Before the war, as Prof. John Bassett Moore, whose knowledge of the records is unequaled, said to me, the State Department had no secrets whatsoever, with the exception of personnel reports. We, too, however, can depart from a well-established tradition, as is shown by our diplomatic history during the war. I do not believe it will ever be charged that in any matter big or little the American Government sought narrow, selfish advantages. Secrecy due to such motives, there was none. There was no American policy or enterprise that needed concealment, apart from military policies and strategy during a war. When I glanced over at the end of my mission in Peking the extra-confidential cable correspondence, I was inwardly amazed by the entire lack of anything that really needed concealing, in that closely guarded dossier. Yet American diplomacy did during the war fall somewhat under the spell of the traditional methods still in vogue in Europe. We were not a party to any secret engagements for the division of spoils after the war, although from the time of the peace conference on, the influence of the American Government was exercised mostly in secret, and the agreements subsidiary to the general settlement were secretly signed. These did not contain any apportionment of advantage to the United States, but on the contrary were supposed to contain the nearest approach to the equitable ideas of American policy which was, under existing conditions, obtainable. But throughout this trying period the conduct of American diplomacy did not rest on the foundation of a continuous, frank appeal to the public opinion of our own nation or of the world. Even before the armistice some very important matters were dealt with in this fashion. Though the permanent importance of the Lansing-Ishii note as affecting in a concrete and specific way the definition of rights and policies in the Far East is very doubtful, yet in its immediate effect under all of the circumstances of the time, this was certainly a noteworthy document to issue from the American foreign office. Yet, its conception and execution was absolutely surrounded with secrecy so that not even the high officials normally consulted in such matters, with the exception of the Secretary of State himself, were informed as to what was coming. This secrecy worked entirely in the interest of the Japanese government. By privately giving out the agreement in Japan and in China before the date when its publication had been agreed upon, the Japanese government succeeded to a certain extent and for a time, in giving this matter the appearance of a great Japanese diplomatic victory and of a highly important concession on the part of the United States.