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On Sept. 7, 1916 Congress authorized President Wilson to retaliate against the Allies. The President promptly asked his Secretary of Commerce, William C. Redfield, to report on the most practicable procedure. Secretary Redfield reported about a fortnight before the 1916 election: Interference with its Allied trade would mean economic ruin for the U. S. The plan was dropped.
Falsifier. When Senator Clark had dismissed his ghostly witnesses, Chairman Nye spoke up with a historical point of his own. The Committee had learned from "the highest possible sources," said he, that immediately after the U. S. entered the War, President Wilson and Secretary Lansing were informed by Arthur J. Balfour, Sir Edward Grey's successor as Foreign Secretary, of the secret treaties in which the Allies had agreed to divide up conquered territories after winning the War. Later the President and Secretary of State had declared that they knew nothing about these treaties until they arrived at the Peace Conference. Senator Nye's shocking conclusion: "The President and Secretary Lansing falsified concerning this matter. . . ."
Apparently startled, Senator Clark muttered that he was "not familiar'' with the matter. In a moment he recovered himself, rallied to his colleague's support. Quickly he rattled off passages from Mr. Balfour's memoirs, from Colonel House's diary, from a letter written by Britain's Wartime Prime Minister David Lloyd George—all indicating that on his visit to the U. S. in the spring of 1917 Secretary Balfour had told President Wilson and Secretary Lansing all about the secret treaties. Furthermore, declared Senator Clark, Secretary Balfour had left with the State Department "a comprehensive memorandum" concerning the treaties. Then the Missouri Senator drew out the record of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Aug. 19, 1919, once more let the Wartime leaders speak their parts:
Senator Borah: When did the secret treaties . . . first come to your knowledge? Was that after you had reached Paris?
President Wilson: Yes, the whole series of understandings were disclosed to me for the first time then.
Senator Borah: Then we had no knowledge of these secret treaties, so far as our Government was concerned, until you reached Paris?
President Wilson: Not unless there was information in the State Department of which I knew nothing.
Senator Johnson, to Secretary Lansing: Did either of these gentlemen [Balfour and Viviani] while here communicate to you any secret treaties that had been executed for the disposition of territory after the war?
Secretary Lansing: Neither of them.