Cary T. Grayson Diary

Cary T. Grayson Diary

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

WWP17193

1919 June 11

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

English

The President arose early and after a brief walk returned to the house and resumed his labors with the Big Four. The economic problem had been entirely disposed of, and at the morning session the Silesian question was wound up. The Big Four decided that Germany would be permitted a plebescite in the so-called German-Polish provinces. It was also agreed that Germany should be allowed necessary coal from the Silesian basins in order that her industries might be continued.

The President had as his luncheon guest Mr. John E. Nevin, of the International News Service.

The conversation at luncheon was of an informal character, the chief comment being when a little discussion was had of prospective Presidential possibilities in the coming campaign. The President was told that Warren G. Harding, Senator from Ohio, was the choice of the inside circle which usually dominated the Republican nominee. This seemed somewhat to surprise him, and he referred to Harding as a man with absolutely no brains, and expressed the belief that they would hardly nominate him. Miss Margaret Wilson asked who would be the probable Democratic candidate, and to this I replied that it was still a secret. The President said that he did not know who the candidate would be but he felt very confident who it would not be.

I had just received a letter from Washington in which Mrs. Grayson told me that it was very hot there, and Miss Margaret Wilson suggested that it never got so hot in Paris as it did in Washington.The President then said that a few days ago Lloyd George had anxiously inquired of Clemenceau whether it got very hot in Paris during the summer. The President said that Lloyd George apparently was very nervous over the prospect, and that Clemenceau told him that it did get extremely warm in the city. The President said, however, that he told both Lloyd George and Clemenceau that to tell an American that it got hot meant very little and would not cause any feeling of terror. He then told a story of a negro preacher who had told his congregations that hell was a place that was very cold and always frozen over. A white man who heard the sermon stopped and asked the preacher following the service what he meant by making any such statement as that, to which the preacher replied: Lord, man, you dont think you could scare any of those niggers by saying that it was hot in hell. The President then said that he had told Lloyd George and Clemenceau that he had spent nearly every summer since he became President in Washington, which was one of the hottest places in the United States, and that no prospect of heat could scare him very much.

I then told the President a story which seemed to amuse him very much. It was of a well-known Virginian, whose son had asked a visitor where he was from. When the visitor left the father took the son to task and told him that he ought not to make any such inquiry at any time. He said: If he comes from Virginia, he will tell you of it during a few minutes conversation, and if he doesnt come from Virginia, why humiliate him?

The President was expressing his views regarding why some people did not seem to realize what was going on in the world at large. He had especial reference to some Wall Street men but paid a warm tribute to Thomas W. Lamont, of the firm of J.P. Morgan & Company. Lamont is one of the men who are subpoenaed by the United States Senate in the so-called Leak investigation to determine how it was that copies of the Peace Treaty reached international financiers before they were made public. The President said that Mr. Lamont had prepared a very frank and open message to his associated in New York, telling them that he had furnished a copy of the treaty to his former associate Mr. Henry P. Davison, of the Red Cross, because of the League of Nations covenant and because of the application of any of the features to Red Cross work. Mr. Lamont told his partners to conevey to the Senate all of the information which he had dealing with every one whom he had talke with, or to whom he had communicated anything whatever dealing with the Peace tTreaty, and had asked them to assure the Senate that as soon as he (Lamont) returned to the United States he would be very glad to come to Washington and supplement his written statement with any further information that the Senate might desire. The President said that this action on the part of Lamont was very commendable and that he had written him and told him so, and had received in reply a very nice note of thanks. The President said that the trouble with the majority of Wall Street men was that they failed to take into account anything that was goin on around them which was Nnot especially directly connected with their business affairs. Fundamentally, he said, I have found that the mainority of them are sound at heart. To this Nevin replied that in his opinion the real trouble with the Wall Street man was that his entire atmosphere was bounded on the north by Wall Street, on the south by the Battery, on the east by the East River, and on the west by Trinity Church Yard.

Immediately after lunch the President gave an audience to Frank P. Walsh of Kansans City, and former Governor Edward F. Dunne of Illinois, who came as representatives of the League of Friends of Irish Freedom, -- an organization created in Philadelphia some months ago, headed by Cardinals OConnell and Gibbons, and backed by many so-called Irish Americans. Walsh and Dunne had been very bitter in their criticisms of the President before the American newspaper correspondents, Walsh having gone so far on last Monday as to declare that unless the President and Secretary Lansing took action which would allow the so-called officials of the Irish Republic - Devallera, Plunket and Griffity - to come to Paris and present their case, he (Walsh) would return to the United States and do his best to stir up sentiment for impeachment.

