Skip to main content

Full text of "The great adventure at Washington; the story of the conference"

See other formats 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
AT  WASHINGTON 

The  Story  of  the  Conference 


"Hughes  has  dropped  that  rigidity  and  aelf-consciousnesa 
w  I  lid  i  used  to  make  his  personality  seem  stiff  and  cold, 
and  was  a  barrier  between  him  arid  the  common  man. 
Tin*  popular  phrase,  'Hughes  has  loosened  up'  expresses 

it  prrtVctly." 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
AT  WASHINGTON 

The  Story  of  the  Conference 


BY 
MARK  SULLIVAN 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

BT 
JOSEPH    CUMMINGS   CHASE 


GARDEN   CITY,   NEW   YORK,   TORONTO 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

PRINTED  IK  THE  UNITED  STATES 

AT 
THB  COCNTBT  LIFE  PRESS.  GARDEN  CITY,  H.  T. 

Pirrt  Edition 


PREFACE 

You  can't  do  anything  that  involves  as  much 
work  and  thought  as  this  book  did  without  learn- 
ing a  good  deal;  and  one  of  the  most  penetrating 
reflections  that  arose  out  of  putting  this  book  to- 
gether is  on  the  difference  between  writing  his- 
tory long  after  the  event,  and  writing  it  while  it 
is  in  the  making.  The  latter  process  has  handi- 
caps, which  are  both  great  and  obvious;  but  also 
it  has  advantages  that  are  great  but  not  obvious. 
We  commonly  say  that  an  adequate  and  compre- 
hensive history  of  an  event  like  the  Washington 
Conference  can  only  be  written  years  later,  af- 
ter all  the  documents  have  become  accessible. 
That  is  true.  But  it  is  also  true  that  what  these 
later  and  more  pretentious  histories  may  gain  in 
exhaustiveness,  they  are  pretty  sure  to  lose  in 
vividness. 

I  know  that  all  the  official  documents  in  the 
world  can't  convey  as  much  essential  fact  to  the 
distant  and  future  reader  as  did  the  look  on 
Lord  Beatty's  face  to  the  historian  who  had  the 
advantage  of  being  in  the  room  when  Mr. 
Hughes,  in  that  sensational  opening  speech  of 


vi  Preface 

his,  said  that  he  would  expect  the  British  to 
scrap  their  four  great  Hoods,  and  made  equally 
irreverent  mention  of  the  King  George  the 
Fifth.  That  was  truly  history  in  the  making, 
and  Beatty's  look  was  the  stuff  of  which  real 
history  is  made — when  the  historians  can  get  it, 
which  they  usually  can't.  The  future  historian 
may  or  may  not  identify  that  particular  moment 
as  the  exact  point  where  two  great  nations 
changed  their  relation  to  each  other  and  the  re- 
lation of  each  to  the  rest  of  the  world;  at  the 
exact  moment  when  Great  Britain  ceased — and 
knew  she  ceased — to  have  the  exclusive  franchise 
for  laying  down  the  law  about  navies  and  sea- 
power  and  control  of  the  sea  altogether.  Also 
I  may  or  may  not  be  right  in  saying  that  this 
particular  moment  had  this  particular  signifi- 
cance. All  this,  and  the  whole  body  of  the 
broad  effects  of  Hughes's  speech  on  the  history 
of  the  world,  is  discussed  in  Chapter  XI.  The 
point  I  am  making  now  is  that  no  future  histo- 
rian, who  must  depend  upon  digging  into  the 
official  documents  and  examining  the  coded 
cables  that  raced  across  the  Atlantic,  will  ever 
find  anything  as  vivid  as  that  look  on  Lord 
Beatty's  face.  Lord  Beatty  is  the  head  of  the 
British  Navy — and  the  British  Navy  was  being 
treated  impiously.  Lord  Beatty  is  the  custodian 
in  his  generation  of  a  tradition  that  has  lasted 


Preface  vii 

for  over  two  hundred  years,  and  that  tradition 
was  being  menaced. 

However,  the  more  complete  picture  of  all 
this  is  in  Chapter  I,  which  pictures  that  dramatic 
opening  session  in  full.  The  point  I  am  making 
now  is  merely  that  the  vividness  of  scenes  like 
this  is  the  advantage  that  the  contemporary  his- 
torian— even  though  a  hurried  journalist,  with 
no  pretense  to  exhaustiveness  or  authoritative- 
ness,  or  even  to  absolute  accuracy — has  over  the 
formal  historian  who  must  depend  on  documents. 

Of  course,  I  would  not  have  the  reader  take 
this  book  for  more  than  it  is.  Most  of  it  was 
written  while  the  Conference  was  on.  Much  of 
it  was  written  on  the  day,  and  even  within  the 
minute,  that  the  event  took  place.  While  this 
is  an  advantage,  and  gives  the  value  of  a  vivid- 
ness not  otherwise  easily  attainable,  to  those 
major  parts  of  the  narrative  that  describe  events 
or  recite  facts,  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  handi- 
cap in  respect  to  such  occasional  parts  of  the 
book  as  seem  to  express  or  imply  judgments. 
A  momentary  judgment  based  on  a  single  epi- 
sode may  and  often  does  differ  from  a  judgment 
that  takes  into  account  the  long  chain  of  ante- 
cedent facts  of  which  the  immediate  episode 
is  only  one  incident.  For  this  reason,  the  reader 
is  asked  not  to  take  as  necessarily  final  all  the 
judgments  that  are  frequently  expressed  or  im- 


viii  Preface 

plied  in  the  course  of  describing  events.  The 
intention  has  been  to  make  the  book  primarily 
a  narrative  or  exposition,  rather  than  one  deal- 
ing with  conclusions;  but  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  narrative  that  is  wholly  free  from  the  bias 
of  opinion.  Opinion,  judgment,  bias,  preju- 
dice, are  inherent  in  the  choice  of  words  and  the 
turn  of  phrases.  I  lay  emphasis  on  this  point 
because,  in  putting  this  book  together,  in  re- 
viewing the  despatches  I  wrote  from  day  to  day, 
I  have  been  impressed  on  several  occasions  with 
the  fact  that  an  incident  which  I  witnessed  my- 
self, which  I  thought  I  understood  fully,  and 
to  which  I  gave  an  interpretation  that  at  the 
time  seemed  the  one  clearly  called  for,  turns  out 
to  bear  a  somewhat  different  interpretation  when 
considered  in  the  light  of  other  facts  learned  of 
afterward. 

As  a  narrative,  I  have  tried  to  give  the  book 
order  and  sequence,  of  course;  and  otherwise  to 
arrange  it  so  as  to  give  a  connected  story,  in 
which  the  reader  distant  from  the  scene  will  find 
clearness  and  ease  of  understanding.  In  this 
effort  to  give  a  connected  narrative,  in  making 
the  bridges  and  connections  between  the  things 
I  actually  saw  or  knew,  I  have  had  necessarily 
to  treat  of  many  matters  of  which  I  did  not  have 
personal  knowledge.  In  these  parts  of  the  nar- 
rative, I  have  had  to  depend  on  the  accounts  of 


Preface  ix 

others;  or,  in  some  cases,  especially  in  dealing 
with  such  subjects  as  motive  and  the  like,  on 
surmise.  In  the  cases  where  I  have  had  to  de- 
pend on  a  certain  amount  of  surmise,  I  have 
tried  to  be  careful  to  say  so.  There  are  consid- 
erable areas  of  the  history  of  the  Conference 
as  to  which  many  of  the  details  are  still  subjects 
of  surmise  to  everybody  except  the  few  who  ac- 
tually took  part  in  them,  and  who,  as  yet,  for 
reasons  of  different  degrees  of  soundness,  re- 
gard it  as  desirable  to  keep  some  details  of  the 
Conference,  for  the  present,  within  the  field  of 
unwritten  history.  Even  as  to  those  broad 
parts  of  the  Conference  which  were  open  to  any- 
body to  find  out  about,  no  one  of  the  journalists 
or  other  observers,  and  even  no  one  of  the  dele- 
gates, can  tell  the  whole  story.  No  one  ob- 
server, nor  any  one  delegate  knew  or  knows  all 
the  details  of  everything  that  happened.  No 
one  person  knows,  as  a  matter  of  personal  ob- 
servation, more  than  a  fraction  of  the  whole 
story.  There  was  too  much  of  it — much  too 
much — for  any  one  person  to  be  able  to  follow 
it  all.  The  Associated  Press  had  as  many  as 
twenty  of  their  best  men  covering  the  Confer- 
ence. They  were  the  best  possible  men  for  the 
work.  The  A.  P.  man  who  is  resident  at  Tokio 
came  on  the  boat  with  the  Japanese  delegates. 
Roberts  came  from  Paris  with  the  French. 


x  Preface 

Cortesi  came  from  Rome  with  the  Italians, 
and  similarly  others  from  the  farthest  outposts 
of  the  A.  P.  wires.  It  was  an  extraordinary 
mobilization  of  the  men  who  were  best  trained 
and  best  adapted  by  their  individual  experience 
for  the  work  in  hand.  But  not  all  of  those 
twenty  men  combined  could  write  a  complete 
narrative  of  everything  that  took  place.  As  to 
any  one  man,  the  best  within  his  power  was  to 
try  to  be  sure  to  be  present  at  the  more  impor- 
tant events  as  they  arose  from  day  to  day;  and 
the  present  account,  so  far  as  it  goes  in  the  di- 
rection of  personal  narrative,  does  not  purport 
to  be  more  than  an  eye-witness's  account  of  the 
more  important  events,  supplemented  by  the 
analysis  and  other  narrative  necessary  to  enable 
the  reader  readily  to  understand  the  Conference 
as  a  whole. 

Some  of  the  events  thus  pictured  are  of  such 
moment  that  hardly  any  words  used  to  express 
the  degree  of  their  importance  could  be  unrea- 
sonably superlative.  Both  Mr.  Balfour  and 
Lord  Lee,  as  well  as  many  others,  have  spoken 
of  that  sensational  opening  session  in  terms 
which,  if  they  came  from  men  of  less  responsible 
station,  might  seem  extravagant.  But  the 
truth  is  that  opening  session,  in  its  dramatic 
quality,  and  in  its  place  in  history,  was  all  that 
Mr.  Balfour  said  of  it;  and  this  book  would 


Preface  xi 

justify  itself,  would  be  worth  the  pains  it  took, 
and  adequately  account  for  the  pleasure  that 
the  writing  of  it  gave,  if  success  has  accompanied 
the  effort  to  make  the  opening  chapter  a  clear 
and  easily  comprehended  picture  of  "that  in- 
spired moment  .  .  .  that  fateful  Saturday 
.  .  .  unique  in  history." 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XL     "THAT  INSPIRED  MOMENT   .    .    .   THAT 

FATEFUL  SATURDAY" 1 

/  II.     "PAUSE  AND  CONSIDER"  DAYS     ....  35 

III.     "WE  AGREE  —  IN  SPIRIT  AND  IN  PRIN- 
CIPLE"    50 

/  IV.     FRANCE  SAYS,  "No" 65 

V.     5-5-3  AND  THE  "MuTsu" 109 

NVL     THE  SECOND  CRISIS 138 

. — yil.     FRANCE   AND    ENGLAND   AND    THE    SUB- 
MARINE          166 

VIII.     FRANCE  AT  WASHINGTON 188 

*^IX.     THE  FOUR-POWER  TREATY       ....  202 

X.     JAPAN  AND  CHINA 237 

XI.     "UNIQUE  IN  HISTORY"  269 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
AT  WASHINGTON 

The  Story  of  the  Conference 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
1          AT  WASHINGTON 

CHAPTER  I 

"THAT  INSPIRED  MOMENT    .    .    .    THAT  FATE- 
FUL SATURDAY" 

fT^HE  room  was  in  a  white-marble  building, 
set   well   back   from   the   broad   asphalted 
drive   that   leads   from  the  White   House 
down  to  the  Potomac — a  building  of  serene  and 
unobtrusive  beauty,  founded  by  American  wo- 
man as  a  memorial  to  ancestors  who  fought  in 
the  Revolution. 

As  the  hurrying  crowds  came  on  foot  and  by 
motor  on  that  chilly  November  morning,  there 
was  in  their  manner  the  eagerness  of  persons 
who  anticipate  a  great  event.  Within  the  room 
the  first  impression,  to  the  present  writer,  was 
one  of  contrast  to  a  previous  experience.  "How 
infinitely  more  beautiful,"  runs  the  first  line  in 
my  notebook,  "is  this  room  than  the  glaring  red 
and  gold  of  the  room  at  Paris  where  the  Peace 
Conference  was  held."  In  the  sense  of  con- 


2       The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

trast  made  by  the  homely  simplicity  of  this 
American  room,  with  its  white  panelled  walls 
on  which  the  only  touches  of  colour  were  the 
paintings  of  George  and  Martha  Washington 
and  the  appropriate  flags,  there  was  a  premoni- 
tion of  the  historic  change  of  world  leadership 
that  was  to  take  place  within  an  hour — a  change 
not  merely  in  the  physical  sense,  from  Europe 
to  America,  but  a  spiritual  change,  a  complete 
about-face  in  the  direction  and  goal  of  man- 
kind's highest  expression  of  organized  effort. 

The  galleries  filled  up  first,  and  there  was  a 
measure  of  the  elevation  of  the  event  in  the 
quality  of  those  who  composed  the  audience. 
Persons  who,  in  other  places,  are  themselves  the 
actors  in  not  inconsiderable  matters  were  on 
this  occasion  spectators.  The  massive  John  W. 
Weeks  came  slowly  down  the  steep  steps  of  the 
gallery,  his  alert  and  vigorous  attention  divided 
between  watching  his  step  and  casting  a  vigi- 
lantly appraising  eye  upon  the  forum  below. 
Over  Weeks's  shoulder  peered  the  homely  and 
friendly  face  of  the  equally  massive  Denby. 
The  simplicity  of  Denby's  countenance,  its  typ- 
ical American  quality,  brought  out  by  the  con- 
trast with  so  many  foreign  faces  elsewhere  in 
the  crowd,  caused  one  of  those  curious  and  ir- 
relevant leaps  of  memory  which  expressed  itself 
in  my  jotting  down  in  my  notebook  a  line  I 


"That  Inspired  Moment     .     .     "         3 

once  saw  above  an  old  hearthstone,  "East,  West 
— Home's  Best."  Among  the  other  Cabinet 
members,  the  frail  figure  and  salient  features  of 
Will  Hays  stood  out  with  a  manner  of  projecting 
electric  emanations  of  his  dynamic  personality 
in  the  direction  of  stimulus  and  encourage- 
ment to  the  actors  below.  In  a  box  directly 
over  the  forum,  Mrs.  Harding  sat,  erect  and 
watchful.  Not  once  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  session  did  her  back  touch  the  back  of 
her  chair.  Beside  her  sat  the  austere  Coolidge, 
his  cold  blue  eye  intent  upon  the  forum.  The 
daughter  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  (and  wife  of 
Congressman  Nicholas  Longworth)  sat  much 
as  she  used  to  sit  day  after  day  throughout  the 
League  of  Nations  debate  in  the  Senate,  leaning 
over  the  railing  with  a  little  of  the  manner  of  an 
imperial  dictator  at  a  contest  of  Roman  gladia- 
tors, her  dusky,  almost  sombrous  features  hav- 
ing an  air  of  challenging  watchfulness,  almost 
as  if  she  meant  to  convey  an  imperious  message : 
'Let  no  American  fail  in  his  duty,  on  pain  of  my 
displeasure." 

Directly  across  in  the  gallery  was  a  solid 
phalanx  of  Senators,  destined  a  little  later  to  do 
a  most  un-Senatorlike  thing.  On  the  floor,  in 
direct  contact  with  the  delegates,  were  the  three 
hundred  newspaper  men,  in  their  field  as  picked 
a  group  of  the  elect  as  were  the  delegates  them- 


4       The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

selves.  William  Jennings  Bryan,  entering  in 
his  silk  hat  and  old-fashioned  cape,  had  some- 
thing of  the  air  of  an  Old  Testament  prophet, 
not  quite  sure,  yet,  whether  to  shed  benevolence 
on  the  occasion  or  to  thunder  anathema  if  things 
should  go  wrong.  Close  by  him,  the  broad  and 
smiling  face  of  William  Allen  White  of  Kan- 
sas radiated  wholesome  optimism  and  friendli- 
ness, as  typically  American  as  anything  in  the 
room.  The  editor  of  the  London  Times,  after 
a  lifetime  of  the  politics  of  London,  Rome,  and 
Vienna,  was  for  the  first  time  recording  an 
American  drama.  The  editor  of  the  Paris 
Matin  sat  with  a  Korean  to  the  right  of  him  and 
the  editor  of  the  Shanghai  Shun  Pao  to  his  left. 
Wells,  the  British  author  of  the  "Outline  of  His- 
tory," was  framed  in  a  solid  mass  of  forty  Japa- 
nese. The  life-time  reporter  of  thirty  years  of 
wars  on  three  continents,  Henry  W.  Nevinson, 
of  the  Manchester  Guardian,  was  here  to  report 
an  event  infinitely  more  to  his  liking.  In  the 
section  reserved  for  the  Supreme  Court  sat  the 
venerable  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  of  Massa- 
chusetts. Close  by  him,  Justice  Brandeis  had 
perhaps  as  intent  and  embracing  an  eye,  as 
quickly  apprehending  a  mind,  as  any  man  in 
the  audience,  and  on  this  occasion  the  lean  and 
supple  strength  of  that  keen  mind  was  stretched 
to  the  utmost  in  tense  watchfulness.  He  had  no 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .    /'         5 

interest  in  the  social  give-and-take  of  smiles  and 
nods  that  characterized  the  settling  down  of  the 
audience.  For  him,  this  was  not  a  mere  pic- 
turesque spectacle — it  was  the  machinery  of 
nations  at  work  to  grind  out  a  momentous  ex- 
periment; and  you  felt  that  if  at  any  instant 
anything  should  go  wrong,  either  by  mischance 
or  by  the  furtive  dropping  of  a  monkey-wrench, 
Brandeis  would  be  the  man  who  would  know 
most  quickly  and  accurately  just  what  had  hap- 
pened and  who  had  done  it  and  why.  As  it 
turned  out,  the  machine  worked  with  sensational 
momentum,  and  when  it  ground  out  its  utterly 
unexpected  product,  Brandeis's  countenance 
was  that  of  a  man  transported. 

On  the  floor  the  first  of  the  delegates  to  stroll 
in  to  where  the  green-covered  tables  were  set 
end-to-end  in  an  open  square  was  Lodge  of 
Massachusetts.  My  notes  say  "strolled,"  and 
that  was  the  correct  description  of  his  listless 
manner  of  having  done  this  sort  of  thing  very 
often,  quite  in  the  course  of  the  day's  work.  At 
the  moment  I  smiled  at  it  as  an  expression  of 
that  New  England  manner  which  decrees  that 
you  must  never  be  excited  or  appear  to  be  much 
impressed  by  the  importance  of  anything  what- 
ever you  may  happen  to  be  doing.  But  as  I  re- 
read my  notes  to-day,  I  wonder  whether  there 
was  not  in  the  degage  manner  a  deeper  and 


6       The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

more  pregnant  art  than  merely  living  up  to  the 
personal,  family,  state,  and  sectional  tradition 
whose  requirement  is  that  you  must  never  seem 
to  take  yourself  too  seriously,  and  must  always 
contrive  to  look  a  little  bored  when  you  are  do- 
ing something  exceptionally  important.  Lodge, 
at  that  moment,  had  a  greater  reason  to  cover 
up  inner  excitement  with  outer  calm,  for,  as  we 
now  know,  he  was  one  of  the  only  nine  men  who 
knew — this  phase  is  the  one  the  chaste  Balfour 
used  later  to  describe  it — "the  blow  that  was  go- 
ing to  fall." 

One  by  one  the  others  came  in  and  found 
their  way  to  their  chairs  along  the  sides  of  the 
tables  that  formed  a  hollow  square.  We  no- 
ticed that  when  Briand  sought  his  seat  on  the 
side  that  formed  the  top  of  the  square,  he  did 
not  find  it  there.  The  Americans  and  British 
filled  all  the  top-side  seats;  and  we  thought  we 
noticed  something  a  little  less  than  gratification 
on  the  countenance  of  the  dark  and  heavy 
Frenchman  when  he  found  his  seat  around  the 
corner,  on  the  side.  In  all  the  later  sessions  we 
observed  there  had  been  a  new  shuffling  of  the 
seats,  and  one  of  the  British  delegates,  Ambas- 
sador Geddes,  had  been  pushed  around  the  cor- 
ner to  the  left,  so  as  to  give  France  a  seat  at  the 
head  of  the  table.  The  incident  was  small,  but 
it  went  to  the  heart  of  some  of  the  things  that 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .     "          7 

happened  about  France  during  the  subsequent 
weeks.1 

Suddenly  there  was  a  little  burst  of  applause. 
It  was  for  Hughes.  The  other  American  dele- 
gates gathered  round  him,  and  all  four  of  them 
took  their  seats.  Root  looked  cool,  inscrutable, 
and  a  little  as  if  he  were  hiding  some  embarrass- 
ment with  summoned  sternness.  All  four  of 
the  Americans,  and  especially  Underwood,  who 
was  probably  conscious  of  his  Senatorial  cronies 
in  the  gallery,  had  a  little  of  the  embarrassed 
and  deferential  temerity  of  the  bridegroom  at  a 
wedding,  who  expects  to  be  smiled  at  for  all 
this  fuss  and  ceremony.  Those  of  us  who  fol- 
low Hughes  closely  here  in  Washington  from 
day  to  day  have  come,  in  a  humorously  friendly 
way,  to  gauge  the  way  things  are  going  with 
him  by  the  state  of  his  whiskers.  To-day  we 
whispered  to  each  other  that  every  hair  was  at 
a  satisfactorily  upward  angle.  After  the  thing 
happened,  Washington  buzzed  with  the  gossip 
of  specific  stories  of  how  tense  and  nervous  the 


II  notice  that  Colonel  Repington,  who  was  the  correspondent  at  the 
Conference  for  the  London  Daily  Telegraph,  also  observed  this  epi- 
sode, and  said  of  it,  "The  French  delegates  were  furious  that  they 
were  not  at  the  top  table,  and  Jusserand  was  white  and  clenched  his 
fists." 

I  will  return  to  this  episode  in  Chapter  VIII,  which  deals  with  "France 
at  Washington."  I  ought  to  say  here,  however,  that  the  original  ar^ 
rangement  of  seats  was  strictly  according  to  the  diplomatic  rule  that 
governs  such  matters;  and  that  the  re-arrangement  of  seats  so  as  to 
give  Briand  a  seat  at  the  top  table  was  an  example— the  first  of  many 
— of  the  way  the  Americans  took  extraordinary  pains  to  show  defer- 
ence to  the  extremely  sensitive  amour  propre  of  the  French. 


8       The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

American  delegates  had  been  over  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  daring  thing  they  were  about  to  do. 
For  the  most  part  there  was  nothing  to  these 
stories.  Hughes  had  not  failed  to  sleep  the 
night  before,  and  Root  showed  no  sign  of  re- 
lief over  ended  suspense.  It  is  true  that  all  four 
of  them  had  shared  some  sense  of  strain  a  week 
before,  when  they  first  evolved  the  plan  and  de- 
termined to  try  to  put  it  through ;  but  on  the  day 
the  thing  was  done  they  had  the  calmness  of 
men  as  to  whom,  so  far  as  their  own  minds  were 
concerned,  the  decision  had  been  made  and  the 
die  cast. 

Suddenly  there  was  applause;  it  rose  quickly 
in  volume  as  realization  of  the  occasion  for  it 
spread  throughout  the  audience.  Harding  had 
entered.  For  the  first  time,  the  crowd  rose. 
Harding  took  his  seat,  and  the  audience  with 
him.  Then  Hughes  spoke  the  first  words  of  the 
Conference.  It  was  a  brief  sentence  to  an- 
nounce the  prayer.  Hughes's  voice  was  strong 
and  full-throated.  It  had  a  reassuring  quality. 
It  inspired  confidence.  When  the  prayer  was 
over,  Hughes  rose  again  and  said  six  words: 
"The  President  of  the  United  States." 

Harding,  as  he  rose,  had  his  habitual  air  of  dis- 
arming and  ingratiating  modesty.  He  bowed 
very  formally  and,  for  an  American,  deeply, 
and  began. 


"That  Inspired  Moment     .     .     "         9 

In  the  overshadowing  nature  of  what  came 
soon  afterward,  the  quality  of  that  opening 
speech  of  Harding's  has  been  lost  sight  of.  As 
it  happens,  I  had  also  heard  Harding,  the  day 
before,  make  his  other  speech,  at  the  burial  cere- 
mony of  the  unknown  soldier,  when  he  ended  by 
repeating  the  Lord's  Prayer.  The  two  speeches 
remain  in  my  mind  together,  and  the  effect  they 
made  at  the  time  on  one  who  followed  them 
closely,  can  be  expressed  by  the  hurried  memo- 
randum I  made  that  day  in  the  Conference.  It 
was  a  note  meant  less  to  describe  the  speech,  as 
such,  than  to  express  the  essence  of  what  Hard- 
ing's  spirit  seemed  to  breathe:  "Warren  Hard- 
ing," I  wrote,  "has  put  his  mind  on  war,  and  the 
end  of  his  reflections  is  that  he  hates  and  loathes 
it.  He  will  go  as  far  as  he  safely  can  toward 
ending  it." 

I  suspect  that  in  Harding's  mind,  as  in  my 
own,  and  in  the  minds  of  nearly  all  the  delegates 
and  others  in  Washington  at  the  time,  the  two 
events  coming  on  two  succeeding  days  were 
merged,  in  a  sense,  and  were  felt  as  one — the 
burial  of  the  unknown  soldier,  who  symbolized 
our  grief  over  the  sacrifices  of  the  war  just 
passed;  and  the  opening  of  the  Conference, 
which  symbolized  our  hope  of  making  other 
such  sacrifices  unnecessary.  Certain  it  is  that 
the  most  earnest  and  moving  part  of  this  speech 


10     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

of  Harding's  a,t  the  Conference  opening  was  the 
passage  in  which  he  spoke  the  emotions  that  had 
come  to  him  the  day  before : 

Here  in  the  United  States  we  are  but  freshly  turned 
from  the  burial  of  an  unknown  American  soldier,  when 
a  nation  sorrowed  while  paying  him  tribute.  Whether  it 
was  spoken  or  not,  a  hundred  millions  of  our  people  were 
summarizing  the  inexcusable  causes,  the  incalculable  cost, 
the  unspeakable  sacrifices,  and  the  unutterable  sorrows; 
and  there  was  the  ever-impelling  question:  How  can  hu- 
manity justify  or  God  forgive?  Human  hate  demands 
no  such  toll;  ambition  and  greed  must  be  denied  it.  If 
misunderstanding  must  take  the  blame,  then  let  us  banish 
it. 

But  if  this  was  the  most  moving  part  of  the 
speech,  the  most  expressive  of  that  brooding 
melancholy  and  the  sense  of  the  need  of  search- 
ing our  hearts,  which  still  hung  over  us  from 
the  day  before,  it  was  a  different  passage  that 
brought  out  the  most  sharply  prompt  applause, 
the  most  deeply  ringing  approval.  That  came 
when  Harding  spoke  in  the  spirit  of  stern  de- 
mand, when  he  compressed  into  a  single,  com- 
pact sentence  his  own  and  America's  determina- 
tion to  bring  about  the  purpose  for  which  the 
Conference  had  been  called.  Harding's  man- 
ner, as  he  raised  his  eyes  from  his  manuscript 
and  leaned  stiffly  out  toward  the  delegates,  took 
on  the  same  stern  quality  as  his  words.  There 


"That  Inspired  Moment     .     .     ."       11 

was  a  hint  of  challenge,  completely  restrained 
but  nevertheless  easily  recognizable  by  any  one 
who  might  oppose — the  expression  of  one  with 
whom  it  is  a  rule  of  life  to  be  placable  and  gentle, 
but  who  on  this  occasion,  has  the  unyielding  de- 
termination of  a  deeply  moved  man,  a  glint  of 
stubborn  strength  in  a  purpose  patiently  ar- 
rived at: 

I  can  speak  officially  only  for  the  United  States.  Our 
hundred  millions  frankly  want  less  of  armament  and 
none  of  war. 

The  approval  of  the  audience  for  this  senti- 
ment, which  was  no  less  a  sentiment  than  a  chal- 
lenge, was  immediate  and  prolonged.  (Inci- 
dentally it  was  interesting  to  observe  that  it 
was  William  Jennings  Bryan  who  most  quickly 
caught  the  import  of  Harding's  words  and  man- 
ner. For  the  moment,  Harding  was  a  fighting 
man  trumpeting  out  a  cause;  and  it  was  as  one 
fighting  man  to  another  that  Bryan  dropped  his 
pencil  and  paper,  leaped  to  his  feet,  and,  lean- 
ing far  out  toward  the  speaker,  led  the  applause 
with  all  the  fire  and  fervor  of  one  of  his  most 
evangelically  inspired  impulses.)  When  the 
applause  died  down,  Harding  concluded  his  ad- 
dress with  a  less  stern  note,  an  appealing  call 
for  cooperation  in  "a  service  to  mankind  .  .  , 
a  better  order  which  will  tranquillize  the  world." 


12     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

As  Harding  ended  his  address,  he  again  took 
on  his  habitual  manner  of  self-effacing  modesty; 
He  tried  to  satisfy  the  clamouring  audience 
with  a  smile  of  appreciation  and  gratitude  as  he 
began  to  move  away  toward  the  door.  But 
Hughes  grasped  his  hand  and  shook  it  glow- 
ingly. That  caused  the  applause  to  rise  again. 
Harding,  still  smiling  and  bowing  bashfully, 
kept  trying  to  edge  toward  the  door.  But  Bal- 
four  also  grasped  his  hand,  and  then  Briand 
and  Viviani  and  all  the  others  who  could 
reach  him  as  he  made  his  way  toward  the 
door  with  as  much  speed  as  he  could  manage 
without  seeming  to  lack  courtesy  to  the  ap- 
plauding audience  and  to  the  various  dele- 
gates who  were  reaching  out  to  congratulate 
him.  Finally,  he  succeeded  in  edging  his  way 
beneath  the  gallery,  and  with  a  last  diffident 
wave  of  his  arm  to  the  audience,  stepped 
rapidly  through  the  door. 

In  the  resumption  of  the  course  of  the  pro- 
ceedings occurred  one  of  those  incidents — the 
second  in  the  day — so  faint  in  their  happening 
that  only  the  most  acutely  observant  took  in  their 
significance,  but  nevertheless  having  a  pregnant 
bearing  on  much  that  occurred  in  the  subsequent 
weeks.  Mr.  Hughes,  resuming  the  direction  of 
the  Conference,  remarked  that  inasmuch  as  cop- 
ies of  the  President's  speech  had  already  been 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .     "       13 

printed  in  French  as  well  as  English,  and 
had  been  distributed  on  the  desks  in  front 
of  all  the  delegates,  he  presumed  that,  in 
order  to  save  time,  the  repeating  of  the  speech 
by  the  interpreter  in  French  might  be  waived. 
"Is  that  agreeable  to  you,  M.  Briand?"  he 
inquired. 

Mr.  Hughes's  question  was  repeated  in 
French.  M.  Briand  took  it  in;  and  with  a  man- 
ner designed  to  make  it  clear  that  he  was  merely 
willing  for  the  moment  to  waive  something  that 
was  seriously  and  indisputably  within  his  right 
to  insist  upon  if  he  so  chose,  replied,  speaking 
in  French,  "Since,  as  you  say,  there  has  a  trans- 
lation been  circulated,  in  order  to  save  time,  we 
shall  not  insist  on  having  a  French  translation 
of  the  speech." 

It  was  from  episodes  so  slight  as  this  that  we 
learned  how  large  a  factor  the  sensitive  amour 
propre  of  the  French  played  in  the  Conference. 
The  fact  that  Mr.  Hughes  felt  it  necessary  to 
be  punctilious  about  asking  for  this  permission, 
even  in  the  case  of  a  speech  that  had  already  been 
translated  into  French  and  printed  in  a  docu- 
ment that  lay  on  the  desks  of  all  the  delegates, 
and  to  give  Briand  the  opportunity  to  grant  the 
permission  formally  in  a  public  session,  was  il- 
lustrative of  the  deference  that  had  always  to  be 
paid  to  the  amour  propre  of  the  French.  Only 


14     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

very  rarely  was  a  speech  translated  into  Japa- 
nese, and  never  into  Italian  or  any  of  the  other 
languages  represented  at  the  table.  The  French 
delegates  were  highly  self-conscious  about  the 
/  proud  place  their  nation  had  held  for  six  cen- 
turies of  history,  a  little  uncomfortably  aware 
that  that  place  had  become  somewhat  less  ele- 
vated, relative  to  new  nations  like  America  and 
Japan,  and  acutely  on  their  guard  against  any- 
thing that  might  seem  to  diminish  France's 
dignity  and  ancient  prerogatives.  One  of 
these  prerogatives  is  the  fact  that  French 
has  long  been  the  official  language  of  diplo- 
macy. In  the  present  Conference,  it  would 
be  far-fetched  so  to  regard  it.  The  Con- 
ference was  on  the  soil  of  an  English-speaking 
country,  and  the  English-speaking  peoples  par- 
ticipating in  it  were  almost  a  hundred  and  sev- 
enty millions  to  France's  forty.  Nevertheless, 
France,  in  this  respect  as  in  all  others,  was  at 
every  moment  watchfully  punctilious  about  her 
dignity;  and  we  noticed  that  Mr.  Hughes  was 
careful  not  to  make  any  suggestions  about  waiv- 
ing the  repetition  in  French  of  any  speech  or 
document  except  in  cases  where  repetition  was 
plainly  not  called  for,  and  even  then  only  with 
care  to  ask  formal  permission  of  the  head  of 
the  French  delegation.  In  all  the  subsequent 
sessions  of  the  Conference,  practically  every 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .    .     "       15 

speech  was  laboriously  repeated  in  French  by 
the  interpreter.1 

This  episode  consumed  less  time  than  the  tell- 
ing of  it.  I  have  dwelt  on  it  merely  because  it 
enables  me  to  point  out,  as  of  the  time  it  hap- 
pened, one  of  the  many  examples  of  French 
watchfulness  about  their  dignity  and  preroga- 
tives, a  factor  which  contributed  much  of  what 
was  at  the  source  of  the  several  days'  deadlock 
which  the  French  caused  during  the  later  weeks 
of  the  Conference. 

After  this  little  exchange,  Mr.  Balfour  rose 
to  make  the  usual  sort  of  motion  looking  to 
permanent  organization.  But  Mr.  Balfour  is 
never  merely  perfunctory.  As  he  had  listened 
to  President  Harding's  speech,  his  quick  and 
apprehensive  mind  had  picked  out  three  words 
which  were  the  dominating  note  of  it.  These 
three  words  Mr.  Balfour  quoted,  and  proposed 
them  as  the  motto  of  the  Conference,  "Sim- 
plicity, Honesty,  Honour."  He  repeated  the 
words  twice,  impressively.  It  was  quick  in  Mr. 
Balfour  to  catch  the  note,  and  graceful  of  him  to 
call  attention  to  it  in  so  happy  a  way.  He  had 

1  The  reporters  used  to  call  this  "telling  it  to  Briand."  One  of  the 
reporters  noticed  how  watchful  the  French  interpreter  was  lest  some- 
thing go  by  without  repetition  in  French.  "That  the  French  official  in- 
terpreter," wrote  Mr.  Nicholas  Roosevelt,  "doesn't  yet  quite  trust  Mr. 
Hughes  to  remember  his  existence  is  evident  from  his  anxiety  on  several 
occasions.  Twice  during  to-day's  session  he  had  to  lean  forward  as  a 
speaker  was  finishing  and  shake  his  finger  at  Mr.  Hughes  to  remind  him 
that  his  turn  came  next." 


16     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

managed  all  this,  which  was  a  whole  milestone 
toward  establishing  the  right  atmosphere  for  the 
Conference,  in  two  minutes.1  Then,  with  equally 
graceful  words  and  manner,  he  proposed  that 
Mr.  Hughes,  as  representing  the  nation  which 
was  the  host  of  the  Conference,  should  be  its 
permanent  head.  All  the  other  delegates  nod- 
ded approval,  and  Mr.  Hughes  took  the  per- 
manent chair. 

II 

Covering   what   now  began   to  happen,   my 
notes  read:  "The  audience  rises  and  applauds. 


1  It  would  be  inadequate  to  pass  this  episode  by  without  calling 
further  attention  to  it.  What  Mr.  Balfour  did  was  to  create  the  thing 
that  musicians  would  call  the  motif  of  the  Conference.  It  was  the  sort 
of  thing  the  finished  and  polished  diplomat  knows  how  to  do;  and 
that  only  a  man  can  do  who  has  the  knowledge  and  confidence  that 
go  with  long  experience,  and  is  able,  in  an  intellectual  sense,  so  to 
speak,  to  move  quickly  on  his  feet.  As  a-  bit  of  technique  in  the  art 
of  diplomacy,  it  called  for  admiration,  no  less  than  for  the  fundamental 
good  intention  it  reflected  on  Mr.  Balfour's  part.  When  it  hap- 
pened, I  felt  instantly  that  Mr.  Balfour  was  deliberately  seizing  this 
fleeting  and  elusive  opportunity  to  create  the  right  atmosphere  for  the 
Conference,  to  fix  the  motif,  so  to  speak;  and  I  was  confirmed  in  this 
impression  when,  on  the  last  day  of  the  session,  I  again  found  him,  in 
his  closing  speech,  harking  back,  with  a  true  and  subtle  sense  of 
dramatic  art,  to  this  same  note.  The  speech  with  which  Mr.  Balfour 
wound  up  the  Conference  on  February  4th,  began  with  these  words: 
"On  Saturday,  the  12th  of  November,  exactly  twelve  weeks  ago,  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  in  an  eloquent  speech  with  which  he 
inaugurated  our  meetings,  asked  us  to  approach  our  labours  with  the 
full  consciousness  that  we  were  working  in  the  service  of  mankind, 
and  that  the  spirit  that  should  animate  us  was  the  spirit  of  simplic- 
ity, honesty,  and  honour.  Looking  back  over  that  twelve  weeks,  I 
think  we  may  say,  without  undue  self-esteem,  that  that  advice,  so 
nobly  tendered  by  the  head  of  the  state  under  whose  hospitality  our 
meetings  have  been  carried  on,  has  been  taken,  and  that  we  have  had 
the  consciousness  that  we  were  working  in  the  service  of  mankind. 
that  we  had  the  consciousness  that  if  that  service  was  to  be  of  any 
avail,  it  must  be  carried  out  in  the  spirit,  to  use  the  President's  words, 
of  simplicity,  honesty,  and  honour." 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .    .    ."        17 

You  can  read  in  the  shining,  smiling  faces  of  the 
audience  how  much  Hughes  is  approved. 
Everybody  believes  in  him  and  wishes  him  well." 
It  was  in  this  friendly,  warming  atmosphere 
that  Hughes  commenced  his  speech.  As  I  look 
back  on  it  now  and  examine  this  speech  minutely, 
I  suspect  he  wrote  it  as  a  lawyer  rather  than 
as  a  dramatist.  In  that  obvious  and  frequently 
gossiped  about  change  that  has  taken  place  in 
Hughes's  personality  since  the  year  he  ran  for 
President,  it  is  evident  he  has  learned  some  of 
that  dramatic  art  which  every  public  man  must 
understand  in  some  degree  or  another — that  re- 
alization that  the  thing  you  do  is  not  the  whole 
story;  that  the  manner  of  your  doing  it  is  also 
important;  that  the  destination  of  your  thought 
is  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  the  success  of 
what  you  hope  to  accomplish  is  measured  by  the 
degree  to  which  the  public  mind  takes  it  in  and 
reacts  upon  it;  and  that  some  command  of  the 
arts  of  giving  wings  to  your  purpose  and  making 
it  dramatically  vivid  to  the  world  you  hope  to 
move,  is  not  merely  an  allowable  but  a  necessary 
part  of  the  equipment  of  any  one  who  would 
lead  the  world  or  mould  it  to  his  purposes.  All 
this  Hughes  has  learned  during  the  time  be- 
tween his  rather  too  drab  and  spiritless  candi- 
dacy for  President,  and  his  becoming  Secretary 
of  State ;  and  it  is  this  understanding  that  makes 


18     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

his  conferences  with  the  newspaper  men  the 
most  largely  attended,  except  Harding's,  of  any 
in  Washington,  and  in  one  sense  the  most  inter- 
esting and  stimulating  of  all.  (I  say  Hughes 
has  "learned  this  art;"  but  having  written  it 
that  way,  I  reflect  that  this  is  not,  in  Hughes's 
case,  the  most  accurate  way  of  putting  it.  I 
suspect  the  more  discerning  truth  would  say, 
not  that  Hughes  has  taken  on  something,  but 
that  he  has  left  off  something.  He  has  dropped 
that  rigidity  and  self -consciousness  which  used 
to  make  his  personality  seem  stiff  and  cold,  and 
was  a  barrier  between  him  and  the  common  man. 
The  popular  phrase,  "Hughes  has  loosened 
up,"  expresses  it  perfectly.  In  other  words,  he 
has  permitted  to  come  out  in  him  that  natural, 
human  sense  of  the  dramatic  which,  in  one  de- 
gree or  another,  is  part  of  the  heritage  of  every 
man.  The  Hughes  of  to-day  strides  out  in 
front  of  the  audience  with  his  muscles  loose  and 
lets  the  world  see  him  as  he  is.  He  has  got 
rid  of  the  strained  and  cautious  inhibitions  that 
were  an  artificial  insulation  between  him  and  the 
crowd.  He  lets  all  the  world  look  in  at  all  there 
is  of  his  mind  and  heart  as  they  move  freely  in 

action.     However- ) 

In  the  latter  part  of  his  speech,  and  in  the  set- 
ting he  gave  to  his  performance  as  a  whole, 
Hughes,  as  all  the  world  now  knows,  showed  a 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .     "       19 

superb  sense  of  the  dramatic  quality  of  the  re- 
lation to  the  world  that  he  and  his  country  and 
his  purpose  had  that  day.  But  the  early  part 
of  his  speech  was  that  of  Lawyer  Hughes,  or 
Justice  Hughes — the  rather  stiff  and  cold  and 
even  prosy  Hughes  of  a  few  years  ago.  He 
started  off  with  a  chronological  history  of  the 
occasion,  beginning  with  the  invitations  that 
Harding  sent  to  the  various  countries.  Then 
he  passed  to  a  history  of  previous  attempts  at 
disarmament,  reading  a  long  quotation  from  the 
pretentious  rescript  with  which  the  late  Emperor 
of  Russia  initiated  the  Hague  Conference 
twenty-three  years  ago.  After  a  good  deal  of 
this,  the  reporters,  who  have  among  other  func- 
tions that  of  providing  a  rather  cynical  comic 
relief  to  solemn  occasions,  leaned  back  in  their 
chairs  with  whispered  words  of  "old  stuff;"  and 
for  a  little  while  devoted  their  capacities  for  ob- 
servation and  description  to  vivaciously  ribald 
whisperings  among  themselves  about  what  a 
boon  the  whiskers  of  Admiral  de  Bon  would  be 
to  American  cartoonists ;  or  to  serious  and  envy- 
ing tributes  to  the  inscrutability  of  the  features 
of  Baron  Kato  as  an  equipment — presumably 
wasted  in  the  Baron's  case — for  certain  card 
games  which  are  a  more  characteristic  part  of 
the  national  culture  of  America  than  of  Japan. 
The  same  sense  of  relaxation  was  shared  by 


20     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  audience.  It  was  a  period  of  looking  about 
the  room,  recognizing  acquaintances,  and  nod- 
ding to  them. 

Then  for  a  moment  there  came  into  Hughes's 
voice  the  same  stern  note  of  imperious  demand 
that  had  marked  a  part  of  Harding's  speech. 
"The  world  looks  to  this  conference,"  he  said, 
"to  relieve  humanity  of  the  crushing  burden 
created  by  competition  in  armament,  and  it  is  the 
view  of  the  American  Government  that  we  should 
meet  that  expectation  without  any  unnecessary 
delay."  At  that  the  audience  applauded.  That 
was  the  kind  of  talk  the  crowd  wanted.  It  was 
American  talk,  and  it  sounded  like  action. 

But  again  Hughes  dropped  back  to  historical 
details  of  the  First  Hague  Conference  and  the 
Second  Hague  Conference;  and  again  the  au- 
dience settled  back  in  their  seats,  only  to  come 
forward  alertly  and  with  prolonged  applause 
when  Hughes  said,  with  an  emphasis  that  took 
the  form  of  slow  enunciation  of  the  words,  with 
pauses  between  them,  "Competition — in  arma- 
ment— must  stop." 

That  again  was  action-talk.  Better  yet,  by 
this  time,  Hughes  was  through  with  lawyer  gen- 
eralities, and  had  become  completely  a  fighting 
man  giving  voice  to  a  call  for  instant  action. 
Sentence  followed  sentence  charged  with  the 
note  of  insistent  demand: 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .     "       21 

We  can  no  longer  content  ourselves  with  investiga- 
tions, with  statistics,  with  reports,  and  with  the  circumlo- 
cution of  inquiry.  The  time  has  come  and  this  Confer- 
ence has  been  called,  not  for  general  resolutions  or  mutual 
advice,  but  for  action. 

At  these  words  the  audience  once  more  came 
forward  in  their  seats,  not  again  to  know  a  mo- 
ment of  relaxed  interest  that  day,  but  instead, 
to  go  forward  from  one  climax  to  another  of  ex- 
altation. "There  is  only  one  adequate  way  out 
and  that  is  to  end  it  now''  Hughes  exclaimed, 
and  by  this  time  his  voice  had  become  so  vigorous 
that  it  took  on  almost  the  quality  of  harshness, 
and  his  manner  was  vehement  in  proportion.  It 
ought  to  have  been  time  for  somebody  to  guess 
that  something  extraordinary  was  coming,  but 
no  one  did.  The  strength  of  what  he  had  al- 
ready said  seemed  to  be  enough  justification  for 
the  vigour  of  his  manner,  and  it  occurred  to  no 
one  to  infer  that  there  would  be  more  yet.  It 
was,  indeed,  beyond  what  any  one  expected  of 
the  first  day's  session  when  Hughes  said:  "It 
is  proposed  that  for  a  period  of  not  less  than  ten 
years  there  should  be  no  further  construction  of 
capital  ships."  But  from  that,  Hughes  went  on 
with  the  solemnly  formal  statement  of  America's 
proposal: 

I  am  happy  to  say  that  I  am  at  liberty  to  go  beyond 
these  general  propositions  and,  on  behalf  of  the  American 


22     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

delegation,  acting  under  the  instructions  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  to  submit  to  you  a  concrete  proposi- 
tion for  an  agreement  for  the  limitation  of  naval  arma- 
ment. 

At  this  moment,  from  the  gallery  section  re- 
served for  United  States  Senators,  there  burst 
a  ululant  yell;  and  in  all  the  dramatic  tense- 
ness of  the  occasion,  which  had  come  to  call  for 
the  focussing  of  the  utmost  powers  of  every  re- 
porter there,  one  of  them,  true  to  the  role  of 
supplying  a  slightly  sardonic  comic  relief  for 
an  occasion  of  which  the  dynamic  pregnancy 
was  almost  beyond  enduring,  remarked,  "If 
somebody  else  did  that  over  in  their  Senate  gal- 
lery, they'd  throw  him  out  on  his  bean." 

Now  Hughes  went  on  with  the  details  of  what 
he   called  America's   "concrete   proposition"- 
the  very  phrase  carried  crisp  and  homely  implica- 
tions of  something  direct  and  businesslike.     He 
read  first  the  four  big  principles: 

"(1)  That  all  capital-ship  building  programmes, 
either  actual  or  projected,  should  be  abandoned; 

"(2)  That  further  reduction  should  be  made  through 
the  scrapping  of  certain  of  the  older  ships; 

"(3)  That  in  general  regard  should  be  had  to  the  ex- 
isting naval  strength  of  the  Powers  concerned ; 

"(4)  That  the  capital-ship  tonnage  should  be  used  as 
the  measurement  of  strength  for  navies  and  a  proportion- 
ate allowance  of  auxiliary  combatant  craft  prescribed." 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .    .     "       23 

From  this,  without  a  pause,  Hughes  went 
straight  to  figures  of  tonnage  and  names  of 
ships.  He  introduced  it  with  the  shortest  pos- 
sible sentence,  "The  United  States  proposes,  if 
this  plan  is  accepted" — and  then  enumerated: 

"(1)  To  scrap  all  capital  ships  now  under  construc- 
tion. This  includes  six  battle  cruisers  and  seven  battle- 
ships on  the  ways  and  in  course  of  building,  and  two 
battleships  launched. 

"The  total  number  of  new  capital  ships  thus  to  be 
scrapped  is  fifteen.  The  total  tonnage  of  the  new  capital 
ships  when  completed  would  be  618,000  tons. 

"(2)  To  scrap  all  of  the  older  battleships  up  to,  but 
not  including,  the  Delaware  and  North  Dakota.  The 
number  of  these  old  battleships  to  be  scrapped  is  fifteen. 
Their  total  tonnage  is  227,740  tons. 

"Thus  the  number  of  capital  ships  to  be  scrapped  by 
the  United  States,  if  this  plan  is  accepted,  is  thirty,  with 
an  aggregate  tonnage  (including  that  of  ships  in  construc- 
tion, if  completed)  of  845,740  tons." 

Hughes  paused,  and  that  pause,  we  know  now, 
was  the  most  pregnant  moment  of  this  most 
dramatic  day. 

Everybody  thought  the  speech  was  over. 
Hughes  had  stated  what  America  proposed  to 
do.  That  he  should  have  done  this  at  all  on  the 
opening  day  was  a  thrilling  fact;  the  sweeping 
character  of  what  he  proposed  added  thrill  to 
thrill.  It  was  more  than  any  person  in  the  au- 


24     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

dience  had  expected.  It  was  abundant  reason 
for  the  exhilaration  of  surprise  and  approval 
that  swept,  in  exultant  waves,  back  and  forth 
across  the  room. 

The  applause  was  in  the  nature  of  an  im- 
mense and  burning  ceremonial  for  the  close  of 
a  day  that  had  made  unprecedented  history. 
That  the  day  was  over  was  taken  for  granted. 
That  there  might  be  more  yet  was  beyond  the 
dreams  of  anybody  in  the  room,  except  nine  men. 
As  we  recall  it  now,  we  might  have  guessed 
something  from  the  attitude  and  manner  of  the 
American  delegates,  especially  Root.  If  the 
audience  had  the  manner  of  everything  being 
over,  the  American  delegates  did  not.  They 
were  not  relaxed.  They  did  not  lean  back  in 
their  chairs  nor  join  in  the  smiling  joy  fulness. 
On  the  contrary,  they  were  deeply  serious  and 
tense.  Root,  especially,  looked  even  more  aus- 
terely grave  than  usual.  He  kept  his  eyes  fo- 
cussed  on  vacancy  straight  ahead  of  him,  as  if 
he  did  not  want  any  one  to  look  into  them,  or  as 
if  he  had  concentrated  all  his  mentality  into  lis- 
tening watchfully  to  what  he  knew  was  coming, 
and  to  how  it  would  be  received. 

And,  indeed,  the  thing  that  Hughes  now  did 
was  very,  very  daring.  If  you  were  not  an 
American,  if  you  were  writing  from  the  stand- 
point of  Great  Britain  or  Japan,  you  might 


"That  Inspired  Moment     .     .     /'       25 

make  out  a  fair  case  that  it  was  a  little  over- 
daring,  that  it  went  beyond  the  limits  of  inter- 
national graciousness.  That  Hughes  should 
have  stated  exactly  what  America  proposed  to 
do,  in  concrete  terms  of  tonnage,  and  should 
have  named  the  very  ships  that  America  pro- 
posed to  scrap,  was  bold  and  unexpected,  but  it 
was  wholly  within  his  rights.  But  there  was 
greater  daring  than  I  think  any  one  has  ever 
publicly  called  attention  to,  even  any  English- 
man, in  what  Hughes  now  proceeded  to  do.  He 
turned  toward  the  British  delegates  and  re- 
sumed : 

"It  is  proposed  that  Great  Britain: 
"(1)     Shall  stop  further  construction  of  the  four  new 
Hoods" 

As  Hughes  mentioned  this  name,  sacred  to 
the  British  Navy,  and  as  he  went  on  to  name  the 
King  George  the  Fifth,  and  others  yet,  Admiral 
Beatty  came  forward  in  his  chair.  His  eyes 
first  widened  and  then  narrowed ;  and  he  looked 
at  Hughes  with  an  expression  nothing  less 
than  the  astonished  but  instantly  combative  dig- 
nity with  which  the  head  of  the  British  Navy, 
standing  tranquilly  on  the  bridge  of  his  flag- 
ship in  a  peaceful  sea,  might  receive  an  unan- 
ticipated and  wholly  uncalled-for  shot  across  his 
bow;  and  who  most  decidedly  and  pointedly 


26     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

wants  to  know  what  it's  all  about.  He  might 
have  said,  if  he  had  spoken,  "Here,  you — who 
are  you?  Does  Britannia  rule  the  waves,  or 
doesn't  she?"  That  the  shot  came  from  a 
whiskered  person  who  most  obviously  had  never 
trod  a  quarterdeck,  nor  even  "polished  up  the 
handle  of  the  big  front  door"  of  any  Admiralty 
office,  might  be  an  element  either  of  extenuation 
or  of  deepened  offense,  so  far  as  you  could  gath- 
er from  Admiral  Beatty's  slightly  staggered 
and  deeply  disturbed  expression.  Lord *  Beatty 
is  the  head  of  the  British  Navy — and  the  British 
Navy  was  being  treated  impiously.  Lord 
Beatty  is  the  custodian  in  his  generation  of  a 
tradition  that  has  lasted  for  over  two  hundred 
years,  and  that  tradition  was  being  menaced — 
so  it  appeared  at  the  moment,  certainly — by  an 
alien,  a  whiskered  person  with  a  loud  voice 
and  an  utterly  unrepentant  manner.  Lord 
Beatty,  by  a  coincidence  that  is  more  often 
broken  than  kept,  happens  to  have  a  good  deal 
of  that  bulldog  appearance  which  is  traditionally 
associated  with  the  headship  of  the  British  Navy. 
When  Hughes  began  to  enumerate  British  ships 
to  be  sunk — ships  whose  very  names  are  mile- 

1  I  have  referred  to  Lord  Beatty  interchangeably  as  "Earl  Beatty," 
"Admiral  Beatty"  and  "Lord  Beatty."  This  is  according  to  custom. 
Lord  Beatty  is  First  Sea  Lord,  which  means  that  he  is  the  professional 
head  of  the  British  Navy,  as  contrasted  with  his  colleague  at  the  Con- 
ference whom  I  mention  later,  Lord  Lee,  who  is  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  and  is  therefore,  so  to  speak,  the  civilian  head  of  the 
British  Navy. 


"That  Inspired  Moment     .     .     "       27 

stones  in  the  history  of  British  sea-power — 
Lord  Beatty  came  forward  in  his  chair  with  the 
manner  of  a  bulldog,  sleeping  on  a  sunny  door- 
step, who  has  been  poked  in  the  stomach  by  the 
impudent  foot  of  an  itinerant  soap-canvasser 
seriously  lacking  in  any  sense  of  the  most  ordin- 
ary proprieties  or  considerations  of  personal 
safety.1 

It  was,  in  fact,  without  any  exaggeration,  a 
historic  moment.  What  it  was  could  not  be 
more  compactly  expressed  than  in  the  words 
(the,  let  us  say,  extreme  modernness  of  them 
need  make  them  no  less  useful  for  the  vivid 
recording  of  history) — the  words  of  the  Ameri- 
can reporter  who  took  one  startled  glance  at 
Hughes  and  then  exclaimed  in  a  piercing  whis- 
per to  his  neighbour,  "Great  balls  of  fire,  the 
man's  telling  the  British  Navy  where  it  gets 
off!" 

Just  how  much  Hughes's  words,  and  the  re- 
sults of  the  Conference  altogether,  may  mean 
in  the  history  of  sea-power  is  matter  for  more 
careful  statement  elsewhere.  But,  at  the  least, 
you  could  not  fail  to  recall  what  Charles  II  said 

1 1  was  interested  to  observe,  after  the  Conference  closed,  that  this 
impression  I  had,  of  the  agitation  of  the  British,  is  borne  out  by  what 
Colonel  Repington  set  down  in  his  diary  at  the  time:  "It  is  an  au- 
dacious and  astonishing  scheme,  and  took  us  off  our  feet.  The  few 
men  to  whom  I  spoke  babbled  incoherently.  What  will  they  say  in 
London?  To  see  a  British  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  and  another 
late  First  Lord,  sitting  at  a  table  with  the  American  Secretary  of  State 
telling  them  how  many  ships  they  might  keep  and  how  many  they 
should  scrap,  struck  me  as  a  delightfully  fantastic  idea." 


28     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

to  the  French  Ambassador  when  they  were  ar- 
ranging a  partnership  of  land  and  sea-power 
for  the  overthrow  of  Holland:  "It  is  the  cus- 
tom of  the  English  to  command  at  sea."  For 
generations,  Great  Britain,  not  as  an  equal,  but 
always  as  chief,  has  laid  down  the  law  of  the  sea, 
as  Mahan  says,  "unchecked  by  foe,  unshared 
by  friend;"  and  at  this  moment  a  casual  and  ir- 
reverent American  lawyer  with  a  loud  voice  was 
telling  Great  Britain,  in  terms  of  lawyer-like 
formality,  to  scrap  her  four  great  Hoods,  her 
predreadnaughts  and  her  first-line  battleships. 
Let  no  one  wonder  that  Admiral  Beatty,  cus- 
todian in  his  generation  of  that  two  centuries 
of  hitherto  unshared  tradition,  should  show  the 
emotion  that  he  did. 

Lord  Lee,  who,  while  he  is  the  civil  head  of 
the  Admiralty,  is  not  a  professional  fighting 
man,  was  equally  moved  but  showed  it  in  his 
more  scholar-like  way.  His  manner,  if  it  had 
been  put  in  words,  would  have  said,  "  Isn't  this 
—I  beg  your  pardon,  of  course — but  isn't  this— 
isn't  it  a  little  unusual?  Hadn't  we  better  stop 
a  minute?"  In  his  excitement  he  reached  about 
him  for  pencil  and  paper  to  take  down  the  fig- 
ures of  British  tonnage  that  Hughes  was  calmly 
consigning  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.1  He  had 


1  Colonel  Repington  said  that  "Secretary  Hughes  sunk  in  thirty-five 
minutes  more  ships  than  all  the  admirals  of  the  world  have  sunk  in 
a  cycle  of  centuries." 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .     "       29 

the  manner  of  fearing,  in  the  speed  and  the  air 
of  definiteness  and  finality  with  which  things 
were  happening,  lest  something  very  disturbing 
to  the  British  Navy  might  be  done  and  past 
mending  before  that  forthright,  virilely  whisk- 
ered speaker  could  be  stopped  in  his  headlong 
swing. 

In  a  moment  Hughes  had  finished  telling 
Great  Britain  what  he  expected  of  them,  and 
turned  to  the  Japanese.  In  equally  concrete 
terms,  of  the  Mutsu  and  the  Kaga  and  the  Tosa, 
and  battleship  No.  8,  and  cruiser  No.  5,  he  was 
telling  them  what  he  expected  of  them.  I  ob- 
served, as  I  read  the  printed  accounts  next  day, 
that  one  of  the  reporters  described  the  Japanese 
as  having  "stirred  in  their  seats  and  drooped 
close  to  the  table."  Another  reporter,  Mr. 
Louis  Seibold  of  the  New  York  Her  aid  >  noted 
that  "  there  was  no  discounting  the  surprise  of  N 
Prince  Tokugawa,  Baron  Kato,  and  Ambas- 
sador Shidehara,  the  delegates  from  Japan.  / 
The  Italian,  Portuguese,  and  Belgian  envoys, 
appeared  to  be  greatly  pleased  if  a  trifle  star- 
tled." (I  am  indebted  to  my  fellow  newspaper 
men,  and  to  some  others,  for  many  of  these  de- 
tails; I  did  not  see  them  all.) 

Hughes  finished,  and  from  now  on  the  session 
ceased  to  look  like  an  international  conference, 
and  took  on  the  colour  of  an  American  political 


30     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

convention.  The  joyful  exuberance  was  just 
like  the  half-hour  after  a  national  convention 
has  nominated  a  popular  candidate.  It  ex- 
pressed itself  the  same  way.  So  much  like  an 
old-time  Democratic  convention  was  it  that 
when  Senator  Kenyon,  in  the  gallery,  let  out  a 
yell  for  "Briand,"  most  of  the  crowd  thought 
he  had  said  "Bryan,"  and  expected  the  latter  to 
leave  his  writing,  among  the  reporters,  and  rise 
up  and  speak.  But  Hughes  made  a  smiling 
gesture  to  the  French  spokesman  and  Briand 
said  a  few  words  about  France  and  international 
friendliness.  Then,  in  the  same  way,  the  crowd 
called  for  Tokugawa.  Tokugawa  is  a  Prince, 
and  the  eighteenth  descendant  in  the  line  of  the 
Shoguns;  but  he  is  also  a  most  smiling,  open- 
faced  person  whose  beaming,  humorous  good- 
nature gives  denial  to  the  assumption  that  all 
Japanese  are  inscrutable.  Tokugawa  looks 
and  acts  like  a  friendly,  neighbourly  grocer  in  a 
smallish  American  town,  a  grocer  who  would 
find  quite  as  much  satisfaction  in  gossiping  with 
his  customers  as  in  selling  them  sugar  or  collect- 
ing bills  from  them.  He  spoke  a  few  gracious 
words  which,  together  with  his  manner,  gave 
him  a  place  in  the  kindly  regard  of  the  Confer- 
ence that  grew  steadily  till  the  day  he  left  for 
Japan.  The  next  cries  were  "Italy,  Italy." 
Signor  Schanzer  spoke  more  seriously  than  the 


"That  Inspired  Moment     .     .     "       31 

others  had.  Then  Belgium  spoke  briefly,  and 
finally  China,  Holland,  and  Portugal;  and  then 
the  session  ended  with  a  formal  motion  to  meet 
again  three  days  later. 

Ill 

I  might  close  this  account  of  the  opening 
meeting  with  any  one  of  a  dozen  incidents  that 
crowd  my  recollection.  I  might  close  it  with 
the  remark  I  myself  made  to  Hughes,  which, 
in  the  spirit  of  excited  congratulation,  was, 
"Talk  about  open  diplomacy!  That  was  mega- 
phone diplomacy."  But  I  could  hardly  end 
with  that,  without  reciting  also  the  fact  that 
later  on  in  the  Conference  there  was  some  feel- 
ing that  Hughes  let  the  Conference,  on  a  few 
occasions,  get  a  little  further  away  from  open 
diplomacy  than  was  best  for  either  him  or  the 
Conference.  Any  discussion  of  this  aspect  of 
the  Conference  will  call  for  greater  space  than 
is  fitting  at  this  point. 

Or  I  might  close  the  description  of  this  first 
session  with  the  cryptic  and  yet  adequate  re- 
mark of  the  American  newspaper  man  on  my 
left  who  said,  "Well,  sir,  that  was  a  sure- 
enough  humdinger" — to  which  the  British  news- 
paper man  on  my  right  replied,  "Quite  so" — 
an  extremely  serviceable  phrase  in  the  idiom  of 


32     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Englishmen,  which  supplies  adequate  comment 
on  something  you  are  not  quite  sure  about. 

