Era 7: Standard 2
Students Should Understand: The changing role of the United States in world affairs through World War I.
This lesson plan evaluates the United States debate concerning the Treaty of Versailles and its possible entry into the League of Nations. The teacher should also use Historical Thinking Standard 3 to understand the events that occurred at the end of World War I. Were the individuals and institutions involved acting out of self interest or principle and conviction? Additionally, how significant are the elements of chance and illness?
HISTORICAL THINKING STANDARD 3: Analyze cause and effect relationships bearing in mind multiple causation, including: a) the importance of the individual in history; b) the influence of ideas, human interests, and beliefs; and c) the role of chance, the accidental, and the irrational.
Motivation: The teacher should have the students read the series of documents concerning Woodrow Wilson's health and the ratification process of the Treaty of Versailles. Ask them to read each document and summarize the significant ideas. This can be done individually or students can be divided into four groups, each group exploring two of the documents. If the latter is done, the group should be held responsible for presenting the main ideas of the documents to the entire class. The groups should each designate a recorder and a chair person. The recorder should record group answers based on the chairperson's leadership of the discussion. A chart should be made after each group reports, and it should include the following categories: Wilson’s health; domestic problems; and Senate debate.
Procedures: As students read the documents concerning Wilson, they should look for information and clues to help answer the following questions:
1) How many senators opposed ratification of both the Treaty and the League covenant? How many senators favored ratification in one form or another? More important, why would those opposing one or the other do so? Did they offer cogent reasons? Does their opposition stem from conviction or political convenience? Can you think of world problems today in which the United States should or should not become involved? In other words, is isolationism ever beneficial? Why or why not?
2) How did President Wilson's actions in the period from September 26 to 19 November 1919 affect the mild reservationists? How could Wilson have turned events toward his favor?
3) Do the documents indicate that President Wilson was mentally alert and "sharp as ever"? What indications in the readings lead to the opposite conclusion? What does this tell us about the importance or significance of a strong presidency? Is it ever desirable to have a stronger Senate than presidency?
4) How did domestic issues such as the Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, a tight economy, and labor strife, and foreign policy issues such as the Bolshevik takeover of Russia affect the treaty? What does this tell us about the ways in which the United States operates its foreign policy? Can you think of other instances in which domestic problems led the United States to either ignore or choose bad options regarding foreign policy? Should domestic problems supercede foreign ones? Does the Constitution charge our government with governing the United States and the world? Which provisions suggest it does, and which suggest it does not?
Summary Discussion:
1) Ask the students why Wilson felt that Article X of the League Covenant was the "heart of the treaty."
2) If groups were established, develop a chart using the categories listed above. Otherwise, review the answers to the identified questions.
3) Ask students to develop a conclusion, orally or in writing, as to who bears the major responsibility for the defeat of the Versailles Treaty and the League Covenant in the Senate and why? What were the positive and negative consequences--both short and long term--of America's refusal to ratify these?
SIGNIFICANT INDIVIDUALS
William E. Borah (1865-1940) first gained fame as the unsuccessful prosecutor in a 1905 case involving William D. Haywood, the Western Federation of Miners, and the assassination of Governor Frank Steunenberg. Despite this, he consistently favored labor against business as he represented Idaho in the U.S. Senate between 1906 and 1940. He was known as a great orator and progressive, often allying himself with Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to secure progressive domestic legislation. During World War I, however, he opposed both United States involvement in world affairs and Wilson's widespread repression of civil liberties.
Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924) came from one of New England's most influential families and received a bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1871 and a Ph.D. in political science from the same institution in 1876. He served in United States House of Representatives (1887-1893) and the Senate (1893-1924). As a somewhat progressive Republican, Lodge supported both tariffs and anti-trust laws. Lodge was especially fascinated with foreign policy and considered himself an expert on the subject. He is best remembered for his fight against Wilson in 1919, and most acknowledged him as Wilson's leading opponent and neutrality's strongest advocate. After Harding's election to the presidency in 1920, Lodge became the de facto leader of American foreign policy until his death four years later.
