respecting
Japan's claim to have that province ceded to her by Germany, and that
the discussion on the amendment terminated on April 11th, consequently
before the Kiaochow issue came up for discussion. As a matter of fact,
the Japanese publicly announced their intention to adhere to the League
of Nations two days[362] before a decision was reached respecting their
claims to Kiaochow.

This adverse note on Mr. Wilson's pet scheme to have religious equality
proclaimed as a means of hindering sanguinary wars brought to its climax
the reaction of the Conference against what it regarded as a systematic
endeavor to establish the overlordship of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the
world. The plea that wars may be provoked by such religious inequality
as still survives was so unreal that it awakened a twofold suspicion in
the minds of many of Mr. Wilson's colleagues. Most of them believed that
a pretext was being sought to enable the leading Powers to intervene in
the domestic concerns of all the other states, so as to keep them firmly
in hand, and use them as means to their own ends. And these ends were
looked upon as anything but disinterested. Unhappily this conviction was
subsequently strengthened by certain of the measures decreed by the
Supreme Council between April and the close of the Conference. The
misgivings of other delegates turned upon a matter which at first sight
may appear so far removed from any of the pressing issues of the
twentieth century as to seem wholly imaginary. They feared that a
religious--some would call it racial--bias lay at the root of Mr.
Wilson's policy. It may seem amazing to some readers, but it is none the
less a fact that a considerable number of delegates believed that the
real influences behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples were Semitic.

They confronted the President's proposal on the subject of religious
inequality, and, in particular, the odd motive alleged for it, with the
measures for the protection of minorities which he subsequently imposed
on the lesser states, and which had for their keynote to satisfy the
Jewish elements in eastern Europe. And they concluded that the sequence
of expedients framed and enforced in this direction were inspired by the
Jews, assembled in Paris for the purpose of realizing their carefully
thought-out program, which they succeeded in having substantially
executed. However right or wrong these delegates may have been, it would
be a dangerous mistake to ignore t