Cary T. Grayson Diary

Cary T. Grayson Diary

Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938

WWP17111

1919 March 21

Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia

English

This morning the President sent me down to see Secretary Lansing to arrange for the bringing through as speedily as possible of a Ukrainian delegation delegate who has been called for by the Council of Ten to confer with them and find out the best method of reconciling the serious differences between the new Republic of Poland and the Ukrainian Republic. The situation there resulted in a direct appeal having been made by the Council of Ten a few days ago to both the Poles and Ukrainians to make suggestions covering boundaries and exchange of trade which would prevent war between the two countries. After explaining what the President wanted, Secretary Lansing, whom I found devoting a little time to bringing his diary up to date, asked me to urge the President to have an interview with Oswald Garrison Villard, who has just returned from Germany. Villard had been over there for about four weeks and had related to Mr. Lansing this morning a very harrowing story in which he told of terrible suffering for lack of food among German people. When I brought the matter to the President’s attention he said he would very gladly see Villard if he thought that by doing so it would get food into Germany any quicker, but he said that ever since he had arrived in Paris he had been fighting with all his power to get food to the starving Germans and that ever since the Republicans at home had been endeavoring to defeat the asked-for appropriations. He said, as a matter of fact, that food was now on the way and more was coming as quickly as transportation could be arranged; therefore, it would be unnecessary to listen to what Villard had to say as it would merely be a recital of details of facts already well-known to the President.

The President made the statement: Bolshevism has overwhelmed Poland, has overwhelmed Russia, engulfed Poland, and is poisoning Germany, and is spreading Westward. Force cannot stop it, but food can!

The President spent the morning in his study and went to the Quai D’Orsay at three o’clock this afternoon, where the Council of Ten was in session considering the report of the Polish Commission.

It developed at the meeting of the Supreme War Council that there was a very wide difference of opinion between the American and British representatives on the one side and the French, Italian and Japanese on the other concerning the boundaries of the Polish Republic. The boundary commission which had reported on the subject had practically proposed that a good part of East Prussia be annexed to Poland, carrying with it the port of Dantzig. As a result the entire afternoon was practically wasted, and the whole program arranged by the President was more or less knocked in the head. He had expected to dispose of the Polish Boundary question so that he would have all day Saturday clear to devote to the meeting of the full committee on the League of Nations constitution. It was necessary, however, to have the War Council meet again the next day.

The President remained indoors after dinner.

Diary