763.72/1758¾
President Wilson to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: I was as sorry as you can have been to withdraw the “statement” which we had intended for the press.61 It cost me a struggle to do so. But the intimation was plain from the German Embassy (and I cannot doubt the source of my information) that we were not in earnest, would speak only in a Pickwickian sense if we seemed to speak with firmness, and I did not dare lend colour to that impression. You will notice that hope of a pacific settlement was expressed. That, in the circumstances, was as far as I dared to go.
Faithfully Yours,