CHAPTER XII
REPORT OF COMMISSION ON LEAGUE OF NATIONS
The Commission on the League of Nations, over which President Wilson presided, held ten meetings between February 3 and February 14, on which latter day it submitted a report at a plenary session of the Conference on the Preliminaries of Peace. The report was presented by the President in an address of exceptional excellence which made a deep impression on his hearers. His dignity of manner, his earnestness, and his logical presentation of the subject, clothed as it was in well-chosen phrases, unquestionably won the admiration of all, even of those who could not reconcile their personal views with the Covenant, as reported by the Commission. It was a masterly effort, an example of literary rather than emotional oratory, peculiarly fitting to the occasion and to the temper and intellectual character of the audience.
Considering the brief time given to its discussion in the Commission and the necessary haste required to complete the document before the President's departure, the Covenant as reported to the Conference was a creditable piece of work. Many of the more glaring errors of expression and some of the especially objectionable features of the President's revised draft were eliminated. There were others which persisted, but the improvement was so marked that the gross defects in word and phrase largely disappeared. If one accepted the President's theory of organization, there was little to criticize in the report, except a certain inexactness of expression which indicated a lack of technical knowledge on the part of those who put the Covenant into final form. But these crudities and ambiguities of language would, it was fair to presume, disappear if the articles passed through the hands of drafting experts.
Fundamentally, however, the Covenant as reported was as wrong as the President's original draft, since it contained the affirmative guaranty of political independence and territorial integrity, the primacy of the Five Great Powers on the Executive Council, and the perplexing and seemingly unsound system of mandates. In this I could not willingly follow President Wilson, but I felt that I had done all that I could properly do in opposition to his theory. The responsibility of decision rested with him and he had made his decision. There was nothing more to be said.
On the evening of the day of the plenary session, at which the report of the League of Nations was submitted, the President left Paris for Brest where the George Washington was waiting to convey him to the United States. He carried with him the report of the Commission, whose deliberations and decisions he had so manifestly dominated. He went prepared to meet his political antagonists and the enemies of the League, confidently believing that he could win a popular support that would silence the opposition which had been increasingly manifest in the Halls of Congress and in some of the Republican newspapers which declined to follow Mr. Taft, Mr. Wickersham, Mr. Straus, and other influential Republican members of the League to Enforce Peace.
During the ten days preceding February 14, when the Commission on the League of Nations held daily sessions, the President had no conferences with the American Commissioners except, of course, with Colonel House, his American colleague on the Commission on the League. On the morning of the 14th, however, he called a meeting of the Commissioners and delivered to them the printed report which was to be presented that afternoon to the plenary session. As the meetings of the Commission on the League of Nations had been secret, the American Commissioners, other than Colonel House, were almost entirely ignorant of the proceedings and of the progress being made. Colonel House's office staff knew far more about it than did Mr. White, General Bliss, or I. When the President delivered the report to the Commissioners they were, therefore, in no position to express an opinion concerning it. The only remarks were expressions of congratulation that he had been able to complete the work before his departure. They were merely complimentary. As to the merits of the document nothing was or could be said by the three Commissioners, since no opportunity had been given them to study it, and without a critical examination any comment concerning its provisions would have been worthless. I felt and I presume that my two colleagues, who had not been consulted as to the work of the Commission on the League, felt, that it was, in any event, too late to offer suggestions or make criticisms. The report was in print; it was that afternoon to be laid before the Conference; in twelve hours the President would be on his way to the United States. Clearly it would have been useless to find fault with the report, especially if the objections related to the fundamental ideas of the organization which it was intended to create. The President having in the report declared the American policy, his commissioned representatives were bound to acquiesce in his decision whatever their personal views were. Acquiescence or resignation was the choice, and resignation would have undoubtedly caused an unfortunate, if not a critical, situation. In the circumstances acquiescence seemed the only practical and proper course.
