Chapter XCV: Part 1: , or any other provision of the Treaty of Peace with Germany,

except by action of the Congress of the United States.

4. The United States reserves to itself exclusively the right to decide what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction and declares that all domestic and political questions relating wholly or in part to its internal affairs, including immigration, labor, coastwise traffic, the tariff, commerce, the suppression of traffic in women and children, and in opium and other dangerous drugs, and all other domestic questions, are solely within the jurisdiction of the United States and are not under this Treaty to be submitted in any way either to arbitration or to the consideration of the Council or of the Assembly of the League of Nations, or any agency thereof, or to the decision or recommendation of any other power.

5. The United States will not submit to arbitration or to inquiry by the Assembly or by the Council of the League of Nations, provided for in said Treaty of Peace, any questions which in the judgment of the United States depend upon or relate to its long-established policy, commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine; said doctrine is to be interpreted by the United States alone and is hereby declared to be wholly outside the jurisdiction of said League of Nations and entirely unaffected by any provision contained in the said Treaty of Peace with Germany.

6. The United States withholds its assent to Articles 156, 157, and 158, and reserves full liberty of action with respect to any controversy which may arise under said articles between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan.

7. The Congress of the United States will provide by law for the appointment of the representatives of the United States in the Assembly and the Council of the League of Nations, and may in its discretion provide for the participation of the United States in any commission, committee, tribunal, court, council, or conference, or in the selection of any members thereof and for the appointment of members of said commissions, committees, tribunals, courts, councils, or conferences, or any other representatives under the Treaty of Peace, or in carrying out its provisions, and until such participation and appointment have been so provided for and the powers and duties of such representatives have been defined by law, no person shall represent the United States under either said League of Nations or the Treaty of Peace with Germany, or be authorized to perform any act for or on behalf of the United States thereunder, and no citizen of the United States shall be selected or appointed as a member of said commissions, committees, tribunals, courts, councils, or conferences except with the approval of the Senate of the United States.

8. The United States understands that the Reparation Commission will regulate or interfere with exports from the United States to Germany, or from Germany to the United States, only when the United States by act or joint resolution of Congress approves such regulation or interference.

9. The United States shall not be obligated to contribute to any expenses of the League of Nations, or of the secretariat, or of any commission, or committee, or conference, or other agency, organized under the League of Nations or under the Treaty or for the purpose of carrying out the Treaty provisions, unless and until an appropriation of funds available for such expenses shall have been made by the Congress of the United States.

10. If the United States shall at any time adopt any plan for the limitation of armaments proposed by the Council of the League of Nations, under the provisions of Article 8, it reserves the right to increase such armaments without the consent of the Council whenever the United States is threatened with invasion or engaged in war.

11. The United States reserves the right to permit, in its discretion, the nationals of a covenant-breaking State, as defined in Article 16 of the covenant of the League of Nations, residing within the United States or in countries other than that violating said Article 16, to continue their commercial, financial, and personal relations with the nationals of the United States.

12. Nothing in Articles 296, 297, or in any of the annexes thereto or in any other article, section, or annex of the Treaty of Peace with Germany shall, as against citizens of the United States, be taken to mean any confirmation, ratification, or approval of any act otherwise illegal or in contravention of the right of citizens of the United States.

13. The United States withholds its assent to Part XIII. (Articles 387 to 427, inclusive) unless Congress by act or joint resolution shall hereafter make provision for representation in the organization established by said Part XIII, and in such event the participation of the United States will be governed and conditioned by the provisions of such act or joint resolution.

14. The United States assumes no obligation to be bound by any election, decision, report, or finding of the council, or assembly in which any member of the League and its self-governing dominions, colonies, or parts of empire, in the aggregate have cast more than one vote, and assumes no obligation to be bound by any decision, report, or finding of the council or assembly arising out of any dispute between the United States and any member of the League if such member, or any self-governing dominion, colony, empire, or part of empire united with it politically has voted.

Ratification of the above resolution required a two-thirds vote. The resolution was lost 55 to 39, the votes of 13 Republican "irreconcilables" being cast against the resolution. On a motion to reconsider, the resolution was again voted on, this time the vote being 51 to 41. Senator Underwood's motion for unconditional ratification of the Treaty without reservation was then lost 53 to 38.

