Whether the Peace Conference should return Shantung to China, or
leave it to Japan to return to China was to him, he often said,
"only a question of method. There is no principle involved." The
Japanese were a sensitive people, why should a kind heart question
the excellence of their intentions with respect to China? Shantung
would of course be returned. It was only a question of how.
The simple heart of Colonel House did not save him, either as a
diplomat or as a friend. The failures at Paris plunged Mr. Wilson
into depression in which he went as far down into the valley as he
had been up on the heights during his vision--of a world made
better by his hand. In his darker moments he saw nothing but enmity
and disloyalty about him--even, a little later, "usurpation" in the
case of the timorous and circumspect Mr. Lansing.
Colonel House says that he does not yet know what caused the breach
between the President and himself. Relations stopped; that was all.
This is what occurred: Shortly after Colonel House had convinced
the President that the disposal of Shantung was only a question of
method he disappeared from Paris "to take a rest"; and it became
known that after all he was not to sit in the Council of the League
of Nations representing America, as Mr. Wilson had originally
intended.
At this time, a close friend of President Wilson and one of his
most intimate advisers, said to me, "The most insidious influence
here is the social influence.
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