I 1

Woodrow Wilson Wouldn'tYield

THOMAS A. BAILEY

Woodrow Wilson had a honor of violence and war. Why, then, would he lead the

United States into a savage conflict like the Great War? The answer lies in Wilson's

complex and contradictory character. A former college professor and president of Princeton

with a Ph.D. in political economy, Wilson was a conservative Democrat before he won

the presidency. Once in office, however, he became a Progressive reformer who embraced

women's political rights (to be treated in a subsequent selection) and engineered the most

sweeping legislative program since the days of Alexander Hamilton. Despite his spectac-

ular achievements, Wilson was a sensitive, lonely man who wanted "the people to love

me." And yet he felt a powerful need, he said, to guard his emotions "from painful

overflow." Although his intellectual tradition was British (he extolled the British system

of parliamentary government and extolled English conservatives such as Edmund Burke

and William Gladstone), his politics were rooted in his southern heritage. A learned,

eloquent champion of democracy, he nevertheless shared the racial prejudice that prevailed

among white Americans of his generation, and as president he began a policy of discrimi-

nation against African Americans in federal employment.

In many ways, Wilson's foreign policy was even more paradoxical. He abhorred vio-

lence, yet he was inclined to use moralistic, gunboat diplomacy in dealing with Latin

America: he transformed Nicaragua into a veritable United States protectorate, twice sent

American forces into Mexico, and ordered full-scale military occupation of Haiti and the

Dominican Republic. Although Wilson convinced himself that high moral purpose justi-

fied such intervention, it left a legacy of bitterness and distrust in Latin America.

Finally, despite the pacific liberalism he had learned from British intellectuals, Wilson

led the United States into the Great War on a messianic crusade to make that conflict

165

"a war to end all wars. " To achieve that goal, he devised the League of Nations, a kind

of world parliament, which was the sanest blueprint for world peace anyone had yet con-

trived. But Wilson's noble dream ended in a crushing defeat when the United States

Senate rejected the League of Nations and America turned away from the idealism that

had produced it. In this selection, diplomatic historian Thomas A. Bailey deftly describes

how the dash of Wilson and his adversaries, combined with the sentiment of the times,

brought about America's rejection of the League. In the end, Americans were not pre-

pared for the responsibilities of world leadership that Wilson had thrust upon them.

GLOSSARY

BORAH, SENATOR WILLIAM E. Anisolationist Republican from Idaho who vowed tokill Wilson's treaty in the Senate.

CLEMENCEAU, GEORGES The "Frenchrealist" at the Versailles peace conference; like DavidLloyd George and Vittorio Orlando, he was "moreinterested in imperialism" than in Wilsonianidealism.

FOURTEEN POINTS Wilson's blueprint forworld peace and "the noblest expression" of hisidealism; the last and most important point called fora league of nations, a kind of parliament ofhumankind, to resolve conflicts among nations andavoid future wars.

JINGOISM Bellicose patriotism.

JOHNSON, SENATOR HIRAM W. Anisolationist Republican from California who joinedthe Senate opposition to Wilson's treaty.

LLOYD GEORGE, DAVID British delegate tothe Versailles peace conference.

LODGE, SENATOR HENRY CABOTRepublican and Boston Brahmin who "broke theback" of Wilson's treaty by getting a series ofcrippling reservations added to it in the Senate.

MONROE DOCTRINE Promulgated byPresident James Monroe in 1823, it warned that theWestern Hemisphere was closed to colonization byEuropean powers and stated that America wouldstay out of Europe's wars.

ORLANDO, VITTORIO Italian delegate to theVersailles peace conference (Italy had fought on theside of France and Great Britain in the First WorldWar).

TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1919) Formallyended the First World War; only about four of theFourteen Points found their way into the treaty, as"the iron hand of circumstance had forced Wilsonto compromise away many of his points in order tosalvage his fourteenth point, the League of Nations."

