The views, which I expressed in this note in regard to the unwisdom of the President’s course, were not new at the time that I wrote them.  Over two months before I had watched the practice of secret negotiation with apprehension as to what the effect would be upon the President’s influence and standing with the delegates to the Conference.  I then believed that he was taking a dangerous course which he would in the end regret.  So strong was this conviction that during a meeting, which the President held with the American Commissioners on the evening of January 29, I told him bluntly—­perhaps too bluntly from the point of view of policy—­that I considered the secret interviews which he was holding with the European statesmen, where no witnesses were present, were unwise, that he was far more successful in accomplishment and less liable to be misunderstood if he confined his negotiating to the Council of Ten, and that, furthermore, acting through the Council he would be much less subject to public criticism.  I supported these views with the statement that the general secrecy, which was being practiced, was making a very bad impression everywhere, and for that reason, if for no other, I was opposed to it.  The silence with which the President received my remarks appeared to me significant of his attitude toward this advice, and his subsequent continuance of secret methods without change, unless it was to increase the secrecy, proved that our judgments were not in accord on the subject.  The only result of my representations, it would seem, was to cause Mr. Wilson to realize that I was not in sympathy with his way of conducting the negotiations.  In the circumstances I think now that it was a blunder on my part to have stated my views so frankly.

Two days after I wrote the note, which is quoted (April 2, 1919), I made another note more general in character, but in which appears the following: 

“Everywhere there are developing bitterness and resentment against a secretiveness which is interpreted to mean failure.  The patience of the people is worn threadbare.  Their temper has grown ragged.  They are sick of whispering diplomats.

“Muttered confidences, secret intrigues, and the tactics of the ‘gum-shoer’ are discredited.  The world wants none of them these days.  It despises and loathes them.  What the world asks are honest declarations openly proclaimed.  The statesman who seeks to gain his end by tortuous and underground ways is foolish or badly advised.  The public man who is sly and secretive rather than frank and bold, whose methods are devious rather than obvious, pursues a dangerous path which leads neither to glory nor to success.

“Secret diplomacy, the bane of the past, is a menace from which man believed himself to be rid.  He who resurrects it invites condemnation.  The whole world will rejoice when the day of the whisperer is over.”