Under Four Administrations, from Cleveland to Taft / Recollections of Oscar S. Straus ...

by Oscar S. Straus

M. Benès pointed out that if any pogroms occurred, which these reports foreshadowed, it would seriously prejudice his country and would alienate American sympathy, which in turn might result in discontinuing food shipments to his country. He stated that he was a disciple of President Masaryk and always shared his liberal social and political views; he said he would at once telegraph President Masaryk, who he knew would do everything in his power to suppress the anti-Semitic agitation. We were very much impressed with the enlightened statesmanship of M. Benès, who, since then, has shown himself to be one of the foremost statesmen in middle Europe. He assured us at the time that any persecution of minorities in his country would be contrary to its organic laws, and in direct violation of the principles and policies upon which it had been determined to organize the State, and that we could rely on it that no efforts would be spared in securing equal justice for all without regard to race or religion.

From Sir Robert L. Borden, the Premier of Canada and one of the delegates of the British Empire to the Peace Conference, I received on March 21st a copy of his memorandum on the several articles of the Covenant. I found them well conceived and in the main admirable. He opposed Article X as drafted. He wanted it either stricken out or clarified. I sent him a copy of a speech of Mr. Taft's of March 5th referring to the same subject.

At the request of Colonel House, on April 11th, I had another conference with M. Bourgeois. The Commission on the League of Nations of the fourteen nations, under the chairmanship of President Wilson, had the night before held a protracted session discussing the revision of the Covenant, at which President Wilson offered the revised Article XXI containing the special provision regarding the Monroe Doctrine, as follows:

Article XXI

Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine for securing the maintenance of peace.

M. Larnaud and M. Bourgeois, the French representatives, both objected to specific reference to the Monroe Doctrine, and made long speeches in support of such objection. Colonel House desired me to impress upon M. Bourgeois the reasons for this amendment and why it was necessary specifically to mention the Monroe Doctrine, because, without it, it would not be possible to have the Covenant confirmed by the Senate. As I did not know M. Larnaud, I thought it best to discuss the subject with M. Bourgeois so that he might confer with his colleague. In company with Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, I called on M. Bourgeois at his residence. I soon learned that M. Bourgeois did not object to specific reference to the Monroe Doctrine, but he desired, in return for his assent, to obtain President Wilson's assent to the amendments Bourgeois had offered respecting a general staff and control or supervision of the military force that each of the States was to supply to support the League. As the Commission was to meet again to finish the consideration of the Covenant, he agreed to confer with M. Clemenceau, saying he would have to learn the other's views. He further said it must be determined how best to formulate the article especially referring to the Monroe Doctrine so as not to conflict with the general provisions.

At the session of the Commission that evening at the Crillon Hotel, which lasted until after midnight, the article as quoted above, specifically mentioning the Monroe Doctrine, was adopted. Colonel House gave me the exact wording of the article, which I at once cabled to the League to Enforce Peace in New York, with the request that Mr. Taft be informed. The same day I received a cable from Mr. Taft and Dr. Lowell, forwarded by Acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk, to the effect that, in the opinion of the Executive Committee of the League, specific reference to the exclusion of the Monroe Doctrine from the jurisdiction of the Covenant of the League was absolutely necessary to secure confirmation by the Senate. On the following day Taft cabled me that the Monroe Doctrine amendment was "eminently satisfactory."

I immediately advised President Wilson, sending him a copy of the cable. The following day, I received the following letter from him:

18 April, 1919

My dear Mr. Straus:

I have been very much cheered by your kind letter of yesterday, with the message which it quotes from the League to Enforce Peace and from Mr. Taft personally, and I want to thank you very warmly for your own kind personal assurances of satisfaction with the results of our work on the Covenant.

Cordially and sincerely yours
Woodrow Wilson

On April 23d, on the invitation of Professor Stephen Hayes Bush, of the State University of Iowa, who was in charge of the Free Lecture Course of the American Expeditionary Force, I delivered an address in the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne. The great hall was filled with about one thousand of our officers and men who were taking courses at this ancient institution of learning. There were two lectures that afternoon, the other by M. Ferdinand Buisson, the noted educator. His subject was "The Educational System of France," which he had done so much to develop since the educational system had been secularized by the separation of Church and State in France. He described why education had been taken from the control of the Catholic clergy, not out of hostility to the Church, but in order not to prejudice the religious scruples of non-clericals and non-Catholics.

I took as my subject "America and the League of Nations," and showed in what respect the Covenant provided definite sanctions to make peace decisions effective. I pointed out that following the war, for the first time in history, the dominant power of the world rested in democratically governed nations, and that theirs was the opportunity and the responsibility to make provisions that such a war shall never be waged again; and that now it was the duty of statesmanship to translate the victory won in war into greater security for the future peace and happiness of the world. I quoted from the speech of President Poincaré in welcoming the Peace Delegates, in which he had described the reasons why America entered the World War. He had said: "It was a supreme judgment passed at the bar of history by the lofty conscience of a free people to rescue her mother from the humiliation of thralldom and to save civilization."