Woodrow Wilson was born in 1856 in Staunton, Virginia. Before entering politics, Wilson taught political science and history at Princeton University between 1890 and 1902. Between 1902 and 1910, Wilson served as president of Princeton, where he befriended Grover Cleveland (please see second lesson plan in this issue). Wilson entered politics in 1910 and won the governor's office of New Jersey. At that position he gained fame for opposing political machines and being an honest politician. After 45 ballots at the 1912 Democratic National Convention, Wilson secured his party's nomination and challenged incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and former president Theodore Roosevelt, now running on the Bull Moose Progressive Party ticket. With the Republicans divided between Taft and Roosevelt, Wilson easily won. As president he advocated and successfully enticed Congress to pass progressive laws concerning trusts, tariffs, and labor. In 1916, the American people reelected Wilson as a promisor of peace and isolation. In 1917, however, Wilson took the nation to war--America's first in Europe. After the war, Wilson advocated continued U.S. involvement in world affairs and won the 1919 Nobel peace prize for his efforts. That year also witnessed the physical decline of Wilson; he had a severe stroke and remained paralyzed for the rest of his second term. Wilson died in 1924.
Sources: Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-44); George Kurian, Dictionary of Biography (New York: Laurel, 1980); and Howard R. Lamar, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1977).
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
1918: Wilson's Peace Proposal, Fourteen Points.
November 1918: Midterm Elections. Wilson makes a partisan appeal for a Democratic congress to ensure support for his foreign policies.
5 November 1918: Democrats lose control of both houses of congress.
December 1918: Wilson arrives in Paris without a single prominent Republican in the delegations.
14 February 1919: Lincoln reports to the plenary session with the finished draft of the League Covenant.
April 1919: Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and thirty-nine senators declare that the covenant of the League is unacceptable.
8 July 1919: Wilson returns home with the Versailles Treaty and calls on the Senate to accept "This Great Duty."
August 1919: Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, resorts to delay tactics and lengthy hearings. He personally dislikes Wilson.
September 1919: Wilson, to garner support for his foreign policies, embarks on a nation-wide speaking tour.
25 September 1919: Wilson's doctor cancels Wilson's tour and Wilson is hurried back to Washington.
2 October 1919: Wilson suffers a severe stroke and paralysis.
7-19 November 1919: The Senate adopts fourteen of Lodge's reservations concerning the Treaty of Versailles, most having to do with the League.
December 1919: The Senate votes to reconsider.
January, February 1920: Wilson remains adamant that there are to be no reservations.
March 1920: Twenty-one Democrats abandon Wilson's ship and join the reservationists. Treaty still not ratified.
20 May 1920: Congress ends the war by joint resolution.
2 July 1921: Harding is now president. Another joint resolution declares the state of war with Austria and German over.
DOCUMENT 1
"The President's State of Health," Memorandum by Secretary of State Robert Lansing, 5 November 1919
Yesterday I sent over to the White House a Thanksgiving Proclamation which I had drafted on the evening of the 3rd. Today it was returned to me signed by the President and also his signed authorization to affix to it the Great Seal of the United States.
The Proclamation, as drafted, was not changed in a single word. This fact caused me much concern as to the physical condition of the President, since it showed either that he was not permitted to read the document or that, if he did read it, he was not in a mental state to do so critically. In either case decided weakness was shown, because I cannot conceive of the President, if he was able to review a proclamation of this sort, permitting it being issued to the people without putting into it some of his own phrases and so impressing it with his personality.
But even more than this failure to pass upon the wording of the Proclamation his signatures were shocking manifestations of his serious physical state. Instead of his firm and plain writing the signature attached to the Proclamation was almost illegible. Without knowing the name intended to be written "Woodrow" could not have been deciphered. "Wilson" was better written, but was very shaky and uneven, while the flourish at the end looked quite unnatural. The signature on the authorization was better, but that too was evidently written by a man whose nerves or muscles were with difficulty controlled. Both signatures were written with a lead pencil and did not appear to be done hastily.
I was surprised and distressed by these proofs of the President's condition, because though I knew that he had been threatened with, if he had not actually suffered, a slight stroke, I had assumed from the repeated assurances of the physicians that he was almost normal. I know now that he is still a very sick man, and that his convalescence will take much time. If he is really better than he was, and I am sure that he is, he must have been critically ill, if not very near death.
After seeing this Proclamation with its pitiful signature I feel more alarmed as to the outcome of the President's illness than I have at any time except on the Wednesday [1 October 1919] after his return to Washington when Tumulty by motions indicated partial paralysis of the left side. If he has only progressed thus far toward recovery during the last month I cannot see how he can really conduct the Government for months to come.
Source: Arthur S. Link, ed. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 63:618-9.
Document 2
Excerpt from the Diary of Ray Stannard Baker, 5 November 1919
I lunched at the White House with Mrs. Wilson at 1:30. I had a hard time getting through the gates, for the President has been ill and has had no visitors. Mrs. [Eleanor] McAdoo, Mrs. [Jessie] Sayre, and Miss Margaret Wilson, the President's daughters were there: and Admiral and Mrs. Grayson. . . . Mrs. Wilson looks worn and tired after her long vigil, but remains irrepressibly cheerful. Grayson told me he did not see how they could have gotten along without her. She has been up all hours of the night with the President and has never faltered in her attention.
