A.P.’s conservatism might well have cost it the chance to seize South America. But United Press, unhampered by cartel obligations, started operations there. That shook A.P.’s complacency. Cooper insisted that the cartel give A.P. full freedom to operate in South America. Stone said: “Go ahead and advocate as much liberty as possible, but don’t do anything to bring a break between the A.P. and our European news agency allies.” There was, however, no serious resistance. Reuters told Havas to agree or else. Havas yielded. Redividing the World World War I was fought for the redivision of the world among the existing imperialist powers. Germany lost her colonies and the German Republic was reduced to the role of a vassal state serving the American-Anglo-French victors. This situation was duly reflected within the news cartel where Wolff lost territory and was permitted to serve only Germany itself. A.P. scrambled clumsily for a share in the spoils. Cooper hurried to Versailles to ask the U.S. treaty delegation to fight for A.P. parity with Reuters and Havas. This was to be expressed in the form of a “free press” clause in the peace treaty. President Wilson’s right-hand man, Colonel House, very sympathetic to the American news monopoly’s desires, agreed to sound out the possibilities. He reported, in a few days, that the question had been “taken care of privately” and he could do nothing. How it was “taken care of,” Cooper reports with great indignation. His account, coming as it does from a member of the gang--a disgruntled member but still one of the boys--is of great authority. It is necessary only to warn that, writing in 1942, he showed no great anti-Nazi fervor and discreetly dodged the ticklish problem of the Soviet Union. He does not mention the great _cordon sanitaire_--the strangling “safety belt”--set up around the new Socialist State after World War I, but is full of pity for Germany. Cooper says he learned that a cartel meeting had been held in which the heads of Havas and Reuters had conferred alone while Dr. Heinrich Mantler, head of the Wolff Agency, was left to smoulder in an anteroom. When Reuters-Havas had decided the redivision of the globe, Mantler was called in and told the bad news. Reuters and Havas, matching the political terms of the Versailles Treaty, built their own news agency _cordon sanitaire_ around Germany. All the political states bordering on Germany were allowed to have only news agencies owned or controlled by either Reuters or Havas or both. In other words, the position of the news agencies in those border countries was harmonious with the determination of England and France to keep Germany hemmed in by little nations mostly pro-Ally, such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.