heard-of treatment of allies. No man, whose mind
was not warped by prejudice or dominated by political expediency, could
give it his approval or become its apologist. Secrecy, and intrigues
which were only possible through secrecy, stained nearly all the
negotiations at Paris, but in this final act of withholding knowledge of
the actual text of the Treaty from the delegates of most of the nations
represented in the Conference the spirit of secretiveness seems to
have gone mad.

The psychological effects of secrecy on those who are kept in ignorance
are not difficult to analyze. They follow normal processes and may be
thus stated: Secrecy breeds suspicion; suspicion, doubt; doubt,
distrust; and distrust produces lack of frankness, which is closely akin
to secrecy. The result is a vicious circle, of which deceit and intrigue
are the very essence. Secrecy and its natural consequences have given to
diplomacy a popular reputation for trickery, for double-dealing, and in
a more or less degree for unscrupulous and dishonest methods of
obtaining desired ends, a reputation that has found expression in the
ironic definition of a diplomat as "an honest man sent to lie abroad for
the good of his country."

The time had arrived when the bad name which diplomacy had so long borne
could and should have been removed. "Open covenants openly arrived at"
appealed to the popular feeling of antipathy toward secret diplomacy, of
which the Great War was generally believed to be the product. The Paris
Conference appeared to offer an inviting opportunity to turn the page
and to begin a new and better chapter in the annals of international
intercourse. To do this required a fixed purpose to abandon the old
methods, to insist on openness and candor, to refuse to be drawn into
whispered agreements. The choice between the old and the new ways had to
be definite and final. It had to be made at the very beginning of the
negotiations. It was made. Secrecy was adopted. Thus diplomacy, in spite
of the announced intention to reform its practices, has retained the
evil taint which makes it out of harmony with the spirit of good faith
and of open dealing which is characteristic of the best thought of the
present epoch. There is little to show that diplomacy has been raised to
a higher plane or has won a better reputation in the world at large than
it possessed before the nations assembled at Paris to make peace. This
failure to lift the necessary agency o