delivery the President went to Chaumont to spend Christmas at the
headquarters of General Pershing and that almost immediately thereafter
he visited London and two or three days after his return to Paris he set
out for Rome. It is possible that Mr. Wilson in the midst of these
crowded days had no time to digest or even to read my letter and its
enclosed memoranda. It is possible that he was unable or unwilling to
form an opinion as to their merits without time for meditation. I do not
wish to be unjustly critical or to blame the President for a neglect
which was the result of circumstance rather than of intention.

At the time I assumed that his failure to mention my letter in any way
was because his visits to royalty exacted from him so much of his time
that there was no opportunity to give the matter consideration. While
some doubt was thrown on this assumption by the fact that the President
held an hour's conference with the American Commissioners on January 1,
just before departing for Italy, during which he discussed the favorable
attitude of Mr. Lloyd George toward his (the President's) ideas as to a
League of Nations, but never made any reference to my proposed
substitute for the guaranty, I was still disposed to believe that there
was a reasonable explanation for his silence and that upon his return
from Rome he would discuss it.

Having this expectation I continued the preparation of tentative
provisions to be included in the charter of a League of Nations in the
event one was negotiated, and which would in any event constitute a
guide for the preparation of declarations to be included in the Treaty
of Peace in case the negotiation as to a League was postponed until
after peace had been restored. As has been said, it was my hope that
there would be a separate convention organizing the League, but I was
not as sanguine of this as many who believed this course would