Cary T. Grayson Diary
Title
Cary T. Grayson Diary
Creator
Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938
Identifier
WWP17195
Date
1919 June 13
Source
Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia
Language
English
Text
After breakfast the President worked in his study for a short time, and then went to the meeting of the Big Four. At todays session Lloyd George brought up the proposition of appointing representatives of the three governments to go to Versailles and confer with the Germans regarding their signing the treaty demands. This was the original proposition which Mr. Baruch had suggested and which the President had endorsed, but which Lloyd George and Clemenceau had turned down sharply. When it was proposed today the President said that he would not be a party to it. He said that it would weaken the case of the Allies and would bring aid and comfort to the Germans, who had already received too much to have been permitted to know that there had been any difference of opinion among the Allies regarding the peace terms. The President said that rather than weaken the terms in the slightest degree he would welcome Germanys refusing to sign them. He said that the terms were very hard, it was true, but at the same time every one must realize that the Germans themselves had brought on this horrible war, and that they had violated all ethics of international law and international procedure, and had created a series of crimes that had amazed and shocked beyond belief all of the peoples of the world. He declared that under no circumstances would he be a party to any proposition to entice the Germans to sign. After the President made his position clear, Clemenceau said that he was well satisfied; that as far as he was concerned he did not even want to talk to the Boche at all at any time.
The Council of Four - the Japanese having taken Orlando's place - resumed its consideration of the treaty terms and agreed upon all of the questions so that was possible after the afternoon session to send the entire document to the experts on international law, who were to place the legal approval on the phraseology of the document.
The afternoon session of the Big Four was held at Lloyd Georges house.
We had luncheon as usual, there being no guests. After luncheon I was about to start for the St. Cloud race-track when the President suggested that I take a ride with him around the corner to the Hotel Astor, where he was to give another sitting to Sir William Orpen, who is painting his portrait. Sir William is the official British portrait painter, and the picture when completed is to go to the Royal Art Gallery.
I returned to the house and then went out to St. Cloud.
I read to the President in the evening the final editorial published in the STARS AND STRIPES, the organ of the A. E. F. This editorial denounced the hue and cry at home in opposition to the League of Nations and pointed out that the politicians did not realize what war actually meant. The editorial was as follows:
The Flag on Ehrenbreitstein may weather a few more summers, but this summer is the last that the A.E.F., as most of us know it, will sweat through. We've finished. And we have the satisfaction of knowing that we did a good job and were glad to quit.
But can we carry the lesson home?Print cant do it.
Photographs cant do it.
Many will come to the Belleau Wood, people who have read all about the Great War. Already worn paths scar that once pathless hell. These people will see the twisted trees. But they wont see the sprawling forms beneath them. They will see the bullet-bitten rocks. But they can never visualize the trembling horror of lying in those crevices while the German guns spat their death through the grass. Here and there they may pick up an empty shell. But the fingerless hand protruding from rotting khaki blouse has been graciously buried beneath a neat white cross.
The horror has been hallowed. The misery has become picturesque, the murder turned to romance.
And those little villages in the valleys! Their strange, sad windows look out across fresh meadows now like staring blinded eyes. They are so still, so deathly still - not a single wisp of friendly smoke, no human color, only a garish patch perhaps, where some unremembering bush flaunts its green branch across the gray.
This cannot touch the trourist the home folk can never feel it beside their friendly hearths. Nobody under Gods great, tranquil skies can tell of the rottenness of war, but the men who suffered through it.
Upon them rests a solemn duty. They must go home and choke the coward jingo who masks himself behind this false and blatant patriotism, and the merchant-politician, not content with stuffing his home coffers till they burst -- but anxious to barter the blood of his countrys young manhood for new places in the sun!
The Prussian Guardsman died hard, fighting for such a place. The men in frock coats who make the laws never had to stand up against him. They never took a machine gun nest or saw a barrage roll down, stop and then uncurtain a wall of shrieking steel. We know what the Prussian Guardsman means -- his code, his cold courage and the blind patriotism that sent him forward granting none the right to live but those who wore his uniform.
We know, but we cannot give that knolwledge to others. But upon it we can act. We can help build a League of Nations with such sinews of war and such conscience for peace that no one dare oppose it.
If we dont the blood will be on our own foolish heads, which by the grace of God, chance, or some Prussian Guardsmans poor aim, are still on our foolish shoulders.
The President went for a ride again after dinner, and retired early.
The Council of Four - the Japanese having taken Orlando's place - resumed its consideration of the treaty terms and agreed upon all of the questions so that was possible after the afternoon session to send the entire document to the experts on international law, who were to place the legal approval on the phraseology of the document.
The afternoon session of the Big Four was held at Lloyd Georges house.
We had luncheon as usual, there being no guests. After luncheon I was about to start for the St. Cloud race-track when the President suggested that I take a ride with him around the corner to the Hotel Astor, where he was to give another sitting to Sir William Orpen, who is painting his portrait. Sir William is the official British portrait painter, and the picture when completed is to go to the Royal Art Gallery.
I returned to the house and then went out to St. Cloud.
I read to the President in the evening the final editorial published in the STARS AND STRIPES, the organ of the A. E. F. This editorial denounced the hue and cry at home in opposition to the League of Nations and pointed out that the politicians did not realize what war actually meant. The editorial was as follows:
The Flag on Ehrenbreitstein may weather a few more summers, but this summer is the last that the A.E.F., as most of us know it, will sweat through. We've finished. And we have the satisfaction of knowing that we did a good job and were glad to quit.
But can we carry the lesson home?Print cant do it.
Photographs cant do it.
Many will come to the Belleau Wood, people who have read all about the Great War. Already worn paths scar that once pathless hell. These people will see the twisted trees. But they wont see the sprawling forms beneath them. They will see the bullet-bitten rocks. But they can never visualize the trembling horror of lying in those crevices while the German guns spat their death through the grass. Here and there they may pick up an empty shell. But the fingerless hand protruding from rotting khaki blouse has been graciously buried beneath a neat white cross.
The horror has been hallowed. The misery has become picturesque, the murder turned to romance.
And those little villages in the valleys! Their strange, sad windows look out across fresh meadows now like staring blinded eyes. They are so still, so deathly still - not a single wisp of friendly smoke, no human color, only a garish patch perhaps, where some unremembering bush flaunts its green branch across the gray.
This cannot touch the trourist the home folk can never feel it beside their friendly hearths. Nobody under Gods great, tranquil skies can tell of the rottenness of war, but the men who suffered through it.
Upon them rests a solemn duty. They must go home and choke the coward jingo who masks himself behind this false and blatant patriotism, and the merchant-politician, not content with stuffing his home coffers till they burst -- but anxious to barter the blood of his countrys young manhood for new places in the sun!
The Prussian Guardsman died hard, fighting for such a place. The men in frock coats who make the laws never had to stand up against him. They never took a machine gun nest or saw a barrage roll down, stop and then uncurtain a wall of shrieking steel. We know what the Prussian Guardsman means -- his code, his cold courage and the blind patriotism that sent him forward granting none the right to live but those who wore his uniform.
We know, but we cannot give that knolwledge to others. But upon it we can act. We can help build a League of Nations with such sinews of war and such conscience for peace that no one dare oppose it.
If we dont the blood will be on our own foolish heads, which by the grace of God, chance, or some Prussian Guardsmans poor aim, are still on our foolish shoulders.
The President went for a ride again after dinner, and retired early.
Original Format
Diary
Files
Collection
Citation
Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938, “Cary T. Grayson Diary,” 1919 June 13, WWP17195, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.