February 16th

With the President on the high seas, with the first draft of his Covenant in his pocket, now no longer a secret document but, by the miracle of almost instant communications, already informally at least before the Congress and the world, the time has come to make what record I can of how what many regard as a miracle was wrought. The delegates, those who assembled from all over the world to take part in the Great Assizes, have had ten sessions in a large and spacious room on the third floor of the Hotel Crillon adjacent to Colonel House’s private quarters. In the center was a great table around which at first the delegates of the Great Powers sat, later to be enlarged by the addition of five representatives of the lesser tribes. To one side was a smaller table at which sat generally Hunter Miller and his colleagues of the drafting committee. Later, when the President’s objections were overruled, another little table was introduced at which the secretaries of some of the delegations sat when, after the third session, they were finally admitted to the hearings.

This is how we worked: At the great table the President presided; to his left sat Colonel House. I sat between them but a little to the rear as became my humble functions. The President held in his hand the Hurst-Miller draft, reading aloud one by one the articles as they were submitted for discussion. The President did not like this draft but he accepted it as a basis of discussion, because Lord Robert Cecil was very insistent and the President appreciated that without the support of the British the project would get nowhere. At first the procedure followed was to await the conclusion of the remarks of the delegates and then for me to translate them. However, this took up so much time that the plan was modified and I was told to translate sentence by sentence in a low voice, while the speaker held the floor—a procedure which while timesaving was much more difficult for me. The suggestion I made, that I be allowed to try my hand at condensing the speeches, often repetitious and discursive, was frowned down upon. And here I must say a word about myself and the manner in which the records I am incorporating in my diary were made. My duties as instant translator of all the speeches, sentence by sentence, were very exacting and, I may add, exhausting. The delegates only spoke from time to time as the spirit moved them but from me there flowed incessantly a Niagara of words (their words; not always well chosen). After the sessions I generally made as soon as possible a resume of what had been said. This was helpful to me, and as my chief maintained it was of assistance to the President on several occasions when memories were at fault and impressions clashed—as they did frequently.

“We’re engaged in drawing up a world Constitution,” said House; “under it, I trust that civilization will be safeguarded and a new and more humane era shall be opened to all of us. It is your duty to play the part of James Madison of Montpelier in recording the drafting of this great document. I hope you will.”

“Madison had many qualifications which I lack,” I protested. “He, too, had to cajole balky horses, but Madison only had to listen to plain English and set down what he thought was worthy to be recorded; while I, alas! have to put into plain English speeches that are often made in the barbaric French of Warsaw, of Zagreb, of Belgrade, and, worst of all, the French of Crete. You really ought to have a man like Professor Montoux, who has spent his life in straightening out mixed metaphors and simplifying the remarks of incoherent statesmen.” “You are doing quite well,” said House.

“But I would be a better Madison,” I insisted, “if I sat idly on the side lines and took notes.”

I then asked, not for the first time, what is our objective? And the Colonel answered, as he often did, with a Texas story:

“One day Bill MacDonald, the chief of the Rangers, came riding up to Big Foot Wallace’s ranch and said, ‘Come on, Big Foot,’ and in a moment Big Foot was in the saddle, and they rode and they rode, stirrup to stirrup, toward the setting of the sun. And the second day they continued riding toward the West and Big Foot never opened his mouth. And so it went on until the morning of the sixth day, when at last Big Foot opened his mouth and said, ‘Gosh, Big Boy, where we’re gwine?’ ‘I don’t know, Big Foot, but maybe we’ll have to keep after them varmints until the end of time.’

“I told the President that story last week,” continued House, “and he liked it, but he added that ‘although the sixth day has not dawned, I know where “I’m gwine” and I also know where the “varmints” are lurking.’

“I think the President is right,” commented House. “There are spots in Europe where the good grass is rising from the parched earth; at least I think so.”

“The news from Washington is none too encouraging,” I ventured to say.

“True, true,” admitted the Colonel. “But all those doubts will be brushed aside once the President takes to the stump and presents to the people the true picture of the world situation.”