A member of his Cabinet told me that Mr. Wilson had shown confidence in him, given him a wide range of action in his own Department and that he relies on his judgment.  This Cabinet member of course attends the routine state dinners and receptions, as a matter of required duty.  But as for any social recognition of his existence—­he had never received a hint or nod.  Nor does any member of the Cabinet (except, no doubt, Mr. McAdoo, his son-in-law).  There is no social sense nor reason in this.  In fact, it works to a very decided disadvantage to the President and to the Nation.

By the way, that a notable man in our educational life could form such a habit does not speak well for our educational life.

What an unspeakably lamentable loss of opportunity!  This is the more remarkable and lamentable because the President is a charming personality, an uncommonly good talker, a man who could easily make personal friends of all the world.  He does his own thinking, untouched by other men’s ideas.  He receives nothing from the outside.  His domestic life is spent with his own, nobody else, except House occasionally.  His contact with his own Cabinet is a business man’s contact with his business associates and kind—­at his office.

He declined to see Cameron Forbes[41] on his return from the Philippines.

The sadness of this mistake!

Another result is—­the President doesn’t hear the frank truth about the men about him.  He gives nobody a chance to tell him.  Hence he has several heavy encumbrances in his official family.

The influence of this lone-hand way of playing the game extends very far.  The members of the Cabinet do not seem to have the habit of frankness with one another.  Each lives and works in a water-tight compartment.  I sat at luncheon (at a hotel) with Lansing, Secretary of State; Lane, Secretary of the Interior; Gregory, Attorney-General; Baker, Secretary of War; Daniels, Secretary of the Navy; and Sharp, Ambassador to France; and all the talk was jocular or semi-jocular, and personal—­mere cheap chaff.  Not a question was asked either of the Ambassador to France or of the Ambassador to Great Britain about the war or about our foreign relations.  The war wasn’t mentioned.  Sharp and I might have come from Bungtown and Jonesville and not from France and England.  We were not encouraged to talk—­the local personal joke held the time and conversation.  This astounding fact must be the result of this lone-hand, water-tight compartment method and—­of the neutrality suppression of men.  The Vice-President confessed to his neighbour at a Gridiron dinner that he had read none of the White Papers, or Orange Papers, etc., of the belligerent governments—­confessed this with pride—­lest he should form an opinion and cease to be neutral!  Miss X, a member of the President’s household, said to Mrs. Y, the day we lunched there, that she had made a remark privately to Sharp showing her admiration of the French.