d press correspondents
crowded into the corners or peered around the curtains of adjoining
rooms; at the end, in front of the white marble fireplace, sat the
dominating personalities of the Allied world. But such plenary sessions
were not to witness the actual work of the Conference, nor was Wilson's
demand for "open covenants openly arrived at" to be translated literally
into accomplishment. To conduct the Peace Conference by sessions open to
the public was obviously not feasible. There were too many delegates.
Time, which was precious beyond evaluation, would be lost in the making
of speeches for home consumption. More time would be lost in translation
of the Babel of languages. Frankness and directness of negotiation would
be impossible, for if the papers should print what the delegates said
about each other there would be a national crisis every day. Finally, a
congress is by nature ill-adapted for the study of intricate
international problems, as was later to be illustrated in the history of
the United States Senate.

The representatives of the larger European Powers had assumed that the
direction of the Conference would be taken by a small executive committee,
corresponding to the Supreme War Council, and to this President Wilson
agreed. Such a committee would necessarily meet in secret, in order that
it might not be hampered by formalities and that there might be frank
speech. Only a brief communique, stating the subject of discussion and
the decision reached, would be issued to the press. The committee would
provide for the executive measures that must be taken to oppose the growth
of economic and political anarchy in central and southeastern Europe,
would distribute the problems that were to be studied by special
commissions, and would formulate or approve the solutions to those
problems. It would supervise the drafting of the treaties and present them
to the plenary conference in practically final form. Since the bulk of the
fighting had been carried by the major powers and since they would
guarantee the peace, this supreme council of the Conference was composed
of two representatives of the major five, France, Great Britain, the
United States, Italy, and Japan, the last-named now entering the sacred
coterie of "Great Powers." Among the delegates of the smaller powers there
was lively dissatisfaction at the exclusion from the inner council of such
states as Belgium and Serbia, which had been invaded by the enem