the British masses.  So successful were they, indeed, that the British Government desired that other Americans of similar type should come and spread the message.  In November, therefore, Dr. Buttrick returned to the United States for the purpose of organizing such a committee.  Among the eminent Americans whom he persuaded to give several months of their time to this work of heartening our British allies were Mr. George E. Vincent, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, Mr. Harry Pratt Judson, President of Chicago University, Mr. Charles H. Van Hise, President of the University of Wisconsin, Mr. Edwin A. Alderman, President of the University of Virginia, Mr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, and Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts.  It was certainly a distinguished group, but it was the gentleman selected to be its head that gave it almost transcendent importance in the eyes of the British Government.  This was ex-President William H. Taft.  The British lay greater emphasis upon official rank than do Americans, and the fact that an ex-President of the United States was to head this delegation made it almost an historic event.  Mr. Taft was exceedingly busy, but he expressed his willingness to give up all his engagements for several months and to devote his energies to enlightening the British public about America and its purposes in the war.  An official invitation was sent him from London and accepted.

Inasmuch as Mr. Taft was an ex-President and a representative of the political party opposed to the one in power, he thought it only courteous that he call upon Mr. Wilson, explain the purpose of his mission, and obtain his approval.  He therefore had an interview with the President at the White House; the date was December 12, 1917.  As soon as Mr. Wilson heard of the proposed visit to Great Britain he showed signs of irritation.  He at once declared that it met with his strongest disapproval.  When Mr. Taft remarked that the result of such an enterprise would be to draw Great Britain and the United States more closely together, Mr. Wilson replied that he seriously questioned the desirability of drawing the two countries any more closely together than they already were.  He was opposed to putting the United States in a position of seeming in any way to be involved with British policy.  There were divergencies of purpose, he said, and there were features of the British policy in this war of which he heartily disapproved.  The motives of the United States in this war, the President continued, “were unselfish, but the motives of Great Britain seemed to him to be of a less unselfish character.”  Mr. Wilson cited the treaty between Great Britain and Italy as a sample of British statesmanship which he regarded as proving this contention.  The President’s reference to this Italian treaty has considerable historic value; there has been much discussion as to when the President first learned of its existence, but it is apparent from this conversation with ex-President Taft that he must have known about it on December 12, 1917, for President Wilson based his criticism of British policy largely upon this Italian convention[67].