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Y I 1 he story of America's rejection of theI League of Nations revolves largely around

_ 1- the personality and character of ThomasWoodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth President ofthe United States. Born in Virginia and reared inYankee-gutted Georgia and the Carolinas, Wilsonearly developed a burning hatred of war and a passion-ate attachment to the Confederate-embraced princi-

ple of self-determination for minority peoples. Fromthe writings of Thomas Jefferson he derived much ofhis democratic idealism and his invincible faith in thejudgment of the masses, if properly informed. Fromhis stiff-backed Scotch Presbyterian forebears, he in-herited a high degree of inflexibility; from his father, adedicated Presbyterian minister, he learned a sternmoral code that would tolerate no compromise withwrong, as denned by Woodrow Wilson.

As a leading academician who had first failed atlaw, he betrayed a contempt for "money-grubbing"

lawyers, many of whom sat in the Senate, and an ar-rogance toward lesser intellects, including those ofthe "pygmy-minded" senators. As a devout Christiankeenly aware of the wickedness of this world, heemerged as a fighting reformer, whether as presidentof Princeton, governor of New Jersey, or Presidentof the United States.

As a war leader, Wilson was superb. Holding aloftthe torch of idealism in one hand and the flamingsword of righteousness in the other, he aroused themasses to a holy crusade. We would fight a war toend wars; we would make the world safe for democ-racy. The phrase was not a mockery then. TheAmerican people, with an amazing display of self-sacrifice, supported the war effort unswervingly.

The noblest expression of Wilson's idealism washis Fourteen Points address to Congress in January,

From T. A. Bailey, "Wilson and the League," American Heritage,June/July 1957, Vol. 8, No. 4. Reprinted by permission of Ameri-can Heritage magazine, a division of Forbes Inc. Copyright ©Forbes, Inc., 1957.

13 WOODROW WILSON WOULDN'T YIELD

1918. It compressed his war aims into punchy,placard-like paragraphs, expressly designed for prop-aganda purposes. It appealed tremendously to op-pressed peoples everywhere by promising such goals'as the end of secret treaties, freedom of the seas, theremoval of economic barriers, a reduction of armsburdens, a fair adjustment of colonial claims, andself-determination for oppressed minorities. InPoland university men would meet on the streets ofWarsaw, clasp hands, and soulfully utter one word,"Wilson." In remote regions of Italy peasants burnedcandles before poster portraits of the mighty newprophet arisen in the West.

The fourteenth and capstone point was a league ofnations, designed to avert future wars. The basic ideawas not original with Wilson; numerous thinkers,including Frenchmen and Britons, had been work-ing on the concept long before he embraced it. EvenHenry Cabot Lodge, the Republican senator fromMassachusetts, had already spoken publicly in favorof a league of nations. But the more he heard aboutthe Wilsonian League of Nations, the more criticalof it he became.

A knowledge of the Wilson-Lodge feud is basicto an understanding of the tragedy that unfolded.Tall, slender, aristocratically bewhiskered, Dr, HenryCabot Lodge (Ph.D., Harvard), had published a num-ber of books and had been known as the scholar inpolitics before the appearance of Dr. Woodrow Wil-son (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins). The Presbyterian profes-sor had gone further in both scholarship and politicsthan the Boston Brahmin, whose mind was once de-scribed as resembling the soil of his native New Eng-land: "naturally barren but highly cultivated." Wilsonand Lodge, two icy men, developed a mutual antipa-thy, which soon turned into freezing hatred.

The German armies, reeling under the blows ofthe Allies, were ready to give in by November,1918. The formal armistice terms stipulated thatGermany was to be guaranteed a peace based on theFourteen Points, with two reservations concerningfreedom of the seas and reparations.