Or  I  might  end  with  the  written  comment  of 
another  Englishman  who  expressed  quite  accu- 
rately what  was,  on  the  whole,  the  milder  aspect 
of  British  feeling  at  the  end  of  Hughes's  speech. 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  really  thinks  he  is  an  interna- 
tionalist, and  in  his  forensic  writings  frequently 
reviles  the  British  Empire  and  all  such  narrow 
and  insular  emotions  as  mere  patriotism.  But 
let  the  British  Empire  be  threatened  by  any- 
body else,  or  by  anything  more  substantially 
menacing  than  Wells's  own  words — let  any- 
thing real  seem  to  threaten  England's  place  in 
the  world,  and  Wells  can  become  as  hearty  a 
jingo  as  the  crudest  of  us.  The  way  he  scratched 
the  French  when  they  wanted  warships  and 
submarines  that  might  menace  England  was 
probably  the  most  forceful  example  of  the  liter- 
ature of  polite  vituperation  that  arose  from  the 
Conference.  That,  however,  belongs  in  another 
chapter.1  What  is  pertinent  here  is  Wells's  re- 
action to  Hughes's  speech.  Even  though  re- 
strained and  temperate,  it  was  a  characteristic 
expression  of  British  feeling  at  the  moment. 
Later  on  the  British  felt  more  reassured,  but 
at  the  time  they  were  a  little  in  the  mood  of 
what  American  slang  conveys  by  the  phrase, 

1  What  Wells  said  on  that  occasion  is  quoted  at  length  in  Chapter  IV. 


"That  Inspired  Moment    .     .     ."       33 

"up  in  the  air."  They  hadn't  fully  grasped 
what  had  taken  place,  and  they  weren't  quite 
sure  but  what  something  a  little  disturbing  had 
happened  to  the  Mistress  of  the  Seas.  It  was  in 
that  mood  that  Wells  wrote  in  his  account  of 
the  session: 

We  were  a  little  stunned.  We  had  expected  the  open- 
ing meeting  to  be  preliminary,  to  stick  to  generalities. 
After  Secretary  Hughes  had  finished,  there  was  a  feeling 
that  we  wanted  to  go  away  and  think.1 

But  perhaps  the  more  adequate  way  to  end 
this  chapter,  because  it  is  the  more  exalted,  and 
therefore  the  way  most  faithful  to  the  spirit  of 
the  occasion,  is  to  quote  what  was  the  natural 
expression,  the  spontaneous  emotion  of  a  high- 
minded  and  detached  observer,  Mr.  John  W. 
Owens,  of  the  Baltimore  Sun.  Mr.  Owens,  de- 
scribing the  close  of  Hughes's  speech,  wrote : 

The  Conference  hall  was  no  longer  the  scene  of  a  bril- 
liant social  function.  Rather  was  it  a  solemnized  gather- 
ing of  men  and  women  excitedly  face-to-face  with  jpro- 
posals  of  enormous  potentialities,  a  gathering  of  men  and 
women  feeling  that  they  were  witnessing  a  game  in  which 
vast  tragedy  lurked  behind  the  door,  but  a  game  neverthe- 
less, and  their  blood  was  flowing  fast  before  the  spectacle 


1  The  diary  of  another  Englishman,  Colonel  Repington,  records  an 
almost  identical  emotion:  "We  came  out  in  a  trance,  not  quite  sure 
whether  we  were  walking  on  our  heads  or  our  heels." 


34     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

of  the  leading  player  in  the  game  boldly  throwing  all  his 
cards  on  the  table  and  offering,  as  it  seemed  at  first  blush 
anyway,  to  play  the  game  in  the  future  along  lines  which 
offered  the  greatest  hazard  for  him  and  for  those  millions 
who  backed  the  play. 


CHAPTER  II 

"PAUSE  AND  CONSIDER"  DAYS 

opening  session  was  over.     The  Amer- 
ican proposals  were  before  the  world. 

All  that  afternoon  and  night,  Washing- 
ton buzzed.  The  following  day  being  Sunday, 
people  slept  late,  as  on  the  morning  after  some 
great  carnival  occasion.  When  they  began  to 
come  together,  there  was  but  one  subject  of 
talk,  and  the  characteristic  of  that  talk  was  not 
argument  or  analysis,  but  solely  acclaim  for 
Hughes.  Hughes  was  talked  about  like  a  man 
who  has  saved  a  city. 

It  happened  that  during  this  time,  Mr.  Ham- 
lin  Garland  was  a  guest  at  our  house,  and  on 
that  sunny  Sunday  morning  he  and  I,  in  walk- 
ing about  the  city,  visited  several  who  had  been 
present  the  night  before  at  the  dinner  that  Presi- 
dent and  Mrs.  Harding  gave  to  the  American 
officials  and  the  visiting  delegates.  It  was  with- 
out doubt  the  most  impressive  gathering  of  dis- 
tinguished foreigners  that  had  ever  come  to- 
gether in  all  the  history  of  the  White  House,  and 
the  echoes  of  it  the  following  day  added  a  touch 

35 


36     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

to  the  festive  atmosphere  of  the  town.  There 
were  interesting  stories  and  echoes  of  the  dinner; 
how  much  the  ranking  woman  of  the  British  dele- 
gation had  been  impressed  by  the  simplicity  and 
sincerity  of  President  Harding,  next  whom  she 
had  sat;  how  much  more  becomingly  beautiful 
those  Chinese  women  were  who  wore  their  na- 
tive dress,  than  the  one  who  had  discarded  her 
native  costume  for  the  latest  of  Paris  fashions, 
and  the  like.  Occasionally,  there  were  faint 
echoes  of  the  old  diplomacy  that  had  just  been 
kicked  into  the  past:  one  person  had  over- 
heard one  of  the  lesser  women  among  the  British, 
who,  apparently,  had  not  yet  recovered  from 
the  puzzled  bewilderment  into  which  the  sud- 
denness and  the  sweeping  quality  of  Hughes's 
proposals  had  thrown  all  the  British,  and  who 
thought  it  best  to  keep  an  anchor  in  the  past, 
saying  to  one  of  the  Japanese,  "After  all,  we 
island  empires  have  a  common  point  of  view  in 
these  naval  matters." 

But  these  remnants  of  the  old  personal  diplo- 
macy of  drawing  rooms  were  recited  not  for  their 
importance,  but  in  amused  good-nature  about 
an  incongruous  relic  of  the  past,  as  at  someone 
wearing  a  crinoline  at  a  1922  party.  The  whole 
burden  of  the  talk  was  of  the  other  thing — 
the  new  diplomacy  of  Hughes,  who  laid  all  the 
cards  on  the  table  and  sent  his  voice  ringing  into 


"Pause  and  Consider"  Days  37 

the  remotest  corners  of  the  world,  calling  on  all 
to  look.  The  town  hummed  with  the  name  of 
Hughes. 

But  if  the  atmosphere  of  Washington  gener- 
ally was  that  of  a  carnival,  there  were  two  spots 
that  were  exceptions.  In  the  Franklin  Square 
Hotel  the  British  naval  experts,  and  in  an  old- 
fashioned  mansion  on  Dupont  Circle  the  Japa- 
nese naval ...  experts^were  busy  with  blueprints 
and  tables  of  figures.  For  them  the  night  be- 
fore had  not  been  one  of  pleasure,  nor  the  Sun- 
day morning  one  of  late  sleeping.  The  figures 
of  ships  and  tonnage  and  guns  in  Hughes's  pro- 
posals had  been  the  result  of  weeks  of  minute 
and  devoted  work  on  the  part  of  our  American 
naval  experts;  and  now  there  must  be  equally 
exact  figuring  on  the  part  of  the  experts  of 
Great  Britain  and  Japan.  They  had  to  check 
up  on  Hughes's  figures,  and  estimate  just  how 
the  plan  would  work  out  in  its  relative  effects  on 
their  own  navies.  Among  these  experts,  at  first, 
there  were  occasional  faint  flashes  of  something 
like  suspicion.  There  was  talk  of  a  possible 
"Yankee  trick."  There  must  be  some  trick  in 
it,  some  nigger  in  the  wood-pile.  It  was  im- 
possible that  the  whole  story  should  be  on  the 
surface.  No  statesman  had  ever  been  so  can- 
did before.  It  was  incredible  that  any  states- 
man could  be  so  candid.  There  must  be  a  trick 


38     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

in  the  situation  somewhere,  and  these  naval 
sharps  were  the  ones  to  dig  it  out.  All  Satur- 
day afternoon  and  late  that  night,  and  all  day 
Sunday  and  all  day  Monday  as  well,  they  bent 
over  their  charts  and  figures. 

In  the  hotel  where  the  British  had  their  of- 
fices, messengers  hurried  back  and  forth,  carry- 
ing locked  tin  boxes  labelled  "Admiralty  Strong- 
room," between  the  labouring  experts  and  the 
storeroom  that  was  guarded  by  an  armed  ma- 
rine. It  was  said  that  the  head  of  the  British 
Navy,  anticipating  some  weeks  of  leisurely  gen- 
eralities on  the  part  of  the  Conference,  had  made 
an  engagement  to  go  on  a  visit  to  Canada  the 
night  after  the  opening  session,  but  cancelled  his 
reservations  and  bent  himself  to  midnight  toil. 
Within  these  groups  of  the  naval  experts  of 
Great  Britain  and  Japan  there  was,  frankly  and 
properly,  the  questioning  attitude  of,  so  to 
speak,  the  counsel  for  the  other  party.  It  was 
their  business  to  check  up  with  intent  care,  not 
merely  the  final  figures  Hughes  had  used,  but 
also  the  infinitely  complex  calculations  of  which 
these  final  figures  were  the  result.  They  had 
to  check  up  whether  the  percentage  of  comple- 
tion which  Hughes  had  assigned  to  various  ves- 
sels of  Great  Britain  and  Japan  still  in  process 
of  building  were  accurate;  and  a  complex  mul- 
titude of  other  matters.  If,  in  the  surprise  by 


"Pause  and  Consider"  Days  39 

which  they  were  taken,  their  natural  and  proper 
professional  caution  went  a  little  further  than 
caution  and  became  something  like  suspicion, 
that  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  nor  need  it  be  oc- 
casion for  offense.  Once  some  of  them  thought 
they  had  found  the  thing  that  was  to  be  "slipped 
over"  on  them.  They  thought  it  lay  some- 
where in  the  termination  of  the  ten-year  naval 
holiday.  Great  Britain  had  not  been  building 
any  capital  ships  to  speak  of  during  the  past 
three  years.  America,  on  the  contrary,  was  in 
the  midst  of  the  greatest  building  programme  of 
its  history.  Therefore,  the  end  of  the  holiday 
would  find  America  only  ten  years  out  of  date, 
while  Great  Britain  would  be  thirteen  years  be- 
hind the  times.  Also  there  was  concern  over 
the  precise  details  of  permitted  replacements; 
as  to  whether  Great  Britain  might  not  find  her- 
self, at  the  end  of  the  ten-year  holiday,  not  only 
with  no  modern  ships,  but  with  no  shipyards 
equipped  to  build  them — her  yards,  through  lack 
of  use,  might  become  valueless. 

With  details  like  this  the  naval  experts  were 
busy,  not  only  those  of  Great  Britain  and  Japan, 
but  some  of  our  own  as  well.  A  considerable' 
section  of  our  navy  men  believed  that  the  allow-  , 
ance  of  submarines  for  America  was  too  small; 
that  our  particular  situation  as  regards  the  de- 
fense of  the  Panama  Canal  and  otherwise,  calls 


40     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

for  a  larger  quantity  of  this  form  of  naval  arm- 
ament.1 Also,  among  our  navy  men,  as  among 
those  of  the  other  nations,  there  could  not  help 
but  be  some  sombre  reflection  about  what 
Hughes  had  done  to  the  profession  that  was 
their  pride  and  their  career.  Paraphrasing  an 
old  Latin  salutamus,  one  of  our  navy  men,  that 
Sunday,  said:  "We  who  are  about  to  be  abol- 
ished, salute  you."  It  was  said  that  Secretary 
Denby  had  issued  an  order  calling  on  the  navy 
men  not  to  criticize  or  otherwise  discuss  the  plan. 
That  was  not  true.  Mr.  Denby  issued  no  such 
order.  To  have  done  so  would  have  been  an  in- 
sult. The  theory  of  our  navy  is  that  they  are 
the  agents  of  the  civil  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment; the  navy  is  the  Government's  armed  fist; 
and  whatever  the  Government  commands,  the 
navy  does  without  question — even  when  that 
command  is  to  send  thirty  ships  to  the  bottom  of 
the  sea.  In  reality,  it  is  probable  the  principal 
emotion  our  navy  men  had  that  day  was  not 
any  concern  about  their  own  careers,  but  rather 
amusement  at  the  efforts  of  the  foreign  experts 
to  find  holes  in  the  figures  Hughes  had  got  from 
our  own  experts.  In  the  course  of  these  efforts, 
the  foreign  experts  frequently  sent  formidable 

1  While  this  was  the  attitude  of  some  of  our  American  Navy  men, 
the  reaction  of  the  country  as  a  whole  to  the  retention  of  the  sub- 
marine fn  the  Hughes  plan  was  critical.  In  the  course  of  a  few  days 
there  arose  an  outcry  against  what  was  called  "the  viper  of  the  seas." 
This  is  covered  in  Chapter  VII. 


"Pause  and  Consider"  Days  41 

and  minutely  detailed  requests  for  information 
to  our  experts,  asking  just  how  certain  figures 
in  the  Hughes  plan  had  been  arrived  at.  It 
was  a  source  of  professional  pride  to  the  Ameri- 
can navy  men  that  the  foreign  experts,  in  all  the 
checking  up  they  so  laboriously  went  through, 
never  found  a  flaw  in  the  American  calculations. 
Outside  these  little  groups  of  navy  men, 
Washington  was  in  a  holiday  mood.  Not  only 
Washington  but  all  the  country  as  well.  The 
churches  hummed  with  it.  The  Episcopal  bishop 
of  New  York  changed  the  subject  of  his  ser- 
mon to  hail  Hughes  as  the  saviour  of  civilization. 
Hardly  a  congregation  in  America  failed  that 
day  to  include  Hughes  and  the  Conference  in  its 
prayers.  In  some  quarters  the  exaltation 
reached  an  evangelical,  almost  fanatic,  pitch. 
The  president  of  the  American  Civic  Associa- 
tion proposed  that  outworn  or  captured  cannon, 
as  decorations  for  public  parks,  be  done  away 
with.  The  most  watchful  critic  of  the  Confer- 
ence, Senator  Borah,  conceded  it  was  "a  splendid 
beginning."  In  the  utterances  of  the  newspapers, 
there  was  no  partisan  note.  The  most  ardent 
advocates  of  the  League  of  Nations,  who  might 
readily  have  fallen  into  a  grudging  state  of  mind, 
were  unstinted  in  their  loyalty  and  helpfulness. 
Ex-President  Wilson  was  described  as  happy 
over  the  event  and  wishing  well  to  the  Confer- 


42     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ence.  The  only  utterances  that  departed  from 
unrestrained  praise  came  from  those  who  wanted 
more.  "If  we  can  limit  navies,  we  can  end 
them,"  said  Mr.  McAdoo;  and  added,  with  a 
characteristic  locution:  "Bold,  drastic,  and 
courageous  measures  are  required  if  civilization 
is  to  be  snatched  from  the  brink  of  the  fateful 
chasm  upon  which  it  now  stands." 

II 

Not  only  did  Washington  and  the  country 
hum  with  the  great  event.  The  cables  buzzed. 
The  wires  to  Europe  carried  probably  more 
words  that  day  than  on  any  other  day  in  their 
history — long  narratives  from  the  European  re- 
porters here;  and  from  the  excited  delegates, 
coded  requests  to  their  governments  for  advice 
and  instructions.  The  single  wire  to  Japan 
stuttered,  staggered,  and  fell  down,  to  remain  for 
several  weeks  anywhere  from  one  to  three  days 
behind  events,  a  condition  which  was  the  cause  of 
much  of  the  delay  in  the  subsequent  negotia- 
tions.1 

Not  only  did  the  news  fly  out  to  the  world. 
By  Monday  morning,  we  began  to  get  back  the 


l  To  get  the  answer  to  one  of  the  most  important  queries  sent  by 
the  Japanese  delegates  to  their  home  government  consumed  110  hours. 
It  is  pertinent  to  mention  that  the  price  of  a  single  battleship  will 
enable  Japan  to  lay  a  second  cable  across  the  Pacific. 


"Pause  and  Consider"  Days  43 

news  of  its  reception.     In  France,  as  one  corres- 
pondent summarized  it  for  American  readers, 
"the   idea  has  thoroughly   gripped  the   Gallic  j 
imagination."1     The    Paris    Temps    said    that/\ 
"this  astonishing  beginning  of  the  Washington 
Conference  indicates  the  practical  idealism  ly- 
ing close   to  the   American   heart."     But   the     / 
Temps  "doubted  if  England  would  accept."      / 

It  is  a  fact  that  for  a  few  hours,  London  was 
as  dazed  as  its  delegates  had  been.  For  a  little 
while  "the  let-us-pause-and-consider  boys,"  as 
we  called  them,  had  their  say.  In  some  sources 
of  British  opinion  there  was  a  disposition  to 
"withhold  immediate  judgment."  The  Lon- 
don Times  "urged  mature  consideration."  The 
correspondent  of  the  London  Daily  News  said: 

In  the  first  hours  of  the  Conference  not  merely  prin- 
ciples but  a  scheme  elaborated  in  every  detail,  is  ques- 
tionable statesmanship.  What  was  wanted  was  not  an 
American  plan  for  reduction  of  each  individual  navy,  but 
a  conference  plan.  I  fear  a  more  difficult  situation  has 
been  created  than  is  yet  quite  realized. 

Let  us  pause  here  to  admit  that  we  should 
have  some  tolerance  for  this  particular  point 


l  If  these  first  spontaneous  expressions  of  French  feeling  were  really 
accurate  reflections  of  the  reaction  of  the  French  people  to  the  Hughes 
plan  at  the  time  they  first  learned  of  it,  then  we  must  conclude  that 
what  the  French  delegates  subsequently  did  about  naval  armament  was 
not  truly  representative  of  France. 


44     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

of  view.  What  this  British  correspondent  de- 
scribed in  his  despatch  as  the  British  expecta- 
tion, was  the  expectation  of  most  of  the  other 
nations  also,  and  of  most  Americans  as  well. 
The  world  expected  that  Hughes  would  pro- 
pose a  plan  from  the  American  point  of  view, 
saying  what  America  would  be  willing  to  do 
and  what  ships  we  would  be  willing  to  scrap; 
that  the  British  would  propose  a  plan  from  their 
point  of  view,  and  the  Japanese  from  theirs; 
and  that  out  of  the  pooling  of  these  separate 
plans,  after  a  considerable  period  of  conference 
and  mutual  give-and-take,  a  common  plan — a 
conference  plan — would  be  evolved.  In  the 
first  chapter  I  have  alluded  to  the  surprise — it 
was  considerably  more  than  surprise — of  the 
British  when  Hughes  began  to  name  ships  of 
theirs,  ships  with  names  that  epitomize  Great 
Britain's  two  hundred  years  of  glorious  tradi- 
tion on  the  sea,  which  Hughes  was  proposing 
should  be  scrapped.  A  good  case  could  be  made 
out  for  the  theory  that  Mr.  Hughes  might  have 
managed  things  so  as  to  let  the  British  name 
their  own  sacrifices.  The  British  never  said 
anything  about  this  publicly,  but  it  can  be  taken 
for  granted  that  they  must  have  felt  it.  How- 
ever, you  can't  have  the  advantages  of  the  thing 
that  Hughes  did,  and  of  the  way  he  did  it,  with- 
out some  attendant  disadvantages.  It  was  an 


"Pause  and  Consider"  Days  45 

essential  part  of  the  Hughes  plan  to  get  for  the 
Conference  that  momentum  of  world-wide  sup- 
port which  would  attend  a  complete  and  con- 
crete plan  thrown  in  front  of  the  world  at  once. 
Among  its  great  essential  virtues,  the  Hughes 
plan  short-circuited  many  futile  weeks  of  de- 
bate— debate  of  a  sort  that  might  readily  have 
led  to  a  deadlock.  From  whatever  angle  you 
view  it,  there  is  no  adequate  way  of  characteriz- 
ing the  Hughes  plan  except  as  an  act  of  out- 
standing genius.1 

Other  expressions  from  sources  of  British 
public  opinion  were  varied  in  their  point  of  view. 
Some  of  the  British  writers  who  are  authorities 
on  naval  matters  were  caught  in  a  most  awkward 
position.  (You  could  have  a  good  deal  of  fun 
with  some  of  the  so-called  "experts"  of  one  kind 
or  another  who  did  a  good  deal  of  writing  about 
the  Conference,  if  you  cared  to  take  the  trouble 
to  compare  their  predictions  with  what  actually 
happened.)  In  advance  of  the  Conference 


1 1  was  interested  to  find  this  view  of  the  value  of  the  way  Hughes 
began,  confirmed  by  Mr.  Balfour  himself,  who,  in  his  speech  on  the 
closing  day  of  the  Conference,  harked  back  with  the  emphasis  of  much 
repetition  to  the  psychological  value  of  what  Mr.  Hughes  did  and  the 
way  he  did  it.  Mr.  Balfour  said:  "If  the  United  States  had  not  had 
the  courage,  the  breadth  of  conception,  which  enabled  them  to  announce 
on  that  fateful  opening,  Saturday,  the  12th  of  November,  what  their 
view  of  armament  was,  all  the  rest  of  our  labours  would  have  lost  half, 
and  I  think  much  more  than  half,  the  value  they  now  possess.  ...  To 
this  great  consummation  all  have  contributed;  but  in  particular  I  can- 
not insist  too  repeatedly,  or  with  greater  earnestness,  that  it  was  the 
inspired  moment  of  November  12th  on  which  all  the  greatness  of  this 
great  transacton  really  depends." 


46     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

they  had  been  skeptical,  and  for  a  day  or  two 
they  felt  they  must  live  up  to  their  role.  On  the 
very  day  preceding  Hughes's  speech,  one  of  the 
best  known  English  writers  on  naval  matters 
had  written  in  a  group  of  newspapers : 

Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  and  not  always  amen- 
able to  the  voice  of  pure  reason,  might  revolt  against  this 
seemingly  wanton  destruction  of  state  property  running 
into  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars.  And  in  Japan, 
where  a  nation  has  condemned  itself  to  virtual  penury  in 
order  to  build  battleships,  any  proposal  to  scrap  these 
vessels  would  almost  certainly  be  rejected  with  passion- 
ate indignation. 

Having  thus,  on  the  day  before  the  Confer- 
ence, "gone  out  on  a  limb"  (this  is  the  phrase 
used  among  American  newspaper  men  when 
they  deal  too  confidently  with  the  future)  this 
writer  found  it  necessary,  the  day  after  the  Con- 
ference's first  session,  to  hug  close  to  the  branch 
which  was  now  waving  wildly  in  the  hurricanes 
of  world-wide  popular  approval  for  what 
Hughes  proposed.  He  wrote  that  he  thought 
Great  Britain  might  "accept  the  plan  in  prin- 
ciple, with  certain  minor  modifications,"  but 
that: 

It  is  incredible  that  Japan  will  agree  to  do  this.  The 
$100,000,000  they  have  spent  on  these  ships  is  money 
which  is  obtained  by  intensive  taxation  and  by  starving 


"Pause  and  Consider3'  Days  47 

all  other  public  services.  Japanese  statesmen  lately  re- 
ferred to  them  as  symbols  of  the  nation's  sacrifice,  and 
the  phrase  was  not  inapt.  Knowing  something  as  I  do  of 
what  these  ships  mean  to  Japan,  I  find  it  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  Admiral  Baron  Kato  can  ever  bring  himself  to 
throw  them  on  the  junk  heap.  But  if  the  proposed  can- 
celling of  unfinished  vessels  is  likely  to  meet  with  Japa- 
nese opposition,  the  corollary  suggestions  for  scrapping 
certain  ships  of  the  existing  fleets  assuredly  will  evoke 
yet  stronger  protest,  more  especially  as  they  would  bring 
about  a  big  reduction  in  Japan's  relative  strength  as 
against  America  and  Britain. 

It  would  not  be  fair  or  accurate  to  quote 
these  expressions  from  the  skeptical  in  Great 
Britain,  from  the  critical  and  those  of  little 
faith,  without  also  saying  that  many  liberal 
statesmen  and  leaders  of  thought  in  England 
sent  messages  of  the  most  heartening  approval 
and  good  wishes.  The  London  Daily  Tele- 
graph said: 

We  must  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  all  cries.  As  guardians  of 
the  interests  of  generations  unborn  we  must  take  long 
views.  We  must  steel  our  hearts  and  study  this  matter 
with  a  single  eye  to  the  general  welfare  and  not  that  of 
this  nation  only. 

From  other  unofficial  sources  of  British  and 
other  foreign  opinion,  there  was  similar  encour- 
agement. If  the  burden  of  the  early  comment 


48     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

that  came  over  the  cables  seemed  a  little  dubious, 
there  was  adequate  explanation  for  that.  Dur- 
ing the  first  forty-eight  hours,  it  was  mostly 
from  official  or  otherwise  high  authorities  that 
the  comment  came;  and  let  us  admit  that  it  was 
the  duty  of  those  charged  with  responsibility  to 
practise  caution.  If  it  was  demanded  that  they 
say  anything  at  all  during  those  first  twenty- 
four  hours,  when  the  plan  had  not  yet  been 
wholly  grasped  in  all  its  ramifications,  the  only 
things  they  could  safely  or  properly  say  must  be 
conservative.  Moreover,  any  British  official 
who  looked  this  wholesale  ship-scrapping  pro- 
gramme squarely  in  the  face  was  bound  to  realize 
that  it  had  some  unpleasant  aspects.  Not  only 
did  they  have  to  consider  the  effect  on  Great 
Britain's  historic  position  as  mistress  of  the  sea. 
In  a  more  immediate  way,  they  could  imagine 
thousands  of  dockyard  workers  ordered  to  walk 
out  and  join  the  already  large  army  of  the  un- 
employed. They  must  think  of  the  numbers  of 
naval  men  and  officers  whose  careers  would  be 
blighted.  It  was  said  that  the  first  comment  of 
one  of  the  heads  of  the  British  Navy  was: 
"What  shall  I  do  with  my  ten  thousand  ex- 
perts?" That  there  should  be  some  doubts  and 
even  dismay  in  the  minds  of  responsible  officials 
is  no  occasion  for  surprise. 

But  as  the  news  seeped  down  among  the  peo- 


"Pause  and  Consider"  Days  49 

pies,  there  began  a  rolling  chorus  of  world-wide 
applause. 

However,  on  the  following  Tuesday,  the 
third  day  after  the  opening  session,  we  were  to 
hear  exactly  what  were  to  be  the  official  responses 
of  the  spokesmen  of  the  other  nations. 


CHAPTER  III 


"WE  AGREE  —  IN  SPIRIT  AND  IN  PRINCIPLE" 


second  session,  for  hearing  the  replies 
^  of  the  foreign  delegates  to  Hughes's  pro- 
posal, came  on  Tuesday  (the  opening  ses- 
sion had  been  on  Saturday).  As  I  look  back 
upon  it  now,  that  date  was  a  little  early  for  the 
best  effect.  Not  quite  enough  time  had  elapsed 
to  get  the  full  response  from  the  peoples  of  the 
world,  as  distinct  from  their  governments.  The 
governments  were  still  a  little  dazed,  and  the 
foreign  delegates  had  not  fully  recovered  from 
the  bewilderment  into  which  Hughes's  plan  had 
thrown  them.  There  had  not  yet  been  time  for 
the  full  effect  of  what  American  politicians 
mean  when  they  speak  of  "hearing  from  the 
grass-roots."  The  point  is  not  material  and  I 
mention  it  merely  to  explain  what  was  the  exact 
atmosphere  of  the  second  session. 

The  beginning  was  brisk.  The  gavel  sounded. 
Hughes  arose.  "Gentlemen,"  he  said.  He 
spoke  slowly  and  with  the  composure  of  suc- 
cess. There  were  a  few  words  about  formal 
matters  of  procedure,  committees,  and  the  like. 

50 


"All  existing  estimates  of  Mr.  Balfour,  especially  those 
made  by  literary  men  and  women  of  his  own  country, 
must  be  revised  in  the  light  of  what  we  knew  about  Bal- 
four at  the  close  of  the  Washington  Conference " 


"We  Agree"  51 

"Then,"  so  my  notes  record,  "Hughes  kicked 
the  ball  off  again."     He  said: 

It  will  now  be  in  order  for  the  Conference  to  listen  to 
such  discussion  as  may  be  desired  with  respect  to  the 
proposals  which  have  been  submitted  on  behalf  of  the 
American  Government. 

II 

Balfour  was  the  first  to  reply.  It  was  in  what 
he  would  say  in  behalf  of  Great  Britain  that  we 
felt  the  most  consuming  interest.  It  was  Great 
Britain's  relation  to  the  world  that  would  be 
most  affected  by  the  Hughes  plan.  „ 

I  am  satisfied  now  that  the  notes  I  made  at 
the  moment  were  not  just  to  Balfour.  They 
reflected  a  quality  in  his  manner  which  was  a  lit- 
tle restrained,  a  little  hesitant,  a  little  lacking  in 
spontaneous  naturalness.  I  could  understand 
the  explanation  for  it  later;  but  at  the  time,  it 
was  a  little  chilling,  and  my  notes  reflect  that 
impression.  Another  thing  that  added  to 
this  same  impression  of  hesitancy  is  the  fact, 
which  I  later  observed  in  all  Mr.  Balfour's 
speeches,  that  he  has  a  trick  of  feeling  for  the 
right  word,  and  even  of  trying  one  word,  dis- 
missing it,  and  trying  another.  An  American 
woman  of  much  insight  said  that  Mr.  Balfour  in 
his  speeches  chooses  his  words  like  a  man  mak- 


52     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ing  change,  who  repeatedly  draws  one  coin  from 
his  pocket,  and  then  puts  it  back  and  draws  out 
another. 

I  spoke  of  Balfour  looking  a  little  tired,  and 
he  was  that,  for  he,  like  all  the  British  and  the 
Japanese  as  well,  had  been  working  under  pres- 
sure during  the  seventy- two  hours  since  Satur- 
day. But  in  the  rest  of  my  description  of  the 
effect  that  Balfour's  personality  made  at  the 
moment,  I  went  somewhat  afield,  and  in  a  direc- 
tion away  from  fairness  to  him.  My  notes  read : 

Mr.  Balfour  is  a  difficult  figure  to  make  clear  to  Ameri- 
cans. We  have  no  one  quite  like  him;  no  one  to  compare 
him  with.  He  is  a  parliamentarian  rather  than  a  great 
leader.  He  is  more  prone  to  intellectual  gymnastics  than 
to  getting  into  a  sweat  about  anything.  An  English 
author  said  of  him :  "He  never  once  has  felt  the  call  of  the 
future  nor  experienced  a  genuine  desire  to  leave  the  world 
better  than  he  found  it."  Balfour  is  a  kind  of  intellectual 
lawyer  for  Lloyd  George.  He  doesn't  make  British  policy, 
nor  even  lead  it.  He  takes  it  from  Lloyd  George. 

While  I  repeat  these  hasty  notes  in  all  their 
unsympathetic  coldness,  I  repeat  them  only  be- 
cause it  is  my  intention  that  a  part  of  such  value 
as  this  book  shall  have,  is  that  it  shall  reproduce 
some  of  the  impressions  of  the  moment.  But 
in  these  present  words,  which  I  add  on  the  day 
the  Conference  closed,  I  cannot  make  too  em- 
phatic the  fact  that  these  early  notes  on  Mr. 


We  Agree" 


53 


Balfour 's  personality,  and  the  impression  he 
made,  do  him  an  injustice.  I  was  ardent  for 
the  Hughes  plan;  and  Mr.  Balfour,  on  that  day 
when  he  was  to  give  the  British  answer,  seemed 
to  lack  ardour,  seemed  to  halt  and  hesitate.  I 
learned  the  explanation  later.  The  fact  is  that 
Mr.  Balfour  was  in  his  heart  more  ardent  for  the 
Hughes  plan  than  circumstances  permitted  him 
to  show;  and  as  the  Conference  developed  he 
showed  an  unmistakable  and  most  engaging 
warmth  of  feeling  for  this  adventure  in  altruism. 
By  the  same  token,  as  the  Conference  developed 
through  later  weeks,  the  audience  came  to  have 
a  feeling  of  warm  affection  for  Mr.  Balfour. 
In  a  sense,  each  day,  when  Balfour  entered  the 
room,  you  felt  that  the  play  had  begun.  Hughes, 
of  course,  was  always  the  dominant  figure;  but 
you  thought  of  him  as  a  part  of  the  permanent 
setting,  like  the  scenery  and  the  lights.  More- 
over, Hughes,  by  the  nature  of  his  position,  had 
to  be  concentrated  on  the  course  of  business. 
For  Balfour,  the  audience  and  the  Conference 
came  to  have  a  special  feeling  of  affection  and 
veneration. 

The  fact  is,  all  existing  estimates  of  Mr.  Bal- 
four, especially  those  made  by  literary  men  and 
women  in  his  own  country,  must  be  revised  in 
the  light  of  what  we  know  about  Balfour  at  the 
close  of  the  Washington  Conference.  The  es- 


54     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

timates  of  his  contemporaries  has  almost  uni- 
versally laid  emphasis  on  his  lack  of  warm 
feeling,  on  his  intellectual  detachment.  They 
point  out  his  skill  with  words ;  they  speak  of  him 
as  a  dextrous  controversialist.  I  have  heard  an 
Englishman  tell  how  Chamberlain  used  to  try, 
but  never  succeeded,  to  corner  Balfour  into 
a  yes-or-no  answer  on  the  question  whether  free 
trade  is  good  or  is  not  good.  Some  of  these 
things  that  British  writers  say  about  Balfour 
are  quoted  elsewhere  in  this  chapter.  ( Some  of 
them  are  quoted  below  in  a  passage  I  have  taken 
from  another  writer's  description  of  Balfour  on 
this  day  of  the  Conference.)  Another  typical 
one  came  from  his  close  friend,  the  late  Alfred 
Lyttleton,  who  once  said  he  could  imagine  "no 
intellectual  dilemma  from  which  Arthur  Bal- 
four could  not  emerge  in  triumph." 

This  sort  of  thing — and  contemporary  writ- 
ing about  Balfour  in  England  is  full  of  it — does 
not  give  you  a  picture  of  a  man  toward  whom 
you  could  feel  very  sympathetic.  It  is  more 
nearly  the  picture  of  a  man  for  whom  you  would 
be  more  likely  to  feel  some  repellence.  I  had 
read  most  of  these  contemporary  English  writ- 
ers on  Balfour,  and  talked  with  many  of  them; 
and  this  experience  coloured  somewhat  my  ini- 
tial impression  of  him  at  the  Conference. 

Balfour's  attitude  toward  the  spiritual  world, 


"We  Agree''  55 

and  the  universe  generally,  has  been  described 
as  that  of  one  who  regards  death  as  no  more  than 
passing  through  a  door  into  another  existence, 
and  who,  bearing  this  in  mind,  is  not  disposed 
to  get  much  excited  over  anything  so  trivial, 
relative  to  the  universe  as  a  whole,  as  the  things 
that  most  of  us  get  into  a  sweat  about.  Bal- 
four's  attitude  about  matters  that  excite  others 
greatly  has  been  described  as  that  of  a  man 
whose  steady  intellectual  and  temperamental  at- 
titude is  that  of  a  man  who  always  reflects,  "what 
will  it  all  matter  a  thousand  years  from  now?" 
All  these  characterizations  must  be  true. 
There  are  too  many  of  them,  and  they  point  too 
universally  in  the  same  direction,  for  their  evi- 
dence to  be  doubted.  And  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  Mr.  Balfour  lost  his  intellectual  dexterity 
through  anything  that  happened  at  the  Wash- 
ington Conference.  He  has  it  yet,  and  on  oc- 
casion can  make  use  of  it.  Also,  it  remains  a 
fact  that  diplomacy  is  Mr.  Balfour's  vocation, 
and  that  he  practises  it  with  all  the  available 
tools.  When  graciousness  is  the  tool  required, 
Balfour  can  supply  it.  But  when  subtlety  is 
called  for,  or  cold  strength,  Balfour  can  supply 
that,  too.  In  some  passages  he  had  with  one  of 
the  French  delegates  at  this  Conference,  M. 
Sarraut,  Balfour  in  fact  did  call  upon  these 
colder  qualities  of  his. 


56     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

But  the  point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  never 
again  can  it  be  said  that  Balfour  is  a  man  who 
has  never  had  any  warm  passion  for  the  better- 
ment of  things  in  this  world.  To  Balfour,  the 
Hughes  plan  was  a  thing  of  inspiration,  and  he 
reacted  to  it  with  inspiration  of  his  own.  He 
looked  upon  the  need  of  success  for  this  plan, 
and  worked  to  bring  it  to  success,  with  a  spirit 
that  was  not  less  than  passionate.  In  any  fu- 
ture estimates  of  Mr.  Balfour  that  aim  to  be 
complete,  it  must  be  recorded  that  at  the  Wash- 
ington Conference  he  had  an  experience  of  ex- 
alted feeling  which  was  unlike  anything  in  his 
previous  career,  assuming  the  contemporary 
English  writers  are  to  be  taken  as  understanding 
fully  the  Balfour  of  the  past. 

And  yet,  in  so  far  as  these  hurried  notes  of 
my  own,  from  which  I  have  quoted  and  from 
which  I  shall  quote  again  in  a  moment — in  so 
far  as  they  show  an  unsympathetic  coldness, 
there  was  some  justification  in  the  Balfour  of  the 
moment.  For  reasons  inherent  in  the  occasion, 
he  was  labouring  under  restraints  which  came 
from  outside  himself  and  for  which  he  had  little 
liking. 

As  to  the  speech  which  Balfour  now  proceeded 
to  make,  there  is  a  striking  similarity  between 
the  impression  made  on  myself,  and  the  impres- 
sion made  on  another  of  the  correspondents, 


"We  Agree"  57 

who  wrote  for  the  Baltimore  Sun.  The  au- 
dience was  substantially  identical  with  those  who 
had  sat  in  the  same  seats  on  the  opening  day 
and  been  electrified  by  the  speech  of  Hughes. 
They  had  come  expecting  a  repetition  of  the 
same  thrill.  This  state  of  anticipation,  and  the 
feeling  of  failure  to  live  up  to  it  as  Balfour  got 
under  way,  cannot  be  pictured  better  than  by 
quoting  from  the  Baltimore  Sun's  account: 

What  will  he  say?  was  the  anticipatory  thought  of 
everyone.  .  .  . 

In  black  frock  coat  and  black  tie,  Mr.  Balfour  looks 
like  an  elderly  parson  of  some  evangelical  denomination. 
If  there  is  anything  Machiavellian  in  his  character  it  is 
not  reflected  in  his  appearance.  The  only  things  about 
him  that  suggest  his  greatness  are  his  height,  his  massive 
head  and  his  eyes.  Those  eyes  have  that  "queer"  look 
which  certain  religionists  say  betokens  absorption  in  the 
affairs  of  another  world.  They  make  him  appear  to  be 
thinking  of  something  other  than  that  which  he  is  saying. 
He  has  been  variously  described.  A  gentleman.  A  phil- 
osopher. A  disillusioned  cynic.  The  finest  intellect  in 
England.  The  master-mind  of  the  British  Foreign  Of- 
fice. An  inbred  conservative  with  an  instinctive  shrink- 
ing from  democracy  as  it  has  developed  in  recent  years. 
Only  the  other  day  one  of  the  keenest  of  British  editors 
said  of  him,  with  reference  to  his  visit  to  Washington, 
that  "he  has  all  the  necessary  dignity  and  no  man  can  say 
'No*  more  convincingly;  but  for  any  positive  task,  for  any 
work  of  construction,  for  any  advance  in  the  world's 
mechanism  of  action,  is  there  any  mind  so  hopeless?  We 


58     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

seem  to  have  only  two  men  whom  we  can  use  alternately, 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  to  act,  Mr.  Balfour  to  negate.  At 
Washington,  however,  it  will  be  fatal  to  rely  on  nega- 
tions/' 

How  would  such  a  man  react  to  the  challenge  delivered 
by  Secretary  Hughes  on  Saturday?  Would  his  conser- 
vative instincts  be  appalled  by  the  radical  nature  of  the 
American  proposals?  Would  his  sense  of  diplomatic  pro- 
priety be  outraged  by  this  bold  attempt  of  shirt-sleeve 
diplomats  openly  to  arrive  at  open  covenants?  Would 
he  say  "no"  in  such  a  persuasive  way  that  he  would 
seem  to  be  answering  "yes"? 

Or  had  he,  perchance,  been  stirred  out  of  his  habitual 
currents  of  thought  by  the  agonies  of  a  war-wearied 
world?  Had  that  exceptional  intellect  of  his  brought 
him  to  the  point  of  believing  that  the  best  interests  of 
Britain  would  be  best  served  by  serving  best  the  interests 
of  the  world? 

Questions  such  as  these  were  in  the  minds  of  many 
of  those  who  crowded  this  flag-bedecked  hall  as  the  British 
statesman  arose.  And  they  received  a  queer  answer. 
Verbally  the  Balfour  reply  was  all  that  could  be  desired. 
It  did  pledge  British  aid  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  Ameri- 
can plan.  It  had  in  it  no  suggestion  of  ulterior  purpose. 
It  was  whole-hearted.  It  even  spoke  with  what  must  have 
been  unusual  enthusiasm,  for  Balfour,  of  this  scheme 
"making  idealism  a  practical  proposition;"  of  it  as  one 
"that  takes  hold  of  the  dreams  which  reformers,  poets, 
publicists,  even  potentates,  as  we  heard  the  other  day, 
have  from  time  to  time  put  before  mankind  as  the  goal  to 
which  human  endeavour  should  aspire." 

It  should  have  be,en  superbly  thrilling.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  it  will  be  thrilling  to  the  millions  that  read  it 


"We  Agree39  59 

through  the  world.  But  to  the  small  audience  that  heard 
it,  it  was  not.  Mr.  Balfour  spoke  rather  haltingly.  At 
times  he  stuttered.  Ofttimes,  before  completing  a  sen- 
tence, he  would  repeat  the  first  half  of  it  as  if  groping  in 
his  mind  for  the  remainder.  Not  infrequently  it  seemed 
as  if  he  were  deliberately  trying  to  avoid  the  rounding  off 
of  a  period,  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  being  rhetorical. 
He  was  deliberate,  deprecatory,  deferential.  He  offered 
his  suggestions  with  an  effort  of  timidity.  Speaking  of 
his  proposal  for  a  further  reduction  in  submarine  ton- 
nage, "our  experts,"  he  said,  "at  first  glance,  are  inclined 
to  think,  perhaps,  that" — so  and  so.  That  is  a  character- 
istic British  trick.  The  master  minds  of  Britain  like  to 
pose  as  dilettantes.  It  may  be  clever  tactics  in  discus- 
sion, but  it  robs  the  speaker  of  that  forthright  response 
which  straightforward,  vigorous  utterance  compels.  Mr. 
Balfour  might  easily  have  received  an  ovation  from  his 
audience  this  morning.  Not  that  he  cares  about  it,  but 
his  words  deserved  one.  As  it  was,  he  received  a  decorous 
amount  of  applause. 

This  Baltimore  Sun  picture  of  Balfour's  an- 
swer, and  of  the  reception  the  audience  gave  his 
speech,  is  corroborated  by  my  own  notes,  which 
say: 

Balfour  began  with  a  hesitating  manner.  In  the  begin- 
ning he  has  the  air  of  meaning  to  hedge  a  little;  however, 
that  may  turn  out  to  be  wrong.  He  begins  with  a  good 
deal  of  "high  talk"  about  the  desirability  of  reduction — 
just  the  sort  of  thing  which  Hughes  avoided  on  Saturday. 
The  audience  is  very  silent  and  attentive.  When,  speak- 
ing of  the  Hughes  proposal,  he  said,  "the  secret  was  ad- 


60     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

mirably  kept,"  the  audience  laughed.  What  Hughes  did 
on  Saturday  was  very  disconcerting  to  the  British.  It  is 
sportsmanlike  of  Balfour  to  be  good-humored  about  it. 
Balfour,  speaking  of  Hughes's  Saturday  speech,  uses  the 
words  "when  the  blow  fell."1  But  the  audience  wants  to 
know  what  Balfour  is  going  to  say  about  it.  He  keeps  on 
with  generalities.  But  he  makes  out  a  good  case  for 
Great  Britain's  naval  needs.  The  audience  feels  an  ap- 
pealing quality  in  him  and  warms  up  to  him  a  little. 
When  Balfour  said  of  the  Hughes  plan,  "It  makes  ideal- 
ism a  practical  proposition/'  the  audience  applauded. 
Nevertheless,  Balfour's  speech  could  not  avoid  having 
a  little  of  the  color  of  cautious  hedging.  When  he  spoke 
of  "whole-hearted  cooperation"  and  the  like,  the  audience 
applauded.  But  there  could  not  help  being  disappoint- 
ment at  Balfour's  failing  to  get  down  to  facts  and  figures, 
as  Hughes  did  on  Saturday.  The  audience  wanted  an 
answer  to  "do  you  or  don't  you  accept  it?"  and  Balfour 
couldn't  give  that.  Apparently  he  had  not  the  authority. 
He  closed  by  reading  a  telegram  from  Lloyd  George. 
This  telegram  was,  after  all,  mere  courteous  praise  for 
Harding's  and  Hughes's  speeches.  The  audience  ap- 
plauded the  telegram  fairly  heartily.  The  end  of  Bal- 
four's speech  was  disappointing.  The  audience  wanted 
definiteness,  and  Balfour  wasn't  empowered  to  give  it. 
The  audience  wanted  a  Hughes  speech,  and  Balfour  is 
not  a  Hughes. 

1  When  Balfour  spoke  of  the  "secret"  and  of  "the  blow,"  he  was  re- 
flecting the  dazed  astonishment  with  which  he  and  all  the  British  had 
received  Hughes's  opening  speech.  One  of  the  yarns  that  got  into  the 
papers  at  the  time  was  to  the  effect  that  Hughes  had  showed  his 
speech  to  Balfour  in  advance.  That  would  have  been  the  old  way  and 
the  usual  way.  This  fiction  got  about  chiefly  because  it  was  known  that 
Hughes  and  Balfour  had  had  a  talk  the  night  before  the  opening  ses- 
sion. Actually,  while  Hughes  told  Balfour  the  general  course  that  was 
to  be  pursued  as  regards  various  formalities,  all  that  he  said  about  his 
own  speech  was,  "I  propose  to  speak  for  thirty  or  thirty-five  minutes; 
but  I  shall  not  tell  you  what  I  propose  to  say." 


"We  Agree39  61 

Such  was  the  impression  Balfour's  speech 
made  at  the  moment.  If  you  search  for  the  se- 
cret of  this  disappointing  quality  in  it,  you  will 
find  it  in  Lloyd  George's  telegram  at  the  end. 
Balfour  wanted  to  respond  to  Hughes's  speech 
in  the  spirit  in  which  it  had  been  made.  Under 
other  circumstances,  Balfour  might  have  made 
this  as  great  a  day  as  Hughes  had  made  the  first. 
Balfour  believed  in  the  Hughes  idea.  He 
thinks  that  the  limitation  of  armament  and  the 
prevention  of  war  is  the  only  salvation  of  the 
world.  I  learned  this  later.  But  Balfour,  as 
the  representative  of  the  British  Government, 
could  not  say  the  thing  that  Balfour  the  man 
felt.  At  least  he  could  not  say  it  so  soon.  He 
could  not  commit  the  British  Government  fur- 
ther than  Lloyd  George  was  willing  to  go.  And 
it  was  apparent  Lloyd  George  had  not  made  up 
his  mind  yet.  There  had  not  been  time.  They 
were  all  still  a  little  dazed  from  the  sweeping 
swiftness  of  what  Hughes  had  done  on  Satur- 
day. Their  iiavaL-exgerts  had  not  yet  been 
able  to  tabulate  fully  what  would  be  the  effect 
on  their  own  navy ; l  and  the  British  Govern- 


l  There  is,  conceivably,  an  additional  theory  as  to  why  the  British 
may  have  been  cautious  as  yet  about  giving  complete  assent  to  the 
Hughes  plan.  This  was  only  the  third  day  of  the  Conference.  Nothing 
had  yet  been  done  about  the  ^Anglo-Japanese  Alliance.  The  theory  was 
field  by  some  that  the  British  meant  to  withhold  their  assent  to  the 
armament  plan  that  was  so  near  to  our  hearts,  until  we  should  show 
willingness  to  join  them  in  setting  up  a  substitute  for  the  Anglo-Jap- 
anese Alliance.  It  is  true  that  almost  immediately  after  this,  the  An- 


62     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

merit  altogether  had  not  been  able  to  get  far 
enough  toward  the  bottom  of  it  to  be  able  to  do 
anything  more  than  assent  guardedly  and  with 
qualifications.  The  telegram  which  Lloyd 
George  had  sent,  and  with  which  Balf our  ended 
his  speech,  was  an  accurate  expression  of  the  as 
yet  uncrystallized  state  of  their  minds: 

British  government  have  followed  proceedings  at  open- 
ing session  of  Conference  with  profound  appreciation  and 
whole-heartedly  endorse  your  opinion  that  speeches  made 
by  President  Harding  and  Secretary  of  State  Hughes 
were  bold  and  statesmanlike  utterances  pregnant  with  in- 
i  finite  possibilities.  Nothing  could  occur  better  for  the 


' 


glo-Japanese  Alliance  was  brought  up,  the  four-power  treaty  in  sub- 
stitution for  it  was  devised,  and  we  as  well  as  the  others  signed  it. 
All  this  happened  a  considerable  time  before  Great  Britain  signed  the 
naval  limitation  treaty.  Whether  the  British  were  consciously  using 
their  assent  to  the  Hughes  plan  for  trading  purposes,  is  a  question  of 
S  motive  as  to  which  the  facts  are  wholly  within  their  own  hearts.  It  is 
a  difficult  thing  for  an  outsider  to  be  certain  about.  Possibly  a  ques- 
tion of  this  sort  about  motives  ought  not  even  to  be  expressed  with- 
out some  justification  more  concrete  than  such  merely  circumstantial 
evidence  as  the  sequence  of  events.  More  will  be  said  about  this  in 
the  chapter  that  deals  with  the  four-power  treaty. 

If  the  British  were  hesitant  about  limiting  their  navy  until  they 
should  have  a  dependable  understanding  with  the  United  States  about 
the  Far  East,  no  one  can  blame  them.  The  United  States  has,  and  has 
justly,  a  reputation  for  instability  in  international  affairs.  We  change 
our  policy  about  such  important  things  as  the  Panama  Canal 
with  an  impulsive  suddenness  that  makes  the  Foreign  Offices  of  other 
governments  a  little  jumpy  about  us.  They  worry,  not  about  our  good 
faith,  but  about  our  inexperience,  which  has  caused  us  to  fail  to  de- 
velop a  mature  sense  of  responsibility  about  important  international 
affairs.  Great  Britain,  with  her  fleet,  and  her  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance, 
had  some  assurance  of  stability  in  the  Far  East;  and  she  could  not 
be  expected  to  be  willing  to  make  any  change  in  respect  to  either  her 
fleet  or  her  Alliance,  until  she  should  be  assured  of  something  equally 
stabilizing  from  us.  She  might  prefer  the  understanding  with  us,  to 
what  she  had;  but  considering  our  reputation,  and  what  our  Senate 
occasionally  does  to  treaties,  it  need  be  neither  surprising  nor  wound- 
ing to  our  pride  if  she  wanted  to  wait  to  see  what  arrangement  we 
might  be  willing  to  enter,  and  be  relied  on  to  live  up  to. 


"We  Agree"  63 

ultimate   success    of   the    Conference.     Please   convey   to 
both  our  most  sincere  congratulations. 

Nevertheless,  the  audience,  in  spite  of  the 
vaguely  disappointing  feeling  that  Balfour  had 
not  come  up  to  their  emotional  expectations,  got 
the  idea  that  Great  Britain  was  sympathetic  to 
the  plan  and  that  the  bulk  of  it  would  go 
through.  The  particular  words  in  Balfour's 
speech  which  the  audience  seized  upon  were 
"We  agree  with  it,  in  spirit  and  in  principle." 
The  audience  caught  the  first  words,  "We  agree 
with  it" — and  in  a  burst  of  applauding  appre- 
ciation missed  the  later  slightly  modifying 
phrase.  It  was  just  as  well.  Great  Britain' 
believed  in  the  plan  and  was  merely  prevented 
by  the  shortness  of  time,  which  had  been  too 
brief  for  thorough  examination  of  it,  from  giv- 
ing unqualified  assent  to  all  its  details. 

It  was  Kato's  turn  next.  He  spoke  in  the 
Japanese  tongue,  and  the  audience  waited 
breathlessly  for  the  translation.  The  interpre- 
ter turned  out  to  be  an  emotional  person,  much 
more  addicted  to  an  oratorical  manner  than 
Kato  himself  is.  When  he  came  to  the  crucial 
words  of  the  Japanese  pronouncement,  he  raised 
his  voice  and  swung  his  arms: 

\ 

Japan  cannot  remain  unmoved  by  the  high  aims  which 
have  actuated  the  American  project.  Gladly  accepting, 


64     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

therefore,  the  plan  in  principle,  Japan  is  ready  to  proceed 
with  determination  to  a  sweeping  reduction  in  her  naval 
armament. 

The  audience  interpreted  this  as  heartily  sym- 
pathetic and  cheered  it.  Brief  speeches  fol- 
lowed from  the  spokesmen  of  Italy  and  France,1 
and  the  session  closed. 


II 

The  sum  of  the  history  of  the  Conference  so 
far  was  that  Hughes  had  announced  his  plan  for 
a  naval  holiday  and  for  mutual  scrapping  of 
capital  ships,  that  in  the  space  of  three  days  the 
world  in  general  had  given  it  whole-hearted  sup- 
port, and  that  officially  the  two  nations  other 
than  the  United  States  that  were  most  affected, 
Great  Britain  and  Japan,  had  accepted  it  in 
principle,  reserving  the  details  for  future  dis- 
cussion. 


1  Briand's  response  for  France  was  merely  one  of  sympathy  for  the 
Hughes  plan  and  the  purposes  of  the  Conference,  expressed  in  general 
terms.  It  did  not  contain  any  hint  of  the  role  France  subsequently 
took. 


CHAPTER  IV 

FRANCE    SAYS    "NO" 

Conference  was  now  fully  launched 
and  under  way.  By  that  act  it  ceased  to 
be  the  simple,  easily  followed  drama  of  a 
single  forum  within  the  four  walls  of  one  room. 
The  members  split  up  into  a  number  of  commit- 
tees who  met  in  closed  rooms,  or  conferred  still 
more  privately,  in  the  hotels  and  private  houses 
where  the  delegations  were  located.  From  any 
one  of  these  quarters  the  drama  of  the  day  might 
spring  up.  It  was  like  the  earlier  part  of  the 
war  in  Europe,  when  the  crisis  of  the  day  might 
arise  on  any  one  of  the  many  far-spread  fronts. 
Indeed,  as  between  the  war  and  the  Conference, 
it  was  the  latter  that  had  the  greater  scope.  The 
Conference  was  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
range  of  the  delegates  and  committees  in  their 
daily  coming  and  going  in  Washington.  It 
spread  out  over  all  the  earth.  It  was  in  London 
that  the  most  menacing  crisis  of  the  entire  twelve 
weeks  arose,  in  the  shape  of  Earl  Curzon's  mor- 
dant protest  against  the  refusal  of  the  French 
to  "come  along"  in  the  matter  of  land  arma- 

65 


66     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ment.  At  least  one  of  the  major  crises  was 
settled  by  a  cablegram  from  Paris.  Several  of 
the  crises  came  from  Tokio  and  one  minor  one 
from  Italy.  In  its  world- wide  scope,  in  the 
strength  of  the  forces  it  involved,  and  in  the 
quality  of  the  personalities  that  played  a  part, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  it  was  a  majestic  drama. 
To  follow  this  complex,  sprawling  drama, 
the  simpler  way  would  be  to  follow  out  to  the 
end  the  one  thing  that  had  occupied  the  first  two 
plenary  sessions,  and  observe  just  what  hap- 
pened from  day  to  day  about  the  plan  for  limit- 
ing naval  armament.  That  would  have  been  the 
natural  course  for  the  Conference  to  take.  But 
one  small  exigency  determined  a  different  order. 
The  French  Premier,  M.  Briand,  was  to  be  in 
Washington  but  a  brief  time,  and  the  thing  that 
he  and  France  were  primarily  interested  in  was 
not  naval  armament  but  the  French  Army.  To 
accommodate  Briand,  therefore,  the  third  ple- 
nary session  stepped  aside  for  a  time,  dropping 
naval  armament  to  take  up  land  armament.  In 
this,  as  in  several  other  respects,  the  departure 
by  the  Conference  from  what  would  have  been 
a  more  normal  procedure,  made  it  less  simple  to 
follow,  and  accounts  for  the  lack  of  understand- 
ing and  the  falling-off  in  intensity  of  popular 
interest,  which  caused  several  of  the  later  weeks 
to  seem  in  the  nature  of  anti-climax.  A  famous 


France  Says  "No"  67 

American  humourist,  Mr.  Ring  Lardner,  who 
was  in  Washington  on  the  opening  morning, 
and  who  saw  and  shared  our  lofty  exaltation 
over  what  Hughes  had  done  that  day,  remarked, 
with  a  professional  writer's  sense  of  dramatic 
sequence,  "I'm  going  home.  This  is  going  to 
be  a  bum  show.  They've  let  the  hero  kill  the 
villain  in  the  first  act." 

However,  the  best  way  to  give  the  reader  the 
clearest  understanding  of  the  Conference  as  a 
whole  is  to  follow  the  order  in  which  the  work 
was  done,  and  take  up  the  matter  of  limitation 
of  armament  on  land,  and  what  Briand  did  to 
that  proposal. 

The  French  delegates  were  sensitive  about 
their  army.  They  had  the  air  of  a  man  with  a 
chip  on  his  shoulder.  More  accurately,  they 
seemed  to  feel  on  the  defensive.  They  seemed 
to  sense  an  atmosphere  of  accusation  against 
them,  not  only  at  the  Conference,  but  through- 
out the  world.  They  were  the  only  nation 
among  the  Allies  that  was  still  maintaining  a 
large  army.  Great  Britain,  America,  and  Italy 
had  reduced  theirs  to  a  peace-time  minimum.  The 
Italians  seemed  to  be  in  an  especially  accusatory 
frame  of  mind  about  France's  maintaining  a 
great  army  long  after  Italy  had  reduced  hers  to 
two  hundred  thousand.  The  Italians  felt  also 
that  the  French  Government  was  preventing 


68     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  economic  restoration  of  Europe,  for  which 
the  Italians  are  particularly  eager.  Some  of 
the  minor  members  of  the  Italian  delegation, 
who  used  to  pour  their  accusations  into  the  ears 
of  American  observers,  said  not  only  that  Italy 
was  troubled  by  France  retaining  her  army,  but 
also  that  Italy's  other  neighbour  on  the  east, 
Jugoslavia,  was  maintaining  a  disproportion- 
ately large  army.  They  seemed  to  imply  that 
France's  maintenance  of  a  large  army  was  caus- 
ing some  of  the  other  nations,  either  by  force  of 
example,  or  in  a  more  direct  way,  to  do  the  same. 
There  was  apprehension  that  the  French  Gov- 
ernment might  have  the  ambition,  by  keeping 
a  large  army  herself,  and  by  some  form  of 
understanding  with  some  smaller  nations,  to 
become  a  great  military  power  which  should 
dominate  the  continent  of  Europe.  There  was 
strong  feeling  between  the  Italians  and  the 
French  on  this  point.  Some  of  the  leaders  of 
both  the  Italian  and  French  delegations  at 
Washington  tried  to  keep  the  row  within  the 
family,  so  to  speak,  but  it  was  there  neverthe- 
less. They  took  pains  to  fraternize  publicly  at 
a  dedication  of  a  local  Dante  monument  that 
happened  to  occur  at  the  time,  and  in  other 
ways  made  earnest  attempts  to  avoid  the  public 
appearance  of  disagreement.  But  at  the  secret 
sessions,  when  nobody  was  looking,  the  Italians 


France  Says  "No"  69 

talked  pretty  pointedly  to  the  French  about  the 
need  of  doing  something  about  land  armament, 
and  the  French  replied  with  equal  sharpness. 

It  was  this  suppressed  acerbity  of  feeling  be- 
tween the  Italians  and  the  French  that  led  to 

\i  /  / 
one  of  the  minor  episodes  of  the  Conference,  an 

episode  which  seems  to  have  had  tragic  conse- 
quences in  Italy,  but  which,  at  Washington, 
seemed  a  little  funny.  The  episode  centred 
about  a  despatch  sent  from  the  Conference  by  a 
French  journalist  to  Paris,  which  apparently 
was  telegraphed  from  Paris  to  London  and 
finally  to  Milan.  The  despatch,  in  the  final 
form  in  which  it  appeared  in  the  Italian  papers, 
was  to  the  effect  that  in  one  of  the  secret  sessions 
of  the  Conference  in  which  land  armament  was 
treated,  M.  Briand  had  made  an  uncomplimen- 
tary reference  to  the  Italian  Army,  and  that  the 
Italian  delegate  had  failed  to  reply  in  the  man- 
ner which  on  such  occasions  seems  to  be  de- 
manded by  the  European  code  of  national  pride. 
The  result  of  the  publication  in  the  Italian  news- 
papers was  said  to  have  been  several  attacks 
upon  French  consuls  and  the  death  of  some  per- 
sons in  putting  down  the  riots.  The  news  of 
the  riots  and  their  cause  was  cabled  to  America, 
and  was  of  such  consequence  that  Hughes  issued 
a  formal  communique  on  the  subject,  saying  that 
he  himself  had  been  present  at  the  session  of  the 


70     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Conference,  that  Briand  had  uttered  no  words 
derogatory  to  the  Italian  Army,  and  that  noth- 
ing to  give  grounds  for  the  Italian  riots  had 
occurred  within  the  Conference  room.  There- 
upon we  heard  the  explanation.  In  fact,  we 
heard  two  explanations.  One,  made  public  a 
little  later  on,  was  merely  to  the  effect  that  Mr. 
Balfour  had  made  a  speech  in  favour  of  further 
disarmament  on  land,  but  that  M.  Briand,  in 
replying,  had  addressed  himself  to  the  Italian 
delegate,  and  had  made  forceful  gestures  in  the 
latter's  direction,  whereupon  Signor  Schanzer 
told  M.  Briand  he  should  address  himself  to  Mr. 
Balfour  as  the  author  of  the  proposal.  There 
is  another  explanation  of  the  episode,  which  may 
or  may  not  be  as  authoritative  as  the  one  first 
published,  but  which  at  least  has  interest  and 
verisimilitude,  and  may  be  published  here,  it  is 
hoped,  without  causing  sudden  or  unnecessary 
violence  to  anybody  in  Europe.  The  explana- 
tion is  to  the  effect  that  M.  Briand,  in  entire 
innocence  and  speaking  in  French,  conceded  that 
the  Italian  Army  was  in  process  of  being  reduced, 
and  in  doing  so  used  a  French  phrase  of  which 
the  English  equivalent  is  "a  state  of  decomposi- 
tion." What  he  meant,  of  course,  was  "demo- 
bilization." But  the  other  word  was  the  one 
that  got  into  circulation;  and  somewhere  in  its 
passage  through  the  French  reporter's  mind,  or 


France  Says  "No"  71 

in  the  process  of  translation  from  French  to 
English  and  thence  to  Italian,  it  was  made  to 
seem  that  Briand  had  said  what  an  American 
would  mean  by  saying  in  a  slang  way  that  some- 
thing is  "putrid." 

