Presumably the opinion which Mr. Wilson held in the summer of 1919 he continues to hold, and for my part my views and feelings remain the same now as they were then, with possibly the difference that the indignation and shame that I felt at the time in being in any way a participant in robbing China of her just rights have increased rather than lessened.

So intense was the bitterness among the American Commissioners over the flagrant wrong being perpetrated that, when the decision of the Council of Four was known, some of them considered whether or not they ought to resign or give notice that they would not sign the Treaty if the articles concerning Shantung appeared.  The presence at Versailles of the German plenipotentiaries, the uncertainty of the return of the Italian delegates then in Rome, and the murmurs of dissatisfaction among the delegates of the lesser nations made the international situation precarious.  To have added to the serious conditions and to have possibly precipitated a crisis by openly rebelling against the President was to assume a responsibility which no Commissioner was willing to take.  With the greatest reluctance the American Commissioners submitted to the decision of the Council of Four; and, when the Chinese delegates refused to sign the Treaty after they had been denied the right to sign it with reservations to the Shantung articles, the American Commissioners, who had so strongly opposed the settlement, silently approved their conduct as the only patriotic and statesmanlike course to take.  So far as China was concerned the Shantung Question remained open, and the Chinese Government very properly refused, after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, to enter into any negotiations with Japan looking toward its settlement upon the basis of the treaty provisions.

There was one exception to the President’s usual practice which is especially noticeable in connection with the Shantung controversy, and that was the greater participation which he permitted the members of the American Commission in negotiating with both the Japanese and the Chinese.  It is true he did not disclose his intentions to the Commissioners, but he did express a wish for their advice and he directed me to confer with the Japanese and obtain their views.  Just why he adopted this course, for him unusual, I do not know unless he felt that so far as the equity of China’s claim was concerned we were all in agreement, and if there was to be a departure from strict justice he desired to have his colleagues suggest a way to do so.  It is possible, too, that he felt the question was in large measure a legal one, and decided that the illegality of transferring the German rights to Japan could be more successfully presented to the Japanese delegates by a lawyer.  In any event, in this particular case he adopted a course more in accord with established custom and practice than he did in any other of the many perplexing and difficult problems which he was called upon to solve during the Paris negotiations, excepting of course the subjects submitted to commissions of the Conference.  As has been shown, Mr. Wilson did not follow the advice of the three Commissioners given him in General Bliss’s letter, but that does not detract from the noteworthiness of the fact that in the case of Shantung he sought advice from his Commissioners.