I was proud of the men of my craft at Paris. The work of the American correspondents was as trustworthy as it was brilliant. Tested by wide knowledge and experience of the field, as well as by training, some of the correspondents were better qualified to acquaint their fellow-Americans with what was going on at Paris than any expert or adviser of the American Commission. For even when they participated in the work of the various committees the American experts had neither the knowledge nor training to appreciate the forces at work that determined the decisions upon the very questions they were deliberating. Events have fully justified the severe criticism that was made by correspondents upon the Treaty of Versailles while it was being drafted. Actual participants in the inner workings of the Peace Conference have now given us, in narratives and documents, full corroboration of what was cabled day by day from Paris during those fateful months. Of no great conference has there ever been given so complete and faithful a daily picture. Except in rare instances of anecdote, such as Mr. Lamont’s graphic story of how President Wilson came to agree to include (against the advice of the lawyers on the American Commission) pensions in the reparations, Colonel House’s compilation does not give “What Really Happened at Paris” in a satisfying manner. Now, if the colonel had only written for us the frank and unreserved story of a primary witness instead of editing a volume of testimony of others, the volume would have contained invaluable pages of contemporary history. For Colonel House is the American best qualified, aside from the ex-President himself, to make a contribution to the diplomatic history of America’s participation in the war and Peace Conference. Mr. Lansing’s book, “The Peace Negotiations,” makes it clear that only Colonel House is qualified to write the inside story of Woodrow Wilson and the world peace. But we do have Mr. Lansing’s contribution, Mr. Baruch’s “The Economic Sections of the Peace Treaty,” and Mr. Ray Stannard Baker’s three volumes, “Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement,” which are indictments of the treaty. Mr. Lansing was the first of the signers of the Treaty of Versailles to realize that the consequences of the blunders at Paris were too disastrous in human suffering to permit the covering up of mistakes and the glossing over of weaknesses. He told a story that was, in every important particular, what press correspondents saw themselves or were told at the time by creditable witnesses. Mr. Lansing agreed with his predecessors in the State Department, Mr. Root and Mr. Knox, concerning the weaknesses and dangers of the Covenant and its incompatibility with American interests and ideals. He gave the text of the letter sent by General Bliss to President Wilson on April 29, appealing that the great moral principles for which the United States fought be not abandoned. Wrote General Bliss: