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should be sharply and clearly cut. Misunderstanding was not a good foundation for a treaty to promote universal peace. A draft constituting a League of Nations was before the Senate for criticism and discussion; such criticism and such discussion, he said, should be placed before the eyes of the Peace Conference, and should be published in Paris so that foreign Governments might be informed of the state of public feeling here.

Senator Lodge criticised the vagueness of phraseology of the League covenant; its crudeness and looseness, its lack of verbal precision, conforming neither to the language of law nor to that of statutes. The meaning of the article relating to mandatory rule, for instance, was dubious; it contained both argument and a statement of existing conditions; all statutes or treaties must assert and command. And since the League was clearly intended to be indissoluble, and later abrogation would be impossible, the meaning of the whole charter must be absolutely clear before we sign and ratify it.

In passing upon this proposition, said Senator Lodge, the most careful consideration was necessary, for both the principles laid down by George Washington in his Farewell Address and the Monroe Doctrine were abandoned. Washington was opposed to any permanent alliance with any European power, and had said:

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

MONROE DOCTRINE IN PERIL This proposed draft of a League of Nations, said Mr. Lodge, would mean a permanent alliance with Europe. If we took so momentous a step and abandoned Washington's principles now, we should do so reverently, and with respect. Senator Lodge continued:

But if we put aside forever the Wash

ington policy in regard to our foreign relations, we must always remember that it carries with it the corollary known as the Monroe Doctrine. Under the terms of this League draft reported by the committee to the Peace Conference the Monroe Doctrine disappears. It has been our cherished guide and guard for nearly a century. The Monroe Doctrine is based on the principle of self-preservation.

It involves but one essential propositionthat the Americas should be separated from the interference of Europe and that American questions in all parts of this hemisphere should be settled by Americans alone.

I have seen it said that the Monroe Doctrine is preserved under Article X.; that we do not abandon the Monroe Doctrine, we merely extend it to all the world. How any one can say this passses my comprehension. The Monroe Doctrine exists solely for the protection of the American Hemisphere, and to that hemisphere it was limited.

If you extend it

to all the world it ceases to exist, because it rests on nothing but the differentiation of the American Hemisphere from the rest of the world. Under this draft of the statutes of the League of Nations American questions and European questions and Asian and African questions are all alike put within the control and jurisdiction of the League. Europe will have the right to take part in the settlement of all American questions, and we, of course, shall have the right to take part in the settlement of all questions in Europe and Asia and Africa. Europe and Asia are to take part in policing the American Continent and the Panama Canal, and in return we are to have, by way of compensation, the right to police the Balkans and Asia Minor when we are asked to do so.

CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS

If it is said that you can preserve the Monroe Doctrine by extending it, which appears to me clearly to mean its destruction and to be a contradiction in terms, then let us put three lines into the draft for the League which will preserve the Monroe Doctrine beyond any possibility of doubt or question. It is easily done. Let us also have, if we enter the League, a complete exclusion from the League's jurisdiction of such questions as are involved in immigration and the right of each country to say who shall come within its borders and become citizens. This and certain other questions vital to national existence ought to be exempted from any control by the League or its officials by a very few words, such as can be found in the arbitration treaties of 1907. There should be some definite provision for

peaceful withdrawal from the League of any nation desiring to withdraw.

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Lastly, let us have a definite statement in the constitution of the League as to whether the League is to have an international force of its own or is to have the power to summon the armed forces of the different members of the League. Let it be stated in plain language whether the measures," the recommendations," or the suggestions of the Executive Council are to be binding upon the members of the League and are to compel them to do what the League delegates and the Executive Council determine to be necessary. On the question of the use of force we should not proceed in the dark. If those who support the League decline to make such simple statements as these, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that they are seeking to do by indirection and the use of nebulous phrases what they are not willing to do directly, and nothing could be more fatal to the preservation of the world's peace than this, for every exercise of power by the Executive Council which the signatories to the League might fairly consider to be doubtful would lead to very perilous controversies and to menacing dissensions.

