Second meeting between the Irish-American
delegation and President Wilson in Paris.
Introduction from Chronology
President Wilson tells Walsh and his colleagues that the Committee of
Four [US, Britain, France and Italy] had agreed that no small nation should be
allowed to appear before the Conference without the unanimous consent of the
whole committee.
More Detail
When Walsh challenged Wilson as to why his principle of
self-determination was not being applied to Ireland, Wilson replied “You have
touched on the great metaphysical tragedy of today. My words have roused hopes
in the hearts of millions of people … When I give utterance to those words I said them without the knowledge that nationalities
existed who are coming to us today”.
Mitchell comments “Yet both as a professor and later a politician Wilson
must often have heard of the Irish claim to nationhood”.
Wilson tells the delegation that he could not raise the question of
Ireland officially but promised to bring it up unofficially. (It would appear
that this was not done.) It would also
seem that before this meeting, Wilson’s first impulse was to tell the
delegation “to go to hell”.
Shortly after the meeting, in a note from American Secretary of State
Lansing, the delegation is officially told that the Irish case will not be
considered at the conference as it is considered an internal UK affair.
Figgis says in his Recollections “So ended in failure all the careful plans
that had been made during two years. So
fell the brave structure of hope …”
(Figgis says that de Valera did not leave for the United States until
after Lansing Note. However, Coogan says that he left on June 1st – see
Jun-01-19/1. Townshend and McMahon
say that he arrived in the States on June 11th. Hopkinson says both June 11th and
June 22nd.)