excuse for the proposal seemed to be a lack of knowledge as to the nature of sovereignty and as to the attributes inherent in the very conception of a state.  The character of a mandate, a mandatory, and the authority issuing the mandate presented many legal perplexities which certainly required very careful study before the experiment was tried.  Until the system was fully worked out and the problems of practical operation were solved, it seemed to me unwise to suggest it and still more unwise to adopt it.  While the general idea of mandates issuing from the proposed international organization was presumably acceptable to the President from the first, his support was doubtless confirmed by the fact that it followed the groove which had been made in his mind by the Smuts phrase “the heir of the Empires.”

In any event it seemed to me the course of wise statesmanship to postpone the advocacy of mandates, based on the assumption that the League of Nations could become the possessor of sovereignty, until the practical application of the theory could be thoroughly considered from the standpoint of international law as well as from the standpoint of policy.  The experiment was too revolutionary to be tried without hesitation and without consideration of the effect on established principles and usage.  At an appropriate place this subject will be more fully discussed.

As to the organization and functions of the League of Nations planned by Mr. Wilson there was little that appealed to one who was opposed to the employment of force in compelling the observance of international obligations and to the establishment of an international oligarchy of the Great Powers to direct and control world affairs.  The basic principle of the plan was that the strong should, as a matter of right recognized by treaty, possess a dominant voice in international councils.  Obviously the principle of the equality of nations was ignored or abandoned.  In the face of the repeated declarations of the Government of the United States in favor of the equality of independent states as to their rights in times of peace, this appeared to be a reversal of policy which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain in a satisfactory way.  Personally I could not subscribe to this principle which was so destructive of the American theory of the proper relations between nations.

It was manifest, when I read the President’s plan, that there was no possible way to harmonize my ideas with it.  They were fundamentally different.  There was no common basis on which to build.  To attempt to bring the two theories into accord would have been futile.  I, therefore, told Colonel House that it was useless to try to bring into accord the two plans, since they were founded on contradictory principles and that the only course of procedure open to me was to present my views to the President in written form, hoping that he would give them consideration, although fearing that his mind was made up, since he had ordered his plan to be printed.