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TRUCKS, TUBES, AND MAIL ROBBERS 301
partment, but one detail in which I played a role was that of setting the date for the opening of the conferences. As President Harding and I were discussing the matter, it struck me that coincidence had blessed us with an occasion made to order. What could be more appropriate than to open a disarmament conference on Armistice Day, November n, 1 92 1? It was in the evening of that same day that the foreign delegates and official hosts from the United States gathered at Arlington Memorial Cemetery for the burial services of the Unknown Soldier.
Before leaving the city of Washington for the memorial ceremonies, the delegates attended a state dinner held to celebrate the opening of the Peace Conference. Each Cabinet member acted as official host to certain delegates. On my right sat the ranking Italian, chairman of his delegation, General Diaz, who during the war had been the top general in Italy's army. On my left was Admiral Tsai, who headed his delegation from China. Also seated nearby were Senator Pearce from Australia and Lord Lee from Great Britain. An interpreter who sat across from us may have seemed a superfluous fixture until I attempted to talk with General Diaz. I spoke no French or Italian; he, no English. The experience of realizing that I could not converse with him was one of the most mortifying things that has ever happened to me, making me realize more than ever the necessity for knowing more than one language.
Lord Lee, who had an American wife, took great interest in our airmail development. My friend George Harvey, then Ambassador to Great Britain, had suggested separately to each of us that we get together at this conference, but that we should meet the first evening was a coincidence. Lord Lee later sent one of the British delegation, then in charge of air mail in that country, to talk with me. He was eager to know about our progress and explained regretfully that Britain could not do the same in developing air mail. The distances on the Isles were not great enough to make air mail a practical thing, and Britain was particularly sorry, because planes used by any government in commerce were not subject to restriction in type or quantity under international disarmament agreements.
I was delighted to find that Admiral Tsai spoke beautiful English. A Cornell graduate, he had been in charge of Chinese naval operations in World War I. Before the evening was over we were getting on so well together that he was calling me "Will." Among our topics of discussion was the movie industry. Admiral Tsai told me that he looked to the movies as the medium which could lift 400,000,000 honest people out of their lethargy. Not long after I resigned from the Post Office Department to assume my new duties as head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, I learned that Admiral Tsai had taken a position on some movie board in China. I have not seen him now for many years, but I used to hear about him frequently through Louis