Publisher's Synopsis
It is with extreme reluctance, as the reader will understand, that I make any reference to the conference which the President held with the American Commissioners at the Hotel Crillon on January 10, because of the personal nature of what occurred. It would be far more agreeable to omit an account of this unpleasant episode. But without referring to it I cannot satisfactorily explain the sudden decision I then reached to take no further part in the preparation or revision of the text of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Without explanation my subsequent conduct would be, and not without reason, open to the charge of neglect of duty and possibly of disloyalty. I do not feel called upon to rest under that suspicion, or to remain silent when a brief statement of what occurred at that conference will disclose the reason for the cessation of my efforts to effect changes in the plan of world organization which the President had prepared. In the circumstances there can be no impropriety in disclosing the truth as to the cause for a course of action when the course of action itself must be set forth to complete the record and to explain an ignorance of the subsequent negotiations regarding the League of Nations, an ignorance which has been the subject of public comment.
