railways, financial and
economic problems, military, naval, and aerial questions. When the
Council of Ten found themselves puzzled by the conflicting territorial
claims of different Allied nations, they decided to create also special
territorial commissions to study boundaries and to report their
recommendations back to the Supreme Council. It was President Wilson,
chafing at the early delays of the Conference, who eagerly adopted a
suggestion of Colonel House to the effect that time might be saved if
the experts of the different states attacked boundary problems and thus
relieved the strain upon the time and nerves of the Olympians, who could
not be expected to know or understand the details of each question. The
suggestion was approved by the chiefs of the Allied governments. There
were five such territorial commissions, which were in turn subdivided,
while a single central territorial commission was appointed to cooerdinate
the reports.

The more important commissions, such as that upon the League of Nations,
were composed of plenipotentiaries and included generally representatives
from the smaller states. The reparations, financial, and labor
commissions were made up of business men and financiers, the American
representatives including such figures as Lamont, Norman Davis, Baruch,
and McCormick. The territorial commissions were composed of the
representatives of the four principal Powers; most of the European
delegates, who were in some cases also plenipotentiaries, were chosen
from the staffs of the Foreign Offices, and included such men as Sir Eyre
Crowe, Jules Cambon, Tardieu, and Salvago Raggi. The American delegates
were generally members of the Inquiry, men who had been working on these
very problems for more than a year. The special commissions worked with
care and assiduity, and their decisions rested generally on facts
established after long discussion. To this extent, at least, the Paris
Conference was characterized by a new spirit in diplomacy.

Upon the reports of these commissions were based the draft articles of
the treaties, which were then referred back to the Supreme Council. By
the time the reports were finished, that body had divided into two
smaller bodies: the Council of Foreign Ministers, and the Council of
Premiers, composed of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and Orlando. The
latter body, which came to be known as the Council of Four, or,
colloquially, the "Big Four," naturally assumed com