The fact that in ten meetings and in a week and a half a Commission composed of fifteen members, ten of whom represented the Five Great Powers and five of whom represented the lesser powers (to which were later added four others), completed the drafting of a detailed plan of a League of Nations, is sufficient in itself to raise doubts as to the thoroughness with which the work was done and as to the care with which the various plans and numerous provisions proposed were studied, compared, and discussed. It gives the impression that many clauses were accepted under the pressing necessity of ending the Commission's labors within a fixed time. The document itself bears evidence of the haste with which it was prepared, and is almost conclusive proof in itself that it was adopted through personal influence rather than because of belief in the wisdom of all its provisions.
The Covenant of the League of Nations was intended to be the greatest international compact that had ever been written. It was to be the Maxima Charta of mankind securing to the nations their rights and liberties and uniting them for the preservation of universal peace. To harmonize the conflicting views of the members of the Commission—and it was well known that they were conflicting—and to produce in eleven days a world charter, which would contain the elements of greatness or even of perpetuity, was on the face of it an undertaking impossible of accomplishment. The document which was produced sufficiently establishes the truth of this assertion.
It required a dominant personality on the Commission to force through a detailed plan of a League in so short a time. President Wilson was such a personality. By adopting the scheme of an oligarchy of the Great Powers he silenced the dangerous opposition of the French and British members of the Commission who willingly passed over minor defects in the plan provided this Concert of Powers, this Quintuple Alliance, was incorporated in the Covenant. And for the same reason it may be assumed the Japanese and Italians found the President's plan acceptable. Mr. Wilson won a great personal triumph, but he did so by surrendering the fundamental principle of the equality of nations. In his eagerness to "make the world safe for democracy" he abandoned international democracy and became the advocate of international autocracy.
It is not my purpose to analyze the provisions of the Covenant which was submitted to the Conference on the Preliminaries of Peace on February 14, 1919. My objections to it have been sufficiently discussed in the preceding pages. It would be superfluous to repeat them. The innumerable published articles and the endless debates on the Covenant have brought out its good features as well as its defects. Unfortunately for the opponents and defenders of the document alike some of the objections urged have been flagrantly unjustifiable and based on false premises and misstatements of fact and of law, which seem to show political motives and not infrequently personal animosity toward Mr. Wilson. The exaggerated statements and unfair arguments of some of the Senators, larded, as they often were, with caustic sarcasm and vindictive personalities, did much to prevent an honest and useful discussion of the merits and demerits of the Covenant.
The effect upon President Wilson of this campaign against him personally—and it seems to me that it would have had the same effect upon any man of spirit—was to arouse his indignation. Possibly a less stubborn man would not have assumed so uncompromising an attitude as he did or have permitted his ire to find expression in threats, but it cannot be denied that there was provocation for the resentment which he exhibited. The President has been blamed for not having sought more constantly to placate the opponents of the Covenant and to meet them on a common ground of compromise, especially during his visit to the United States in February, 1919. From the point of view of policy there is justice in blaming him, but, when one considers the personal animus shown and the insolent tone assumed by some of his critics, his conduct was very human; not wise, but human. Mr. Wilson had never shown a spirit of conciliation in dealing with those who opposed him. Even in the case of a purely political question he appeared to consider opposition to be a personal affront and he was disposed to retaliate in a personal way. In a measure this explains the personal enmity of many of his political foes. I think that it is not unjust to say that President Wilson was stronger in his hatreds than in his friendships. He seemed to lack the ability to forgive one who had in any way offended him or opposed him.
Believing that much of the criticism of the Covenant was in reality criticism of him as its author, a belief that was in a measure justified, the President made it a personal matter. He threatened, in a public address delivered in the New York Opera House on the eve of his departure for France, to force the Republican majority to accept the Covenant by interweaving the League of Nations into the terms of peace to such an extent that they could not be separated, so that, if they rejected the League, they would be responsible for defeating the Treaty and preventing a restoration of peace. With the general demand for peace this seemed no empty threat, although the propriety of making it may be questioned. It had, however, exactly the opposite effect from that which the President intended. Its utterance proved to be as unwise as it was ineffective. The opposition Senators resented the idea of being coerced. They became more than ever determined to defeat a President whom they charged with attempting to disregard and nullify the right of the Senate to exercise independently its constitutional share in the treaty-making power. Thus at the very outset of the struggle between the President and the Senate a feeling of hostility was engendered which continued with increasing bitterness on both sides and prevented any compromise or concession in regard to the Covenant as it finally appeared in the Treaty of Versailles.
