promises which had served as pabulum for their
attachment to the Allied cause during the war. But their illusions were
short-lived. At one of their first meetings with the delegates of the
Great Powers a storm burst which scattered their expectations to the
winds. When the sky cleared it was discovered that from indispensable
fellow-workers they had shrunk to dwarfish protegees, mere units of an
inferior category, who were to be told what to do and would be
constrained to do it thoroughly if not unmurmuringly.

At the historic sitting of January 26th, the delegates of the lesser
states protested energetically against the purely decorative part
assigned to them at a Conference in the decisions of which their peoples
were so intensely interested. The Canadian Minister, having spoken of
the "proposal" of the Great Powers, was immediately corrected by M.
Clemenceau, who brusquely said that it was not a proposal, but a
decision, which was therefore definitive and final. Thereupon the
Belgian delegate, M. Hymans, delivered a masterly speech, pleading for
genuine discussion in order to elucidate matters that so closely
concerned them all, and he requested the Conference to allow the smaller
belligerent Allies more than two delegates. Their demand was curtly
rejected by the French Premier, who informed his hearers that the
Conference was the creation of the Great Powers, who intended to keep
the direction of its labors in their own hands. He added significantly
that the smaller nations' representatives would probably not have been
invited at all if the special problem of the League of Nations had not
been mooted. Nor should it be forgotten, he added, that the five Great
Powers represented no less than twelve million fighting-men.... In
conclusion, he told them that they had better get on with their work in
lieu of wasting precious time in speechmaking. These words produced a
profound and lasting effect, which, however, was hardly the kind
intended by the French statesman.

"Conferential Tsarism" was the term applied to this magisterial method
by one of the offended delegates. He said to me on the morrow: "My reply
to M. Clemenceau was ready, but fear of impairing the prestige of the
Conference prevented me from uttering it. I could have emphasized the
need for unanimity in the presence of vigilant enemies, ready to
introduce a wedge into every fissure of the edifice we are constructing.
I could have pointed out that, this bei