Even more pathetic than the Chinese discouragement was the hopeless case of the Persian delegates. Having come thousands of miles to present their plea for a new opportunity to achieve national regeneration, they were denied even a hearing by the peace commissioners. They pleaded for a release from the British-Russian yoke. They told us wonderful stories of their natural resources that could be developed promptly and with great profit if they could only be assured of security, or if they could feel secure from the interference by the larger nations, and assured of the coöperation of, instead of exploitation by, foreign capital. They alluded to iron and coal, copper, lead, and manganese. The stories they told reminded one of the descriptions of Mexico and Peru before they were conquered by Cortez and Pizarro. Those cases involved all the risks of conquest in an unknown country, and the voyages thither were fraught with grave danger, while here was a nation whose resources were not in doubt, but could be examined at leisure, and by experts, and their existence proven; and the Persians who had been educated abroad and knew European conditions fairly implored us to bring within the reach of Persia the benefits of the progress made by these other countries during the last few hundred years, while Persia was allowed to remain untouched and unbenefited by those wonderful recent inventions that have enriched all the countries that utilized them. Ali Kuli Khan, with his charming American wife, whom I had known previously, told me that, at a large dinner which the Persians had given, one of our American Peace Commissioners publicly promised them that the United States delegation would help them to a hearing; relying on this promise, Ali Kuli Khan had transmitted the news to his home government, only to have his hopes speedily dashed to pieces. Bratiano, the Roumanian premier, was anxious to secure American influence against a clause in the Roumanian treaty recognizing the rights of minority peoples resident in his country. He invited my wife and me to dine with him and two royal princesses of his native land, Elizabeth and Marie, who have since respectively become the wives of the Crown Prince of Greece and the King of Serbia. When I told him that the United States was absolutely pledged to securing the equal rights for minorities everywhere, and that I heartily favoured this, he showed his disappointment and said that Roumania would never consent to it. He declared: “I would rather resign as premier than sign such a treaty.” When the time came, he made good his word.