II 

It  was  not  only  from  the  Italians  that  the 
French  had  this  sense  of  being  under  accusation. 
They  had  it  also  from  the  British,  and  in  a  less 
concrete  way,  from  the  Americans.  The  Brit-  v 
ish  felt  that  one  of  the  purposes  of  France  in 
keeping  her  army  standing  was  to  be  able,  if 
necessary  or  expedient,  to  march,  or  to  threaten 
to  march,  into  Germany  and  on  to  Berlin,  in 
order  to  force  Germany  to  pay  the  reparations. 
In  fact,  at  one  time  or  another,  various  spokes- 
men reflecting  the  French  point  of  view,  had 
made  public  statements  of  this  purpose.  The 
British  felt  that  the  reparations  fixed  against 
Germany  by  the  Paris  Conference  were  too 
large  and  must  be  readjusted,  and  felt  that  any 
military  action  to  make  Germany  pay  more  than 
she  was  able  would  postpone  the  recovery  of 
Europe  from  its  economic  and  political  chaos. 
Also  the  British  seem  to  have  felt  that  some  of 
the  things  France  was  doing  with  her  army  in 
Asia  were  seriously  undesirable.  It  was  con- 


\ 


72     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

sidered,  too,  that  the  amount  of  money  France 
was  spending  in  maintaining  her  army  was  post- 
poning the  economic  recovery  of  herself  and  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  British  knew,  also,  that 
the  French  wanted  to  press  them  into  a  treaty 
covering  various  matters  in  Europe  and  Asia, 
and  suspected  that  France's  continued  main- 
tenance of  a  large  army  was  meant  as  one  of 
several  leverages  designed  to  make  Great  Bri- 
tain come  to  terms.1 

The  feeling  of  tension  between  the  British 
and  the  French  at  the  Conference  was  unmistak- 
able. On  the  day  the  British  delegation  arrived 
in  Washington,  in  greeting  one  of  the  British 
officials,  I  made  a  remark  in  the  spirit  of  the  oc- 
casion to  the  effect  that  this  was  going  to  be  "a 
conference  of  friends."  "I  should  like  to  think 
so,"  my  acquaintance  replied  with  an  air  of 
sincere  regret,  "but  do  you  really  think  that  the 
French  have  a  friendly  disposition  toward  us?" 
His  doubt  was  well  justified,  as  we  all  learned 
by  the  time  the  Conference  was  a  month  old. 
The  feeling  of  irritation  on  the  part  of  the 


i  I  do  not  mean  to  imply,  of  course,  that  England  felt  France's  army 
to  be  directed  at  her  (although  Mr.  Balfour,  later  on,  did  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  France's  proposed  submarine  navy  could  only  be  under- 
stood as  being  directed  at  Great  Britain).  But  France's  maintenance 
of  a  large  army  was  part  of  a  general  European  policy  on  the  part  of 
France,  which  policy  was  repugnant  to  Great  Britain;  and  Great 
Britain  could  only  induce  France  to  abandon  that  policy  by  consenting 
to  make  the  treaty  of  alliance  and  guarantee  which  France  wanted 
from  her. 


France  Says  "No"  73 

French  against  the  British  showed  itself  in  a 
hundred  ways,  many  of  them  more  petty  than 
important;  and  it  centred  not  only  about  the 
French  Army,  but  about  several  other  issues. 

As  regards  the  Americans,  also,  the  French 
had  the  feeling  of  a  man  who  is  under  the  shadow 
of  a  silent  accusation.  They  realized  that  their 
maintaining  so  large  an  army  was  against  the 
spirit  that  President  Harding  was  trying  to 
bring  into  the  world.  They  had  the  uneasy  feel- 
ing that  their  insistence  on  a  large  army  would 
be  looked  upon  as  a  menace  to  the  success  of 
the  Conference.  They  knew  that  they  were/ 
probably  being  regarded  in  many  American 
quarters  as  following  a  role  which,  to  express  it 
in  the  mildest  way,  was  failing  to  be  helpful  to 
the  spirit  of  the  event.1 

For  all  these  broader  reasons  I  have  men- 
tioned, in  addition  to  M.  Briand's  specific  wish 
to  return  to  Paris,  the  French  were  eager  to 


l  In  justice  to  Hughes  and  Harding,  and  America,  I  should  add  here 
that  if  France  had  confined  her  obstructions  to  the  success  of  the  Con- 
ference to  the  matter  of  her  army  merely,  America  would  have  had  no  N 
resentment.  There  was  the  most  generous  disposition  to  make  allow- 
ances for  France's  position,  and  also  for  M.  Briand's  personal  political 
necessities  at  home,  for  we  felt  that  he  was  under  pressure  from  army 
men  and  imperialists  and  militaristic  elements  among  the  politicians  of 
his  own  country.  We  were  ready  to  overlook  his  refusal  to  join  in 
a  limitation  of  armies.  The  reception  given  to  Briand's  speech  defend- 
ing France's  military  policy,  so  far  as  America  was  concerned,  was  not 
only  not  unfriendly,  but  actually  sympathetic.  But  after  Briand  had 
gone  back  to  France,  the  French  delegation  did  several  things  about 
naval  armament  which  were  seriously  disconcerting.  All  this  will 
appear  in  detail  later  on. 


74     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

have  their  say  about  their  army.  Briand  was 
anxious,  as  we  would  say,  to  "get  it  off  his  chest," 
and  Hughes  courteously  arranged  the  pro- 
gramme to  give  him  the  earliest  available  oppor- 
tunity. 

That  opportunity  could  not  be  had  in  either 
the  first  or  the  second  plenary  session.  At  the 
opening  session  nothing  had  been  said  or  done 
about  land  armament.  It  was  all  about  naval 
armament.  No  allusion  had  been  made  to  the 
French  Army  or  any  other  army.  The  second 
plenary  session,  as  I  have  recited,  was  devoted 
to  the  replies  by  the  other  governments  to  the 
Hughes  proposals.  In  those  replies  there  was 
no  allusion  to  the  French  Army  until  Briand 
made  it  himself.  (At  least,  there  was  no  such 
allusion  that  we  could  recognize,  until,  a  few 
days  later,  one  of  the  French  newspaper  men 
picked  out  a  sentence  from  what  Balfour  had 
said,  and  in  the  state  of  excessive  suspicion  in 
which  the  French  were,  found  in  it  a  subtle 
thrust.  Mr.  Balfour  had  merely  said  that  the 
Hughes  plan  "did  not  touch  a  question  which 
every  man  coming  from  Europe  must  feel  to 
be  a  question  of  immense  and  almost  paramount 
importance — I  mean  the  heavy  burden  of  land 
armament;  that  is  left  on  one  side,  to  be  dealt 
with  by  other  schemes  and  in  other  ways."  In 
that  sentence,  the  French  newspaper  man  found 


France  Says  "No"  75 

material  for  half  a  column  of  wounded  sensi- 
tiveness.1 ) 

It  was  Briand  himself  who  first  brought  the 
question  of  the  French  Army  into  the  Confer- 
ence, and  brought  it  in  the  shape  of  a  specific 
request  for  permission  to  state  his  case  ade- 
quately. He  wanted  to  state  it  publicly,  in  a 
plenary  session.  On  the  second  day,  in  giving 
France's  reply  to  the  Hughes  naval  plan, 
Briand  made  gracious  reference  to  the  plan  and 
to  the  Conference  as  a  whole,  and  closed  with 
this  request: 

Gentlemen,  when  it  comes  on  the  Agenda,  as  it  will  in- 
evitably come,  to  the  question  of  land  armament,  a  ques- 
tion particularly  delicate  for  France,  as  you  are  all  aware, 
we  have  no  intention  to  eschew  this.  We  shall  answer 
your  appeal,  fully  conscious  that  this  is  a  question  of  a 
grave  and  serious  nature  for  us.  The  question  will  be 
raised — it  has  been  raised,  gentlemen,  and  if  there  is  a 
country  that  desires,  that  demands,  that  the  question  of 
land  armaments  should  be  raised,  it  is  France.2  It  will 


1  Perhaps  I   should  quote  some   of  what  this   French   writer — it   was 
M.  Stephane  Lausanne,  editor  of  the  Paris  Matin — actually  said.    After 
quoting  the  sentence   from  Mr.   Balfour's   speech,   which   I   have   repro- 
duced above,   M.  Lausanne  wrote:     "There  were  many  flowers   in   Mr. 
Balfour's  address  on  Monday  and  a  little  stone.    The  flowers  were  all 
for  the  shoulders  of  Secretary  Hughes  and  the  little  stone  was  for  the 
garden  of  Premier  Briand.    A  sweet  note   of   reproach   was   noticeable 
in  Mr.   Balfour's  voice  when  he  threw   his   stone.     He   seemed  to   say: 
'Are   we   going   to   be   alone   to   mount   the   stage?    Will   these   nations 
having  large  armies  remain  in  the  orchestra  stalls?'    Naturally,  Premier 
Briand  picked  up  the  stone  at  once.    .    .    ." 

2  This  statement  of  Briand's,  made  for  public  consumption,  needs  to 

be  qualified  a  little  before  it  can  be  accepted   as  completely  accurate.      , 
Briand  did  not  want  the  Conference  to  take  up  the  question  of  land 


76     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

come  in  due  time  before  the  Conference,  and  I  hope  that 
I  shall  enjoy  the  opportunity,  and  that  I  shall  be  able 
to  state  publicly  in  one  of  the  meetings  of  this  Conference 
what  the  position  of  France  is,  so  that  the  United  States 
and  the  world  may  fully  know;  and  when  I  have  tried  to 
prove  this,  when  you  have  listened  to  this  demonstration, 
I  am  quite  sure  that  you  will  be  convinced,  gentlemen, 
that  France,  after  the  necessities  of  safety  and  life  have 
been  adequately  secured,  harbours  no  thought  of  disturb- 
ing the  peace  of  the  world. 

To  this  request,  Hughes  replied  by  saying, 
as  he  closed  the  session: 

I  have  no  doubt  that  I  express  the  wish  of  the  Con- 
ference that  at  an  opportune  time  M.  Briand  will  enjoy 
the  opportunity  of  presenting  to  the  Conference  most  fully 
the  views  of  France  with  regard  to  the  subject  of  land 
armament,  which  we  must  discuss. 

The  opportune  time  came  at  the  earliest  pos- 
sible moment,  six  days  later,  at  the  third  of  the 
plenary  sessions. 


armament.  On  the  contrary,  he  resisted  it.  This  was  made  clear  later 
on,  in  one  of  the  closed  sessions.  Probably  an  adequate  statement  of 
Briand's  position  would  say  that  his  first  wish  was  to  get  from  America 
and  Great  Britain  the  treaty  of  guarantee  which  Wilson  had  promised 
France.  In  case  he  should  get  that,  and  in  that  case  only,  Briand  would 
have  been  willing  that  the  Conference  should  take  up  the  question  of 
land  armament.  But  failing  that — and  Briand  quickly  saw  that  was 
impossible — his  wish  was  to  get  for  France  a  kind  of  exemption  ;nnl 
exculpation.  He  wanted  that  France  should  be  permitted  to  keep  her 
army,  and  that  the  Conference  should  say  as  little  about  land  armament 
as  possible;  for  the  Conference  could  not  possibly  talk  about  l.-iml 
armament  at  all  without  pointing  a  reproachful  finger  at  France.  And 
Briand  was  most  eager  to  get  back  to  France  without  reproach. 


France  Says  "No"  77 

III 

To  pass  on  to  the  reader,  so  far  as  possible, 
the  impression  he  might  have  got  if  he  had  ac- 
tually sat  in  the  hall  himself,  and  listened  to 
Briand's  speech,  there  is  no  more  available  de- 
vice than  to  reproduce  here  the  notes  I  wrote 
down  myself.  Later  on  I  shall  treat  the  sub- 
stance of  the  speech  with  greater  fullness.  But 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  audience,  there 
was  more  to  this  occasion  than  the  substance  of 
the  speech.  It  was  a  chance  to  listen  to  one  of 
the  great  orators  of  the  world.  As  I  wrote  in 
my  opening  notes: 

Before  the  opening  there  was  curiosity  and  expectation 
almost  equal  to  that  of  the  first  day's  session.  This  was 
based  chiefly  on  the  anticipation  of  hearing  M.  Briand's 
oratory.  His  fame  as  a  speaker  has  come  to  Washington 
from  France.  Also  on  one  of  the  preceding  days  it  fell 
in  M.  Briand's  way  to  make  a  brief  and  unimportant 
speech,  which  was,  nevertheless,  enough  to  give  Washing- 
ton a  hint  of  what  Briand  can  do  when  he  really  gets 
under  way.  This  is  the  day  when  France  and  Briand 
"have  their  say."  Briand  is  going  to  talk  about  land  arm- 
ament and  about  France's  necessity  for  a  big  army.  All 
this,  of  course,  is  written  while  the  doors  are  opening  and 
the  crowds  are  coming  in.  It  may  be  possible  for  Briand's 
personal  power  to  turn  the  occasion  into  something  of 
world  importance.  Hardly  anything  could  exceed  the 
spirit  of  expectation  in  the  audience. 


78     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

From  this  description  of  the  spirit  of  antici- 
pation in  the  audience,  my  notes  go  on.  I  print 
them  as  they  stand,  with  the  idea  of  reproducing 
the  impression  of  the  actual  moment: 

There  is  a  prolonged  period  of  photograph-taking  under 
a  queer,  artificial  light.  In  the  strange  light  the  dele- 
gates look  for  the  most  part  worn  and  tired,  but  Hughes 
is  fresh.  He  has  the  stimulant  of  enormous  success.  He 
has  it  in  him  to  make  a  joke;  he  says  that  whatever  may 
be  done  about  armament,  there  is  to  be,  apparently,  no 
limitation  on  photograph  taking. 

Now  Hughes  plunges  straight  into  the  subject  of  land 
armament.  He  says  America  has  little  concern  with  it. 
To-day,  he  says,  our  regular  establishment  is  about  160,- 
000.  But,  he  says,  he  realizes  that  other  countries  are 
differently  situated.  Hughes  is  making  a  graceful  and 
friendly  opening  for  Briand  to  begin.  Every  disposi- 
tion is  apparent  to  give  Briand  the  best  atmosphere  and 
the  best  "send-off"  possible.1  Now  Hughes  introduces 
Briand. 

Briand  begins  slowly  and  solemnly.  He  has  wonderful 
command  of  every  detail  of  the  art  of  public  oratory. 

Let  us  pay  tribute  to  this  man.  He  was  born  to  give 
passionate  expression  to  burning  causes.  There  is  a 
thrill  for  the  audience  every  time  he  says  the  words  "La 
France."  It  must  be  that  two  thirds  of  the  audience  do 
not  understand  French,  but  hardly  an  eye  fails  to  follow 
Briand's  gesture,  and  never  an  ear  misses  a  sound  of  his 


1  These,  bear  in  mind,  are  impressions  written  down  on  the  instant. 
I  call  attention  to  them  in  order  to  show  that  Hughes  and  America 
had  only  the  most  friendly  disposition  toward  France.  The  initial 
animus  of  what  happened  later  about  the  Hughes  plan  for  naval  limi- 
tation came  not  from  America  but  from  France. 


France  Says  "No"  79 

Toice.  There  is  intense  attention.  He  tells  the  familiar 
story  of  how  France  is  situated  and  repeats  the  familiar 
argument  why  France  cannot  disarm  but  must  continue 
to  fear  and  to  be  prepared.  He  describes  the  instability 
of  Europe. 

When  the  interpreter  begins  the  first  instalment  of 
Briand's  speech,  you  realize  how  great  is  the  handicap 
of  language  that  Briand  must  work  under.  The  inter- 
preter has  none  of  Briand's  enormous  magnetism.  His 
voice  has  no  resonance  and  his  gestures  are  of  necessity 
merely  mechanically  imitative.  You  feel  sorry  for  Briand 
that  his  power  must  be  chained  by  this  handicap. 

Briand  is  truly  the  real  thing  in  the  way  of  an  orator. 
Nothing  we  have  in  America  can  approach  him.  The 
music  and  resonance  of  his  voice  and  the  fire  of  his  man- 
ner give  obvious  thrills  to  those  large  sections  of  the 
audience  who  don't  understand  a  word  he  is  saying. 

He  is  one  of  those  whom  Heaven  especially  endowed 
for  oratory,  for  moving  masses  of  men.  He  is  dramatic, 
inspiring.  My  friend  Admiral  Tsai  of  the  Chinese  dele- 
gation tells  me  that  M.  Briand  reminds  him  very  much  of 
a  famous  actor  and  operatic  performer  in  China,  a  cele- 
brated figure  whose  stage  name  is  Tsiao  Chiaou  Tien, 
meaning,  in  the  flowery  language  of  China,  "The-Little- 
Bringer-Down-of-Heaven."  On  the  other  side  of  me  an 
irreverent  American  reporter  remarks  that  Briand  "would 
certainly  be  a  hell-raiser  on  the  stump"  in  an  American 
political  campaign.  Between  these  two  singularly  related 
methods  of  describing  him,  the  reader  will  probably  get 
some  notion  of  Briand's  quality.1 

l  Briand  was  decidedly  the  most  striking  of  the  French  delegates. 
To  one  who  was  merely  an  observer,  he  seemed  much  the  biggest  man 
among  them.  He  was  not  so  self-centered  a  man  as  Viviani.  Briand 
seemed  bigger,  more  like  a  man  who  had  come  to  the  top  easily,  by 
of  natural  force.  He  took  the  world  in  a  more  easy-going  stride'. 


80     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Briand  makes  a  mistake,  from  an  oratorical  point  of 
view,  in  reading  these  extracts  from  books  by  Luden- 
dorff.  These  German  books  that  still  talk  war  are  not 
convincing  to  Americans.  Briand  can  hardly  persuade 
America  that  the  German  people  have  not  had  a  stomach- 
ful  of  war.  The  German  war-lords  may  still  talk  war, 
but  America  cannot  be  convinced  it  is  a  real  menace. 
Briand  would  do  better  to  stick  to  his  own  oratory.  It  is 
a  waste  to  spend  that  splendid  voice  in  reading  dull  ex- 
tracts from  books.  For  the  moment,  at  least,  Briand  has 
lost  his  momentum. 

The  audience  follows  him  with  respectful  attention,  but 
not,  for  the  moment,  with  thrills.  Hughes  listens  to 
Briand  with  something  of  the  air  of  rehearsing  his  college 
French.  Mr.  Philippe  Millet,  reporter  for  the  Petit  Pari- 
sien,  who  sits  at  my  right  and  who  has  often  heard  Briand 
at  his  best  in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies,  says  he 
regards  Briand  as  being  in  good  form. 

The  difficulty  of  language  is  very  much  against  the 
orator.  It  must  be  like  talking  to  a  mass  meeting  in  a 
deaf-and-dumb  asylum.  It  is  only  the  comparatively 
small  number  who  speak  French  that  can  look  responsive 
or  give  applause. 

At  the  conclusion   of   Briand's   speech,   Balfour   arose. 


I  was  told  that  Briand  never  prepared  his  speeches  in  advance,  but 
merely  made  up  his  mind  about  the  ideas  he  was  going  to  put  forth, 
and  trusted  to  inspiration  for  the  words.  The  inspiration  never 
failed  him,  and  he  had  the  air  of  easy-going  reliance  on  it.  By  the 
same  token,  he  had  a  less  exact  mind  than  Balfour,  one  less  trained  in 
matching  abstractions,  edge  to  edge.  You  got  the  impression  th;it 
Briand  had  never  had  to  train  himself  in  the  intellectual  refinements 
of  controversies  over  abstractions.  He  trusted  to  his  instinct  for  the 
heart  of  things,  and  to  the  rich  force  of  his  abounding  personality. 
Of  Briand's  personal  appearance,  one  American  reporter  wrote,  "a 
swarthy,  shaggy  mountain  bandit,  dressed  in  clergyman's  clothes  sal- 
vaged from  last  year's  loot  of  a  missionary  caravan."  This  characteri- 
zation was  made  in  a  wholly  friendly  spirit.  The  reporters  liked 
Briand.  So  did  Washington  and  America  generally.  Briand's  loss  of 
his  premiership  was  regretted  by  Americans  familiar  with  him  and  with 
French  politics. 


France  Says  "No"  81 

He  complimented  Briand's  speech,  saying  to  the  audience, 
"It  has  been  your  privilege,  and  mine,  to  listen  to  one  of 
the  great  modern  masters  of  oratory."  Balfour  spoke 
with  great  sympathy  for  the  French  point  of  view.  Al- 
most the  greatest  applause  of  the  day  came  when  Balfour 
assured  Briand  that  the  world  would  never  leave  France 
in  moral  isolation. 

I  noticed  later  that  these  impressions  of  mine 
about  Briand's  speech  were  practically  the  same 
as  those  of  other  American  observers.  I  ob- 
served particularly  that  Mr.  Stanley  Reynolds, 
writing  in  the  Baltimore  Sun,  expressed  the 
same  feeling  that  I  had  about  Briand's  read- 
ing from  German  authors,  and  wrote  that  all 
this  sabre-rattling  on  the  part  of  the  German 
war-lords  sounded  hollow  to  Americans,  and 
that  Briand  made  a  mistake  to  rest  his  argu- 
ment so  largely  upon  it. 

The  reaction  of  the  bulk  of  the  Americans  in 
the  room  was  tolerantly  sympathetic  to  Briand. 
Most  of  them  couldn't  bring  themselves  to  shiver 
over  the  German  threat  he  described  at  such 
length;  but,  nevertheless,  they  were  willing  to 
concede  that  he  and  France  might  be  shivering 
over  it,  might  still  be  in  a  state  of  war-time  psy- 
chology; and  they  were  willing  to  make  the  most 
generous  allowances  for  him.  True,  they  re- 
alized, or,  at  least,  they  anticipated  pretty 
surely,  that  the  position  Briand  took  would 


82     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

make  it  impossible  to  bring  about  reduction  of 
land  armament  by  this  Conference.  That  was 
a  serious  matter.  It  would  make  a  big  hole  in 
the  agenda.  Not  only  that,  but  some  other 
things  on  the  agenda  might  be  contingent  on 
land  armament.  Briand's  refusal  to  "come 
along"  might  turn  out  to  be  pretty  embarrassing. 
Nevertheless,  everybody  was  willing  to  make 
allowances.  Generous  and  sympathetic  toler- 
ance toward  Briand  was  the  practically  universal 
attitude  of  the  audience. 

Officially,  it  was  much  the  same.  Balfour, 
speaking  for  England,  said  that  his  country 
would  never  forget  France.  Schanzer,  speak- 
ing for  Italy,  was  a  little  cooler,  but,  neverthe- 
less, expressed  no  recognizable  displeasure  over 
what  Briand  had  done.  One  of  the  French 
newspaper  men  sitting  by  my  side  was  nervous 
and  apprehensive  when  Schanzer  made  his 
speech,  lest  he  should,  as  this  Frenchman  ex- 
pressed it,  "spit  out  some  poison"  at  Briand. 
But  if  Signor  Schanzer  had  any  such  intention, 
he  had  been  dissuaded.  (Or,  more  probably, 
he  may  have  felt  that  after  Mr.  Balfour  had  re- 
ceived M.  Briand's  speech  with  so  much  toler- 
ance, he,  as  the  Italian  representative,  could  not 
seem  to  receive  it  disputatiously. ) 

Hughes's  speech  was  much  like  Balfour's, 
full  of  friendly  words  for  France. 


France  Says  "No"  83 

The  best  summing  up  of  the  Briand  speech, 
and  its  reception  by  Balfour  and  Hughes,  is  in 
a  single  sentence  that  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  wrote: 

France  has  explained  the  terrors  of  her  position,  and 
the  assembled  delegates  have  said,  "There!  There!"  to 
her  as  politely  and  soothingly  as  possible;  but  nobody 
really  believes  in  the  terrors  of  her  position. 

( I  find  myself  writing  as  if  it  were  very  decent 
of  Balfour  and  Hughes  not  to  show  offense  at 
Briand  for  making  the  limitation  of  land  arma- 
ment impossible;  and  so  it  was.  But  if  you 
should  turn  the  situation  around  and  put  your- 
self in  the  position  of  France,  you  might  feel 
that  she  was  not  called  upon  to  be  excessively 
grateful.  France,  although  Briand  did  not 
mention  it  in  his  speech,  was  well  known  to  be 
desirous  of  an  agreement  on  the  part  of  America 
and  Great  Britain  to  come  to  France's  aid  if 
she  should  be  attacked  ever  again  by  Germany. 
It  will  be  recalled  that  at  the  Paris  Peace  Con- 
ference, Wilson  promised  this  guarantee  to 
France;  but  the  refusal  of  the  American  Senate 
to  ratify  prevented  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise. 
It  had  been  made  so  clear  to  the  French  that 
American  public  opinion  would  not  sanction  any 
such  alliance  that  Briand  did  not  even  ask  for  it 
openly,  but  confined  himself  to  explaining  why 
France  could  not  reduce  her  army.  Looked  at 


84     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

from  a  point  of  view  which  includes  this  element 
of  France's  desire  for  a  written  guarantee  from 
the  United  States  and  Britain,  you  might  say, 
as  one  observer  did  say  that  day,  as  we  were 
leaving  the  room,  "Briand  pleaded  that  France 
is  afraid  of  Germany;  and  Balfour  and  Hughes 
assured  him  that  if  France  ever  were  attacked, 
they  would  rush  to  her  rescue  with  five  hundred 
thousand  words."1) 

Not  only  on  the  part  of  the  audience  and  the 
officials  and  others  within  the  Conference  was 
there  generous  tolerance  for  Briand  and  a  com- 


1  This  is  probably  an  appropriate  place  to  express  what  I  must  ex- 
press if  I  am  candid,  namely,  my  frank  doubt  whether  the  French 
statesmen  really  believe,  themselves,  what  they  say  when  they  base  their 
claim  to  the  necessity  of  maintaining  their  present  army  on  the  theory 
that  Germany  may  attack  them  in  the  near  future.  It  may  be  they 
honestly  fear  Germany  may  attack  them  ten  years  from  now,  or  in 
another  generation;  history  certainly  gives  them  abundant  justification 
for  such  fear;  and  the  French  statesmen  may  reasonably  hold  the 
view  that  in  order  to  keep  their  people  sufficiently  warlike  and  other- 
wise prepared  against  the  time  of  danger,  they  must  maintain  the  in- 
stitution of  conscription  and  a  continuously  standing  army.  But  I 
don't  think  the  French  statesmen  really  fear  a  present  danger  from 
Germany.  My  judgment  is  that  their  motive  in  talking  that  way  is 
to  keep  their  own  people  docile  to  their  policies,  and  to  get  sympathy 
from  Americans  and  others.  Whenever  you  have  any  private  discus- 
sion at  any  length  with  any  one  expressing  the  French  point  of  view, 
you  find  that  he  bases  France's  policy  of  maintaining  her  large  army 
on  the  expectation  of  using  it,  or  threatening  to  use  it,  to  collect  the 
German  reparations;  and  also  on  the  theory  that  by  maintaining  her 
army  for  the  present  she  can  the  better  force  Great  Britain  to  make 
an  alliance  with  her.  In  saying  this,  I  do  not  impute  bad  faith  to 
Briand  or  other  French  orators  who  pictured  France's  danger.  I  think 
they  have  the  self-hypnosis  that  is  not  infrequent  with  orators.  They 
got  into  a  state  during  the  war,  when  the  danger  was  real,  such  that 
now  the  flow  of  fears  and  tears  starts  itself  automatically.  As  to  an- 
other group  of  French  politicians,  the  case  is  different.  It  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  there  is  a  school  of  politicians  in  France  whose  mo- 
tive in  maintaining  a  large  army  is  to  make  France  a  dominating 
military  power  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  to  maintain  that  posi- 
tion. The  school  that  succeeded  Briand  in  power  includes  some  who 
are  chargeable  with  this  ambition. 


France  Says  "No"  85 

plete  overlooking  of  the  fact  that  he  had  made 
it  impossible  for  the  Conference  to  deal  with 
land  armament.  There  was  the  same  disposition 
throughout  the  American  press  generally.  The 
American  papers,  the  next  day,  were  very  nice 
to  Briand.  The  New  York  Tribune,  recognizing 
that  only  naval  armament  could  now  be  consid- 
ered by  the  Conference,  said,  good-natured- 
ly, that  "half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread," 
and  even  went  further  to  say  that  we  ought  to 
consider  the  idea  of  giving  France  the  guarantee 
she  wanted.  The  Philadelphia  Ledger  com- 
pletely endorsed  Briand's  position,  saying: 
"Premier  Briand  has  made  his  expected  defense 
of  the  great  French  Army  that  is  still  in  being. 
He  makes  it  to  a  sympathetic  world,  to  nations 
but  recently  at  grips  with  the  enemy  who  has 
been  the  dangerous  neighbour  of  France.  .  .  . 
France  will  keep  her  army.  .  .  .  With  the 
decision  the  world  must  agree  so  long  as  the  Lu- 
dendorffs  and  Von  Hindenburgs  are  mouthing 
of  past  glories.  .  .  ." 

These  are  typical  examples  of  American 
opinion  about  Briand's  speech.  Even  when 
some  sources  of  American  opinion  showed  feel- 
ing over  the  fact  that  Briand  had  made  it  impos- 
sible for  the  Conference  to  handle  land  arma- 
ment, others  came  to  Briand's  defense.  In  a 
despatch  which  I  wrote  from  Washington,  the 


86     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

day  after  Briand's  speech,  with  the  purpose  of 
making  the  situation  clear  to  American  readers, 
and  which  I  quote  as  descriptive  of  the  point  of 
view  held  generally  in  Washington  at  the  close 
of  Briand's  public  speech,  I  said : 

Properly  understood,  Briand's  speech  is  not  a  cause  for 
pessimism.  More  truly  it  is  a  cause  for  optimism  in  that 
it  was  the  expression  of  a  spirit  of  compromise  within  the 
Conference.  To  understand  Briand's  speech  you  must 
understand  that  he  was  talking  primarily  for  France  to 
hear  rather  than  for  the  Conference.  Briand  is  Premier 
of  France  and  his  hold  on  that  office  is  precarious.  In 
France,  when  a  premier  does  or  says  something  unpopular, 
he  goes  out  of  office  automatically.  For  example,  if  the 
letter  that  President  Harding  wrote  to  Congress,  asking 
for  lower  surtaxes,  had  been  written  by  Briand  to  the 
French  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  if  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  had  done  what  our  Congress  did,  namely,  re- 
fused to  follow  Harding's  leadership,  then,  Harding,  if 
he  were  the  Premier  of  France,  would  have  gone  out  of 
office  automatically  and  the  leader  of  the  opposition  would 
have  taken  his  place.  Some  of  the  foreign  delegates  to 
the  Conference  who  followed  this  episode  in  Congress 
were  puzzled  to  understand  how  it  was  that  the  day  after 
that  episode  Mr.  Harding  was  still  in  the  White  House. 
Briand,  in  his  speech  to  the  Conference,  had  to  avoid 
saying  anything  that  might  have  caused  the  present  ex- 
\  igencies  of  French  politics  to  vote  him  out  of  office  be- 
fore he  could  leave  America.1  That  speech  was  what 


1  As  we  all  know  now,  Briand   actually  lost  his  premiership  in   less 
than  a  month  after  he  returned  to  France. 


France  Says  "No"  87 

American  politicians  call  "a  leave  to  address  the  House" 
speech,  or  "a  leave  to  print"  speech.  It  was  designed, 
as  many  speeches  in  Congress  are  designed,  not  to  affect 
pending  legislation,  but  to  be  read  by  the  voters  back 
home.  Many  of  the  other  members  of  the  Conference 
understood  M.  Briand's  position  perfectly,  and,  as  politi- 
cians, sympathized  with  it.  They  were  entirely  willing 
to  let  him  take  a  position  which  was  practically  a  refusal 
to  submit  to  limitation  of  armament  on  land.  The  con- 
cession that  led  M.  Briand  to  make  the  speech  he  did  is  a 
sign  of  the  success  of  the  Conference,  not  of  its  failure. 
France  expected  Briand  to  get  something  big  out  of  the 
Conference.  She  expected  him  to  bring  home  a  guarantee 
of  support  from  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  It 
did  not  take  Briand  long  to  learn  that  he  could  not  get 
that.  Since  he  had  to  go  home  empty-handed,  the  Con- 
ference was  quite  willing  he  should  be  permitted  to  make 
the  speech  he  did.  It  is  true  there  is  a  good  deal  of  feel- 
ing between  the  British  and  the  French,  and  between  the 
Italians  and  the  French.  Both  these  nations  feel  more 
resentment  over  M.  Briand's  speech  than  either  of  them 
had  publicly  uttered.  There  was  gossip  within  the  Con- 
ference rooms  to  the  effect  that  when  the  Italian  chief 
delegate  replied  to  M.  Briand's  speech,  it  had  been  his 
intention  to  do  some  plain  talking.  But  any  bellicose  in- 
tentions he  may  have  had  were  made  impossible  by  the 
generosity  of  the  speech  in  which  Mr.  Balfour  replied. 
Mr.  Balfour  was  undoubtedly  using  the  arts  of  diplomacy, 
and  if  he  had  expressed  the  true  feelings  of  the  British 
he  would  have  talked  with  some  heat. 

The  net  of  all  this  is  that  Briand  by  his  speech 
had  done  very  well  for  himself  and  for  France. 


88     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

As  to  America,  whatever  disappointment  we 
felt  over  the  fact  that  his  attitude  must  cause  a 
serious  omission  in  the  Conference  programme 
was  more  than  offset  by  generous  and  sym- 
pathetic understanding  both  of  the  position  of 
his  country  and  of  his  own  personal  position  as  a 
politican.  As  to  Balfour,  and  Schanzer  of 
Italy,  whatever  disappointment  or  resentment 
they  may  have  felt,  they  had  suppressed  in  a 
generous  contribution  toward  a  spirit  of  har- 
mony. All  in  all,  everything  was  all  right. 
That  the  French  observers  at  the  Conference 
felt  everything  to  be  all  right  is  proved  by  a 
despatch  which  a  French  correspondent,  M. 
Marcel  Ray,  sent  to  the  Paris  Petit  Journal, 
saying,  among  other  things,  that  Briand  had 

obtained  all  that  he  wished:  the  recognition  by  all 
the  powers  of  the  special  position  of  France  as  regards 
land  disarmament,  a  declaration  of  moral  solidarity  which 
puts  the  French  people  beyond  the  danger  of  isolation, 
and  finally  complete  freedom  of  action  permitting  France 
to  take  care  of  her  own  interests  in  the  measure  she  shall 
judge  necessary.  For  the  rest,  the  French  programme  is  a 
programme  of  conciliation,  of  which  the  directing  idea  is  to 
cooperate  in  all  matters  to  the  success  of  the  Conference 
and  to  raise  no  difficulty  which  may  halt  its  progress. 

(Parenthetically,  the  reader  should  note  that 
last  sentence  particularly.     If  the  French  dele- 


France  Says  "No"  89 

gates  had  only  lived  up  to  the  programme  sug- 
gested in  it,  the  story  of  the  Conference  would 
have  been  very  different,  and  France  would  have 
come  out  of  it  with  the  good  opinion  of  the 
world  instead  of  that  position  of  moral  isolation 
which  she  hoped  she  had  averted.) 

Apparently — apparently,  I  say — the  most 
dangerous  reef  in  the  programme  of  the  Con- 
ference had  been  passed  successfully — passed 
only  at  the  expense  of  a  good  deal  of  skilled 
manoeuvering  and  with  the  throwing  overboard 
of  an  important  part  of  the  cargo,  but  passed 
successfully,  nevertheless. 


IV 

I  have  said  that  apparently — and  I  have  em- 
phasized "apparently"— the  rock  of  land  arma- 
ment in  the  course  of  the  Conference  had  been 
passed  successfully.  For  my  emphasis  of  "ap- 
parently" there  is  good  reason.  I  did  not  know 
it  at  the  time — no  one  outside  the  delegates  knew 
at  the  time — but  a  good  deal  more  happened 
about  land  armament  than  I  have  so  far  re- 
corded. 

All  that  I  have  written  so  far  is  a  description 
of  what  had  been  done  in  the  open,  of  what 
Briand  had  said  publicly,  and  what  Balfour  and 


90     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Schanzer  had  replied  publicly.  But  just  two 
days  after  that  public  session,  in  which  Briand 
had  pleaded  France's  need  of  a  big  army,  and 
in  which  Balfour  and  Schanzer — especially  Bal- 
four — had  replied  so  sympathetically,  there  was 
another  session,  held  in  secret,  in  which  the  tone 
was  very  different.  Nobody  except  the  dele- 
gates knew  about  it  at  the  time — at  least,  no- 
body knew  what  had  taken  place  in  it.1  That 
was  kept  from  the  newspapers  and  the  public. 
At  the  end  of  the  session,  a  formal  communique 
was  given  out,  marked  "For  the  Press."  That 
communique  purported  to  describe  and  summa- 
rize what  had  taken  place.  It  contained  just 
ninety-four  words. 

Now  I  dislike  to  clutter  up  this  narrative 
with  so  many  quotations,  but  I  really  think  I 
ought  to  reproduce  that  communique  verbatim 
in  order  that  the  reader  may  observe,  as  he  goes 
on,  the  distance  there  can  be  between  an  official 
communique,  and  what  has  actually  taken  place 
—how  great  a  quantity  of  contention  can  be 
glossed  over  by  the  solemn,  stiff -shirted  verbiage 
of  an  official  communique.  Here  is  how  that 
communique  read : 


1  This  is  not  literally  accurate.  Briand,  who  was  indignant,  and 
probably  felt  he  had  less  to  conceal  than  the  others,  gave  out  a  portion 
of  his  remarks,  very  much  expurgated  in  the  direction  of  mildness,  to 
the  press.  But  nobody  caught  its  significance,  and  no  one  outside  had 
any  knowledge  at  all  of  the  bulk  of  what  happened. 


France  Says  "No"  91 

CONFERENCE  ON  THE  LIMITATION  OF 
ARMAMENT 

(For  the   Press,   November   23,   1921) 

The  Committee  on  the  subject  of  the  limitation  of  arm- 
ament met  at  the  Pan-American  building  at  10:30  this 
morning.  All  the  members  were  present  except  Baron 
Shidehara  and  Signer  Meda.  After  a  general  discussion 
of  the  subjects  relating  to  land  armament  and  new  agen- 
cies of  warfare,  these  were  referred  to  the  sub-committee 
consisting  of  the  heads  of  the  delegations  with  instruc- 
tions to  bring  in  an  order  of  procedure  with  regard  to 
these  subjects  and  with  power  to  appoint  sub-committees 
to  deal  with  the  questions  relating  to  poison  gas,  aircraft, 
and  rules  of  international  law. 

Those  ninety-four  words  were  the  sole  official 
communication  to  the  world  of  what  happened 
in  that  secret  session.1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
had  been" one  of  the  most  important  of  all  the 
sessions.  Many  thousands  of  words  had  been 
said  by  Balfour,  by  Briand,  by  Hughes,  by 
Schanzer,  by  Root,  by  Lord  Lee,  by  Lodge — 
and  many  of  them  were  acrimonious. 


II  ought  not  to  lay  so  much  emphasis  on  the  failure  of  this  com- 
munique to  reveal  all,  or  even  any,  of  what  had  taken  place,  without 
adding  that  this  sort  of  thing  was  comparatively  infrequent.  There 
were  very  few  cases  of  such  withholding  of  information.  The  Wash- 
ington Conference  was  more  open,  much  more  open,  probably,  than  any 
other  similar  gathering  ever  held.  The  informal  meetings  of  the  four 
heads  of  delegations  that  made  the  four-power  treaty  were  completely 
secret.  Also,  many  of  the  sub-committee  meetings  were  secret;  but  as 
to  the  formal  meetings  of  the  Conference  and  of  the  two  main  com- 
mittees, the  practice,  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty,  was  to  give  out 
prompt  and  adequate  resumes  of  what  had  been  said  and  done. 


92     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

I  now  proceed  to  tell  what  happened  at  that 
closed  session.  I  base  it  on  the  secret  and,  at 
the  time,  withheld  minutes. 

As  I  read  those  minutes  closely,  I  am  led 
strongly  to  the  feeling  that  Mr.  Hughes,  in  call- 
ing that  session,  had  no  anticipation  of  the  turn 
it  was  going  to  take.  (I  say  this,  of  course, 
wholly  as  a  surmise.)  I  observe  that  Mr. 
Hughes's  words  in  opening  the  session  were  (I 
quote  them  in  indirect  discourse,  because  that  is 
the  form  in  which  the  secret  minutes  were  kept) : 

The  chairman  then  said  that  the  committee  had  been 
convened  to  see  what  could  be  done  with  certain  ques- 
tions not  yet  taken  up.  The  naval  sub-committee  was  not 
yet  ready  to  report,  so  he  supposed  the  committee  might 
take  up  such  other  questions  as  the  members  desired. 

Whether  Mr.  Hughes  was  surprised,  or  in 
any  degree  dismayed  by  the  turn  the  session 
took,  most  certainly  M.  Briand  was.  Briand 
entered  the  meeting  quite  happy  and  comfort- 
able. He  had,  two  days  before,  at  the  public 
session,  made  his  speech  about  the  necessities  of 
France;  and  Mr.  Balfour  and  Signor  Schanzer 
had  replied  with  what  he  was  justified  as  be- 
lieving was  gracious  compliance.  (Certainly 
Balfour's  reply  had  been  one  of  seemingly 
gracious  compliance ;  Schanzer's  had  been  a  little 
less  markedly  so,  although  that  was  the  colour  of 


France  Says  "No"  93 

it.)  Briand  undoubtedly  thought  he  had  "got- 
ten away  with  it."  Everything  that  had  hap- 
pened, and  everything  that  had  been  said  at 
that  public  session,  had  justified  him  in  thinking 
so.  He  came  to  this  secret  session  the  second 
day  after,  therefore,  in  a  pleased  and  comfort- 
able mood.  His  purpose  was  merely  to  say 
good-bye.  He  was  leaving  for  Paris  the  follow- 
ing day,  and  he  came  to  this  session  to  make  his 
formal  adieux,  and  to  introduce  M.  Viviani, 
who  would  be  the  head  of  the  French  delegation 
in  his  place. 

After  Mr.  Hughes  had  opened  the  session  in 
the  words  I  have  quoted,  M.  Briand  was  the 
first  to  speak.  He  confined  himself  to  saying 
good-bye,  and  to  thanking  the  other  delegates 
for  how  nice  they  had  been  to  him  two  days  be- 
fore in  their  speeches  at  the  public  session.  He 
used  words  of  strong  and  simple  emotion.  He 
said  "how  deep  was  his  gratitude  to  his  col- 
leagues for  the  words  spoken  by  them  and  ad- 
dressed to  France,"  two  days  before.  He  said 
that  those  generous  words  would  set  France 
right  in  quarters  where  she  had  been  under  sus- 
picion; they  would  make  things  easier  for  him 
personally  as  premier  of  France.  In  gratitude 
for  those  words  he  would  go  back  to  France, 
and  largely  because  of  the  harmony  that  had 
marked  the  public  discussion  two  days  before, 


94     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

and  the  effect  the  gracious  speeches  of  Balfour 
and  Schanzer  had  made  on  the  French  people, 
he  hoped  to  be  able  to  make  some  progress  to- 
ward reduction  of  France's  army — he  would 
probably  be  able  to  reduce  the  duration  of  mili- 
tary service  by  one  half. 

Then  M.  Briand  introduced  M.  Viviani  as  his 
successor  and  repeated  his  adieux.  He  had 
every  appearance  of  being  under  the  impression 
that  this  session  would  call  for  nothing  more 
from  him. 

In  reply  to  these  adieux,  Mr.  Hughes  an- 
swered in  a  kindred  spirit.  It  would  be  neces- 
sary to  infer,  from  what  Mr.  Hughes  said,  that 
he  had  a  real  personal  regard  for  Briand.  He 
said  that  he,  as  well  as  all  the  other  delegates, 
had  "admired  M.  Briand's  eloquent  presenta- 
tion of  the  case  of  France  two  days  before,  and 
had  all  felt  a  deep  affection,  which  would  re- 
main with  them  permanently."  He  said  that 
M.  Briand's  departure  would  be  "a  personal 
loss."  Continuing  in  the  same  spirit,  Mr. 
Hughes  said — I  quote  from  the  official  minutes : 

The  memory  of  the  plenary  session  two  days  before, 
and  of  his  [M.  Briand's]  moving  address  would  always 
remain  with  them,  and  whatever  might  be  the  work  that 
they  might  subsequently  perform,  there  was  nothing  what- 
ever that  would  surpass  the  interest  of  that  occasion. 
They  thought  they  understood  the  situation  in  France; 


France  Says  "No"  95 

certainly  the  opportunity  had  not  been  lacking  of  fairly 
judging  it.  France,  they  realized,  was  moved  by  a  com-  r 
mon  desire  to  be  freed  from  the  burden  of  armament  and 
at  the  same  time  to  be  assured  of  her  own  safety.  She 
must  now  feel  a  sense  of  moral  solidarity  with  friends 
who  would  never  forget.  On  behalf  of  the  American 
Government,  he  expressed  America's  .  .  .  recognition 
of  the  lasting  tie  that  united  the  two  peoples,  a  tie  that  had 
never  been  stronger  than  it  was  at  the  moment. 


Now  this  passage  of  words  of  good-will  and 
personal  appreciation  between  Hughes  and 
Briand  was  undoubtedly  sincere.  It  gave  to 
the  occasion  an  agreeable  note  of  amity  and  har- 
mony. 

But  that  note  was  changed  disconcertingly 
and  abruptly  by  Mr.  Balfour. 

To  understand  what  Mr.  Balfour  now  pro- 
ceeded to  do,  you  must  assume  that  since  the 
public  session  two  days  before,  when  Briand  had 
said  that  France  could  not  limit  her  land  arma- 
ment and  Balfour  had  replied  sympathetically 
— you  must  assume,  I  say,  that  during  the  in- 
tervening forty-eight  hours,  Mr.  Balfour  had 
received  some  urgent  cablegrams  from  his  gov- 
ernment in  London.  As  I  shall  show  in  a  little 
while,  the  British  Government  had  been  seriously 
disappointed,  even  aggrieved,  at  the  French 
refusal  to  submit  the  size  of  her  army  to  the 
consideration  of  the  Conference.  If  Balfour 


96     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

personally  was  willing  to  let  it  pass,  the  British 
Government  was  not.  Although,  naturally,  I 
have  no  personal  knowledge  on  the  point,  I 
think  it  must  be  taken  for  granted  that  Balfour 
had  been  instructed  by  his  government  not  to 
let  the  matter  of  land  armament  drop,  and  that 
it  was  under  the  pressure  of  those  instructions 
that  he  did  what  he  now  proceeded  to  do. 

It  seemed  like  a  different  Balfour  who  now 
spoke.  Anybody  who  had  heard  the  charming 
and  gracious  Mr.  Balfour  of  the  public  session 
two  days  before,  and  who  now  follows  Mr.  Bal- 
four's  words  through  the  present  passages  of  this 
secret  session,  must  concede  that  this  diplomat 
has  two  distinct  diplomatic  manners  to  his  bow, 
one  of  urbane  and  smiling  graciousness  for  such 
occasions  as  are  best  served  by  that  manner,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  what  Americans  call  a  "nasty 
wallop"  for  short-arm  work  whenever  the  oc- 
casion moves  him  to  that  manner.  He  rose  with 
the  air  of  wanting  to  get  through  with  all  these 
felicitations  between  M.  Briand  and  Mr. 
Hughes.  His  opening  words  were  of  polite 
regret  at  Briand's  going — he  couldn't  very  well 
avoid  saying  that,  but  he  didn't  waste  much  time 
on  it.  Thereafter,  the  secret  minutes  recite: 

He  rose  ...  to  raise  a  purely  business  question. 
.  .  .  The  subject  of  land  armament  was  not  regarded 
as  settled.  .  .  .  He  wished  to  know  if  it  were  pro- 


France  Says  "No"  97 

posed  to  be  raised  at  the  present  Conference.     Although  / 
the  question  of  land  armaments  as  affecting  France  had 
been  raised  by  Briand  two  days  before,  there  was  no  doubt 
that  there  were  other  important  subjects  relating  to  land  '. 
armaments  which  deserved  consideration.     He  would  like ' 
to  know  in  what  order  it  was  proposed  to  take  them  up. 
He  did  not  suppose  they  were  regarded  as  settled  by  the 
speeches  in  public  discussion. 

Now  this  was  just  what  Briand  thought  had 
been  settled  at  the  speeches  in  the  public  discus- 
sion. He  had  explained  the  reason  France  felt 
she  could  not  reduce  her  army;  and  Balfour  and 
Hughes  and  Schanzer  had  replied  graciously, 
sympathetically,  consolingly.  They  hadn't  said 
in  so  many  words  that  they  would  respect 
France's  position  and  omit  land  armament  from 
the  agenda;  but  Briand  unquestionably  thought 
that  was  what  those  words  of  gracious  sympathy 
had  meant.  That  Briand  should  have  felt 
shocked  and  outraged  by  this  bringing  up  of  the 
subject  anew  by  Balfour  can  be  readily  under- 
stood. However,  it  was  not  Briand  that  had  the 
next  say.  Schanzer  was  the  next  to  speak.  He 
backed  up  what  Balfour  said.  He  did  it  most 
aptly: 

"The  question  of  the  limitation  of  [land]  armament," 
Signer  Schanzer  said,  "was  considered  of  the  highest  im- 
portance in  Italy.  And  moreover  public  opinion  in  other 
countries  was  agreed  that  something  ought  to  be  done  re- 


98     The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

garding  this  matter.  ...  It  seemed  necessary  to  state 
Italy's  definite  intention  to  approach  this  question  prac- 
tically, and  as  soon  as  possible.  He  felt  that  the  commit- 
tee should  avoid  giving  to  the  world  the  impression  that 
this  Conference  called  to  examine  so  important  a  ques- 
tion, had  avoided  the  issue,  or  that  it  had  sought  to  set 
aside  indefinitely  the  solution  of  the  problem.  Such  a 
course,  he  said,  would  create  a  very  bad  impression  in 
Italy."  J 

Thereupon  Briand  came  back  at  them.  He 
said  he  knew  what  they  were  driving  at.  "One 
country,  and  one  only,  was  under  discussion- 
France.  .  .  .  The  Conference  had  conceded 
that  France's  case  was  exceptional."  With 
mordant  irony  he  remarked  that  he  hadn't  heard 
any  of  them  "offer  to  assume  by  a  formal  con- 
tract a  share  of  the  burdens  and  perils  that  had 
fallen  to  France's  lot."  (Briand  was,  of  course, 
referring  to  the  treaty  of  guarantee  which 
France  has  always  asked  as  the  only  thing  that 
would  make  it  safe  for  her  to  disarm — the  treaty 
that  Great  Britain  and  President  Wilson  prom- 
ised her,  but  were  prevented  from  fulfilling  by 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States.)  Since  they 


i  Here,  as  elsewhere,  I  wish  to  make  clear  that  many  of  the  state- 
ments I  quote  are  merely  a  few  words  from  addresses  hundreds,"  or 
even  thousands  of  words  long.  In  thus  detaching  sentences  from  their 
contexts,  it  is  always  possible  to  be  unfair.  A  different  writer,  making 
different  selections,  might  be  able  to  give  a  somewhat  different  colour 
to  the  whole  transaction.  I  feel  I  should  say  this,  although  I  ifave  no 
doubt  whatever  about  these  quotations  being  accurately  representative 
of  the  speakers'  meanings.  Any  one  sufficiently  interested  to  read  the 
whole  or  any  of  these  speeches  can  find  them  in  the  official  minutes — 
Senate  Document  No.  126;  67th  Congress,  2nd  Session. 


"Briand  was  born  to  give  passionate  expression  to  burning 
causes.  There  is  a  thrill  for  the  audience  every  time  he 
says  the  words  'La  France'  ....  He  is  one  of  those  whom 
Heaven  especially  endowed  for  oratory  for  moving  masses 
of  men." 


France  Says  "No"  99 

did  not  offer  to  share  France's  dangers,  Briand 
said,  how  could  they  presume  to  dictate  to 
France  how  large  an  army  she  should  have?  / 

There  was  eloquent  reproach,  a  bitter  expres- 
sion of  his  shocked  surprise,  at  the  turn  the  ses- 
sion had  taken.  Briand  cried  that 

the  Conference  had  accepted  the  explanation  that  the 
delegate  from  France  had  presented  in  public  session; 
this  was  his  understanding,  if  the  words  that  had  been 
spoken  had  any  meaning.  .  . 

M.  Briand  desired  to  be  clearly  understood;  while 
obliged  to  leave  Washington,  he  did  not  wish  to  leave  such 
an  essential  point  in  doubt.  He  was  unwilling  to  risk 
that  some  day  the  peoples  of  the  earth  might  be  told  that 
if  the  problem  of  the  limitation  of  land  armament  had 
not  been  settled,  it  was  because  of  the  opposition  of 
France. 

There  followed  some  pretty  mordant  speeches, 
as  well  as  efforts  from  the  milder-mannered 
among  the  delegates,  and  those  less  directly  con- 
cerned, to  inject  harmony.  There  was  some 
talk  that  even  though  France's  stand  made  the 
actual  reduction  of  armies  impossible,  neverthe- 
less, the  Conference  might  at  least  give  the 
world  the  comfort  of  the  expression  of  a  "pla- 
tonic  aspiration"  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Balfour 
told  M.  Briand  very  pointedly  that  "if  he 
[Briand]  said  the  question  of  land  armament 
must  not  be  discussed,  he  was  pressing  his  argu- 


100  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ment  too  far."  Briand,  at  a  later  point  in  the 
debate,  protested  almost  passionately  that  it  was 
intolerable  that  France  should  "be  put  in  the 
position  of  appearing  unwilling  to  follow  the 
other  governments  in  the  path  of  disarmament." 
Lord  Lee  acidly  remarked  that 

It  was  in  the  power  of  any  State  to  say  what  it  liked 
about  any  subject,  or  to  decline  to  discuss  any  subject. 
If  that  were  a  general  right,  it  was  certainly  France's 
right;  but  he  was  inclined  to  think  that  that  should  not 
preclude  other  States  from  discussing  what  they  wanted.1 

M.  Briand  closed  the  session  in  the  most 
pointed  way.  Once  more,  he  reminded  Great 
Britain  and  America  of  their  unfulfilled  promise. 
He  said  he  "had  received  from  the  French  Par- 
liament a  very  explicit  mandate;  France  might 
agree  to  any  reduction  of  armament  if  her  safety 
were  guaranteed.  If  she  were  left  to  stand 
alone,  she  could  agree  to  nothing.  .  .  .  For 
the  others  in  the  Conference,  there  were  but  two 
solutions:  Either  to  confirm  the  existing  situa- 
tion and  let  it  go  at  that,  or  else  to  say  to  France, 
'We  will  join  forces;  here  is  our  signature.'5 
M.  Briand  said  it  would  give  him  the  greatest 
satisfaction  to  hear  these  words,  "here  is  our 


l  All  these  quotations  are  quoted  verbatim  from  the  minutes,  which, 
at  this  session,  were  kept  in  the  awkward  form  of  indirect  discourse. 
It  is  an  inexact  and  otherwise  undesirable  method  of  recording  minutes. 


France  Says  "No"  101 

signature,"  but  he  hadn't  been  able  to  hear 
them.1  "If  the  peoples  of  the  earth,"  M.  Briand 
said,  "were  as  eager  as  they  claimed,  to  see  land 
armament  limited,  their  representatives  in  this 
Conference  had  only  to  say:  'A  danger  exists; 
we  recognize  it;  we  will  share  it  with  you  shoul- 
der to  shoulder;  here  is  our  signature.' ' 

There,  of  course,  Briand  had  them.  Being 
shocked  and  made  indignant  by  their  raising  in 
the  secret  session  what  Briand  thought  had  been 
settled,  and  settled  in  his  favour,  by  the  public 
session  two  days  before;  being  angry  at  their 
raising  anew  what  he  thought  they  had  pre- 
viously acquiesced  in,  Briand  now  blurted  out 
the  thing  he  had  refrained  from  saying  in  the 
public  session.  He  reproached  them  for  their 
failure  to  make  the  treaty  of  guarantee  to 
France,  which  France  had  been  promised  at  the 
Paris  Conference.  To  that,  the  others  had  no 
adequate  answer. 

Reading  these  minutes  of  the  secret  session 
gives  a  colour  to  the  whole  of  what  was  done  by 
the  Conference  on  the  subject  of  France  and 

1  It  is  hardly  possible  to  read  the  record  of  these  passages  closely 
without  coming  to  feel  that  as  a  contact  between  man  and  man,  an 
encounter  in  which  one  man  tries  the  force  of  his  momentum  against 
another's,  Briand  had  the  best  of  it  and  seemed  the  bigger  man.  Bal- 
four  was  relying  largely  on  irony  and  innuendo.  Schanzer  was  rab- 
binically  pedantic.  Briand  was  like  a  force  of  nature,  deeply  moved  by 
the  wrongs  of  his  people  and  by  an  outraged  sense  of  fairness.  On  its 
merits,  nothing  can  conceal  the  fact  that  France  was  putting  an  unover- 
comable  obstacle  in  the  path  of  an  important  part  of  the  Conference' 
work.  But  as  an  encounter  between  human  beings,  Briand  made  the 
greater  appeal  to  sympathy  and  admiration. 


102  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

land  armament,  somewhat  different  from  what 
would  be  understood  if  our  knowledge  were  con- 
fined solely  to  what  had  been  said  at  the  public 
session. 

This  difference  does  not  help  France  much. 
France  had  refused  in  the  public  session,  and 
France  refused  in  the  secret  session.  France 
was  responsible  for  preventing  the  Conference 
taking  up  the  question  of  land  armament.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  of  that.  But  at  the  secret  ses- 
sion, France  at  least  gave  a  humanly  appealing 
reason  for  her  refusal. 

About  this  secret  session  the  public  knew  noth- 
ing. The  impression  the  public  had  of  what  had 
been  done  about  France  and  land  armament  was 
the  impression  they  had  received  from  the  pub- 
lic session,  an  impression  of  harmony  and  amity. 


Such  was  the  spirit  and  substance  of  the  secret 
session  that  dealt  with  France  and  land  arma- 
ment. It  got  nowhere.  In  the  end,  they  took 
the  usual  refuge  of  inconclusion ;  they  referred 
the  matter  to  the  committee  on  programme  and 
procedure. 

So  the  matter  of  land  armament  disappeared 
from  the  agenda.  The  American  delegates  did 
not  acknowledge,  even  in  unofficial  private  talks, 


France  Says  "No"  103 

that  it  was  off.  Repeatedly,  during  the  suc- 
ceeding weeks,  when  I  asked  if  limitation  of 
land  armament  was  permanently  off  the  agenda, 
the  reply  was  that  "nothing  is  to  be  regarded  as 
off  the  agenda  until  the  Conference  is  over." 
But  we  felt  that  consideration  of  land  arma- 
ment was  off,  all  the  same. 

VI 

The  very  next  day  the  spotlight  shifted  to 
London  with  a  suddenness  that  dazed  the  world. 
Out  of  the  British  Foreign  Office,  in  the  shape  of 
a  speech  by  Earl  Curzon,  in  which  he  talked  to 
the  Washington  Conference  with  as  much  di- 
rectness as  if  he  were  sitting  in  the  room,  and 
with  rather  more  frankness  than  any  official 
member  of  the  Conference  could  very  well  prac- 
tise, came  a  long-range  bomb.  One  of  the  cor- 
respondents, reading  it  in  the  morning  papers, 
paraphrased  a  war-time  communique,  "heavy 
cannon-fire  on  the  London  front."  Earl  Cur- 
zon said: 

I  would  like  to  utter  one  word  of  caution  and  to  sug- 
gest certain  conditions  which  still  remain  to  be  fulfilled. 
It  is  no  use  reducing  armaments  at  sea  if  we  are  still  to 
contemplate  the  piling  up  or  accumulation  of  vast  arm-  \ 
aments  on  land.  An  example  must  not  be  set  by  one  na- 
tion only,  or  even  by  two  or  three.  It  must  be  followed 


104  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

in  proportion  to  their  position  and  their  ability  by  all. 
It  is  not  for  Great  Britain  to  accept  or  submit  to  sacrifices 
while  others  pass  them  by. 

The  most  eloquent  passage  in  Earl  Curzon's 
speech,  and  the  one  that  was  most  seized  upon 
for  comment,  was  one  in  which  he  described  the 
Germany  of  the  past,  but  in  which  the  discrimin- 
ating could  infer  him  to  be  alluding  to  the  pos- 
sible France  of  the  future,  a  France  threatening 
to  step  into  the  shoes  of  Germany  as  a  great 
military  power  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  In 
this  same  passage  Curzon  also  issued  stern  warn- 
ing to  France  against  the  policy  at  which  she  had 
been  hinting,  with  insinuating  truculence,  of 
using  the  sword  to  make  Germany  pay  excessive 
reparations : 

"  The  real  strength  and  protection  of  France/'  Earl 
Curzon  said,  "  does  not  consist  in  the  strength  of  her  arms, 
potent  as  they  are.  It  does  not  consist  in  the  inexhaust- 
ible spirit  of  her  people.  It  does  not  consist  even  in  the 
justice  of  her  cause.  It  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  con- 
science of  the  world  and  the  combined  physical  forces  of 
the  world — and  in  that  I  include  the  great  powers  of 
Europe  and  America — will  not  tolerate  the  reappearance 
in  the  heart  of  Europe  of  a  great  and  dangerous  power 
that  was  always  rattling  its  sword  in  the  scabbard  as  a 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world.  We  shall  convert  Ger- 
many into  a  peaceful  member  of  the  international  court 
of  Europe  only  if  the  great  powers  combine  not  merely 


France  Says  "No"  105 

to  enforce  the  treaty,  but  to  make  it  clear  that  no  policy 
of  retaliation  or  revenge  will  be  tolerated  by  them,  and 
that  they  will  assist  Germany  to  play  her  part,  provided 
she  shows  sincerity  and  good  faith." 

For  a  day,  the  attention  of  the  world  was 
turned  on  this  speech  of  Earl  Curzon.  The  ef- 
fect of  it  was  supplemented  by  an  utterance  in 
the  same  spirit,  but  more  fiercely  mordant,  which 
came  out  at  the  same  time  from  the  British 
author,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  was  in  Washing- 
ton writing  about  the  Conference.  Mr.  Wells 
was  pretty  savage  about  France.  He  said: 

The  French  contribution  to  the  Disarmament  Confer- 
ence is  that  France  has  not  the  slightest  intention  of  dis- 
arming. .  .  .  France  proposed  to  scrap  nothing.  France 
does  not  know  how  to  scrap.  .  .  .  The  great  feature  of 
M.  Briand's  discourse  was  his  pretense  of  the  absolute  un- 
importance of  England  in  European  affairs.  France,  for 
whom,  as  Mr.  Balfour  in  a  few  words  of  infinite  gentleness 
reminded  M.  Briand;  France,  for  whom  the  British  Em- 
pire lost  a  million  dead — very  nearly  as  many  as  France 
herself  lost;  France,  to  whose  rescue  from  German  attack 
came  Britain,  Russia  and  presently  Italy  and  America; 
France,  M.  Briand  declared,  was  alone  in  the  world, 
friendless  and  terribly  treated  by  Germany  and  Russia. 
And  on  the  nonsensical  assumption  of  French  isolation, 
M.  Briand  unfolded  a  case  that  was  either — I  hesitate  to 
consider  which — and  how  shall  I  put  that  old  alternative? 
— deficient  in  its  estimate  of  reality,  or  else — just  special 
pleading. 


106  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

The  plain  fact  of  the  case  is  that  France  is  maintaining 

/a  vast  army  in  the  face  of  a  disarmed  world  and  she  is 
preparing  energetically  for  fresh  warlike  operations 
in  Europe  and  for  war  under  sea  against  Great 
Britain. 

I  will  confess  that  I  am  altogether  perplexed  by  the 
behaviour  of  France  at  the  present  time.  I  do  not  under- 
stand what  she  believes  she  is  doing  in  Europe,  and  I  do 
not  understand  her  position  in  this  Conference.  Why 
could  she  not  have  cooperated  in  this  Conference  instead 
of  making  it  a  scene  of  special  pleading?  I  have  al- 
ready said  that  the  French  here  seem  to  be  more  foreign 
than  any  other  people  and  least  in  touch  with  the  general 
feeling  of  the  assembly.  They  seem  to  have  come  here  as 
national  advocates,  as  special  pleaders,  without  any  of 
that  passionate  desire  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  world 
settlement  that  certainly  animates  nearly  every  other  dele- 
gation. They  do  not  seem  to  understand  how  people  here 
regard  either  the  Conference  or  France. 

