Diary

Diary

Fosdick, Raymond B. (Raymond Blaine), 1883-1972

WWP25028

1918 December 4-14

Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers

Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum

Bullitt, William C. (William Christian), 1891-1967

Danna Faulds

English

Document scan was taken from Library of Congress microfilm reel of the Wilson Papers. WWPL volunteers transcribed the text.

DIARY
of trip on the “George Washington” with Wilson. Written for my family. [handwritten insertion]

Wednesday, December 4th, 1918.

The good ship “George Washington” sailed at 10.30 a.m. from Hoboken. As I was told to be aboard at seven, Winifred (my wife - she did not go with me) [insertion at bottom of page] and I had to arise at a most ungodly hour, snatch a bite to eat at the “Prince George”, and run by taxi cab to the pier. It was still dark, but by the electric lights we saw the flags and the bunting that decorated the pier, the long lines of troops, the band, and other trappings of royalty. The President and his party came aboard at 9.30 to the tune of the “Star Spangled Banner”. Mrs. Wilson wore carnations and looked very pretty. Secretary Baker came aboard with the President, but left before the boat sailed. I fancy he will be the real Vice-President in Wilson’s absence. He chatted with me for about five minutes and bade me an almost affectionate farewell. Tumulty also came aboard and in the corridor in front of the President’s suite there was a notable gathering of Democratic politicians. I had breakfast with Colonel Ayres and Big Bill Edwards, who came aboard for an hour or two just to be in at the finish.

When the boat started to back from the dock various bands started playing, whistles blew, and a battery from the lower deck fired twenty-one guns, - the Presidential salute. I stood on the top deck with Gilbert Close, the President’s confidential stenographer, and watched the scene. The end of the dock was packed with photographers and motion-picture people. Special tugs of newspaper men followed us. The Secretary of War shouted some nonsensical greeting at me and I tried to take his picture, but in the excitement pressed the bulb twice.

In the river pandemonium broke loose. Every ferry boat apparently tied its whistle down and the tug boats and steamers at the docks added to the din. The piers and office building windows were packed with people. I could just dimly see something waving from my office window at 61 Broadway. Battery Park was black with people - all waving handkerchiefs and flags. Airplanes did stunts over the masts and funnels of the “George Washington” in a manner almost alarming, coming so close that we could plainly see the faces of the pilots. The President stood on the bridge and occasionally waved his hand. I confess it almost made the tears come to my eyes to realize what a tremendous grip on the hopes and affections, not only of America but of the world, this one man has.

We picked up our escort off Staten Island, - the battleship “Pennsylvania” and fifteen destroyers. With fully a dozen airplanes in addition, with three or four dirigibles, and with one huge “elephant” balloon towed by a tug, we started out of the harbour.

I am surprised to find how many people I know are aboard: Colonel Ayres, Major Marston, General Churchill, Colonel Jordon, George Creel, Close, Swem, and all the White House attaches whom I have known these last two years. Dr. Mazes, President of C.C.N.Y., is aboard as head of a group of fifteen economic experts going to the Peace Conference - all interesting looking men, most of them college professors.

Henry White, one of the Peace delegates, is aboard. Two weeks ago I took lunch with him in Washington and he savagely attacked the Administration. His appointment came as much to his surprise as to the public’s. I could not resist twitting him a bit about his remarks when I met him on the deck. It seemed to make him uncomfortable so I desisted.

I slept three hours, right through the luncheon period, and got up too late to get any. Walked the deck with Colonel Ayres and talked with young Bullitt of the State Department, a brilliant young Radical associated with Colonel House. The President is keeping to his room. Close says he is very tired. Mrs. Wilson, looking very trim and neat, rather girlishly dressed, walked by herself on the deck. She has an excellent figure and looks fresh and blooming.

For a boat of this size there are few people aboard and we practically have it all to ourselves. The food is excellent and this time - thank Heaven! - there are plenty of steamer chairs. The President and his wife have their meals served in their own suite of rooms.

There was a moving picture show to-night in the dining room. The first film was called “His Second Wife”, and there was a half-suppressed gasp from the audience when the title was thrown on the screen. Luckily President and Mrs. Wilson were not present.

Went to bed and slept ten hours.

Thursday, December 5th, 1918.