When President Wilson returned to Paris after the adjournment of the Sixty-Fifth Congress on March 4, 1919, he left behind him opponents who were stronger and more confident than they were when he landed ten days before. While his appeal to public opinion in favor of the League of Nations had been to an extent successful, there was a general feeling that the Covenant as then drafted required amendment so that the sovereign rights and the traditional policies of the United States should be safeguarded. Until the document was amended it seemed that the opposition had the better of the argument with the people. Furthermore, when the new Congress met, the Republicans would have a majority in the Senate which was of special importance in the matter of the Treaty which would contain the Covenant, because it would, when sent to the Senate, be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations to report on its ratification and a majority of that Committee, under a Republican organization, would presumably be hostile to the plan for a League advocated by the President. The Committee could hinder and possibly prevent the acceptance of the Covenant, while it would have the opportunity to place the opposition's case in a favorable light before the American people and to attack the President's conduct of the negotiations at Paris.
I believe that the President realized the loss of strategic position which he had sustained by the Democratic defeat at the polls in November, 1918, but was persuaded that, by making certain alterations in the Covenant suggested by Republicans favorable to the formation of a League, and especially those advocating a League to Enforce Peace, he would be able to win sufficient support in the Senate and from the people to deprive his antagonists of the advantage which they had gained by the elections. This he sought to do on his return to Paris about the middle of March. If the same spirit of compromise had been shown while he was in America it would doubtless have gone far to weaken hostility to the Covenant. Unfortunately for his purpose he assumed a contrary attitude, and in consequence the sentiment against the League was crystallized and less responsive to the concessions which the President appeared willing to make when the Commission on the League of Nations resumed its sittings, especially as the obnoxious Article 10 remained intact.
In the formulation of the amendments to the Covenant, which were incorporated in it after the President's return from the United States and before its final adoption by the Conference, I had no part and I have no reason to think that Mr. White or General Bliss shared in the work. As these amendments or modifications did not affect the theory of organization or the fundamental principles of the League, they in no way changed my views or lessened the differences between the President's judgment and mine. Our differences were as to the bases and not as to the details of the Covenant. Since there was no disposition to change the former we were no nearer an agreement than we were in January.
The President's visit to the United States had been disappointing to the friends of a League in that he had failed to rally to the support of the Covenant an overwhelming popular sentiment in its favor which the opposition in the Senate could not resist. The natural reaction was that the peoples of Europe and their statesmen lost a measure of their enthusiasm and faith in the project. Except in the case of a few idealists, there was a growing disposition to view it from the purely practical point of view and to speculate on its efficacy as an instrument to interpret and carry out the international will. Among the leaders of political thought in the principal Allied countries, the reports of the President's reception in the United States were sufficiently conflicting to arouse doubt as to whether the American people were actually behind him in his plan for a League, and this doubt was not diminished by his proposed changes in the Covenant, which indicated that he was not in full control of the situation at home.
Two weeks after the President had resumed his duties as a negotiator and had begun the work of revising the Covenant, I made a memorandum of my views as to the situation that then existed. The memorandum is as follows:
"March 25, 1919
"With the increasing military preparations and operations throughout Eastern Europe and the evident purpose of all these quarreling nations to ignore any idea of disarmament and to rely upon force to obtain and retain territory and rights, the League of Nations is being discussed with something like contempt by the cynical, hard-headed statesmen of those countries which are being put on a war-footing. They are cautious and courteous out of regard for the President. I doubt if the truth reaches him, but it comes to me from various sources.
