Frank I. Cobb to Colonel House

Confidential Memorandum for Colonel House
In the matter of the President coming to Europe.The moment President Wilson sits at the consul table with these Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries he has lost all the power that comes from distance and detachment. Instead of remaining the great arbiter of human freedom he becomes merely a negotiator dealing with other negotiators. He is simply one vote in a Peace Conference bound either to abide by the will of the majority or disrupt its proceedings under circumstances which, having come to a climax in secret, can never be clearly explained to the public. Any public protest to which the President gave utterance would thus be only the complaint of a thwarted and disappointed negotiator.
The President's extraordinary facility of statement would be lost in a conference. Anything he said to his associates would be made mediocre and common place by the translators, and could carry none of the weight of his formal utterances.Furthermore, personal contact between the President and these Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries who are already jealous of his power and resentful of his leadership in Europe must inevitably develop new friction and endless contraversey. They would miss no opportunity to harrass him and wear him down. They would seek to play him off one against the other, a game in which they are marvelously adroit, since it has been the game of European diplomacy, since the days of Metternich and Tallyrand. The President cannot afford to play it.
In Washington, President Wilson has the ear of the whole world. It is a commanding position, the position of a court of last resort, of world democracy. He cannot afford to be manoeuvered into the position of an advocate engaged in personal dispute and altercation with other advocates around a counsel table. In Washington, he is a dispassionate judge whose mind is unclouded by all these petty personal circumstances of a conference. If his representatives are balked by the representatives of the other powers in matters which he regards as vital peace to the lasting peace of the world, he can go before Congress and appeal to the conference for the conscience and hope of mankind. He can do this over the head of any Peace Conference. This is a mighty weapon, but if the President were to participate personally in the proceedings, it would be a broken stick.
If tThe President, if he is to win this great battle for human freedom, must fight on his own ground and his own ground is Washington. Diplomatic Europe is all enemy soil for him. He cannot make a successful appeal to the people of the world here. The official surroundings are all unfavorable. The means of minimizing its effect are all under the control of those who are opposed to him. One of his strongest weapons in this conflict is the very mystery and uncertainty that attach to him while he remains in Washington.
When we left New York, I believed that it was not only desirable but necessary for President Wilson to come to Europe. Since our arrival here, my opinion is changed completely, and I am wholly convinced now that the success of the Peace Conference from the American point of view depends on the President's directing the proceedings from Washington where he can be free from immediate personal contact with European negotiators and European diplomacy.
Paris.