The President acknowledged their greeting upon their arrival, receiving them in the main reception room. Because of the fact that Walsh has a widespread reputation of perverted facts for his own benefit, the President invited Nevin, who had been his guest at luncheon, to sit through the conference with the two men. Walsh brought a big leather document case with him filled with papers, which it was apparent that he had intended to use in bolstering up any argument which he might make. At the outset Governor Dunne told the President that before they plunged into the subject matter for which the engagement had been made, he wished to explain that he had received a book from the Illinois Irish Historical Society which he wanted to give to the President, but which ehe had forgotten at his hotel. The President graciously acknowledged the gift and suggested that it be sent to the house later on.

Walsh then plunged into the subject matter saying to the President: Mr. President, we are here, as you know, as representatives of the meeting held in Philadelphia which directed us to come to Paris and endeavor to secure a hearing before the Peace Conference of the legally elected representatives of the Irish Republic. As you know, we asked Mr. Lansing to present this matter in full, and we have a letter showing what disposition has been made in the case. Walsh produced the letter, but the President told him thtat it was not necessary for him to read it inasmuch as he was perfectly familiar with all of the developments in the case. Then Walsh said that he felt that the President was not fully informed as to all of the matters which had happened in connection with the visit of the delegation to Paris and also to Ireland. He said that it was apparent that Lloyd George and the members of the British Government had been tricky from the outset inasmuch as Bonar Law had announced in the Commons and the Lord Chancellor had announced in the House of Lords that when Lloyd George consented to Walsh and Dunne proceeding to Ireland, he did so for the purpose of receiving them later on before the group of American correspondents in Paris and presenting to them the British side of the case. The President expressed the opinion that so far as Lloyd Georges utterances were concerned, or so far as any statements on the part of the present British government were concerned, he did not think they were matters that he could afford to enter into any discussion. We must handle this entirely from the viewpoint of American citizens, said the President, and it is as American citizens that you are here to explain whatever you have to explain to me. This frank declaration apparently caught Mr. Walsh very much by surprise, and for a moment he was plainly nonplussed. He then drew from his document case a bound volume of typewritten sheets, which, he explained, was the case prepared by President Devallera of the Irish Republic, and which, he said, expressed the viewpoint of Devallera. He said that if it were impossible for the President to secure a hearing for the actually elected representatives of the Irish Republic, he and his associate, Judge Dunne, wanted very much to be given fifteen to thirty minutes before either the Council of Four or any committee of the Peace Conference in order to present to them the exact case of Ireland. The situation, Mr. President, said Walsh is this. Ireland today is the most peaceful nation in the world, and, at the same time, the most oppressed. The British government has in Ireland at the present time 100,000 armed soldiers and an Irish constabulary of 25,000 men. The government is enforcing taxation of the most oppressive character. Do you know, Sir, that not a single vessel is allowed to enter an Irish port that is engaged in trans-Atlantic service. An Irishman cannot ship his goods to America nor can an American ship go direct to Ireland, but all must go through Liverpool or some other British port. There is nothing for the Irish farmers and producers to do but to turn to Sovietism if this state of affairs is allowed to continue, and they will have to do this when the harvest is ripe if they are to have any foodstuffs. Why, Sir, I myself have conferred with the leaders of the five great trades unions in Ireland. These men have been brutally assaulted in prison. The regularly elected representatives of Ireland are thrown into jail by the British government, and, therefore they cannot express their views to the people. We believe Devallera and his associates should be permitted to come to Paris, and we want you to arrange for it.

