"ROBERT LANSING

"THE PRESIDENT

"_The White House_"

The President, thus early advised of my unqualified opposition to any
plan which was similar in principle to the one advocated by the League
to Enforce Peace, naturally concluded that I would look with disfavor on
an international guaranty which by implication, if not by declaration,
compelled the use of force to give it effect. Doubtless he felt that I
would not be disposed to aid in perfecting a plan which had as its
central idea a guaranty of that nature. Disliking opposition to a plan
or policy which he had originated or made his own by adoption, he
preferred to consult those who without debate accepted his judgment and
were in sympathy with his ideas. Undoubtedly the President by refraining
from asking my advice spared himself from listening to arguments against
the guaranty and the use of force which struck at the very root of his
plan, for I should, if I had been asked, have stated my views with
entire frankness.

The other reason for not consulting me, as I now realize, but did not at
the time, was that I belonged to the legal profession. It is a fact,
which Mr. Wilson has taken no trouble to conceal, that he does not value
the advice of lawyers except on strictly legal questions, and that he
considers their objections and criticisms on other subjects to be too
often based on mere technicalities and their judgments to be warped by
an undue regard for precedent. This prejudice against the legal
profession in general was exhibited on more than one occasion during our
sojourn at Paris. Looking back over my years of intercourse with the