It is with extreme reluctance, as the reader will understand, that I make any reference to the conference which the President held with the American Commissioners at the Hotel Crillon on January 10, because of the personal nature of what occurred.  It would be far more agreeable to omit an account of this unpleasant episode.  But without referring to it I cannot satisfactorily explain the sudden decision I then reached to take no further part in the preparation or revision of the text of the Covenant of the League of Nations.  Without explanation my subsequent conduct would be, and not without reason, open to the charge of neglect of duty and possibly of disloyalty.  I do not feel called upon to rest under that suspicion, or to remain silent when a brief statement of what occurred at that conference will disclose the reason for the cessation of my efforts to effect changes in the plan of world organization which the President had prepared.  In the circumstances there can be no impropriety in disclosing the truth as to the cause for a course of action when the course of action itself must be set forth to complete the record and to explain an ignorance of the subsequent negotiations regarding the League of Nations, an ignorance which has been the subject of public comment.  Certainly no one who participated in the conference can object to the truth being known unless for personal reasons he prefers that a false impression should go forth.  After careful consideration I can see no public reason for withholding the facts.  At this meeting, to which I refer, the President took up the provisions of his original draft of a Covenant, which was at the time in typewritten form, and indicated the features which he considered fundamental to the proper organization of a League of Nations.  I pointed out certain provisions which appeared to me objectionable in principle or at least of doubtful policy.  Mr. Wilson, however, clearly indicated—­at least so I interpreted his words and manner—­that he was not disposed to receive these criticisms in good part and was unwilling to discuss them.  He also said with great candor and emphasis that he did not intend to have lawyers drafting the treaty of peace.  Although this declaration was called forth by the statement that the legal advisers of the American Commission had been, at my request, preparing an outline of a treaty, a “skeleton treaty” in fact, the President’s sweeping disapproval of members of the legal profession participating in the treaty-making seemed to be, and I believe was, intended to be notice to me that my counsel was unwelcome.  Being the only lawyer on the delegation I naturally took this remark to myself, and I know that other American Commissioners held the same view of its purpose.  If my belief was unjustified, I can only regret that I did not persevere in my criticisms and suggestions, but I could not do so believing as I then did that a lawyer’s advice on any question not wholly legal in nature was unacceptable to the President, a belief which, up to the present time, I have had no reason to change.