A Journalist's Diplomatic Mission: Ray Stannard Baker's World War I Diary

15. Northcliffe Attacks Lloyd George and Wilson

330 15 Northcliffe Attacks Lloyd George and Wilson. Farce of the Plenary Session on Labor. Struggling with the Italian Question. The Germans Are Summoned. APRIL 9 I get no time even to write here. High politics are being played. Northcliffe and his press are attacking Lloyd George for his “kindness” to the Germans and his effort to work with the Russians, incidentally hitting even more virulently at Wilson. Here is the Northcliffe indictment of both George and Wilson: Tenderness for the enemy; Charity toward bolshevism; Love of moneylenders; Stern impartiality towards friendly peoples; Anxiety to raise the stricken foe and readiness to forgive his sins; Fidelity to principle and, in particular, to the principle of relativity. When Wilson was ill, Lloyd George—the inconstant—began to play with the French, gave loving interviews to the Matin and Petit Parisien.83 When Wilson got up again and made his defiance with the calling of the George Washington, Lloyd George came to heel again. It seems to be a struggle between Northcliffe and Wilson for the soul of Lloyd George—who has no soul! Italy is falling apart. I doubt whether peace arrives before anarchy after all. All the forces are working against Wilson. 83. Le Matin and Petit Parisien were both French newspapers. Northcliffe Attacks Lloyd George and Wilson | 331 I attended a reception given by Mrs. Wilson tonight. Lloyd George, Clemenceau , Orlando, and a great party of others were there. It was a notable gathering—all the celebrities. APRIL 10 Today I went to Versailles to help decide on press arrangements for the signing of the treaty—which may never be signed. They propose rubbing salt in the Germans’ wounds in the same Hall of Mirrors in which the Peace of 1871 was signed. I talked with Mr. Wilson this evening. He looks old and worn. Things are not going well. He is working too hard—two conferences of the Big Four today and the League of Nations Commission this evening until midnight. He called on the Queen of Rumania this morning and received the Polish peasants who came to my office a few days ago. Peasants at ten o’clock, a queen and her daughter for luncheon, to say nothing of the premiers in the afternoon! We had a meeting of our Press Committee of the Supreme Economic Council. Frightfully busy every minute. APRIL 11 Plenary session today in the big dining room at the Quai d’Orsay to receive the Labor Report. We had 35 tickets for 157 correspondents on our lists (with five extras that succeeded in getting in quietly afterwards). Our troubles in distributing them may well be imagined. It was a terribly dull meeting in fetid air in a dim room. Worse still the entire proceedings gave one an unhappy sense of unreality, perfunctoriness . It was staged for a purpose, to show the labor of the world—the unrestful proletrist—that the peace conference in Paris had not forgotten it. Attention was pathetically called to the fact that this was the first time labor had figured at a peace conference, but the speeches were laborious and dull. The main presentation was made by Barnes, a Labour leader. George Barnes, a respectable figurehead, who was a member of the British Peace Commission, without following in his own country, and his subject was a report gathered by Gompers—regarded by labor all over the world as a representative of extinct 332 | The Paris Peace Conference issues. The only speech with any fire or meaning in it was that of Vandervelde84 of Belgium. I talked with the President for a moment just after the conference and learned that the Big Four had up again the Saar Valley case, after having twice announced the complete settlement of it. The President is toiling terribly. Besides two meetings of the Big Four today he sat as chairman of the League of Nations Commission from eightthirty until one-thirty in the morning. They have finished the Covenant except final touches on the Monroe Doctrine article and the Japanese question. The President is being required to give ground to meet the political exigencies of Lloyd George and Clemenceau, and they are giving ground to him on his demand for the immediate establishment of a League of Nations. This seems to be the new formula. News today indicates that Italy is tottering into the abyss and word from Germany gives little...