The Republicans who attacked the President on Article X had evidently forgotten what Theodore Roosevelt said about the one effective move for obtaining peace, when he urged: "The nations should agree on certain rights that should not be questioned, such as territorial integrity, their rights to deal with their domestic affairs, and with such matters as whom they should admit to citizenship." They had, also, evidently forgotten that Mr. Taft said: "The arguments against Article X which have been most pressed are those directed to showing that under its obligations the United States can be forced into many wars and to burdensome expeditionary forces to protect countries in which it has no legitimate interest. This objection will not bear examination."
Mr. Taft answered the question of one of the Republican critics if Article
X would not involve us in war, in the following statement:
How much will it involve us in war? Little, if any. In the first place, the universal boycott, first to be applied, will impose upon most nations such a withering isolation and starvation that in most cases it will be effective. In the second place, we'll not be drawn into any war in which it will not be reasonable and convenient for us to render efficient aid, because the plan of the Council must be approved by our representatives, as already explained. In the third place, the threat of the universal boycott and the union of overwhelming forces of the members of the League, if need be, will hold every nation from violating Article X, and Articles XII, XIII, and XV, unless there is a world conspiracy, as in this war, in which case the earliest we get into the war, the better.
Evidently Mr. Taft did not look upon Article X as the bugaboo that Mr.
Lodge pretended it was, for he said:
Article X covers the Monroe Doctrine and extends it to the world. The League is not a super-sovereign, but a partnership intended to secure to us and all nations only the sovereignty we can properly have, i.e., sovereignty regulated by the international law and morality consistent with the same sovereignty of other nations. The United States is not under this constitution to be forced into actual war against its will. This League is to be regarded in conflict with the advice of Washington only from a narrow and reactionary viewpoint.
Mr. Herbert Hoover, now a member of Mr. Harding's Cabinet, in a speech delivered on October 3, 1919, answering the argument that America would be compelled to send her boys to the other side, said:
We hear the cry that the League obligates that our sons be sent to fight in foreign lands. Yet the very intent and structure of the League is to prevent wars. There is no obligation for the United States to engage in military operations or to allow any interference with our internal affairs without the full consent of our representatives in the League.
And further discussing the revision of the Treaty, Mr. Hoover said:
I am confident that if we attempt now to revise the Treaty we shall tread on a road through European chaos. Even if we managed to keep our soldiers out of it we will not escape fearful economic losses. If the League is to break down we must at once prepare to fight. Few people seem to realize the desperation to which Europe has been reduced.