Colonel House to Woodrow Wilson

A Norwegian architect of some distinction living here and who for the past six months has been with the Belgian Relief Commission in France and Belgium, gave me a message to you from the King of Norway whom he claims to know well.The King bade him say to you that Norway was entirely in sympathy with the Allies and that the reason she had not come in was because England did not think it wise. He said you could count upon the sympathy and cooperation of Norway in every way possible even to the extent of her entering the war if it were thought advisable. He thoroughly detests the Germans and their methods.
If you could hear the stories these Americans bring back from the occupied portions of France and Belgium you would feel that any sacrifice that America might make was well worth while in order to crush German militarism. The concensus of opinion is that it is not the common soldier but the officer over him that directs the brutality. The German common people seem sick at heart and would be glad to rid themselves of the pest.
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I wrote you sometime ago about the Russian Commission. I know more about that situation now than then and I think it it would be well to be careful in the selection of its personel. Gompers, I am told, is persona non grata with the labor people.
The best informed Russian that I know, Prof. Simkovitch of Columbia, tells me that he does not so much fear a separate peace as an insistence that peace be made before the German autocracy is finished. The Russians are eager to be rid of the war in order that they may devote themselves to their new internal problems.