January 5, 1919

For days now we have been simply deluged with Polish delegations. They have come in ever-increasing numbers not only from Cracow and Chicago, where Poles thrive, but they have come from all the four comers of the earth. Each claims to be the only simon-pure committee duly authorized to represent Polonia Restituta.

The Polish National Committee, seated here in a palace of one of the great territorial lords long in exile but not in want, has been formally recognized by the French government, but unfortunately Pilsudski [later (1920) elected chief of state and first marshal of Poland] is in control in Warsaw and in many other districts. He fought the Allied liberating forces of democracy for the first years of the war until his eyes were opened, and then his former friends, the German-Austrians, threw him into prison. He does not seem to be on good terms with the National Committee. As a matter of fact, I should say he is on the worst possible terms with its members—in fact everybody is on bad terms with everyone else. All apparently are exercising the liberum veto which brought low the Polish state in the olden days. As I sit and listen to the uproar, I recall an old German saying I heard so often in my student days. It is to the effect that wherever four Poles are gathered together, at least five opinions are held and loudly expressed. I am forced to admit that this is a true word.

When I say, as ingratiatingly as possible, to the visiting Poles: “Of course, you must bear in mind that the Supreme War Council has decided that Poland, like Rumania and Czechoslovakia, powers with special interests, can only be represented by two delegates,” they say, “Of course, we understand. While we are all delegates we shall not expect, not all of us, to sit at the Round Table; many of us will be content to act as historians, as theologians, and as advisers to the delegation.”

But when we get down to details, the result is a riot. Every delegation demands precedence and priority—the credentials to sustain these claims would fill, and probably by dead weight sink, an ocean steamer. The Allies acclaim Paderewski, and he is the choice of the National Committee here; but in Poland, those who have survived the devastating years of war seem to be enamored of Pilsudski. One of his delegates is a doctor from Zacopane in the High Tatra, and he is very tired. In coming here he has traveled for twelve long days in a small railway carriage meant for six but filled with his advisers to the number of ten.

“Twelve long days we traveled packed like sardines,” he says. And then as an afterthought he adds: “Twelve long days, each day with its respective night.” A graphic phrase that has traveled in conference circles like wildfire and enriched our vocabulary.

And the little doctor has another grievance. In almost every hour of these long days and nights, so he says, the slow-moving and wandering train from Poland was held up and sidetracked to make way for gala trains, festooned with floral wreathes and crowded, but not overcrowded, with Red Cross girls and nurses. He says they were lolling back in armchairs and drinking beer out of foaming beakers. I did my best for the girls, describing how hard they had worked; and he finally agreed, did the little doctor from Zacopane, that they deserved a holiday and he did not grudge it to them.

From afar the Colonel surveyed this counterfeit presentment of what the Polish Parliament had been in the olden days, and then he reached a decision which unfortunately involved me. “This is a situation that must be handled sternly but with soft gloves, if you can. All the Poles must be summoned to come to my office tomorrow morning. I will not be there; you must take my place. This is the ultimatum that you must deliver to them: ‘Poland will be allotted two delegates—no more.’ They must fight it out among themselves as to the choice, but no one will be admitted unless all the delegates agree to his selection. There must be no more of the liberum veto which, as all historians agree, killed independent Poland in other days. If an agreement cannot be reached, then Poland cannot be represented in the Council of Nations, which would be too bad.”

Of course, the strategy was the Colonel’s. Only the tactics by which it was to be executed were entrusted to my clumsy hands. The Poles came at the appointed hour to the number of thirty and, after a little speech, I led them to the smaller conference salle on the third floor designated for the meeting. Unfortunately, the dignity of the proceedings was marred by a little incident for which our inexperienced room clerk, a hard-boiled quartermaster captain, was entirely responsible. What a man he was for giving you wrong numbers!

“It’s room 360,” he said tersely. But when we got there, the door was locked and while I knocked and knocked the long line of far from harmonious Poles waited with growing impatience. At last, in response to my increasingly angry calls, the door was opened and there stood before us a man who had just sprung from a disheveled bed. But no one had eyes for the bed; the man who opened the door was simply clothed in a union suit of flamingo red. He wanted to know what we meant by waking him up at ten in the morning. He had been up all night straightening out the telephone situation. He was, he admitted, Colonel Carty, known from coast to coast as the “Telephone Wizard.”

Another appeal to the military room clerk who did not keep his books up-to-date finally straightened things out. We located the conference room and into it I shoved the innumerable delegates. But I did not lock the door—escape must be possible. And, of course, I recognized I might have to rush in at any moment with a police squad. Then I made a little speech, clothing the Colonel’s brilliant idea with my drab words. They must get together. They must all agree upon the choice of two delegates—or else … and then I went.

I came back in an hour. The hubbub in the conference room was terrible. I did not even knock. I listened for a moment outside and went away. An hour later I came back. The uproar was still deafening. When I came back at the end of the third hour, a holy calm seemed to have settled over the place. At first, I thought they were all dead. Timidly I opened the door and heard these words:

“We have reached complete agreement,” they said in chorus. “St. Michael and all the angels have guided us. By common accord, we have chosen Paderewski and Dmowski as our delegates. All the Poles will stand behind these distinguished men; we are grateful to Colonel House for showing us the way to agreement.”

It seemed to me that we had reached a happy and almost miraculous settlement, but Colonel Carty was never reconciled to it. We suspected him of jangling our telephone service throughout the following months. He was particularly bitter against me. He never forgave me for presenting him to the Polish delegates while wearing a flamingo-red union suit; at least that was the way in which he described the incident.

[During the war years Paderewski kept in close contact with President Wilson and Colonel House. It is generally believed that the President’s announcement on January 22, 1917, that “a united, independent, and autonomous Poland was a democratic war aim and necessary to world peace” was inspired by him. Immediately after the Armistice Paderewski visited London and Paris and then proceeded to Poland via Danzig where he arrived on December 24, 1918. After a narrow escape from assassination, he formed a coalition ministry and as prime minister also held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. As such he was able to secure the official recognition of the new republic, and on April 6, 1919, he returned to Paris to sit in the Peace Conference. He was not entirely successful in harmonizing the several political groups among his countrymen, and his failure to adjust matters with Soviet Russia and his want of success in the problem of Silesia weakened his position. In November, 1919, he resigned and the Pilsudski groups came into full control. He continued, however, to represent his country before the Council of Ambassadors and the League of Nations until 1921, when he returned to the United States and, as the world’s greatest pianist, succeeded in paying off the huge debts he had assumed in his many campaigns to secure the liberation of his people inside and outside his native land. Unfortunately, this gallant and most gifted of men survived to witness the destruction (1940) of the Poland of which he was the outstanding founding father.]