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GRIM REALITIES OF THE GREAT WAR (1914-1918)

Meanwhile the American people had keyed them-selves up to the long-awaited march on Berlin; eagervoices clamored to hang the Kaiser. Thus the suddenend of the shooting left inflamed patriots with asense of frustration and letdown that boded ill forWilson's policies. The red-faced Theodore Roo-sevelt, Lodge's intimate of long standing, cried thatpeace should be dictated by the chatter of machineguns and not the clicking of typewriters.

"Wilson now towered at the dizzy pinnacle of hispopularity and power. He had emerged as the moralarbiter of the world and the hope of all peoples for abetter tomorrow. But regrettably his wartime sure-ness of touch began to desert him, and he made a se-ries of costly fumbles. He was so preoccupied withreordering the world, someone has said, that he re-minded one of the baseball player who knocks theball into the bleachers and then forgets to touchhome plate.

First came his brutally direct appeal for a Demo-cratic Congress in October, 1918. The voterstrooped to the polls the next month and, by a nar-row margin, returned a Republican Congress. "Wil-son had not only goaded his partisan foes to freshoutbursts of fury, but he had unnecessarily staked hisprestige on the outcome — and lost. "When the Al-lied leaders met at the Paris peace table, he was theonly one not entitled to be there, at least on the Eu-ropean basis of a parliamentary majority.

Wilson next announced that he was sailing forFrance, presumably to use his still enormous prestigeto fashion an enduring peace. At this time no Presi-dent had ever gone abroad, and Republicans con-demned the decision as evidence of a dangerousMessiah complex — of a desire, as former PresidentTaft put it, "to hog the whole show."

The naming of the remaining five men to thepeace delegation caused partisans further anguish.Only one, Henry White, was a Republican, and hewas a minor figure at that. The Republicans, nowthe majority party, complained that they had beengood enough to die on the battlefield; they ought to

have at least an equal voice at the peace table. Norwere any United States senators included, eventhough they would have a final whack at the treaty.Wilson did not have much respect for the "bunga-low-minded" senators, and if he took one, the logi-cal choice would be Henry Cabot Lodge. Therewere already enough feuds brewing at Paris withouttaking one along.

Doubtless some of the Big Business Republicanswere out to "get" the President who had been re-sponsible for the hated reformist legislation of1913-14. If he managed to put over the League ofNations, his prestige would soar to new heights. Hemight even arrange — unspeakable thought! — to beelected again and again and again. Much of the parti-san smog that finally suffocated the League wouldhave been cleared away if Wilson had publicly de-clared, as he was urged to do, that in no circum-stances would he run again. But he spurned suchcounsel, partly because he was actually receptive tothe idea of a third term.

The American President, hysterically hailed byEuropean crowds as "Voovro Veelson," came to theParis peace table in January, 1919, to meet withLloyd George of Britain, Clemenceau of France, andOrlando of Italy. To his dismay, he soon discoveredthat they were far more interested in imperialismthan in idealism. When they sought to carve up theterritorial booty without regard for the colonials,contrary to the Fourteen Points, the stern-jawedPresbyterian moralist interposed a ringing veto. Theend result was the mandate system — a compromisebetween idealism and imperialism that turned out tobe more imperialistic than idealistic.

Wilson's overriding concern was the League ofNations. He feared that if he did not get it com-

. pleted and embedded in the treaty, the imperialisticpowers might sidetrack it. Working at an incrediblepace after hours, Wilson headed the commission thatdrafted the League Covenant in ten meetings andsome thirty hours. He then persuaded the confer-ence not only to approve the hastily constructed

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13 WOODROW WILSON WOULDN'T YIELD

Covenant but to incorporate it bodily in the peacetreaty. In support of his adopted brain child he spokeso movingly on one occasion that even the hard-boiled reporters forgot to take notes.

Wilson now had to return hurriedly to the UnitedStates to sign bills and take care of other pressing busi-ness. Shortly after his arrival the mounting Republi-can opposition in the Senate flared up angrily. OnMarch 4, 1919, 39 senators or senators-elect — morethan enough to defeat the treaty — published a roundrobin to the effect that they would not approve theLeague in its existing form. This meant that Wilsonhad to return to Paris, hat in hand, and there weakenhis position by having to seek modifications.

