he threat which he had made. Baron Sonnino also departed
the next day.

It is not my purpose to pursue further the course of events following
the crisis which was precipitated by the President's published statement
and the resulting departure of the principal Italian delegates. The
effect on the Italian people is common knowledge. A tempest of popular
fury against the President swept over Italy from end to end. From being
the most revered of all men by the Italians, he became the most
detested. As no words of praise and admiration were too extravagant to
be spoken of him when he visited Rome in January, so no words of insult
or execration were too gross to characterize him after his public
announcement regarding the Adriatic Question. There was never a more
complete reversal of public sentiment toward an individual.

The reason for reciting the facts of the Fiume dispute, which was one of
the most unpleasant incidents that took place at Paris during the
negotiations, is to bring out clearly the consequences of secret
diplomacy. A discussion of the reasons, or of the probable reasons, for
the return of the Italian statesmen to Paris before the Treaty was
handed to the Germans would add nothing to the subject under
consideration, while the same may be said of the subsequent occupation
of Fiume by Italian nationalists under the fanatical D'Annunzio, without
authority of their Government, but with the enthusiastic approval of the
Italian people.

Five days after the Italian Premier and his Minister of Foreign Affairs
had departed from Paris I had a long interview with a well-known Italian
diplomat, who was an intimate friend of both Signor Orlando and Baron
Sonnino and who had been very active in the secret negotiations
regarding the Italian boundaries which had been taking place at Paris
since the middle of December. This diplomat was extremely bitter about
the whole affair and took no pains to hide his views as to the causes of
the critical situation which existed. In the memorandum of our
conversation, which I wrote immediately after he left my office, appears
the following:

"He exclaimed: 'One tells you one thing and that is not true; then
another tells you another thing and that too is not true. What is one
to believe? What can one do? It is hopeless. So many secret meetings
with different persons are simply awful'--He threw up his hands--'Now
we have the result. It is terrible!'

"I laughed an