The western trip must have been a terrible affair, as she and Admiral Grayson told me about it. The President was ill when he started and went against the express and urgent advice of his physician. The President felt that he must do all he could to inform the American people of the League of Nations and try to the limit of his ability to get it adopted by public opinion. From the first he had no appetite and could not digest what he did eat because he was under such nervous strain. The Doctor had to feed him liquid and pre-digested foods during the day and night. Soon he could not sleep. The western altitudes affected him: but he would not give up. In Montana the hot dry weather and the dust caused an affection [infection] of the throat & he developed a kind of asthma. The Doctor repeatedly sprayed out his nose and throat: often having to do it in the middle of the night. In Washington he began to have terrible headaches--so blinding, that when he got up to speak he would see double. Yet he would not give in. At several functions in California--one a dinner in which those present smoked inordinately, he suffered frightfully--but made a wonderful speech. He never complained, he never scorned his condition--and he refused the beseeching requests of Dr. Grayson to stop and rest. Coming east one day the doctor saw a curious drag or looseness at the left side of his mouth--a sign of danger that could no longer be obscured and he and Mrs. Wilson took things into their own hands and called off the trip. No one knows yet how serious the attack was or what the President has been through. I spent the entire afternoon talking with Grayson and he went into every phase of the case and read me his secret report--the substance of which I will not even put down here. He asked my judgment as to what he had done and I told him I thought he was absolutely right in doing what he did. It was a stupendous responsibility he had to assume, but he has both wisdom and courage--a fine, brave, simple man if ever there was one. He has never lost his head and his struggle with the other doctors when they were all for operation in the prostrate difficulty was a notable affair. In this he was supported by Mrs. Wilson.
The President will be much longer in getting up and about than anyone knows--and he may never get up. The Doctor has invented and had built a kind of chair back, with arms, for use by the President in his bed. He has also a new wheel-chair in which, presently, he hopes the President may be able to get about. The President is undeniably better, but the doctor is guarding him closely, keeping everyone away--and preventing, as much as possible, any business coming to his attention. This is hard to do because the President's mind is exceedingly acute, as good as ever it was, and he chafes at the inactivity. I did not see him myself. I am sure I could have seen him if I had asked--but, of course, would not. Not even the secretaries and others in the White House know what the real trouble is.
Source: Arthur S. Link, ed. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 63:619-20.
Document 3
Memorandum by Dr. Cary T. Grayson on Senator Hitchcock's Interview with the President on the Peace Treaty, 17 November 1919
Senator Hitchcock called at the White House today at 10:30 for a conference with the President concerning the recent developments in connection with the ratification of the Peace Treaty. The Senator had sent me a copy of the Lodge resolutions, which I read to the President.
The Senator, after exchanging good-morning greetings with the President, asked him if he had read the Lodge resolution, and whether he had anything to suggest concerning it. The President immediately replied: "I consider it a nullification of the Treaty and utterly impossible." He then drew an analogy between this and South Carolina's threat to nullify the Constitution. Senator Hitchcock then called the President's attention to the changes the Senate had made in Article X, to which the President replied: "That cuts the very heart out of the Treaty; I could not stand for those changes for a moment because it would humiliate the United States before all of the Allied countries." Senator Hitchcock said: "What would be the effect of the defeat of the Treaty by the Lodge resolution?" The President's answer was: "The United States would suffer the contempt of the world. We will be playing into Germany's hands. Think of the humiliation we would suffer in having to ask Germany whether she would accept such and such reservation!" The President said: "If the Republicans are bent on defeating this Treaty, I want the vote of each, Republican and Democrat, recorded, because they will have to answer to the country in the future for their acts. They must answer to the people. I am a sick man, lying in this bed, but I am going to debate this issue with these gentlemen in their respective states whenever they come up for re-election if I have breadth enough in my body to carry on the fight. I shall do this even if I have to give my life to it. And I will get their political scalps when the truth is known to the people. They have got to account to their constituents for their actions in this matter. I have no doubt as to what the verdict of the people will be when they know the facts. Mind you, Senator, I have no hostility towards these gentlemen but an utter contempt."
Senator Hitchcock favored certain compromises with the Republicans. The President said: "With the exception of interpretations, which I would not alter the substance, I am not willing to make any compromise other than what we agreed upon at our meeting on [blank]. The President's position was that he would not oppose reservations which were merely interpretations of the Treaty, but that he was irreconcilably opposed to any alteration of the Treaty which would cause a recommitment to council with other nations.
