It is a decided defect in an executive.

He would not make a good head of a governmental department.

The result is, so far as our Commission is concerned, a state of confusion and uncertainty with a definite loss and delay through effort being undirected." On several occasions I spoke to the President about a programme for the work of the Commission and its corps of experts, but he seemed indisposed to consider the subject and gave the impression that he intended to call on the experts for his own information which would be all that was necessary.

I knew that Colonel House, through Dr.Mezes, the head of the organization, was directing the preparation of certain data, but whether he was doing so under the President's directions I did not know, though I presumed such was the case.

Whatever data were furnished did not, however, pass through the hands of the other Commissioners who met every morning in my office to exchange information and discuss matters pertaining to the negotiations and to direct the routine work of the Commission.
It is difficult, even with the entire record of the proceedings at Paris before one, to find a satisfactory explanation for the President's objection to having a definite programme other than the general declarations contained in the Fourteen Points and his "subsequent addresses." It may be that he was unwilling to bind himself to a fixed programme, since it would restrict him, to an extent, in his freedom of action and prevent him from assuming any position which seemed to him expedient at the time when a question arose during the negotiations.