People  here  want  to  see  Europe  recuperating,  and  they 
are  beginning  to  realize  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  a  recup- 
erating Europe  is  the  obstinate  French  resolve  to  dominate 
the  Continent,  to  revive  and  carry  out  the  antiquated  and 
impossible  policy  of  Louis  XIV,  maintaining  an  ancient 
and  intolerable  quarrel,  setting  Pole  against  German  and 
brewing  mischief  everywhere  in  order  to  divide  and  rule, 
instead  of  entering  frankly  into  a  European  brotherhood.  1 

/  ~ 

I  1  What  I  have  said  of  the  tolerance  about  France  so  far  as  America 
was  concerned,  Is  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  the  violence  of  this  ut- 
terance from  Mr.  Wells  was  generally,  and,  in  some  quarters,  very 
pointedly  deplored.  The  New  York  Tribune  called  it  "furor  Teuton i- 
cus"  and  said:  "It  is  fortunate  for  France  that  Britain  is  not  populated 
by  H.  G.  Wellses;  for  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  only  the  depressing 
minority  of  H.  G.  W.'s  personality  and  views  withholds  him  from  leading 
a  horde  of  internationalized  Wellses  straight  on  Paris,  bundling  the 
iniquitous  Foch  off  to  some  convenient  St.  Helena  and  propagandizing 


France  Says  "No"  107 

From  this  article  by  Mr.  Wells,  and  from  Earl 
Curzon's  speech,  we  all  knew  now  that  a  row 
was  on  between  France  and  Great  Britain. 
But  for  both  a  general  and  a  specific  reason,  the 
Conference  and  America  rather  stood  aside  from 
it.  As  Mr.  Wells  admitted — and  this  was  what 
the  lawyers  call  an  admission  against  the  wit- 
ness's own  interest,  for  Mr.  Wells  wanted  to 
keep  this  quarrel  in  the  spotlight,  on  the  theory 
that  a  brisk  row  and  plain  speaking  might  clear 
the  air — "The  Americans  generally  don't  like 
this  quarrel.  .  .  .  They  would  like  to  hear  no 
more  of  it." 

And  America  and  the  Conference  made  up 
their  minds  to  hear  no  more  of  it.  The  Con- 
ference wanted  to  get  on  with  naval  armament. 
Happily,  it  was  on  the  same  day  as  Earl  Cur- 
zon's speech  that  M.  Briand  took  ship  back 
to  Europe.  We  chucked  the  Anglo-French 
quarrel  on  the  deck  after  him.  In  fact,  M. 
Briand  did  go  to  London  to  see  Lloyd  George, 
and  thence  the  two  of  them  to  Cannes  in  a  series 


(the  entire  French  nation  out  of  existence."  (Not  only  America,  but 
even  in  England.  The  London  Daily  Mail  went  so  far  as  to  discon- 
tinue printing  Mr.  Wells's  articles.)  Mr.  Wells  was  good-natured  under 
the  whim  of  fate  that  seized  on  him  to  be,  for  a  few  hours,  a  vicarious 
sacrifice  to  the  spirit  of  harmony  at  any  cost.  He  didn't  rail  at  France 
any  more,  but  in  personal  conversations  with  his  friends  in  Washington 
he  warned  us  that  the  sore  was  there,  that  the  better  policy  was  to 
exacerbate  it  and  bring  it  out,  and  that  in  any  event  it  would  come 
out,  anyhow,  sooner  or  later.  In  a  few  weeks  we  knew  he  was  right, 
and  that  this  state  of  mind  and  heart  on  the  part  of  the  French 
Government  was  a  fundamental  and  not-to-be-avoided  element  in  the 
Conference. 


108  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

of  discussions  aimed  at  patching  up  some  kind 
of  harmony.  That  trouble  was  now  off  in  an- 
other orbit.  So  far  as  the  Conference  was  con- 
cerned, all  we  knew  or  cared  about  was  that  land 
armament  was  off  the  agenda,  and  that  it  was 
Briand  who  put  it  off.  We  regretted  that,  but 
we  couldn't  see  any  help  for  it.  Some  of  the 
delegates,  especially  those  from  Italy,  kept 
thinking  something  or  other  might  yet  be  done. 
But,  generally,  everybody  knew  that  the  attitude 
of  the  French  had  made  it  impossible  to  do  any- 
thing about  land  armament.  The  Conference 
took  a  long  breath  over  the  ending  of  an  unpleas- 
ant interlude,  and  turned  to  resume  the  subject 
of  naval  armament. 


CHAPTER  V 

5-5-3  AND  THE  "MUTSU" 

WE  CAN  now  turn  away  for  a  time  from 
France,  and  leave  land  armament  wholly 
behind  us.  One  turns  away  from  it  as 
from  a  thing  that  was  unsatisfactory — all  that 
happened  about  armies  and  land  armament.  It 
was  made  clear  that  the  Conference  could  do 
nothing  whatever  about  this  subject.  They 
could  not,  without  hurting  France's  feelings, 
even  go  on  record  with  a  resolution  recommend- 
ing that  something  be  done  about  land  armament 
in  the  future — could  not  even  express  a  "pla- 
tonic  aspiration,"  as  Briand  sarcastically  called 
it,  about  the  future  limitation  of  armies  and  land 
armament. 

But  if  this  outcome  was  unsatisfactory,  it  was 
not  what  could  be  called  necessarily  discourag- 
ing. Land  armament__was  relatively  a  minor 
part  of  the  Conference  agenda.  Nobody 
thought  of  it  as  bulking  big.  While  it  had  a 
place  on  the  agenda,  it  had  not  been  alluded  to 
in  that  opening  speech  of  Hughes ;  and  it  was  in 
terms  of  Hughes's  speech  that  the  world  was 

109 


110  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

thinking  of  the  Conference.  It  was  the  dra- 
matic quality  of  that  speech,  and  the  daring  pro- 
posals it  made  about  naval  armament  that  had 
focused  the  eyes  of  the  world  on  Washington.1 
And  inasmuch  as  naval  armament  alone  had 
/been  dealt  with  in  that  speech,  it  was  conse- 
,'  quently  in  terms  of  limiting  naval  armament 
\  that  the  world  was  thinking  of  the  Conference 
\  and  measuring  its  success.  Because  of  this,  the 
preventing  of  the  Conference  from  doing  any- 
thing about  land  armament  caused  less  sense  of 
discouragement  than  would  have  been  the  case 
under  other  circumstances.  It  was  rather  a 
happy  accident  that  Briand's  wish  to  return  to 
Europe  had  caused  this  subject  to  be  brought 
up,  and,  with  its  unsatisfactory  outcome,  to  be 
put  behind  the  Conference,  within  the  first 
eleven  days.  With  a  sense  of  slight  relief,  but 
with  no  marked  diminishing  of  hope,  the  Con- 
ference turned  to  the  great  subject  of  limiting 
naval  armament. 

II 

In  now  resuming  the  course  of  the  Hughes 
plan  for  naval  armament,  we  find  ourselves  con- 

1  A  despatch  from  Europe  about  this  time,  reflecting  the  currents  of 
emotion  that  had  been  set  in  motion,  said  that  Hughes  had  become  "a 
hero  to  nil  Europe's  rank  and  file."  And  it  was  a  little  later  that  Bal- 
four,  addressing  a  meeting  in  New  York,  described  Hughes's  speech  as 
"one  of  the  most  remarkable  utterances  that  have  ever  been  made  by 
any  statesman  under  any  circumstances.'* 


6-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  111 

sidering  the  forces  that  were  involved  in  that 
strange  word,  curious  to  American  ears,  which 
for  week  after  week  had  the  leading  place  on  the 
Conference  stage — the  Mutsu. 

Of  the  three  crises  in  the  course  the  Hughes 
proposals  about  naval  armament  took,  it  was  the 
Mutsu  that  provided  the  first.  If  you  were  to 
review  the  headlines  of  the  newspapers  during 
the  first  six  weeks  of  the  Conference,  you  would 
get  the  impression  of  a  tide  of  battle  swinging 
back  and  forth  between  two  too  equal  antago- 
nists. One  day  it  was  "Hughes  plan  wins; 
Mutsu  dropped."  The  next  it  was  "Japanese 
keep  Mutsu;  Hughes  plan  endangered."  You 
could  fill  a  chapter  with  these  contradictory 
headlines.  It  was  on  again,  off  again,  every 
other  day. 

To  follow  this  dispute  and  have  any  adequate 
judgment  on  the  concessions  the  Japanese  con- 
tended for,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  what  was 
the  basis  of  the  Hughes  plan. 

Ill 

The  fundamental  theory  on  which  the  Hughes  , 
plan  was  based — and  it  is  very  important  to  un-' 
derstand  this — was  that  the  nations  should  stop  \ 
the  building  of  competitive  navies  as  of  the  open- 
ing  day  of  the  Conference,  November  12th. 


112  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Hughes  plan  was  not  an  attempt  to  assign  to 
each  of  the  various  nations  such  a  size  of  navy 
as  it  might  theoretically  be  entitled  to.  That  is 
the  essential  thing  to  remember  about  it  when 
you  try  to  follow  the  difficulty  that  arose  with 
the  Japanese.  The  basis  of  the  Hughes  plan 
was  to  take  the  navies  of  the  world  as  they  were 
— as  of  November  12th — and  stop  there.  It  is 
important  to  remember  this,  for  it  was  the  heart 

f  of  the  Hughes  plan.  It  was  the  thing  that  made 
the  Hughes  plan  unique,  and  the  thing  that 
made  it  possible  to  come  to  an  agreement  on  it. 

/Any  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  basis  of  limitation 

/  by  considering  how  large  a  navy  each  nation 
ought  to  have  would  merely  have  led  to  endless 

\  debate.  All  that  sort  of  thing  had  been  dis- 
cussed— and  dismissed — during  the  long  weeks 
that  Hughes  and  our  American  naval  experts 
had  spent  in  preparing  the  plan.  Various  form- 
ulas had  been  considered,  and  discarded  as  futile.1 


l  To  suggest  the  difficulties  the  navy  men  were  in  when  they  tried  to 
work  out  a  formula  for  the  limitation  of  navies,  I  cannot  do  better 
than  quote  a  portion  of  a  despatch  I  sent  from  Washington  one  d.iy 
in  the  fall,  before  the  Conference  began,  at  a  time  when  Secretary 
Denby,  Assistant  Secretary  Roosevelt,  and  the  admirals  were  trying  to 
evolve  some  kind  of  formula.  The  despatch  reflected,  with  some  in- 
tentionally humorous  exaggeration,  the  Impression  that  was  in  my  mind 
after  hearing  several  navy  men  talk  of  the  troubles  they  were  having. 
It  is  a  typical  picture  of  the  atmosphere  and  state  of  mind  at  the 
time:  "The  question  is  more  complex  than  the  underlying  declaration 
of  principle.  How  soon  it  can  be  settled  depends  on  how  the  Confer- 
ence treats  it.  If  the  civilian  conferees  handle  it  themselves,  they  can 
arrive  at  a  rough-and-ready  common-sense  definition  in  a  very  short 
time.  But  if  the  conferees  turn  it  over  to  a  committee  of  naval  ex- 


6-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  113 

There  had  been  attempts  to  arrive  at  a  formula 
which  should  assign  to  each  nation  a  navy  in  pro- 
portion to  its  relative  wealth,  or  its  population, 
or  its  length  of  coast-line,  or  its  distance  from 
potential  enemies.  In  attempting  to  make  a 
plan  on  any  one  of  these  bases,  or  on  a  combina- 
tion of  them,  the  American  naval  experts  found 


perts,  then,  Heaven  help  us  all!  There  will  be  weeks  of  argument  over 
fine-spun  details.  A  newspaper  man  amused  himself  the  other  day  by 
writing  a  parody  of  the  bewildering  result  of  a  conversation  with  a 
naval  expert  over  what  constitutes  a  navy  adequate  for  purposes  of 
national  defense.  The  parody  reflected  the  impression  made  on  a 
civilian  by  a  naval  man's  infinite  technicalities.  It  read:  'Divide  the 
number  of  American  submarines  by  the  number  of  British  dread- 
naughts,  and  subtract  the  number  of  Japanese  cruisers.  To  this  result 
add  the  cube-root  of  the  sum  of  the  coast-lines  of  America,  Japan,  and 
Great  Britain.  Multiply  by  the  maximum  distance  between  the  coast 
of  America  and  the  coast  of  Japan.  Add  the  average  rate  of  ex- 
change between  pounds  and  dollars;  divide  by  the  sum  of  the  national 
wealth  of  Japan,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States,  and  place  the 
decimal  point  four  figures  from  the  right.'  The  hopeless  thing  about 
the  naval  expert  definitions  of  a  navy  adequate  for  defense  is  not 
merely  that  they  are  technical.  Intelligence  can  comprehend  technicali- 
ties. But  the  real  trouble  about  the  naval  expert  discussions  is  that 
they  get  nowhere.  They  go  round  and  round  in  circles.  Each  thing  is 
contingent  on  something  else,  and  there  is  neither  starting  point  nor 
stopping  point.  But  if  the  civilian  conferees  keep  this  subject  within 
their  own  control,  their  intention  and  disposition  are  such  that  they 
can  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  working  definition  within  a  very  short 
time." 

In  reproducing  this  hasty  despatch  of  the  day,  in  which  there  was 
a  certain  amount  of  deliberately  exaggerated  humorous  emphasis,  I 
ought  to  be  careful  to  say  that  the  difficulties  the  navy  men  had  were 
unescapable,  from  the  nature  of  the  problem  as  it  was  first  presented  to 
them.  They  had  been  asked  to  work  out  a  formula  for  what  was 
called  an  "equitable  relativity"  among  the  navies  of  the  world.  The 
truth  is,  as  the  navy  men  discovered,  there  was  and  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  "equitable  relativity"  which  all  nations  could  be  brought  to  agree 
upon,  no  such  thing  as  an  ideally  perfect  theoretic  assignment  of  the 
size  of  navy  each  nation  should  be  entitled  to,  having  regard  to  its 
special  needs,  its  distance  from  potential  enemies  and  the  like.  The 
only  possible  formula  was  the  one  later  adopted  in  the  Hughes  plan. 
And  when  the  navy  men  were  relieved  from  an  impossible  task,  and 
given  the  simpler  one  of  assembling  the  figures  for  the  Hughes  plan, 
they  did  a  superb  piece  of  work.  It  was  intricate  and  delicate,  and  the 
data  our  navy  men  brought  together  stood  up  under  the  most  search- 
ing and  critical  review  by  the  naval  experts  of  the  other  nations,  later 
on. 


\ 


114  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

themselves  wandering  in  endless  circles  and  get- 
ting nowhere. 

I  am  not  very  familiar  with  what  went  on  in 
the  preparation  of  the  Hughes  plan.  With 
that  part  of  the  work  I  had  only  the  most  casual 
contact,  and  wholly  from  the  outside.  That 
was,  in  fact,  and  still  remains,  to  a  large  degree, 
one  of  the  most  carefully  and  successfully  kept 
secrets  in  history.  As  I  said  in  the  account  of 
the  opening  session,  only  nine  human  beings  in 
the  universe  knew  what  the  Hughes  plan  was. 
They  were  Mr.  Hughes  and  the  other  three 
American  delegates,  together  with  President 
Harding  and  four  navy  men.1 

But  without  knowing  exactly  how  the  Hughes 
plan  came  into  existence,  I  suspect  that  what 
happened  was  that  the  American  naval  experts, 
soon  after  it  was  known  the  Conference  was  to 
be  held,  were  asked  to  devise  a  formula  for  the 
limitation  of  armaments;  that  they  spent  weeks 
in  futile  attempts  at  arriving  at  a  formula  which 
should  assign  to  each  nation  such  a  size  of  navy 
as  should  be  theoretically  adequate,  based  on 
coast-lines,  or  on  national  wealth,  or  what  not; 


1 1  have  been  told  that  there  were  only  two  copies  of  the  plan  in 
existence  up  to  seven  o'clock  of  the  forenoon  of  November  12th,  four 
hours  before  Hughes  threw  it  before  the  world.  I  have  also  heard  the 
Government  Printing  Office  highly  praised  for  the  speed  of  their  work. 
They  were  given  the  copy  at  seven  In  the  morning,  and  by  the  time 
Hughes  had  finished  his  speech,  the  printed  copies  were  ready  to  be 
given  out. 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  115 

and  that  in  the  end  they  threw  up  their  hands 
in  despair  and  "laid  down"  on  Mr.  Hughes.1 

i  In  saying  this  I  ought  again  to  be  careful  not  to  seem  to  underes- 
timate the  work  of  our  navy  men.  The  truth  is  the  naval  men,  when 
they  were  asked  to  evolve  a  formula  for  "equitable  relativity,"  were 
hesitant  before  a  mental  bunker,  so  to  speak,  that  is  inherent  in  their 
training.  The  navy  has  a  kind  of  axiom  to  the  effect  that  the  navy  is 
the  armed  servant  of  the  political  end  of  government — that  it  is  not  the 
navy's  business — indeed,  that  it  is  improper  for  them,  even,  to  suggest 
how  large  or  how  small  the  country's  navy  should  be;  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  political  end  of  the  Government  to  tell  the  navy 
what  the  Government's  political  and  diplomatic  purposes  are; 
and  then  the  navy  will  tell  the  Government  how  large  a  navy  is  re- 
quired for  those  objectives.  The  navy  experts  are  entirely  at  home 
when  asked  to  say  how  many  ships  they  need  for  attack  or  defense 
against  a  foreign  navy,  or  to  accomplish  any  other  naval  purpose;  but 
when  they  were  summoned  into  the  ante-room  of  statesmanship  and 
asked  to  devise  a  formula  for  restricting  the  size  of  navies  on  a  basis 
of  "equitable  relativity,*'  they  were  in  unfamiliar  waters.  During  the 
period  when  the  navy  men  were  at  work  on  this  unfamiliar  and  fun- 
damentally impossible  task,  one  of  them  spoke  at  length  about  the  diffi- 
culties involved;  the  widely  varying  and  conflicting  factors  that  had  to 
be  considered.  He  talked  of  how  difficult  it  was  to  say,  for  example, 
how  large  a  navy  Great  Britain  should  be  permitted  to  have,  with  its 
far  distant  dominions  and  colonies,  in  proportion  to  the  more  compact 
territory  of  the  United  States  or  Japan.  He  spoke  of  the  greater  naval 
need  of  an  island  empire  dependent  on  the  sea  for  its  food.  He  spoke 
of  the  difficulty  and  possible  injustice  of  adjusting  the  navies  of  the 
nations  on  the  basis  of  relative  wealth  and  economic  resources.  He 
threw  up  his  hands  over  the  hopelessness  of  trying  to  fix  the  relative 
values,  for  example,  of  submarines  and  dreadnaughts,  destroyers  and 
seaplanes.  I  recall  that  when  I  suggested  fixing  the  amount  of  money 
each  nation  should  be  permitted  to  spend,  as  a  limitation  on  future 
building,  this  naval  officer  said  that  would  not  do  because  of  the  fluc- 
tuation of  exchange.  The  truth  is,  trying  to  make  a  formula  for  a 
theoretically  perfect  balance  among  the  navies  was  an  impossible  thing. 
But  after  that  had  been  thrown  overboard,  and  after  the  essential 
principle  of  merely  taking  the  size  of  navy  each  nation  actually  has, 
as  a  basis,  was  decided  upon,  when  the  naval  men  were  asked  to  supply 
the  exact  figures  carried  out  to  the  third  decimal  point  as  to  exactly 
what  was  the  capital  ship  tonnage  of  each  nation  as  of  November  12th, 
and  what  relation  this  aggregate  capital  ship  tonnage  of  the  countries 
bore  to  each  other — when  the  navy  men  were  asked  to  do  that  they  were 
entirely  at  home  and  they  did  a  job  that  will  stand  up  in  history.  They 
got  the  facts  and  figures  with  the  greatest  care  and  from  the  highest 
authorities.  Later  on,  during  the  long  tension  between  Hughes  and  Kato 
over  the  10-6  ratio,  when  the  Japanese  as  well  as  the  naval  experts 
of  other  nations  went  over  Mr.  Hughes's  figures  with  the  most  critical 
and  microscopic  eye,  the  figures  stood  up  to  the  test  in  a  way  that  must 
have  made  the  navy  men  proud  and  Hughes  proud  of  them.  On  the 
basis  of  the  figures  supplied  by  our  navy  men,  Hughes  challenged  the 
world.  If  the  figures  had  turned  out  to  be  in  any  way  in  error,  Hughes 
would  have  been  embarrassed  and  possibly  worse  than  merely  em- 
barrassed. But  our  navy  men  had  done  their  job  well,  and  all  the  ex- 
perts from  Great  Britain  and  Japan  were  obliged  to  admit  in  the  end, 
after  weeks  of  intent  scrutiny,  that  the  figures  were  correct. 


116  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

I  suspect  it  was  then  that  Mr.  Hughes  saw 
that  the  only  practicable  way  was  to  take  not 
theoretically  adequate  navies,  but  actual  navies 
— not  what  each  nation  ought  to  have,  but  what 
each  nation  did  have.  I  suspect  he  threw  over- 
board all  that  the  navy  men  had  been  doing,  and 
asked  them  merely  to  supply  him  with  complete 
figures  as  to  the  exact  strength  of  each  navy  as 
it  then  stood. 

Whether  this  guess  of  mine  about  the  process 
is  correct  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  the  basis  of  the 
Hughes  plan  was  the  relative  strength  of  exist- 
ing navies.  Hughes  said,  in  effect,  "the  way  to 
stop  is  to  stop.  We  will  determine  exactly  how 
we  stand  in  relation  to  each  other  now,  and  we 
will  agree  to  keep  that  relativity.  We  will  try 
to  get  the  nations  to  stop  building  as  of  Novem- 
ber 12th.  If  they  are  unwilling  to  stop  as  of 
that  date,  it  is  of  little  use  to  hope  they  will  be 
willing  to  stop  as  of  some  other  date,  or  to  agree 
on  some  standard  of  relative  strength  that  at- 
tempts to  be  theoretically  or  ideally  fair."  The 
whole  basis  of  the  Hughes  plan,  therefore,  and 
the  heart  of  its  hope  of  success,  was  to  take  the 
navies  of  the  world  as  they  stood. 

(I  have  a  feeling  that  it  is  inadequate  and  out 
of  proportion  to  stop  with  this  mere  allusion  to 
the  basis  of  the  Hughes  plan  and  how  it  was  ar- 
rived at.  The  simplicity  of  that  plan,  the  going 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  117 

to  the  heart  of  an  infinitely  complex  and  difficult 
problem,  and  grasping  the  one  thing  that  was  at 
the  same  time  essential  and  practicable — that  was 
in  itself  an  act  of  genius.  It  alone,  quite  apart 
from  the  rest  of  the  work  of  the  Conference,  was 
an  outstanding  feat  of  intellect  and  common 
sense.  The  origin  of  the  Hughes  plan  is  one  of 
the  most  picturesque  of  the  "now-it-can-be-told" 
sort  of  thing  that  the  history  of  the  Conference 
developed.  But  this  is  not  the  place  for  it.  The 
one  point  that  needs  to  be  made  and  understood 
for  the  purposes  of  the  present  chapter  is  that  the 
basis  of  the  Hughes  plan  was  actual  tonnage  of 
ships  as  they  stood  on  November  12th.1) 

IV 

Now  it  turned  out  that  the  actual  strength  of 
the  three  great  navies  as  of  the  day  the  Confer- 
ence opened  bore  a  relation  to  each  other  ex- 
pressed in  the  figures  5-5-3 — it  was  sometimes 
expressed  in  the  equivalent  figures  10-10-6. 
That  is  to  say,  the  British  and  American  navies 
were  about  equal  to  each  other,  and  the  Japanese 
navy  was  equal  to  about  three  fifths  of  each  of 
the  others.  "Therefore,"  said  Hughes  in  ef- 

1  My  feeling  that  the  Hughes  plan  was  an  outstanding  act  of  genius 
is  borne  out  in  a  degree  by  what  has  been  said  by  others  since  this 
chapter  was  written.  Among  others,  an  English  naval  expert,  Mr. 
Hector  Bywater,  writing  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  February,  said: 
"With  the  wisdom  that  comes  after  the  event,  we  can  see  now  that 
no  plan  other  than  that  propounded  by  Mr.  Hughes  would  have  led  to 
the  desired  result." 


118  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

feet,  "we  will  preserve  that  proportion,  that 
ratio,  that  relativity."  ("Ratio"  and  "relativity" 
were  the  words  that  became  prominent  in  the 
vocabulary  of  the  Conference.) 

To  the  Japanese,  this  ratio  was  acutely  un- 
satisfactory. (It  may  well  have  been  unsatis- 
factory to  the  British,  also;  but  if  it  was,  they 
swallowed  their  pride.  The  British  "played 
the  game."  As  I  shall  try  to  explain  in  a  later 
chapter,  I  think  it  was  the  British  who,  so  far  as 
naval  armament  is  concerned,  gave  up,  in  the 
interest  of  the  purpose  of  this  Conference,  more 
that  was  concrete  than  any  other  nation.  I 
think  also  it  was  the  United  States  who  gave  up 
the  greatest  potential  advantage.  But  what 
Great  Britain  gave  up  was  actual.  True,  I  sus- 
pect the  British  would  not  have  been  able  to 
continue  to  keep  the  thing  she  gave  up — namely 
dominance  on  the  ocean,  the  position  of  mistress 
of  the  seas — if  we  should  determine  to  take  it 
away  from  her.  In  any  event,  at  this  Confer- 
ence, Great  Britain  looked  destiny  in  the  face 
and  made  the  gesture  of  self-denial.) 
.  (At  this  point,  it  occurs  to  me,  as  a  fact  of 
more  than  ordinary  dramatic  interest,  that  I  find 
myself  recording  one  of  the  outstanding  events 
of  history  in  the  course  of  a  mere  parenthesis  in 
the  narrative  of  the  Conference.  The  assent  of 
the  British  to  the  Hughes  plan  was  the  equiva- 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  119 

lent  of  any  naval  battle  in  history.  Indeed,  it 
might,  without  unreasonable  exaggeration,  be 
regarded  as  the  equivalent  of  all  the  naval  battles 
in  history.  It  was  Colonel  Repington  who  re- 
marked that  this  American  Secretary  of  State, 
in  one  speech,  sunk  more  ships  than  all  the  ad- 
mirals in  history.  It  was  Colonel  Repington 
also  who  called  Hughes's  speech  "the  most  mag- 
nificent political  gesture  in  all  history."  But  it 
is  also  true  that  the  assent  of  the  British  to 
Hughes's  plan  was  not  less  magnificent.  And  J 
yet,  that  gesture  of  assent  must  have  been  made 
so  quietly,  so  much  without  ostentation,  that  a 
historian  of  the  Conference  finds  himself  record- 
ing it  in  a  mere  parenthesis.  But  this  lack  of 
emphasis  is  in  the  correct  proportion,  so  far  as 
the  narrative  of  the  Conference  is  concerned.  In 
the  more  exciting  and  contentious  events  of  the 
Conference,  this  is  the  part  the  assent  of  the 
British  played.  I  find  that  in  Hughes's  report, 
which  he  made  to  the  President  at  the  end  of  the 
Conference,  and  which  the  President  transmit- 
ted to  the  Senate,  he  unconsciously  reflects  this 
lack  of  conspicuousness  that  the  British  assent 
played.  He  gives  several  pages  to  the  resis- 
tance made  by  the  Japanese,  and  many  hundreds 
of  words  to  the  contentions  set  up  by  the  French; 
but  his  only  allusion  to  the  British  reception  of 
the  plan  is  in  a  phrase  of  four  words  occurring  in 


120  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  middle  of  a  sentence  dealing  with  another 
phase  of  the  Conference.  Mr.  Hughes's  sen- 
tence reads:  "The  American  plan  fixed  the  ratio 
between  the  United  States,  Great  Britain  and 
Japan  as  5-5-3  or  10-10-6;  Great  Britain  at  once 
agreed,  but  the  Japanese  Government  desired  a 
ratio  of  10-10-7."  And  yet,  those  five  words 

j  italicized  above  record  one  of  the  milestones  in 
v  history.  By  the  action  those  five  words  de- 
scribe, Great  Britain  gave  up  the  position  she 
had  held  for  two  hundred  years  as  undisputed 

\  mistress  of  the  seas.  About  the  place  of  this 
event  in  history,  I  shall  say  more  in  Chapter  XI. 
Of  course,  Mr.  Hughes's  phrase  "at  once"  must 
be  taken  as  relative  to  the  entire  length  of  the 
Conference.  It  is  pretty  clear  that  the  British 
assent  did  not  come  until  after  there  had  been  a 
considerable  period  of  minute  examination  of 
the  details  of  the  plan  by  the  British  naval  ex- 
perts, and  several  days  of  communication  be- 
tween the  British  delegates  and  their  home 
government.  But  the  inconspicuous  place  of 
this  pregnant  sentence  in  Mr.  Hughes's  narra- 

/  tive  must  reflect  the  uncontentious,  unostenta- 
tious manner  in  which  the  British  gave  their 
assent.  One  can  picture  Mr.  Balfour  saying  to 
Mr.  Hughes,  in  the  course  of  a  casual  conversa- 
tion, "By  the  way,  Mr.  Secret'ry,  it's  quite  all 
right  about  that  ratio."  In  some  such  manner 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  121 

as  this,  one  imagines,  it  must  have  been  that 
Great  Britain  did  the  thing  that  generously 
waved  aside  all  argument,  that  put  the  weight 
of  their  assent  behind  the  pressure  on  the  others 
to  do  likewise;  that  made  the  Conference  a  suc- 
cess; that  yielded  Great  Britain's  primacy  on  the 
seas  to  an  equality  with  America;  and  that  set 
up,  in  any  way  you  look  at  it,  one  of  the  mile- 
stones of  human  history.) 

The  Japanese,  I  say,  were  acutely  dissatisfied 
with  the  Hughes  plan.  The  Japanese  naval 
men  had  brought  a  formula  of  their  own  to 
Washington;  but  the  Hughes  tactics  of  laying 
all  the  cards  on  the  table  at  the  opening  session 
deprived  both  Great  Britain  and  Japan  of  the 
opportunity  of  presenting  whatever  formulas  of 
their  own  making  they  may  have  brought  with 
them.  You  might  say  that  in  a  way  this  was  a 
little  "raw"  of  Hughes.  You  could  make  out  a 
good  case  to  the  effect  that  while  it  was  all  right 
for  Hughes  to  name  the  Maine,  and  the  Missouri, 
and  the  Virginia,  and  other  American  ships,  and 
offer  to  scrap  them,  he  might  have  stopped  there. 
He  might  have  given  an  opening  to  the  others 
to  say  what  they  were  willing  to  do.  For 
Hughes  to  go  on  and  name  the  Hoods  and  the 
other  proud  ships  of  Britain,  and  tell  her  she 
would  be  expected  to  scrap  them;  and  to  name 
the  Kit,  the  Owari,  the  Toga,  and  the  Mutsu, 


122  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

and  the  other  ships  that  were  the  pride  of  Japan, 
and  tell  her  she  would  be  expected  to  scrap  them 
—that  was,  let  us  admit,  pretty  bold.  But  it 
was  just  this  boldness  that  gave  the  Hughes  plan 
the  eclat  and  success  it  had. 

The  formula  the  Japanese  had  brought  with 

them  was  based  not  on  her  existing  strength, 

\  but  rather  on  the  strength  she  hoped  to  "have, 

\  and  thought  she  ought  to  have.     That  is  to  say, 

it  was  based  on  precisely  the  theory  that  Hughes 

had  discarded.     For  this  formula  of  their  own, 

the  Japanese  put  up  a  fight. 

From  the  opening  of  the  Conference,  almost 
every  other  day,  statements,  more  or  less  in  the 
shape  of  hints  and  innuendo,  more  or  less  direct, 
came  from  the  Japanese  to  the  effect  that  they 
weren't  quite  satisfied  with  the  5-5-3  ratio. 
They  didn't  feel  their  proportion  was  large 
enough.  These  successive  statements  of  greater 
demands  emanating  from  the  Japanese  increased 
in  definiteness  and  directness  until  they  reached 
a  point  where  the  Americans  could  hardly  afford 
to  ignore  them.  At  that  point  was  the  first  epi- 
sode that  might  be  called  a  crisis  in  the  Hughes 
plan. 

V 

I  happen  to  recall  vividly  the  day  this  hap- 
pened, when  the  American  determination  to 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  123 

stand  firmly  by  the  Hughes  plan  was  made 
known.  On  that  day  there  was  a  reception  at 
our  house  for  the  foreign  and  American  corre- 
spondents. Those  whose  duties  did  not  call  on 
them  to  follow  what  is  called  the  "spot  news"  of 
the  Conference,  came  early — Mr.  Bryan,  Will 
White,  H.  G.  Wells,  Miss  Tarbell,  and  the  rest 
of  those  whom  the  more  active  workers  used  to 
refer  to  as  "the  trained  seals"  (a  term  whose 
precise  relevancy  I  have  never  fully  understood, 
but  as  to  which  the  disdain,  if  there  is  any  in  it, 
is  sufficiently  tempered  with  kindly,  if  conde- 
scending, tolerance). 

But  those  whose  work  entailed  actual  attend- 
ance at  everything  that  happened  came  late  and 
in  that  state  of  alert  and  eager  spirits  which  at- 
tends the  "breaking"  of  important  news.  I  re- 
call vividly  one  of  the  Japanese  correspondents, 
who  came  last  of  all,  and  in  a  state  of  breathless 
apology  explained — in  the  slightly  pedantic, 
slightly  imperfect  English  that  gives  a  touch  of 
quaint  and  attractively  exalted  courtesy  to  so 
many  of  the  Japanese — that  he  had  been  en- 
gaged upon  an  errand  of  international  good  will. 
He  had  learned  that  afternoon,  as  all  the  corre- 
spondents had,  that  the  Americans  were  deter- 
mined to  stand  firmly  by  the  Hughes  plan;  and  ' 
he  had  hurried  to  officials  of  his  own  government 
to  tell  them  "the  Americans  would  be  deeply 


124  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

pained  by  any  obstruction  to  the  very  noble  plan 
of  Mr.  Hughes,  and  Japan  must  not  do  so  any 
more."  l 

VI 

Just  what  had  happened  that  afternoon  can- 
not be  made  clear  by  any  method  better  than  by 
repeating  here  a  condensation  of  the  account  of 
it  which  was  sent  by  Mr.  Frederic  W.  Wile  to 
his  paper,  the  Philadelphia  Ledger: 

America  tonight  hurled  her  second  bombshell  into  the 
Armament  Conference.  She  declines  to  consider  pro- 
posals for  more  fighting  ships  than  the  Hughes  program 
allots.  The  bombshell  is  aimed  in  the  direction  of  Japan. 
It  burst  upon  the  horizon  with  dramatic  suddenness  a 
bare  twenty-four  hours  after  Admiral  Baron  Kato's  noti- 
fication that  the  Japanese  seek  an  increase  in  their  tonnage 
quota.  Spokesmen  of  the  United  States  virtually  branded 
Japan's  proposals  as  unacceptable.  They  are  considered 
as  striking  at  the  very  vitals  of  America's  plan  and  pur- 
pose. The  Hughes  program  aims  at  direct  and  imme- 
diate stoppage  of  the  competition  in  preparations  for 
aggressive  warfare.  Japan's  suggestions  run  counter,  in 
American  opinion,  to  the  achievement  of  that  object.  The 


l  It  is  a  /act  that  about  this  time  a  group  of  the  Japanese  journalists 
who  were  in  Washington  to  report  the  Conference,  held  a  meeting  and 
initiated  something  in  the  nature  of  a  "round  robin,"  demanding  that 
the  Japanese  delegates  accept  the  Hughes  plan  without  reservations. 
This  sort  of  cleavage,  based  on  questions  within  the  domestic  politics 
of  Japan,  was  constantly  cropping  out  at  the  Conference.  Most  of  the 
Japanese  newspaper  men  represented  an  element  of  Japanese  public 
opinion  more  liberal  (more  liberal,  partly,  of  course,  because  less 
sible)  than  some  of  the  official  delegates. 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  125 

American  position  was  defined  in  terms  unmistakably 
savoring  of  an  ultimatum.  .  .  ,  They  remain  firmly  of 
the  opinion  that  any  power,  no  matter  which,  that  seeks  to 
raise  the  quota,  subjects  itself  to  the  suspicion  that  mo- 
tives other  than  those  of  national  defense  somewhere  find 
lodgement  in  its  thoughts  and  calculations.  America  has 
construed  the  public  opinion  of  its  own  country  and  of  the 
world  at  large  as  meaning  that  naval  competition  shall 
stop.  The  United  States  says  bluntly  it  cannot  be  stop- 
ped if  somebody,  somewhere,  is  going  to  begin  it  again. 
Giving  one  the  right  to  build  another  ship  will  mean,  in 
America's  estimate,  a  prompt  clamor  by  others  in  the  same 
direction.  ...  In  making  a  prompt  categorical  reply 
to  proposals  for  "raising  the  Hughes  ante"  America  is  ac- 
tuated by  one  simple  purpose.  That  is,  to  let  the  people 
of  the  United  States  and  all  others  concerned  know  ex- 
actly what  we  mean  by  the  Hughes  program  and  our  de- 
termimation  to  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  carry  it  into 
execution. 

This  bombshell  did  not  cause  the  Japanese  to 
stop.  Never  in  the  shape  of  anything  approach- 
ing an  ultimatum,  but  in  a  score  of  ways  direct 
and  indirect,  they  kept  letting  it  be  known  that 
they  felt  the  Hughes  ratio  to  be  unsatisfactory  K 
to  them.  The  Japanese  wish  included  two  fea- 
tures. They  wanted  a  ratio  of  5-5-3%  (in  this 
narrative  I  speak  interchangeably  of  the  Hughes 
plan  ratio  as  5-5-3,  or  10-10-6 ;  and  the  ratio  the 
Japanese  wanted  was  5-5-3%  or  10-10-7) ;  and 
they  especially  wanted  to  keep  one  particular 
ship  that  the  Hughes  plan  had  scrapped,  namely, 


126  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  Mutsu.  For  weeks  on  weeks,  that  unfami- 
liar word  had  the  biggest  place  in  the  headlines. 
The  Japanese  insistence  was  not  what  could 
be  called  firm.  It  might  be  said,  not  that  they 
insisted  on  their  own  claims,  but  rather  that  they 
evaded  assenting  to  the  Hughes  plan.  They 
received  some  opprobrium  for  their  course  and 
endured  it  stoically.  Their  motives  were  im- 
pugned. It  was  said  they  were  holding  up  the 
Conference  in  order  to  make  a  trade  for  ad- 
vantages elsewhere.  I  came  to  be  impressed 
with  a  hurt  and  pleading  quality,  almost  a  pa- 
thetic quality,  in  the  tenacity  with  which  the 
Japanese  clung  to  their  position  against  what 
must  have  seemed  to  them  pretty  disagreeable 
comment  emanating  from  many  American 
sources.  Finally,  one  day  at  lunch  with  some 
Japanese  journalists,  I  got  to  the  bottom  of  it. 
It  was  Mr.  Adachi  Kinnosuke  who  told  me  what 
I  later  included  in  a  despatch.  I  repeat  this 
despatch  in  the  words  that  describe  the  way  it 
struck  me  at  the  time,  and  with  which  I  tried  to 
make  it  clear  to  our  own  public: 

All  the  talk  about  Japan  not  accepting  the  ratio  of 
ships  laid  down  by  Mr.  Hughes  probably  has  had  less  to 
do  with  the  Armament  Conference  than  with  politics  in 
Japan.  For  many  years  the  Japanese  politicians  of  all 
parties,  and  especially  those  Japanese  leaders  who  are 
now  in  power,  have  been  telling  the  Japanese  people 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  127 

that  they  must  have  seven  ships  to  every  ten  that  any 
other  nation  has.  "Seven  to  ten"  has  been  a  kind  of 
political  slogan  in  Japan.  The  Japanese  are  very  much 
poorer  than  we  are,  and  it  has  been  more  difficult  for  the 
Japanese  Government  to  persuade  its  people  to  give  up 
their  money  for  shipbuilding  than  it  has  been  with  us. 
The  consequence  is  that  the  size  of  the  national  navy  has 
cut  a  much  larger  figure  in  Japanese  politics  than  it  has 
in  ours.  The  Japanese  politicians  have  built  up  a  senti- 
ment among  their  people  for  the  definite  naval  ratio  of 
seven  .to  ten.  Our  own  naval  men,  like  those  in  Japan, 
have  always  had  a  theoretically  desirable  ratio  as  the 
standard  to  work  toward.  Our  theoretical  ratio  was  ten 
tons  to  Japan's  five.  But  our  navy  men  and  our  govern- 
ment leaders  have  never  had  to  preach  this  ratio  up  and 
down  the  country  to  political  audiences  in  order  to  per- 
suade the  people  to  endorse  the  taxation.  Ninety-nine 
out  of  a  hundred  of  our  people  have  never  heard  anything 
about  naval  ratios.  But  the  Japanese  leaders  have  had 
to  preach  their  ratio  of  seven  to  ten  up  and  down  the 
country  until  their  people  were  familiar  with  it;  and  that 
is  what  is  worrying  them  now.  In  their  hearts  the  Japa- 
nese have  never  really  doubted  that  the  Hughes  ratio  of 
six  to  ten  is  correct,  but  they  have  had  to  consider  their 
political  situation  at  home.  The  Japanese  position  on 
the  navy,  in  fact,  is  somewhat  like  the  Briand  speech  on 
land  armament.  It  is  intended  not  so  much  to  affect  the 
present  Conference  as  to  avoid  political  upheaval  "back 
home/'  It  has  been  much  like  many  speeches  made  by 
American  Congressmen,  designed  less  to  affect  the  deci- 
sion at  issue  than  to  square  themselves  with  their  con- 
stituents. 

Not  only  has  the  seven  to  ten  ratio  been  a  Japanese 


128  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

political  slogan,  but  further  than  that,  the  particular  ship 
involved,  the  Mutsu,  has  been  made  a  kind  of  popular 
personification  and  symbol  of  Japanese  naval  aspirations. 
To  the  Japanese  people  the  Mutsu  has  become  among  ships 
what  our  unknown  American  was  among  soldiers  at  the 
recent  Armistice  Day  celebration.  It  has  a  halo  round 
it.  A  Japanese  journalist  tells  me  that  every  Japanese 
laborer  feels  that  he  has  a  personal  dime  or  quarter  in  the 
Mutsu.  It  was  built  with  money  obtained  through  volun- 
tary self-sacrifice  from  Japanese  laborers,  who  earn  about 
a  quarter  a  day  and  pay  about  a  nickel  of  that  in  taxes. 
In  large  part  it  was  built  not  out  of  taxation,  but  actually 
out  of  voluntary  gifts  and  popular  collections  and  sub- 
scriptions. This  journalist  tells  me  that  the  shock  in- 
volved in  scrapping  this  splendid  new  ship,  less  than  a 
month  old,  may  cause  the  overturn  of  the  present  Japa- 
nese ministry  before  the  delegates  get  back  from  the  Con- 
ference. Incidentally,  this  Japanese  journalist  revealed 
a  rather  likable  trait  in  Japanese  psychology.  When  I 
asked  him  why  his  delegates  didn't  go  to  the  British  and 
American  delegates  and  explain  their  political  necessities 
back  home  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  this  journalist  had 
spoken  to  me,  he  replied  that  the  Japanese  delegates 
were  much  too  proud  and  sensitive  to  ask  concessions  on 
any  basis  of  personal  or  political  self-interest.  Of  course, 
the  British  and  American  delegates  would  not  be  able  to 
yield,  but  they  might  get  a  better  understanding  of  the 
spirit  of  the  situation.  The  ten  to  six  ratio  cannot  be 
changed.  Ten  to  six  is  not  a  policy  or  a  doctrine  or  a 
theory;  it  is  a  statement  of  fact.  Ten  to  six  is  the  ratio 
of  the  navies  to  each  other  as  of  November  12th,  the  day 
the  Conference  opened.  If  there  is  to  be  a  cessation  of 
competition,  that  is  the  point  at  which  it  ceases.  In 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  129 

effect,  the  Japanese  say:  "We  are  willing  to  stop,  but 
first  you  stop  where  you  are,  and  let  us  go  ahead  of  where 
we  now  are  about  ten  yards,  and  then  let  us  all  stop." 
The  American  position  is  that  if  we  are  to  cease  competi- 
tion, then  the  only  practicable  basis  is  to  stop  where 
everybody  now  is.  If  you  depart  from  that,  you  get  into 
the  impossible  field  of  trying  to  arrive  at  a  theoretical 
ratio  of  just  what  size  of  navy  each  country  is  entitled  to. 
That  would  lead  to  endless  debate  and  technicalities. 

It  will  be  observed  that  while  I  tried  to  make 
the  domestic  political  embarrassments  of  the 
Japanese  delegates  clear  to  an  American  au- 
dience, and  while  I  expressed,  as  I  felt,  a  sym- 
pathetic understanding  of  their  difficulties,  I 
stated  that  there  was  no  hope  that  America 
would  make  any  compromise  on  the  ratio  of  5 
to  3.  But  among  the  other  things  I  had  learned 
from  my  Japanese  friend  was  the  fact  that  as 
between  the  5-3%  ratio  and  the  Mutsu,  it  was  the 
latter  that  meant  more  to  them.  It  was  the 
privilege  of  retaining  the  Mutsu  that  would  go 
furthest  toward  "squaring"  them  with  their  peo- 
ple at  home,  as  we  would  express  it  in  America ; 
or  toward  "saving  their  faces,"  as  the  Oriental 
expression  has  it. 

The  Japanese  contention  against  the  Hughes 
plan  really  fell  into  four  parts:  First  of  all, 
Japan  attacked  the  fundamental  principle  on 
which  the  Hughes  plan  was  founded — the  prin- 


130  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ciple  which  I  have  pointed  out  repeatedly  was 
the  only  possible  one  upon  which  any  limitation 
of  navies  could  be  based.  Japan  set  up  the  same 
argument  which  Mr.  Hughes,  in  advance  of 
making  his  plan,  had  considered  and  seen  to  be 
impossible,  and  had  dismissed.  Japan  wanted 
the  right  to  have  such  a  size  of  navy  relative  to 
the  others  as  would  be  adapted  to  what  she  con- 
sidered her  "special  needs."  The  answer  to 
that  obviously  was  and  is,  that  if  any  one  nation 
should  insist  on  considering  her  special  needs, 
each  of  the  other  nations  would  be  equally  en- 
titled to  take  account  of  its  special  needs.  Each 
nation  would  have  to  be  the  judge  of  what  con- 
stituted its  own  special  need,  and  no  two  nations 
could  be  brought  to  agree  on  a  definition  of 
"special  need,"  whether  for  itself  or  for  any  of 
the  others.  The  end  of  the  attitude  taken  by 
Japan  would  have  been  a  prolonged  debate 
which  could  have  got  nowhere.  As  Mr.  Hughes 
says  in  his  report,  "General  considerations  of  na- 
tional need,  aspirations  and  expectations,  policy 
and  programme  could  be  brought  forward  by 
each  power  in  justification  of  some  hypothetical 
relation  of  naval  strength  with  no  result  but 
profitless  and  interminable  discussion."  The 
fundamentally  sound  logic  of  the  Hughes  plan 
as  the  only  possible  one  was  indisputable.  There 
were  only  two  courses :  either  to  stop  competing, 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  131 

or  to  go  on  competing.  To  attempt  to  find  any 
other  course  would  involve  a  fallacy  in  logic 
which  Hughes  expresses  by  saying,  "It  was  im- 
possible to  terminate  competition  in  naval  arma- 
ment if  the  powers  were  to  condition  their  agree- 
ment upon  the  advantages  they  hoped  to  gain  in 
the  competition  itself."  I  repeat,  there  were  only 
two  possible  courses.  One  was  for  the  nations 
to  stop  competing  at  the  point  where  they  were 
on  November  12th.  The  other  was  to  go  on  com- 
peting. If  competition  was  to  go  on,  and  if  the 
United  States  were  to  enter  upon  that  competi- 
tion with  all  its  strength,  Japan  could  not  hope 
to  keep  a  ratio  of  10-7  or  anything  approaching 
it.  If  the  course  of  competition  were  forced 
upon  us,  and  if  we  chose  to  enter  it  with  all  our 
strength,  we  could  build  not  merely  ten  ships  to 
Japan's  seven,  but  more  nearly  four  ships  to  her 
one,  and  even  beyond  that.  As  an  American 
naval  officer,  speaking  in  advance  of  the  Confer- 
ence, and  using  naval  terminology,  expressed  it, 
"If  it  is  to  be  a  race,  then  'three  bells  and  a  jin- 
gle; full  steam  ahead/  and  see  who  goes  broke 
first."  It  is  apparent  from  Hughes's  report,  as 
well  as  from  many  things  we  all  observed  during 
the  course  of  the  Conference,  that  Hughes  stood 
absolutely  firm  for  his  plan  as  the  only  one  upon 
which  limitation  could  be  based.  Hughes  kept 
the  argument  on  the  basis  of  actual  existing  naval 


132  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 
•• 
strength  and  never  moved  from  it.     His  report 

says: 

When  the  argument  was  presented  by  Japan  that  a  bet- 
ter ratio — that  is,  one  more  favorable  to  Japan — than  that 
assigned  by  the  American  plan,  should  be  adopted,  and 
emphasis  was  placed  upon  the  asserted  needs  of  Japan, 
the  answer  was  made  that  if  Japan  was  entitled  to  a  better 
ratio  upon  the  basis  of  actual  existing  naval  strength  it 
should  be,  but  otherwise  it  could  not  be,  accepted. 

In  the  course  of  time  Japan  yielded  on  this 
point  and  accepted  "actual  existing  naval 
strength"  as  the  basis  of  limitation.  But  the 
same  instant  Japan  raised  a  question  as  to  the 
definition  of  what  "actual  existing  naval 
strength"  is.  Japan  contended  that  "actual  ex- 
isting naval  strength"  consists  of  ships  in  com- 
mission only.  Hughes's  plan,  on  the  other  hand, 
for  the  purpose  of  measuring  existing  naval 
strength,  had  included  ships  in  course  of  con- 
struction to  the  degree  in  which  they  approached 
completion  as  a  part  of  actual  existing  naval 
strength.  (By  this,  Hughes  meant,  for  ex- 
ample, that  if  a  ship  of  forty  thousand  tons  is 
three  fourths  complete,  it  should  be  counted  as 
30,000  tons  in  computing  the  existing  naval 
strength  of  the  nation  owning  it.) 

The  Hughes  plan  did  not,  of  course,  consider 
merely  paper  programmes  for  building,  but  did 
consider  all  "ships  laid  down  or  upon  which 


5-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  133 

money  had  been  spent."  The  heart  of  this  con- 
tention is  expressed  in  Hughes's  report  in  these 
words : 

It  was  the  position  of  the  American  Government  that 
ships  in  course  of  construction  should  be  counted  [as  a 
part  of  actual  existing  naval  strength]  to  the  extent  to 
which  construction  had  already  progressed  at  the  time  of 
the  convening  of  the  Conference.  The  latter  position  was 
strongly  contested  by  Japan  upon  the  ground  that  a  ship 
was  not  a  ship  unless  it  was  completed  and  ready  to  fight. 

The  heart  of  this  controversy  lay  in  the  fact 
that  if  ships  afloat  only  were  considered  in 
measuring  the  existing  relative  strength,  Amer- 
ica would  not  be  credited  with  the  more  than 
three  hundred  million  dollars  which  she  had  laid 
out  on  unfinished  ships.  That  these  unfinished 
ships  of  ours,  which  we  could  complete  in  periods 
ranging  from  a  few  weeks  upward,  were  a  part 
of  our  existing  naval  strength,  is  inconsistible. 
In  the  end  the  Japanese  were  compelled  to  yield 
to  the  logic  of  the  Hughes  plan  on  this  issue  also, 
and  assented  to  the  Hughes  position  that  ex- 
isting naval  strength  consists  of  ships  afloat  and 
ready  to  fight,  plus  ships  under  construction,  in 
the  degree  in  which  they  approach  completion. 

The  next  point  raised  by  the  Japanese  was  to 
the  effect  that  while  the  "ratio  proposed  by  the 
American  Government  might  be  acceptable  un- 


134  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

der  existing  conditions,  it  could  not  be  regarded 
as  acceptable  by  the  Japanese  Government  if 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  should 
fortify  or  establish  additional  naval  bases  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean."  The  answer  of  the  American 
Government  to  this  was  that  it  could  not  make 
any  promises  about  the  future  fortification  of  its 
own  coasts  or  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands — that 
with  respect  to  these  it  must,  in  the  language  of 
Mr.  Hughes's  report,  "remain  entirely  unre- 
stricted." But  as  to  the  fortifications  and 
naval  bases  in  our  insular  possessions  in  the 
Pacific,  except  Hawaii,  the  American  delegation 

expressed  itself  as  willing  to  maintain  the  status  quo  if 
Japan  and  the  British  Empire  would  do  the  like.  It  was 
recognized  that  no  limitation  should  be  made  with  respect 
to  the  main  islands  of  Japan,  or  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land, with  their  adjacent  islands,  any  more  than  with  re- 
spect to  the  insular  possessions  adjacent  to  the  coast  of 
the  United  States,  including  Alaska  and  the  Panama  Canal 
Zone,  or  the  Hawaiian  Islands.  The  case  of  the  Aleutian 
Islands,  stretching  out  toward  Japan,  was  a  special  one, 
and  had  its  counterpart  in  that  of  the  Kurile  Islands,  be- 
longing to  Japan,  and  reaching  out  to  the  nortlieast  toward 
the  Aleutians.  It  was  finally  agreed  that  the  status  quo 
should  be  maintained  as  to  both  these  groups. 

The  final  contention  of  the  Japanese  was  the 
most  spectacular,  the  one  that  figured  most  in 
the  newspapers;  but  relatively  it  was  much  the 


6-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  135 

least  important.     Once  the  ratio  of  10-6  was 
agreed  to,  it  did  not  matter  much  whether  Ship 
A  was  scrapped  and  Ship  B  saved,  or  vice  versa. 
It   was   true,   the   Hughes   plan   contemplated 
scrapping  all  ships  under  construction;  and  in 
the  American  estimate,  the  Mutsu  was  a  ship 
under  construction,  although  the  American  es- 
timate   conceded    that    the    Mutsu   was    about 
ninety-eight  per  cent,  complete  when  the  Con- 
ference met.     The  Japanese  delegation  insisted 
that  the  Mutsu  had  actually  been  finished,  was 
commissioned  and  fully  manned  before  the  Con- 
ference met.     The  difference  was  a  minute  one 
at  best.     Moreover,  for  reasons  I  have  given, 
this  latest  and  newest  addition  to  the  Japanese 
Navy  was  a  source  of  especial  pride  to  the  Japa- 
nese people.     As  it  was  expressed,  "the  Mutsu 
had  a  halo  round  it."     In  the  end,  it  was  agreed       Of 
to  yield  to  this  one  of  the  Japanese  contentions,  yr 
The  American  ratio  was  maintained  in  all  re-/    aP 
spects,  but  the  Japanese  were  permitted  to  keep   ^ 
the  Mutsu,  scrapping  a  ship  called  the  Settsu  in  jfa 
its  place.  \ 

VII 

The  day  this  conclusion  was  arranged  and 
given  to  the  public  was  one  of  the  big  days  of 
the  Conference.  It  came  about,  or  at  least  the 
public  announcement  of  it  came  out,  in  a  way  to 


136  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

make  good  feeling.  It  happened  that  on  the 
same  morning  the  newspapers  carried  a  despatch 
from  Tokio,  saying  the  Japanese  had  decided 
to  yield  the  Mutsu,  and  on  the  same  page  were 
the  announcements  from  Washington  that  the 
Conference  had  decided  to  let  the  Japanese  keep 
the  ship  upon  which  she  set  such  sentimental 
store. 

It  was  a  happy  occasion  and  an  important 
one.  The  official  announcement  was  given  out 
in  a  way  that  reflected  the  satisfaction  which 
Hughes  and  the  other  American  conferees  felt. 
(The  British  shared  this  satisfaction,  for  they 
had  joined  the  Americans  in  urging  Japan  to 
accept  this  ratio.) 

To  be  sure,  there  was  just  a  little  dismay. 
In  order  to  let  Japan  keep  the  Mutsu  it  was 
necessary  to  rearrange  the  Hughes  plan  in  a 
way  which  was  slight  in  degree  but  caused  some 
inconvenience  to  America  and  Great  Britain. 
The  arrangement,  as  I  have  said,  was  that  Japan 
should  keep  the  Mutsu  and  scrap  in  its  stead  the 
Settsu,  which  the  Hughes  plan  included  among 
the  ships  to  be  saved.  But  the  Mutsu  was  a 
newer  and  larger  ship  than  the  Settsu.  In 
order,  therefore,  to  equalize  matters  and  keep  the 
ratio  the  same,  it  was  necessary  that  America 
should  complete  two  of  her  new  ships  which  the 
Hughes  plan  had  scrapped.  This  didn't  amount 


6-5-3  and  the  "Mutsu"  137 

to  a  great  deal,  for  these  two  American  ships 
were  well  on  their  way  to  completion  anyhow. 
But  in  order  to  equalize  things  for  Great  Britain, 
it  was  made  necessary  for  her  to  build  two  new 
ships  from  the  ground  up.  I  recall  the  dismay 
of  several  of  the  British  correspondents  at  the 
announcement  that  it  would  be  necessary  for 
the  hard-pressed  British  taxpayer,  if  Great 
Britain  was  to  have  the  exact  ratio,  to  give  up 
some  twenty  million  pounds  in  order  to  let  the 
Japanese  "save  their  faces"  about  the  Mutsu. 

Nevertheless,  considered  with  relation  to  the 
entire  naval  holiday,  and  to  the  Hughes  plan  as 
a  whole,  the  variation  from  the  original  literal N 
Hughes  plan,  was  negligible.1  The  relativity, 
which  was  the  essential  thing  in  the  Hughes 
plan,  was  not  affected  at  all.  We  all  felt  as 
happy  as  Hughes  obviously  did.  The  Hughes 
plan  on  naval  armament  had  passed  the  only 
obstacle  that  had  so  far  developed,  and  the  only 
one  that  anybody  had  anticipated.  So  far  as 
capital  ships  were  concerned,  we  assumed  the 
Conference  was  as  good  as  over. 

l  The  original  Hughes  plan  had  given  the  following  tonnage  to  each 
of  the  countries: 

United  States 500,000  tons 

Great    Britain 500,000  tons 

Japan  300,000  tons 

The  modifications  involved  in  letting  the  Japanese  keep  the  Mutsu 
gave  to  each  of  the  nations  the  following  tonnage: 

United    States 525,000  tons 

Great    Britain 525,000  tons 

Japan  315,000  tons 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SECOND  CRISIS 

HUGHES  had  announced  that  Japan  had 
finally  accepted  the  5-5-3  ratio — had  ac- 
cepted, indeed,  all  those  sweeping  pro- 
posals about  capital  ships  that  Hughes  had 
made  in  his  opening  speech,  with  the  single  ex- 
ception that  she  should  be  permitted  to  keep  the 
Mutsu  and  scrap  the  Settsu  in  its  stead.  In- 
asmuch as  Great  Britain  had  already  accepted 
the  ratio,  this  announcement  was  of  enormous 
importance.  We  took  it  as  meaning  that  the 
Hughes  capital-ship  ratio,  the  essential  part  of 
the  Hughes  plan,  the  part  that  had  thrilled  the 
world,  was  practically  adopted.  We  supposed 
that  this  acceptance  by  Japan,  after  Great 
Britain  had  already  accepted,  was  the  equivalent 
of  final  success.  We  recalled  the  public  thrill 
that  had  greeted  the  announcement  of  the 
Hughes  plan  on  that  sensational  opening  day; 
and  we  assumed  that  that  thrill  was  now  justi- 
fied by  fulfilment.  It  was  an  afternoon  of 
rejoicing,  and  when  the  newspapers  of  the  fol- 
lowing morning  printed  the  announcement,  they 

138 


The  Second  Crisis  139 

and  the  public  generally  reflected  the  universal 
sense  of  satisfaction. 

Then,  within  eighteen  hours  after  Mr.  Hughes 
had  told  the  newspaper  men,  within  the  period 
from  late  one  evening  until  ten  the  next  morn- 
ing, almost  before  the  public  had  had  a  chance 
to  take  in  the  great  news  which  implied  that  the 
Hughes  capital-ship  ratio  was  substantially  a 
completed  thing — something  happened.  And 
since  the  manner  of  its  happening  became  of 
some  importance  later,  it  should  be  told  in  de- 
tail. 

II 

There  was  at  the  Conference  a  certain  Lord 
Riddell.  (He,  too,  should  have  a  whole  chap- 
ter.) The  precise  status  of  Lord  Riddell,  and 
the  nature  of  his  role  at  the  Conference,  was  a 
subject  of  much  discussion.  He  was  not  offi- 
cially connected  with  the  British  delegation.  He 
himself  was  always  emphatic  in  making  that 
clear.  Nevertheless,  he  was  on  the  most  intimate 
terms  with  them.  Mr.  Balfour  and  Ambassador 
Geddes  came  to  dinner  with  him;  and  he  went  to 
dinner  with  them.  There  was  some  talk  that  he 
was  a  kind  of  unofficial  representative  of  Lloyd 
George  with  the  duty  of  scouting  around  on  the 
outside  and  reporting  to  his  chief  what  American 
politics  would  call  "the  low-down."  Undoubt- 


140  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

edly,  Lord  Riddell,  was  close  to  Lloyd  George 
and  was  in  frequent  communication  with  him. 

In  any  event,  there  was  one  definite  function 
which  Lord  Riddell,  in  a  wholly  unofficial  way, 
took  on  himself,  and  which  became  one  of  the 
most  important  aspects  of  the  Conference,  oc- 
casionally more  interesting  than  what  went  on 
within  the  Conference  room.  He  used  to  hold 
levees  for  the  newspaper  men  twice  a  day,  at 
10 :30  and  3 :30.  At  these  levees  he  used  to  give 
news  to  the  reporters.  The  news  was  not  of- 
ficial. The  British  had  an  official  press  repre- 
sentative, but  it  was  not  Lord  Riddell.  Riddell 
did  it  all  "on  his  own."  If  you  were  to  accept 
the  superficial  aspect  of  Lord  Riddell's  activities 
in  this  respect,  you  would  be  obliged  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  he  just  sort  of  liked  to  be  kind 
to  his  fellow  newspaper  men  (he  is  himself  the 
owner  of  a  weekly  paper  in  London).1 

l  Completeness  in  this  narrative  requires  it  to  be  recorded  that  some, 
especially  those  who  were  partial  to  the  French,  and  those  who  were 
antagonistic  to,  or  suspicious  of,  the  British  diplomacy,  claimed  that 
Lord  Riddell's  real  function  at  the  Conference  was  that  of  a  British 
propagandist — to  further,  by  his  contacts  with  the  newspaper  men, 
whatever  might  be  the  British  objective  from  time  to  time.  This  charge 
was  based  on  appearances,  and  on  the  nature  of  the  case.  Without 
any  doubt,  Lord  Riddell  was  and  is  close  to  Lloyd  George.  No  doubt 
he  would  further  the  interests  of  Great  Britain  when  he  could  do  so 
legitimately.  Once,  in  the  course  of  some  badinage  between  him  and 
an  American  newspaper  man,  he  said,  "I  am  a  lawyer" — He  was  a  law- 
yer before  he  became  the  owner  of  a  London  weekly  newspaper — "I 
am  a  lawyer,  and  therefore  a  philanthropist,  and  glad  to  answer  ques- 
tions without  charge."  Against  the  theory  that  Lord  Riddell  wa><  a 
British  propagandist  in  any  official  sense,  is  the  fact  that  there  was 
said  to  be  feeling  between  him  and  the  man  who  was  officially  attached 
to  the  British  delegation  as  its  liaison  man  with  the  press.  The  official 
British  publicity  man  was  said  by  many  to  resent  the  presence  and  the 
activities  of  the  unofficial  Lord  Riddell. 


The  Second  Crisis  141 

These  sessions  with  Lord  Riddell  came  to 
be,  for  the  reporters,  one  of  the  most  eagerly 
attended  events  of  the  day.  Not  only  did  he  al- 
ways have  news  to  give  out,  he  was  an  arrest- 
ing and  vivid  personality,  and  he  had  a  gift  of 
quick  badinage — altogether  an  interesting  char- 
acter with  marked  individuality  and  much 
ability.  The  newspaper  men  were  grateful  to 
him  for  his  news  and  liked  him  for  his  person- 
ality. 

