C O P Y
AMERICAN COMMISSION
TO NEGOTIATE PEACE
My dear Condon:
I am very sorry that the time has come for you to go home and for our association in the work of the Peace Conference to come to an end.
Noone was ever more fortunate than I, when fate assigned you to me as Secretary. For the past ten months you have watched over my interests, both official and personal, with tact, zeal, and admirable efficiency. Thanks to you, I have had the best of assistants in the office; of chauffeurs; and of orderlies; and the amount of trouble you have saved me by your intelligence and by the constant extension of your protecting wing over the door of my room, is incalculable.I can find no words in which to express adequately my appreciation of your faithful services to our Government, to say nothing of myself as one of its representatives at this Conference. But I thank you very sincerely.
In addition to all this, I am delighted to feel from our many talks on business, that you are well adapted for a career in the public service; not only because of your undoubted capacity for work but still more because you are gifted with a singularly impartial mind and a broad point of view. I sincerely hope, therefore, that you may be able to place your talents at the service of the Nation -- if not immediately, at least as you get on in life, and before many years have passed.It is not likely, in view of my advancing years, that we shall be again associated in any public work; but I shall always be interested in your welfare and I hope you will not fail to let me know from time to time what you are doing. That it will be something useful, I have little doubt; and if ever I can be of any service in furthering your interests or your wishes, I shall be happy to do so.
With every good wish, therefore, for your happiness, and, in the hope that we shall often meet in the years that are to come, I am, my dear fellow,
Gratefully and very sincerely
Your friend,
Henry White