Stung to the quick, he struck back at his senatorialfoes in an indiscreet speech in New York just beforehis departure. He boasted that when he brought thetreaty back from Paris, the League Covenant wouldnot only be tied in but so thoroughly tied in that itcould not be cut out without killing the entire pact.The Senate, he assumed, would not dare to kill thetreaty of peace outright.

At Paris the battle was now joined in deadly earnest.Clemenceau, the French realist, had little use for Wil-son, the-American idealist. "God gave us the ten com-mandments and we broke them," he reportedlysneered. "Wilson gave us the Fourteen Points — weshall see." Clemenceau's most disruptive demand wasfor the German Pvhineland; but Wilson, the cham-pion of self-determination, would never consent tohanding several million Germans over to the tendermercies of the French. After a furious struggle, dur-ing which Wilson "was stricken with influenza,Clemenceau was finally persuaded to yield thePsJiineland and other demands in return for a securitytreaty. Under it, Britain and America agreed to cometo the aid of France in the event of another unpro-voked aggression. The United States Senate short-sightedly pigeonholed the pact, and France was leftwith neither the BJiineland nor security.

Two other deadlocks almost broke up the confer-ence. Italy claimed the Adriatic port of Fiume, an

area inhabited chiefly by Yugoslavs. In his battle forself-determination, Wilson dramatically appealedover the head of the Italian delegation to the Italianpeople, whereupon the delegates went home in ahuff to receive popular endorsement. The final ad-justment was a hollow victory for self-determination.

The politely bowing Japanese now stepped for-ward to press their economic claims to China'sShantung [province], which they had captured fromthe Germans early in the war. But to submit30,000,000 Chinese to the influence of the Japanesewould be another glaring violation of self-determi-nation. The Japanese threatened to bolt the confer-ence, as the Italians had already done, with conse-quent jeopardy to the League. In the end, Wilsonreluctantly consented to a compromise that left theJapanese temporarily in possession of Shantung.

The Treaty of Versailles, as finally signed in June,1919, included only about four of the original Four-teen Points. The Germans, with considerable justifi-cation, gave vent to loud cries of betrayal. But theiron hand of circumstance had forced Wilson tocompromise away many of his points in order to sal-vage his fourteenth point, the League of Nations,which he hoped would iron out the injustices thathad crept into the treaty. He was-like the motherwho throws her younger children to the pursuingwolves in order to save her sturdy first-born son.

Bitter opposition to the completed treaty had al-ready begun to form in America. Tens of thousandsof homesick and disillusioned soldiers were pouringhome, determined to let Europe "stew in its .ownjuice." The wartime idealism, inevitably doomed toslump, was now plunging to alarming depths. Thebeloved Allies had apparently turned out to begreedy imperialists. The war to make the world safefor democracy had obviously fallen dismally short ofthe goal. And at the end of the war to end wars therewere about twenty conflicts of varying intensitybeing waged all over the globe.

The critics increased their clamor. Various foreigngroups, including the Irish-Americans and the

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I

GRIM REALITIES OF THE GREAT WAR (1914-1918)

This contemporary cartoon suggests that President Wilson's cher-

ished hopes for a world League of Nations were as fragile and

ephemeral as a soap bubble. In the end, a weak League of Na-

tions took shape in Europe without the membership of the United

States, whose people and their elected representatives, clinging to

isolationism and suffering from postwar disillusionment, could not

agree to adopt the charter. (Stock Montage, Inc.)