On  this  particular  morning,  Lord  Riddell 
told  the  reporters  that  at  a  secret  session  the  day 
before,  the  matter  of  capital- ship  allowance  for 
France  had  come  up;  that  Hughes  had  under- 
taken to  make  the  allotment  to  France  on  the 
basis  of  her  present  existing  relative  strength 
plus  a  little  more,1  namely,  on  a  basis  of  1.75  for 
France  as  compared  to  3  for  Japan  and  5  each 
for  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States;  and 
that  the  French  delegates  had  created  consterna- 
tion by  refusing  to  accept  so  small  an  allotment, 
and  were  insisting  on  the  right  to  build  ten  new 
capital  ships  of  35,000  tons  each. 

To  exaggerate  the  sensation  which  this  news 
made  would  be  difficult.  It  carried  us  at  one 


l  It  should  be  observed  that  in  doing  this,  Hughes  was  making  an 
exception  in  favour  of  France,  compared  to  the  basis  he  had  laid  down 
for  Great  Britain,  the  United  States,  and  Japan.  These  three  nations 
were  required  to  scrap  40  per  cent,  of  their  present  strength.  France 
was  permitted  to  keep  all  her  present  strength  amounting  to  164,000 
tons,  and  was  assigned  enough  in  addition  to  bring  her  future  total 
up  to  175,000  tons. 


142  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

plunge  from  the  heights  of  satisfaction  to  the 
deeps  of  most  disturbed  concern.  We  were 
wholly  unprepared  for  it.1  There  was  no  way  we 
could  have  anticipated  it.  It  is  true  that  when 
Mr.  Hughes,  the  night  before,  had  made  his 
announcement  of  what  we  had  taken  to  be  the 
success  of  the  plan,  through  Japan's  acceptance, 
he  had  coupled  the  announcement  with  one  small 
qualification  in  the  shape  of  a  brief  closing  para- 
graph. "This  arrangement,"  Mr.  Hughes  had 
concluded,  "between  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain,  and  Japan,  is,  so  far  as  the  number  of 
ships  to  be  retained  or  scrapped  is  concerned, 
dependent  upon  a  suitable  agreement  with 
France  and  Italy2  as  to  their  capital  ships,  a 


1  It   is   true   that   some   weeks  before,    shortly   after   the    Conference 
opened,  one  of  the  newspapers  had  carried  a  story  to  the  effect  that 
the   French   would  put   forth   a   claim   to    be   allowed   to   increase   her 
capital  ships.    But  this  unofficial  story  had  not  sunk  in  on  us,  and  when 
the   announcement   was   now   made    authoritatively,    it   caused    surprise 
and  consternation. 

2  It  should  be  pointed  out  here  that  Italy  "played  the  game"  hand- 
somely.   Italy  accepted  the  allotment  assigned   to   her  without   demur- 
ring.   Mr.    Hughes's    report    says:    "Italy    sought    parity    with    France, 
and  this  principle  having  been  accepted  in  the  course  of  the  discussion, 
it  was  likewise  proposed  that  Italy  should  be  allowed   175,000   tons  of 
capital  ships  in   replacement.    .    .    .    The  proposed   maximum   limit  of 
175,000   tons  was   at  once   accepted   by   Italy."    Previously,    Hughes,    in 
the  letter  he  wrote  to  Briand,  calling  on  the  latter  to  make  it  possible 
for  the  Conference  to  succeed,  had  made  pointed  allusion  to  the  will- 
ingness  of   Italy   to   accept   the   allotment    made   to    her.     "Italy,"   Mr. 
Hughes  told  Briand,  "is  desirous  to  reduce  her  capital  ships,  because  of 
the  obvious   requirements  of  her  economic  life,   to   the   lowest   possible 
basis,  and  there  will  not  be  the  slightest  difficulty  in  making  an  agree- 
ment with  Italy  if  we  can  reach  a  suitable  understanding  with  France." 
It  can  be  taken  for  granted,  from  the  whole  spirit  of  this  message  of 
Hughes's,  that  he  meant  Briand  to  take  a  hint  from  this  reference  to 
Italy's  economic  condition.    In  other  parts  of  this  same  letter,  Hughes 
made  more  direct  reference  to   France's  need  to  spend  her  money  on 
her  economic  requirements  rather  than  on  warships. 


The  Second  Crisis  143 

matter   which   is    now    in    course    of    negotia- 
tions." 

But  nobody  paid  any  attention  to  this  brief 
and  seemingly  almost  irrelevant  qualification  to 
the  great  announcement.  It  did  not  occur  to 
anybody  that  France  or  Italy  had  it  in  their 
power,  or  in  their  desire,  to  take  any  im- 
portant part  in  the  naval  armament  agreement. 
Everybody  took  it  for  granted  that  this  was  a 
matter  for  the  three  big-navy  nations  alone. 
That  was  the  atmosphere  of  the  Conference. 
Everybody,  when  they  talked  of  the  naval  ratio, 
spoke  in  terms  of  Great  Britain,  America,  and 
Japan.  Nobody  thought  of  France  or  Italy 
as  having  any  particular  "say"  about  the  capital- 
ship  ratio.  If  there  were  any  who  saw  the 
faintest  possibility  of  anything  menacing,  even 
among  those  who  had  become  troubled  about 
France's  attitude  toward  the  Conference,  they 
felt  that  that  country  had  already,  as  it  was  ex- 
pressed by  those  who  had  come  to  feel  frankly 
a  little  bitter  about  her,  "done  all  her  devilment" 
when  she  prevented  the  Conference  from  taking 
up  land  armament.  Among  Americans  certainly 
there  was  hardly  any  one  who  dreamed  that 
France,  having  got  the  right  to  go  her  own  way 
so  far  as  land  armament  was  concerned,  would 
thereafter  embarrass  the  Conference  in  the  mat- 
ter of  naval  armament  also. 


144  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 


III 

I  have  said  that  the  news  that  France  was 
making  trouble  was  given  out  by  Lord  Riddell 
at  his  10 :30  morning  session.  Naturally,  it  was 
the  big  news  of  the  day.  The  newspaper  men 
were  keen  for  more  details  about  it. 

Then  at  his  afternoon  session,  a  few  hours 
later,  Lord  Riddell  brought  along  one  of  the 
official  British  delegates  as  a  spokesman  to  an- 
swer such  questions  as  the  newspaper  men 
might  ask  on  this  or  any  other  subject.  Of 
course,  the  questions  the  newspaper  men  asked 
on  this  occasion  had  to  do  with  the  news  of  the 
recalcitrant  action  of  France.  The  official 
British  spokesman  told  us  gravely  that,  of  course, 
he  could  not  reveal  anything  that  had  transpired 
at  a  secret  session.  (We  already  knew  it,  and  he 
must  have  known  we  already  knew  it,  from  the 
unofficial  British  spokesman,  Lord  Riddell.) 
But  in  answer  to  pressing  from  the  reporters, 
this  official  British  spokesman  explained, 
through  the  means  of  hypothetical  questions, 
that,  of  course,  it  must  be  assumed  that  in  the 
event  that  any  nation  with  a  smaller  navy  should 
insist  on  the  right  to  go  on  and  build  a  navy 
greatly  superior  to  what  she  now  has,  then  that 
would  make  it  necessary  for  Great  Britain  to 


The  Second  Crisis  145 

increase  greatly  her  allowance  of,  roughly,  500,- 
000  tons,  which  was  the  essential  part  of  the 
Hughes  plan.  In  short,  this  official  British 
spokesman  let  us  know  that  what  France  was^ 
insisting  on  would  practically  kill  the  Hughes  ) 
plan  and  make  the  Conference  futile.  Witn 
grave  and  punctilious  disavowal  of  any  willing- 
ness to  reveal  what  he  had  learned  in  the  secret 
sessions;  with  careful  avoidance  of  mentioning 
names  of  individuals  or  nations,  and  using  only 
the  device  of  hypothetical  situations,  he  made  us 
understand  that  if  France  should  insist  on  rais- 
ing her  allotted  ratio  of  1.75  up  to,  or  close  to, 
3,  then  Italy  would  insist  on  the  same  size  of 
navy  as  France;  these  two  3's  combined  would 
make  6,  which  was  more  than  Great  Britain's 
allowance  of  5;  and  Great  Britain  could  never 
be  content  with  a  navy  smaller  than  the  com- 
bined navies  of  any  two  other  European  nations. 
In  short,  and  pointedly,  this  British  spokesman 
made  us  understand  clearly  that  the  course 
which  France  was  energetically  pursuing  would 
be  certain  to  result  in  what  the  newspaper  men, 
in  their  informal  talk,  described  as  "upsetting 
the  apple  cart."  A  colloquial  summary  of  the 
situation  of  the  moment,  if  expressed  in  a  terse 
headline,  would  have  read,  "France  spills  the 
beans." 

Now  when  the  newspapers  printed  all  this  the 


146  The  Great  Adventure    at  Washington 

next  day,  the  French  were  furious  with  the 
British.  One  of  them  went  to  Mr.  Balfour, 
complained  bitterly  of  Lord  Riddell  for  telling 
the  newspaper  men,  and  demanded  his  head. 
Mr.  Balfour  replied  that  he  couldn't  give  them 
Lord  Biddell's  head  because  Lord  Riddell 
wasn't  within  his  jurisdiction.  Lord  Riddell 
wasn't  a  member  of  the  British  delegation,  and 
had  no  official  connection  with  it,  and  therefore, 
couldn't  be  sent  home  to  London,  or  drawn  and 
quartered  or  otherwise  disposed  of  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  French. 

Thereafter  the  friends  of  the  French  made  the 
air  of  Washington  vibrant  with  bitter  complaint 
to  the  effect  that  it  was  all  a  British  trick.  They 
didn't  deny  the  facts.  The  burden  of  their  com- 
plaint was  that  the  British  had  broken  faith,1 
had  revealed  what  had  taken  place  under  a 
pledge  of  secrecy.  It  was  during  these  days 
that  some  of  the  French,  whose  knowledge  of 
more  classical  English  was  limited,  nevertheless 
acquired  sufficient  command  of  vernacular  Eng- 


l  M.  Sarraut,  when  he  received  the  correspondents  that  night,  said: 
"A  definite  promise  of  secrecy  has  been  made,  and  so  far  as  the  FrcMich 
delegation  is  concerned,  this  promise  still  holds  good.  If  indiscretions 
have  been  committed,  they  have  not  been  on  our  side  and  therefore  I 
cannot  discuss  them."  One  among  the  correspondents  who  were  best  in- 
formed about  French  matters,  and  closest  in  touch  with  the  French 
delegation,  Mr.  Lincoln  Eyre,  of  the  New  York  World,  wrote:  "I  learn 
to-night  that  M.  Sarraut  is  resolved  to  inform  Chairman  Hughes  at 
the  Naval  Armament  Committee  meeting  to-morrow,  that  in  view  of 
the  'British  indiscretion'  he  no  longer  will  feel  himself  obliged  to  re- 
main silent." 


The  Second  Crisis  147 

lish  to  know  the  meaning  of  the  term  "frame-up," 
and  used  it  with  fluency  and  force. 

Maybe  it  was  a  frame-up.  Maybe  that  was 
Lord  Biddell's  role  in  Washington — to  commit 
what  diplomacy  calls  "calculated  indiscretions," 
to  say  things  and  have  them  disavowed ;  to  learn 
things  officially,  and  tell  them  unofficially — tell 
them  at  the  time  and  under  the  circumstances 
best  adapted  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  British 
Empire.  Maybe  his  role  was  like  that  of  the 
"sitzredacteur"  in  the  German  newspapers,  the 
unofficial  editor  who  does  the  going  to  jail  for 
the  real  editor  when  libel  suits  are  prosecuted. 
Maybe  there  was  an  understanding  between  the 
unofficial  Lord  Riddell  and  the  official  Balfour. 
I  don't  know.  If  there  was,  it  was  something 
in  the  further  reaches  of  the  more  intricate  mech- 
anism of  diplomacy,  and  I  am  simple-minded 
about  such  things.1 

But  if  it  was  a  frame-up,  it  was  certainly  done 
to  the  queen's  taste — likewise  to  the  King's  and 


1  To  those  who  were  sympathetic  to  the  French  and  suspicious  of 
the  subtlety  of  British  diplomacy,  it  was  merely  the  more  convincing 
evidence  of  a  careful  "frame-up"  when  Lord  Riddell  was  able  to  say 
that  he  had  got  the  information  he  let  out  about  the  proceedings  of 
the  secret  session,  not  from  his  own  delegation,  but  from  the  Italians. 
For  myself,  I  was  not  able  to  be  much  impressed  by  all  the  talk 
about  "British  propaganda,"  in  connection  with  this  episode.  Doubt- 
less Lord  Riddell  would  turn  a  trick  for  the  British  Empire  whenever 
he  could.  But  he  was  constantly  getting  news  of  every  sort,  from  every 
possible  source,  and  giving  it  out  to  the  newspaper  men.  Moreover, 
in  this  present  instance,  it  was  the  nature  of  what  they  did  that  hurt 
the  French — not  the  making  it  public.  The  news  would  have  got  out 
sometime,  anyhow. 


148  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Lloyd  George's  also,  not  to  speak  of  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells's.  The  next  day  the  whole  world  was  on 
France's  neck.  If  the  British  did  really  plan 
this  result,  take  off  your  hat  to  them  for  a  work 
of  art  beautifully  done,  regardless  of  whatever 
are  the  ethical  considerations,  or  the  rules  of  the 
game,  in  these  remoter  reaches  of  the  art  of 
diplomacy. 

But  if  Great  Britain  had  been  guilty  of  a 
diplomatic  trick — and  I  use  the  word  "if"  in  com- 
plete sincerity,  for  I  don't  know — it  was  France 
that  had  done  the  thing.  Great  Britain  had 
merely  let  it  out.  The  attitude  of  the  French 
about  the  whole  episode  was  naive.  At  one  time 
or  another  during  the  twelve  weeks  of  the  Con- 
ference we  heard  a  good  deal  about  the  peculiar- 
ities of  "the  Gallic  temperament."  We  learned, 
whenever  the  French  did  anything  that  seemed 
to  us  pretty  extraordinary,  to  look  bewildered 
and  say  that  must  be  another  case  of  the  Gallic 
temperament.  At  one  time  or  another  we  almost 
got  to  the  point  where  we  had  ourselves  taken  on 
a  characteristic  French  gesture  and  learned  to 
say,  ffCJest  V esprit  Franpaise,  Monsieur!"  But 
of  all  the  odd  points  of  view  that  the  French 
took,  or  that  pro-French  journalists  took  in  their 
behalf,  the  oddest  was  their  crying  to  Heaven 
about  the  wickedness  of  the  British  in  revealing 
this  secret* 


The  Second  Crisis  149 

The  French  didn't  deny  they  had  made  the 
claim  to  the  additional  capital  ships.  Some  of 
the  apologists  for  the  French  even  admitted — 
not  only  admitted,  but  actually  pleaded  in  ex- 
tenuation—that the  French  didn't  make  this 
claim  seriously;  that  they  didn't  have  the  money 
to  build  these  ships,  nor  the  intention  to  build 
them;  but  that  they  had  merely  put  their  claim 
forward  as  the  first  step  in  building  up  a  posi- 
tion which  they  could  use  as  a  trading  point 
with  Great  Britain.  (It  was  apparent  that  the 
French  were  at  all  times  eager  to  make  Great 
Britain  come  to  an  agreement  with  them  cover- 
ing certain  European  matters.)  The  French 
admitted  they  had  made  the  demand  in  the 
secret  session ;  but  acted  as  if  they  really  thought 
in  all  sincerity  that  the  essentially  deplorable 
thing  about  the  whole  transaction  was  Great 
Britain's  letting  it  out  to  the  public. 

Primarily,  it  was  chiefly  a  part  of  the  Euro- 
pean politics  of  France  and  Great  Britain;  but 
essentially  it  was  a  thrust  at  the  heart  of  the 
Conference.  The  American  delegates  were 
deeply  disturbed.  It  was  said  that  in  the  secret 
sessions  Hughes  had  talked  with  such  simple 
directness  that  the  response  of  one  of  the  French 
delegates  had  been  expressed  through  his  lachry- 
mose glands.  However,  that  story  may  have 
been  one  of  many  examples  of  the  sensational 


150  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

overcrowding  the  probable,  of  which  nearly 
every  day  of  the  Conference  was  full.  In  any 
event,  when  Hughes  could  make  no  progress 
with  the  French  delegates  (the  ones  that  were 
left  here  were  minor  men;  both  Briand  and 
Viviani  had  by  his  time  returned  to  Paris),  he 
sent  a  long  cablegram  to  Briand.  Hughes's 
language  to  Briand  was  pretty  pointed.  He 
practically  put  it  up  to  Briand  to  change  his 
country's  position,  or  take  the  responsibility  for 
making  the  Conference  a  failure.  He  recited 
the  facts,  and  said  in  so  many  words,  4 

You  will  observe  the  attitude  of  France  will  determine 
the  success  or  failure  of  this  effort  to  reduce  the  heavy  bur- 
den of  naval  armament. 

Briand  replied  by  cable  in  a  long  message 
which  said  a  good  deal  about  "care  of  the  vital 
interests  of  France,"  and  the  like.  There  were 
polite  conveyances  of  "cordial  remembrances," 
and  a  slightly  self-righteous  reference  to  "the 
effort  of  conciliation  which  we  are  making." 
However,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  there  was  the 
essential  and  needed  sentence: 

I  have  given  instructions  to  our  delegates  in  the  sense 
which  you  desire. 

Thus  the  French  receded  from  their  position 
on  capital  ships,  and  the  second  crisis  that  threat- 


The  Second  Crisis  151 

ened  the  life  of  the  Hughes  plan  was  safely 
over. 

IV 

I  have  described  the  episode  as  it  appeared 
at  the  time.  This  version  reflects  what  nearly 
all  the  American  observers  felt.  That  the 
Americans  were  deeply  disturbed1  by  it,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  Mr.  Hughes's  despatch  to 
Briand,  one  sentence  of  which  I  have  quoted, 
shows  sufficiently  how  he  felt.  It  was  about  the 
same  time  that  another  of  the  Americans  was 
quoted  in  the  gossip  of  Washington  as  saying, 
"France  came  to  this  Conference  to  get  some- 
thing; she  has  not  yet  realized  that  this  is  a 
Conference  where  we  give  up  things." 

Of  the  more  or  less  resentful  sentiment  about 
France  that  prevailed  at  the  time,  I  can  give  no 
evidence  more  readily  available  than  some  para- 
graphs from  one  of  my  own  despatches  of  that 
period.  I  repeat  it  in  the  same  spirit  in  which 
I  have  repeated  several  of  these  contemporan- 
eous despatches,  more  to  give  the  reader  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  time,  than  to 
let  it  stand  as  a  final  or  well-considered  judg- 
ment. 


l  The  despatch  sent  at  the  time  by  Mr.  Charles  Michelson  of  the  New 
York  World  said:  "The  British  delegation  is  disgusted,  the  American 
delegation  alarmed,  and  the  French  delegation  indignant." 


152  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Every  time  France  almost  upsets  the  apple  cart,  Wash- 
ington good  humoredly  says :  "  It's  merely  the  Gallic 
temperament."  We  don't  pretend  that  we  wholly  approve 
this  Gallic  temperament,  or  even  understand  it  fully,  but 
we  find  it  useful  as  a  kind  of  blanket  explanation  for 
things  that  are  otherwise  inexplicable.  In  that  role  the 
phrase  is  called  into  useful  service  rather  more  often 
than  can  be  regarded  as  ideal.  The  other  day  an  entirely 
serious  writer  in  one  of  the  Paris  papers,  replying  to  a 
foreigner's  comments  about  the  spirit  of  Paris,  said: 
"France  wants  to  be  petted."  It  was  a  rather  unusual 
thing  for  a  mature  person  of  the  male  sex  to  say  about  his 
country,  but  that  seems  to  go  along  with  the  rest  as  a 
part  of  "the  Gallic  temperament."  Although  their  most 
recent  blow-up  has  caused  a  good  deal  of  plain  speaking 
both  to  the  French  and  about  the  French,  I  suspect  the 
American  disposition  continues  to  be  one  of  good-humored 
patience,  coupled  with  complete  firmness.  Undeniably, 
Mr.  Hughes  and  Mr.  Root  and  Mr.  Lodge  are  pretty  el- 
derly persons.  It  must  bore  them  more  than  a  trifle  to 
be  called  on  to  include  among  their  diplomatic  duties  that 
of  "petting"  a  nervous  and  excitable  nation  with  a  feminine 
temperament. 

We  all  use  the  words  "France"  and  "the  French"  as  a 
convenient  collective  term  to  describe  the  French  Govern- 
ment and  the  French  officials  here  at  the  Conference;  but 
when  we  try  to  be  more  accurate  we  all  make  distinctions 
between  these  individuals  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those 
sturdy  millions  of  the  plain  people  of  France  who  have 
made  more  sacrifices  in  war  and  are  more  interested  in 
ending  war  than  any  other  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
The  French  people  haven't  lost  any  of  the  good  opinion 
of  America;  but  if  some  of  our  American  officials  and  ob- 


The  Second  Crisis  153 

servers  felt  free  to  talk  about  some  of  the  French  politi- 
cians, there  might  be  some  tolerably  plain  speaking.  The 
French  psychology  seems  to  fail  to  go  hand  in  hand  with 
American  psychology.  There  are  signs  also  that  some 
of  the  French  may  have  misinterpreted  the  college  de- 
grees and  other  honors  we  heaped  on  Marshal  Foch  as 
signs  of  a  willingness  on  our  part  to  give  sympathetic 
support  to  France's  disposition  to  maintain  a  large  army 
and  to  her  militaristic  aims  generally.  Some  American 
officials,  who  must  manage  the  intricate  business  details 
involved  in  untangling  our  alliance  with  France,  might 
conceivably  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  the  "Gallic  pride/' 
which  insists  on  a  larger  navy  than  it  can  possibly  pay 
for,  with  some  other  aspects  of  France's  management  of 
her  financial  affairs.  Seriously  and  pointedly,  this  re- 
cent action  of  France  jeopardizes  the  present  Conference 
no  less  than  it  jeopardizes  the  future  economic  conference 
which  the  French  are  ardently  trying  to  bring  about. 
Nevertheless,  the  net  of  it  all  is  that  America  is  deter- 
mined to  continue  to  make  allowances  for  whatever  France 
does  as  the  not  wholly  to  be  blamed  actions  of  a  nation 
not  yet  free  from  the  hysteria  of  war  and  fear. 


Now,  having  given  the  impression  of  this  epi- 
sode that  was  prevalent  at  the  time,  let  us  see 
what  can  be  said  on  the  other  side. 

Of  all  the  explanations  made,  the  one  most 
favourable  to  the  French,  so  far  as  I  have  heard, 
came  from  an  American  journalist  who  was  gen- 
erally sympathetic  to  the  French  point  of  view. 


154  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

He  explained  that  Hughes,  in  his  original  plan, 
had  indicated  that  the  capital-ship  ratio  was  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  ratio  as  to  submarines  and 
other  auxiliary  craft;  that  while  the  French  had 
no  intention  of  trying  to  build  more  capital 
ships,  they  had  made  up  their  minds  to  claim 
a  larger  ratio  of  submarines  and  other  auxiliary 
craft  whenever  that  subject  should  come  up  for 
discussion  later  on;  and  that  they  made  their 
claim  for  more  capital  ships  at  this  point  as  a 
matter  of  getting  it  on  the  record,  so  as  to  pave 
the  way  for  a  larger  claim  on  submarines  and 
other  auxiliary  craft  in  due  course. 

There  may  be  much  in  this  explanation,  but 
at  least  it  is  pretty  technical.  If  the  French  had 
this  motive,  and  if  they  had  faith  in  the  justifica- 
tion of  it,  it  is  surprising  they  did  not  give  public 
expression  to  it  at  the  time.  Most  clearly,  this 
explanation,  if  it  is  correct,  shows  the  French 
delegates  had  not  grasped  the  spirit  of  the  Con- 
ference. This  was  the  tactics  of  a  bargainer; 
and  Hughes,  from  the  outset,  had  put  the  Con- 
ference on  a  plane  above  bargaining. 

However,  nearly  all  that  has  been  said  or  can 
be  said  on  this  subject  is  within  the  field  of  mo- 
tive; and  motive  is  an  area  in  which  it  is  most 
difficult  to  make  deductions  that  are  exact  or  of 
certain  fairness.  What  a  man's  motives  may  be 
are  largely  within  the  boundaries  of  his  own 


The  Second  Crisis  155 

heart,  and  anything  that  can  be  said  by  others 
is  necessarily  more  or  less  in  the  nature  of  sur- 
mise. 

Another  motive  generally  attributed  to  the 
French  for  their  stand  about  capital  ships  was 
that  they  wanted  to  bring  Great  Britain  to  a 
willingness  to  make  an  alliance  with  them  cover- 
ing certain  matters  in  Europe  and  Asia,  and 
were  willing  to  take  at  Washington  a  position 
of  antagonism  to  what  they  knew  Great  Britain 
wanted,  in  order  to  use  it  as  a  trading  point. 
This  motive  was  so  generally  attributed  to  the 
French,  even  by  some  who  were  sympathetic  to 
them  and  believed  this  motive  was  justified,  that 
one  is  compelled  to  record  it  as  the  verdict  of,  so 
to  speak,  the  history  of  the  moment. 

If  this  motive  is  to  be  accepted  as  one  that 
moved  the  French,  it  leaves  them  in  a  pretty  un- 
pleasant light.  It  reveals  them  as  wholly 
untouched  by  the  mood  that  had  come  upon  the 
world,  wholly  unmoved  by  the  spirit  of  the 
Washington  Conference  and  willing  to  ignore 
its  purpose  utterly — willing,  in  fact,  let  it  fail, 
if  by  so  doing  they  could  win  an  advantage  for 
themselves. 

There  is  also,  I  think,  another  explanation,  an 
additional  explanation,  so  to  speak,  of  what 
the  French  did,  an  explanation  which  the  French 
themselves  and  their  friends  might  hesitate  to 


156  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

put  into  words  but  which,  nevertheless,  has  the 
effect  of  considerable  extenuation  for  them.  I 
know  it  is  not  usual  to  assign  more  than  one  ex- 
planation for  the  same  act.  History  usually 
assigns  a  single  explanation  and  lets  it  go  at 
that.  But  deeds  in  the  making  are  rarely  as 
simple  as  history  makes  them  out.  Human  ac- 
tions and  human  motives  are  complex,  as  a  rule ; 
and  to  be  animated  by  a  single  clear  motive  is 
more  rare  than  to  be  moved  by  several  motives. 
And  while  I  suspect  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  motives  generally  attributed  to  the  French 
at  the  time  had  weight  in  inciting  them  to  what 
they  did,  there  is  a  possible  other  motive,  or 
rather  a  state  of  mind,  which,  while  it  does  not 
justify  the  French  action,  nevertheless  may  to 
some  degree  explain  it. 

France  may  well  have  felt  hurt  and  bitter  at 
being  definitely  ear-marked  as  a  low  fourth 
among  the  navies  of  the  world,  as  being  so  low 
that  she  was  in  a  class  apart.  She  may  have  re- 
sented the  picture  of  the  three  nations — Great 
Britain,  the  United  States,  and  Japan — as- 
signing the  navies  of  the  world  according  to  their 
own  judgment.  At  a  later  stage  in  the  official 
debates,  M.  Sarraut  used  an  eloquently  resent- 
ful phrase  about  what  the  three  big  nations  were 
doing;  he  said  that  the  navy  which  France 
should  have  was  being  "authoritatively  deter- 


The  Second  Crisis  157 

mined"  for  her.  On  another  occasion,  in  the 
gossip  of  the  time,  M.  Sarraut  was  reported  to 
have  said,  "Nous  ne  sommes  pas  le  domestiques" 
— France  is  not  a  servant  to  be  ordered  about. 
France  had  memories,  very  recent  memories, 
memories  not  eight  years  old,  of  a  time  when 
she  was  not  in  a  conspicuously  inferior  class,  a 
class  apart,  among  the  navies  of  the  world.1  That 
was  only  just  before  the  war  began.  At  that  time 
France's  navy  had  a  secure  position  among  the 
big  three  (the  big  four,  if  Germany  be  in- 
cluded). Before  the  war,  France's  navy  was 
much  larger  than  Japan's.  It  was  nearly  three 
times  the  size  of  Italy's  navy,  with  which  France 
was  now  called  upon  by  the  Hughes  ratio  to 
accept  equality.  After  the  war  broke  out, 
France  practically  stopped  building  warships. 
She  threw  all  her  strength  and  all  her  man-power 
into  the  battle-front  and  into  the  making  of 
munitions.  While  there  was  no  formal  under- 
standing on  the  point,  it  was  a  fact  that,  by  a 
kind  of  mutual  assent,  France  devoted  all  her 
strength  to  the  war  on  land,  while  Great  Britain 
was  relied  upon  to  take  care  of  the  sea.  The 


l  If  she  chose  to  throw  her  memory  further  back,  France  could  in 
fact  recall  a  time  when  she  was  first  on  the  sea.  And,  being  now 
self-conscious  about  her  colonial  possessions,  which  make  her  at  present 
the  second  colonial  power  in  the  world,  she  might  reflect  with  much 
point  that  when  she  lost  her  primacy  on  the  sea  she  found  that  her 
great  colonies,  Canada  and  India,  went  with  it.  France,  in  short, 
may  well  have  recalled,  in  her  own  mind,  a  good  many  things  that  she 
did  not  feel  like  saying. 


158  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

result  was  that  during  the  war  Great  Britain 
largely  increased  her  navy  while  France  stood 
still.  The  United  States  and  Japan  also 
largely  increased  their  navies.  With  the  im- 
munity from  serious  sacrifice  which  Japan  en- 
joyed throughout  the  entire  length  of  the  war, 
and  which  America  had  for  the  greater  part  of 
it,  these  two  nations  utilized  their  resources  to 
build  energetically.  The  effect  was  that  when 
the  Conference  met,  Great  Britain,  America,  and 
Japan  had  the  three  big  navies.  Being  in  that 
dominant  position,  they  now,  in  the  Conference, 
took  to  themselves  the  privilege  of  more  or  less 
laying  down  the  law,  not  only  for  themselves 
but  for  others,  as  to  what  size  of  navy  each  na- 
tion should  have.  It  calls  for  but  little  imagina- 
tion to  visualize  sympathetically  the  reflections 
the  French  may  have  had  about  this  situation, 
called  upon  to  accept  in  future  (for  fifteen 
years)  a  condition  of  inferiority1  which  had  come 
upon  her  as  the  result  of  sacrifices  from  which 


1  One  of  the  French  delegates,  Admiral  de  Bon,  put  this  argument 
eloquently  and  appealingly  in  a  speech  he  made  in  New  York  before 
he  returned  to  France.  He  said: 

"How  could  we  have  gone  back  to  our  own  people  and  told  them: 
'Think  no  longer  of  your  past  history.  France  has  been  great  on  the 
sea,  but  as  a  consequence  of  the  war  which  you  have  just  won  she  is 
going  to  disappear  from  the  number  of  maritime  nations.  All  the 
glory  which  your  ancestors  have  reaped  on  the  seas,  all  the  blood  they 
have  shed,  everything  becomes  useless.  At  present  you  are  going  to 
remain  without  any  connection  insured  and  without  any  safety  for 
your  colonies.  And  in  the  future  for  many  years  to  come,  as  imposed 
by  the  Washington  Conference,  all  hope  of  being  restored  to  your  old 
possessions  on  the  seas  must  be  given  up,  and  France  is  no  more  to 
exist  as  a  naval  Power/  " 


The  Second  Crisis  159 

the  others  were  exempt,  Japan  wholly  and  the 
others  partially.  Whereas,  before  the  war, 
France  had  a  navy  considerably  larger  than 
Japan,  she  was  now  called  upon  by  the  Hughes 
ratio  to  accept  for  the  entire  duration  of  the 
naval  holiday,  a  navy  only  a  little  more  than  half 
the  size  of  Japan's.  Although,  before  the  war, 
France's  navy  was  only  one  eighth  smaller  than 
what  was  then  the  size  of  the  American  navy, 
France  was  now  called  on  to  be  content  to  be 
limited  in  the  future  to  a  navy  only  a  shade  more 
than  one  third  as  large  as  that  of  the  United 
States.  France  would  be  compelled  to  concede, 
of  course,  that  it  was  true  her  present  existing 
navy  was  even  less,  much  less,  in  proportion  to 
the  others,  than  the  ratio  Hughes  conceded  to 
her  for  the  future.  She  must  concede  that  the 
Hughes  plan  was  generous  to  her,  in  that  it  com- 
pelled the  three  big-navy  nations  to  scrap  about 
forty  per  cent,  of  their  fleets,  without  calling  on 
France  to  scrap  anything  (in  fact,  on  the  con- 
trary, France  was  permitted  to  add  something 
to  her  existing  strength.)  Nevertheless,  while 
France  must  concede  all  this,  and  must  concede 
that  she  has  not  the  resources  to  build  a  great 
navy,  she  may  well  have  felt  hurt  at  her  inferi- 
ority being  reduced  to  figures,  to  a  definite  ratio, 
and  made  permanent  for  the  period  of  the  naval 
holiday — at  being  formally  ear-marked,  so  to 


160  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

speak,  as  a  low  fourth,  in  a  class  apart.  With- 
out any  Washington  Conference  France  would 
be  free  to  indulge  in  dreams,  to  think  that  sooner 
or  later  she  would  be  able  to  renew  herself 
economically  and  restore  her  place  on  the  sea. 
But  the  Hughes  plan  called  on  her  to  face  harsh 
facts,  and  accept  them,  and  the  necessary  infer- 
ences from  them,  for  a  period  of  years.  We 
can  well  understand  that  France's  pride  may 
have  been  touched. 

This,  it  seems  to  me,  might  well  be  given  as 
something  reasonably  to  be  said  not  so  much  in 
extenuation  of  the  position  that  the  French  dele- 
gates to  the  Conference  took,  as  in  explanation 
of  the  state  of  feeling  that  may  have  led  them  to 
take  that  position. 

VI 

What  I  have  written  above  is  really  the  best 
case  that  can  be  made  out  for  France.  After  I 
had  written  it  I  was  interested  to  find  that  this 
same  argument  was  put  forward  in  the  best  case 
that  any  of  the  French,  so  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, have  made  out  for  themselves.  One  of 
the  French  delegates,  Admiral  de  Bon,  when  he 
was  in  New  York  on  his  way  home  from  the 
Conference,  made  a  speech  at  a  dinner  given  by 
some  American  friends  of  France.  The  au- 


The  Second  Crisis  161 

dience  was  sympathetic,  the  Conference  was 
over,  the  resentment  that  had  arisen  in  America 
over  what  France  had  done  was  fully  known; 
there  had  been  time  and  opportunity  to  review 
all  that  had  taken  place;  and  if  any  convincing 
plea  could  be  made  for  France  at  all,  this  was  the 
occasion  for  it.  Admiral  de  Bon's  speech,  if  not 
finally  convincing,  was  yet  appealing,  and  the 
most  appealing  part  of  it — in  fact  the  burden  of 
it — lay  in  this  argument :  that  France  should  not 
be  kept  in  the  position  of  relative  inferiority 
into  which  she  had  fallen  as  a  result  of  the  war. 
He  recited  the  figures  showing  what  I  have  al- 
ready said,  that  France  before  the  war  was  not 
in  a  class  apart,  but  was  among  the  first  four, 
with  a  navy  approximating  that  of  America, 
nearly  twice  that  of  Japan,  and  almost  three 
times  that  of  Italy.1 

But  the  answer  to  all  this  is,  there  was  no  other 
way.  Facts  are  facts,  and  the  harsh  fact  is  that 
America,  Japan,  and  Great  Britain  came  out  of 


l  While  this  was  the  burden  of  Admiral  de  Bon's  argument,  and  the 
most  appealing  part  of  it,  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  that  was  the 
whole  of  it.  He  had  much  to  say  of  France's  "maritime  needs,"  which, 
he  claimed,  "are  indisputably  greater  than  those  of  Japan;"  and  he  laid 
emphasis  on  France's  portion  as  the  second  colonial  empire  in  the 
world,  and  the  need  of  a  large  navy  to  protect  it.  He  also  implied  that 
the  essential  difficulty  was  caused  by  the  actions  of  America,  Japan, 
and  Great  Britain — especially  the  first  two,  in  going  ahead  on  a  naval 
building  programme  and  setting  a  pace  which  France  has  not  attempted, 
and  for  the  present  cannot  attempt,  to  follow.  A  considerable  portion 
of  this  speech  of  Admiral  de  Bon's,  I  ought  to  say — the  portion  in 
which  he  attempted  to  justify  the  retention  of  the  submarine — did  not 
seem  to  me  appealing  at  all. 


162  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  war  with  resources  adequate,  in  different  de- 
grees, to  engage  in  a  naval  competition,  while 
France  had  no  such  resources.  Great  Britain, 
America,  and  Japan  had  the  resources  to  build, 
and  were  determined  to  build — and  France 
could  not.  A  naval  competition  was  on,  and  if 
that  competition  had  gone  ahead,  if  the  Wash- 
ington Conference  had  not  been  called  to  stop 
it,  or  had  failed  of  success  in  stopping  it — then, 
in  that  event,  France  would  presently  have 
found  herself,  not  where  the  Hughes  plan  left 
her,  with  one  third  as  large  a  navy  as  America  or 
Great  Britain  and  more  than  half  as  large  as 
that  of  Japan ;  but  rather  with  one  sixth  that  of 
America  or  Great  Britain.  As  Hughes  said  to 
Briand:  "If  such  an  agreement  as  we  are  now 
proposing  should  not  be  made,  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  would  shortly  have  navies  of 
over  a  million  tons  each,  more  than  6  to  1,  as 
compared  with  France,  and  France  would  not 
be  in  a  position  to  better  herself.  ...  In 
short,  the  proposed  agreement  is  tremendously 
in  favour  of  France,  by  reducing  the  navies  of 
powers  who  not  only  are  able  to  build,  but  whose 
ships  are  actually  in  course  of  construction,  to 
a  basis  far  more  favourable  to  France  than 
would  otherwise  be  attainable.  The  proposed 
agreement  really  doubles  the  relative  strength 
of  the  French  navy." 


The  Second  Crisis  163 

France  was  holding  out  for  a  sentimental 
prestige,  an  empty  tradition  which  she  had  not 
the  resources  to  live  up  to  in  fact.  French 
writers  often  claim  for  their  people,  as  a  quality 
in  which  they  are  superior  to  Anglo-Saxons,  the 
capacity  and  habit  of  reality,  of  looking  facts  in 
the  face.  But  the  truth  is,  in  the  Washington 
Conference,  it  was  the  British  who  showed  the 
capacity  to  see  facts  clearly  and  accept  them 
calmly.  In  the  Washington  Conference,  Great 
Britain  yielded,  without  protest  or  argument, 
a  tradition  infinitely  more  proud  than  France's. 
Great  Britain  had  been  mistress  of  the  sea,  "un- 
checked by  foe,  unshared  by  friend,"  for  prac- 
tically two  hundred  years.  But  she  faced  the 
fact  that  if  there  should  be  a  competition  in 
building — if  competition  were  not  stopped  by 
the  Washington  Conference,  and  if  America 
should  go  ahead  and  build  to  the  extent  of  her 
resources — then  America  must  supplant  her. 
Great  Britain  looked  that  situation  in  the  face, 
and  made  the  greatest  gesture  of  voluntary  re- 
nunciation ever  made  in  history. 

Hughes  did  the  best  he  could  do,  and  the  best 
that  could  be  done  for  France.  He  took  account 
of  the  fact  that  the  war  had  interrupted  France's 
building.  He  went  as  far  as  it  was  possible  to 
go  in  making  allowance  for  the  relative  inferior- 
ity in  which  the  war  left  her.  He  did  not  ask 


164  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

her  to  come  in  on  the  same  basis  of  rearrange- 
ment of  navies  as  he  asked  the  others.  He  de- 
manded that  the  others  should  scrap  40  per 
cent,  of  their  existing  strength,  but  he  did  not 
ask  France  to  scrap  anything.  He  allowed  her 
to  keep  all  the  ships  she  now  has,  and  to  build  a 
little  more.  If  France  had  been  asked  to  ac- 
cept the  same  basis  of  allotment  as  the  others, 
she  would  have  been  reduced  to  102,000  tons. 
The  actual  tonnage  allotted  to  her  was  175,000 
tons. 

I  have  heard  it  suggested  that  Hughes,  by 
some  magic  of  tact,  might  have  managed  to  save 
France's  amour  propre,  might  have  devised 
some  way  to  avoid  so  definitely  ear-marking  her 
as  a  low  fourth  among  the  navies  of  the  world. 
The  suggestion  is  an  appealing  one,  and  if  some 
way  could  have  been  found,  it  would  have  been  a 
wise  and  generous  thing  to  do.  But  while  I 
have  heard  this  suggested  as  a  generalization,  I 
have  never  heard  any  one  point  out  a  specific 
means  by  which  it  could  have  been  done. 
Hughes  had  to  accept  the  facts,  just  as  France 
had.  It  has  been  suggested  that  it  might  have 
been  possible  to  say  nothing  about  France,  to 
leave  her  where  she  was,  without  specifically  ear- 
marking her  at  1.75.  But  that  could  not  have 
been  done.  Great  Britain  would  not  have  been 
willing  to  agree  to  a  fixed  limitation  without 


The  Second  Crisis  165 

knowing,  with  equal  definiteness,  how  large  a 
navy  France  and  Italy  were  going  to  have.  It 
was  very  evident,  from  time  to  time,  that  Hughes 
devoted  a  good  deal  of  the  energy  of  a  brain 
that  was  occupied  with  big  things  to  careful 
deference  to  the  exceedingly  sensitive  amour 
propre,  individual  and  national,  of  the  French 
delegates ;  but  in  the  matter  of  fixing  the  limita- 
tion on  the  size  of  the  French  Navy,  there  was  no 
way  he  could  have  done  differently  from  what 
he  did. 

VII 

However,  to  resume  the  course  of  the  narra- 
tive: as  I  have  recited,  the  French  delegates, 
upon  orders  from  Premier  Briand,  in  response 
to  Mr.  Hughes's  cablegram  pointing  out  that 
France's  attitude  meant  "success  or  failure  for 
the  Conference,"  receded  from  their  position  on 
capital  ships ;  and  this  second  crisis  in  the  course 
of  the  Hughes  plan  was  safely  passed. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND  AND  THE  SUBMARINE 

THE  capital-ship  part  of  the  Hughes  plan 
had  slipped  safely  through  the  rocks  of 
Anglo-French  embroilment.     It  had  been 
saved  at  the  expense  of  a  good  deal  of  hard  feel- 
ing, plain  speaking,  and  public  excitement — but 
it  was  saved. 

But  shortly  after  Briand  had,  by  capitulating 
personally,  made  it  possible  to  save  the  day  for 
the  capital  ships,  he  lost  his  premiership  at  home; 
and  thereafter,  under  the  new  regime,  the 
French  delegates  seemed  increasingly  indisposed 
to  go  along  with  the  Hughes  programme.  Even 
before  this,  at  the  time  when  Briand  directed 
the  French  delegation  to  give  in  to  Hughes  on 
the  capital-ship  issue,  we  were  told  by  some  who 
were  close  to  the  French  that  this  action  had 
been  resented  by  the  delegates,  and  that  pointed 
cablegrams  had  been  exchanged.  One  of  the 
French  delegates,  M.  Sarraut,  it  appeared,  was 
a  person  of  some  consequence  in  French  politics. 
He  was  the  owner  of  one  of  the  important  pro- 
vincial newspapers;  and  by  reason  of  that  lever- 
age, and  of  his  position  otherwise,  he  was  said 

166 


The  Submarine  167 

to  be  able  not  only  to  resent  dictation  by  the 
premier,  but  even  to  threaten  Briand.  All  this 
I  recite  merely  as  part  of  the  gossip  of  the  time. 
It  concerned  us  only  indirectly.  The  relations 
between  Briand  and  Sarraut,  the  supplanting 
of  Briand  by  Poincare,  and  the  effect  of  it  all 
on  Anglo-French  relations — all  that  was  some- 
thing within  the  remoter  complexities  of  Euro- 
pean politics. 

But  soon  thereafter,  when  the  matter  of  sub- 
marines came  up,  the  position  the  French  dele- 
gates took  on  that  subject,  and  the  British 
resentment  of  that  position,  was,  for  more  than 
a  full  week,  the  most  spectacular  aspect  of  the 
Washington  Conference. 

II 

As  to  submarines,  the  original  Hughes  plan, 
when  Hughes  first  read  it  at  the  opening  session, 
contemplated  permitting  Great  Britain  and 
America  to  have  90,000  tons  each,  Japan  54,000 
tons,  and  the  other  powers  to  keep  approximately 
what  they  now  have.  But  by  the  time  the  Con- 
ference got  around  to  acting  officially  on  sub- 
marine tonnage,  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of 
agitation;  and  public  opinion  had  changed  in 
such  a  way  that  it  was  easily  possible  that  the 
Conference  might  have  concluded  to  outlaw  the 


168  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

submarine  utterly.  In  America,  there  was 
something  almost  in  the  nature  of  an  outcry 
against  the  tolerance  which  the  Hughes  plan 
seemed  to  show  for  this  weapon.  The  Lusi- 
tania  was  recalled  and  the  question  was  asked 
with  eloquent  indignation,  "Does  not  America 
still  feel  about  the  submarine  as  it  felt  the  day 
after  the  Lusitania  was  sunk?"  Senator  Borah 
stated  publicly  that,  as  for  him,  one  of  the  tests 
of  the  Conference  would  be  whether  it  outlawed 
the  submarine.  The  New  York  Herald  con- 
ducted a  prolonged  campaign  against  what  it 
called  "the  viper  of  the  sea."  "Is  outlaw  war- 
fare what  the  world  wants?"  the  Herald  asked. 
"Submarines  must  go,"  said  Colonel  House  in 
a  signed  editorial  in  the  Philadelphia  Ledger. 
A  New  York  Times  editorial  spoke  of  "the  ab- 
horred submarine." 

To  this  outcry  from  America,  Great  Britain 
added  its  official  support.  In  Balfour's  early 
speech,  in  which  he  announced  that  Great  Brit- 
ain would  accept  the  Hughes  plan  in  spirit  and 
in  principle,  he  specifically  mentioned  the  sanc- 
tion of  submarines  as  an  item  about  which  Great 
Britain  was  dubious.  The  war  had  given  the 
English  public  a  feeling  about  the  submarine 
which  expressed  itself  in  strong  detestation. 
There  was  evidence,  also,  that  Hughes  had  come 
to  modify  his  own  views  after  he  had  laid  down 


The  Submarine  169 

the  plan.  All  in  all,  by  the  time  the  Conference 
reached  the  point  on  the  agenda  where  subma- 
rines were  to  be  taken  up,  a  situation  had  arisen 
out  of  which  it  was  easily  possible  that  the  Con- 
ference, by  its  action  on  this  weapon,  might  go 
even  beyond  what  Hughes  had  originally  pro- 
posed and  thus  might  give  the  world  the  exhil- 
aration of  a  result  yet  greater,  yet  more  lofty 
in  its  idealism,  than  the  elevated  feeling  that  had 
been  caused  by  the  original  Hughes  plan. 

Ill 

The  official  action  of  the  Conference  on  the 
submarine  began  with  one  of  the  most  careful 
of  all  the  prepared  speeches  during  the  whole 
period.  It  was  made  by  Lord  Lee.  That  it 
was  convincing  was  quickly  evident.  Aside 
from  the  eloquent  plea  he  made  on  moral 
grounds,  there  was  much  in  it  that  was  carefully 
historical  and  technical. 

The  net  of  Lord  Lee's  argument  was  that  if 
the  submarine  were  retained,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary for  nations  to  increase  their  anti-submarine 
craft;  that  "the  view  of  the  British  Government 
and  the  British  Empire  delegation  was  that  what 
was  required  was  not  merely  restrictions  on  sub- 
marines, but  their  total  and  final  abolition;"1 


1  These   and   other   quotations   are   from   the   official   minutes,    which 
were  phrased  in  indirect  discourse, 


170  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

and  that  Great  Britain,  as  the  possessor  of  "the 
largest  and  probably  the  most  efficient  equip- 
ment of  submarines  in  the  world  .  .  .  was 
prepared  to  scrap  the  whole  of  this  great  fleet, 
and  disband  the  personnel,  provided  the  other 
powers  would  do  the  same."  That,  Lord  Lee 
said,  was  "the  British  offer  to  the  world,"  and  he 
expressed  the  belief  that  "it  was  a  greater  con- 
tribution to  the  cause  of  humanity  than  even  the 
limitation  of  capital  ships." 

This  generous  gesture  from  Lord  Lee  was  so 
much  in  the  spirit  of  what  the  Conference  was 
trying  to  do  that  it  made  a  profoundly  favour- 
able impression  on  both  the  Conference  and  the 
public.  This  speech  of  Lord  Lee,  indeed,  in 
many  respects,  stood  second  to  Hughes's  open- 
ing speech  as  the  highest  point  the  Conference 
reached  at  any  time.  It  was  of  the  same  charac- 
ter as  the  Hughes  speech  in  its  swift  stride  to- 
ward the  ideals  of  the  Conference.  It  was  one 
of  those  moments  when  the  Conference  might 
have  leaped  the  boundaries  of  its  original  pur- 
pose, might  have  attained  the  scope  and  mo- 
mentum of  something  exalted,  evangelical.  If 
it  had  been  met  by  a  prompt  and  equally  gen- 
erous gesture  from  the  others,  the  Conference 
might  have  carried  itself  and  the  world  to  an 
undreamed  elevation. 

But  the  reply  of  the  French  spokesman,  M. 


The  Submarine  171 

Sarraut,  was  in  the  direction  of  negation.  His 
attitude  was  one  of  coldness  and  repression  to 
what,  starting  with  Lord  Lee's  gesture,  might 
have  turned  into  one  of  the  most  inspired  mo- 
ments of  the  Conference,  one  of  the  most  in- 
spired moments,  indeed,  in  history.  But  M. 
Sarraut  said,  coldly,  that  this  subject  of  the  sub- 
marine had  already  been  discussed  at  the  Paris 
Peace  Conference  and  by  the  League  of  Nations ; 
he  claimed  that  "public  opinion  had  shown  itself 
favourable  to  the  continuance  of  submarines" 
and  therefore  "the  French  delegation  felt  called 
upon  to  give  its  approval  to  the  use  of  the  sub- 
marine under  restrictions."  l 

The  Italians  and  the  Japanese,  in  a  more 
qualified  way,  endorsed  the  French  view.  It 
was  well  understood,  however,  that  the  subma- 
rine controversy  was  essentially  between  Great 
Britain  and  France. 

(At  this  point,  I  should  interject  that  the 
quotations  which  I  print  here  are,  in  each  case, 


l  This  quotation  is  from  the  official  communique,  made  public  the 
following  day.  In  the  later  version  of  his  reply,  published  in  the  report 
sent  to  the  Senate,  M.  Sarraut,  instead  of  using  the  phrase  "public 
opinion,"  says,  "the  point  of  view  favouring  the  inclusion  of  submarines 
in  the  naval  forces  of  states  met  with  the  almost  unanimous  ap- 
proval of  the  various  governments  represented"  (at  the  Paris  Con- 
ference and  the  League  of  Nations  meeting).  In  this  version,  M. 
Sarraut  expressed  his  position  firmly  and  clearly  in  these  words:  "The 
French  Government  cannot  consent  to  accept  either  the  abolition  of 
submarines,  or  a  reduction  of  the  total  tonnage  of  submarines,  which 
it  considers  to  be  the  irreducible  minimum  necessary  to  secure  the 
safety  of  the  territories  for  which  it  is  responsible,  or  a  limitation  of 
the  individual  tonnage  of  submarines." 


172  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

merely  a  few  sentences  detached  from  speeches 
that  were,  in  most  of  the  cases,  thousands  of 
words  long.  In  making  such  brief  selections, 
it  is  always  possible  to  do  injustice.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  another  writer  might  make  selec- 
tions which  would  picture  the  controversy  in  a 
somewhat  different  light.  That  it  was  a  con- 
troversy there  need  be  no  doubt.  That  the 
French  were  on  the  pro-submarine  side  and  the 
British  on  the  anti-submarine  side,  there  is 
equally  no  doubt.  That  is  utterly  unmistakable. 
But  it  is  true  that  a  good  many  of  the  arguments 
made  by  M.  Sarraut  and  Admiral  de  Bon,  on 
phases  of  the  controversy  other  than  the  direct 
issue  of  pro-submarine  versus  anti-submarine, 
were  expressed  in  phrases,  in  which  the  British 
found  an  innuendo  of  a  sort  not  directly  ex- 
pressed in  the  words.  For  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing the  controversy  between  France  and  Great 
Britain  clear  to  the  reader,  I  have,  for  the  most 
part,  accepted  the  meaning  which  Mr.  Balfour 
and  Lord  Lee  read  into  the  French  speeches.  I 
have  read  and  reread  these  speeches  many  times. 
I  have  compared  the  versions  given  out  at  the 
time  from  day  to  day  in  the  communiques,  with 
the  later  versions — slightly  modified  and  emulsi- 
fied, in  colder  after-thought,  in  the  interest  of 
international  amity.  I  have  talked  with  some 
who  were  present,  or  who  had  knowledge  of  the 


The  Submarine  173 

circumstances ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that  the  quota- 
tions I  have  picked  out  in  order  to  enable  the 
reader  readily  to  follow  the  course  of  the  con- 
troversy, are  accurately  representative  of  the 
speeches  as  a  whole.  Any  one  who  wants  to 
review  the  controversy  for  himself  can  find  the 
speeches  in  the  official  communiques  given  out 
from  day  to  day — even  these  were,  I  suspect, 
somewhat  softened  from  the  originals  as  actually 
spoken;  and  the  revised  versions,  with  a  few  of 
the  more  acerb  passages  omitted  or  toned  down, 
in  Senate  Document  Number  126  (67th  Con- 
gress, second  session). 

M.  Sarraut's  reply  to  Lord  Lee's  plea  had 
been  brief.  It  was  merely  in  the  nature  of  a 
statement  of  the  official  French  position.  But 
the  next  day,  the  naval  member  of  the  French 
delegation,  Admiral  de  Bon,  made  a  detailed 
reply  to  Lord  Lee's  argument.  Admiral  de 
Bon's  speech  was  a  long  technical  and  historical 
defense  of  the  use  of  the  submarine.  He  closed 
it  with  these  words,  which  call  for  close  reading. 

To  draw  a  conclusion  from  the  foregoing,  I  think  that 
we  cannot  reasonably  limit  submarine  tonnage,  since  we 
have  before  us  an  entirely  new  weapon  concerning  which 
no  one  of  us  can  foresee  the  possible  transformation  and 
growth  perhaps  in  the  near  future.  If,  in  spite  of  this 
idea — which  is  a  menace  to  no  one :  first,  because  no  one  of 
us  could  become  the  enemy  of  any  other,  and  secondly, 


174  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

because  we  can  agree,  in  mutual  confidence,  to  keep  each 
other  informed  of  oiir  future  construction — you  wish  ab- 
solutely to  fix  a  limit  to  submarine  tonnage,  I  believe  that 
90,000  tons  is  the  absolute  minimum  for  all  the  nations 
who  may  want  to  have  a  submarine  force. 

Inasmuch  as  90,000  tons,  which  Admiral  de 
Bon  named  as  the  "absolute  minimum,"  had  ac- 
tually been,  in  the  original  Hughes  plan,  not  the 
minimum,  but  in  fact,  the  maximum,  Admiral 
de  Bon's  speech  made  a  sensation. 

Equally  sensational  was  the  tone  adopted  by 
Mr.  Balfour  in  reply.  Mr.  Balfour  came  to  his 
feet  in  the  spirit  of  accepting  a  challenge.  He 
was  very  pointed,  indeed.  In  part  of  his  speech, 
he  was  exquisitely  ironical,  saying:  "How  shall 
we  think  of  this  encouragement  of  submarines, 
these  passionate  declarations  against  any  inter- 
ference with  the  development  of  this  promising 
weapon  of  war  which  is  still  in  its  infancy."  But 
later  on  in  his  speech,  Mr.  Balfour  took  on  a 
seriousness  which  mere  irony  would  have  been 
inadequate  to  express.  It  was  in  the  conclusion 
of  this  speech  that  Mr.  Balfour  began  to  talk 
in  such  terms  that  the  reader  can  only  infer  that 
by  this  time  he  had  come  to  feel  that  there  was 
between  the  lines  of  what  the  French  were  say- 
ing an  innuendo  directed  at  Great  Britain.  If 
not  at  this  point,  certainly  a  little  later,  Mr. 
Balfour  made  it  abundantly  clear  that  he  re- 


The  Submarine  175 

garded  the  position  of  the  French  delegates  on  \ 
the  submarine  as  "a  menace  to  Great  Britain." 
Mr.  Balfour  closed  this  portion  of  the  debate  by 
saying: 

Do  not  let  anybody  suppose  that  we  are  the  people  who 
will  suffer  most  if  you  decide  that  submarines  are  to  re- 
ceive the  sanction  of  this  Conference.  Do  not  suppose 
that,  for  it  is  not  so.  The  fate  of  my  own  country  I  look 
to  with  serenity  in  that  respect.  I  admit  it  may  increase 
our  difficulties.  I  know  it  will  increase  our  cost,  and  it 
will  increase  it  enormously,  because  we  should  have  to  or- 
ganize all  the  auxiliary  craft  against  it.  But  that  it  will 
imperil  our  security  I  do  not  believe.  I  do  not  know 
whether  all  my  friends  around  this  table  can  speak  with 
equal  confidence  of  their  position.  1 

By  this  time  the  situation  was  pretty  generally 
recognized  as  a  controversy,  which  it  would  not 
be  too  much  to  call  bitter,  between  the  French 
and  the  British.  It  went  on  the  next  day;  in 
fact,  it  went  on  for  several  days,  in  the  aggre- 
gate more  than  a  week.  The  tension  it  reached 
was  such  that  the  account  of  one  day's  session 


II  was  interested  to  observe  that  this  part  of  Mr.  Balfour's  speech 
was  omitted  from  the  official  minutes  that  were  transmitted  to  the 
Senate  by  Mr.  Hughes  at  the  close  of  the  Conference.  I  assume  that 
this  official  second-thought  softening  of  the  spontaneous  acerbity  of 
the  occasion  was  done  in  the  interest  of  international  amity.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  this  rewriting  of  the  minutes.  M.  Sarraut,  at  the 
end  of  one  of  the  more  acrimonious  sessions,  said  that  "the  French 
delegation  deemed  it  their  duty  to  revise  the  somewhat  copious  report 
of  the  preceding  session  before  publishing  the  same."  On  one  occasion 
the  newspaper  men  reported  that  they  were  obliged  to  wait  for  the 
official  communique^  while  M.  Sarraut  worked  far  into  the  night  revis- 
ing, and,  I  presume,  softening  his  remarks  in  the  direction  of  less 
acerbity. 


176  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

was  described  by  so  chaste  a  newspaper  as  the 
Boston  Transcript  under  the  headline  "Sarraut 
and  Balfour  Mix  It  Up  on  Undersea  Warfare." 
This  part  of  the  debate  was  so  overlaid  with 
the  diplomatic  elegancies  which  aim  to  conceal 
enough,  but  not  too  much,  of  the  barb  that  is  at 
the  bottom ;  so  shot  through  with  cryptic  talking 
about  "A"  when  you  mean  and  want  your  ad- 
versary to  know  you  really  mean  "B" — it  was  so 
full  of  this  sort  of  thing  that  it  is  difficult  to 
make  it  clear  to  the  distant  reader.  It  is  diffi- 
cult, in  fact,  for  me  to  be  sure  that  I  have 
grasped  it  with  complete  accuracy,  or  that  I 
picture  it  fairly.  M.  Sarraut  kept  talking 
about  the  nations  not  represented  at  the  Con- 
ference— he  said  that  if  they  were  denied  the 
use  of  the  submarine,  they  might  feel  that  some 
big  nations  were  imposing  their  wills  on  them. 
But  as  to  just  what  specific  nations  M.  Sarraut 
had  in  mind,  Mr.  Balfour  quickly  and  forcefully 
made  concrete  deductions.  M.  Sarraut  had 
said: 

The  day  when  these  peoples  begin  to  think  that  we  are 
likely  to  make  use  of  moral  constraint  to  impose  on  them 
our  way  of  thinking — and  I  venture  to  emphasize  this 
idea  at  the  present  moment,  when  the  susceptibilities  of 
nations  should  be  carefully  considered — I  would  be  sorry 
to  see  grow  up  once  more,  around  the  beneficial  work  that 
we  are  accomplishing  here,  certain  legends  and  even  cer- 


The  Submarine  177 

tain  calumnies  distorting  the  trend  of  our  purposes,  like 
those  from  which  we,  the  French,  have  suffered  and  that 
we  have  seen  only  recently  used  against  France  in  the 
press,  representing  her  in  an  imperialistic  attitude.  It 
must  not  be  permitted  that  such  campaigns  misinterpret- 
ing our  true  sentiments  should  be  initiated  against  any 
one  of  us,  France,  Great  Britain,  Japan,  and  so  forth. 
If  certain  ones  among  us  preserve  more  or  less  naval 
forces,  and  if  we,  at  the  same  time,  forbid  other  peoples 
not  represented  here  the  right  to  procure  for  themselves 
those  smaller  but  still  efficacious  weapons  of  defense  which 
they  believe  they  need,  might  not  the  legends  to  which  I 
have  referred  tempt  them  to  think  that  other  more  power- 
ful countries  wish  to  keep  them  in  subjection,  to  force 
them  to  place  themselves  under  their  protection  and  to  re- 
tain them  in  a  sort  of  vassalage? 

Those  were  M.  Sarraut's  words.  If  they 
were  susceptible  of  any  esoteric  interpretation, 
the  reader,  distant  from  the  Conference,  will  be 
handicapped  in  supplying  that  interpretation. 
Probably  Mr.  Balfour  was  as  well  equipped  as 
anybody  could  be  to  know  just  what  the  French 
were  driving  at.  And  if  you  accept  Mr.  Bal- 
four's  interpretation,  then,  in  plainer  words  and 
shorter,  M.  Sarraut  was  telling  Mr.  Balfour 
that  Britain  was  trying  to  say  how  big  a  navy 
France  could  have,  and  that  France  didn't  pro- 
pose to  stand  for  it.  This  sentiment  was  not 
expressed  in  M.  Sarraut's  words;  but  Mr.  Bal- 
four evidently  inferred  it  from  his  manner. 


178  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Mr.  Balfour  put  this  interpretation  on  M. 
Sarraut's  words,  and  replied  with  great  direct- 
ness— with  a  pointedness,  in  fact,  that  had  now 
become  frankly  the  atmosphere  of  the  contro- 
versy. Mr.  Balfour  reminded  France  that  she 
had  already  compelled  the  Conference  to  aban- 
don the  subject  of  land  armament.  He  said 
that  nobody  could  look  upon  the  situation  with- 
out saying  that  if  France  was  determined  to 
build  a  large  submarine  navy,  the  target  of  that 
determination,  and  of  the  submarines  themselves 
must  be  Great  Britain.  He  asked: 

Against  whom  is  this  submarine  fleet  being  built  ?  What 
purpose  is  it  to  serve?  What  danger  to  France  is  it  in- 
tended to  guard  against?  I  know  of  no  satisfactory  an- 
swer to  such  questions.  .  .  .  Great  Britain  is  strong 
enough  to  defend  herself,  and  she  wants  nothing  more  than 
to  defend  herself.  ...  I  am  certainly  not  going  to  be 
prevented  from  doing  my  best  to  induce  this  great  moral 
reform  in  the  use  of  weapons  of  war  by  the  fear  that  the 
actions  of  myself  and  my  friends  around  me  can  even,  by 
the  bitterest  and  most  unscrupulous  calumny,  be  darkened 
by  the  sort  of  shadows  which  M.  Sarraut  seems  to  think 
the  ingenuity  of  the  calumniator  is  able  to  spread  over 
mankind. 

To  this  M.  Sarraut  replied  that  he  was  aston- 
ished at  the  interpretation  put  upon  what  he  had 
said  about  the  imputations  and  fears  which  might 
be  inspired  in  small  nations.  "Nothing  I  have 


The  Submarine  179 

said,"  he  exclaimed,  "is  especially  aimed  against 
Great  Britain." 