The crux of the opposition to the Treaty was Article X. In President Wilson's view, the Lodge reservation to this article cut the heart out of the League of Nations, and nullified its whole structure and practical operation. For a time it looked as if the Peace Treaty was dead. Public opinion, however, insisted that the Treaty must not be allowed to die and that the United States was morally obligated to the rest of the world to take its place in the family of nations as a signatory to the Treaty with such interpretative reservations as would protect America's interests, and at the same time not antagonize other nations.

Early in January, 1920, the President in a letter to Senator Hitchcock declared against "strong" reservations, and on January 15th, with a view to reaching a compromise, there began a series of bi-partisan conferences among Senators at which were discussed the various reservations that had been a stumbling block, but no agreement could be reached. As before, the phraseology and intent of Article X was the principal bone of contention.

THE TREATY AGAIN BEFORE THE SENATE

On February 10th Senator Lodge reported the Treaty a second time to the Senate, and with the original set of reservations. After another month of debate and of organized efforts on the part of public spirited citizens to exert pressure on the Senators to settle their differences and give the nation what it demanded--a Treaty of Peace--the lines were again drawn preparatory to another vote. The Senate, sitting in Committee of the Whole, took up the Lodge reservations, one after another, accepting some virtually without change, modifying or amplifying others, until all but Article X had been agreed upon.

Various new drafts of this reservation were suggested, both by Senators and by private citizens; some of these were voted on, but none could muster the votes necessary for adoption.

Early in March a compromise reservation was worked out by Republicans and Democrats, and this was made the occasion of an effort to induce the President to give his views on Article X. For convenience in comparison, Article X of the League of Nations, the original Lodge reservation, and the proposed compromise reservation, are reproduced herewith:

ARTICLE X OF THE LEAGUE

The members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as
against external aggression the territorial integrity and
existing political independence of all members of the League.
In case of any such aggression the Council shall advise upon
the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.

THE ORIGINAL LODGE RESERVATION

The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the
territorial integrity or political independence of any other
country or to interfere in controversies between
nations--whether members of the League or not--under the
provision of Article X., 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.

THE PROPOSED COMPROMISE RESERVATION

The United States assumes no obligation to employ its military
or naval forces, its resources, or the economic boycott to
preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of
any other country under the provisions of Article X., or to
employ the military or naval forces of the United States under
any other 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, shall, by act or joint
resolution, so provide.

ARTICLE X, SAYS WILSON, NULLIFIES A SACRED OBLIGATION

The President expressed his views on Article X and the proposed reservations to it in a letter to Senator Hitchcock under date of March 8th, in which he said:

"There is no escaping the moral obligations which are expressed
in positive terms in this article of the covenant. We won a
moral victory over Germany, far greater even than the military
victory won on the field of battle, because the opinion of the
whole world swung to our support and the support of the nations
associated with us in the great struggle. It did so because of
our common profession and promise that we meant to establish
'an organization of peace which should make it certain that the
combined power of free nations would check every invasion of
right, and serve to make peace and justice the more secure by
affording a definite tribunal of opinion to which all must
submit and by which every international readjustment that
cannot be amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly
concerned shall be sanctioned.'

"This promise and assurance were written into the preliminaries
of the armistice and into the preliminaries of the peace itself
and constitute one of the most sacred obligations ever assumed
by any nation or body of nations. It is unthinkable that
America should set the example of ignoring such a solemn moral
engagement.

"For myself, I feel that I could not look the soldiers of our
gallant armies in the face again if I did not do everything in
my power to remove every obstacle that lies in the way of the
adoption of this particular article of the covenant, because we
made these pledges to them as well as to the rest of the world,
and it was to this cause they deemed themselves devoted in a
spirit of crusaders. I should be forever unfaithful to them if
I did not do my utmost to fulfill the high purpose for which
they fought."

"A NEW DOCTRINE IN THE WORLD'S AFFAIRS"

The President said he regarded the stipulations as to constitutional methods required by the proposed compromise reservation as superfluous, because it was understood at Paris that whatever duties any nation undertook under the Treaty would as a matter of course "have to be fulfilled by its usual and established constitutional methods of action." He said further:

"Any reservation which seeks to deprive the League of Nations
of the force of Article X. cuts at the very heart and life of
the covenant itself. Any League of Nations which does not
guarantee as a matter of incontestable right the political
independence and integrity of each of its members might be
hardly more than a futile scrap of paper, as ineffective in
operation as the agreement between Belgium and Germany which
the Germans violated in 1914.

