. I sallied out into the night with the sheaf of letters stowed away in a most unsoldierly looking despatch case. I went to the Prime Minister’s apartment in the Rue Nitot, then to the Majestic, and to many other places reputed to be his evening haunts. But all in vain; I had no luck. Apparently Lloyd George had vanished from the familiar scenes. After midnight I returned to the Rue Nitot. Philip Kerr was not there, a young Foreign Office clerk was on guard, and he raised his eyebrows when I told him that my instructions were to await the return of his chief. “But,” he expostulated, “at this hour of the night—or rather of the morning— I’m sure the P.M. could not see you—unless it is a matter of life or death.”

“It is,” I answered firmly, “the life or death of a newspaper sensation.”

Our vigil lasted until nearly two in the morning and then Lloyd George appeared. He had been in the country for a round of golf and had stayed on for a drive and a late dinner. He, too, raised his eyebrows as I placed the letters before him. He gave them a swift glance, muttered, “Good Lord,” and then in a challenging, almost defiant, tone said, “Of course I wrote these letters! Who says I didn’t?”

“No one, no one,” I said softly, deprecatingly. “Only Colonel House concluded that in the press of more important matters the fact that you did write them might have escaped your memory.”

“And it had,” admitted Lloyd George. “But, good Lord! how natural it is that those Irish-Americans should feel this way. They talk just as I used to do in my early days in Carmarthenshire and South Carnarvon. Yes, I, too, made the welkin ring with my trumpet notes of Cymric patriotism. But of course we cannot permit it now. Just fancy! Those fellows as they were driving down Sackville Street, under the patronage of His Majesty’s Government and with an honor escort from the castle, broke out with Fenian speeches and denunciations of what they called the Sassenach. Tell House I’m glad we have gotten them out of Ireland without further incidents and that he should not give the matter further thought. Why should we engage in a newspaper controversy when there are so many more important matters to engage our attention?”

The Colonel chuckled when in the morning I gave him a restrained account of the interview—and the end of the controversy. “Great man, Lloyd George,” he commented. “A wonderful fellow. What a flexible memory he has, and that is why it’s wise to keep his letters.” . . .

Yesterday, and again today, I noticed in the hotel lobby a familiar face. Truth to tell this was not unusual, but the fact that the man behind the familiar face avoided me was unusual and not to be tolerated. So I cornered him and drew him into a window recess. He threw up his hands and stuttered “Kamerad.”

“You are Judge of Illinois,” I charged.

“I am indeed,” he answered, “but oh, how I wish to remain incognito.” When I laughed, he relaxed and began, “I am that ashamed of myself. If it was myself alone I wouldn’t mind so much. I could say I yielded to an hereditary or prenatal and uncontrollable influence and let it go at that. But there’s the Colonel! I’m afraid I have compromised him. I would rather have cut off my right hand than done that.”

“The Colonel is very wary,” I suggested. “He is a most difficult man to compromise. Many have tried it—but have failed.”

His face brightened and, “But didn’t he go bail for us?”

“No, he merely introduced you to the Prime Minister. He vouched for you as Irish-Americans and introduced you as such.”

“Thank God for that.”

“But how did it happen?”

“How can I tell you when I don’t know myself? But I’ll tell you what they said happened. I wasn’t born in Ireland and even my father was born in Chicago, but I suppose it’s true, as my grandfather used to say, there’s not a drop of blood in our veins that’s not Irish, and proud of it we are. The Prime Minister shipped us on a torpedo boat and the young fellows on board were just as nice as they could be, but I can’t honestly advise a landlubber to cross the Irish Sea in a torpedo boat in February. So we were feeling pretty peaked when we landed at Cork or Cobh, I’m not sure which, and as is, I suppose, natural, with such a warm-hearted people, perfect strangers came up to us and said, ‘We welcome you back to the ould sod,’ and then they offered us nips and indeed they forced them upon us. I won’t say anything against Irish whisky, but it must be dangerous until you get used to it, and you see all of us had been brought up on ‘Berban.’ If we had gone slow with the new tipple perhaps nothing would have happened.”

“But what did happen?” I inquired now with some impatience. I was a busy man, and there were problems awaiting me upstairs in which we were more nearly involved than in this Anglo-Irish fracas.

“Of course I don’t know,” came the answer, “but I’ll tell you what they say happened. We were driving down Sackville Street in a jaunting car and all Dublin was cheering us. They say I took the driver’s seat and announced that we Irish Yankees had come to proclaim Ireland a nation, and the police inspector who escorted us back to the dock—not Execution Dock, but a quay where another torpedo boat was tied up—said that I called upon all within the sound of my voice to join the boys from America and throw George the Fifth into the Shannon!

“We had another rough sea trip, but what I suffered from most was remorse. The idea of all the trouble I had gotten the kind little Colonel from Texas into.”

“He can take care of himself,” I assured the now-penitent agitator. “Perhaps you were rash in switching so suddenly from ‘Berban’ to—”

“Well, I guess that’s it, but on nearer acquaintance I found their usquebaugh was no bad tipple and that if you don’t rush matters it leaves a pleasant farewell. I know, because the police inspector who put us on board left a few bottles with us. He said it was a very small price to pay for the getting rid of us.”

The judge had not, however, been entirely Weaned away from “Berban.” He now just naturally gravitated to the bar where it was dispensed in large quantities and of excellent quality, but I rushed upstairs where more acute and certainly less-amusing problems awaited my attention. The last words of the judge from Illinois that reached me were, “Was it whisky, that strange new whisky, or was it old Dame Heredity?”