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361 18 Greatest Day, So Far, of the Peace Conference. Presenting the Treaty to the Germans. Difficulties of Distributing the News in the Summary. I Try to Come Clear in My Own Mind Regarding the Treaty. MAY 6 The busiest of busy days! Having the Treaty summary finally finished, I took it up to the President yesterday and secured his approval of it. Also completed the complicated arrangements for cabling or sending it by radio to various parts of the world. I was summoned to attend the session of the Big Three at eleven o’clock today. I found Mair of the British official press organization also there. He has had charge of the British summary and, while we have worked in complete harmony, our summaries vary slightly on account of the attitude of the experts in our respective delegations. Our “lead” written in wholly American style for our own newspapers is entirely different. Tardieu was there with the French summary. We were kept waiting in the anteroom of the President’s study for a long time, while the Three heard various committees, for they are now in the last throes of the treaty making. We finally had our inning, and got the final decision as to the release of the summaries for publication. The President helped us. At three o’clock I went over with Walter Rogers (our communications expert) and had a further meeting at the Dufayel with Mair and the expert (Colonel Coan). There is a perfectly fierce demand for various hours of release in America—the morning papers, the evening papers, the press associations, and the special correspondents, all having different interests. And those have to be harmonized with the cable and air facilities. We finally agreed to release one summary at six p.m. tomorrow, Paris time (one o’clock New York time). This will enable our papers (and the Canadians) to publish the summaries in 362 | The Paris Peace Conference the late afternoon editions with no danger of a “flash back” here. We have divided up the world. We Americans are using our summary for distribution all over North America, the western coast of South America, Japan, and China. The British go to all their own colonies, except Canada; and the French will put their summary on the air at Lyons for all continental Europe. It is a complicated business, and I shall marvel if we do not have some leak or break-over on such important news. I have resolved that it shall not come from us! At first we arranged to send one draft to England by aeroplane, thence by cable, but we could not get it complete before dark and were compelled therefore to put it on our signal service wires about eight-thirty and clear the cables for it into New York. We shall feel anxious until we hear definitely of its arrival. I attended the secret plenary session at the Quai d’Orsay at three. Tardieu read his summary to the small nations. It is their first knowledge of what is in the treaty they must sign! The Portugese representative made a hotly critical speech protesting against the inclusion of Spain in the League of Nations committee; China made a temperate protest; and Marshall Foch attacked the military provisions in the treaty, trying to prove that they were not strong enough in dealing with the German danger. It was practically an attack on Clemenceau. All this oratory I could not report to the correspondents, the President himself telling me that we must abide by the understanding, although it is well known that a leak cannot be prevented when such a company is present. The small nations have had mighty little out of this peace conference so far; not even a chance to read the treaty! MAY 7 This has been the greatest day of the peace conference so far—most important in events and greatest in news product. The treaty was laid down to the Germans at three o’clock at Versailles. I will not attempt to describe it here; not time! We spent all the forenoon in issuing tickets, making arrangements for getting stenographic reports of the proceedings, chasing the printer for copies of the summary, etc., etc. I left Paris by auto at one-thirty with my secretary, Miss Groth, and White. Great crowds at Versailles. After all our struggle for a fair distribution of press privileges and our fear that the French and British...

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