Italian-Americans, were complaining that the inter-ests of the old country had been neglected. Profes-sional liberals, for example the editors of the NewRepublic, were denouncing the treaty as too harsh.The ilhberals, far more numerous, were denouncingit as not harsh enough. The Britain-haters, like thebuzz-saw Senator James Reed of Missouri and theacid-penned [journalist] William R. Hearst, wereproclaiming that England had emerged with undueinfluence. Such ultranationalists as the isolationistSenator William E. Borah of Idaho were insistingthat the flag of no superstate should be hoisted abovethe glorious Stars and Stripes.

When the treaty came back from Paris, with the

league firmly riveted in, Senator Lodge despaired ofstopping it.

"What are you going to do? It's hopeless," hecomplained to Borah. "All the newspapers in mystate are for it." The best that he could hope for wasto add a few reservations. The Republicans had beengiven little opportunity to help write the treaty inParis; they now felt that they were entitled to do alittle rewriting in Washington.

Lodge deliberately adopted the technique ofdelay. As chairman of the powerful Senate Commit-tee on Foreign Relations, he consumed two weeksby reading aloud the entire pact of 264 pages, eventhough it had already been printed. He then heldtime-consuming public hearings, during which per-sons with unpronounceable foreign names aired theirgrievances against the pact.

Lodge finally adopted the strategy of tackingreservations onto the treaty, and he was able toachieve his goal because of the peculiar compositionof the Senate. There were 49 Republicans and 47Democrats. The Republicans consisted of abouttwenty "strong reservationists" like Lodge, abouttwelve "mild reservationists" like future Secretary ofState Kellogg, and about a dozen "irreconcilables."This last group was headed by Senator Borah and theno less isolationist Senator Hiram Johnson of Cali-fornia, a fiery spellbinder.

The Lodge reservations finally broke the back ofthe treaty. They were all added by a simple majorityvote, even, though the entire pact would have to beapproved by a two-thirds vote. The dozen or so Re-publican mild reservationists were not happy overthe strong Lodge reservations, and if Wilson had de-ferred sufficiently to these men, he might have per-suaded them to vote with the Democrats. Had theydone so, the Lodge reservations could have all beenvoted down, and a milder version, perhaps accept-able to Wilson, could have been substituted.

As the hot summer of 1919 wore on, Wilson be-came increasingly impatient with the deadlock in theSenate. Finally he decided to take his case to the

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13 WOODROW WILSON WOULDN'T YIELD

country, as he had so often done in response to hisingrained "appeal habit." He had never been robust,and his friends urged him not to risk breaking him-self down in a strenuous barnstorming campaign.But Wilson, having made up his mind, was unyield-ing. He had sent American boys into battle in a warto end wars; why should he not risk his life in battlefor a League to end wars?

Wilson's spectacular tour met with limited enthu-siasm in the Middle West, the home of several mil-lion German-Americans. After him, like bayingbloodhounds, trailed Senators Borah and Johnson,sometimes speaking in the same halls a day or solater, to the accompaniment of cries of "Impeachhim, impeach him!" But on the Pacific Coast and inthe Rocky Mountain area the enthusiasm for Wilsonand the League was overwhelming. The high point— and the breaking point — of the trip came atPueblo, Colorado, where Wilson, with tears stream-ing down his cheeks, pleaded for his beloved Leagueof Nations.

That night Wilson's weary body rebelled. He was•whisked back to Washington, where he suffered astroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. Forweeks he lay in bed, a desperately sick man. TheDemocrats, who had no first-rate leader in the Sen-ate, were left rudderless. With the wisdom of hind-sight, we may say that Wilson might better havestayed in Washington, providing the necessary lead-ership and compromising with the opposition, inso-far as compromise was possible. A good deal of com-promise had already gone into the treaty, and a littlemore might have saved it.

Senator Lodge, cold and decisive, was now in thedriver's seat. His Fourteen Reservations, a sardonicparallel to Wilson's Fourteen Points, had beenwhipped into shape. Most of them now seem eitherirrelevant, inconsequential, or unnecessary; some ofthem merely reaffirmed principles and policies, in-cluding the Monroe Doctrine, already guaranteed bythe treaty or by the Constitution.

