Such important and practical subjects as reparations, financial arrangements, the use and control of waterways, and other questions of a like nature, are not even mentioned.

As a general statement of the bases of peace the Fourteen Points and subsequent declarations probably served a useful purpose, though some critics would deny it, but as a working programme for the negotiation of a treaty they were inadequate, if not wholly useless.
Believing in the autumn of 1918 that the end of the war was approaching and assuming that the American plenipotentiaries to the Peace Conference would have to be furnished with detailed written instructions as to the terms of the treaty to be signed, I prepared on September 21, 1918, a memorandum of my views as to the territorial settlements which would form, not instructions, but a guide in the drafting of instructions for the American Commissioners.

At the time I had no intimation that the President purposed to be present in person at the peace table and had not even thought of such a possibility.

The memorandum, which follows, was written with the sole purpose of being ready to draft definite instructions which could be submitted to the President when the time came to prepare for the negotiation of the peace.

The memorandum follows: "The present Russian situation, which is unspeakably horrible and which seems beyond present hope of betterment, presents new problems to be solved at the peace table.
"The Pan-Germans now have in shattered and impotent Russia the opportunity to develop an alternative or supplemental scheme to their 'Mittel-Europa' project.