Walter Lippmann to Woodrow Wilson

Col. E. M. House,
C/o Department of State,
Washington.

Dear Colonel House:
I should like to add to my letter of the 9th the report of a conversation I had two or three days ago with Lord Eustace Percy who always speaks to me quite candidly as we are old friends, and who often gives a good hint of what is being thought in official circles in the Foreign Office.

He began by saying that there were now two rather divided schools of opinion in England, the one in favor of forming the League of Nations immediately among the enemies of Germany, the other in favor of waiting until the end of the war. He went on to say that the demand among British workmen for a revival of the Stockholm conference idea was very strong and growing, and that the only way to meet that demand seemed to be by proving to the British workmen beyond the shadow of a doubt that the British Government was actively interested now in constructing a permanent peace. Then he said quite earnestly that unless America through the President, moved in that direction it might be necessary for "the British Government to reassert its moral position in the alliance this winter". I asked him whether he meant that the British Government would make a concrete move towards a League of Nations in public this winter and he said he thought it might if events moved in the direction they were now moving. By events he meant chiefly the growth of an international movement among the working classes.

A day or two later, I lunched with Sir William Tyrrell and asked him what he thought of the Stockholm idea and how strong he thought the labor demand for it was likely to be. He replied that in the first half of 1917 he would not have been opposed to Stockholm, but that now it had been proved that German socialism could not fulfill its promises, and that therefore the British Government would not be justified in risking the relaxation of morale which would accompany an international conference. Nevertheless he thought that the pressure from labor might possibly be strong enough to force the British Government's hand.

I should like to say quite for yourself, that the condition we have found existing in the work of the Committee on Public Information in London is very bad. There has been constant change of men in charge of the work; the men sent do not know England, or English journalism, or European affairs, and the reputation of the committee among the English is very low.

I wonder if you know how affectionately Englishmen, no matter of what political faith, think and talk of you?

Yours devotedly,

(Signed)Walter Lippmann.

Copy.

Information of,
The President.