IV 

At  this  point  Mr.  Hughes  took  a  hand.  He 
said  it  was  apparent  that  it  was  not  possible  to 
reach  an  agreement  on  submarines.  While  he 
spoke  in  a  judicial  tone,  Mr.  Hughes 's  words 
left  no  doubt  that  he  had  been  strongly  im- 
pressed by  the  arguments  of  Lord  Lee  and 
Mr.  Balfour.  "If  those  arguments  could  be  an- 
swered," Mr.  Hughes  said,  "that  answer  has  yet 
to  come."  l  He  expressed  the  belief  that  even 
though  the  Conference  was  prevented  from  tak- 
ing official  action,  nevertheless,  the  words  of 


1 1  have  said  that  by  this  time  Mr.  Hughes  had  come  to  modify  his 
view  about  submarines,  which,  in  his  original  plan,  he  had  tolerated; 
and  I  have  said  that  but  for  the  stand  the  French  now  took,  the  Con- 
ference might  have  leaped  the  "bounds  of  that  original  plan  and  might 
have  outlawed  the  submarine  utterly.  Against  this  it  is  to  be  said 
that  both  the  naval  advisers  of  the  American  Delegation  and  also  the 
American  Advisory  Committee  of  Twenty-one  had  made  recommenda- 
tions against  outlawing  the  submarine.  The  French  made  much  of 
this  point.  There  is  not  much  in  it,  however.  The  spontaneous  ex- 
pressions of  detestation  for  the  submarine  throughout  America  had 
more  weight  than  the  recommendations  of  these  official  advisers.  Also, 
while  these  official  American  advisers  recommended  that  the  sub- 
marine be  kept,  they  made  no  recommendation  that  would  justify 
the  French  in  claiming  the  large  quantity  that  they  insisted  on. 
I  still  believe  that  it  was  the  French  stand  that  was  responsible 
for  preventing  the  abolition  of  the  submarine. 

Also,  it  was  said  by  some  of  -the  French  sympathizers  that 
Hughes's  coming  around  to  disapproval  of  the  submarine  was  due 
to  British  diplomacy.  There  was  nothing  in  that.  Mr.  Hughes's  modi- 
fication of  his  position  can  be  accounted  for  by  the  outcry  in  the 
American  press,  and  in  other  influential  American  quarters,  against  his 
retention  of  the  submarine  in  his  original  plan. 

Also,  it  should  be  said  that  there  is  nowhere  in  the  record  a  di- 
rect statement  from  Mr.  Hughes  that  he  had  come  to  favour  abolition 
of  the  submarine.  But  it  is  a  fair  deduction  from  the  tone  of  many 
of  his  indirect  allusions  to  the  submarine  that  he  had  undergone  this 
change  of  view. 


180  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Lord  Lee  and  Mr.  Balfour  would  carry  far  be- 
yond the  walls  of  the  Conference  room,  and 
would  powerfully  influence  the  development  of 
public  opinion  throughout  the  world. 

Neither  did  Mr.  Hughes  leave  any  doubt  that 
he  had  been  shocked  by  the  French  proposal  to 
raise  the  limit  on  submarines  to  a  minimum  of 
90,000  tons — the  figure  which  in  his  own  plan 
had  actually  been  maximum.  With  pointed 
irony  he  reminded  the  French  that  this  was  a 
Conference  for  limitation  of  armaments,  not  for 
expansion. 

In  order  to  get  somewhere,  Mr.  Hughes  now 
made  an  alternative  proposal  that  60,000  tons 
should  be  adopted  as  the  maximum.  This 
would  involve  the  necessity  of  the  United  States 
scrapping  35,000  tons  and  Great  Britain  scrap- 
ping 32,000  tons.  As  to  France,  Japan,  and 
Italy,  Mr.  Hughes's  proposal  was  that  they 
should  retain  all  the  submarine  tonnage  they 
now  have.  He  made  this  suggestion  in  a  manner 
which  indicated  that  his  purpose  was  to  show 
that  so  far  as  the  American  Government  was 
concerned  it  was  ready  to  reduce  from  what  it 
now  has  without  asking  France  to  make  any  re- 
duction from  where  it  now  is. 

The  reply  of  the  French  to  this  proposal  was 
a  guarded  statement  that  they  would  cable  it  to 
their  government  and  wait  for  instructions. 


The  Submarine  181 

The  following  day,  the  Conference  got  the 
formal  answer  from  France.  It  began  with 
many  elegant  preliminaries.  M.  Sarraut  said 
there  had  been  a  meeting  of  the  French  Cabinet 
and  of  the  French  Supreme  Council  of  National 
Defense;  that  they  had  "the  most  earnest  desire" 
to  help  and  that  this  desire  had  been  carried  out 
in  their  giving  up  the  right  to  build  more  capital 
ships.  After  a  good  deal  of  this  sort  of  declama- 
tion, M.  Sarraut  ended  with  a  startling  state- 
ment of  the  official  French  position.  He  said 
that  France  would  not  be  willing  to  accept  a 
limitation  below  90,000  tons  for  submarines. 
Then  he  went  on  and  said  he  had  been  instructed 
further  by  his  government  to  say  that  France 
would  not  be  willing  to  accept  a  limitation  of 
less  than  330,000  tons  for  auxiliary  craft.1 

l  The  official  positions  of  Great  Britain  and  France  on  the  sub- 
marine, as  given  out  later  by  Mr.  Hughes,  were  these:  The  French 
position,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Sarraut  was: 

"After  examining,  on  the  other  hand,  the  composition  of 
the  forces  needed  by  France  in  auxiliary  craft  and  submarines, 
which  are  specially  intended  for  the  protection  of  her  territory 
and  its  communications,  the  Cabinet  and  the  Supreme  Council 
of  National  Defense,  have  reached  the  conclusion  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  accept  a  limitation  below  that  of  330,000  tons  for 
auxiliary  craft  and  90,000  tons  for  submarines,  without  imperil- 
ling the  vital  interests  of  the  country  and  of  its  colonies  and  the 
safety  of  their  naval  life.  The  French  delegation  has  been  in- 
structed to  consent  to  no  concession  on  the  above  figures." 

The  British  position  as  put  formally  on  the  records  was: 

•The  British  Empire  Delegation  desires  formally  to  place 
on  record  this  opinion  that  the  use  of  submarines  whilst  of 
small  value  for  defensive  purposes,  leads  inevitably  to  acts  which 
are  inconsistent  with  the  laws  of  war  and  the  dictates  of  hu- 
manity, and  the  delegation  desires  that  united  action  should  be 
taken  by  all  nations  to  forbid  their  maintenance,  construction, 
or  employment." 


182  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

The  French  were  not  only  going  to  insist  on 
90,000  tons  of  submarines,  but  were  going  to  be 
equally  extreme  with  respect  to  other  auxiliary 
craft.  Mr.  Hughes  remarked,  with  a  manner 
that  was  somewhere  between  broad  irony  and 
spontaneous  indignation,  that  this  "could  hardly 
be  called  a  limitation  or  a  reduction,"  and 
that  "an  agreement  for  the  expansion  of  arma- 
ment was  not  under  consideration.  The  Con- 
ference was  called  to  consider  the  limitation  of 
armament." 

Mr.  Balfour  was  equally  pointed  and  direct. 
He  said  that  if  the  French  should  carry  out  this 
intention,  they  would  not  only  be  equal  to  the 
other  two  greatest  naval  powers,  America  and 
Britain,1  in  point  of  submarine  tonnage,  but 
that  they  would  have  a  very  much  larger  propor- 
tion of  submarines  of  a  newer  type  than  either  of 
the  others.  The  French  quota  of  submarines, 
he  said,  would  exceed  that  of  any  other  power  in 
the  world.  With  fine  irony,  he  said  that  this 
"constitutes  a  somewhat  singular  contribution 
to  the  labours  of  a  Conference  called  for  the  limi- 
tation of  armament.  Considered  in  conjunction 
with  the  refusal  of  the  French  delegation  to 
discuss  land  armament,  this  position  must  cause 
anxiety  and  disappointment  to  those  who  had 


»Mr.  Balfour  customarily  used  the  word  "Britain,"  rather  than  "Great 
Britain." 


The  Submarine  183 

come  to  the  Conference  with  high  hopes  regard- 
ing the  limitation  of  navies.  We  should  have  the 
melancholy  spectacle  of  a  conference  called  for 
the  limitation  of  armament  resulting  in  a  vast  in- 
crease in  the  very  weapon  which  the  most  civilized 
elements  in  all  civilized  countries  condemn." 

As  to  Great  Britain,  Mr.  Balfour  said  it  was 
perfectly  clear  that  "public  notice  had  now  been 
given  in  the  most  formal  manner  that  this  great\ 
fleet  was  to  be  built  on  the  shores  nearest  to 
Britain,  and  it  would  necessarily  be  a  very  great 
menace  to  her."  For  this  reason,  Mr.  Balfour 
said  that  he  "reserved  the  full  right  of  Britain 
to  build  any  auxiliary  craft  which  she  considered 
necessary  to  deal  with  the  situation." 

By  this  time  it  was  obvious  to  Mr.  Hughes, 
of  course,  that  nothing  could  be  done  about  sub- 
marine limitation,  and  that  as  to  other  auxiliary 
craft  France  was  going  to  take  the  position  of 
enlarging  rather  than  diminishing  the  total 
quantity  of  it.  Out  of  this  situation  Mr. 
Hughes  tried  to  salvage  something  by  propos- 
ing a  limit  to  the  size  of  individual  auxiliary 
ships.  He  introduced  a  formal  resolution  to 
the  effect  that  "no  ship  of  war,  other  than  the 
capital  ships  or  aircraft  carriers  hereafter  built, 
shall  exceed  a  total  tonnage  displacement  of  10,- 
000  tons,  and  no  guns  shall  be  carried  by  any 
such  ship  with  a  calibre  in  excess  of  eight  inches." 


184  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

To  this  proposal  M.  Sarraut  did  not  reply 
directly,  but  he  spoke  in  what  had  come  to  be  his 
complaining  tone  of  other  powers  trying  to 
"authoritatively  determine"  how  large  a  navy 
France  should  have. 

y 

At  this  point  Mr.  Root  entered  the  situation. 
On  several  critical  occasions  in  the  Conference, 
Mr.  Root  seemed  to  have  the  role  he  now 
adopted.  After  everybody  had  got  into  a 
snarl,  after  there  had  been  a  head-on  collision 
between  antagonistic  propositions,  Mr.  Root 
came  in,  so  to  speak,  from  the  side,  at  right  angles 
to  the  collision,  with  a  proposal  designed  to 
achieve  much  the  same  ends  but  so  different  in 
detail  from  the  question  at  issue  that  it  was  free 
from  the  bitterness  of  feeling  with  which  the 
question,  as  it  originally  arose,  had  become  in- 
volved. Mr.  Root  introduced  four  resolutions 
which,  while  they  did  not  affect  the  quantity 
of  submarines  any  nation  might  have,  neverthe- 
less surrounded  the  use  of  those  submarines  with 
such  restrictions  that  their  effectiveness  would 
be  greatly  reduced. 

The  French  response  to  these  resolutions  was 
stated  by  Admiral  de  Bon.  It  was  to  the  effect 
that  since  the  Root  resolutions  were  of  "a  very 
special  nature,"  it  therefore  seemed  to  Admiral 


The  Submarine  185 

de  Bon  "that  the  most  practical  solution  would 
be  to  refer  the  consideration  of  the  text  sub- 
mitted by  Mr.  Root  to  a  committee  of  jurists, 
which  would  advise  us  as  to  its  opinion  in  regard 
to  the  wording  to  be  adopted." 

But  Mr.  Root  was  not  to  be  satisfied  with  any 
such  dilatory  disposal  of  his  resolutions.  No 
committee  of  jurists  for  him.  It  was  on  this 
occasion  that  Mr.  Root  made  one  of  the  best 
speeches  of  the  Conference.  Among  other 
things,  he  said: 

Now  with  regard  to  the  proposal  to  refer  this  matter 
to  a  committee  of  lawyers,  far  be  it  from  me  to  say  any- 
thing derogatory  to  the  members  of  the  profession  of  which 
I  have  been  a  humble  member  for  more  years  than  I  care 
to  remember.  They  are  the  salt  of  the  earth;  they  are 
the  noblest  work  of  God;  they  are  superior  in  intellect 
and  authority  to  all  other  people  whatsoever.  But  both 
this  Conference  and  my  own  life  are  approaching  their 
termination.  I  do  not  wish  these  resolutions  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  a  commission,  even  of  lawyers,  after  we  adjourn. 

This  Conference  was  called  for  what?  For  the  limi- 
tation of  armament.  But  limitation  is  not  the  end,  only 
the  means.  It  is  the  belief  of  the  world  that  this  Con- 
ference was  convened  to  promote  the  peace  of  the  world 
— to  relieve  mankind  of  the  horrors  and  the  losses  and  the 
intolerable  burdens  of  war. 

We  cannot  justify  ourselves  in  separating  without  some 
declaration  that  will  give  voice  to  the  humane  opinion  of 
the  world  upon  this  subject,  which  was  the  most  vital,  the 
most  heartfelt,  the  most  stirring  to  the  conscience  and  to 


186  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  feeling  of  the  people  of  all  our  countries  of  anything 
that  occurred  during  the  late  war.  I  feel  to  the  depth  of 
my  heart  that  the  man  who  was  responsible  for  sinking 
the  Lusitania  committed  an  act  of  piracy.  I  know  that 
all  my  countrymen  with  whom  I  have  had  intercourse  feel 
the  same,  and  I  should  be  ashamed  to  go  on  with  this  Con- 
ference without  some  declaration,  some  pronouncement, 
which  will  give  voice  to  the  feeling  and  furnish  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  crystallization  of  the  opinion  of  mankind 
in  the  establishment  of  a  rule  which  will  make  it  plain  to 
all  the  world  that  no  man  can  commit  such  an  act  again 
without  being  stigmatized  as  a  pirate. 


In  this  stand  Mr.  Root  was  warmly  seconded 
by  Mr.  Hughes.  He  said  that  he  did  not  want 
these  resolutions  to  "be  overlaid  with  lawyers' 
niceties." 

Ultimately  the  Root  resolutions  were  adopted. 
They  have  the  effect  of  greatly  restricting 
the  use  that  may  be  made  of  the  submarine 
in  war.  Also  certain  other  rather  important 
limitations  were  salvaged — oft  the  size  of  in- 
dividual auxiliary  craft,  on  the  size  of  airship 
carriers,  and  the  size  of  guns. 


VI 


But  the  net  result  of  the  discussion  over  sub- 
marines and  other  auxiliary  craft  was  that  the 
French  were  firmly  fixed  in  the  public  mind  as 


The  Submarine  187 

obstructionists  (the  more  colloquial  word,  used 
by  many,  was  "trouble-makers").  They  had 
prevented  the  Conference  from  putting  any 
limitation  on  the  quantity  of  submarines  or  on 
the  quantity  of  other  auxiliary  craft.  These 
made  a  pretty  big  hole  in  the  Conference  agenda. 
Coupled  with  what  she  had  already  done  about 
land  armament,  and  had  tried  to  do  about 
capital  ships,  it  is  not  surprising  that  France 
found  herself  in  a  position  which  her  own  news- 
papers described  as  "moral  isolation." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FRANCE  AT  WASHINGTON 

WHAT  France  did  at  the  Conference  is 
a  subject  as  to  which  it  is  not  easy  to  pass 
judgment.  Those  who  have  prejudices 
one  way  or  the  other  have  found  it  simple  to  ar- 
rive quickly  at  an  attitude  of  either  thorough- 
going condemnation  or  of  apology.  I  found 
myself  from  time  to  time  sharing  the  feeling  that 
France  was  "acting  ugly"  and  that  she  made 
threats  of  actions  which  would  have  rendered  the 
Conference  a  failure.1  But  at  the  same  time  I 
kept  constantly  recalling  some  facts  and  condi- 
tions which,  while  they  do  not  justify  what 
France  did,  nor  even  go  far  toward  condoning 
it,  nevertheless  go  some  distance  toward  explain- 
ing the  causes  for  the  state  of  feeling  the  French 
delegates  showed. 

II 

During  the  months  of  October  and  November, 
America  acclaimed  Marshal  Foch  in  a  triumphal 

1  The  phrase  Hughes  used  in  his  cablegram  to  Briand  calling  on 
France  to  recede  from  her  stand  on  capital  ships  was:  "You  will  ob- 
serve the  attitude  of  France  will  determine  the  success  or  failure  of 
this  effort  to  reduce  the  heavy  burden  of  naval  armament." 

188 


France  at  Washington  189 

tour  from  coast  to  coast,  and  presented  him, 
among  other  evidences  of  honour  and  esteem, 
with  twenty-nine  college  degrees,  a  baby  wild- 
cat and  several  trunkfuls  of  other  trinkets,  and 
an  honorary  membership  in  the  New  York 
Bricklayers'  Union.  These  things  are  not 
picked  out  for  mention  for  purposes  of  satire, 
but  rather  because  they  were  typical  American 
expressions  of  regard  for  Foch  and  France  on 
the  part  of  all  elements  of  the  American  public. 
On  the  day  the  Washington  Conference  began, 
France  had  the  strongest  sort  of  hold  on  Ameri- 
can feeling. 

But  on  January  31st,  during  the  closing  week 
of  the  Conference,  the  French  Ambassador  to 
Washington,  M.  Jusserand,  in  words  that  re- 
flected his  awareness  of  a  completely  reversed 
state  of  feeling  in  America  about  France,  said: 

In  the  course  of  the  last  few  weeks  the  country  that  I 
have  represented  in  America  for  nearly  twenty  years  has 
been  censured  with  extreme  severity  and  I  might  use  an- 
other word.  The  letters  1  I  have  been  receiving,  the  ar- 
ticles I  have  read,  the  conversations  in  which  I  have  taken 
part — all  this  shows  a  very  grave,  serious  misunderstand- 
ing is  persisting  in  the  minds  of  many  as  to  the  ideas  of 
France,  her  fate,  and  her  aspirations. 

Now,  obviously,  the  thing  that  intervened  be- 


i  It  was  said,  in  the  Washington  gossip  of  the  time,  that  among  other 
forms  of  disapproval  of  the  actions  of  the  French  delegations,  some 
Americans  were  threatening  to  withhold  their  support  of  various  French 
charities. 


190  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

tween  November  and  February,  the  conditions 
which  caused  a  change  from  a  generous,  almost 
an  exalted,  good  will  toward  France  to  a  serious 
irritation  against  her,  arose  during  and  out  of 
the  Washington  Conference. 

Ill 

In  the  description  of  the  opening  session  of 
the  Conference,  in  Chapter  I,  I  called  attention 
to  two  incidents  which  illustrate  the  state  of 
mind  in  which  the  French  from  the  very  begin- 
ning seemed  to  be.  One  was  the  lack  of  grati- 
fication which  the  French  delegates  showed  at 
finding  themselves  around  the  corner  from  the 
top  table;  and  I  said  that  at  all  of  the  subse- 
quent plenary  sessions  the  seats  had  been  shuffled 
so  as  to  permit  the  head  of  the  French  delegation 
to  have  a  seat  at  the  top  table. 

Now  the  fact  is  that  the  original  seating  of  the 
delegates  was  strictly  according  to  the  precedent 
of  the  Paris  Conference,  and  was  strictly  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  that  govern  such  details.  It  is  a 
minute  matter,  a  thing  within  the  world  of  the 
more  meticulous  details  of  diplomatic  inter- 
course, and  I  should  hesitate  to  burden  this  nar- 
rative with  so  much  about  it  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  it  was  just  such  incidents  as  these  that 
showed  the  prevailing  state  of  mind  of  the 
French  delegates.  I  had  the  feeling  at  the  time, 


France  at  Washington  191 

and  still  have  it,  that  there  was  something  gro- 
tesque in  the  fact  that  men  like  Mr.  Hughes  and 
the  others,  engaged  upon  one  of  the  greatest  ad- 
ventures in  altruism  in  all  history,  should  be  com- 
pelled at  all  times  to  keep  their  brains  alert  and 
on  guard  about  such  a  matter  as  the  seating  at 
the  table  and  about  ceremonial  minutiae,  should 
be  constantly  under  apprehension  lest  the  im- 
mense task  they  were  engaged  upon  be  endan- 
gered by  some  minute  matter  arising  out  of  an 
excessively  sensitive  amour  propre  on  the  part 
of  some  who  were  participating. 

I  have  said  that  the  original  seating  at  the 
table  was  strictly  according  to  the  diplomatic 
rule.  That  rule  is  that  the  representatives  of 
nations  engaged  in  a  conference  like  that  at 
Washington  shall  be  seated  alphabetically.  In 
the  diplomatic  alphabet  the  name  of  the  United 
States  is  not  the  "United  States"  but  "America" 
— in  French  "Amerique."  (Many  years  ago 
the  official  diplomatic  title  of  the  United  States 
was  the  French  equivalent  "Etats  Unis;"  at  that 
time  our  letter  was  "E."  But  some  time  about 
the  presidency  of  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  the  offi- 
cial designation  of  the  United  States  became 
"America"  or  "Amerique.")  America's  alpha- 
betic designation  being  "A,"  we  head  the  list  at 
all  such  gatherings.  After  us  comes  Great 
Britain.  Great  Britain's  diplomatic  designation 


192  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

is  not  "Great  Britain"  but  "British  Empire,"  so 
that  her  letter  is  "B,"  and  she  comes  second. 
France,  with  the  letter  "F"  comes  third;  Italy, 
according  to  the  alphabetical  order,  comes 
fourth,  and  Japan,  fifth.  (I  am  speaking  now 
of  the  five  powers  who  composed  the  Conference 
for  all  purposes,  and  am  not  including  the  addi- 
tional four  powers  who  were  in  the  Conference 
for  the  limited  function  of  participating  in  dis- 
cussions on  the  Far  East.) 

The  seating  at  the  table  was  strictly  according 
to  this  alphabetical  order.  Mr.  Hughes,  as  the 
presiding  officer,  sat  at  the  middle  of  the  top 
table,  with  the  other  three  American  delegates 
on  his  right;  at  his  left  were  the  British  dele- 
gates; next  on  the  right  came  the  French  dele- 
gates ;  next  on  the  left  came  the  Italian  delegates, 
and  last  on  the  right  came  the  Japanese  dele- 
gates. 

But  it  so  happened,  that  the  table  were  ar- 
ranged in  the  form  of  a  rectangle,  and  that  the 
number  of  seats  at  the  top  end  of  the  rectangle 
was  just  seven.  This  being  the  case,  it  resulted 
that  all  the  seats  at  the  top  table  were  taken 
up  by  the  delegates  of  America  and  Great 
Britain,  and  that  the  seats  of  the  French  dele- 
gates were  just  around  the  corner  from  the  top 
table.  It  was  this  that  caused  the  lack  of  grati- 
fication of  the  French.  At  all  the  subsequent 


France  at  Washington  193 

plenary  sessions  following  the  first,  in  order  to 
give  the  French  one  place  at  the  top  table,  all  of 
the  seven  seats  were  moved  one  seat  to  the  left. 
The  result  was  that  Ambassador  Geddes,  the 
third  of  the  British  delegates,  was  moved  around 
the  corner  of  the  table  to  the  left.  There  was 
nothing  extraordinary  about  this;  but  another 
result  of  the  shifting  of  seats  illustrated  in  a 
striking  way  the  wish  of  the  Conference  to  ac- 
commodate itself  to  the  sensitiveness  of  the 
French  delegates.  At  all  of  the  subsequent 
plenary  sessions,  the  presiding  officer,  Mr. 
Hughes,  sat,  not  at  the  middle  of  the  top  table, 
which  was  the  natural  place  for  the  presiding 
officer,  but  one  seat  to  the  left  of  the  middle. 

How  essentially  immaterial  all  this  was  can 
be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  if  the  Conference 
table  had  been  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  "U,"  had 
been  rounded  at  the  corners,  the  French  would 
have  had  no  occasion  to  make  objection.  The 
mere  fact  that  a  triangular  corner  of  pine  board, 
not  more  than  a  few  inches  in  dimensions,  pro- 
jected between  the  French  delegation  and  the 
American  delegation,  made  all  the  trouble. 

If  I  have  gone  to  such  lengths  to  describe  so 
minor  a  thing  in  such  minute  detail,  it  is  only  be- 
cause this  was  the  sort  of  thing  that  seemed  to 
have  much  to  do  with  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
French  delegates.  They  seemed  at  all  times  to 


194  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

be  in  that  mood,  that  uneasiness  of  temperament, 
which  New  England  folks  frequently  describe 
as  "in  a  state." 

I  have  mentioned  also,  in  the  first  chapter, 
the  insistence  of  the  French  delegates  on  the  pre- 
rogative of  their  tongue  as  the  language  of  diplo- 
macy. There  were  repeated  instances  of  this, 
some  of  them  so  meticulous  that,  if  recited  here, 
they  would  seem  a  little  absurd  to  an  American 
reader  giving  thought  to  the  heart  of  what  the 
Conference  was  doing,  rather  than  to  the  in- 
finitesimal diplomatic  niceties  upon  which  the 
French  seemed  intent.  The  French  delegates 
seemed  constantly  on  the  lookout  for  slights. 
Some  of  the  French  newspaper  men  reflected 
this  state  of  mind.  Toward  the  end  of  the  first 
week  of  the  Conference,  one  of  the  French  cor- 
respondents cabled  his  paper  that  "except  as 
common  guests  at  a  dinner  party,  Balfour  and 
Briand  have  not  met."  About  the  same  time, 
a  despatch  from  Paris  to  America  said  that  "the 
French  press  shows  disappointment  at  the  na- 
tion's comparative  effacement."  Another  des- 
patch from  Paris  described  the  French  as  "an- 
gry at  being  left  out  in  the  cold."  Another 
French  newspaper  complained  that  the  French 
delegates  at  Washington  "were  out  of  the  pic- 
ture." All  this  reflected  a  persistent  feeling  on 
the  part  of  some  of  the  French  delegates  that 


France  at  Washington  195 

they  were  not  being  treated  very  well.  In  that 
part  of  the  world  of  Washington  which  has  to  do 
with  dinners  and  receptions  there  was  a  constant 
buzz  of  gossip  and  stories  reflecting  wounded 
feelings  on  the  part  of  the  French  as  to  the  rela- 
tive importance  of  the  places  they  were  given  at 
table,  and  the  like.  This  kind  of  thing  persisted 
to  the  end  of  the  Conference.  On  the  social  and 
ceremonial  side  of  the  Conference,  the  whole  feel- 
ing of  the  French  seemed  to  be  one  of  con- 
tinuously wounded  self-esteem.  These  stories 
about  wounded  self-esteem  on  the  part  of  the 
French  were  no  more  numerous  than  the  stories 
of  Americans  who  found  it  difficult  to  account 
for  some  of  the  things  the  French  delegates  did. 
The  Americans,  from  Mr.  Hughes  down  to  the 
last  hostess  in  Washington,  wanted  to  be  punc- 
tilious in  showing  deference  to  the  French,  and 
were  always  giving  thought  to  their  dignity  and 
amour  propre.  The  response  that  some  of  the 
French  made  to  this  effort  at  meticulous  con- 
sideration was,  in  many  cases,  as  likely  to  cause 
hurt  surprise  to  the  Americans,  certainly,  as 
anything  we  could  have  done,  or  failed  to  do,  to 
the  French.  In  many  cases  some  of  the  French 
showed  themselves  ready  to  take  offense  to  a  de-  \ 
gree  which,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  made  them  \ 
seem  a  little  ridiculous  according  to  American  \ 
standards  of  give-and-take  among  men  and  na-  / 


196  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

tions.1  Possibly  some  of  the  French  delegates 
were  not  of  the  kind  of  personality  that  easily 
ignores  small  things.  During  the  war,  in  some 
cases,  men  became  symbols,  and  we  attributed  to 
them  as  symbols  a  quality  they  did  not  have  in 
their  own  persons.  Possibly,  also,  the  quality  of 
the  adulation  we  had  given  Foch  in  his  triumphal 
tour  just  before  the  Conference  began  may  have 
led  some  others  to  expect  a  little  more  for  them- 
selves than  it  occurred  to  us  to  give.  Possibly 
some  of  the  French  delegates  may  have  exag- 
gerated the  place  that  what  is  called  Washing- 
ton society  has  in  American  life,  and  may  have 
overestimated,  in  one  direction  or  the  other, 
either  the  assurances  or  the  slights  that  they  re- 
ceived or  thought  they  received,  in  those  quar- 
ters. But  everything  that  happened  in  what 
may  be  called  a  social  way  can  be  omitted;  and 
it  still  remains  a  fact  that  in  their  official  rela- 
tions to  the  Conference,  some  of  the  French  dele- 
gates showed  themselves  rather  more  intent  upon 
considerations  of  dignity  and  prerogative  than 
on  the  great  purpose  of  the  gathering. 

IV 

But  aside  from  sensitiveness  of  individuals, 
there  is  a  sensitiveness  of  nations.     France  was 

i  One  of  the   French  delegates  came   to  be  referred   to   as   "Peevish 
Papa  Pettingill." 


France  at  Washington  197 

invited  to  a  Conference  in  which  she  was  out-    / 
ranked  by  three  nations.     As  to  these  three  na-    y 
tions,  France,  historically,  has  been  the  equal  of  / 
one — Great  Britain;  and  as  to  the  others  has  ' 
been  superior.     When  France  was  one  of  the 
two  great  Powers  of  the  world,  America  was 
merely  a  few  millions  of  colonial  "roughnecks," 
and  Japan  was  as  unconsidered  a  factor  as  Siam 
or  Swat.     That  France  may  have  felt  pained  by 
this  change  in  her  relative  status  can  be  under- 
stood.    It  does  not  justify  what  she  did,  but  to 
a  degree  it  explains  it.     France  is  the   "new 
poor"  among  the  nations.     America  and  Japan 
are  the  "new  rich."     France  has  all  the  sensi- 
tiveness of  the  new  poor.     She  is  the  beneficiary 
of  a  great  quantity  of  organized  charity  on  the 
part  of  America.     She  is  our  "poor  relation," 
and  has  the  pride  that  frequently  goes  with  that 
position.      Out  of  these   conditions   may  have 
arisen  some  of  the  causes  why  the  French  at  the 
Conference  seemed  always  to  be  in  a  state  of  / 
sensitiveness  about  their  dignity  and  preroga- 
tives. 


There  are  many  possible  points  at  which  to  be- 
gin a  consideration  of  the  relations  between 
France  and  America.  You  might  go  as  far  back 
as  Lafayette  and  consider  how  grateful  we  ought 


198  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

to  be  to  France,  how  tolerant  of  the  things  she  is 
doing  now  that  make  her  what  she  would  call 
"difficile."  Or  you  might  leap  a  century  or  so, 
and  begin  with  what  we  did  for  France  during 
the  recent  war;  and  consider  how  grateful  she 
ought  to  be,  and  how  much  under  obligations  to 
be  helpful  to  our  present  adventure  in  idealism. 

But  the  best  place  to  find  at  least  one  root  of 
what  happened  between  France  and  America  at 
the  recent  Conference  is  at  the  Paris  Peace  Con- 
ference. 

At  that  Conference,  France  wanted  certain 
definite,  concrete  things,  in  the  way  of  bounda- 
ries and  the  like,  which  would  make  her — or 
which  she  thought  would  make  her — secure 
against  Germany  in  the  future.  Mr.  Wilson 
persuaded  France  to  give  up  these  things.  Mr. 
Wilson  was  eager  to  initiate  the  League  of  Na- 
tions, and  he  tried  to  persuade  France  to  trust 
her  future  to  that  institution.  France  was  un- 
willing; and  then  Wilson  promised  her  a  mili- 
tary guarantee  through  a  treaty  to  be  signed  by 
America  and  Britain.  Thereafter,  America 
did  not  go  on  with  the  assurances  that  President 
Wilson  held  out  to  the  French.  Whether  Wil- 
son went  too  far  in  his  promises,  or  whether  the 
American  Senate  was  justified  in  refusing  to 
ratify  those  promises — all  that  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  some  millions  of  words  of  debate.  So 


France  at  Washington  199 

far  as  France  is  concerned,  it  does  not  matter 
which  is  the  answer.  Either  is  the  same  to 
France.  France  did  not  know,  or  certainly  did 
not  take  account  of,  the  fact  that  an  American 
President's  undertaking  in  a  matter  of  foreign 
relations  is  not  valid  until  the  American  Senate 
has  ratified  it.  She  has  learned  it  by  now;  but 
in  the  meantime  she  has  been  shocked  and  em- 
barrassed by  our  refusal  to  give  either  of  the 
things  that  Wilson  led  her  to  rely  on.  We  re- 
fused to  enter  the  League  of  Nations,  and  we 
refused  to  ratify  the  treaty  of  guarantee.  For 
that  action  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 
France  has  a  title  to  almost  any  degree  of  re- 
sentment she  may  care  to  feel  or  express,  has  a 
right  to  generous  tolerance  from  us  from  almost 
anything  she  may  do  of  the  sort  we  describe  as 
"acting  ugly." 

It  was  because  we  broke  the  solemn  promises 
our  President  made  to  her  that  France  finds 
excuse — some  of  it  justified — in  maintaining 
her  big  army.  And  it  was  because  of  her  big 
army  that  France  came  to  Washington  in  a 
mood  ready  to  be  truculent.  She  knew  that  her 
maintenance  of  her  big  army  was  repugnant  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Conference  and  inconsistent 
with  the  order  Harding  was  trying  to  bring  into 
the  world.  She  was  aware  that  her  refusal — 
she  knew  in  advance,  of  course,  that  she  was  go- 


200  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ing  to  refuse — to  permit  land  armament  to  be 
considered  would  make  a  big  hole  in  the  Con- 
ference agenda.  She  knew,  in  short,  that  she 
was  coming  to  a  Conference  of  which  the  atmos- 
phere must  necessarily  be,  as  to  her,  somewhat 
accusatory.  However  polite  and  considerate 
we  might  be,  the  French  delegates  would  always 
be  uneasily  conscious  that  we  would  think  of 
her  as  failing  to  help,  as  unwilling  to  play  the 
game. 

That  state  of  mind,  that  expectancy  of  ac- 
cusation, implied  or  expressed,  is  just  the  mood 
in  which  men  and  nations  are  sensitive  to  slights, 
and  ready  to  feel  them  even  where  they  are  not. 

However,  all  this  is  going  rather  deep  into 
antecedent  history.  The  facts  of  record  which, 
on  this  point,  are  the  essential  part  of  the  narra- 
tive of  the  Washington  Conference,  are :  that  the 
French  delegates  prevented  the  consideration  of 
land  armament ;  that  the  French  delegates  took  a 
position  about  capital  ships  which  would  have 
made  the  Conference  a  complete  failure,  and 
only  receded  after  Hughes  "put  it  up"  to  the 
French  premier  that  the  action  of  that  country 
would  "determine  the  success  or  failure  of 
this  effort  to  reduce  the  heavy  burden  of  naval 
armament;"  that  the  French  delegates  made  any 
limitation  on  the  quantity  of  submarines  im- 
possible; and  that  the  French  delegates  made 


France  at  Washington  201 

any  limitation  on  the  quantity  of  auxiliary  craft 
impossible. 

Those  were  the  specific  actions  of  the  French 
delegates.  One  might  say  of  all  of  them  what 
Balfour  said  of  the  one  action  on  submarines, 
that  they  "constituted  a  singular  contribution 
to  a  conference  called  to  limit  armament." 

The  delegates  of  France  never  seemed  to 
share  the  spirit  of  the  Conference.  In  their 
self-centered  intentness  upon  their  amour  propre 
they  were  cut  off  from  the  emotion  of  exaltation 
that  gripped  the  Conference  and  the  world. 
When  the  whole  world  was  star-eyed  in  pursuit 
of  the  great  adventure,  the  delegates  of  France 
were  thinking  of  their  place  at  the  table. 


CHAPTER  IX 

t 

THE  FOUR-POWER  TREATY 

ONE  of  the  most  competent  reporters  of 
the  Washington  Conference,  Miss  Ida 
Tarbell,  speaking  of  the  four-power 
treaty,  said  that  "watching  this  treaty  emerge 
was  like  watching  a  ship  come  out  of  a  thick 
fog."  It  is  a  fact  that  this  portion  of  the  Con- 
ference's work  came  to  the  observers  as  a  sur- 
prise, and  its  dawning  was  attended  by  much 
rumour  and  surmise,  and,  at  one  period,  by  some 
public  excitement.  The  reason  for  the  atmos- 
phere of  surprise  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  four- 
power  treaty  was  not  on  the  agenda ;  nor  was  the 
Anglo-Japanese  Alliance,  which  the  four-power 
treaty  was  designed  to  terminate.  The  Confer- 
ence was  one  of  five  powers  as  to  naval  matters ; 
and,  as  to  Far  Eastern  matters,  one  of  nine 
powers.  The  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance  was  a 
matter  to  which  only  two  powers  were  directly 
parties;  and  such  a  subject  could  not  well  be 
put  on  the  agenda  of  a  conference  of  a  larger 
number  of  powers.  This  is  the  chief  reason  why 
the  four-power  treaty  came  to  most  of  the  ob- 

202 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  203 

servers  as  a  surprise.  Their  minds  were  intent 
on  the  agenda.  They  were  following  it  from 
subject  to  subject  as  the  Conference  took  the 
various  points  up.  Moreover,  at  the  time,  the 
Conference  was  busy  with  land  armament,  with 
naval  armament,  and  with  various  matters  affect- 
ing China.  We  were  all  following  what  the 
Conference  was  doing  on  these  subjects,  and  did 
not  realize  that  such  a  thing  as  the  Anglo-Japa- 
nese Alliance,  and  the  effort  to  find  some  way  of 
terminating  it,  was  "in  the  works."  Every 
well-informed  person  knew  that  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  Alliance  had  been  a  matter  of  discus- 
sion between  the  British  and  Japanese  govern- 
ments, knew  that  the  American  Government  had 
informed  the  British  Government  that  we  looked 
upon  the  termination  of  the  Anglo- Japanese  Al- 
liance as  a  matter  of  importance.  But  no  one 
knew  the  subject  was  coming  to  a  head  so  soon. 
Our  minds  were  intent  upon  what  we  regarded 
as  the  great  adventure  of  the  Conference,  the 
immense,  historic  effort  to  agree  upon  self-im- 
posed limitations  on  naval  armament;  and  this 
four-power  treaty  was  something  a  little  aside 
from  that. 

In  truth,  while  this  treaty  was  "in  the  works," 
it  was  rather  in  the  background.  It  was  carried 
on  by  the  heads  of  the  delegations  as  something 
additional  to  the  rest  of  the  Conference's  work. 


204  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

It  did  not  bulk  so  large  in  the  work  of  the  Con- 
ference as  it  later  did  in  the  Senate  debate.  The 
time  put  upon  it  was  relatively  small.  It  was 
completed  and  read  to  the  world  exactly  four 
weeks  to  the  hour  after  the  Conference  first  met ; 
and  during  those  four  weeks  it  had  consumed  rel- 
atively little  of  the  time  of  the  men  who  made 
it.  Most  of  the  time,  and  most  of  the  delay 
which  created  an  atmosphere  of  suspense  be- 
tween the  first  rumours  and  the  final  fulfilment 
— most  of  that  was  due  to  the  delay  in  the  neces- 
sary cabling  to  Japan  and  France.  At  this  par- 
ticular time,  the  cable  to  Japan  was  so  choked 
that  it  took  almost  a  week  for  the  Japanese  dele- 
gates to  cable  their  home  government  and  get 
the  answer. 

However,  to  try  to  picture  the  thing  to  the 
reader  as  it  appeared  to  the  observer  at  the  time : 

The  first  to  get  the  clue  was  a  Japanese  re- 
porter who  cabled  it  to  his  paper  in  Tokio, 
whence  it  went  round  the  other  side  of  the  world 
and  came  back  to  us  via  London.  America  re- 
ceived it  as  a  rumour  so  surprising  as  to  be 
dubious.  A  few  days  later,  the  American  news- 
paper men  learned  that  on  December  4th  a 
British  correspondent  had  sent  to  his  paper  in 
London  a  confident  prediction  and  more  or  less 
detailed  description  of  what  was  then  expected 
to  be  a  three-power  treaty.  So  closely  had  the 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  205 

secret  been  guarded  from  the  American  news- 
papers, and  so  skeptical  were  they,  that  when, 
under  an  arrangement  common  during  the  Con- 
ference, a  duplicate  of  the  despatch  to  London 
was  filed  with  one  of  the  New  York  papers,  the 
latter  not  only  did  not  print  it,  but  actually 
printed  an  article  discounting  the  rumour. 

To  American  newspaper  men  who  had  come 
to  apprehend  that  something  important  and  un- 
usual was  going  on,  and  who  made  pressing  in- 
quiries, the  reply  from  the  spokesman  of  the 
American  delegation  was  that  he  could  not  dis- 
cuss anything  except  accomplished  facts.  It 
was  apparent  that  the  preparation  of  the  treaty 
was  being  carried  on  under  mutual  pledges  of 
secrecy,  and  that  the  American  end  of  the  pledge 
was  being  kept  rather  more  carefully  than  the 
others.  By  about  the  6th  of  December,  how- 
ever, definite  predictions  began  to  appear  in  the 
American  papers  of,  first,  a  three-power  treaty, 
and  later,  a  four-power  treaty.1 

Through  all  of  this  it  was  evident  that  Mr. 
Hughes  felt  some  embarrassment.  Day  after 
day,  the  American  spokesman  was  questioned 
by  the  newspaper  men,  and  day  after  day  the 
answer  was  that  nothing  could  be  said  yet. 
(The  delay  was  due  chiefly  to  waiting  on  the 


l  France  was  taken  into  the  group  some  time  after  the  beginning. 


206  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington    > 

crowded  and  belated  cable  to  Japan  and  also  to 
waiting  for  approval  from  France.1 ) 

Finally,  late  one  evening,  the  conditions  were 
fulfilled,  and  the  messages  received  that  com- 
pleted the  treaty  and  permitted  it  to  be  made 
known  to  the  public.  It  was  as  late  as  nine 
o'clock  that  night  that  the  newspaper  men  sud- 
denly learned  there  would  be  an  open  session  the 
next  day.  Washington,  and  America  as  a  whole, 
did  not  learn  it  until  they  saw  it  announced  some- 
what sensationally  in  the  morning  papers.  Mr. 
Hughes's  assistants  worked  all  night  on  the  seat- 
ing and  other  preparations;  and  at  eleven  on 
Saturday  morning,  the  10th,  we  came  together 
at  the  fourth  plenary  session  to  hear  the  treaty 
read. 

II 

I  find  that  in  my  notes  I  spoke  of  that  fourth 
plenary  session,  somewhat  facetiously,  as  "Mas- 
sachusetts' Day"  because  it  was  Senator  Lodge's 
chance  to  shine.  And  Senator  Lodge  did 
shine.  He  was  obviously  proud  of  the  occasion 
and  proud  of  his  part  in  it.  A  little  later  on  he 
got  some  of  the  drawbacks  that  occasionally  go 


1  In  some  quarters  the  gossip  of  the  time  said  that  a  difficulty 
arose  over  whether  the  Anglo-Japanese  treaty  should  be  said  to  be 
"terminated,"  or  "superseded."  The  former  word  would  be  more  ac- 
ceptable to  American  feeling,  the  latter  to  Japanese  and  British.  The 
word  finally  used  in  the  completed  draft  of  the  treaty  was  "terminated." 
All  this  is  said  here  merely  as  a  contribution  to  unverified  gossip. 


The  Four-Power  Treaty 


207 


with  pride,  but  for  the  day  he  was  very  proud  in- 
deed. I  do  not  know  how  much  part  Senator 
Lodge  had  in  the  actual  negotiation  of  the  treaty. 
I  suspect  the  major  part  of  the  negotiations  was 
in  the  hands  of  what  we  occasionally  called  the 
"Big  Three,"  Hughes,  Balfour,  and  Kato.  In 
any  event,  it  was  Senator  Lodge  who  was  given 
the  distinction  of  reading  the  treaty  to  the  world. 

There  is  something  about  the  configuration 
of  Senator  Lodge's  whiskers,  coupled  with  a 
somnolently  and  contentedly  blinking  quality 
his  eyes  frequently  have  when  he  is  in  repose, 
that  makes  you  think  of  a  venerable  cat  of  the 
male  sex  who  not  only  has  just  eaten  a  plump 
canary  and  is,  for  the  moment,  engaged  in  the 
delectable  digestion  thereof;  but  also  has  the  ad- 
ditional satisfaction  of  mind,  the  anticipatory 
pleasure  of  seeing  ahead  of  him  a  long  line  of 
more  canaries  especially  provided  for  his  com- 
fort and  delight.  In  short,  there  are  occasions 
when  Senator  Lodge  gives  you  the  impression 
of  having  weighed  the  world  and  himself,  and 
the  relation  of  the  two  to  each  other,  and  found 
the  whole  quite  edifying. 

This  was  one  of  the  occasions.  A  week  or 
two  later  there  came  a  time  when  Senator  Lodge 
had  reason  to  be  less  completely  composed  over 
his  part  in  what  had  happened  this  day;  but,  for 
the  moment,  he  was  very,  very  happy. 


208  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Mr.  Hughes,  after  getting  rid  of  some  routine 
matters,  arose  and  said:  "I  now  ask  Senator 
Lodge  to  present  a  matter  not  on  the  agenda." 

(I  ask  the  reader  to  notice  particularly  the 
words  with  which  Mr.  Hughes  introduced  the 
subject  of  the  four-power  treaty,  "a  matter  not 
on  the  agenda."  Hardly  anyone  paid  particu- 
lar attention  to  them,  or  understood  them  as  con- 
veying any  important  distinction;  I  am  sure  I 
did  not,  although  I  was  following  everything  as 
closely  as  any  outsider  could.  For  that  matter, 
the  implication  conveyed  by  the  phrase  was  not 
important  in  any  essential  sense;  but  I  ask  the 
reader  to  bear  them  in  mind,  because  remember- 
ing this  distinction  will  make  more  clear  what 
I  shall  later  try  to  explain  about  the  fundamen- 
tal nature  of  the  four-power  treaty,  and  how  it 
came  about.) 

Senator  Lodge  arose.  He  spoke  briefly  of 
his  personal  gratification  at  the  honor  accorded 
him  and  then  read  the  text  of  the  treaty. 

Having  read  the  treaty,  Senator  Lodge  then 
delivered  an  exposition  of  it.  In  the  course  of 
that  exposition,  he  did  what  has  come  to  be  al- 
most an  obsession  with  him.  He  took  a  back- 
handed slap  at  the  League  of  Nations,  saying: 

There  is  no  provision  for  the  use  of  force  to  carry  out 
any  of  the  terms  of  the  agreement,  and  no  military  or 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  209 

naval    sanction    lurks    anywhere    in    the    background    or 
under  cover  of  these  plain  and  direct  clauses. 


From  that,  Senator  Lodge  departed  from 
international  law,  and  entered  upon  a  poetic 
and  literary  description  of  the  isles  of  the  Paci- 
fic. This  was  rather  unusual  in  a  conference 
so  directly  and  exclusively  occupied  with  matters 
of  state  and  international  law.  Nevertheless, 
I  think  the  practically  universal  emotion  on  the 
part  of  the  audience  was  one  of  pleasure.  I 
know  that  was  my  impression.  I  find  my  own 
notes  read:  "This  literary  background  is  one 
of  the  most  charming  things  about  Lodge.  He 
quotes  Stevenson  and  Browning,  and  refers  to 
Melville.  It  is  agreeably  scholarly,  and,  in  an 
attractive  way,  a  little  old-fashioned.  Mr. 
Lodge  does  it  all  very  well." 

Some  of  this  literary  part  of  Senator  Lodge's 
speech  is  worth  quoting,  in  the  light  of  the  satire 
of  which  it  became  the  subject  a  week  or  two 
later,  when  an  unexpected  and  embarrassing  de- 
velopment called  pointed  attention  to  certain 
matters  of  substance  and  law  about  the  treaty, 
which  Senator  Lodge  had  neglected  to  explain 
— the  neglect  being  due,  in  the  view  of  the 
satirists,  to  the  fact  that  so  much  of  Senator 
Lodge's  time  had  been  occupied  with  literary 
description  of  the  isles  of  the  Pacific: 


210  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

We  have  probably  heard  of  the  remark  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  when,  on  leaving  one  of  the  Pacific  Islands,  he 
was  asked  how  he  was  going  to  Samoa.  He  replied  that 
he  should  just  go  out  and  turn  to  the  left.  These  islands 
are,  comparatively  speaking,  so  dense  that  we  might  de- 
scribe them  in  the  words  of  Browning  as  the 

"sprinkled  isles, 
Lily  on  lily,  that  o'er-lace  the  sea." 

And  yet  the  region  through  which  they  are  scattered  is  so 
vast  that  the  Isles  of  Greece  and  the  .ZEgean  Sea,  so 
famous  in  history  and  in  poetry,  could  easily  be  lost  there- 
in and  continue  unnoticed  except  by  wandering  seamen 
or  stray  adventurers.  They  range  from  Australia,  conti- 
nental in  magnitude,  to  atolls,  where  there  are  no  dwellers 
but  the  builders  of  the  coral  reefs  or  lonely  rocks  marking 
the  peak  of  mountains  which  rise  up  from  the  ocean's  floor 
through  miles  of  water  before  they  touch  the  air.  To  the 
Eastern  and  the  Western  world  alike  most  of  the  islands 
of  the  Southwestern  Pacific  are  little  known;  there  still 
lingers  about  them  the  charm  so  compelling  and  so  fascin- 
ating which  an  undiscovered  country  has  for  the  sons  of 
men  who  are  weary  of  main  traveled  roads  and  the  tram- 
pled highways  of  trade  and  commerce  which  cover  the 
surface  of  the  patient  earth.  Upon  these  islands  still 
shines  the  drama  of  romance  in  the  stories  of  Melville  and 
the  writings  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  to  whom  the  South 
Seas  gave  both  a  grave  and  a  monument  imperishable  as 
his  own  fame.1 


l  Some  of  those  who  smiled  at  Mr.  Lodge  about  this  descent  into 
literature,  and  pictured  him  as  telling  his  secretary  to  bring  the 
dictionary  of  quotations  and  dfg  out  a  few  couplets  about  the  isles  of 
the  Pacific,  were  quite  wrong.  It  was  most  natural  for  a  man  of 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  211 

After  getting  through  with  this  literary  por- 
tion of  his  address,  Mr.  Lodge  closed  his  speech 
with  ail  appeal  which  was  entirely  adequate  to 
the  spirit  of  the  occasion,  but  which  had  no  par- 
ticular point  or  direction.  He  talked  in  a  gen- 
eral way  about  preventing  war  by  appealing  to 
"the  hearts,  the  sympathies,  the  reason,  and  the 
higher  impulses  of  mankind,"  and  about  the 
"faith  of  nations;"  but  he  said  not  a  word  about 
what  was  the  essential  heart  and  purpose  of  the 
treaty,  nor  did  he  allude  at  all  to  a  second  fea- 
ture of  it  which  was  the  subject  of  most  of  the 
excitement  that  later  arose  about  the  treaty.  In 
short,  Senator  Lodge  acted  like  what  was  prob- 
ably his  real  role,  that  of  a  man  who  had  merely 
been  entrusted  with  reading  the  treaty  and  in- 
troducing it,  rather  than  like  one  who  had  ac- 
tually gone  through  the  negotiations  from  the 
beginning.  If  Hughes  had  made  this  introduc- 
tion and  explanation  of  the  treaty  himself,  or  if 
Lodge  had  been  in  Hughes's  place,  and  had  ac- 


Lodge's  quality  to  take  this  turn.  Senator  Lodge  has  a  right  to  secure 
standing  among  men  of  letters.  Not  only  has  he  written  books  of  high 
credit.  He  has  a  true  sense  of  literary  values,  and  a  discriminating 
taste  which  critics  appreciate.  In  public  life  he  has  made  himself,  in  a 
quiet  way  that  the  public  generally  does  not  know,  the  custodian  of  the 
interests  of  writers.  He  maintains  contact  with  them,  and  this  asso- 
ciation is  his  principal  avocation.  There  are  writers,  of  the  highest 
class,  who,  on  their  trips  to  Washington,  regard  a  visit  to  Lodge  as 
one  of  the  greatest  of  their  pleasures.  I  am  told  that  persons  who  have 
read  many  of  Lodge's  private  letters  to  authors,  and  about  books,  feel 
that  these  letters,  if  collected,  would  make  a  worthy  volume  of  literary 
criticism. 


212  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

tually  lived  through  the  negotiations,  this  speech 
might  have  gone  more  directly  and  clearly  to 
the  heart  of  the  instrument,  and  a  good  deal  that 
occurred  later  might  not  have  happened.  What 
was  later  charged  as  lack  of  candour  in  Lodge 
was  not  really  that  at  all.  He  had  merely  not 
happened  to  have  taken  a  sufficiently  direct  and 
continuous  part  in  the  negotiations,  to  be  the  best 
man  to  talk  about  it.  However- 
After  Lodge  had  presented  the  treaty  and 
made  his  speech,  the  others  were  called  upon. 
Viviani  did  not  address  himself  very  directly 
to  the  treaty.  He  was  even  more  remote  from 
it  than  Lodge.  He  took  the  occasion  to  talk 
about  France.  There  were  some  eloquent  pas- 
sages in  Viviani's  speech,  as  when  he  said: 

France  has  never  declined  to  stand  by  her  plighted 
word.  And  when  there  has  been  a  question  of  either 
standing  by  her  pledged  word  and  honouring  her  signature, 
or  taking  arms,  France  has  not  hesitated  to  seal  with  the 
blood  of  her  own  children  the  treaties  to  which  she  had 
appended  her  name,  and  she  has  kept  faith. 

But  for  the  most  part  Viviani's  speech  was 
about  the  late  war.  I  find  I  wrote  in  my  notes : 

Viviani  becomes  emotional  beyond  the  needs  of  the 
occasion.  He  swings  his  arms,  he  grows  passionate,  he 
goes  back  to  the  war  and  talks  about  France's  part  in  it. 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  213 

M.  Viviani  means  to  seize  the  occasion  to  make  a  plea  for 
France's  present  situation.  He  describes  her  war-torn 
land  and  pleads  for  help  and  patience  from  us.  The 
audience  is  sympathetic,  but  the  colder  part  of  it  probably 
feels  that  Viviani  has  got  rather  far  away  from  the  Pacific 
islands.  Still,  Viviani  is  the  real  thing  in  the  way  of  an 
orator.  There  is  art  and  beauty  in  his  diction  and  his 
manner.  Merely  to  listen  to  him  is  a  pleasure. 

Everybody  applauded  Viviani  heartily;  and 
Viviani's  oratorical  temperament  was  obviously 
pleased.  A  newspaper  man  leaned  over  to  some- 
one who  was  applauding  with  especial  emphasis 
and  said,  "Cut  it  out:  if  you  don't  look  out,  he'll 
jump  up  and  make  another  speech." 

Now  Balfour  arose.  And  Balfour  made  the 
sort  of  speech  that  Lodge  had  not.  Balfour 
had  been  at  the  very  heart  of  the  negotiations. 
He  knew  the  treaty.  His  thought  was  in  it. 
Consequently  he  went  directly  and  simply  to 
the  point.  He  knew  that  the  main  purpose  and 
sole  inspiration  of  the  treaty  was  to  terminate 
and  take  the  place  of  the  Anglo-Japanese  Al- 
liance, and  he  said  so.  In  a  marked  sense,  Bal- 
four had  a  difficult  job.  Getting  rid  of  the  Japa- 
nese Alliance  was  a  delicate  business  for  Great 
Britain.  It  had  to  be  done  in  just  the  right 
way,  or  Japanese  sensibilities  would  have  been 
offended — justly  so.  At  the  same  time,  Ameri- 
can sensibilities  had  been  showing  marked  dis- 


214  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

taste  over  the  continuation  of  the  Anglo-Japa- 
nese Alliance.  That  distaste  on  the  part  of 
America  was  the  chief — practically  the  sole- 
reason  for  getting  rid  of  the  Anglo-Japanese 
Alliance  and  making  the  four-power  treaty  to 
take  its  place.  The  whole  thing  had  been  a 
delicate  bit  of  business;1  and  Balfour's  speech 
on  this  occasion  must  be  equally  delicate.  Bal- 
four  achieved  that  delicacy  by  the  means  often 
best  adapted  to  attain  delicacy,  namely,  by 
simple  candour.  He  went  straight  to  the  heart 
of  things  and  told  the  whole  story.  He  said: 

I  am  perfectly  well  aware  that  the  treaty  between  Great 
Britain  and  Japan  has  been  the  cause  of  much  searching 
of  heart,  of  some  suspicions,  of  a  good  deal  of  animad- 
version in  important  sections  of  opinion  in  the  United 
States.  .  .  . 

They  call  to  mind  the  fact  that  it  originally  came  into 
being  on  account  of  the  aggressive  attitude  taken  in  Far 
Eastern  affairs  by  Russia  and  by  Germany,  and  they  asked 
themselves,  is  there  any  further  danger  from  Russia? 
And  when  they  answered  that  question,  as  of  course  they 
were  obliged  to  answer  it,  in  the  negative;  when  they  per- 
ceived that  the  practical  objects  for  which  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  alliance  was  brought  into  being  no  longer  ex- 


1  A  witty  American  newspaper  man  described  this  four-power  treaty 
as  a  device  to  enable  Great  Britain  to  avoid  prosecution  for  bigamy. 
She  was  united  to  Japan  and  did  not  want  to  divorce  her  without 
cause;  at  the  same  time  she  was  extremely  eager  to  be  united  to 
America. 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  215 

isted,  that  history  had  wiped  them  out,  they  said  to  them- 
selves, "  Why,  then,  is  this  treaty  continued  ?  May  it 
not  in  certain  conceivable  eventualities  prove  hampering 
and  injurious  in  case  strained  relations  should  become  yet 
more  strained?" 

I  understand  that  point  of  view.  But  there  is  another 
point  of  view  which  I  want  you  to  understand  and  which 
even  those  who  disagree  with  it  will  sympathize  with. 
There  is  no  audience  that  I  would  rather  appeal  to  than 
an  American  audience  on  the  point  I  am  just  going  to 
mention.  This  treaty,  remember,  was  not  a  treaty  that 
had  to  be  renewed.  It  was  a  treaty  that  ran  until  it  was 
formally  denounced  by  one  of  the  two  parties  to  it.  It  is 
true  that  the  objects  for  which  the  treaty  had  been  created 
no  longer  required  international  attention.  But  after  all, 
that  treaty  or  its  predecessors  has  been  in  existence  within 
a  few  days  of  twenty  years.  It  has  served  a  great  pur- 
pose in  two  great  wars.  It  has  stood  the  strain  of  com- 
mon sacrifices,  common  anxieties,  common  efforts,  common 
triumphs.  When  two  nations  have  been  united  in  that 
fiery  ordeal  they  cannot  at  the  end  of  it  take  off  their  hats 
one  to  the  other  and  politely  part  as  two  strangers  part 
who  travel  together  for  a  few  hours  in  a  railway  train. 
Something  more,  something  closer,  unites  them  than  the 
mere  words  of  the  treaty,  and,  as  it  were,  gratuitously  and 
without  a  cause,  to  tear  up  the  written  contract,  although 
it  serves  no  longer  any  valid  or  effective  purpose,  may 
lead  to  misunderstandings  in  one  nation  just  as  much  as 
the  maintenance  of  that  treaty  has  led  to  misunderstand- 
ings in  another. 

In  these  words,  Balfour  made  peace  with 
Japan  for  leaving  her. 


216  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

III 

I  have  spoken  of  the  surprise  which  attended 
the  emerging  of  this  four-power  treaty,  and  of 
the  incredulity  with  which  even  the  best  informed 
American  newspapers  treated  the  rumours  that 
such  a  treaty  was  in  process  of  being  brought  to 
birth.  When  the  background  and  antecedent 
history  of  the  treaty  was  attended  by  such  an 
atmosphere,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  for- 
mal announcement  of  it  was  attended  with 
emotions  that  included  some  elements  of 
doubt  and  suspicion.  Probably  there  should 
not  have  been  any  doubt  and  suspicion  after 
Mr.  Balfour's  candour  in  explaining  the  pur- 
pose of  the  treaty.  But,  nevertheless,  doubt 
and  suspicion  there  was. 

Out  of  this  state  of  mind,  it  arose  that  when 
the  text  of  the  treaty  was  spread  abroad  in  the 
newspapers,  it  became  the  object  of  microscopic 
examination  on  the  part  of  those — "comma 
hounds,"  we  came  to  call  them — whose  percep- 
tions of  hidden  meanings  and  remote  possibilities 
of  disconcerting  interpretations  are  frequently 
embarrassing  though  often  useful.  One  of 
these  discovered  in  the  treaty  a  thing  that  struck 
him  as  dreadful,  and  he  raised  a  wild  alarum. 
The  treaty  was  designed  to  express  a  contract 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  217 

whereby  each  of  the  four  powers  should  respect 
each  other's  "insular  possessions  and  insular  do- 
minions in  the  region  of  the  Pacific  Ocean." 
Those  were  the  words;  and  the  thing  that  the 
champion  among  the  "comma-hounds"  hit  upon 
was  the  fact  that  these  words  would  include  the 
homelands  of  Japan.  The  primary  purpose  of 
the  treaty  was,  of  course,  to  cover  the  smaller 
islands  and  colonial  dominions,  the  sort  of  ter- 
ritories that  Lodge  had  referred  to  as  the  "lacy 
isles."  But  the  homelands  of  Japan  happen 
also  to  be  islands.  The  wording  of  the  treaty, 
therefore,  gave  to  Japan  precisely  the  same 
guarantees  and  commitments  as  to  the  smaller 
islands. 

This  discovery  was  meat  for  the  critical — not 
only  meat,  but  cheese  and  dessert  and  salad  and. 
tabasco  sauce — particularly  tabasco  sauce.  "If 
the  homeland  of  Japan  is  a  beneficiary  of  the 
treaty,  why  not  the  homeland  of  the  United 
States?"  they  cried.  They  pictured  America 
under  an  obligation  to  Japan  without  Japan  be- 
ing under  an  equivalent  obligation  to  us. '  Some- 
one else,  with  an  exaggeration  born  of  suspicion, 
said  we  were  giving  to  Japan  a  guarantee  we  had 
refused  to  France — a  suggestion  that  was  rather 
more  than  far-fetched,  because  the  protection 
that  France  had  asked  for  and  been  refused 
three  years  ago  was  in  the  form  of  a  guarantee  of 


218  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

military  action,  and  was  otherwise  greatly  dif- 
ferent in  form  from  the  four-power  treaty.1 

The  discovery  was  printed  on  the  first  pages 
of  the  newspapers  and  lengthily  commented  on 
for  several  days.  Everybody  talked  about  it. 
Newspaper  men  asked  the  American  delegates 
about  it,  and  they  said  yes,  it  was  true.  They 
attached  no  particular  importance  to  it,  and 
could  see  no  menace  in  it,  and  no  impropriety. 
Altogether,  the  thing  was  so  completely  ad- 
mitted, and  so  universally  discussed  that  it 
ceased  to  be  a  sensation. 

Then,  one  afternoon,  several  days  after  the 
newspapers  had  ceased  to  talk  about  it,  at  one  of 
the  regular  twice-a-week  sessions  of  the  news- 
paper men  with  President  Harding,  someone 
asked  him  if  he  regarded  the  language  of  the 
treaty  as  covering  the  homeland  of  Japan.  He 
replied  that,  in  his  judgment,  it  did  not. 

The  answer  astonished  the  newspaper  men. 
Nearly  all  of  them  had  heard  one  or  another  of 
the  American  delegates  who  had  participated  in 
the  making  of  the  treaty  say  the  contrary  of 
what  Harding  now  said.  Instantly,  Washing- 
ton buzzed  with  talk  about  the  differing  inter- 
pretations put  upon  the  treaty  by  Harding  and 
by  the  delegates.  It  was  pointed  out  that  Hard- 

l  Nevertheless,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  treaty  gave  Japan  some  kind 
and  degree  of  guarantee,  at  least;  whereas,  we  had  refused  to  give 
France  any  guarantee  whatever. 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  219 

ing  must  be  unfamiliar  with  the  newspaper  dis- 
cussion that  had  taken  place  some  days  before. 
Since  that  seemed  an  explanation  difficult  to  ac- 
cept, some  of  the  gossip  began  to  indulge  in  a 
wide  variety  of  far-fetched  surmise;  it  was  said 
that  maybe  Harding  wanted  to  rebuke  his  dele- 
gates publicly — maybe  he  was  familiar  with  what 
they  had  done,  but  wanted  to  disavow  it  and  pre- 
cipitate a  repudiation  of  it.  There  were  several 
hours  of  acute  excitement. 