But Wilson, who hated the sound of Lodge's

name, would have no part of the Lodge reservations.They would, he insisted, emasculate the entiretreaty. Yet the curious fact is that he had privatelyworked out his own set of reservations with theDemocratic leader in the Senate, Gilbert M. Hitch-cock, and these differed only in slight degree fromthose of Senator Lodge.

As the hour approached for the crucial vote in theSenate, it appeared that public opinion had veered alittle. Although confused by the angry debate, it stillfavored the treaty — but with some safeguardingreservations. A stubborn Wilson was unwilling to ac-cept this disheartening fact, or perhaps he was notmade aware of it. Mrs. Wilson, backed by the Presi-dent's personal physician, Dr. Gary Grayson, keptvigil at his bedside to warn the few visitors that dis-agreeable news might shock the invalid into arelapse.

In this highly unfavorable atmosphere, SenatorHitchcock had two conferences with Wilson on theeve of the Senate voting. He suggested compromiseon a certain point, but Wilson shot back, "Let Lodgecompromise!" Hitchcock conceded that the Senatorwould have to give ground but suggested that theWhite House might also hold out the olive branch."Let Lodge hold out the olive branch," came thestem reply. On this inflexible note, and with Mrs.Wilson's anxiety mounting, the interview ended.

The Senate was ready for final action on Novem-ber 19, 1919. At the critical moment Wilson sent afateful letter to the Democratic minority in the Sen-ate, urging them to vote down the treaty with thehated Lodge reservations so that a true ratificationcould be achieved. The Democrats, with more thanthe necessary one-third veto, heeded the voice oftheir crippled leader and rejected the treaty withreservations. The Republicans, •with more than thenecessary one-third veto, rejected the treaty withoutreservations.

The country was shocked by this exhibition oflegislative paralysis. About four fifths of the senatorsprofessed to favor the treaty in some form, yet they

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GRIM REALITIES OF THE GREAT WAR (1914-1918)

I

were unable to agree on anything. An aroused publicopinion forced the Senate to reconsider, and Lodgesecretly entered into negotiations with the Demo-crats in an effort to work out acceptable reservations.He was making promising progress when SenatorBorah got wind of his maneuvers through an anony-mous telephone call. The leading irreconcilableshastily summoned a council of war, hauled Lodgebefore them, and bluntly accused him of treachery.Deeply disturbed, the Massachusetts Senator said:"Well, I suppose I'll have to resign as majorityleader."

"No, by God!" burst out Borah. "You won't havea chance to resign! On Monday, I'll move for theelection of a new majority leader and give the rea-sons for my action." Faced with an upheaval withinhis party such as had insured Wilson's election in1912, Lodge agreed to drop his backstage negotia-tions.

The second-chance vote in the Senate came onMarch 19, 1920. Wilson again directed his loyalDemocratic following to reject the treaty, disfiguredas it was by the hateful Lodge reservations. But bythis time there was no other form in which the pact

. could possibly be ratified. Twenty-one realisticDemocrats turned their backs on Wilson.and votedYea; 23 loyal Democrats, mostly from the rock-ribbed South, joined with the irreconcilables to dothe bidding of the White House. The treaty, thoughcommanding a simple majority this time of 49 Yeasto 35 Nays, failed of the necessary two-thirds vote.

Wilson, struggling desperately against the Lodgereservation trap, had already summoned the nationin "solemn referendum" to give him a vote in favorof the League in the forthcoming presidential elec-tion of 1920. His hope was that he could then getthe treaty approved without reservations. But thiscourse was plainly futile. Even if all the anti-Leaguesenators up for re-election in 1920 had been replacedby the pro-League senators, Wilson would still havelacked the necessary two-thirds majority for an unre-served treaty.

