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Wilson on the League of Nations
After the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson
had come back to America with the Treaty of Versailles that
would create a League of Nations. The League would
supposedly have the power to prevent all future wars and
make the world a better place. The American public seemed
to be in favor of the treaty and the League, but the treaty was
never ratified and the United States never entered the
League of Nations. "It was the opposition of both liberals
and conservatives, as well as the stubbornness of President
Wilson that led to the Senate defeat of the Treaty of
Versailles."
The "irreconcilables", or isolationists, were an opposing group that had a profound
influence on the treaty's destruction. The irreconcilables were led by a man named
William Borah and consisted of fourteen Republican senators and two Democratic
Senators. The irreconcilables would see to it that the treaty would never take form
because it would commit America to the rest of the world, and with that, bring about
foreign entanglements. The irreconcilables also argued that the treaty would put the
issues that dealt with America in the hands of other countries and that the basis of the
League was mistaken in the idea of using "war to prevent war". Irreconcilables voted
against the treaty no matter what, their influence is a source of significant opposition,
especially since in the third vote for the treaty, the two thirds majority fell short by
seven votes. The irreconcilables were backed by German Americans who thought the
treaty was too harsh on Germany, by Italian Americans who disliked Wilson for not
letting Italy seize German lands, by Irish Americans who were unhappy that the treaty
did not provide for Irish independence, and by Progressives who were unhappy with
the terms of the treaty as well.
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Another group that had a major effect on the defeat of the treaty was the
reservationists. The reservationists led by Henry Cabot Lodge opposed the treaty as it
was, but would agree with the concept of the League if there were amendments
attached to the treaty. This opposition grew from partisanship, an example of which
would be in one of the attempts to ratify the treaty where only one Republican voted for
the treaty without reservations. Henry Cabot Lodge had done everything in his power
to build up opposition to the Treaty of Versailles by delaying its passage. Lodge's main
amendment to the treaty would remove any moral obligation of the United States to
Article X, which struck at the heart of Wilson's treaty.[ Article X called for nations to
provide assistance in the event that a member of the League experienced external
aggression.] The Republican politics involved with this opposition had played a large
role in the growth of the treaty's resistance as well as Wilson's stubbornness. Lodge
even tried to reason with Democrats, but because Borah threatened to remove him as
majority leader, Lodge broke off his negotiations.
The fact that Wilson was so incredibly stubborn and unable to compromise was as
much the reason for the fatality of the treaty as any. Lodge’s amendment on the article
was something that the Democrats in the senate were willing to compromise for, yet
Wilson was not. Wilson thought that if anyone should "impair" Article X of the treaty
that it would betray the purpose of why America was in the war. Wilson was under the
pretense that the Senate would accept a League without reservations rather than the
absence of the League. Herbert Hoover even warned Wilson about the urgency of
finding a common ground for the treaty, otherwise the popular support for the treaty
would diminish and the treaty would never be ratified. Wilson's stubbornness led him
into a tour of the country where he would give speeches, but the result of this tour was
that Wilson had become sick and even more disagreeable to compromise. Wilson's
inflexibility caused many of the important Democratic newspaper to be in favor of
Lodge's position. In the final vote for the treaty, Wilson appealed to his party to shoot
down the treaty with the reservations in it, because of his request twenty-three
Democrats voted against the treaty with the irreconcilables and the treaty failed. This
being the immediate cause of the treaty's failure shows that Wilson was too obstinate to
accept compromise.
Ultimately, opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson were the reasons the
Treaty was never passed in the United States. The irreconcilables were the main
adversaries of the treaty, and the reservationists and Wilson were battling each other
about the treaty and its forms. The defeat of the treaty displayed the United States’
affinity toward isolationism.
Sources:
Brinkley, Alan. "American History: A Survey." ed. 11