Woodrow Wilson Papers: Telegram
President Wilson to the Special Representative ( House )
16. I am issuing the following announcement:
[“]The President expects to sail for France immediately after the opening of the regular session of the Congress, for the purpose of taking part in the discussion and settlement of the main features of the treaty of peace. It is not likely that it will be possible for him to remain throughout the sessions of the formal peace conference, but his presence at the outset is necessary in order to obviate the manifest disadvantages of discussion by cable in determining the greater outlines of the final treaty, about which he must necessarily be consulted. He will, of course, be accompanied by delegates who will sit as the representatives of the United States throughout the conference. The names of the delegates will be presently announced.”
It would not be wise for me to come as if on another errand. There is only one errand our people would approve. If the French prime minister is uneasy about the presidency of the conference I will be glad to propose that he preside. I urge that the larger delegations be limited to five. Two other messages go to you through the State Department. I approve of your plan to employ experts on the assessment of damage done.13
- See Colonel House’s telegram No. 17, Nov. 17, 1918, to President Wilson, vol. ii, p. 575.↩