"Article X. as written into the Treaty of Versailles represents
the renunciation by Great Britain and Japan, which before the
war had begun to find so many interests in common in the
Pacific; by France, by Italy, by all the great fighting powers
of the world, of the old pretensions of political conquest and
territorial aggrandisement. It is a new doctrine in the world's
affairs and must be recognized or there is no secure basis for
the peace which the whole world so desperately needs.

"If Article X. is not adopted and acted upon, the Governments
which reject it will, I think, be guilty of bad faith to their
people, whom they induced to make the infinite sacrifices of
the war by the pledge that they would be fighting to redeem the
world from the old order of force and aggression. They will be
acting also in bad faith to the opinion of the world at large,
to which they appealed for support in a concerted stand against
the aggressions and pretensions of Germany.

"If we were to reject Article X. or so to weaken it as to take
its full force out of it, it would mark us as desiring to
return to the old world of jealous rivalry and
misunderstandings from which our gallant soldiers have rescued
us and would leave us without any vision or new conception of
justice and peace. We would have learned no lesson from the
war, but gained only the regret that it had involved us in its
maelstrom of suffering. If America has awakened, as the rest of
the world has, to the vision of a new day in which the mistakes
of the past are to be corrected, it will welcome the
opportunity to share the responsibilities of Article X.

"It must not be forgotten, Senator, that the article
constitutes a renunciation of all ambition on the part of
powerful nations with whom we were associated in the war. It is
by no means certain that without this article any such
renunciation will take place. Militaristic ambitions and
imperialistic policies are by no means dead, even in counsels
of the nations whom we most trust and with whom we most desire
to be associated in the tasks of peace.

DEMOCRACY VERSUS IMPERIALISM

"The choice is between two ideals; on the one hand, the ideal
of democracy, which represents the rights of free peoples
everywhere to govern themselves, and on the other hand the
ideal of imperialism which seeks to dominate by force and
unjust power, an ideal which is by no means dead and which is
earnestly held in many quarters still.

"Every imperialistic influence in Europe was hostile to the
embodiment of Article X. in the covenant of the League of
Nations, and its defeat now would mark the complete
consummation of their efforts to nullify the Treaty. I hold the
doctrine of Article X. as the essence of Americanism. We cannot
repudiate it or weaken it without at the same time repudiating
our own principles.

"The imperialist wants no League of Nations, but if, in
response to the universal cry of the masses everywhere, there
is to be one, he is interested to secure one suited to his own
purposes, one that will permit him to continue the historic
game of pawns and peoples--the juggling of provinces, the old
balances of power, and the inevitable wars attendant upon these
things.

"The reservation proposed would perpetuate the old order. Does
any one really want to see the old game played again? Can any
one really venture to take part in reviving the old order? The
enemies of a League of Nations have by every true instinct
centered their efforts against Article X., for it is
undoubtedly the foundation of the whole structure. It is the
bulwark, and the only bulwark, of the rising democracy of the
world against the forces of imperialism and reaction.

"Either we should enter the League fearlessly, accepting the
responsibility and not fearing the rôle of leadership, which we
now enjoy, contributing our efforts toward establishing a just
and permanent peace, or we should retire as gracefully as
possible from the great concert of powers, by which the world
was saved. For my own part, I am not willing to trust to the
counsel of diplomats the working out of any salvation of the
world from the things which it has suffered."

ARTICLE X AS FINALLY ADOPTED

The Article X reservation was again rewritten and when finally adopted on March 15 by a vote of 56 to 26, read as follows:

The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the
territorial integrity or political independence of any other
country by the employment of its military or naval forces, its
resources, or any form of economic discrimination, or to
interfere in any way in controversies between nations,
including all controversies relating to territorial integrity
or political independence, whether members of the League or
not, under the provisions of Article X., 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, in the
exercise of full liberty of action, by act or joint resolution
so provide.

THE TREATY AGAIN REJECTED

All of the 14 reservations having been debated and adopted in the Senate, sitting in Committee of the Whole, a fifteenth reservation expressing sympathy with the aspirations of the Irish people having been added, the resolution of ratification was introduced by Senator Lodge on March 19th. The vote stood: in favor of ratification, 49; against, 35. By this vote, the Treaty of Versailles was for the second time rejected. The resolution was supported by 28 Republicans and 21 Democrats, and opposed by 23 Democrats and 12 Republicans. The resolution lacked seven votes of the necessary two-thirds, and although it was a Republican measure, the opposition of the Republican "irreconcilables" or "bitter-enders" was sufficient to defeat it.