Walked the deck with Colonel Jordon with a half-gale blowing. The destroyers - now eleven in number - are all about us with the “Pennsylvania” in the lead. Talked with Henry White and read some history. The President and his wife, walking the deck, stopped to chat with me for a few moments. He looks well in spite of his weariness. They introduced me to Miss Benham, Mrs. Wilson’s secretary, who was with them. The President wears a cap and walks with a quick, eager step that matches his wife’s. He seems to listen interestedly to her conversation. I am writing this as they pass back and forth in front of my steamer chair. Every time he goes by he nods or waves his hand to me. They are followed by four Secret Service men and an Officer of the Marines - quite a procession. In fact, Secret Service men are everywhere on the boat. Most of them I know, as they constitute the White House outfit. Armed guards of the Marines with guns parade the decks and corridors and stand on duty at the head and foot of the stairs. There is a continual saluting. I think it bothers the President a bit. Just now a small eight year old boy - the son of Ambassador Jusserand - got out of his steamer chair for about the fifteenth time and took his hat off as the President went by. Every time he did so he dropped something - an apple core, a book, or his steamer rug. Just now, the President stopped and told him it wasn’t necessary - once was enough.

Boat drill was this afternoon at three o’clock. My boat station is next to the President’s. We all wore life preservers. The President seemed to enjoy it and listened eagerly to the instructions of the naval officers.

Talked for two hours with young Bullitt. He is rabid on the subject of our policy in Russia - thinks it is all wrong: Thinks we should have tied up with the Bolshevik-Soviet Government: Believes this would have prevented their ultra-radicalism and yet left free play for their honest liberalism. He is much worried about the course of the President at the Peace Conference. Says Wilson must make good with his Liberalism or Europe will swing to Bolshevism.

Talked long with Henry White. His descriptions of Paris before 1870 are most interesting. Spent the evening in the President’s Conference Room, so called, where a special library and specially prepared maps and statistics are kept relating to the Peace and War views of the belligerant countries. I gather that much has been done to give our representatives at the Peace table every available scrap of information that careful brains can gather together. I wish I were as sure that the representatives were capable of digesting it.

The President strolled around the deck this evening with Mrs. Wilson on his arm. “Stroll” is the wrong word; they always seem to walk with a quick, brisk step, followed, as usual, by the Secret Service men. The boat is rolling so badly, however, that they soon gave up their walk. Two or three times I saw the Secret Service men dart forward to catch the President as he slid along the deck.

Friday, December 6th, 1918.

We rolled heavily all last night and I did not get much sleep so I lay abed until noon. The President, I find, did the same.

Walked and talked all afternoon with Colonel Ayres, Henry White, Bullitt, et al. Spent an hour with the President’s confidential secretary, Gilbert Close, who told me many things about Wilson’s habits and methods of work.

To-night we had a concert and moving picture show - Charlie Chaplain and Douglas Fairbanks - which the President attended and seemed to enjoy. Much talk of the peace terms around the boat; they are discussed from every point of view, nobody knowing what the U.S. policy is going to be.

Saturday, December 7th, 1918.

A glorious sea on, with plenty of rolling and pitching. The President kept to his room most of the day. Mrs. Wilson was on deck for a time this afternoon and I talked with her for a few moments. She is a strong, vigorous woman, attractive and gracious, carrying herself with dignity and modesty. She reminds me very much of Mrs. Grover Cleveland, as I remember her at Princeton, although she may be lacking in Mrs. Cleveland’s mental poise and balance.

I talked long with Henry White. He has been in diplomatic life since he was seventeen. In 1867 he attended a ball at the Palace of the Tuileries (burned four years later by the Commune) at which were Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie, King William I of Prussia, Bismarck, von Moltke, Emperor Alexander of Russia, Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, and the Emperor of Austria. He was in France in 1870 and 1871 and saw Alsace-Lorraine torn from the French. He now goes to sign a treaty that restores the booty stolen nearly fifty years ago. He saw the Palace of the Tuileries as it lay smouldering in its ruins two days after it was burned. He played cards with King Edward and the Bishop of London every Sunday night during his attachment to our Embassy in London; he knew Cavour, calls Clemenceau by his first name, has hunted with the Kaiser, and apparently knew everybody in Italy and France during the time that he was the U.S. Ambassador at Rome and Paris. He loves to talk about the old days. I led him off to a quiet spot to-day and turned on the faucet. He talked marvellously for two hours. He seems to be more Gallic than American - full of gestures and exclamations, dashingly gallant with the ladies and more brilliant in speech than the average hard-headed Yankee. I suppose it is his foreign training.

