There can be no successful diplomatic or even business negotiation without a decent amount of secrecy. The cheap newspapers dislike this precaution. They pretend to see no need for secret diplomacy; they insist that all negotiations between nations should be public. They are not prone to understand pride or delicacy in any quarter, and would like to see made public the private transactions not only of nations but of individuals, so that they might thus satisfy the cheap curiosity of their readers; for this reason they are opposed to the law of libel and to every protection to human privacy. They tell us in their flippant and cock-sure way that diplomacy and secrecy are not necessary parts of the policy or of the procedure of a free nation; that all treaty negotiations should be open; and they are fond of denouncing with a great show of moral indignation the secret diplomacy of the so-called autocracies of the world. But common sense teaches us that as long as national pride continues, and treaties are to be made and war and peace decided upon by governments, that is to say, as long as opposing and warlike nations exist, secrecy will be necessary in the discussion of treaties and in all important international negotiations; and that the government which neglects to use the precaution and to give the guaranty of secrecy will be sometimes left in the lurch. We hear a lot about a League of Nations in these days. The greatest and most successful league of sovereign powers ever established was this Union of States by and under a Constitution which was forged and created at Philadelphia in 1787 by some forty educated and propertied gentlemen working in absolute secrecy. Neither the newspapers nor the populace was allowed to be present or to be represented at their deliberations, nor to know what was going on, nor to read or otherwise learn of their debates or processes, therefore the delegates were able to work untrammelled and to produce good results. Absolute secrecy in its construction made our American Constitution possible.