The President, who had listened carefully to Mr. Walshs talk, said: Gentlemen, I think it is just as well that you should understand that the question of the internal affairs of Ireland is not at this moment one which I can discuss with you. Of course, I know what they Irish situation is and has been. At the same time, it is only fair that I should be frank with you, and tell you that it is due to the tactics which you yourselves pursued that the American Commission was unable to secure safe conducts, and a hearing for the men you have just mentioned to come here to Paris. When you came here the American Commission took up, unofficially, with the representatives of the British government the various questions which you brought to our attention. We made arrangements whereby it was possible for you to go to Ireland with the permission of Mr. Lloyd George to see conditions there. While you were away we continued to work on the problem to secure the hearing which you asked. However, your own speeches in advocacy of the Irish Republic aroused the ire of the British government and made extremely difficult, if not impossible the matter of securing any concessions your way. Walsh, breaking in on the Presidents remarks, said: I would like to know what Lloyd George said that we said. The President sharply replied: I have never discussed what you are purported to have said to Lloyd George. My knowledge of your speeches was confined entirely to the quoted publications in the Freemens Journal, which quoted your addresses to the public. Walsh then declared that he percsonally did not understand why there could be any objection to what he had said because he had simply declared that the Irish of America wanted freedom for Ireland, and that all that he and his associates had stated in their speeches was that under a republican form of government the United States enjoyed the same kind of freedom that Ireland should have. The President. simply replied to this that no one would deny that the very freedom which was being endorsed by Mr. Walsh and his colleagues was the freedom which only could be secured through revolutionary tactics against the government that was then in power. Walsh admitted that this was so, and then reopening the Devallera document which he had brought with him, he proceeded to read extracts from the Presidents speeches, in which the latter had pled for self-government anfd freedom for oppressed peoples. You do not mean to have me think, Mr. Walsh, that you as an American construed this speech as referring directly to Ireland, inquired the President. I certainly did think so, declared Walsh; in fact, Sir, when I read your speech at the outset of the war I made an address in Kansas City in which I declared that what you said actually fitted in with what was happening in Ireland. Yet, continued the President, you must have known as everyone else knew that what I said at that time referred distinctly and decidedly to the problems affecting the nations that were involved in the war, and especially the smaller nations that had been the victims of the Central Powers. I want to assure you, gentlemen, that up to the present time it has been necessary for the Peace Commission steadily to adhere to a determination to pass upon only the problems presented by the war and by the smaller nations that have been created though the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. That is, of course, one of the things that we have had to do, although I am frank to say many delegations have asked to present their cases who might have been heard if it were not that the work of this conference had of necessity to be limited. Walsh insisted that he had believed, and still believed, that the President had voiced an appeal for justice to all nations, Ireland included. Judge Dunne interrupted to declare that while they realized that Ireland presented a separate problem, yet they also felt it was necessary that Ireland should be granted her independence and her independence recognized by the nations of the world. He declared the Gguerrilla warfare was actually in progress at the present time in Ireland, and this being so the welfare of the world seemed to demand in his opinion that Irelands claims be carefully considered. The President replying said: As you gentlemen know, the American Commission now has before it the resolution passed by the Senate of the United States calling upon it to do whatever was in its power to secure a hearing for the leaders of the Irish Republic. He stated that the American Commission had not yet reached a decision on what was to be done in this matter, but he believed action would be taken. This announcement rather disconcerted Walsh and Dunne, who had been holding back thequestion of the Senate Resolution to use as a big gun in support of their own position. Walsh then addressing the President said to him: Mr. President, I do believe that you have opened the way for freedom for all the world. I believe that you as the spokesman of the greatest of all Republics have laid the foundation for actual freedom for small nations and that Ireland will be free. I feel very strongly, Sir, on this subject, but I do not want you to think that I am blaming you. What I want is to find some means whereby we can present the case of Ireland to the world at large. The President rising to his feet said to his visitors: I wish that I could make plain to you all that I feel. You cannot realize how difficult has been the task that has been set for me to do and how it has hurt me inside to realize that I have not been able to carry through to completion the entire program which I outlined. The President eloquently explained that there were other nations; that Ireland was not alone in her aspirations for freedonm. He said that there were small nations in the Caucusses and in other quarters of the world-nations which deserved freedom but which were denied it at the present time. Some of these nations, he said, could only be given their freedom by force of arms, and yet he knew and his visitors knew that the American Congress could not and would not resort to arms to bring about freedom of this kind.

The President's very frank and open declaration took both Walsh and Dunne off their feet, and Judge Dunne was very visibly affected, great tears welling to his eyes and as they shook hands and left the President realized what a tremendous task he had been compelled to face.

Actually to quote from memory what the President said would be an impossibility. His wonderful command of the English language was never so emphasized as it was in this conference with two men, who were plainly hostile to him upon their arrival, and yet whose animosity had been disarmed by the frank, afree and open manner in which the President explained the terrible difficulties of the great task that had confronted him over here.

After the Irish delegation left The President received General Pershing, who reported to him on the great progress which is being made in getting the troops home. General told the President that during the month of June he would send home 387,000 men of all branches. This covers a larger number of troops than was moved at any time during the entire war. Even the English, with the short channel run before them, were never able to handle in excess of 300,000 men on cross channel passages during a single calendar month, and a majority of the time they were very much less.

After General Pershing left, the President met again with the Big Four, and they took up the question of the Hungarian boundaries. The report of the Foreign Ministers, which outlined, the boundaries of the new states that are being created in southeastern Europe, was ready, and then was laid aside to be brought up for consideration later on.

The translation of the reply of Admiral Koltchak, the Russian Commander-in-Chief, was presented by Clemenceau, but it was unintelligible, and so the President requested that it be repeated so that there could be absolutely no mistake as to what the Admiral meant.before any action was taken regarding the proposal of affording him assistance to crush Bolshevism in Russia.

The President, Mrs. Wilson and I had dinner, and after dinner we took a ride through the woods of St. Cloud. We did not return until after nine o'clock, and it was still broad daylight. I remarked upon that fact, and also noted that even when ten o'clock came it was still fairly light. The reason for this, of course, is that we are working on sun time and not standard time; the French clocks are set one hour ahead during the summer.

Diary