Office of the Historian

763.72/4031½

President Wilson to the Secretary of State

Washington, 19 April, 1917 .

My Dear Mr. Secretary: I have been thinking a great deal about the personnel of the Russian Commission. I hope that in your conference with him to-day you will find Mr. Root a real friend of the revolution. If you do, the Commission that has framed itself in my mind would be as follows:

  • Elihu Root, New York,
  • John R. Mott, New York,
  • Charles R. Crane,
  • Cyrus H. McCormick, Chicago,
  • Eugene Meyer, jr., New York,
  • S. R. Bertron, New York,
  • John F. Stevens, New York,
and a representative of Labour whom I would suggest that we choose in this way: seek the advice of Mr. Gompers as to whom we could send whom the Socialists over there would not regard as an active opponent of Socialism. Gompers himself and the leaders immediately associated with him are known to be pronounced opponents of Socialism and would hardly be influential in the present ruling circles of labour at Petrograd. And yet we shall have to be careful, if we are to send a real representative of American Labour, not to send a Socialist.

Faithfully Yours,

W. W.

If you see no objections to this list, from an international or from a Russian point of view, I will be glad to write to these gentlemen and ask them to serve.

W. W.