"These men say that in theory the idea is all right and is an ideal to work toward, but that under present conditions it is not practical in preventing war. They ask, what nation is going to rely on the guaranty in the Covenant if a jealous or hostile neighbor maintains a large army. They want to know whether it would be wise or not to disarm under such conditions. Of course the answers are obvious. But, if the guaranty is not sufficient, or accepted as sufficient, protection, what becomes of the central purpose of the League and the chief reason for creating it?
"I believe that the President and Colonel House see this, though they do not admit it, and that to save the League from being cast into the discard they will attempt to make of it a sort of international agency to do certain things which would normally be done by independent international commissions. Such a course would save the League from being still-born and would so interweave it with the terms of peace that to eliminate it would be to open up some difficult questions.
"Of course the League of Nations as originally planned had one supreme object and that was to prevent future wars. That was substantially all that it purposed to do. Since then new functions have been gradually added until the chief argument for the League's existence has been almost lost to sight. The League has been made a convenient 'catch-all' for all sorts of international actions. At first this was undoubtedly done to give the League something to do, and now it is being done to save it from extinction or from being ignored.
"I am not denying that a common international agent may be a good thing. In fact the plan has decided merit. But the organization of the League does not seem to me suitable to perform efficiently and properly these new functions.
"However, giving this character to the League may save it from being merely an agreeable dream. As the repository of international controversies requiring long and careful consideration it may live and be useful.
"My impression is that the principal sponsors for the League are searching through the numerous disputes which are clogging the wheels of the Conference, seizing upon every one which can possibly be referred, and heaping them on the League of Nations to give it standing as a useful and necessary adjunct to the Treaty.
"At least that is an interesting view of what is taking place and opens a wide field for speculation as to the future of the League and the verdict which history will render as to its origin, its nature, and its real value."
I quote this memorandum because it gives my thoughts at the time concerning the process of weaving the League into the terms of peace as the President had threatened to do. I thought then that it had a double purpose, to give a practical reason for the existence of the League and to make certain the ratification of the Covenant by the Senate. No fact has since developed which has induced me to change my opinion.
In consequence of the functions which were added to the League, the character of the League itself underwent a change. Instead of an agency created solely for the prevention of international wars, it was converted into an agency to carry out the terms of peace. Its idealistic conception was subordinated to the materialistic purpose of confirming to the victorious nations the rewards of victory. It is true that during the long struggle between the President and the Senate on the question of ratification there was in the debates a general return to the original purpose of the League by both the proponents and opponents of the Covenant, but that fact in no way affects the truth of the assertion that, in order to save the League of Nations, its character was changed by extending its powers and duties as a common agent of the nations which had triumphed over the Central Alliance.
The day before the Treaty of Peace was delivered to the German plenipotentiaries (May 6) its terms induced me to write a note entitled "The Greatest Loss Caused by the War," referring to the loss of idealism to the world. In that note I wrote of the League of Nations as follows:
"Even the measure of idealism, with which the League of Nations was at the first impregnated, has, under the influence and intrigue of ambitious statesmen of the Old World, been supplanted by an open recognition that force and selfishness are primary elements in international co-operation. The League has succumbed to this reversion to a cynical materialism. It is no longer a creature of idealism. Its very source and reason have been dried up and have almost disappeared. The danger is that it will become a bulwark of the old order, a check upon all efforts to bring man again under the influence which he has lost."
The President, in the addresses which he afterward made in advocacy of the Covenant and of ratification of the Treaty, indicated clearly the wide divergence of opinion between us as to the character of the League provided for in the Treaty. I do not remember that the subject was directly discussed by us, but I certainly took no pains to hide my misgivings as to the place it would have in the international relations of the future. However, as Mr. Wilson knew that I disapproved of the theory and basic principles of the organization, especially the recognition of the oligarchy of the Five Powers, he could not but realize that I considered that idealism had given place to political expediency in order to secure for the Covenant the support of the powerful nations represented at the Conference. This was my belief as to our relations when the Treaty of Peace containing the Covenant was laid before the Germans at the Hôtel des Reservoirs in Versailles.