Another moving picture show to-night, which we all attended. It was Charlie Chaplain again - and we laughed for two hours.

Sunday, December 8th, 1918.

Went to church and heard a poor little sermon by a poor little Navy Chaplain who was so scared at the presence of the President that he could hardly talk. Very much warmer to-day. No overcoats or hats. We are in the latitude of the Azores.

Talked with the Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, a dull, colourless sort of man, who talks and acts without enthusiasm or apparent conviction. Talked for an hour with Seymour of Yale, author of “Diplomatic Backgrounds of the War”, - a brilliant fellow of charming personality. He is one of the numerous experts aboard going to the Peace Conference.

Spent most of the afternoon talking on deck with President Mazes and Davis, our new Ambassador to Great Britain. Davis is good stuff, agreeable to meet, and full of spirit. I think he will make an excellent impression in England as they say he is a capital public speaker.

I was reading in the Conference Room when the President came in to look at some maps. He is much interested in getting exact statistics of population by nationality in the border lands between the disputed territories, as, for example, between Italy and Austria, and he showed in his conversation a broader grasp of ethnological detail than one would expect of an administrator. His years of study as a college professor are standing him in excellent stead. I happened to be reading Henry Jones Ford’s “Washington and his Colleagues” - a discussion of the work of construction in building the national government 1789-1795. In describing the formation of the Secretary of State’s office, Ford quotes from the Congressional debates of 1789 in which the hope was expressed that the office would be temporary on the grounds that the time would undoubtedly come when the United States would not have any foreign relations whatever. I showed this to the President, who was vastly amused and made a note of it. Later he asked for the book. The President sat on the table and we swapped negro stories, his easily out-rivaling mine. He had just started to tell of a darky’s comment on the Episcopalian service when Mrs. Wilson came in to take him for a walk around the decks. I suggested that it might be well to suspend temporarily anything that could be considered an attack on the Episcopal Church, but Mrs. Wilson told us to go to it, remarking that if necessary she could tell some things about Scotch Presbyterianism that would make interesting reading. The President laughed, put his arm around her for a second, and went on with his story in which a darky says of the Episcopalian service: “Dey spend too much time readin’ de minutes of de las’ meetin’”

Spent the evening chatting with Mrs. Joe Grew, wife of the First Secretary of our Embassy in Paris (I knew him in Berlin in 1913) and Ambassador Jusserand. The latter, for sheer charm, beats anybody I have met in a long moon. Had a grand rough-house with Major Furlong, Major Helms and Major Marston in their stateroom next to mine and went to bed at midnight.

Monday, December 9th, 1918.

A glorious day - warm and sunshiny and not so sticky as yesterday. The President was on deck much of the day. I walked and talked this a.m. with Seymour and others. We have a most remarkable crowd of college professors on board - the experts under President Mazes: Allyn Young, Professor of Economics at Cornell; Charles Haskins, Professor of History at Harvard; Westerman of the History Department of the University of Wisconsin; Clive Day of Yale; Shotwell of Columbia; Beer of Columbia; Major Fling of the History Department of the University of Nebraska; Bowman, Director of the American Geographic Society, and others. We foregather in the Smoking Room after dinner and feast our souls in conversation. Major Fling’s room is across the corridor from mine and I have seen much of him. He is writing a Life of Mirabeau - has been at it for twenty-seven years and only has two volumes out of three completed. It’s his life work. He holds that no man has time for more than one magnum opus, if the thing represents original research and is well done. His book represents years of patient research in the archives of every Government in Europe. He has told me some scandalous tales of the work of Sloane, Fiske and others who produced too fast. He thinks Sloane’s “Napoleon” marks him as a dishonest man; says he literally cribbed his stuff and stole his references without looking them up.

The crew put on an athletic carnival this afternoon - some excellent boxing and wrestling. I think some of the ladies of the party who had never seen the manly sport as practised by red-blooded young Americans were a bit shocked at the performance.

