rtant were those
relating to the League of Nations and the Covenant, though our opposite
views as to Shantung were more generally known and more frequently the
subject of public comment. While chief consideration will be given to
the differences regarding the League and the Covenant, the record would
be incomplete if the other subjects were omitted. In fact nearly all of
these matters of difference are more or less interwoven and have a
collateral, if not a direct, bearing upon one another. They all
contributed in affecting the attitude of President Wilson toward the
advice that I felt it my duty to volunteer, an attitude which was
increasingly impatient of unsolicited criticism and suggestion and which
resulted at last in the correspondence of February, 1920, that ended
with the acceptance of my resignation as Secretary of State.

The review of these subjects will be, so far as it is possible, treated
in chronological order, because, as the matters of difference increased
in number, they gave emphasis to the divergence of judgment which
existed between the President and myself. The effect was cumulative, and
tended not only to widen the breach, but to make less and less possible
a restoration of our former relations. It was my personal desire to
support the President's views concerning the negotiations at Paris, but,
when in order to do so it became necessary to deny a settled conviction
and to suppress a conception of the true principle or the wise policy to
be followed, I could not do it and feel that to give support under such
conditions accorded with true loyalty to the President of the
United States.

It was in this spirit that my advice was given and my suggestions were
made, though in doing so I believed it justifiable to conform as far as
it was possible to the expressed views of Mr. Wilson, or to what seemed
to be his views, concerning less important matters and to concentrate on
those which seemed vital. I went in fact as far as I could in adopting
his views in the hope that my advice would be less unpalatable and
would, as a consequence, receive more sympathetic consideration.
Believing that I understood the President's temperament, success in an
attempt to change his views seemed to lie in moderation and in partial
approval of his purpose rather than in bluntly arguing that it was
wholly wrong and should be abandoned. This method of approach, which
seemed the expedient one at the time, weakened, in some in