We now in this draft bind ourselves to submit every possible international dispute or difference either to the League court or to the control of the Executive Council of the League. That includes immigration, a very live question. Are we ready to give to other nations the power to say who shall come into the United States and become citizens of the Republic? If we are ready to do this, we are prepared to part with the most precious of sovereign rights, that which guards our existence and our character nation. Are we ready to leave it to other nations to determine whether we shall admit to the United States a flood of Japanese, Chinese, and Hindu labor? If we accept this plan for a League, this is precisely what we promise to do. Are we prepared to have a League of Nations, in which the United States has only one vote, open our doors if they see fit to any and all immigration from all parts of the world?

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Unless some better constitution for a League than this can be drawn it seems to me that the world's peace would be much better, much more surely promoted, by allowing the United States to go on under the Monroe Doctrine, responsible for the peace of this hemisphere, without any danger of collision with Europe as to questions among the various American States.

Among the constructive propositions offered by Senator Lodge were these: (1) To put in three lines to preserve

irrevocably the Monroe Doctrine; (2) exclude immigration and other problems affecting our national existence by a few words; (3) allow the possibility of a peaceful withdrawal from membership in the League; (4) clarify the question of whether the League is to have an international force of its own, or whether it shall have the right to summon the forces of the signatory nations; and whether those signatories shall be compelled to observe its mandates. If the United States enters this League, concluded Senator Lodge, for the benefit of the world at large, we shall be altruists, and we have a right to know exactly on what we are embarking. The whole question is one fraught with enormous difficulties. We should first make peace with Germany, said the Senator, and take care of the immediate problems; we should bring our soldiers home, and defer the constitution of this League for later and more careful consideration.

SENATOR KNOX'S SPEECH

At the session of March 1, Senator Philander C. Knox, Republican, of Pennsylvania, ex-Secretary of State and now a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, in a speech lasting more than two hours, spoke in favor of a modified League that would save our sovereignty. Senator Knox criticised the proposed constitution of the League of Nations, first for 66 looseness of expression,"

which, he said, characterized it throughout, and then because it appeared to set up two operating entities for its enforcement, the "high contracting parties" and the League itself. He warned especially against leaving the Central Powers out of the League, saying the inevitable result would be "to drive them more closely together for mutual self-protection, thus making the formation of a "second League of Nations bidding for "adherence from neutral States almost a certainty."

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Senator Knox continued:

Thus at no distant date we should have two great Leagues of Nations and two great camps, each preparing for a new and greater life-and-death struggle. Even the term League of Nations is a decep

tive misnomer, for under this proposed plan the nations of the world are divided into three classes:

First-Signatories of the covenant; these are not named, but it is assumed they will include and possibly be confined to the five great Entente Powers, that is to say, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

Second-States not signatory but named in the protocol. No information is given as to who these States are, though surely they will include such Entente Powers, if any, as are not signatories, as well as certain other States neutral in the conflict now closing.

Third-Those States which are neither signatories nor protocol States and which must, to be admitted to the League, be prepared to give certain effective guarantees as to their intention to be bound by their international obligations. These latter are outcast States, and presumably include the Central Powers and their allies in the war.

Thus a League of Nations in the sense of all the nations is not created by this document, nor are the States members of the League treated as equals.

DIFFICULTY OF WITHDRAWAL

The term league is a misnomer in another and really vital matter. For a league connotes a confederation, and a confederation implies a right in the several parties to withdraw at their will. But there is no right of secession within the four corners of this covenant. On the other hand, the association here provided for is a union in the full sense of that term, as applied to our own political institutions. Once in this union we remain there, no matter how onerous its gigantic burdens may become.

No matter how great the distaste and revulsion our people may have for it, we must remain members until either we persuade all the States represented in the Executive Council and three-fourths of those represented in the body of delegates to bid us depart in peace, or until the League crumbles of its own weight or is destroyed by its enemies, or until we fight our way out against the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, and all the lesser States they are able to persuade to join the League.

Senator Knox took up the six operative bodies of the League and criticised them one by one. As to the body of delegates, Senator Knox's chief criticism was that the constitution contained no provisions for their appointment, removal, compensation, or tenure.

