Course 2, Volume 1A. American Foreign Policy in Growth and Action Page: 63
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PART III
The United States Calculates
The Price Of World Leadership1. The Aftermath of World War I
For more than twenty years after the close of
World War I the United States pursued an un-
certain course in international affairs. America
had become a world power, but it frequently
shrunk from the need to admit this fact. At other
times it acted boldly to assume its place among
the leaders of the world. These two decades, there-
fore, were a period of alternate advance and
retreat by the United States. In some fields and
in some instances, America daringly took the lead
in settling vexatious problems. But in other equally
important instances she shied away from the re-
sponsibilities of a mature nation. The story of this
backing and filling, this venturing and hiding,
forms the burden of this part of the study of the
development of American foreign policy.
Even before the signing of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles there arose in the United States strong
opposition to many of the treaty
Opposition provisions, and especially to the
to the establishment of the kind of League
Versailles of Nations, embedded in the text of
Treaty the document. Much of the opposi-
tion was partisan and anti-Wilson,
but loyal Democrats and respected international-
ists also had doubts about the Treaty and the
League. The weight of opposition centered around
Article X of the Covenant of the League.1
THE VERSAILLES TREATY, VERSAILLES,
JUNE 28, 1919: . . . Article 10. 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. . . .
President Wilson's action in taking the League
1 The term "covenant" is said to have been specially
favored by President Wilson, who was descended from Scotch
Presbyterians, as having stronger implications than "consti-
tution" or some other term more generally used.issue to the country in September 1919 helped to
break his health, and the Senate reservations
sponsored by Senator Lodge, Wilson's most bitter
opponent, provided a rallying point for the foes of
the Treaty and the League.
THE LODGE RESERVATIONS, WASHING-
TON, SEPTEMBER 10, 1919: . . . The United
States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial
integrity or political independence of any other coun-
try 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. . . . The United States assumes no obliga-
tion 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 domin-
ions, 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.
The feature of the League organization which
allotted six votes to members of the British Em-
pire and only one to the United States, a fact to
which the latter part of the quota-
Senator Lodge tion from Lodge's reservations
leads the fight alludes, added fuel to the opposi-
to defeat tion.(35) In November 1919 an at-
the League tempt to achieve ratification of the
treaty in the Senate was defeated.
Another vote in March 1920 failed to rally the
necessary two-thirds margin for approval. Both of
these votes included action on the Lodge reserva-63
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Air University (U.S.). Extension Course Institute. Course 2, Volume 1A. American Foreign Policy in Growth and Action, book, April 1959; Alabama. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1077937/m1/77/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.