deration
of this treaty.

Mr. BULLITT. It is no secret that Mr. Lansing, Gen. Bliss, and Mr.
Henry White objected very vigorously to the numerous provisions of the
treaty.

The CHAIRMAN. It is known that they objected to Shantung. That, I
think, is public information. I do not know that it is public
information that they objected to anything else.

Mr. BULLITT. I do not think that Secretary Lansing is at all
enthusiastic about the league of nations as it stands at present. I
have a note of a conversation with him on the subject, which, if I
may, I will just read, without going into the rest of that
conversation, because it bears directly on the issue involved.

This was a conversation with the Secretary of State at 2.30 on May 19.
The Secretary sent for me. It was a long conversation, and Mr. Lansing
in the course of it said:

Mr. Lansing then said that he personally would have strengthened
greatly the judicial clauses of the league of nations covenant, making
arbitration compulsory. He also said that he was absolutely opposed to
the United States taking a mandate in either Armenia or
Constantinople; that he thought that Constantinople should be placed
under a local government, the chief members of which were appointed by
an international committee.

This is a matter, it seems to me, of some importance in regard to the
whole discussion, and therefore I feel at liberty to read it, as it is
not a personal matter.

The CHAIRMAN. This is a note of the conversation made at the time?

Mr. BULLITT. This is a note which I immediately dictated after the
conversation. [Reading:]

Mr. Lansing then said that he, too, considered many parts of
the treaty thoroughly bad, particularly those dealing with
Shantung and the league of nations. He said: "I consider
that the league of nations at present is entirely useless.
The great powers have simply gone ahead and arranged the
world to suit themselves. England and France in particular
have gotten out of the treaty everything that they wanted,
and the league of nations can do nothing to alter any of the
unjust clauses of the treaty except by unanimous consent of
the members of the league, and the great powers will never
give their consent to changes in the interests of weaker
peoples."

We then talked about the possibility of ratification by the Senate.
Mr. Lansing said: "I believe that if the Senate could only under