Senator Knox objected to the formation of the Executive Council because it would be composed of only nine of half

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Mr. Knox ended by urging that the League of Nations be postponed for later consideration, not alone by the victorious belligerents, but by all the nations. "Let us see to it,' he said, "that this 66 'League which is to usher in a reign of righteousness upon the earth shall com"prise all peoples that dwell upon it, including our regenerated, democratized enemy. Meanwhile, our co-belligerents "need have no anxiety, for so surely as "the sun rises, if the Hun flood again "threatened to engulf the world, we "should again be found fighting for the

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right with the same complete accord "and co-operation as in the past, all for "the defense of civilization."

SENATOR SHERMAN'S ATTACK The League of Nations project, as well as President Wilson, its sponsor, were violently assailed on March 3 by Senator L. Y. Sherman, Republican, of Illinois. Senator Sherman's most sensational outburst was in the form of an extemporaneous interpolation into his prepared address, bitterly assailing the attitude of President Wilson in connection with the League plan, and charging that the President was making an issue of universal peace for campaign purposes in 1920. Charging that the League was not what the President would have it seem, Mr. Sherman said:

This League sends the angel of death to every American home. Will the American people approve the proposal? On this I challenge the President and the Administration before the American people. I call upon the President to consent to a repeal of the Espionage act, so that the restrictions may be lifted from free speech and a free press and full discussion given the details of this scheme. If the President is not a political and Governmental coward he will comply with this demand.

Charging further that the President had usurped power to force upon the American people a League which conflicted with the Constitution and abandoned their rights, Senator Sherman continued:

The creation of a nameless thing to sit in star-chamber judgment and decree implicit obedience to its mandates cannot be borne by free men. By a ukase it will embargo our commerce, close our Exchanges, destroy credits, leave our merchandise rotting on the piers, shut the Isthmian Canal, order Congress to declare war, levy taxes, appropriate money, raise and support armies and navies, and dispatch our men to any quarter of the globe to fight and die because an alien Executive Council has willed it. The Executive Council is the brains of this unhallowed creation. What it decides in the mysterious depths of the silent unrevealed caverns of European intrigue will dominate the body of delegates.

MR. LODGE'S RESOLUTION

The culmination of the whole Senatorial discussion came in the form of a resolution circulated through the Senate by Mr. Lodge embodying the proposal to reject the League of Nations constitution as now drafted. After the customary preliminary clauses this resolution read as follows:

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate of the United States in the discharge of its constitutional duty of advice in regard to treaties, that it is the sense of the Senate that, while it is the sincere desire that the nations of the world should unite to promote peace and general disarmament, the constitution of the League of Nations in the form now proposed to the Peace Conference should not be accepted by the United States.

A further clause demanded that the consideration of the League of Nations should be deferred until the completion of "the urgent business of negotiating peace terms with Germany," and that this negotiation be expedited. On objection by Senator Martin (Dem.) the resolution was not received, but Senator Lodge succeeded in reading the names of thirty-nine Republican members of the next Senate who had approved it—more than one-third of the body which must ratify any treaty by a two-thirds vote before it becomes effective. The thirtynine Republican Senators who will be

members of the new Senate and who signed the resolution are:

Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts.
Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania.
Lawrence Y. Sherman of Illinois.
Harry S. New of Indiana.

George H. Moses of New Hampshire.
James W. Wadsworth, Jr., of New York.
Bert M. Fernald of Maine.
Albert B. Cummins of Iowa.
Francis E. Warren of Wyoming.
James E. Watson of Indiana.
Thomas Sterling of South Dakota.
Joseph Frelinghuysen of New Jersey.
Warren G. Harding of Ohio.
Frederick Hale of Maine.
William E. Borah of Idaho.

Frank B. Brandegee of Connecticut.
William M. Calder of New York.
Walter E. Edge of New Jersey.
Henry W. Keyes of New Hampshire.
Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania.
Carroll S. Page of Vermont.

George P. McLean of Connecticut.

Joseph I. France of Maryland.

Medill McCormick of Illinois.
Charles Curtis of Kansas.
Lawrence Phipps of Colorado.
Selden P. Spencer of Missouri.
Charles F. Townsend of Michigan.
Hiram W. Johnson of California.
William P. Dillingham of Vermont.
Irving L. Lenroot of Wisconsin.
Miles Poindexter of Washington.
Howard Sutherland of West Virginia.
Truman H. Newberry of Michigan.
L. Heisler Ball of Delaware.
Reed Smoot of Utah.