One of the destroyers dropped some depth bombs at four o’clock to show us what they looked like. The explosions shook the ship. President and Mrs. Wilson watched the thing from the bridge, the latter calling me “insatiable” when I complained that the noise was not loud enough.

I have never eaten so much or so well as I have on this trip. For example, last night we had terraspin and roast pheasant, and if I do not walk twenty miles a day I fear I shall resemble Sir John Falstaff when we reach Brest. There are two dining rooms for the guests: one, a small one holding about twenty-five, and the other seating perhaps a hundred, including the many navy officers in charge of the ship. In the small room are seated the Secretary of State and his wife, the French and Italian Ambassadors and their families, Mr. J. W. Davis, Ambassador to London and his wife, Henry White, Mrs. Grew, Admiral Knapp, General Churchill and his aides, two or three State Department attaches, George Creel, Dr. Grayson and myself. Grayson and I sit together at one of the small tables. He is a splendid fellow, jolly and full of fun. I do not wonder that the President made him his physician, if his professional ability matches his personality. He reminds me of Paul. (my brother-in-law) [insertion at bottom of page] In the larger dining room are the experts, the various White House attaches, the three newspaper men and the Navy and Army personnel. The President and his wife habitually eat in their own rooms. Probert, the Associated Press man on board, went to the old High School Annex in Buffalo and knows Daddy and all his old teachers.

I sat with the President at the moving picture show to-night. He seemed thoroughly to enjoy the films and laughed heartily at the nonsense, although he called it “the biggest fool thing he had ever seen in his life”. He has a heavy cold and coughs a good deal.

Tuesday, December 10th, 1918.

At nine o’clock this morning we passed one of the Southern Islands of the Azores - St. Michael - or San Miguel, to give it its Portuguese name. It contains 215,000 people and looks not unlike the coast of Ireland or the north shore of Brittany. The little city of Ponta Delgada nestles close at the foot of an extinct volcano and its white houses of Spanish architecture looked very pretty in the sunlight. A tiny Spanish gunboat about the size of the Squire’s (my father-in-law) [insertion from bottom of page] launch gave us a salute of twenty-one guns as we went by, and we replied with a crash of sound that reverberated among the hills. I guess the natives must have thought they were being bombarded. The President stood long on the bridge, examining the island through glasses. We passed two or three small Moorish villages, huddled close to the shore, and finally, with many destroyers added to our escort, we swung around the shoulder of the island and pointed N.N.E. to Brest.

A sleepy day. Talked most of the afternoon with various and sundry people, including Jusserand, White and Davis. Another “movie” show to-night, again with Fairbanks and Chaplain, the President staying on to the finish with evident enjoyment. Talked with Bullitt until long after midnight, discussing the terms of the peace and the probabilities of peaceful reconstruction.

Wednesday, December 11th, 1918.

Another sleepy day, still somewhat warm and sticky. Walked and talked with Creel, Colonel Ayres and Colonel Jordon. Chatted for two hours on the after bridge with General Churchill - a splendid fellow. He entered the Army after graduating from Harvard and has for years specialized in artillery, representing the United States at many fronts in many wars.

I had an hour’s conference alone with the President in his rooms this afternoon on matters of which I may not write. He looks much better than when he came on board and talks with his old-time succinctness and lucidity of statement. I think his mental processes function more easily and logically than in any other man I have ever met, and the compelling power of his personality is tremendous. Yet he is simple and modest, giving an impression of eagerness to learn and a desire to profit by any new fact or thought he can get hold of. “Tell me what America wants in the War,” he told his economic advisers yesterday afternoon, “and I’ll go into the Peace Conference and fight for it.” He talked to me with the utmost frankness - indeed, with an amazing frankness - and his characterizations of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Lord Milner, Pershing and others were keen, almost dramatic, and would have been interesting coming from any man. To my great delight he called B., an American college president, a “crook”. He discussed the spread of Bolshevism - “a poison”, he called it - and speculated on its future, not only in Russia but around the world. In assisting to bring about a “liberal” peace, I think he feels that he is up against the hardest fight of his life. “The Peace terms must have the support of the progressive elements in the world, or they won’t last for a generation, “ he told me.