The Senator told the President that he had had a conference with Lord [Edward] Grey, the British Ambassador, and with Mr. [Jean] Jusserand, the French Ambassador. They told the Senator that they considered--that Senator Lodge and the Republican party had killed the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations. They also commented on the fact that this view had been published in both English and French papers. They also expressed the belief that their countries would reject a Treaty amended in accordance with the Lodge resolution.
The President interrogated Senator Hitchcock as to what had occurred in the Senate concerning the Treaty in the last month. He said: "I have been lying on my back and have been very weak, and it has fatigued me to read and to discuss matters in my mind, so to speak. I have been kept in the dark to a certain extent except what Mrs. Wilson and Doctor Grayson have told me, and they have purposely kept a good deal from me. I want you to tell me now just everything that has taken place, so I may pick up the threads that were left when I was put to bed." These interrogations were at considerable length, the interview lasting one hour and five minutes. Whenever Senator Hitchcock would bring forth some argument why so and so was done, the President would combat him and ask to be advised why it was done and for what purpose. He said repeatedly: "Senator, I think you have acted very wisely and used good judgment in the circumstances, but why did you do so and so. I am not criticising you but I am asking you for information" . . . .
After the Senator and I had left the room, the Senator turned to me and said: "The President is looking remarkably well. He has strengthened so much more physically and mentally since I saw him last. He is very combative today as he sits up there in that bed. On certain compromises he is as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar." The Senator also said to me: "I would give anything if the Democrats, in fact, all the Senate, could see the attitude that man took this morning. Think how effective it would be if they could see the picture as you and I saw it this morning!"
Source: Arthur S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 64:43-5.
Document 4
Letter from Robert Lansing to Frank L. Polk, 19 November 1919
By the time this letter reaches you the fate of the Treaty in the Senate will have been decided and so my comments as to the. . .[probabilities] of its ratification in any form at all acceptable would be of doubtful value. However you may find some interest in the views I hold at the present time.
The treaty when laid before the Senate was tremendously handicapped by two things: first, the Covenant as drafted which certainly from the legal standpoint was open to valid criticism because it apparently was in defiance of certain constitutional provisions; and second, the insensate animosity of a considerable group of Republican Senators to the President personally. This latter feeling enhanced the objections to the League because he with the aid of Colonel House was looked upon as the author of the Covenant or at least its chief sponsor and advocate. If his enemies could practically destroy the League or render it worthless, they were particularly desirous of doing so because they felt that it would humble his pride of authorship and prove to the world that he was by no means so great and powerful as had been supposed. With this end in view the Senate majority began its campaign apparently against the Covenant but really against the President.
The earlier hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, among them mine, showed conclusively that it was personal hostility to the President which was the controlling motive, and that the interests of the United States were really secondary to them in importance. It is undeniable that the attempts of the Committee to discredit the President in his conduct of the negotiations at Paris were more or less successful so far as the public were concerned. Unfortunately the President’s record was vulnerable and nothing was overlooked by the partisans who were testing every joint of his armor.
There is no doubt that at the outset the great majority of the people were back of the President and the League. I felt that if the President did not assume a defensive attitude he would in large measure retain this popular support, but that, if he began to explain the Covenant, he would unavoidably become involved in arguments which would be subject to attack arousing doubt as to their validity in the public mind. For that reason I strongly advised him two days after I landed, not to make a speaking tour for the League. He yielded very unwillingly agreeing to postpone his trip, though he would not abandon it.
I had hoped that the postponement would result in abandonment, but as the attacks on the weak points in the covenant increased in virulence the President became incensed and pugnacious with the result that he was inflexible in his determination to go out and appeal to the people over the heads of the Senators. I attempted again to dissuade him from taking this step, because I felt sure that it would solidify the opposition in the Senate and that instead of being an offensive, which would only amount to abuse anyway, it would be a defense of the Covenant.
You know, if you followed the President’s speeches in the West that, while he used some rather undignified expressions about the opposition in the Senate, he sought to defend the Covenant and its various provisions. I am sure the performance lost rather than gained support for the Treaty. It came to me from various sources that the public began to consider that the objections had some merit otherwise the President would not have taken so much trouble to answer them. Prior to his western trip the public were disposed to brush the objections aside on the supposition that they were only put forward to discredit the President rather than the Treaty. Thus, the President’s speeches, while they may have won over a few, lost, in my opinion, a great deal of public support, especially as the whole proceeding took on the character of a party issue.