Asle J. Gronna of North Dakota.
Albert B. Fall of New Mexico.
Davis Elkins of West Virginia.

The last two names were added subsequently to the announcement of the original thirty

seven.

Such was the status of the League of Nations project when President Wilson departed on March 4 to deliver his New York address and to sail on his second journey to Paris.

REACTION IN EUROPE

The serious nature of the attack which the League of Nations encountered in the United States caused a striking change in the attitude of the French press and of the European delegates in Paris. France had at first been very critical of the project. Paris newspapers such as Le Figaro and l'Echo de Paris had attacked it, comparing it to the ill-fated Holy Alliance, and even Le Temps had handled it in a critical spirit, regarding it as an inade

quate protection against future German aggression. The moment it became apparent, however, that President Wilson's program was in danger of being defeated at home these newspapers changed their tone almost over night and rallied to his support. Their altered attitude was understood to reflect that of the French Government as expressed by Leon Bourgeois when he admitted in an interview that France would rather have a League of Nations such as the one proposed than no League at all.

A similar change was noted in the Peace Conference itself. Delegates who had been saying that the covenant was a mere scrap of paper because it did not contain a binding provision for the use of force, and who had been working for British and American concessions in that direction, now began to fear the failure of the whole project and became advocates of the covenant as it stood. Only Germany denounced it, regarding proposed League as unjust to the German people. Premier Orlando cabled Italy's unqualified support. The attitude of England was summed up by Mr. Balfour in these words to a correspondent:

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One of the most important things to be decided, though not by us, is the share our brothers across the Atlantic are going to take in these new responsibilities. It would be an impertinence on our part to offer them advice, and I should not like to seem to be doing so. But I may say that an immense responsibility rests on the American people. They have come into the war. Their action has had a profound importance. Their service to mankind in this crisis will make a great page in their history. But that service is only half accomplished if they do not take a share in the even more responsible labors of peace.

Speaking as I have a right to speak for my Government, I would add that what is going on in America at this moment is at least as important for the success of our labors as what is going on in Paris. The New World ought to play at least as important a part in the future international organization as in the past the old countries of Europe have taken in the Middle East.

The final effect of the assault upon the League and of the increasing signs of demoralization in Central Eu

rope due to food conditions and long-continued suspense was to speed up the peace preliminaries. Premiers Lloyd George and Clemenceau gave every evidence of an intention to have the peace treaty ready for President Wilson's examination by the time he returned to Paris, and there were indications that discussion of the League of Nations would not be permitted to delay the final peace pourparlers a day.

HOW ALLIES WERE CONVERTED

The process by which the Allies, and especially France, had been won to the League idea was described as follows by Charles H. Grasty, the Paris and London correspondent of The New York Times:

It must be remembered that when Mr. Wilson arrived in Europe on Dec. 13, practically everybody-that is to say, European officialdom and the conservative element in the allied countries-was opposed to the League of Nations idea. Everybody had his tongue in his cheek. They regarded Wilson as a great man in many ways, and America as, of course, the strongest country, and financially and economically, if not militarily, necessary to the Allies. Therefore it was good policy on the part of the allied nations to receive the American President respectfully. But aside from a few individuals, such as General Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil, the ruling classes were extremely cold to the Wilsonian doctrine.

Wilson addressed himself to the task of lining up the European Governments with patience, energy and tact. He didn't try to coerce anybody, and he listened to opposing opinion with an openness of mind that was a most pleasant surprise to European politicians. The identity of interest and tradition existing between England and America enabled Mr. Wilson to reach an agreement with the Lloyd George Government quickly. In Paris the matter was more difficult. France as a nation welcomed Wilson as a deliverer. That is, the people themselves looked upon him in that way, and welcomed him for that reason. Clemenceau was gradually won over by the Wilson diplomacy and the manifest interest of his country.

It must never be overlooked that security for France is the bullseye problem in the whole after-war situation. How to protect 40,000,000 people from 80,000,000 is a problem that is comparable to protecting a rabbit from a bulldog. France is the loveliest country in the world, and the French are a people we all esteem and have a real affection for. But the German people have brute strength and all

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