The outstanding impression that one gets of the President is that he is a pronounced Liberal. Conservatism he defined as the policy of “Make no changes and consult your Grandmother when in doubt”. He is a Liberal not only from conviction, but as a matter of expediency. The Conservatives do not realize what forces are loose in the world at the present time. Liberalism is the only thing that can save civilization from chaos - from a flood of ultra-radicalism that will swamp the world. (I am paraphrasing the President’s argument.) Those who argue for the status quo ante bellum, or for any other status quo, or for the maintenance of things as they were, are like so many vain kings sitting by the sea and commanding the tide not to rise. Liberalism must be more liberal than ever before; it must even be radical, if civilization is to escape the typhoon.

The President’s wit has not suffered in the years since he left Princeton. He punctuates his remarks with anecdotes and does not hesitate to use slang. He loves funny stories and cannot resist going out of his way to tell one. He recited a limerick which I had not heard before:

“Behold the marvelous Pelican,
His bill holds more than his belly can.
He takes in his beak
Enough food for a week:
I don’t understand how the hell he can.”

Mrs. Wilson came into the room just as we were finishing. I noticed he called her “sweetheart”. They seem to be greatly attached to each other.

The crew to-night put on for our benefit a musical comedy which was good stuff. The President laughed his head off at it. I walked the deck with Creel and others until midnight. Wish I could be sure that the men around the President were capable of giving him the best advice obtainable. He is so extraordinary a figure: Why should he lean on frail reeds?

Thursday, December 12th, 1918.

This has been a perfect day, - clear and crisp but not cold. We are now far north of the Azores and are heading toward Brest. The President spent most of the day in his rooms, working on the Peace business. He goes to face the lions, if ever a man did. “It frightens me,” he told me yesterday, “when I think of what the people of the civilized world are expecting as a result of the Peace Conference.” I spent most of the day - in fact, all day - walking and talking. If this voyage kept up much longer I would be fully qualified as a member of the peripatetic school of philosophers. We walk the deck and feast our souls in elegant converse. We remodel the social and economic systems of mankind every hour. There are enough professors of economics and history aboard to start anything any time. It certainly has been an interesting trip, and in many ways I regret seeing it draw to a close.

We had our last “movie” to-night - Geraldine Farrar in an excellent film. At the end, just before the lights went up, a group of fifty bluejackets who had gathered unseen in a corner of the dining room, sang: “God be with you till we meet again”. They sang it softly, in splendidly modulated voices, while we all stood. The President was visibly affected. His head was bowed and I could see the tears on his cheeks. At the end we all joined in “Auld Lang Syne”.

Friday, December 13th, 1918.

This has been a tremendous day. We awoke to find ten American battleships added to our escort - five on each side. The sun was shining and the huge flotilla was ploughing along majestically. About eleven o’clock, the French-Italian fleet appeared on the horizon off the starboard and fired salutes that shook the windows of our cabins. An hour later, the British fleet came up from the North and we proceeded with an immense convoy that stretched as far as the eye could reach on the horizon. Airplanes buzzed overhead and slow-moving dirigibles manoeuvred back and forth. Shortly before one o’clock we sighted land and gradually crept into the mouth of the long harbour of Brest. It was a far different sight from that which Harry (my brother) [insertion from bottom of page] and I saw five months ago when we sneaked out of this same harbour on the drab-painted “Von Steuben” to make a dash through the submarine zone. To-day every boat was hung with flags and even the fishermen sported either the tri-colour of France or the stars and stripes. As we came into the inner harbour, we found all the battleships which had preceded us lined up in a double column, and at slow speed we passed in review between the two rows of ships. It was a great sight. Each ship was gay with flags, and each had a band which played the “Star Spangled Banner” as we went by. The sailors and marines, lined up at the rails, cheered their heads off, the guns thundered their salutes, the flags were dipped, and altogether it was a most impressive and imposing sight. The President from the bridge laughed and waved his hat, and seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.

