The United States and the League of Nations

The meeting hall at the league of nations.
Delegates meet at the League of Nations

Below is an excerpt from an Encylopedia entry on the League of Nations.  While reading, identify:

1.  What was the problem?

 

2.  Who was involved in the proposed soultion?

 

The League of Nations was a post-World War I organization  formed to prevent international conflicts. At the end of World War I, the idea surfaced  among world leaders that such an organization was needed to prevent international conflicts.

At the Paris Peace Conference in January 18, 1919, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson chaired the committee with the responsibility of drawing up acovenant for such an organization. In a speech, Wilson framed his Fourteen Points for a new world order that resulted in the League of Nations. The covenant, ratified  as part of the Versailles Peace Treaty, instituted the league on January 10, 1920, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The league began with forty-two members; at its peak in 1934, it had fifty-eight member states participating.

A graphic organizer is provided on the following page to help you analyze this encyclopedia entry and the primary sources that follow. 


Now that we know about why the League of Nations formed. Your job is to compare the arguments for and against the United States joining the newly formed League of Nations.  In conclusion, you will write a short answer about why Henry Cabot Lodge and the dissenting  voices in Congress won the debate.

 

The graphic organizer handed out in class will help you in this task.



President Woodrow Wilson

President Woodrow Wilson, September 25,1919 in Pueblo, Colorado.  After returning from Paris, President Wilson toured the country to gain support for the treaty and the League. [Modified]

My fellow citizens, as I have crossed the continent, I have perceived more and more that men have been busy creating an absolutely false impression of the treaty of peace and the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Reflect, my fellow citizens that the membership of this great League is going to include all the great fighting nations of the world, as well as the weak ones. And what do they unite for?  They enter into a solemn promise to one another that they will never use their power against one another for aggression; that they never will violate the territorial integrity of a neighbor; that they never will interfere with the political independence of a neighbor; that they will abide by the principle that great populations are entitled to determine their own destiny; and
that no matter what differences arise between them they will never resort to war without first submitting their differences to the consideration of the council of the League of Nations, and agreeing that at the end of the six months, even if they do not accept the advice of the council, they will still not go to war for another three months.


I wish that those who oppose this settlement could feel the moral obligation that rests upon us not to turn our backs on the boys who died, but to see the thing through, to see it through to the end and make good their redemption of the world. For nothing less depends upon this decision, nothing less than liberation and salvation of the world.

 


Senator Henry Cabot Lodge

Henry Cabot Lodge, August 12, 1919, speech to President Wilson in Congress

Mr. President:

I can never be anything else but an American, and I must think of the United States first.  I have never had but one allegiance  - I cannot divide it now. I have loved but one flag and I cannot share that devotion  and give affection to the mongrel  banner invented for a league. Internationalism is to me repulsive .
The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence. Leave her to march freely through the centuries to come as in the years that have gone.
No doubt many excellent and patriotic people see a coming fulfillment of noble ideals in the words 'league for peace.' We all respect and share these aspirations and desires, but some of us see no hope, but rather defeat, for them in this murky plan. For we, too, have our ideals, even if we differ from those who have tried to establish a monopoly of idealism.

Our first ideal is our country. Our ideal is to make her ever stronger and better and finer, because in that way alone can she be of the greatest service to the world's peace and to the welfare of mankind.



Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding, 1919.

Nationality is the call of the hearts of liberated people, and a dream of those to whom freedom becomes an undying cause. It's the guiding light, the calm, the prayer, the confirmation for our own people, although we were never assured indivisible union until the Civil War was fought. Can any red-blooded American content now, when we have come to understand its priceless value -- to merge our nationality into internationality, merely because brotherhood and fraternity and fellowship and peace are soothing and appealing terms?

It's a very alluring  thing, Senators, to do what the world has never done before. No republic has ever permanently survived. They have flashed, illumined , and advanced the world, and then faded or crumbled. I want to be a contributor to the abiding  republic. None of us today can be sure that it shall abide for generations to come. But we may hold it unshaken for our day, and pass it on to the next generation preserved in its integrity. This is the unending call of duty to men of every civilization. It is distinctly the American call to duty, to every man who believes we have come the nearest to dependable, popular government the world has yet witnessed.

Let us have our America walking erect, unafraid, concerned about its rights and ready to defend them. Proud of its citizens and committed to defend them. And sure of its ideals and strong to support them. We're a hundred million or more today, and if the miracle of the first century of national life may be repeated in the second, the millions of today will be the myriads  of the future. I like to think, sirs, that out of the discovered soul of the republic, and through our preservative  actions in this supreme moment of human progress, we shall hold the word American the proudest boast of citizenship in all the world.


After consulting the sources, answer the final question on your graphic organizer:  Why do you think Henry Cabot Lodge and Warren Harding won this fight?  Use the documents to support your answers.

 

Optional Resources

Warren Harding reading his original speech.  [Link also directs to other prominant political speeches of the era]

Even without the United States, the League of Nations continued operations.  This website details some of the successes and failures of the League of Nations.