The American people were never given a chanceto express their views direcdy on the League of Na-tions. All they could do was vote either for the weakDemocratic candidate, [James M.] Cox, who stoodfor the League, and the stuffed-shirt Republicancandidate, [Warren G.] Harding, who wobbled allover the map of the League arguments. If the elec-torate had been given an opportunity to express it-self, a powerful majority probably would have fa-vored the world organization, with at least somereservations. But wearied of Wilsonism, idealism,and self-denial, and confused by the wordy fightover the treaty, the voters rose up and swept Har-ding into the White House. The winner had beenmore anti-League than pro-League, and his prodi-gious plurality of 7,000,000 votes condemned theLeague to death in America.

What caused this cosdy failure of American states-manship?

Wilson's physical collapse intensifed his nativestubbornness. A judicious compromise here andthere no doubt would have secured Senate approvalof the treaty, though of course with modifications.Wilson believed that in any event the Alhes wouldreject the Lodge reservations. The probabilities arethat the Alhes would have worked out some kind ofacceptance, so dire was their need of America's eco-nomic support, but Wilson never gave them achance to act.

Senator Lodge was also inflexible, but prior to thesecond rejection he was evidently trying to get thetreaty through — on his own terms. As majorityleader of the Republicans, his primary task was toavoid another fatal split in his party. Wilson's pri-mary task was to get the pact approved. From apurely political point of view, the Republicans hadlitde to gain by engineering ratification of a Demo-cratic treaty.

The two-thirds rule in the Senate, often singledout as the culprit, is of litde relevance. Wilson almostcertainly would have pigeonholed the treaty if it hadpassed with the Lodge reservations appended.

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T 13 WOODROW WILSON WOULDN'T YIELD

Wilson's insistence that the League be wedded tothe treaty actually contributed to the final defeat ofboth. Either would have had a better chance if it hadnot been burdened by the enemies of the other. TheUnited Nations, one should note, was set up in 1945independently of any peace treaty.

Finally, American public opinion in 1919—20 "wasnot yet ready for the onerous new world responsibil-ities that had suddenly been forced upon it. The iso-lationist tradition was still potent, and it was fortifiedby postwar disillusionment. If the sovereign votershad spoken out for the League with one voice, theyalmost certainly would have had their way. A treatywithout reservations, or with a few reservations ac-ceptable to Wilson, doubtless would have slippedthrough the Senate. But the American people wereone war short of accepting leadership in a world or-ganization for peace.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 Woodrow Wilson's personal popularity was at anall-time high when he went, to Paris in 1919. Howhad he achieved his vast international prestige? Whathappened to diminish it?

2 What prevailing sentiment did Wilson, the ideal-ist, find among the representatives of Europeancountries at the negotiating table in Versailles? Whathad happened to the "war to end all wars," the goal

of which was to "make the world safe for democ-racy"? How did the Allied powers eventually com-promise between imperialism and idealism?

3 Outline the process by which partisan politics,petty squabbles, and back-room maneuvering even-tually led Congress to vote down the 1919 peacetreaty and with it the League of Nations. What roledid Henry Cabot Lodge play in the American rejec-tion of the League? What does historian Thomas A.Bailey think Wilson's illness, coupled with his poorjudgment on several occasions, contributed to thedebacle in Congress over the treaty?

4 What does Bailey think would have happened ifthe American people had been given a chance tovote for the League? What specific conclusions doeshe reach about the collapse of the treaty and the fail-ure of Wilsonian idealism in America and Europe?

5 Discuss the ambivalence of Americans in regardto the world leadership role that became available tothem just after the First World War. What becameof the vociferous jingoistic spirit that had broughtabout the Spanish-American War and the annexa-tion of territories in the Pacific? What does Baileymean when he says that "the American people wereone war short of accepting leadership in a world or-ganization for peace"? Imagine a world in which theyoung and powerful United States had joined theLeague of Nations in 1921. How might twentieth-century history have been rewritten?

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