Later  in  the  afternoon,  two  of  the  delegates, 
Lodge  and  Underwood,  had  a  conference  with 
the  President,  and  about  seven  in  the  evening 
the  White  House  issued  a  statement  to  be 
printed  in  the  newspapers  which  read  as  follows : 

When  the  President  was  responding  to  press  inquiries 
at  the  afternoon  interview  today  he  expressed  the  opinion 
that  the  homeland  of  Japan  did  not  come  within  the  words 
"insular  possession  and  insular  dominions"  under  the  four- 
power  agreement  except  as  territory  proper  of  any  other 
nation  which  is  a  party  to  the  agreement. 

This  expression  has  been  emphasized  as  a  division  be- 
tween the  President  and  the  delegates  to  the  Conference 
in  construing  the  four-power  agreement. 

The  President  announced  tonight  that  the  difference  in 
view  in  no  wise  will  be  permitted  to  embarrass  the  Con- 
ference or  the  ratification  of  the  agreement.  He  had 
assumed  all  along  that  the  spirit  of  the  Conference  con- 
templates a  confidence  which  pledges  respect  of  territory 
in  every  way  which  tends  to  promote  lasting  peace. 


220  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

He  has  learned  from  the  United  States  delegates  to  the 
Conference  that  they  have  agreed  to  the  construction 
which  includes  the  homeland  of  Japan  in  the  term  "in- 
sular possessions  and  insular  dominions,"  and  has  no  ob- 
jection to  that  construction. 

This  public  statement  from  Harding  caused 
all  the  commotion  to  flare  up  again.  If  Hard- 
ing's  words  were  to  be  given  credit  for  complete 
candour — and  everybody  knew  Harding  to  be 
a  man  of  simple  candour — then  it  must  be  con- 
cluded that  he  was  most  naively  uninformed 
about  a  matter  that  had  been  in  everybody's 
mouth  for  a  week.  "Is  Harding  being  kept  in 
the  dark?"  asked  some  of  the  more  critical  pa- 
pers. It  was  charged  that  not  only  Harding  but 
the  country  was  being  denied  essential  informa- 
tion about  what  the  Conference  was  doing.  Most 
of  this  accusation  and  innuendo  fell  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  Lodge.  It  was  charged  that  Lodge,  in 
the  speech  in  which  he  had  given  the  treaty  to 
the  public,  had  been  lacking  in  candour  when  he 
failed  to  make  the  public  understand  clearly  that 
the  homelands  of  Japan  were  included.  The 
speech  in  which  Lodge  talked  of 

"sprinkled  isles, 
Lily  on  lily,  that  o'er-lace  the  sea." 

was  recalled  and  made  the  subject  of  an  ingen- 
ious variety  of  parody  and  satire.     Some  of  the 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  221 

Democrats  were  rather  too  deeply  moved  to  be 
merely  satirical.  They  recalled  how  the  Repub- 
licans had  acted  when  things  had  come  out  about 
the  Paris  Conference  that  gave  Mr.  Wilson's 
political  enemies,  including  Lodge,  the  oppor- 
tunity to  make  charges  of  secret  diplomacy. 
The  temper  of  this  period  of  the  Conference 
cannot  be  more  readily  pictured  than  by  repro- 
ducing some  portions  of  a  despatch  I  wrote  at 
the  time: 

The  Democrats  are  sullen  about  the  situation.  .  .  . 
They  say  if  they  "pass  up"  the  opportunity  to  make  poli- 
tical capital  out  of  Harding's  awkward  situation  they  will 
merely  be  penalizing  themselves,  and  they  have  little 
faith  in  the  likelihood  of  getting  any  of  the  rewards  of 
virtue  practiced  merely  for  its  own  sake. 

The  points  the  Democrats  make  don't  go  to  the  soul  of 
the  treaty.  Many  of  them  in  their  hearts  feel  that  the  S 
treaty  is  mostly  good  and  ought  to  be  ratified.  The  thing 
they  talk  about  with  complete  faith  in  their  righteousness 
is  the  comparison  between  the  forbearance  which  they 
are  asked  to  practice  now  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ruth- 
less malevolence  with  which  the  Republicans  took  the 
most  unfair  and  vituperative  advantage  of  every  possible 
slip  that  Wilson  made  in  connection  with  the  League  of 
Nations.  If  Wilson  were  to-day  in  Harding's  shoes,  if 
he  were  in  the  situation  in  which  Harding  and  Lodge  now 
are,  and  if  the  whole  situation  were  today  correspondingly 
reversed  as  it  was  two  years  ago,  the  Republicans  would 
be  making  the  heavens  ring  with  words  about  secrecy, 
duplicity,  and  all  the  vocabulary  that  malevolence  can 


222  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

call  to  its  service.  The  Democrats  remember,  and  are 
justified  in  remembering,  how  Lodge  and  the  other  Repub- 
licans cross-examined  Wilson  like  a  man  under  suspicion 
of  treason;  how  they  abused  him  like  a  furtive  thief  of 
the  nation's  interests;  how  they  took  advantage  of  every 
occasion,  just  like  the  present,  when  something  came  out 
by  accident  that  Wilson  had  failed  to  tell. 

If  the  Democrats  could  see  some  clear  way  of  making 
the  most  of  their  opportunity  to  bedevil  Lodge  and  Hard- 
ing, without  at  the  same  time  imperiling  the  treaty,  they 
would  go  to  it  with  all  the  heartiness  of  embittered  men 
presented  by  fate  with  a  wonderful  opportunity  for  a 
unique  revenge.  The  Democrats  in  the  Senate,  with  the 
exception  of  a  very  few  like  Reed,  have  a  devoted  affec- 
tion for  Wilson,  and  a  righteous  and  wrathful  sense  of  the 
cruelties  practiced  upon  him.  That  affection  is  increased 
every  day  by  the  manner  in  which  Wilson  now  comports 
himself,  and  by  the  appealing  picture  his  situation  makes. 
.  .  .  It  is  Lodge  more  than  Harding  that  the  Democrats 
will  go  after.  The  Democrats  recall  that  while  Harding 
opposed  the  League,  he  never  participated  in  the  cruel 
baiting  of  Wilson.  But  Lodge  the  Democrats  look  upon 
as  a  horse  of  another  color.  They  feel  that  Lodge  hated 
Wilson.  In  the  same  degree,  the  Democrats  now  hate 
Lodge,  and  they  will  make  the  most  of  their  chance  to 
treat  Lodge  now  as  Lodge  treated  Wilson  two  years  ago. 
Lodge  has  been  reported  during  the  last  few  days  as  say- 
ing that  the  present  treaty — his  treaty — must  go  through 
the  Senate  without  reservations.  You  can  imagine  how 
the  Democrats  feel  about  a  dictum  like  that,  coming  from 
one  who,  in  the  League  of  Nations  debate,  showed  himself 
the  champion  reservator  of  the  universe.  There  will  be 
reservations  proposed  to  the  treaty  or  changes  in  it,  and 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  223 

Lodge,  when  he  defends  this  treaty  on  the  Senate  floor, 
will  have  some  experiences  not  hitherto  equalled,  even  in 
a  career  as  crowded  with  acrimony  as  his  has  been. 


However,  after  a  week  or  so  of  this  sort  of 
thing,  most  of  the  high  feeling  died  down.  The 
whole  incident  fitted  perfectly  the  definition  of 
a  tempest  in  a  teapot.  It  roared  through  the 
newspapers  for  about  a  week,  and  then  evapo- 
rated. It  had  been  awkward  for  Harding  at  the 
time;  but  essentially  it  didn't  amount  to  any- 
thing. The  explanation  of  the  whole  episode 
lay  entirely  in  the  excessively  suspicious  and 
partisan  state  of  mind  that  had  been  built  up  in 
the  minds  of  senators  and  in  the  minds  of  the 
public  during  the  League  of  Nations  debate. 
In  this  episode  itself  there  was  nothing  to  justify 
suspicion;  and  for  the  excitement  into  which  the 
public  was  worked,  there  was  no  real  cause.  Ul- 
timately, the  public  came  to  think  of  the  inclu- 
sion of  the  Japanese  homelands  as  of  no 
importance  from  the  standpoint  of  America. 
And  it  was  just  this  lack  of  importance  that  was 
the  cause  of  Harding's  omitting  to  take  account 
of  it.  Of  course  Harding  had  been  kept  in- 
formed of  everything  that  was  being  done. 
Every  person  close  to  the  Conference  would  ob- 
serve that  Hughes  was  seeing  Harding  every 
day.  But  the  lack  of  importance  attached  to 


224  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  inclusion  of  the  Japanese  homelands  by  the 
American  delegation,  and  the  lack  of  impor- 
tance that  Harding  attached  to  it — the  same 
lack  of  importance  that  the  public,  when  in  a 
calmer  mood,  attached  to  it — that  lack  of  im- 
portance accounted  for  the  fact  that  it  had  not 
sunk  into  Harding's  mind.  Harding  could 
not  burden  his  mind  with  what  seemed  to  be,  and 
actually  was,  so  relatively  minor  a  matter,  and  at 
the  same  time  carry  on  the  business  of  the  United 
States.  The  burden  of  work  that  Harding  had 
on  his  shoulders  at  this  time  was  a  subject  of 
comment.  It  happens  that  in  a  despatch  I 
wrote  just  previous  to  this  time,  after  reciting 
the  important  matters  that  were  before  Con- 
gress, and  before  the  Cabinet,  I  said: 

All  of  these  things  President  Harding  seems  to  take  in 
the  course  of  the  day's  work.  His  unruffled  serenity  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  things  that  appeal  to  those  of  us 
who  make  the  daily  round  of  events  here.  It  is  not  the 
time,  of  course,  to  attempt  a  measured  estimate  of  Hard- 
ing's  personality,  which  should  take  account  of  all  its 
aspects,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  his 
equanimity  and  his  personal  armor  against  the  infection 
of  excitement  have  much  to  do  with  the  success  of  the  Con- 
ference, and  especially  with  the  creation  of  the  spirit  and 
atmosphere  of  it.  You  get  a  sense  of  assurance  and  con- 
fidence from  so  little  an  episode  as  going  to  one  of  the 
conferences  between  the  President  and  the  newspaper 
men  which  are  held  after  each  Cabinet  meeting,  and  find- 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  225 

ing  that  in  a  two-hour  session  the  Cabinet,  under  the  seren- 
ity of  Harding's  leadership,  has  handled  routine  business, 
has  not  alluded  to  the  Conference,  and  has  carried  on  the 
affairs  of  the  Government  as  if  the  Conference  did  not  ex- 
ist. 

Harding's  mind  is  singularly  free  from  the  handicaps 
that  waste  time  and  brain  matter,  either  in  worry  about 
the  past  or  apprehensions  about  the  future.  He  does  not 
fret  and  he  has  the  valuable  quality  of  dividing  the  busi- 
ness of  the  day  into  compartments.  He  waits  until  the 
matter  in  hand  demands  decision;  he  makes  the  decision, 
then  passes  on  to  the  next  thing.  In  the  mere  prosaic 
quality  of  capacity  for  hard  work,  Harding  is  extraor- 
dinary. In  the  relation  he  has  to  the  Conference,  the 
giving  of  thought  to  that  alone  is  a  strong  man's  work. 
Aside  from  that  and  in  addition  to  it,  the  preparation  of 
his  opening  address  for  the  meeting  of  Congress  next 
Tuesday  would  be  a  fair  week's  work  for  a  man  with 
average  capacity  for  concentrated  cerebration.  Harding 
takes  it  all  in  an  easy  stride.  These  serene,  unhurried, 
and  unexcited  qualities  of  Harding's  personality  are  most 
certainly  a  highly  important  part  of  the  Conference. 

IV 

Two  explanations  were  current  in  the  news- 
papers as  to  why  the  homelands  of  Japan  had 
happened  to  be  included.  One  was  that  Mr. 
Balfour  had  proposed  it,  and  that  his  purpose 
was  to  convey  a  subtle  compliment  of  dignity 
to  Australia  and  New  Zealand.  Great  Britain 
had,  of  course,  wanted  these  two  dominions  to 


226  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

be  covered  by  the  guarantees  in  the  treaty,  and 
Mr.  Balfour  apparently  thought  it  would  please 
them  if,  by  implication,  they  were  classified  not 
as  merely  insular  possessions  of  Great  Britain, 
but  as  having  the  same  status  as  the  homelands 
of  Japan.  The  other  explanation  was  that  the 
Americans  preferred  this  interpretation  because 
it  would  cause  the  treaty  to  cover  Hawaii,  which 
is  not  merely  an  insular  possession  of  the  United 
States,  but  has  a  closer  relation.1  Of  the  two 
explanations,  the  former  appears  to  be  the  more 
authentic  or,  at  least,  to  have  had  the  most 
weight.  It  is  certain  the  suggestion  did  not 
come  from  Japan. 

The  point  was  really  of  less  importance  than 
it  seemed.  The  interpretation  put  upon  it  by 
the  suspicious  was  that  Japan  had  "slipped 
something  over;"  that  she  had  secured  from  the 
Conference  a  guarantee  of  protection  which  the 
United  States  did  not  get.  If  the  excitement 
and  suspicion  could  be  credited  with  any  justifi- 
cation at  all,  it  would  have  to  rest  on  the  theory 
that  Japan  had  secured  a  secret  advantage. 
And  there  was  nothing  in  that.  The  Japanese 
did  not  really  care  about  the  inclusion  of  their 
homelands.  Some  of  them  had  felt  dubious  about 


1  To  illustrate  the  difference,  the  representative  of  Hawaii  in  our 
Congress  is  a  "territorial  delegate,"  while  the  representative  of  the 
Philippines  is  a  "resident  commissioner." 


"In  appearance  as  well  as  intellectuality,  Baron  Kato  was 
one  of  the  most  impressive  men  in  Washington.  His  eyes 
peered  out  from  his  well-proportioned  head  like  the  glow- 
ing focus  of  an  immense  and  acute  intelligence." 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  227 

it  at  the  time  it  was  done.  Subsequently,  at 
the  close  of  the  Conference,  the  whole  thing 
was  disposed  of  by  a  supplementary  treaty 
specifically  removing  the  homelands  of  Japan 
from  the  original  treaty.  It  was  Japan  who 
took  the  initiative  in  bringing  this  about.  Japan's 
state  of  mind  was  precisely  the  opposite  of  what 
the  suspicious  attributed  to  her.  The  incident 
was  a  curious  example  of  the  place  that  amour 
propre  has  in  diplomacy.  Balfour  wanted  the 
homelands  of  Japan  included  because  that  would 
seem  to  give  to  Australia  and  New  Zealand  a 
status  equal  to  that  of  Japan,  while  to  omit  them 
would  seem  to  classify  them  as  "insular  domin- 
ions" in  a  sense  of  dependency.  Balfour 
wanted  to  pay  a  subtle  compliment  to  those  two 
dominions.  Japan,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not 
care  to  have  her  homelands  included  for  pre- 
cisely the  opposite  reason,  because  that  would 
fail  to  recognize  the  distinction  between  her  as 
a  great  Empire,  and  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land. The  clearest  fact  about  the  whole  episode 
is  that  all  the  suspicion  against  Japan  which  was 
fanned  into  flame  by  those  who  had  taken  the 
lead  in  that  sort  of  thing,  had  not  one  spark  of 
justification,  and  was  founded  on  attributing  to 
her  a  supposed  wish  which  was  exactly  the  op- 
posite of  her  real  wish.  This  incident  should  be 
borne  in  mind  as  a  brake  against  the  next  oc- 


228  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

casion  when  America  is  called  upon  to  get  ex- 
cited about  some  international  bugaboo. 


What  I  have  so  far  said  about  the  four-power 
treaty  has  aimed  to  try  to  reproduce  for  the 
reader  distant  in  time  and  space,  the  sequence  of 
impressions  made  upon  the  mind  of  one  who  was 
an  observer  in  Washington  at  the  time. 

But  for  the  sake  of  even  the  most  limited  his- 
torical adequacy,  it  is  necessary  to  say  something 
briefly  about  the  four-power  treaty  from  a  point 
of  view  that  includes  some  events  antecedent  to 
it. 

Great  Britain  and  Japan  had  an  alliance.  It 
was  formect~m  190Tr~~"its~ purpose  was  mutual 
support  against  the  aggressions  then  being  made 
in  China  and  the  Far  East  by  Russia  and  Ger- 
n^any.^  At  the  time,  nobody  in  America  paid 
any  considerable  attention  to  it.  Certainly  no 
one  lodged  any  formal  or  official  objection  to  it. 
It  did  not  then  strike  us  as  calling  for  objection 
from  us.  Its  purpose  was  well  understood. 
The  increasing  aggressions  of  Russia  and  Ger- 
many were  obvious.  The  motives  for  Great 
Britain  and  Japan  to  unite  for  mutual  help  were 
equally  obvious.  These  motives  seemed  entirely 
reasonable.  America  had  no  thought  of  the  al- 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  229 

liance  as  objectionable  to  us,  or  even  as  being  of 
concern  to  us. 

But  by  the  summer  of  1922,  many  things  had 
happened,  and  America  was  of  a  different  mind. 
In  the  first  place,  Russia  and  Germany  had 
ceased  to  have  any  potency  for  aggression  in 
China  or  anywhere  else.  Therefore  the  original 
reason  for  the  alliance  had  ceased  to  exist.  More- 
over, America  had  been  brought  much  closer  to 
the  rest  of  the  world.  We  had  begun  to  think 
about  international  matters  with  a  closeness  we 
had  not  dreamed  of  twenty  years  earlier.  We 
had  begun  to  see  that  what  happens  in  remote 
parts  of  the  world  may  ultimately  affect  our  in- 
terests and  even  our  safety.  The  long  and  acri- 
monious popular  discussion  of  the  League  of 
Nations,  leading  to  a  national  political  campaign 
on  that  issue,  had  made  us  self-conscious  about 
matters  within  the  field  of  foreign  relations 
which,  before,  we  had  ignored. 

In  this  state  of  mind,  there  came  to  be  ex- 
pressions of  American  sentiment,  in  debates  in 
the  Senate  and  elsewhere,  bringing  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  Alliance  into  question.  We  iad 
come  to  think  of  Japan  as  having  aggressive  in- 
tentions, and  following  aggressive  practices,  in 
China  and  the  Far  East,  which  we  regarded  as 
inimical  to  our  interests,  and  contrary  to  our 
declared  policy.  We  had  begun  to  think  of 


230  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Japan,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  as  a  potential 
enemy;  and  came  to  think  of  her  alliance  with 
Great  Britain  as  a  menace — certainly  a  menace 
to  our  interests  and  policies  in  the  Far  East,  and 
perhaps  a  menace  to  the  security  of  our  posses- 
sions. We  came  to  feel  that  in  our  efforts  to 
check  some  of  Japan's  aggression  in  China,  we 
were  baffled  by  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance. 
Under  cover  of  it,  Japan  was  doing  things 
which  she  might  have  hesitated  to  do  if  Great 
Britain  were  free  to  unite  with  America  in  op- 
position. The  alliance  kept  British  sentiment 
silent. 

This  was  the  popular  view  in  America.  It 
must  be  assumed  that  the  view  of  the  American 
Government,  officially,  was  also  unfavourable  to 
Great  Britain  going  on  with  her  alliance  with 
Japan.  That  has  been  made  evident  by  the 
communications  made  public  in  the  Senate  dur- 
ing the  debate  on  the  four-power  treaty.  It  is 
also  evident  now  that  during  the  months  preced- 
ing the  Washington  Conference  our  government 
had  given  the  British  Government  opportunities 
to  understand  the  feeling  of  America  about  the 
Japanese  alliance.  Apart  from  any  official  com- 
munication, there  was  no  effort  at  concealing, 
and  it  was  not  possible  to  conceal,  that  the  Brit- 
ish Government  was  well  aware  of  the  popular 
feeling  in  America;  and  that  some  influences 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  231 

within  the  British  Government  were  anxious  to 
placate  that  feeling.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Do-  • 
minion  premiers  in  London  in  the  summer  of 
1922,  the  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance  was  one  of 
the  subjects  of  discussion.  Some  of  the  pre- 
miers regarded  the  alliance  as  objectionable. 
Some  of  them  regarded  it  as  objectionable  for 
reasons  of  their  own ;  and  some,  at  least,  regarded 
it  as  objectionable  merely  because  the  United 
States  regarded  it  as  objectionable.  Some  of 
the  Dominion  premiers  felt  that  no  alliance  with 
Japan  could  be  as  valuable  or  desirable  to  the 
British  Empire,  as  completeness  of  good  feeling 
between  the  Empire  and  the  United  States.  At 
one  time,  when  the  matter  of  continuing  the  al- 
liance with  Japan  was  under  discussion,  the  re- 
presentative of  Canada  said  it  should  only  be 
continued  provided  that  continuance  were  com- 
pletely satisfactory  to  the  United  States.  I 
have  been  told  that  Lloyd  George  remarked  to 
the  Canadian,  "You  talk  more  like  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States  than  like  a  citizen  of  the 
British  Empire." 

On  another  occasion,  while  this  same  matter 
of  continuing  the  alliance  with  Japan  was  un- 
der discussion  in  London,  a  despatch  from  Lon- 
don stated  in  effect  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  was  being  kept  informed  of  the 
progress  of  the  discussion,  and  that  all  that  was 


232  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

being  done  was  satisfactory  to  the  United  States. 
The  mere  publication  of  such  a  despatch  is  evi- 
dence of  how  much  the  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance, 
and  the  reaction  of  America  to  that  alliance,  was 
on  the  minds  of  the  British. 

This  despatch  was  not  correct,  and  our  State 
Department  issued  a  public  denial  of  the  state- 
ment that  we  were  officially  informed  of,  or 
agreeable  to,  what  was  being  done  by  Great 
Britain  as  respects  the  continuance  of  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  Alliance.  Nothing  more  than  the  re- 
citing of  this  episode  alone  need  be  said  to  show 
that  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance  figured  defi- 
nitely in  the  diplomatic  relations  of  Great  Bri- 
tain with  the  United  States  last  summer. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  nego- 
tiations for  the  holding  of  the  Washington  Con- 
ference came  to  be  under  way.  In  those 
negotiations,  the  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance  never 
figured  directly.  But  it  was  always  in  the  back- 
ground, and  in  the  minds  of  the  British  and 
American  officials.  While  the  Anglo-Japanese 
Alliance  was  not  on  the  agenda  of  the  Washing- 
ton Conference,  it  was  apparent  that  that  Con- 
/  ference  could  not  readily  end  without  taking 
/  account  of  it.  For  one  thing,  no  agreement  for 
the  limitation  of  navies  ^ould  be  satisfactory  if 
N^  any  two  of  the  nations  within  the  agreement 
were  bound  together  by  an  inner  alliance. 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  233 

The  result  was  that  when  Mr.  Balfour  came 
to  America  he  undoubtedly  came  with  the  inten- 
tion of  utilizing  his  contact  with  Mr.  Hughes  to 
cooperate  in  any  way  that  could  be  found  to  end 
the  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance.  It  can  also  be 
taken  for  granted  that  Mr.  Hughes  held  the 
termination  of  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance  to 
be  one  of  the  most  important  objectives  of  Amer- 
ican diplomacy.  Mr.  Hughes,  obviously,  could 
not  take  the  initiative,  beyond  letting  Great 
Britain  understand  that  we  regarded  the  Al- 
liance as  unfortunate.  It  was  for  Great  Britain 
to  take  the  initiative,  at  least  to  the  extent  of 
showing  willingness  to  terminate  the  treaty,  pro- 
vided she  felt  completeness  of  good-will  from 
America  to  be  worth  abrogation  of  her  alliance 
with  Japan.  The  public  evidence  indicates  that 
as  soon  as  Great  Britain  showed  willingness  to 
cooperate  toward  finding  a  way  toward  ending 
the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance,  it  was  Mr. 
Hughes  who  promptly  took  the  initiative  in 
making  a  concrete  suggestion  and  drafting  the 
treaty.  Mr.  Hughes,  in  a  letter  to  Senator  Un- 
derwood, during  the  Senate  debate,  said: 

I  understand  that  in  the  course  of  debate  in  the  Senate 
upon  the  four-power  treaty,  questions  have  been  raised 
with  respect  to  its  authorship.  It  seems  to  be  implied  that 
in  some  way  the  American  delegates  have  been  imposed 


234  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

upon  or  that  they  were  induced  to  accept  some  plan  cun- 
ningly contrived  by  others  and  opposed  to  our  interests. 
Apart  from  the  reflection  upon  the  competency  of  the 
American  delegates,  such  intimations  betray  a  very  poor 
and  erroneous  conception  of  the  work  in  connection  with 
the  Conference,  no  part  of  which — whether  within  or  out- 
side the  Conference  meetings — was  begun,  prosecuted  or 
concluded  in  intrigue.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the 
fact.  The  views  of  this  Government  as  to  the  importance 
of  the  termination  of  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance  had 
been  communicated  long  before  the  Conference  met,  and 
it  had  also  been  clearly  stated  that  this  Government  could 
enter  into  no  alliance  or  make  any  commitment  to  the  use 
of  arms  or  which  would  impose  any  sort  of  obligation  as 
to  its  decisions  in  future  contingencies. 

It  must  deal  with  any  exigency  according  to  its  consti- 
tutional methods.  In  preparation  for  the  Conference,  the 
American  delegates  reviewed  the  matter  thoroughly  and 
the  entire  course  of  the  negotiations  in  connection  with  the 
four-power  treaty  were  in  accord  with  these  principles, 
and,  as  I  have  said,  within  the  limits  which  we  defined. 

The  treaty  itself  is  very  short  and  simple,  and  is  per- 
fectly clear.  It  requires  no  commentary.  Its  engage- 
ments are  easily  understood  and  no  ingenuity  in  argument 
or  hostile  criticism  can  add  to  them  or  make  them  other  or 
greater  than  its  unequivocal  language  sets  forth.  There 
are  no  secret  notes  or  understandings. 

In  view  of  this,  the  question  of  authorship  is  unim- 
portant. It  was  signed  by  four  powers,  whose  delegates 
respectively  adopted  it,  all  having  made  various  sugges- 
tions. 

I  may  say,  however,  with  respect  to  the  general  course 
of  negotiations  that  after  assent  had  been  given  by  Great 


The  Four-Power  Treaty  235 

Britain  and  Japan  that  France  should  be  a  party  to  the 
agreement,  I  prepared  a  draft  of  the  treaty  based  upon  the 
various  suggestions  which  had  been  exchanged  between 
the  delegates. 

This  draft  was  first  submitted  to  Senator  Lodge  and 
Mr.  Root,  as  you  were  then  absent  on  account  of  the  death 
of  your  mother.  After  the  approval  of  the  American 
delegates  who  were  here,  the  draft  was  submitted  to  the 
representatives  of  other  powers  and  became  the  subject  of 
discussion  between  the  heads  of  the  delegations  concerned, 
and  with  few  changes,  which  were  approved  by  the  Ameri- 
can delegates  and  which  did  not  affect  the  spirit  or  sub- 
stance of  the  proposed  treaty,  an  agreement  was  reached. 


It  is  easy  to  infer  from  this  statement  that 
Mr.  Hughes  made  some  things  clear  to  the 
others.  We  could  not  join  the  Anglo- Japanese 
Alliance,  because,  as  Mr.  Hughes  expresses  it, 
"This  government  could  enter  into  no  alliance, 
or  make  any  commitment  to  the  use  of  arms." 
In  short,  our  government  was  bound  by  the  ac- 
tion of  our  people  on  the  League  of  Nations. 
We  would  enter  into  a  treaty,  for  the  sake  of 
terminating  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance,  but 
the  terms  of  that  treaty  must  not  go  beyond  the 
limits,  repeatedly  affirmed,  of  our  willingness  to 
participate  in  international  arrangements  of  any 
sort. 

The  four-power  treaty  is  a  device  for  ter- 
minating the  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance.  It 


236  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

must  be  judged  by  that,  and  by  little  else,  for 
there  is  little  else  to  it.  It  was  a  device  for  end- 
ing that  alliance  without  hurting  the  feelings  of 
Japan.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  Alliance  was  not  a  contract  which  au- 
tomatically came  to  an  end  on  a  fixed  date. 
If  it  had  been  that  kind  of  a  document,  Great 
Britain  might  readily  have  let  it  expire  by  simple 
limination  of  time.  But  it  could  only  be  termi- 
nated by  an  affirmative  action.  And  Great  Bri-^ 
tain  could  not  in  decency  take  that  action.  Great 
Britain  had  had  the  benefits  of  that  alliance  in  a 
time  of  serious  need.  It  had  ensured  to  her  the 
help  of  Japan  during  the  great  war.  But  for 
that  Alliance,  Japan  would  have  been  free  to 
remain  a  neutral,  or  even  to  join  Germany. 
Having  thus  been  served  in  so  vital  a  way,  Great 
Britain  could  not  say  to  Japan,  "We  are  through 
with  you  now;  here's  your  hat."  As  Mr.  Bal- 
four  expressed  it,  two  nations,  having  been  asso- 
ciated in  this  way,  could  not,  at  the  end  of  the 
association,  take  off  their  hats  to  each  other  and 
part  like  casual  strangers  after  a  trip  in  a  rail- 
road train. 

The  four-power  treaty,  as  I  say,  was  a  device 
for  terminating  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance, 
so  as  to  satisfy  America  without  offending 
Japan.  By  that  service  it  is  to  be  judged. 


CHAPTER  X 

JAPAN  AND  CHINA 

TOWARD  the  close  of  the  Conference,  dur- 
ing the  period  when  those  parts  of  it  which 
dealt  with  the  Far  East  were  being  con- 
cluded, one  of  the  British  correspondents  gave 
currency  to  a  phrase  which,  as  striking  phrases 
often  do,  tended  to  colour  the  judgment  of  the 
world  about  what  the  Conference  had  done  in 
regard  to  the  Far  East.     He  took  an  old  coup- 
let and  by  a  facetious  substitution  made  it  ap- 
pear that  the  Conference  had  said  to  China, 

"Be  good,  sweet  China, 
And  let  Japan  be  clever." 

The  correspondent  who,  in  what  may  have 
been  a  moment  of  cynical  humour,  thus  summed 
up  what  had  been  done  about  the  Far  East,  was 
Mr.  Henry  W.  Nevinson  of  the  Manchester 
Guardian.  Mr.  Nevinson  was  one  of  the  best 
men  who  attended  the  Conference,  and  in  a 
broader  way  is  among  the  most  distinguished 
half  dozen  or  so  of  the  journalistic  exponents  of 

237 


238  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

liberal  thought  in  England,  a  thoroughly  high- 
minded  man  who  is  always  on  the  side  of  good 
causes.  Coming  from  Mr.  Nevinson,  this  casual 
phrase  may  have  expressed  the  momentary  dis- 
appointment of  a  man  who  had  set  his  hopes  on 
perfection.  Or  it  may  have  been  a  mere  indul- 
gence in  cleverness,  the  sort  of  thing  a  brilliant 
man  often  does  at  a  moment  when  he  does  not 
purport  to  be  attempting  a  careful  or  respon- 
sible statement  of  a  well  thought  out  judgment. 
I  am  confident  Mr.  Nevinson  would  have  been 
dismayed  if  he  had  thought  this  ingenious  par- 
ody would  be  taken,  as  I  observed  it  was  taken 
by  many  editorial  writers,  as  an  adequate  sum- 
mary of  what  the  Conference  had  done  about 
Japan  and  China. 

If  we  are  to  deal  in  any  such  catch-line  judg- 
ments as  this  at  all,  if  we  are  to  give  weight  to 
the  detached  impressions  of  a  moment,  I  should 
much  more  strongly  recommend  one  that  came 
from  a  less  sophisticated  source.  In  one  of 
those  closing  plenary  sessions,  the  one  in  which 
the  treaties  and  resolutions  about  the  Far  East 
were  being  read  by  Mr.  Hughes  and  formally 
adopted  by  the  Conference,  I  happened  to  have 
with  me  as  a  guest  a  man  from  the  country,  who 
had  no  particular  information  about  what  the 
Conference  had  done,  or  about  the  Far  East 
generally ;  one  whose  knowledge  was  merely  that 


Japan  and  China  239 

of  the  casual  reader  of  the  papers  in  a  city  re- 
mote from  Washington.  This  guest  of  mine, 
having  watched  the  proceedings,  having  heard 
Hughes  read  all  the  formidable  documents  into 
the  record,  and  having  observed  the  expression 
and  manner  of  the  Japanese  and  the  other  dele- 
gates, gave  unsophisticated  but  shrewd  judgment 
on  the  impression  he  had  received  by  saying, 
almost  with  the  air  of  sympathizing  with  the 
underdog  in  a  situation  as  to  which  he  was  unin- 
formed about  the  fundamental  merits:  "Didn't 
it  seem  to  you  Hughes  was  pretty  harsh  with 
those  Japs?" 

That  naive  and  simple  expression  was  a  much 
more  dependable  judgment — if  we  are  to  deal 
in  such  brief  and  casual  judgments  at  all — than 
Mr.  Nevinson's  parody.  The  effect  of  what 
Hughes  read  that  last  day  as  the  final  results  of 
what  the  Conference  had  done  about  Japan  and 
China  was  rough  on  the  Japanese;  and  the  Japa- 
nese delegates  had  the  appearance  of  men  who 
felt  it  so.  Baron  Shidehara  was  pale.  He  had 
been  made  ill  by  the  burden  of  the  Conference, 
and  looked  as  different  as  possible  from  a  man 
who  had  been  clever,  who  had  succeeded  in  "put- 
ting something  over."  Baron  Kato  had  the 
same  appearance  of  wanness  and  repression. 
Baron  Kato  was  at  best  so  frail  and  small  a  man 
that  I  always  used  to  think  of  him  in  terms  of 


240  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  illustrations  in  an  old  book  of  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells  about  Mars.  These  illustrations  pictured 
the  men  of  Mars  as  persons  who  had  developed 
their  brains  to  the  point  where  they  were  greatly 
out  of  proportion  to  their  bodies.  They  looked 
like  concentrated  intelligence,  and  little  more. 
They  had  heads  and  eyes  which  represented  a 
development  and  refinement  of  intellect  beyond 
human,  with  bodies  that  tapered  off  into  some 
resemblance  to  the  tail  of  a  tadpole.  Let  no  one 
read  any  hint  of  grotesqueness,  or  any  degree  of 
unimpressiveness  whatever  into  this  comparison, 
which  merely  suggests  one  aspect  of  how  Baron 
Kato  appeared  to  me.  In  appearance,  as  well 
as  intellectually,  Baron  Kato  was  one  of  the 
most  impressive  men  in  Washington.  His  eyes 
peered  out  from  his  well-proportioned  head  like 
the  glowing  focus  of  an  immense  and  acute  in- 
telligence. 

That  was  the  appearance  of  Baron  Kato  at 
all  times,  and  on  this  closing  day  he  looked  like 
a  man  who  must  sit  still  and  listen  to  something 
far  from  agreeable.  He  was  listening  to  a 
judgment  on  certain  actions  of  his  country;  and 
he  knew  those  actions  were  disapproved  by  the 
world.  Baron  Kato  personally  may  have  felt 
one  way  or  the  other  about  those  actions;  but 
however  he  may  have  felt,  he  was  bound  to  de- 
fend them,  and  had  defended  them,  and  had 


Japan  and  China  241 

fought  steadily  for  his  country's  position.  This 
was  the  day  of  judgment.  He  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  making  the  world  see  some  of  his  coun- 
try's actions  as  other  than  deplorable — he  must 
have  known  he  could  not;  and  now  he  must  sit 
silent  and  hear  those  actions  condemned  in  for- 
mal documents  read  out  to  be  spread  on  the 
records  of  the  Conference,  condemned  in  words 
which,  however  they  were  cushioned  in  diplo- 
matic elegancies,  contained  implications  which 
made  them  about  as  severe  as  anything  you  often 
hear  in  a  conference  of  this  sort. 

The  point  about  which  Mr.  Hughes  was  most 
severe  on  Japan  was  Siberia.  In  the  course  of 
the  war,  after  Russia  collapsed,  America  and 
Japan  united  in  a  joint  military  expedition  into 
Siberia.  At  the  time,  our  government  took  the 
precaution  to  make  a  public  and  formal  state- 
ment, and  insisted  that  Japan  should  also  make 
a  similarly  clear  statement,  to  the  effect  that  the 
purposes  of  the  expedition  were  solely  to  help 
in  temporary  matters  arising  out  of  the  war,  and 
that  so  soon  as  these  purposes  ceased  to  exist, 
the  soldiers  would  be  withdrawn.  The  state- 
ment which  the  Japanese  made  at  the  time,  in 
compliance  with  the  American  initiative,  was  as 
clear  as  anything  could  be.  Japan  avowed  most 
solemnly  her  intention  to  "respect  the  territorial 
integrity  of  Russia,"  and,  so  soon  as  the  purely 


242  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

temporary  exigency  should  be  over,  "to  imme- 
diately withdraw  all  Japanese  troops  from 
Russian  territory,"  and  "to  leave  wholly  unim- 
paired the  sovereignty  of  Russia  in  all  its  phases, 
whether  political  or  military."  That  was  the 
promise  the  Japanese  Government  made  to 
us,  to  Russia,  and  to  the  world  at  the  time 
that  she  and  we  joined  in  sending  troops  into 
Siberia. 

Thereafter,  as  soon  as  America  judged  the 
time  had  come  to  withdraw,  America  withdrew. 
Japan  did  not.  We  thought  she  ought  to,  and 
we  said  so.  A  spirited  diplomatic  correspon- 
dence arose  between  the  two  countries.  Mr. 
Hughes  summed  it  up  in  the  mildest  of  terms 
when  he  said,  "It  must  frankly  be  avowed  that 
this  correspondence  has  not  always  disclosed  an 
identity  of  views  between  the  two  governments." 
One  of  the  notes  we  wrote  to  Japan  recited  that 
"the  issue  presented  is  one  of  scrupulous  fulfil- 
ment of  the  assurances  given  to  the  Russian  peo- 
ple." In  response  to  an  excuse  made  by  Japan 
that  she  had  to  continue  keeping  her  troops  in 
Russian  territory  in  order  to  suppress  and  pre- 
vent local  disorder,  we  said  that  what  Japan  was 
doing  in  Russia  "tends  rather  to  increase  than  to 
allay  the  unrest  and  disorder." 

These,  of  course,  are  but  mere  fragments  of 
the  correspondence  we  had  with  Japan  about 


Japan  and  China  243 

her  promise  to  get  out  of  Russian  territory. 
But  Japan  didn't  get  out,  and  hasn't  got  out 
yet.1 

When  the  Conference  came,  all  this  was 
brought  up,  among  other  Far  Eastern  matters; 
and  Japan  was  again  asked  to  withdraw  her 
troops.  Baron  Shidehara  read  a  long  state- 
ment explaining  why  Japan  didn't  want  to  get 
out  yet.  Mr.  Hughes  replied,  deploring 
Japan's  refusal.  In  the  end,  since  no  agree- 
ment could  be  arrived  at,  Hughes  fell  back  upon 
the  device  of  "reading  into  the  record"  the  cor- 
respondence and  debates  that  had  taken  place. 
Hughes  read  it  all  himself,  in  the  presence  of 
the  public,  at  that  final  session.  He  read  it  in 
his  strong,  forthright  voice,  the  vigour  of  which 
occasionally  takes  on  almost  the  tone  of  harsh- 
ness.2 It  was  a  pretty  unpleasant  thing  for 


1  In  stating  this  issue  between  the  United  States  and  Japan,   I  am 
stating   it  frankly   from   the   point   of  view   that   Hughes   took    in    the 
documents  he  read  to  the  Conference  and  in   the  correspondence  pre- 
ceding, which  were  also  read  into  the  record  of  the  Conference.    Secretary 
Hughes  conducted  the  correspondence  and  was  familiar  with  the  facts. 
He  arrived  at  the  judgment  that  the  excuses  given  by  Japan  for  not 
getting    out    of    Siberia    were    inadequate,    and,    within    the    limits    of 
diplomatic  courtesy,  said  so.    In  this  chapter,   I  have,  as  I  have  said, 
frankly  taken  the  point  of  view  and  judgment  which  Mr.   Hughes  ex- 
pressed  in   the   correspondence.    Obviously,    any   person   who   wishes   to 
come    to    an    independent    judgment    of    his    own    should    examine    the 
correspondence  and  arguments,  and  should  familiarize  himself  with  the 
excuses  given  by  Japan,  which  excuses  I  have  not  space  here  to   re- 
produce. 

2  A  newspaper  man  in  a  whimsical  mood,  listening  to  Hughes  reading 
all  this  correspondence  and  debate  into  the  record,  remarked,   "If  any 
judge  ever  has  a  chance  to  read  an  indictment  of  me,  I  hope  he  may 
have  a  more  sympathetic  voice." 


244  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

the  Japanese  to  listen  to — the  repetition,  first, 
of  their  solemn  promises;  then,  of  the  American 
demand  that  this  promise  be  fulfilled;  next,  of 
the  Japanese  excuses;  and,  finally,  of  the  Ameri- 
can reproaches. 

At  this  public  session,  Hughes  did  much  the 
same  with  the  controversy  between  Japan  and 
China  about  the  "Twenty-one  Demands." 
Adopting  the  same  device  of  "reading  into  the 
record"  passages  from  the  debates,  and  other 
correspondence,  Hughes  repeated  before  the 
public  all  the  excuses  made  by  Japan,  and  all 
the  answers  made  by  China — an  exchange  in 
which  Japan  was  palpably  in  the  wrong. 

In  1915,  when  nearly  all  Europe  was  at  war, 
and  when  the  eyes  of  most  of  the  world  were 
engaged  in  Europe,  as  well  as  the  navies  and 
military  forces,  Japan  took  the  opportunity  pre- 
sented by  China's  temporary  isolation  from  her 
Western  friends,  to  make  on  her  a  series  of  de- 
mands which  would  have  reduced  China  to  sub- 
stantially the  position  of  a  Japanese  vassal. 
When  China,  in  her  helplessness,  attempted  de- 
lay, Japan  delivered  a  brusque  ultimatum, 
backed  up  with  the  clearly  implied  threat  of 
military  action,  and  forced  the  signature  by  the 
bedeviled  Chinese  Government. 

At  the  Conference,  China  brought  all  this  up 
and  called  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  twenty-one 


Japan  and  China  245 

demands.  Japan  replied  by  withdrawing  some 
and  modifying  others,  but  declined  to  make  com- 
plete withdrawal.  Japan's  position  in  the  mat- 
ter had  been  odious.  Many  of  Japan's  own  peo- 
ple knew  it  was  odious  and  felt  the  nation's 
humiliation.  At  the  time  the  demands  first  be- 
came known  in  Japan,  the  late  Mr.  Kara,  at  one 
time  Premier  of  Japan,  declared  that  what  his 
country  had  done  in  China  "has  the  effect  of 
lowering  the  prestige  of  the  Japanese  Empire" 
and  "will  form  the  source  of  future  trouble." 

In  the  Washington  Conference,  when  China 
called  for  the  complete  withdrawal  of  the  twenty- 
one  demands,  Japan's  reply  was  pretty  feeble, 
and,  from  any  standpoint  of  intellectual  integ- 
rity, not  impressive.  The  response  of  China, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  as  fine  and  forceful 
an  example  of  the  literature  of  dignified  ex- 
coriation as  you  could  hear  in  many  a  day — as 
might  well  be  the  case,  considering  that  the 
rights  and  wrongs  of  the  question  were  as  clearly 
distributed  as  black  and  white. 

All  this,  also,  Hughes,  in  that  loud  and  pene- 
trating voice  which  has  no  capacity  for  any 
flexibilities  of  gentle  glossing  over,  even  if  he  had 
wanted  to  gloss  it  over — all  this,  Hughes  read 
into  the  record. 

At  the  same  time,  Hughes  gave  decidedly  the 
impression  of  being  fair  with  the  Japanese,  and 


246  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

of  accepting  with  full  faith  the  promises  and 
disclaimers  they  now  made.  While  Japan 
failed  to  promise  to  get  her  troops  out  of  Rus- 
sian territory  on  any  fixed  date,  she  did  give  an 
absolute  promise  to  withdraw  whenever  the  con- 
ditions should  make  it  seem  to  her  possible  to  do 
so  without  danger.  Also  she  coupled  this  with 
a  frank  and  complete  disclaimer  to  any  rights  or 
privileges  whatever.  These  promises  and  dis- 
claimers Mr.  Hughes  read  into  the  record  as 
completely  as  he  had  read  the  expressions  of 
dissatisfaction  contained  in  the  correspondence 
preceding  the  Conference.  He  did  it  with  the 
manner  of  putting  complete  reliance  on  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  Japanese,  and  of  complete  confi- 
dence that  they  would  carry  out  the  promises 
made  as  a  part  of  their  present  attitude. 

Also,  in  reading  into  the  record  the  present 
partial  withdrawals  and  modifications  made  in 
the  Conference  by  the  Japanese,  with  respect  to 
the  twenty-one  demands,  Mr.  Hughes  made  it 
clear  that  the  present  changes  took  away  the 
great  bulk  of  what  had  been  odious  in  the  de- 
mands in  their  original  form.  Mr.  Hughes  said 
that  those  parts  of  the  twenty-one  demands 
which  related  to  Shantung  "have  been  settled  to 
the  mutual  satisfaction  of  both  parties."  Mr. 
Hughes  also  said,  "It  is  gratifying  to  be  advised 
by  the  statement  made  by  Baron  Shidehara  on 


Japan  and  China  247 

behalf  of  the  Japanese  Government  that  she  is 
now  ready  to  withdraw"  [other  portions  of  the 
twenty-one  demands];  and  said  "this  definite 
withdrawal  .  .  .  removes  what  has  been  an 
occasion  for  considerable  apprehension.  .  .  ." 
This  part  of  what  Mr.  Hughes  read  into  the 
record  made  it  clear  that  practically  all  of  what 
had  been  essentially  odious  in  the  original  form 
of  the  twenty-one  demands  had  now  been  with- 
drawn by  Japan. 

Nevertheless,  the  net  impression  made  by  the 
whole  of  all  this  reading  into  the  record  by  Mr. 
Hughes  was  that  of  an  indictment;  for  he,  as 
Chairman  of  the  Conference,  was  reading  not 
only  his  own  words  as  contained  in  his  preceding 
correspondence,  but  also  many  of  the  things  said 
by  the  Chinese  during  the  course  of  the  Confer- 
ence, which,  also,  had  been  ordered  to  be  spread 
upon  the  minutes.  Some  of  these  things  said 
by  the  Chinese  delegates  about  Japan  had  been 
pretty  severe.  The  net  effect  of  it,  therefore,  to 
one  who  was  merely  a  casual  listener,  was,  as  I 
have  said,  one  of  adverse  judgment.  Necessa- 
rily, the  reading  into  the  record  not  only  included 
the  reassurance  created  by  Japan's  undertakings 
now  made  in  the  Conference;  but  included  also 
the  record  of  Japan's  blameful  past  in  this  re- 
spect. In  consequence,  all  in  all,  that  closing 
day  was  a  rather  unhappy  time  for  the  Japanese. 


248  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

It  was  little  wonder  they  drooped  and  had  the 
manner  of  men  listening  to  a  gravely  adverse 
judgment  passed  upon  them — little  wonder  that 
an  unsophisticated  listener  with  not  much  knowl- 
edge of  the  background,  should  have  felt  almost 
sympathetic  to  what  seemed  to  be  the  under  dog 
at  the  moment,  and  should  have  remarked  that 
"Hughes  seemed  pretty  harsh  on  those  Japs." 


II 


No,  "clever"  is  not  the  word  that  describes  the 
role  of  the  Japanese  at  the  Washington  Con- 
ference. At  least,  not  "clever"  in  the  sinister 
sense.  As  M.  Sarraut  said  on  his  return  to 
Paris  from  the  Conference — and  this  is  good  tes- 
timony, coming  from  a  disinterested  witness 
speaking  spontaneously  and  only  indirectly  on 
the  point — M.  Sarraut  said  that  France  had 
found  herself  in  the  position  that  everybody 
thought,  in  advance  of  the  Conference,  Japan 
alone  was  going  to  occupy,  the  role  of  defendant. 
Japan  herself  came  to  the  Conference  conscious 
of  being  a  defendant.  She  came  to  the  Confer- 
ence knowing  that  she  was  under  suspicion  and 
disapproval  in  America.  Knowing  that,  Ja- 
pan's conduct  at  the  Conference  could  only  be 


Japan  and  China  249 

described  as  "clever"  in  the  sense  that  cleverness 
is  identical  with  the  intelligence  that  recognizes 
an  adverse  opinion  about  her  actions,  and  makes 
a  sincere  effort  to  overcome  it.  "Clever"  in  any 
sense  that  implies  successful  smartness,  Japan 
was  not.  "Clever"  in  the  sense  that  she  recog- 
nized that  she  was  "in  bad"  and  that  this  condi- 
tion was,  even  in  her  own  eyes,  largely  the  fault 
of  her  own  past  acts — "clever"  in  that  sense, 
Japan  may  have  been.  She  advocated  and  prac- 
tised openness  in  her  diplomacy  to  an  extent 
that  some  of  the  nations  did  not  who  regard 
themselves  as  more  virtuous.  She  settled  the 
Yap  controversy  with  Hughes  in  a  manner  satis- 
factory in  detail  to  both  countries.  She  turned 
back  Shantung  to  China,  and  receded  from  most 
of  her  positions  on  China  which  had  put  her  in 
an  undesirable  light.  She  made  the  impression 
of  not  unreasonably  impeding  the  process  of 
restoring  China  to  territorial  and  governmental 
integrity  beyond  what  the  others  were  willing  to 
do,  except  in  a  few  particulars;  and  she  was 
reasonably  helpful  in  arriving  at  the  all-impor- 
tant naval  agreement — helpful  in  this  respect 
more  markedly  than  at  least  one  other  nation 
which  had  greater  reason  to  be  helpful,  and 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  sacrifices  of  naval 
strength  that  Japan  made  must  cause  her  poli- 
tical difficulties  of  a  sort  that  were  seriously 


250  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

embarrassing;  but  which  she  did  not,  neverthe- 
less, plead  in  extenuation. 

It  seemed  to  me — and  I  say  this  only  tenta- 
tively, for  I  am  not  well  grounded  on  Far 
Eastern  matters — that  Japan  is  in  a  process  of 
transition  such  as  made  the  position  of  her  dele- 
gates to  this  Conference  difficult  and  embarrass- 
ing. Japan  seems  to  be  midway  in  the  process 
of  change  from  a  markedly  autocratic  form  of 
government  to  one  more  liberal  and  democratic.1 
At  any  moment  it  is  hard  to  know  which  force  is 
ascendant;  and  those  who  manage  Japan's  con- 
tacts with  the  rest  of  the  world  must  labour 
under  the  unescapable  handicap  of  more  or  less 
unwillingly  and  blamelessly  carrying  water  on 
both  shoulders.  The  Japan  that  made  the 
twenty-one  demands,  that  seized  Korea,  and 
otherwise  behaved  pretty  blamefully  in  the  Far 
East,  was  the  Japan  whose  form  of  government 
was  modelled  to  a  degree  on  that  of  Prussia,  and 
which  had  the  piratical  point  of  view  of  the  Ger- 
man junkers  toward  her  neighbours  and  the  rest 
of  the  world.  That  element,  and  the  feudal 
aristocrats  who  compose  it,  seem  to  have  still  a 
sufficient  grip  on  the  government  of  Japan  to 
make  it  impossible  as  yet  for  the  more  liberal 
democratic  forces  to  repudiate  or  undo  all  the 

1  Since  the  Conference,  there  have  been  serious  riots  at  Tokio  arfsing 
out  of  a  demand  for  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  which  would  make 
the  government  more  democratic. 


Japan  and  China  251 

things  the  old  crowd  did,  or  to  start  Japan  off 
on  a  definitely  new  and  different  course.1 

Another  fact  that  I  kept  remembering  about 
Japan  is  that  every  one  of  the  odious  things  she 
did,  every  one  of  the  acts  for  which  the  Western 
world  now  reproaches  her  sanctimoniously,  was 
done  in  imitation  of  that  same  Western  world. 
The  Western  world  was  the  only  model  she  had, 
and  the  source  of  our  complaint  now  is  that  she 
learned  the  lesson  rather  too  well,  and  followed 
our  example  rather  too  literally.  A  less  time 
ago  than  the  life  of  men  now  living,  Japan  was 
in  solitude  and  isolation,  a  recluse,  by  her  own 
choice.  (There  was  a  time  when  the  Japanese 
law  forbade  any  man  to  build  a  ship  large  enough 
to  reach  a  foreign  shore,  so  determined  was 
Japan  to  resist  infection  by  what  she  regarded, 
with  perhaps  justified  apprehension,  as  corrup- 
tion from  the  Western  world.)  She  had  her 
own  philosophy,  her  own  ethics,  and  her  own 
code  of  conduct.  We  forced  her  out  of  that, 
forced  her  out  brutally  and  arrogantly.  We — 
by  "we"  I  mean  the  whole  Western  world — made 
her  understand  that  we  were  going  to  oppress 
her  and  exploit  her.  We  bullied  her  in  the  usual 


1  As  I  have  pointed  out,  I  say  all  this  about  domestic  Japanese 
politics  tentatively.  It  is  a  subject  with  which  I  am  not  intimately 
familiar.  What  I  have  said  is  based  on  things  I  was  told  here  at 
the  Washington  Conference  and  things  I  surmised  from  some  of  the 
actions  of  the  Japanese  delegation. 


252  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

way  of  the  West  with  the  East.  We  started  in 
to  do  to  Japan  the  same  things  we  did  to  China. 

Japan  considered  her  situation  and  concluded 
her  best  defense  was  to  adopt  Western  ways. 
She  started  in  on  a  process  of  highly  intelligent 
and  thoroughgoing  imitation.  She  imitated 
Western  armies,  Western  navies,  the  Western 
form  of  government,  Western  diplomacy,  West- 
ern morals,  and  the  frequent  Western  attitude 
toward  weaker  nations.  And  it  is  the  fruits 
of  that  too  successful  imitation  that  we  now  com- 
plain about.  Maybe,  among  the  varying  models 
Japan  might  have  found  within  the  Western 
idea  as  a  whole,  the  ones  she  chose  were  not  al- 
ways the  most  enlightened.  She  took  more  of 
her  new  institutions  from  Germany  than  was 
best  for  her  or  us.  "We  imitated  Western  diplo- 
macy," said  a  Japanese  gentleman,  "but  unhap- 
pily it  was  the  worst  parts  of  it  that  we  imitated 
first." 

Everything  that  Japan  has  done  in  China  was 
an  imitation  of  something  that  Great  Britain  or 
Germany  or  Russia  had  already  done  first.  It 
was  Great  Britain  and  the  other  Western  na- 
tions that  did  the  first  and  the  worst  grabbing 
and  exploiting  in  China.  One  fact  I  always  felt 
like  keeping  steadily  in  mind  throughout  the 
Washington  Conference  is  that  Japan  has  little 
or  no  Chinese  territory  that  she  took  direct  from 


Japan  and  China  253 

China.  What  Japan  took,  she  took  not  from 
China  but  from  some  other  nation  that  had  al- 
ready seized  it  from  China.  It  was  Germany 
that  took  Shantung  from  China,  and  kept  it 
with  the  serene  approval  of  the  Western  world. 
Then  Japan  took  it  from  Germany  through 
honest  warfare;  and  thereupon  we  all  cried  to 
Heaven  that  Japan  must  undo  this  wicked  thing, 
must  restore  Shantung  to  China.  Again,  it  was 
not  Japan  that  took  Port  Arthur  from  China. 
It  was  Russia,  and  once  more,  it  was  through  ap- 
proved warfare  that  Japan  in  turn  took  it  from 
Russia.  Thereupon,  again,  the  Western  world, 
which  had  not  been  shocked  when  one  of  them- 
selves ravished  China,  cried  to  Heaven  with  in- 
dignation when  Japan  went  to  war  with  the 
despoiler  and  got  possession  of  the  spoils 
through  a  fair  fight  between  equals. 

Altogether,  while  some  of  the  things  Japan 
has  done  in  China  have  been  pretty  bad,  while 
the  twenty-one  demands  and  the  manner  in 
which  they  were  made  has  set  Japan  back  fifty 
years  in  the  good  opinion  of  enlightened  persons, 
you  always  feel  that,  with  the  exception  of 
America,  which  almost  alone,  and  certainly  most 
conspicuously  of  all,  has  an  honorable  record  in 
China — with  the  exception  of  America,  the 
Western  world  has  no  license  to  be  sanctimo- 
niously shocked  about  Japan. 


254  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  most  obvious  as- 
pects of  present  Japanese  policy  is  the  effort, 
in  her  public  actions,  to  secure  the  approval  of 
the  West.  Having  imitated  the  worst  parts  of 
Western  diplomacy  first,  and  having  found  that 
it  led  her  to  sorrow  and  disappointment,  she  may 
now,  because  of  the  same  intelligence,  imitate 
whatever  is  the  most  honourable  diplomacy  with 
which  the  Western  world  may  be  willing  to  pro- 
vide her  as  an  example.  If  the  Western  world 
means  what  it  has  said  in  the  Washington  Con- 
ference, if  we  really  provide  the  practice  in  ac- 
cord with  the  precept,  all  the  lessons  of  our 
experience  with  Japan  justify  the  expectation 
that  as  she  imitated  the  worse  examples  of  the 
Western  world  in  the  past,  she  will  imitate  what- 
ever better  example  we  may  provide  for  her  in 
the  future. 

Ill 

The  Chinese  delegates — at  least  the  two  who 
spoke  English  best  and  were  most  in  evidence 
— were,  for  their  role,  a  curious  twain.  One  was 
a  graduate  of  Columbia  and  the  other  of  Cornell. 
Both  had  been  editors  of  their  college  papers  in 
America.  They  were  wholly  Western  in  clothes 
and  manner.  How  far  they  were  Western  in 
thought,  and  how  far  they  may  have  retained  the 


Japan  and  China  255 

essential  philosophy  of  the  country  of  their  birth, 
one  could  not  tell,  of  course,  without  knowing 
them  intimately.  One  kept  wondering  to  what 
extent  they  were  Occidentalized,  and  to  what  ex- 
tent they  retained  the  ancient  point  of  view  of 
their  own  people  about  the  conduct  of  life,  man's 
relation  to  eternity  and  the  like.  The  wife  of 
Dr.  Koo — he  was  called  "Doctor"  by  virtue  of 
an  academic  degree  at  an  American  university — 
wore  the  most  modern  of  Parisian  clothes. 
Madame  Sze  wore  the  much  more  lovely  native 
women's  dress  of  China,  and  by  that  gave  rather 
the  more  pleasure  and  received  the  more  ap- 
proval. The  two  men  were  extraordinarily 
well  educated  and  both  had  had  much  experience 
in  diplomacy  for  their  years.  Dr.  Koo  was  less 
than  thirty-five,  and  Dr.  Sze  in  his  early  forties. 
Dr.  Koo  gave  the  impression  of  having  been 
rather  the  more  thoroughly  Westernized,  the 
more  completely  smartened  up  according  to 
modern  American  standards.  Dr.  Sze,  while 
his  clothes  were  Western,  and  his  English  much 
more  perfect  than  that  of  most  of  ourselves,  had 
something  about  him  that  suggested  a  back- 
ground, a  residuum  of  the  philosophy  and  point 
of  view  of  his  race,  a  calm  that  rests  upon  the 
wisdom  of  centuries.  For  this  quality,  Dr.  Sze 
seemed  a  little  the  more  appealing.  You  felt 
you  would  enjoy  spending  an  afternoon  with 


256  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

him  speculating  as  to  whether  the  Chinese  phil- 
osophy of  calm,  or  the  Western  philosophy  of 
"do  it  now"  is  ultimately  to  prevail  over  a  world 
that  is  rapidly  being  brought  so  close  together, 
so  compactly  into  one  unit,  that  it  can  hardly  es- 
cape having  a  single  world- wide  philosophy.  One 
could  never  see  these  highly  modernized,  highly 
Westernized  young  men,  without  recalling  Li 
Hung  Chang,  that  six-foot  Chinaman  with  a 
queue  and  a  button  and  a  cap  and  a  mandarin 
coat,  who,  within  the  present  generation,  came  to 
America  as  the  representative  of  the  old  Chinese 
dynastic  Government.  You  occasionally  won- 
dered whether  these  two  young  moderns  might 
not  have  a  long  row  to  hoe,  in  bringing  their 
people  to  democracy,  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s,  steam  heat 
and  automobiles.  You  felt  the  immensity  of 
the  distance  from  Li  Hung  Chang  with  his  queue 
and  his  gorgeous  mandarin  coat,  to  Dr.  Welling- 
ton Koo  in  his  dress  suit  and  Madame  Koo 
in  her  Paris  clothes;  you  felt  it  was  a  very 
long  leap;  and  you  occasionally  wondered 
whether  these  young  moderns  were  going  to 
be  able  to  lead  their  people  across  it  in  a 
single  generation. 

This  fact  that  China  is  in  a  state  of  transition, 
midway  between  autocracy  and  democracy,  this 
condition  within  China  itself,  was,  to  the  Con- 
ference, quite  as  large  a  difficulty  in  the  way  of 


Japan  and  China  257 

doing  something  for  China,  as  was  the  recal- 
citrancy of  any  one  of  the  other  nations,  or  of  all 
of  them.  You  couldn't  always  be  sure  that  the 
China  you  were  dealing  with  was  the  China  that 
might  be  in  the  saddle  next  week. 

However,  the  Chinese  delegates  opened  the 
sessions  of  the  Conference  that  dealt  with  the 
Far  East  by  the  formal  presentation  to  the  Con- 
ference of  a  document  which  came  to  be  known 
as  the  "ten  demands."  These  ten  demands  were 
the  maximum  that  China  asked  for  or  hoped  for. 
The  complete  granting  of  them  would  have 
meant  the  restoration  of  China  to  a  place  among 
the  nations  of  the  world,  as  secure  and  indepen- 
dent as  that  of  any  other  country.  (At  least, 
the  ten  demands  would  have  accomplished  this 
so  far  as  it  can  be  accomplished  by  any  action  on 
the  part  of  forces  outside  of  China.  China's 
position  in  the  family  of  nations  cannot  be  made 
secure  by  the  actions  of  other  nations  alone; 
there  are  many  things  that  China  must  do  for 
herself,  and  these  things  China  is  not  yet  in  a 
position  to  undertake.  She  is  in  the  midst  of 
transition  from  an  autocratic  form  of  govern- 
ment to  a  democratic  form.  That  transition  is 
accompanied  by  much  domestic  confusion,  and 
this  internal  state  of  China,  which  can  only  be 
cured  by  China  herself,  was,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say,  certainly  as  great  an  obstacle  in  the  Con- 


258  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

f  erence  as  the  attitude  of  any  one  nation  or  of  all 
the  nations  outside  of  China.1) 

Those  who  have  felt  disappointment  about  the 
accomplishments  of  the  Conference  with  respect 
to  China  do  so  because  they  compare  those  ac- 
complishments with  the  original  ten  demands 
submitted  by  the  Chinese  delegates,  or  with  some 


1  This  was  expressed  with  convincing  force  by  an  able  American  who 
knows  the  East  well  through  long  experience  as  the  representative 
there  of  American  newspapers,  and  who  is  now  one  of  the  foreign 
counsellors  of  the  Japanese  Government.  Mr.  Moore  said: 

"If  any  one  thinks  that  this  Conference  here  in  Washington 
can,  by  the  drafting  of  declarations  or  treaties  remake  that 
massive  old  State,  he  is  very  much  mistaken.  It  can't  be  done. 
The  Chinese,  if  they  are  to  adopt  our  methods  and  our  man- 
ners, must  do  so  of  their  own  accord  and  in  their  own  good  time. 
This  Conference  can  help  a  little  and  will  do  so,  but  China 
alone  can  remodel  herself,  and  when  she  remakes  herself  upon 
modern  lines  there  will  be  no  power  on  earth  that  can  possibly 
hold  her  in  subjection. 

