This note, read at the present time, sounds extravagant in thought and intemperate in expression.  It was written under the influence of emotions which had been deeply stirred by the conditions then existing.  Time usually softens one’s judgments and the passage of events makes less vivid one’s impressions.  The perspective, however, grows clearer and the proportions more accurate when the observer stands at a distance.  While the language of the note might well be changed and made less florid, the thought needs little modification.  The public criticism was widespread and outspoken, and from the expressions used it was very evident that there prevailed a general popular disapproval of the way the negotiations were being conducted.  The Council of Four won the press-name of “The Olympians,” and much was said of “the thick cloud of mystery” which hid them from the anxious multitudes, and of the secrecy which veiled their deliberations.  The newspapers and the correspondents at Paris openly complained and the delegates to the Conference in a more guarded way showed their bitterness at the overlordship assumed by the leading statesmen of the Great Powers and the secretive methods which they employed.  It was, as may be gathered from the note quoted, a distressing and depressing time.

As concrete examples of the evils of secret negotiations the “Fiume Affair” and the “Shantung Settlement” are the best known because of the storm of criticism and protest which they caused.  As the Shantung Settlement was one of the chief matters of difference between the President and myself, it will be treated later.  The case of Fiume is different.  As to the merits of the question I was very much in accord with the President, but to the bungling way in which it was handled I was strongly opposed believing that secret interviews, at which false hopes were encouraged, were at the bottom of all the trouble which later developed.  But for this secrecy I firmly believe that there would have been no “Fiume Affair.”

The discussion of the Italian claims to territory along the northern boundary of the Kingdom and about the head of the Adriatic Sea began as soon as the American Commission was installed at Paris, about the middle of December, 1918.  The endeavor of the Italian emissaries was to induce the Americans, particularly the President, to recognize the boundary laid down in the Pact of London.  That agreement, which Italy had required Great Britain and France to accept in April, 1915, before she consented to declare war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, committed the Entente Powers to the recognition of Italy’s right to certain territorial acquisitions at the expense of Austria-Hungary in the event of the defeat of the Central Empires.  By the boundary line agreed upon in the Pact, Italy would obtain certain important islands and ports on the Dalmatian coast in addition to the Austrian Tyrol and the Italian provinces of the Dual Monarchy at the head of the Adriatic.