natures could not have been obtained if he had not given Shantung to
Japan, and that he had been notified that the Japanese delegates had
been instructed not to sign the Treaty unless the cession of the German
rights in Shantung to Japan was included.

Presumably the opinion which Mr. Wilson held in the summer of 1919 he
continues to hold, and for my part my views and feelings remain the same
now as they were then, with possibly the difference that the indignation
and shame that I felt at the time in being in any way a participant in
robbing China of her just rights have increased rather than lessened.

So intense was the bitterness among the American Commissioners over the
flagrant wrong being perpetrated that, when the decision of the Council
of Four was known, some of them considered whether or not they ought to
resign or give notice that they would not sign the Treaty if the
articles concerning Shantung appeared. The presence at Versailles of the
German plenipotentiaries, the uncertainty of the return of the Italian
delegates then in Rome, and the murmurs of dissatisfaction among the
delegates of the lesser nations made the international situation
precarious. To have added to the serious conditions and to have possibly
precipitated a crisis by openly rebelling against the President was to
assume a responsibility which no Commissioner was willing to take. With
the greatest reluctance the American Commissioners submitted to the
decision of the Council of Four; and, when the Chinese delegates refused
to sign the Treaty after they had been denied the right to sign it with
reservations to the Shantung articles, the American Commissioners, who
had so strongly opposed the settlement, silently approved their conduct
as the only patriotic and statesmanlike course to take. So far as China
was concerned the Shantung Question remained open, and the Chinese
Government very properly refused, after the Treaty of Versailles was
signed, to enter into any negotiations with Japan looking toward its
settlement upon the basis of the treaty provisions.

There was one exception to the President's usual practice which is
especially noticeable in connection with the Shantung controversy, and
that was the greater participation which he permitted the members of the
American Commission in negotiating with both the Japanese and the
Chinese. It is true he did not disclose his intentions to the
Commissioners, but he did express a wish for their