THE RESERVATIONS WHICH FAILED

Text of the Preamble and Fifteen Reservations as Adopted by the Senate Before the Final Vote on Ratification

Resolved (two-thirds of the Senators present concurring therein), That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of the Treaty of Peace with Germany concluded at Versailles on the 28th day of June, 1919, subject to the following reservations and understandings, which are hereby made a part and condition of this resolution of ratification, which ratification is not to take effect or bind the United States until the said reservations and understandings adopted by the Senate have been accepted as a part and a condition of this resolution of ratification by the Allied and Associated Powers, and a failure on the part of the Allied and Associated Powers to make objection to said reservations and understandings prior to the deposit of ratification by the United States shall be taken as a full and final acceptance of such reservations and understandings by said powers:

1. The United States so understands and construes Article I. that in case of notice of withdrawal from the League of Nations, as provided in said article, the United States shall be the sole judge as to whether all its international obligations and all its obligations under the said covenant have been fulfilled, and notice of withdrawal by the United States may be given by a concurrent resolution of the Congress of the United States.

2. The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other country by the employment of its military or naval forces, its resources, or any form of economic discrimination, or to interfere in any way in controversies between nations, including all controversies relating to territorial integrity or political independence, whether members of the League or not, under the provisions of Article X., 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, in the exercise of full liberty of action, by act or joint resolution so provide.

3. No mandate shall be accepted by the United States under Article XXII., Part 1, or any other provision of the Treaty of Peace with Germany, except by action of the Congress of the United States.

4. The United States reserves to itself exclusively the right to decide what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction and declares that all domestic and political questions relating wholly or in part to its internal affairs, including immigration, labor, coastwise traffic, the tariff, commerce, the suppression of traffic in women and children and in opium and other dangerous drugs, and all other domestic questions, are solely within the jurisdiction of the United States and are not under this Treaty to be submitted in any way either to arbitration or to the consideration of the council or of the Assembly of the League of Nations, or any agency thereof, or to the decision or recommendation of any other power.

5. The United States will not submit to arbitration or to inquiry by the Assembly or by the Council of the League of Nations, provided for in said Treaty of Peace, any questions which in the judgment of the United States depend upon or relate to its long established policy, commonly known as the Monroe Doctrine; said doctrine is to be interpreted by the United States alone and is hereby declared to be wholly outside the jurisdiction of said League of Nations and entirely unaffected by any provision contained in the said Treaty of Peace with Germany.

6. The United States withholds its assent to Articles 156, 157, and 158, and reserves full liberty of action with respect to any controversy which may arise under said articles.

7. No person is or shall be authorized to represent the United States, nor shall any citizen of the United States be eligible, as a member of any body or agency established or authorized by said Treaty of Peace with Germany except pursuant to an act of the Congress of the United States providing for his appointment and defining his powers and duties.

8. The United States understands that the Reparation Commission will regulate or interfere with exports from the United States to Germany, or from Germany to the United States, only when the United States by act or joint resolution of Congress approves such regulation or interference.

9. The United States shall not be obligated to contribute to any expenses of the League of Nations, or of the Secretariat or of any commission, or committee, or conference, or other agency, organized under the League of Nations or under the Treaty or for the purpose of carrying out the Treaty provisions, unless and until an appropriation of funds available for such expenses shall have been made by the Congress of the United States; provided, that the foregoing limitation shall not apply to the United States' proportionate share of the expense of the office force and salary of the Secretary General.

10. No plan for the limitation of armaments as reported by the Council of the League of Nations under the provisions of Article 8 shall be held as binding the United States until the same shall have been accepted by Congress, and the United States reserves the right to increase its armament without the consent of the Council whenever the United States is threatened with invasion or engaged in war.

11. The United States reserves the right to permit, in its discretion, the nationals of a covenant-breaking state as defined in Article XVI. of the covenant of the League of Nations, residing within the United States or in countries other than such covenant-breaking state, to continue their commercial, financial and personal relations with the nationals of the United States.

12. Nothing in Articles 296, 297, or in any of the annexes thereto or in any other article, section, or annex of the Treaty of Peace with Germany shall, as against citizens of the United States be taken to mean any confirmation, ratification or approval of any act otherwise illegal or in contravention of the rights of citizens of the United States.

13. The United States withholds its assent to Part XIII. (Articles 337 to 427 inclusive), unless Congress by act or joint resolution shall hereafter make provision for representation in the organization established by said Part XIII., and in such event the participation of the United States will be governed and conditioned by the provisions of such act or joint resolution.