"If  any  expected  the  group  of  forty  gentlemen  who  are  now 
sitting  in  conference  to  perform  the  miracle  of  spiritually  re- 
making the  400,000,000  Chinese,  or  the  60,000,000  Japanese, 
or  the  40,000,000  or  more  Englishmen,  you  were  doomed  to 
disappointment  from  the  beginning.  The  remaking  of  peoples  is 
not  the  work  of  a  day  nor  of  a  group  of  mortal  men  in  con- 
ference. But  a  group  of  intelligent  men  in  a  conference  such 
as  is  taking  place  here,  supported  by  the  dominating  bulk  of 
civilized  public  opinion  the  world  over,  can  accomplish  much 
and  is  doing  so." 

One  feels  like  expressing  some  wonder,  in  comment  on  this,  whether 
Japan  has  been  wholly  wise  in  the  past,  or  China  will  be  wholly  wise 
in  the  future,  to  "adopt  our  methods  and  our  manners"  in  so  whole- 
sale a  way,  to  swallow  Western  culture  in  such  large  gulps.  As  to 
some  of  the  aspects  of  Western  culture  that  the  Orient  has  been  ab- 
sorbing, persons  of  taste  frequently  reflect  whether  the  Orient  might 
not  have  done  better  to  hold  fast  to  her  own.  There  are  aspects  of 
Oriental  manners,  art,  industry,  and  philosophy  which  may  in  the  dis- 
tant future  appeal  more  strongly  to  the  coming  world  than  the 
corresponding  Western  practices.  To  any  one  with  a  reflective  turn  of 
mind,  the  Washington  Conference,  among  its  many  colourful  and 
striking  qualities,  was  constantly  stimulating  speculation  about  what 
may  be  the  final  results  of  the  constantly  increasing  contacts  between 
Eastern  and  Western  cultures — how  much  the  East  may  take  on  from 
us,  and  how  much  we  may  take  on  from  the  East. 


Japan  and  China  259 

other  counsel  of  perfection,  and  find  that  there 
is  a  hiatus  between  the  ideal  and  the  fulfilment. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  always  that  these  de- 
mands were  a  picture  of  perfection. 

The  Conference  did  not  go  so  far  as  was  asked 
by  the  ten  demands;  but  it  went  as  far  as  the 
circumstances  of  China  herself  would  permit. 
Even  the  Chinese  delegates  did  not  expect  the 
ideal  to  be  accomplished  at  this  one  jump. 
When  the  Conference  granted  only  a  part  of 
the  ten  demands,  the  Chinese  delegates  were  can- 
did enough  to  say  they  had  not  seriously  hoped 
for  all.  At  one  point,  in  the  debates,  Dr.  Wang 
said  he  had  not  the  purpose  of  asking  for  "an 
immediate  and  complete  solution  of  extrater- 
ritoriality," but  rather  "the  purpose  of  inviting 
the  powers  to  cooperate  with  China  in  taking 
initial  steps  toward  improving  and  eventually 
abolishing  the  existing  system.  .  .  .  It  is 
gratifying  to  learn  of  the  sympathetic  attitude 
of  the  powers  toward  this  question." 

At  another  point,  Dr.  Wellington  Koo  made 
a  similar  statement  of  satisfaction  with  the  prog- 
ress made,  and  of  the  fact  that  the  Chinese 
themselves  did  not  -expect  perfection  at  one 
jump.  Dr.  Koo  said:  "China  knew  that  the 
cumulative  results  of  eighty  years  could  not  be 
wiped  off  at  this  Conference.  .  .  .  The 
Chinese  delegation  had  in  fact  prepared  a  list 


260  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

of  specific  questions  which  it  thought  should  be 
discussed  at  the  Conference,  not  necessarily  for 
the  purpose  of  finding  an  immediate  solution  for 
every  one  of  them,  but  with  the  idea  of  survey- 
ing the  ground  and  knowing  where  China  and 
the  other  powers  represented  at  the  Conference 
stood." 

IV 

In  considering  the  demands  made  by  China, 
the  first  step  was  a  move  made  by  Mr.  Root. 
Mr.  Root  in  Washington  was  an  impressive 
figure,  and  the  sort  of  thing  he  now  did  was 
characteristic  of  the  role  he  played  throughout. 
Elihu  Root,  as  he  appeared  at  the  Washington 
Conference,  was  a  spectacle  to  command  atten- 
tion like  some  splendid  monument.  There  he 
stood,  at  the  age  of  seventy-six,  with  a  brain  that 
was  richly  endowed  in  the  beginning,  and  has 
now  the  acute  refinement  and  fine  efficiency  that 
comes  of  a  lifetime  of  hard  intellectual  work.  It 
was  easy  to  envisage  him,  at  his  age  and  with  his 
philosophic  temperament,  surveying  the  world 
from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  must  have  begun 
to  consider  the  time  when  he  shall  have  left  it. 
Looking  at  the  world  with  this  serene  abstrac- 
tion, and  determined  to  bequeath  to  it  the  heri- 
tage of  the  best  work  of  a  career  already  crowded 
with  achievement,  he  considered  the  tides  of 


Japan  and  China  261 

evolution  and  the  stars  of  direction  and  put  his 
mind  upon  what  was  best  to  be  done  about  that 
four  hundred  million  human  beings  who  compose 
the  largest  single  nation  on  the  earth's  surface — 
what  is  best  to  be  done  not  only  about  the  four 
hundred  millions  for  their  own  sake,  but  about 
their  big  and  close  relation  to  a  world  which 
wabbles  dangerously  on  the  no  man's  land  be- 
tween chaos  and  order. 

It  would  have  been  appallingly  easy  to  get  off 
with  the  wrong  foot  about  China,  and  it  would 
have  had  terrifying  consequences  if  that  had  hap- 
pened. The  theory  upon  which  the  subject  of 
China  was  taken  up  was  probably  an  axiom  of 
intellectual  habit  with  a  man  of  Mr.  Root's  dis- 
cipline of  mind.  A  less  competent  brain  might 
readily  have  chosen  the  more  obvious  way,  and 
the  more  obvious  way  would  have  been  the  fatally 
wrong  way.  The  obvious  thing  would  have  been 
to  take  up  the  disputed  aspects  of  China  one  by 
one — to  begin  by  quarrelling  about  post  offices 
and  then  to  pass  to  tariffs  in  a  state  of  mind  made 
acrimonious  by  dispute.  That  course  would 
have  led  to  the  maximum  of  controversy. 

But  the  theory  upon  which  Mr.  Root  led  off 
was  based  on  considering,  first,  not  the  points  of 
controversy  about  China  but  the  points  of  agree- 
ment. The  theory  was  first  to  enumerate  and 
set  down  those  aspects  of  China  as  to  which  there 


262  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

was  no  dissent,  and  leave  for  later  discussion 
those  things  which  were  described  in  the  invita- 
tion to  the  Conference  as  "the  remaining  causes 
of  friction  in  the  world."  Among  other  advan- 
tages this  method  of  approach  had  that  of  creat- 
ing in  the  Conference  a  spirit  of  harmony  and 
agreement  with  which  to  take  up  afterward 
those  aspects  of  the  question  which  required  the 
smoothing  out  of  differences.  In  this  spirit  Mr. 
Root  formulated  the  statement  of  principles  to 
which  all  subscribed. 

Mr.  Root  engaged  in  this  process  was  a  spec- 
tacle to  enrich  the  imagination.  At  an  age  and 
with  a  relation  to  the  world  that  frees  him  from 
any  necessity  for  considerations  of  party  or  fac- 
tional or  personal  interest,  he  takes  the  visible 
universe  for  his  client  and  lays  down  a  course  of 
action  whose  results  will  have  a  fairly  large  de- 
termining influence  on  what  the  world  is  to  be 
a  century  after  Mr.  Root  has  departed  from  it. 
Here  is  a  world  in  which  civilization  has  become  a 
relatively  small  island  surrounded  by  the  chaos  of 
Russia's  two  hundred  millions,  with  Central 
Europe's  hundred  millions  and  India's  three 
hundred  millions  tottering  towards  a  degree  of 
collapse  that  the  men  in  the  Conference  knew 
better  than  any  one  else.  Under  this  set  of  con- 
ditions, could  it  be  possible  that  the  nations  that 
compose  this  receding  and  imperilled  island  of 


Japan  and  China  263 

civilization  would  choose  to  add  four  hundred 
millions  more  to  the  sea  of  chaos?  Even  on  the 
basis  of  cold  self-interest,  the  short-sighted  self- 
ishness that  would  divide  China  up  must  yield 
to  the  more  enlightened  self-interest  that  will 
restore  it  and  maintain  it  for  civilization.  The 
men  of  reason  who  composed  the  Conference 
could  not  but  see  that  the  thing  to  do  about 
China  is  not  to  steal  it  but  to  heal  it. 

(What  I  have  said  about  Mr.  Root  as  an  im- 
pressive figure  at  the  Conference  was  also  true 
of  many  of  the  others.  The  Washington  Con- 
ference was  a  gathering  of  very  able  men. 
One  day  during  the  Conference  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells,  in  the  course  of  a  casual  conversation 
about  his  "Outline  of  History,"  spoke  of  some- 
thing that  Plutarch  had  said  about  the  Roman 
Cato.  I  asked  him,  "Why  read  Plutarch  on 
Cato  when  you  can  read  Wells  on  Kato  in  the 
evening  paper — not  only  read  about  Kato  but 
see  him  in  the  flesh  and  in  action;  and  not  only 
see  Kato  in  action  but  see  Hughes,  and  Harding, 
and  Root,  and  Balfour  and  the  others."  The 
play  on  words  was  not  particularly  robust;  but 
I  suspect  an  entirely  reasonable  argument  could 
be  made  that  these  men  were  just  as  able  and 
just  as  big  in  personality  as  any  of  the  old 
Romans  were.  Certainly  it  is  easily  demon- 
strable that  the  affairs  these  modern  men  were 


264  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

dealing  with  at  the  Washington  Conference  are 
decidedly  more  important  than  the  affairs  the 
old  Romans  managed.  What  the  men  who  met 
every  day  in  the  Washington  Conference  were 
doing  was  on  a  vastly  larger  scale  than  anything 
the  Romans  ever  had  to  do.  It  was  on  a  larger 
scale  in  proportion  as  the  civilized  world  of  the 
present  is  larger  than  the  civilized  world  of  1900 
years  ago.  Not  only  is  the  scale  larger  by  the 
degree  in  which  the  civilized  world  is  larger — it 
is  infinitely  enlarged  also  by  the  fact  that  to-day 
so  much  more  of  the  world  is  able  to  read  and  to 
follow  public  affairs  with  intelligence  and  con- 
viction. It  must  have  been  comparatively  easy 
for  one  of  those  old  Romans  to  come  to  the  front 
in  that  relatively  small  world  of  educated  men. 
In  the  Roman  world  probably  the  number  of 
persons  who  had  an  intelligent  understanding  of 
public  affairs  was  not  larger  than  a  fairly  small 
American  town.  For  the  rest,  the  Roman  Em- 
pire consisted  of  a  few  millions  of  illiterate  de- 
pendents and  serfs.  It  must  have  been  a  very 
much  easier  process  for  a  man  of  ambition  and 
ability  to  push  himself  to  the  top  of  the  world 
then,  than  it  is  for  men  like  Harding  and 
Hughes  and  Balfour  and  Briand  and  Kato  to 
push  themselves  to  the  front  of  their  respective 
nations.  My  conversation  with  Wells  was 
jocular  and  took  place  in  one  of  the  friendly  con- 


Japan  and  China  265 

tacts  that  were  characteristic  of  the  informal 
surroundings  of  the  Conference.  Nevertheless, 
I  suspect  that  a  reasonably  serious  thesis  could 
be  written  on  the  theory  that  what  was  happen- 
ing here  before  our  eyes  was  about  as  large  as 
most  of  the  things  that  constitute  the  high  peaks 
of  history.  Wells,  the  reporter,  in  the  daily 
papers  was  not  less  important  than  Wells,  the 
historian,  in  his  "Outline  of  History."  It  ought 
to  have  been  possible  for  the  reader  who  has 
some  imagination  to  get  as  much  exaltation  out 
of  a  two-cent  evening  paper  as  out  of  any  of  the 
volumes  of  Plutarch  or  Gibbon,  assuming,  of 
course,  that  the  reporters  of  these  present  events 
have  the  ability  to  describe  them  adequately.) 


The  resolutions  which  Mr.  Root  proposed, 
and  which  were  adopted  by  the  Conference,  read : 

"It  is  the  firm  intention  of  the  Powers  attending  this 
Conference  hereinafter  mentioned,  to  wit,  the  United 
States  of  America,  Belgium,  the  British  Empire,  France, 
Italy,  Japan,  the  Netherlands,  and  Portugal — 

"1.  To  respect  the  sovereignty,  the  independence  and 
the  territorial  and  administrative  integrity  of  China. 

"2.  To  provide  the  fullest  and  most  unembarrassed  op- 
portunity to  China  to  develop  and  maintain  for  herself  an 
effective  and  stable  government. 


266  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

"3.  To  use  their  influence  for  the  purpose  of  effectually 
establishing  and  maintaining  the  principle  of  equal  op- 
portunity for  the  commerce  and  industry  of  all  nations 
throughout  the  territory  of  China. 

"4.  To  refrain  from  taking  advantage  of  the  present 
conditions  in  order  to  seek  special  rights  or  privileges 
which  would  abridge  the  rights  of  the  subjects  or  citizens 
of  friendly  states,  and  from  countenancing  action  inimical 
to  the  security  of  such  states.'* 

It  was  evident  that  Mr.  Hughes  attached 
much  weight  to  these  resolutions.  In  present- 
ing them  to  the  Conference,  he  spoke  of  them  as 

"a  charter  containing  an  assurance  to  China  of  protection 
from  acts  in  derogation  of  her  sovereignty  and  indepen- 
dence and  administrative  autonomy,  and  also  an  assurance 
that  as  between  the  Powers  there  will  be  a  careful  ob- 
servance of  the  principle  of  free  and  equal  opportunity  in 
matters  relating  to  China  and  that  no  one  will  seek  special 
advantages  or  privileges  at  the  expense  of  the  rights  of 
others." 

Later  on,  in  his  report  to  the  President,  Mr. 
Hughes  described  these  resolutions,  coupled 
with  the  other  agreements  made  about  the  Far 
East  as  "constituting  a  Magna  Charta  for 
China." 

VI 

What  I  have  said  here  about  China,  Japan 
and  the  Far  East,  undertakes  to  do  little  more 


Japan  and  China  267 

than  express  the  reflections  of  an  observer  about 
the  higher  peaks  of  that  portion  of  the  Confer- 
ence which  dealt  with  those  subjects.  I  have 
not  tried  to  be  complete  about  this,  as  I  have  tried 
to  be  as  complete  as  possible  about  the  negotia- 
tions to  limit  armament.  The  questions  of  the 
Far  East  were  not  an  essential  part  of  that 
great  adventure.  They,  to  a  large  extent,  were 
a  subject  apart.  In  saying  this  I  do  not  mean 
by  implication  to  understate  their  importance. 
What  the  Conference  did  about  China  was  in  its 
way  as  unprecedented  and  constructive  as  the 
primary  work  of  the  Conference.  These  agree- 
ments and  the  negotiations  that  led  up  to  them 
would  make  another  book  and  would  be  worthy 
of  it.  But  it  would  be  a  different  book.  The 
questions  of  the  Far  East  were  not  a  part  of  the 
original  suggestion  of  the  Conference,  as  that 
suggestion  gathered  its  early  momentum  in  the 
public  opinion  of  the  United  States.  They  were 
introduced  at  a  later  stage  of  the  progress  of  the 
idea.  Their  introduction  was  logical ;  but  in  any 
narrative  of  the  heart  of  the  great  adventure, 
they  have  a  position  apart,  and  could  only  be 
covered  adequately  in  another  book.  I  have 
tried  to  treat  them  only  in  the  proportion  in 
which  the  present  narrative  demands ;  and  I  turn 
now  to  close  with  an  effort  to  make  clear  that 
historic  change,  both  in  the  way  the  world  is  to 


268  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

be  managed  in  the  future  and  in  the  leadership 
of  the  new  order,  which  took  place  in  the  mo- 
ments when  Hughes  laid  down  his  plan,  and 
Balfour  said,  "We  accept." 


XI 


"UNIQUE  IN  HISTORY" 


IN  THE  opening  chapter,  I  have  quoted  Mr. 
Balfour  as  describing  that  first  day  of  the 
Washington    Conference,    and   the    speech 
Hughes  made,  as  "that  inspired  moment     .    .    . 
that  fateful  Saturday.     .     .     ." 

I  want  now  to  quote,  and  use  as  a  text,  another 
phrase,  a  phrase  of  three  words,  which  Mr.  Bal- 
four picked  to  describe  that  same  Saturday  and 
the  things  the  Conference  accomplished  as  a  re- 
sult of  it.  Mr.  Balfour  said  it  was  "unique  in 
history." 

Now  "unique  in  history"  is  a  broad  phrase. 
It  means  literally  that  there  was  never  anything 
else  in  history  like  it,  that  it  stands  alone.  Fur- 
ther, Mr.  Balfour  is  about  as  careful  to  be  exact 
and  literal  in  his  choice  of  words  as  any  other 
speaker  or  writer  in  the  English-speaking  world. 
Any  one  who  has  listened  to  him  make  a  speech 
has  noticed  his  habitual  search  for  the  exact 
word,  the  picking  one  and  discarding  it  for  an- 
other more  precise.  A  man  of  Mr.  Balfour's 
intellectual  self -discipline  doesn't  use  a  phrase 


270  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

like  "unique  in  history"  loosely.  He  doesn't 
throw  it  out,  as  many  persons  use  such  superla- 
tives, merely  as  one  way  of  saying  a  thing  is  very 
big  or  very  great.  When  Mr.  Balfour  says  the 
Washington  Conference  was  "unique  in  history," 
he  means  just  that. 

Let  us  then  try  to  see  just  what  it  was  that 
this  Conference  did  that  was  never  done  before. 
(Mr.  Balfour,  by  the  way,  with  his  knowledge 
of  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations,  and  of  the  position 
that  Great  Britain  has  long  held  in  the  world,  is 
probably  as  well  equipped  as  any  other  man  to 
see  and  comprehend  just  what  was  the  thing  that 
made  the  Washington  Conference  "unique  in 
history.") 

II 

If  you  want  to  see  the  really  big  thing  that 
happened  at  the  Washington  Conference,  the 
thing  that  made  it  "unique  in  history" — you 
must  stand  away  for  a  moment  from  all  the  con- 
fusing details  of  ships  and  tonnage  and  quarrels 
between  the  French  and  British.  You  must  try, 
for  a  moment,  to  look  upon  the  Washington 
Conference  in  its  majestic  perspective.  You 
must  go  back  a  little  and  consider  some  things 
that  happened  to  the  nations  of  the  world,  and 
to  their  relations  to  each  other,  through  the 
World  War. 


"Unique  in  History"  271 

At  all  times  there  is  a  position  in  the  world 
which  is  occupied  by  a  dominant  power.  In  a 
more  restricted  sense,  the  power  holding  this 
position  is  frequently  spoken  of  as  Emistress  of 
the  seas" — a  phrase  which  is  reasonably  accurate, 
inasmuch  as  world  dominance  has  practically 
always  gone  hand-in-hand  with  naval  and  com- 
mercial dominance  on  the  sea^  The  phrase  that 
Germany  used  for  this  position  was  the  "place 
in  the  sun."  It  was  that  place  that  Germany 
sought  to  take  from  Great  Britain;  and  it  is 
Germany's  lack  of  success  and  other  incidents 
attending  her  effort,  that  threw  us  into  all  the 
dislocation  of  which  the  Washington  Conference 
was  an  attempt  at  readjustment  on  the  basis  of 
a  new  order. 

Germany  was  insane — the  word  is  not  too 
strong — with  jealousy  of  Britain's  place  in  the 
sun.  Germany  wanted  it  for  herself.  She 
willed  that  Great  Britain  should  lose  it.  She 
worked  for  forty  years,  worked  with  tireless 
energy  and  consummate  ingenuity,  to  take  it 
away  through  the  arts  of  business  and  commerce. 
And  so  long  as  she  kept  her  effort  within  the  field 
of  commerce  and  the  spontaneous  spread  of  cer- 
tain ideas  she  had  about  the  organization  of 
society,  such  as  education,  the  care  of  depen- 
dents and  the  like — so  long  as  she  confined  her 
ambition  to  those  legitimate  channels,  she  was 


272  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

in  a  fair  way  to  reach  a  large  measure  of  success. 
Judged  by  the  ordinary  standards  of  commercial 
achievement,  and  the  willing  adoption  by  other 
peoples  of  many  of  her  ideas,  Germany  seemed 
destined  to  win  the  long  race  and  the  high  place. 
But  at  last  Germany's  envy  carried  her  out 
of  the  world  of  sanity,  and  she  took  up  the  sword. 
She  made  a  historic  commotion  in  the  world; 
and  as  the  clouds  cleared  away  from  the  debris, 
several  results  appeared  as  having  come  about, 
or  as  being  in  a  way  to  come  about.  But  success 
for  Germany's  ambition  to  seize  the  place  in  the 
sun  was  not  among  them.  Great  Britain,  it  is 
true,  was  seriously  undermined  in  her  possession 
of  it,  but  Germany  had  not  got  it.  It  had  be- 
gun to  tend  to  go  where  the  prize  that  envy  con- 
tends for  often  goes,  to  one  who  was  in  the 
beginning  a  disinterested  bystander.  And  out 
of  that  situation  arose  the  thing  that  made  the 
Washington  Conference  unparalleled  in  history. 

Ill 

This  thing  that  Germany  lusted  for,  this  place 
in  the  sun  that  Great  Britain  had  and  Germany 
wanted,  is  only  partially  described  by  the  phrase, 
"mistress  of  the  seas."  Any  one  who  has  read 
Admiral  Mahan's  "Influence  of  Sea-Power 
upon  History"  knows  that  whoever  is  mistress 


"Unique  in  History"  273 

of  the  seas  is  also  something  more.  iWith  com- 
mand of  the  seas  goes  world  dominance^  To 
express  it  in  a  pardonable  bull,  whoever  is  mis- 
tress of  the  seas  is  also  cock  of  the  walk.  That 
is  the  position  which  Great  Britain  had  and 
which  Germany  coveted. 

It  is  a  striking  position  in  the  world.  The 
mere  thought  of  it  calls  up  a  long  and  colourful 
pageant  of  empires  and  dynasties.  Its  history 
has  been  eloquently  portrayed  in  a  chapter  of 
"The  Heritage  of  Tyre,"  by  Mr.  William  Brown 
Meloney,  which  chapter  I  have  condensed  and 
paraphrased,  and  at  some  points  expanded  a  lit- 
tle— without,  I  hope,  too  much  mutilation  of  the 
essential  meaning — in  the  following  passage: 

Since  the  day  that  man  first  straddled  a  floating  log 
and  started  humanity  adventuring  by  sea,  the  intervening 
centuries  have  seen  only  seven  nations  possessed  of  suffi- 
cient genius  to  dominate  the  earth's  deep  waters.  Dur- 
ing two  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-eight  years, 
Tyre  has  had  but  seven  true  heirs.  Tyre,  in  her  time, 
was  the  inspiration  of  all  commerce.  Irrespective  of 
nationality,  all  who  trafficked  by  sea  were  called  "mer- 
chants of  Tyre,"  and  all  vessels  of  burden  "ships  of  Tyre." 
Dynasties  lived  by  grace  of  Tyre's  credit,  and  died  at  the 
calling  of  her  loans.  With  the  passing  of  Tyre  the  posi- 
tion went  to  Carthage ;  after  Carthage  to  the  Italian  cities, 
Venice,  Genoa,  Florence  and  Naples.  Italy  held  her  dom- 
inance for  seven  hundred  years,  until  the  Hanseatic 
League  of  Cities  took  the  leadership  of  commerce  to  the 


274  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

Baltic  Sea.  Then  Portugal  forced  herself  to  the  front. 
That  was  preceding  the  discovery  of  America  by  Spain. 
With  the  aggressiveness  of  which  that  discovery  was  char- 
acteristic, Spain  took  the  leadership  away  from  Portugal. 
Spain  held  it  two  hundred  years  and  lost  it  to  Holland. 
But  hardly  had  Holland  won  control  than  a  new  heir  arose 
— an  heir  that  would  not  be  gainsaid;  that  would  not  be 
content  with  a  division — an  heir  that  must  have  all  and 
took  it.  That  was  England. 

Great  Britain,  as  the  seventh  inheritor  in  all 
history,  has  held  this  "Heritage  of  Tyre"  for 
nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  years.1  And  the 
thing  that  happened  on  that  fateful  Saturday, 
the  one  act  of  the  Washington  Conference  that 
made  it  unique  in  history,  was  that  Great  Britain 
gave  this  possession  up — gave  it  up,  not  through 
war  or  battle,  but  through  processes  of  peace; 
not  as  an  act  of  surrender  but  as  one  of  deliberate 
self-denial;  not  resentfully  to  a  victorious  enemy, 
but  willingly  to  friends  and  equals.  What 
Great  Britain  did  may  be  described,  by  a  not  un- 
reasonable analogy,  as  turning  her  naval  leader- 
ship over  to  a  board  of  trustees,  to  a  group  of 
partners,  among  whom  she  herself  is  one  of  the 
senior  partners  with  five  shares,  the  other  senior 
partner  being  America  with  five  shares  also ;  and 

1 1  am  not  attempting  to  be  minutely  exact.  There  was  a  time  during 
this  interval  when  France  disputed  Great  Britain's  naval  power;  and 
another  comparatively  brief  period,  about  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  when  the  United  States  approximated  Great  Britain  in  mer- 
cantile shipping. 


"Unique  in  History"  275 

Japan  being  a  junior  partner  with  three  shares. 
It  is  in  this  partnership  that  naval  dominance 
is  now  lodged,  and  it  is  this  voluntary  turning 
over  by  a  great  nation,  acting  in  the  interest  of 
a  new  order  and  a  new  spirit  of  cooperation  in 
the  world,  of  a  position,  a  power,  and  a  posses- 
sion which  she  has  held  by  force  of  superior  arms 
for  more  than  two  hundred  years — it  was  this 
that  made  the  Washington  Conference  unique 
in  history.1 

IV 

Let  us  analyze  this  position  of  dominance,2 
and  see  what  it  is  composed  of.  Those  who  have 
not  thought  deeply  into  it  assume  that  it  con- 
sists merely  in  the  possession  of  the  strongest 
navy  in  the  world.  It  is  true  that  the  possession 
of  the  strongest  navy  is  the  keystone  of  the  posi- 
tion of  world  dominance;  and  that  is  why  the 
Washington  Conference,  seen  in  its  true  perspec- 


1 1  would  not  have  the  reader  understand  me  as  intending  to  imply 
that  it  was  Great  Britain  who  made  the  only  renunciation  at  the 
Washington  Conference.  America,  too,  made  a  renunciation.  If  Great 
Britain  renounced  a  possession,  we  renounced  an  ambition,  which  we 
had  the  resources  to  achieve.  As  Colonel  Repington  expressed  it, 
"The  [Hughes]  plan,  however  drastic,  seems  fair  and  sincere,  and 
America  is  offering  to  scrap  ships  upon  which  she  has  spent  $330,000,000 
already.  .  .  .  Teaching  by  example,  America  makes  a  great  renun- 
ciation and  the  most  magnificent  political  gesture  of  all  history." 

2  It  was,  of  course,  naval  dominance  alone  that  was  dealt  with  at 
the  Washington  Conference.  I  have  used  the  word  "dominance"  loosely. 
Naval  dominance  practically  always  goes  with  dominance  in  mercantile 
shipping;  and  the  two  in  combination  compose  dominance  on  the  sea. 


276  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

tive,  was  a  move  that  went  to  the  heart  of  im- 
mense events. 

But  to  treat  adequately  of  the  Washington 
Conference  it  is  necessary  to  go  deeper.  There 
is  a  pregnant  sentence  in  Admiral  Mahan's 
"Influence  of  Sea-Power  upon  History;"  "The 
necessity  of  a  navy  .  .  .  springs  .  .  . 
from  the  existence  of  a  peaceful  shipping,  and 
disappears  with  it." 

The  greatest  navy  in  the  world,  in  other  words, 
is  an  essential  part,  but  not  the  whole,  of  world 
dominance.  The  other  parts  of  world  dominance 
are  mercantile  shipping  and  the  commerce  and 
finance  which  go  with  mercantile  shipping. 
The  great  navy  is  the  pistol  that  defends 
that  treasure.  The  three  things  stand  together. 
World  dominance  consists  of  a  combination 
of:  supremacy  in  finance,  supremacy  in  mer- 
cantile shipping,  and  supremacy  in  armed 
shipping. 

These  three  go  together.  They  cannot  or- 
dinarily exist  apart.  Whatever  nation  has  them 
is  mistress  of  the  seas,  is  dominant  on  the  land, 
has  that  exalted  place  in  the  sun  which  Ger- 
many coveted,  fought  for,  and  lost  everything 
for. 

These  three  things  in  August,  1914,  Great 
Britain  had,  and  had  had  in  one  degree  or  an- 
other for  more  than  two  hundred  years.  But 


"Unique  in  History"  277 

through  the  operations  of  the  World  War,  she 
was  undermined  in  each. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  forced  to 
it  by  the  necessities  of  war,  Great  Britain  called 
in  her  money  from  all  over  the  world.  Within 
a  year  she  ceased  to  be  the  greatest  lender  of 
money  in  the  world.  She  reversed  her  position 
and  became  a  borrower,  chiefly  from  America. 
Before  the  war  was  much  more  than  a  year  old, 
Great  Britain's  leadership  in  finance  had  meas- 
urably passed  to  the  United  States.  Preceding 
the  war  we  had  been  deeply  in  debt  to  Great 
Britain,  as,  indeed,  was  nearly  every  other  na- 
tion in  the  world.  Before  the  war  we  owed  the 
investors  of  Great  Britain  upward  of  five  billion 
dollars,  and  used  to  pay  her  upward  of  two  hun- 
dred millions  a  year  in  interest.  Since  the  war, 
Great  Britain  owes  us,  in  public  and  private 
obligations,  upward  of  $3,000,000,000.  It  is  a 
sufficient  summary  of  what  happened  to  Great 
Britain's  position  in  world  finance  to  say  that 
before  the  war  she  was  the  greatest  creditor  na- 
tion in  the  world,  and  since  the  war  the  United 
States  is;  Great  Britain  was  the  greatest  ex- 
porter of  capital  in  the  world,  and  now  America 
is. 

As  to  mercantile  shipping,  before  the  war 
Great  Britain  was  clearly  and  unmistakably  first 
among  the  nations.  She  had  almost  as  many 


278  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

ships  as  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together. 
Of  a  world's  total  of  about  fifty  million  tons, 
Great  Britain  had  over  twenty.  These  mercan- 
tile ships  were  the  keystone  of  her  commercial 
and  financial  arch.  They  were  the  cornerstone 
of  her  economic  leadership.  Shipping  was  Eng- 
land's master  business,  the  backbone  of  all  her 
resources.  Shipping  was  to  England  what  our 
wheat  crop  is  to  us,  or  our  cotton  crop,  or  our 
copper  output.  More  accurately,  shipping  was 
to  Great  Britain  what  all  these  combined,  and 
more  besides,  were  and  are  to  us.  With  us,  ship- 
ping was  a  negligible  industry.  We  had  less 
than  10  per  cent,  of  the  world's  mercantile  ships. 
But  here  again,  from  the  very  beginning  of 
the  war,  Great  Britain's  supremacy  in  mercan- 
tile shipping  began  to  be  undermined.  In  the 
first  place,  the  building  of  new  ships  was  prac- 
tically stopped.  England  could  not  spare  the 
man-power.  She  needed  all  her  men  for  her 
army.  Such  man-power  as  she  could  spare  for 
shipbuilding  at  all  was  devoted  to  warships. 
With  her  mercantile  shipbuilding  interrupted, 
the  annual  wastage  through  wear  and  tear 
mounted  up  on  her  at  the  rate  of  more  than  a 
million  tons  a  year.  But  worse,  infinitely  worse, 
than  the  ordinary  wastage,  was  the  devastation 
wrought  by  the  German  submarine.  Germany, 
with  a  true  and  intelligent  instinct  for  the  exact 


"Unique  in  History^  279 

thing  she  was  after,  began  to  sink  Britain's  ships 
faster  than  Britain  could  renew  them.  Britain 
came  upon  a  sinister  moment  when  she  was  about 
tOxlose  the  war  and  lose  her  historic  position  on 
the  sea  through  the  destruction  wrought  by  the 
German  submarine.1  In  this  situation,  Great 
Britain  begged  us  to  build  ships,  begged  us  to 
turn  all  our  resources  to  the  building  of  vessels 
to  replace  her  losses. 

In  the  urgency  of  this  request,  America  began 
to  build  not  ships  at  first,  but  shipbuilding 
plants.  In  the  course  of  the  war  we  set  up  in 
America  an  aggregate  of  mercantile  shipbuild- 
ing plants  much  greater  than  Great  Britain's 
capacity.  When  the  war  ended,  we  were  in  a 
position  and  had  the  necessary  plant  for  building 
such  a  quantity  of  ships  as  would  make  us  far  the 
superior  of  Great  Britain  in  the  ownership  of 
mercantile  vessels.  We  might  or  might  not  use 
this  shipbuilding  plant  to  capacity.  We  might 
or  might  not  stride  ahead  into  the  position  which 


1  There  is  an  interesting  reference  to  this  in  one  of  the  speeches  Mr. 
Balfour  made  at  the  Washington  Conference.  In  his  passionate  demand 
that  France  permit  the  utter  abolition  of  submarines  he  recalled  "the 
critical  moments  of  the  war.  It  was  in  the  beginning  of  1917  when  I 
was  coming  over  to  this  country  and  during  the  earlier  part  of  my 
stay  here.  During  those  weeks  undoubtedly  we  had  only  to  add  up 
the  tonnage  of  destruction  and  subtract  it  from  the  tonnage  of  the 
world  to  see  that  if  things  went  on  as  they  were  going  on  the  war 
could  have  but  one  end.  Yes,  it  was  a  struggle,  you  will  remember, 
between  the  attacking  forces  of  the  submarine  and  the  defensive  forces 
that  were  brought  against  it.  Like  all  these  struggles  between  offense 
and  defense,  it  had  its  oscillations.  That  was  the  very  Nadir  of  our 
fortunes." 


280  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

was  easily  open  to  us,  of  being  the  greatest  owner 
of  mercantile  ships  in  the  world.1 

As  regards  armed  ships,  as  regards  naval 
power,  Great  Britain,  at  the  end  of  the  war, 
still  held  her  dominance.  Through  the  neces- 
sities of  war  she  had  largely  increased  her  navy. 
We  had  not  built  any  considerable  number  of 
warships  while  the  war  was  on,  but  about  the 
time  it  ended,  here,  too,  we  began  a  programme 
of  greatly  stimulated  building.  By  the  time 
the  war  was  three  years  over,  by  the  third  anni- 
versary of  the  Armistice,  which  was  also  the 
opening  day  of  the  Washington  Conference,  we 
were  in  a  position  where  our  navy  approximated 
Great  Britain's. 


This,  then,  was  the  situation  as  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  at  the  time  the 

1  Great  Britain  saw  this  menace  to  her  mercantile  shipping  supremacy 
with  clear  apprehension.  The  head  of  the  Chamber  of  Shipping  of  the 
United  Kingdom  said  at  the  time,  "We,  the  greatest  shipbuilding  na- 
tion that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  have  now  been  far  outstripped  by  the 
Americans.  .  .  .  It  is  a  source  of  grave  concern."  About  the  same 
time  a  correspondent  of  the  London  Morning  Post  declared  that  "an 
ally  of  to-day  may  become  a  trade-rival  after  the  war,"  to  which  the 
Morning  Post  editor  added,  "Public  opinion  in  Great  Britain  is  not 
alive  to  the  peril  which  threatens  us."  Lord  Inchcape  said,  "I  am 
afraid  of  what  the  position  may  be  when  the  war  is  over." 

From  the  American  point  of  view,  the  possibilities  were  seen  with 
equal  clearness.  In  the  latter  part  of  1918,  Mr.  Hurley,  then  head  of 
our  Shipping  Board,  said:  "The  American  Merchant  Marine  is  to-day 
expanding  more  rapidly  than  any  other  in  the  world.  In  August  of 
this  year  the  United  States  took  rank  as  the  leading  shipbuilding  nation 
in  the  world.  It  has  now  more  shipyards,  more  shipways,  more  ship 
workers,  more  ships  under  construction,  and  is  building  more  ships 
every  month,  than  any  other  country,  not  excepting  Great  Britain, 
hitherto  easily  the  first  shipbuilding  power." 


"Unique  in  History"  281 

Conference  opened.1  Dominance  on  the  sea 
and  all  that  goes  with  it  was  divided,  so  to  speak, 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain. 
We  were  at  the  point  where  we  could  keep 
financial  dominance ;  at  the  point  where  we  could 
go  ahead,  if  we  chose  to,  and  achieve  mercantile 
shipping  dominance;  and  at  the  point  where,  if 
we  cared  to  use  all  our  resources,  we  could  prob- 
ably greatly  exceed  Great  Britain's  naval 
strength.  The  position  of  world  dominance  was 
at  a  point  where  it  might  either  swing  back  to 
Great  Britain,  or  continue  to  come  toward  us. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances,  Great  Britain 
would  be  eager  to  renew  her  grip  upon  it,  to 
get  it  back  securely  into  her  possession.  We,  on 
our  part,  had  no  crystallized  determination  about 
it.  We  were  not  self-conscious  about  it.  The 
forces  that  rule  such  matters,  natural  resources, 
relative  wealth,  the  tides  of  economic  tendency, 
all  seemed  to  work  toward  us.  But  these  forces 
were  not  supplemented  by  any  deliberate  effort 
on  our  part.  Our  national  pride,  our  ambition, 
had  not  been  deeply  stirred.  To  very  few  of  our 
people  did  world  dominance,  as  such,  appeal. 
To  many  of  them,  so  far  as  it  was  understood, 

l  Even  before  the  war,  it  was  apparent  to  some  men  of  long  outlook 
that  this  passing  of  supremacy  to  America  might  ultimately  take  place. 
A  suggestion  to  this  effect  is  to  be  seen  in  the  recently  published  letters 
of  the  late  Walter  H.  Page,  then  Ambassador  of  Great  Britain.  But 
a  process  which  in  peace  would  have  extended  over  generations  was  by 
war  compressed  into  a  few  years. 


282  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 

its  responsibilities  were  a  little  repugnant.  The 
beginning  of  the  change  had  not  been  initiated 
by  us.  We  had  not  sought  the  prize.  The  pos- 
session of  it  by  another  had  not  excited  our 
cupidity.  Indeed,  so  far  as  we  thought  about  it 
at  all,  we  were  a  little  reluctant  to  be  the  bene- 
ficiary of  one  of  the  results  of  a  war  in  which  our 
losing  competitor  was  our  ally  in  that  war.  It 
was  a  little  repugnant  to  us  to  make  ourselves 
the  beneficiary  of  a  position  of  which  our  ally 
would  have  been  the  loser  because  of  her  sacri- 
fice made  in  a  common  cause.  It  is  true,  the  ap- 
peal had  been  made  to  our  people  by  many  of 
our  leaders  to  take  the  prize  that  destiny  held 
out  to  us.  One  group  of  leaders  had  urged  us 
to  go  ahead  and  make  ourselves  the  world's 
greatest  shipping  nation;  other  leaders  had  pro- 
claimed the  policy,  and  started  us  upon  it, 
of  becoming  the  greatest  naval  power  in  the 
world.  But  many  among  us  were  dubious  about 
the  desirability  of  becoming  the  greatest  ship- 
ping nation,  with  all  the  cost  it  would  entail. 
And  to  the  project  of  our  building  the  dominant 
navy  there  was  outspoken  and  organized  op- 
position. 

Nevertheless,  the  fact  of  dominance  being  in 
unstable  equilibrium,  drifting  between  two  na- 
tions with  the  temptation  of  each  to  go  after  it, 
was  a  danger.  It  was  not  natural  and  could  not 


"Unique  in  History"  283 

last.  It  was  a  situation  which  throughout  all 
history  has  led  to  war.  Ordinarily,  the  usual 
course  is  for  the  competition  to  become  more 
and  more  acute,  and  go  on  headlong  to  the  final 
test  of  arms.  In  similar  situations  in  history, 
this  has  been  the  outcome.  Possibly,  even  with- 
out the  Washington  Conference,  this  might  not 
have  happened.  Conceivably,  we  might  have 
been  permitted  to  take  the  prize  without  a  war. 
But  that  would  be  without  parallel.  Under 
similar  circumstances,  never  in  history  has  a 
nation  possessing  dominance  on  the  sea  let  it 
pass  away  from  her  willingly,  never  without 
putting  the  last  ounce  of  her  strength  into  the 
effort  to  keep  her  hold. 

That  was  the  condition  on  the  day  the  Wash- 
ington Conference  met.  That  had  been  the  sit- 
uation as  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  ever  since  the  war  ended. 

Great  Britain  might  have  acted  on  the  in- 
stinct of  pride;  might  have  accepted  the  lesson 
of  history;  might  have  bent  her  back  into  keep- 
ing her  mercantile  shipping  position  and  main- 
taining her  supremacy  of  armed  sea-power. 
We,  on  our  part,  might  have  thrown  our  re- 
sources into  building  the  greatest  mercantile 
fleet  in  the  world  and  into  achieving  the  suprem- 
acy of  armed  sea-power  that  goes  with  the  pos- 
session of  mercantile  shipping  leadership.  We 


284  The  Great  Adventure  at  Washington 
could  have  won  the  race,  if  it  had  been  made  a 


race.1 


But  this  race,  with  all  its  sinister  implications 
and  omens,  was  ended  and  put  aside  by  the 
Washington  Conference.  In  the  Washington 
Conference,  Great  Britain  and  America  said  in 
effect:  "We  will  not  fight  for  this  prize.  We 
will  not  enter  into  a  competition  of  armed  power. 
We  will  keep  our  navies  equal.  We  will  let  the 
economic  supremacy  be  a  matter  of  ordinary 
competition  in  trade.  We  will  let  it  go  in  peace 
to  whichever  competitor  shows  the  greater  de- 
serving in  commercial  ingenuity  and  the  most 
intelligent  and  effective  utilization  of  resources. 
As  to  our  arms,  we  will  agree  to  reduce  them 
to  the  basis  of  the  ordinary  necessities  of  de- 
fense; thereafter  we  will  keep  them  equal,  and 
we  promise  not  to  draw  them  against  each  other." 

In  this  act,  Great  Britain  surrendered  actual 
dominance  of  naval  power  and  we  surrendered 
potential  dominance.  Great  Britain  gave  up 
the  heritage  she  had  held  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years;  and  we  gave  up  the  ambition  to 
take  it  from  her  for  ourselves.  It  was,  as  I 


l  At  a  time  when  it  seemed  that  a  competitive  race  might  come;  at  a 
time  before  the  Conference  was  held  and  when  it  was  uncertain  whether 
the  other  nations  would  accept  our  invitations,  or  whether  the  Confer- 
ence would  be  successful,  one  of  our  younger  and  more  ardent  naval 
officials,  in  a  metaphor  borrowed  from  the  vocabulary  of  the  navy,  said: 
"All  right;  if  it's  to  be  a  race,  then  'three  bells  and  a  jingle;  full 
steam  ahead,  and  see  who  goes  broke  first.'  M 


"Unique  in  History"  285 

have  said,  in  a  sense  placed  in  a  partnership  to 
be  administered  for  the  common  good. 

It  was  this  peaceful  passing  of  naval  domi- 
nance, or,  to  express  it  more  accurately,  this 
turning  over  of  dominance  to,  so  to  speak,  a 
board  of  trustees,  making  it  no  longer  a  prize  of 
selfishness  to  be  contended  for  by  jealous  na- 
tions, but  rather  a  cooperative  responsibility  to 
be  administered  jointly,  that  made  the  Wash- 
ington Conference  "unique  in  history." 


THE  END 


INDEX 


Alaska,  134. 

Aleutian  Islands,  134. 

Alphabetical  arrangement  of  delegates' 
seats,  191. 

America:  her  magnificent  gesture,  275; 
possible  dominance  of,  280-281;  ship- 
building plants  of,  279-280;  her  tribute 
to  Foch,  188-189. 

American  Civic  Association  proposes  to  do 
away  with  cannon  as  decoration,  41. 

Americans:  in  Conference  audience  sym- 
pathetic to  Briand,  81;  enthusiasm  over 
Hughes's  plan,  41. 

Amour  propre  of  French:  7,  13-15,  190- 
191. 

Anglo-Japanese  Alliance:  61-62,  202-203; 
American  view  of,  later,  229;  Balfour  on, 
214-215;  Discussion  in  London,  231; 
Purpose  of,  228-229. 

Applause:  Bryan  leads,  at  President  Hard- 
ing's  speech,  11;  follows  Hughes's  speech, 
24. 

Armament:  competition  in,  to  stop  im- 
mediately, 20j  Conference  on,  91;  limi- 
tation of,  22. 

Asia,  French  army  in,  71. 

Australia,  134. 

Balfour,  Arthur:  6;  compliments  Briand's 
speech,  81;  description  of  speech,  58-59; 
diplomacy  his  vocation,  52;  personality 
of,  52;  proposes  motto  of  Conference,  15; 
speech  concerning  France  in  secret  ses- 
sion, 96;  trick  of  speech,  51;  views  on 
Anglo-Japanese  Alliance,  214-215;  views 
on  Hughes's  plan  of  armament  reduction, 
45;  views  on  submarines,  174-175,  178; 
wins  affection  of  audience,  53;  words,  his 
choice  of,  269. 

Baltimore  Sure,  description  of  Balfour's 
speech,  58;  of  Briand's  speech,  81. 

Beatty,  Admiral:  astonishment  at  pro- 
posed scrapping  of  British  battleships, 
25,  27. 

Belgian  envoy  surprised  at  armament  re- 
duction plan,  29. 

"Big  Three,"  Hughes,  Balfour,  Kato,  207. 

Bishop  of  New  York  praises  Hughes,  41. 

Bon,  Admiral  de:  fixes  submarine  mini- 
mum,173-174;  replies  to  Root,  184-185; 
speech  on  naval  ratio,  158,  161. 

Borah,  Senator,  approves  limitation  of 
armament  plan,  41. 

Boston  Transcript's  headlines  on  sub- 
marine discussion,  176. 

Brandeis,  Justice,  4-5. 


Briand,  Premier:  he  is  accommodated,  66; 
anger  in  secret  session,  100-101;  an- 
swers delegates,  98;  as  orator,  79;  Bri- 
tish and  Italian  resentment  of  his  speech, 
87;  demand  for  him,  30;  Premiership, 
loss  of,  166-167;  replies  to  Hughes's  ca- 
ble, 150;  response  for  France,  64;  seat  at 
Conference,  6;  speech,  description  of, 
78-81;  waives  translation  of  President's 
speech,  13. 

British  Empire,  134. 

British  Government  aggrieved  by  French 
attitude  on  army,  95. 

British  naval  experts,  37. 

British  Navy,  apparent  disrespect  to,  26. 

British  reasons  for  caution  on  armament 
reduction,  48,  61-62. 

Bryan,  William  Jennings,  at  Conference; 
4,  11. 

Bywater,  Hector,  English  naval  expert, 

Cables  between  Hughes  and  Briand,  150. 

Cannes,  Lloyd  George  and  Briand  go  to, 
107. 

Capital  ships,  French  motive  for  standard, 
155. 

Cato  and  Kato,  263. 

"Cat  and  Canary,"  207. 

China:  "Be  good,  sweet  China,"  237; 
in  state  of  transition,  256;  the  "Ten 
Demands,"  257;  the  "Twenty-one  De- 
mands," 244;  Dr.  Wang,  259. 

Chinese  delegates:  Graduates  of  Columbia 
and  Cornell,  254;  Dr.  Koo,  appearance 
at  Conference,  255;  Li  flung  Chang 
contrasted  with  Dr.  Koo,  256;  Dr.  Sze 
at  Conference,  255. 

Civilization  to-day  small  island  in  chaos, 
262. 

Civilized  world  to-day  compared  with 
Roman  Empire,  264. 

Cleverness  of  Japan,  249. 

"Cock  of  the  Walk,"  273. 

Conference:  attitude  toward  Japan,  239; 
first  session  ends,  31;  it  is  launched,  65; 
majestic  drama,  66;  newspaper  men 
present  at,  3;  object  of,  20;  proceedings 
world- wide  in  scope,  65;  second  session  of, 
50;  symbol  of,  9. 

Curzon,  Lord:  protest  of,  65;  speech  of, 
103. 


Dante  monument,  dedication  of,  68. 
"Decomposition"  used  for  "demobiliza- 
tion," with  dire  results,  70. 


287 


288 


Index 


Delegates  at  Conference:  arrangement  of 

seats,  6;  demeanour  of,  19. 
Denby,  Secretary  of  Navy,  40. 
Diplomacy  of  Hughes,  36. 

Economic  restoration  of  Europe  pre- 
vented, 68. 

England:  against  submarine,  169-170; 
agrees  to  limitation  of  armament,  63; 
"cock  of  the  walk,"  273;  debt  to  United 
States,  277;  dominance  of  seas,  284;  the 
financial  leadership  passed  to  United 
States,  277;  "place  in  the  sun,"  271. 

English  custom  of  commanding  the  sea,  28. 

English  writer  on  naval  matters,  46. 

Europe  receives  news  of  Conference,  42. 

Eyre,  Lincoln,  of  New  York  World,  146. 

Feudal  aristocrats  of  Japan,  250. 

Foch,  Marshal,  America's  tribute  to,  188. 

Four-Power  Treaty:  comment  on,  202; 
Democrats,  criticism  of,  221-222; 
device  to  terminate  Anglo-Japanese 
Alliance,  236;  Letter  by  Mr.  Hughes 
on,  233-234;  Wording  of,  causes  ex- 
citement, 216. 

France:  approves  submarines,  170-171; 
attitude  of,  explained  by  British  official, 
144-145;  England,  and  the  submarines, 
166;  enthusiastic  at  beginning  of  Con- 
ference, 43;  excuse  for  big  army,  199; 
favoured  in  naval  ratio,  162;  former 
colonies  of,  157;  prime  interest  of,  66; 
she  says  "No,"  65;  to  "step  into  Ger- 
many's shoes,"  104;  at  Washington, 
188. 

French  amour  propre;  7,  13,  190-191. 

French  Army:  66;  in  Asia,  71;  Italian 
attitude  toward,  67-68;  politicians' 
attitude  concerning,  84;  purpose  of,  71; 
question  of,  introduced  by  Briand,  75. 

French  attitude  toward  England,  72-73. 

French  called  "Trouble-makers,"  187; 
claim  more  capital  ships,  141. 

French  delegates'  attitude  at  Conference, 
7,  13,  73,  200;  sensitive,  67,  193-194. 

French  feeling  on  ship  ratio  explained; 
158-160. 

French-Italian  episode,  69-70. 

French,  language  of  diplomacy,  14. 

French  programme  pronounced  con- 
ciliatory, 88. 

French  translation  of  President  Harding's 
speech  waived,  13. 

Gallic  temperament,  The;  148,  152. 

Garland,  Hamlin,  35. 

Geddes,  Ambassador:  at  Conference,  6; 
his  seat  at  Conference  table,  193. 

George,  Lloyd,  telegram  from,  60,  62. 

German  jealousy  of  England,  271;  German 
junkers,  250. 

Germany:  reparations  against,  71;  resolves 
to  secure  place  in  the  sun,"  271. 

Great  Britain:  most  affected  by  ship  scrap- 
ping plan,  51;  her  naval  reduction, 
118. 

Guns,  calibre  limit  of,  183-184. 


Hanscatic  League  of  Cities,  273. 

Hani,  ex-Premier  of  Japan,  245. 

Harding,  President  and  Mrs.,  give  dinner 
to  American  and  foreign  diplomats,  35. 

Harding,  President:  air  of  modesty,  8; 
handling  of  business  by,  224-225;  speech, 
essence  of,  9;  extracts  from,  10-11. 

Hawaiian  Islands,  future  fortiBcation  of, 
134. 

Hays,  Will,  3. 

"Heritage  of  Tyre,  The,"  273. 

Historic  moment,  27. 

Holiday,  Ten-year  naval,  39. 

Holmes,  Oliver  WendelU  4. 

Hughes,  Secretary:  addresses  M.  Briand 
in  secret  session,  94;  appointed  head  of 
Conference,  16;  asks  that  French  trans- 
lation of  President's  speech  be  waived, 
13;  cables  to  Briand,  150;  change  of 
personality,  17-18;  new  diplomacy  of, 
86;  announces  prayer  at  opening  of 
Conference,  8;  programme,  aim  of,  124; 
reads  record  of  Japan's  promises,  244; 
r&le  of  lawyer  and  dramatist,  17;  sub- 
marines, 179-180. 

Hughes's  speech :  changes  attitude  of  session 
from  international  conference  to  Amer- 
ican political  convention,  29-30;  cri- 
ticism of,  19-20;  dramatic  quality  of, 
110;  extracts  from,  20-22. 

Hurley,  Mr.,  head  of  American  Shipping 
Board,  280. 

Inchcape,  Lord,  280. 

"Inspired  Moment,"  1. 

Interpreter  handicap  to  Briand's  elo- 
quence, 79. 

Italian  attitude  toward  French  army,  67- 
68. 

Italian  envoys  pleased  at  Hughes's  pro- 
posal, 29. 

Italian  and  French  episode,  69-70. 

Italian  representative  speaks  briefly  on 
limitation  of  armament,  64. 

Italian  riots,  69. 

Italy:  accepts  capital  ship  ratio,  142;  ap- 
proves submarines,  171. 


Japan:  armament  limitation,  principles 
accepted,  63;  attempted  exploiting  of, 
251;  cable  messages  delayed,  42;  China 
and  Japan,  237;  economized  to  build 
battleships,  46;  excuse  for  occupancy  of 
Russia,  242;  feudal  aristocrats  of,  250; 
homelands  included  in  Four-Power 
Treaty,  217;  homelands  removed  from 
Treaty,  227;  islands  of,  134;  in  process 
of  transition,  250;  on  Shantung,  246, 
249,  253;  Yap  controversy,  249. 

Japanese:  attitude  toward  Hughes's  plan, 
121,  126;  delegates,  on  hearing  proposed 
ship  scrapping,  29;  formula  for  naval 
strength,  122;  imitation  of  Wastern  di- 
plomacy, 251-252  naval  experts,  MT; 
Around  robin,"  124;  Siberia,  241;  sub- 
marine question,  171. 

Jugoslavia  s  large  army,  68. 

Jusserand,  Ambassador,  speaks,  189. 


Index 


289 


Kato,  Baron,  accepts  Hughes's  proposal  in 
Japanese,  63;  impression  he  made,  239- 
240;  inscrutable  countenance  asset  in 
card-playing,  19;  notification!,  124; 
surprise  at  Hughes's  proposal,  29. 

Kenyon,  Senator,  calls  for  Briand,  SO. 

Kinnosuke,  Adachi,  Japanese  journalist, 

'     126. 

Koo,  Dr.  Wellington,  description  of,  255. 

Kurile  Islands,  134. 

Land-armament:    discussion    closed,    108; 

French  attitude  toward,  102. 
Lariiner  Ring,  famous  American  humour- 
ist, his  comment  on  Conference,  67. 
League   of   Nations   supporters    approve 

reduction  of  armament  plan,  41. 
Lee,  Lord,  civil  head  of  British  navy,  on 

submarines,  169-170;  remark  to  Briand, 

100. 

Li  Hung  Chang  and  Dr.  Koo,  256. 
Limitation  of  armament,  22;  conference 

on,  91. 

Lloyd  George's  telegram,  60-62. 
Lodge,  Senator:  attitude  in  repose,  207; 

calm   demeanour   at   Conference,   5-6; 

speech  on  Four-Power  Treaty,  208-212. 

London  Daily  News,  43. 

London  Daily  Telegraph,  47. 

London  dazed  over  proposed  scrapping  of 

ships,  43. 

London  Morning  Post,  280. 
London    Times,  43;    Editor    of,    records 

American  drama  at  Conference,  4. 
Longworth,  Mrs.  Nicholas,  3. 
Ludendorff,  80,  85. 
Lyttleton,  Alfred,  his  comment  on  Bal- 

four,  54. 

McAdoo,  Mr.  for  abolishing  navies,  42; 
"Magna  Charta  for  China,"  266. 

Mahan,  Admiral,  book  on  "Sea-Power," 
272,  276. 

"Massachusetts'  Day,"  206. 

"Megaphone  diplomacy,"  31. 

Meloney,    William    Brown,    273. 

Mercantile  Shipping,  277-278. 

Michelson,  Charles,  of  New  York  World, 
151. 

Milestone  of  History,  Great  Britain's  ac- 
ceptance of  Hughes's  plan,  121. 

Millet,  Philippe,  of  Paris  Petit  Parisien,  80. 

Moore,  Mr.,  on  effect  of  Conference  in 
East,  258. 

Mutsu,  Japanese  latest  battleship;  109, 
111,  121, 126, 128, 129, 135, 136-138. 

Naval  battle,  Hughes's  speech  as,  119. 
Naval  Experts  of  England  and  Japan  busy 

with  figures,  39. 
Naval   Experts,   Parody  of  conversation 

with,  713. 

Naval  holiday,  ten-year,  21-30. 
Naval  Strength:  actual  existing,  as  basis 

of  Huges's  ratio,  131;  reduction  of,  22. 
Navy,   Government's   "armed   fist,"   40; 

the  "pistol,"  276. 


Navy  men's  attitude  on  reduction  of 
armament,  40;  careers  affected  by  ship 
scrapping,  48. 

Netherlands,  The,  265. 

Nevinson,  Henry  W.  of  Manchester  Guard- 
ian, 4;  his  parody  couplet,  237 

"New  poor,*'  French  as  the,  197. 

Newspaper  man's  cryptic  comment  on 
Hughes's  speech,  31. 

Newspaper  men,  three  hundred  at  Confer- 
ence, 3. 

New  York  Tribune,  criticism  of  Briand's 
speech,  85. 

New  Zealand,  134. 

November  12th,  proposed  date  for  cessa- 
tion ot  ship  building,  112,  116,  117,  131. 

Old  Testament  prophet,  Bryan  appears 

as,  4. 
Owens,  John  W.,  of  Baltimore  Sun,  33. 

Pacific  Islands,  Lodge's  description  of,  210. 

Pacific  Ocean,  Naval  bases  on,  134. 

Page,  Walter  H.,  former  Ambassador  to 
Great  Britain,  281. 

Panama  Canal  Zone,  134. 

Paris  Conference,  71. 

Paris  Matin,  Editor  of,  at  Conference,  4. 

"Pause  and  Consider"  Days,  35. 

Philadelphia  Ledger  on  Briand's  speech, 
85. 

Poincare  supplants  Briand,  167. 

Popular  interest  decreases,  66. 

Port  Arthur,  253. 

Portugal,  265. 

Portuguese  envoy  pleased,  though  sur- 
prised, at  proposed  reduction  of  arma- 
ment, 29. 

President  Harding's  speech,  essence  of,  9. 

Ratio  5-5-3  and  the  Mutsu,  109. 

Ray,  Marcel,  of  Paris  Petit  Journal,  88. 

Relativity  and  Ratio,  118,  120;  Japanese 
not  pleased  with,  122. 

Reparations  against  Germany,  71. 

Repington,  Colonel,  correspondent  for 
London  Daily  Telegraph,  comment  on 
seating  of  French  delegates,  7;  note  of 
Hughes's  speech,  27;  remark  on  Hughes's 
proposal,  119. 

Reynolds,  Stanley,  of  Baltimore  Sun,  81. 

Riddell,  Lord,  "Frame-up"  the,  147;  French 
delegates  demand  his  head,  146;  report 
on  capital  ship  allowance,  141;  his  role, 
139-140. 

Roman  and  Washington  diplomats,  264. 

Root,  Elihu,  appearance  at  Conference, 
7,  8;  attitude  after  Hughes's  speech,  24; 
introduces  resolutions,  184-185;  replies 
to  admiral  de  Bon,  185-186;  resolutions 
on  Chinese  questions,  265-266;  Theory 
as  to  China,  260-261. 
sia,  252-253. 


Sarraut,  M.:  French  delegate,  55;  his  posi- 
tion in  France,  166;  indignant  at  British, 
146;  his  resentment  at  ratio,  156-157; 
Submarines,  170-171,  176-177. 


290 


Index 


Schanzer,  Signor,  Italian  envoy  to  Con- 
ference, 30,  70;  speaks  in  secret  session, 

97. 

Scrapping  of  battleships,  23,  121,  128. 
Second  Crisis,  The,  138. 
Secret  session  held,  90;  speeches  at,  93- 

101. 

Seibold,  Louis,  of  New  York  Herald,  29. 
Senate  Document  number,  12«,  173. 
Senators  present  at  Conference,  3. 
Settsu,    Japanese    ship    to    be    scrapped 

instead  of  Mufau,  135. 
Seven  nations  heirs  of  Tyre,  273. 
Shanghai  Shun  Pao,  Editor  of,  4. 
Shantung,  246,  249,  253. 
Shidebara     Baron,      Ambassador     from 

Japan,  29,  239,  243. 
Shipbuilding:  to  cease  at  once,  116,  124, 

129;  during  the  war,  158;  programmes 

to  be  abandoned,  22. 
Ships  in  course  of  construction,  133. 
Siberia,     American-Japanese     Expedition 

in,  241;  correspondence  on,  242. 
Speech  of  President  Harding,  essence  of, 

9,  extracts  from  10-11. 
Statistics,  Hughes's  figures  questioned,  41. 
Submarines:  discussion  of,  167;  Lord  Lee 

on,  169-170;  question  of,  39. 
Supreme   Court,  Oliver  Wendell   Holmes 

and  Justice  Brandeis,  4. 
Sze,  Doctor,  255. 

Tarbell,  Ida,  Correspondent  at  Confer- 
ence, 123. 

Tokugawa,  Prince,  delegate  from  Japan, 
29;  he  is  called  for  by  crowd,  30. 

Tonnage,  of  England,  America,  Japan, 
according  to  Hughes's  plan,  137. 

"Trained  seals,"  123. 

Treaty  of  guarantee  promised  France,  98. 

Tsai,  Admiral,  of  Chinese  delegation,  79. 

"Tyre,  The  Heritage  of,"  273. 


Underwood,  Senator,  letter  to  him  from 

Mr.  Hughes,  233-235. 
"Unique  in  History,"  269,  275,  285. 
United  States's  reputation  in  international 

affairs,  62. 
Unknown  soldier,  symbol  of,  9. 

"Viper  of  the  sea,"  submarine  called,  168. 
Viviani,     of     Italy,     passage    from     his 

speech,  2 12. 
Von  Hindenburg,  85. 

Wang,  Doctor,  259. 

Washington,  City  of,  day  after  opening  of 

Conference,  36-37. 

Washington,    George  and   Martha,    por- 
traits of,  2. 
"We  Agree,"  50. 
Weeks,  John  W.,  2. 
Wells,   H.   G.:    alternate   internationalist 

and  jingo,  32;  on  Briand's  speech,  105; 

on   French   attitude,    106;   illustrations 

from  his  book  on  Mars,  240;  reaction  to 

Hughes's  speech,  32. 
Western  world  model  for  Japan,  251-252; 

must  set  new  example,  254. 
White,  William  Allen,  at  Conference,  4. 
Wildcat  presented  to  Marshal  Foch,  189. 
Wile,  Frederick  W.,  of  Philadelphia  Ledger, 

124. 
Wilson,  ex-President:  his  good  wishes  to 

Conference,  41;  guarantee  to  France  at 

Paris  Conference,  83. 
World  dominance:  between  England  and 

America,    280-281;    decision    on,    284; 

what  it  is,  276. 

World  leadership,  change  of,  2. 
World  surprise  over  Hughes's  plan,  44. 

Yap  controversy,  249. 


JX 
1974 
.5 


Sullivan,  Mark 

The  great  Adventure  at 
Washington 


L