We came to anchor at the end of the line of battleships, right where the “Von Steuben” was anchored five months ago. Within a few moments the Admirals began to put off from their flag ships in launches to pay us their customary ceremonial visits. I recognized Admiral Sims and Admiral Wilson as they swung aboard with a score of others. I never saw so much gold lace in my life. Some of us irreverent Americans could not repress a titter as the Italian Admiral slipped in jumping for the gang plank and nearly ruined his chances of seeing the President. After the Admirals, came a French gunboat carrying the officials to greet Wilson: the Mayor and Council of Brest, various representatives of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, diplomats, Generals, and functionaries of all nations. The President held an impromptu reception in his rooms and the crowd flowed out into the corridors and up and down the stairs. I chatted with Admiral Wilson, who wanted to be remembered to Harry. Talked with Pershing for ten minutes about my work here in France. I am to see him next week to lay out a plan of operations. Saw and chatted with many of his staff whom I met in June and July at Chaumont. Said Hello to General Bliss, who is one of our representatives at the Peace Conference. The old boy has not changed since he was Chief of Staff in the early days of the War. Admiral Sims called me by name - a somewhat remarkable fact as I never saw him but once in my life and that only for about ten minutes.

The President and his immediate official family left the “George Washington” on a gaily decorated lighter about four o’clock amid the thunder of salutes from the guns of the battleships. We left on a second lighter a few minutes afterward. Special trains awaited us, and after a variety of ceremonies we were speeded on our way. Our train preceded the President’s, and all along the route up until midnight we were serenaded by bands and cheered by crowds at the stations, and I went to sleep with the recollection of many people shouting “Vive Veel-sohn”!

Saturday, December 14th, 1918.

The memory of this day will live in my mind for ever. We arrived in Paris at six o’clock in the morning, and established ourselves in the Hotel Crillon, facing the Place de la Concorde. This is the headquarters of the American representatives to the Peace Conference. The President’s train came in at ten o’clock - at the Bois de Boulogne station, where he was met by Poincare and Clemenceau. The parade from the station to the Murat house in Rue de Monceau, which is to be his official residence, was accompanied by the most remarkable demonstration of enthusiasm and affection on the part of the Parisians that I have ever heard of, let alone seen. Henry White, who has witnessed every important coronation or official greeting in Europe for fifty years, told me that there never had been anything like it. The reporters said that the greeting given to King George V and to the King and Queen of Belgium some weeks ago was about one-tenth that accorded to Wilson.

The parade over a four-mile drive consisted merely of eight carriages, preceded by a handful of hussars of the guard. In the first carriage rode the President and Poincare. Mrs. Wilson with Madame Poincare and Margaret Wilson came in the second. Clemenceau was in the third carriage with Ambassador Sharp; Lansing and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs in the fourth; while in the other carriages were Henry White, General Bliss, General Pershing, Jusserand, and other notables. Troops, cavalry and infantry, lined the entire route and tens of thousands of persons fought for a glimpse. The streets were decorated with flags and banners, Wilson’s name was everywhere, and huge “Welcome Wilson” and “Honour to Wilson, the Just” signs stretched across the streets from house to house.

I was in a window in a building taken over by the American Army at the corner of the Rue Royale and Place de la Concorde. It is estimated that 100,000 people filled the Place. Certainly I never saw a larger crowd. The route of march lay by way of Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, through the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, across the Seine by the Alexandre III bridge to the Quai d’Orsay, back again by the Concorde bridge, across the Place do la Concorde, through the Rue Royale to the Boulevard and thence to Rue Monceau. The carriages approached at a trot. We could hear the cheers across the Seine. Wilson was smiling and waving his hat. Mrs. Wilson, almost buried in a huge bouquet, looked radiant. The noise was deafening. It was all over in a minute, and we could hear the cheers rolling up Rue Royale to the Madeleine. The troops started to march, but the crowds broke through and for an hour Place de la Concorde was a riot of colour and fun. I noticed twenty or thirty British soldiers marching with this sign: “The British - vos Allies de 1914-1918”. I hope this is not symbolic of any trouble at the Peace table.

To-night the Boulevards of Paris are still celebrating. I dined at the Cafe de Paris with Major Marston and Major Helms and afterward we saw the sights. It was like our Armistice celebration at home without quite so much rough house and a little more love-making.An American can have anything he wants in Paris to-day, - he owns the city. The girls even try to kiss him on the streets. I wonder -- and the thought keeps coming back to me -- what will be the greeting of the French when the Peace is finished and Wilson comes to go home. I wish it could be guaranteed that their affection for America and the Americans would be as real and as enthusiastic as it is to-day. Poor Wilson! A man with his responsibilities is to be pitied. The French think that with almost a magic touch he will bring about the day of political and industrial justice. Will he? Can he?

RAYMOND B. FOSDICk

Diary