14. Until Part 1, being the covenant of the League of Nations, shall be so amended as to provide that the United States shall be entitled to cast a number of votes equal to that which any member of the League and its self-governing dominions, colonies or parts of empire, in the aggregate, shall be entitled to cast, the United States assumes no obligation to be bound, except in cases where Congress has previously given its consent, by any election, decision, report, or finding of the Council or Assembly in which any member of the League and its self-governing dominions, colonies, or parts of empire, in the aggregate, have cast more than one vote.

The United States assumes no obligation to be bound by any decision, report, or finding of the Council or Assembly arising out of any dispute between the United States and any member of the League if such member or any self-governing dominion, colony, empire, or part of empire united with it politically has voted.

15. In consenting to the ratification of the Treaty with Germany the United States adheres to the principle of self-determination and to the resolution of sympathy with the aspirations of the Irish people for a government of their own choice adopted by the Senate June 6, 1919, and declares that when such government is attained by Ireland, a consummation which it is hoped is at hand, it should promptly be admitted as a member of the League of Nations.

The First Meeting of the Council of the League of Nations

Representatives of France, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Spain, Japan and Brazil, members of the Council of the League of Nations, met on January 16, 1920, in the "cloak room" of the French Foreign Office for the first meeting in the history of the League.

The Council organized by electing Leon Bourgeois Chairman and confirming the choice of Sir Eric Drummond of Great Britain as General Secretary. The first official act of the League Council was the appointment of a commission to trace upon the spot the frontiers of the territory of the Saar Basin.

All the members of the Council called for by the covenant of the League, with the exception of the representative of the United States, were present. Beside M. Bourgeois, the members were Earl Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, for Great Britain; Premier Venizelos, for Greece; Carlo Ferraris, Italian Minister of Industry, Commerce, Labor and Food, for Italy; Paul Hymans, the Belgian Foreign Minister, for Belgium; Baron Matsui, Ambassador to France, for Japan; Dr. Gastoa da Cunha, Ambassador to France, for Brazil; Count Quinones de Leon, Ambassador to France, for Spain.

PEACE BY CONGRESSIONAL ENACTMENT FAILS

President Wilson Vetoes Knox Resolution Declaring State of War Ended

The failure of the Peace Treaty of ratification for the second time on March 19, 1920, with the Lodge reservations attached, and the determined refusal of the Republican majority to ratify it in the form desired by President Wilson, showed quite conclusively that under existing political alignment no peace might be expected for the country through the Treaty of Versailles. The Republicans, therefore, turned their efforts in a new direction to bring about peace without yielding to the President.

On April 1st the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives reported favorably a joint resolution declaring the state of war between Germany and the United States at an end and terminating the operation of all Congressional acts and Presidential proclamations dependent for their duration on the termination of the war or of the "present or existing emergency." It gave Germany forty-five days in which similarly to declare the ending of the war with the United States, and to waive all claims against this country, which she would not have had the right to assert had the United States ratified the Treaty of Versailles. For failure to comply with this provision, all commercial intercourse and the furnishing of loans and other financial assistance by this country to Germany were prohibited, except by license of the President. In answer to Democratic criticisms that the resolution was not only insincere, but also unconstitutional in arrogating to Congress the treaty-making power of the President, the Republican leaders conceded that, while the negotiation of peace terms rested with the President, the declaration of a status of peace was quite within the proper functions of Congress.

TEXT OF HOUSE RESOLUTION

The original resolution, as introduced in the House, read as follows:

WHEREAS the President of the United States, in the performance
of his constitutional duty to give to Congress information of
the state of the Union, has advised Congress that the war with
the Imperial German Government has ended;

_Resolved_, by the Senate and the House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
state of war declared to exist between the Imperial German
Government and the people of the United States by a joint
resolution of Congress, approved April 6, 1917, is hereby
declared at an end.

Section 2--That in the interpretation of any provision relating
to the date of the termination of the present war, or of the
present or existing emergency in any acts of Congress, joint
resolutions or proclamations of the President containing
provisions contingent upon the date of the termination of the
war, or of the present or existing emergency, the date when
this resolution becomes effective shall be construed and
treated as the date of the termination of the war, or of the
present or existing emergency, notwithstanding any provision in
any act of Congress or joint resolution providing any other
mode of determination of the date of the termination of the
war, or of the present or existing emergency.