The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-08-28
MARK SULLIVAN
DESCRIBES PEACE
MEET TO CROWD
Europe Put Over" Diplom-
acy on Newspapermen and
Delegates, He Says.

The complete cooperation of the
American delegates with the Ameri.
can newspapermen, and the newspaper
men among themselves, in attempting
to get the fairest. straighest, and full
est reports of the Peace Conference
back to the people in the United
States. and their difficulties, formed
the basis of an interesting narrative
by Mark Sullivan, former editor of
Golfers Weekly and representative of
that paper at the Peace Conference,
In the chautauqua tent Wednesday
evening.
Sulhvan's talk was that Of a news
paper man. He did not endeavor to
force his own ideas regarding the
League of Nations upon his audience,
but gave an immensely interest
ing manner the happenings at the con-
ference. the schemes the camouhaged
steps charactizations and descriptions
OF some Of those who attended.
The first serious mistake at the
conference was the losing of the first
OF Wilson's fourteen points, prohibit
ing closed sessions" he said. 1.-THE
American delegates gave into this
mainly because they did not wish to
raise row the first thing" Sullivan
said.
THE first day 1t was announced
that all final decisions would be given
out to the world: that whenever the
majority triumphed the minority would
accept it and support It as II 1t had
been their individual judgments. The
American delegates accepted this and
the American newspaper men heard
1t with comparatively little suspicion,
because 1t did not look suspicious
then"
However. at the end Of the second
day when the conference was over
they announced that 1t had been de-
cided that newspapers would only be
allowed to use the decisions of the
conference as they were printed in
the daily communicates. and that the
members Of the conference would not
give out their individual judgments.
Newspapermen Chasrined.
You can realize that the American
delegates were very much chagrined
1t had been the expectation OF every
American newspaper man who went
over that the conference was to be
absolutely open and free. We met the
American delegates after this decision
against open sessions and found that
u AStiO hiShAhS oil Jul pdll NOulu uOL
be undesirable to them. They could
not do it but we could We got to-
gether therefore, and started a VERT
able riot.
This gave President Wilson an op-
portunity to reopen the question be-
fore the conference, and just here IS
where the European diplomats proved
themselves too much for the American
newspaper men as we'll as the dele
gates. They looked upon us as a
rather wild lot and treated us as such.
They said our demands should by all
means be considered, and that all the
newspaper men from every country
gathered in Paris should be called to-
gether to vote on the question
'"They certainly put one over for the
newspaper men from practically every
other country were official journalists
and were subsidized to the policies of
their governments.
The conference was held and
to our. utter dismay the men from
practically every other country voted
for closed session and told us that
we did not understand diplomacy;
that 1t would be idiotic to expect an
open conference and that it would