m their
administration of the War Industries and War Trade Boards. The foresight
of Colonel House, furthermore, had gathered together a group of men who,
organized since the summer of 1917 in what had been called "The
Inquiry," had been studying the conditions that would determine new
political boundaries on the basis of justice and practicability. The
principal delegates could not be expected to know the details that would
decide the disposition of Danzig, the fate of Fiume, the division of the
Banat of Temesvar. They would need some one to tell them the amount of
coal produced in the Saar Basin, the location of mines in Teschen, the
ethnic character of eastern Galicia, the difference between Slovaks and
Ruthenians. It was all very well to come to the Conference with demands
for justice, but our commissioners must have cold facts to support those
demands. The fact that exact information was available, and played a role
in the decisions of the Conference, marks a step forward in the history
of diplomatic relations.

Contrary to general expectation and rumor, Wilson, although he
disregarded the American Commissioners, except Colonel House, made
constant use of the various experts. On the _George Washington_ he had
told a group of them that he would rely absolutely upon the results of
their investigations. "Tell me what's right," he had said, "and I'll
fight for it. Give me a guaranteed position." During the negotiations he
called in the experts for daily consultations; they sat behind him at the
sessions of the Council of Ten and on the sofa beside him in the Council
of Four. Their advice was not always followed to the letter; in the
Shantung issue it was reluctantly discarded; but in such important
matters as the Fiume problem, Wilson rested his case wholly upon the
knowledge and opinions of the experts.

In defiance of the example of the Congress of Vienna, which never
formally gathered in plenary session, the Paris Conference met with all
delegates for the first time, on January 18, 1919. It was a picturesque
scene, cast in the long Clock Room of the Quai d'Orsay, the conventional
black of the majority of delegates broken by the horizon-blue uniform of
Marshal Foch, the natty red-trimmed khaki of British staff officers, and
the white flowing robes and golden headdress of the Arabian Emir Faisal;
down the center of the room ran the traditionally diplomatic green baize
tables behind which sat the delegates; attaches an