Then, as you know, came the President’s physical collapse, his return to Washington, and his elimination from the struggle by reason of his grave illness. While his inability to direct the defense of the Treaty in the Senate may have affected the present situation unfavorably, I am not at all sure that he could have accomplished more than Hitchcock, who has kept his head and shown himself capable and adroit.
The President lost the best chance to compromise on moderate reservations last August. I suggested that policy to him and his jaw shot out and he said that there were going to be no reservations and if the opposition wanted a fight they would “get a damned good one,” referring of course to his appeal to the people. With a majority against him on some sort of modification of the Treaty I confess that his course seemed to me a policy which would force the “moderatists” to join the “irreconcilables.” Now that is just what has happened and the steam-roller is working smoothly and successfully.
Today Hitchcock had a brief talk with the President, which in his state of health is a dangerous thing to do, and the President said that if the resolution of ratification was passed with the present reservations, he would withdraw the treaty. Both he and Hitchcock think that this step will create a situation where they can dictate moderate reservations which will be acceptable to other nations as well as to the President. Now you understand this is the last stand. The President is with his back to the wall and means to go down rather than surrender. I am not so sanguine of success as he and the Senator seem to be, judging from Tumulty, who is my informant. Many Senators will rejoice if the Treaty is withdrawn and will use all their influence to prevent its revival. These enemies of the document have grown stronger than they were last August and I am not certain by any means that they can be defeated. If this policy succeeds I will certainly have to take off my hat to Hitchcock as a great parliamentary leader. He showed his adroitness in announcing after he left the President, that the Lodge reservations were unacceptable to the President, who would, if they were adopted, “pocket” the treaty. At least he has thrown down the gauntlet and it will be interesting to see the effect.
Meanwhile the industrial unrest and the outbreaks of Bolshevists in this country together with the serious strike of the coal miners, the injunction against the leaders and the present miners’ conference here have diverted public attention from the Treaty in large measure. Three months ago everybody talked of it. Now everybody is weary and only desire to have the matter settled one way or the other. They do not seem to care how it is settled. Since the grave problems of domestic nature take up the attention of the people, they have lost interest in the economic condition of the world. The disposition seems to be to attend to our own affairs and let the rest of the nations go to the devil if they want to.
As for assuming a mandate over anything or anybody the present state of the public mind makes the idea almost out of the question. I think that the President will have to abandon any plan that he may have to assume guardianship over Armenia or Constantinople. I believe the Republicans are solid against doing it and that there are many Democrats who feel the same way.
Altogether the outlook for the President’s world policies is very gloomy. He cannot, I feel sure, carry them through. Why he cannot seems to me evident. And I think the blame can be placed with almost equal certainty. It causes one, loyal to the President, a feeling of sorrow and regret to see his great reputation as a leader being thus shattered. He reached the zenith of his greatness in January of this year, and since that time he has lost in prestige and popularity at home and abroad. I shall not go into the reasons but leave you to judge them as you can do as well as I.
I have heard nothing from Colonel House directly or indirectly for a month. I cannot find that he is taking any active part in public affairs. He is sharing the President’s character of a target for senatorial sarcasm and curses. I have wondered sometimes what he thinks of this awful mess and if he sees any way out. . . .
Source: Arthur S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 64:54-7.
The Opposition
"I personally went over this reservation to Article 10 again and again with groups of Senators and with individual members. Finally, I asked Senator McCumber. . . to come to my house and lunch with me alone. At that time, we took up the reservation which had been already brought to a point where I thought I could secure all Republican votes for it if I could get the assent of Senator McCumber. After much discussion, he and I agreed upon the reservation in the form in which it was presented to the Senate and finally adopted. The reservation was as follows:
'The United States assumed no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any country or to interfere in controversies between nations--whether members of the league or not--under the provisions of Article 10 or to employ the military or naval forces of the United States under any article of the treaty for any purpose, unless in any particular case the Congress, which, under the Constitution, has the sole power to declare war or authorize the employment of the military or naval forces of the United States, shall by act or joint resolution so provide.'"
Source: Henry Cabot Lodge, The Senate and the League of Nations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925).
"'Entertain no compromise; have none of it.' This states the position I occupy at this time and which I have, in a humble way, occupied from the first contention in regard to this proposal. My objections to the league have not been met by the reservationists. . . . My friends of reservations, tell me where is the reservation in these articles which protect us against entangling alliances with Europe?"
Source: William E. Borah, Congressional Record, 10 November 1919, 66th Congress, First Session.
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