be adopted, and to prevent the President, in so far as possible, from
taking any step in the proceedings which may impair the rights of his
country or may be injurious to its interests. These duties, in my
opinion, are equally imperative whether the President directs the
negotiations through written instructions issuing from the White House
or conducts them in person. For an American plenipotentiary to remain
silent, and by his silence to give the impression that he approves a
course of action which he in fact believes to be wrong in principle or
contrary to good policy, constitutes a failure to perform his full duty
to the President and to the country. It is his duty to speak and to
speak frankly and plainly.

With this conception of the obligations of a Commissioner to Negotiate
Peace, obligations which were the more compelling in my case because of
my official position as Secretary of State, I felt it incumbent upon me
to offer advice to the President whenever it seemed necessary to me to
consider the adoption of a line of action in regard to the negotiations,
and particularly so when the indications were that the President
purposed to reach a decision which seemed to me unwise or impolitic.
Though from the first I felt that my suggestions were received with
coldness and my criticisms with disfavor, because they did not conform
to the President's wishes and intentions, I persevered in my efforts to
induce him to abandon in some cases or to modify in others a course
which would in my judgment be a violation of principle or a mistake in
policy. It seemed to me that duty demanded this, and that, whatever the
consequences might be, I ought not to give tacit assent to that which I
believed wrong or even injudicious.

The principal subjects, concerning which President Wilson and I were in
marked disagreement, were the following: His presence in Paris during