nce of the preliminary
negotiations and were left to gather such information as they were able
from the delegates of other Powers, who, naturally assuming that the
Americans possessed the full confidence of the President, spoke with
much freedom. As Mr. Wilson never held a conference with the American
Commission from the first meeting of the Commission on the League of
Nations until its report was printed, his American colleagues did not
know, except indirectly, of the questions at issue or of the progress
that was being made. The fact is that, as the Commission on the League
met in Colonel House's office at the Hotel Crillon, his office force
knew far more about the proceedings than did the three American
Commissioners who were not present. As the House organization made no
effort to hide the fact that they had inside information, the
representatives of the press as a consequence frequented the office of
the Colonel in search of the latest news concerning the Commission on
the League of Nations.

But, in addition to the embarrassment caused the American Commissioners
and the unenviable position in which they were placed by the secrecy
with which the President surrounded his intercourse with the foreign
statesmen and the proceedings of the Commission on the League of
Nations, his secret negotiations caused the majority of the delegates to
the Conference and the public at large to lose in a large measure their
confidence in the actuality of his devotion to "open diplomacy," which
he had so unconditionally proclaimed in the first of his Fourteen
Points. If the policy of secrecy had ceased with the discussions
preliminary to the organization of the Conference, or even with those
preceding the meetings of the Commission on the League of Nations,
criticism and complaint would doubtless have ceased, but as the
negotiations progressed the secrecy of the conferences of the leaders
increased rather than decreased, culminating at last in the organization
of the Council of Four, the most powerful and most seclusive of the
councils which directed the proceedings at Paris. Behind closed doors
these four individuals, who controlled the policies of the United
States, Great Britain, France, and Italy, passed final judgment on the
mass of articles which entered into the Treaties of Peace, but kept
their decisions secret except from the committee which was drafting
the articles.

The organization of the Council of Four and the mystery