"If Article X. is not adopted and acted upon, the Governments which reject it will, I think, be guilty of bad faith to their people, whom they induced to make the infinite sacrifices of the war by the pledge that they would be fighting to redeem the world from the old order of force and aggression. They will be acting also in bad faith to the opinion of the world at large, to which they appealed for support in a concerted stand against the aggressions and pretensions of Germany.
"If we were to reject Article X. or so to weaken it as to take its full force out of it, it would mark us as desiring to return to the old world of jealous rivalry and misunderstandings from which our gallant soldiers have rescued us and would leave us without any vision or new conception of justice and peace. We would have learned no lesson from the war, but gained only the regret that it had involved us in its maelstrom of suffering. If America has awakened, as the rest of the world has, to the vision of a new day in which the mistakes of the past are to be corrected, it will welcome the opportunity to share the responsibilities of Article X.
"It must not be forgotten, Senator, that the article constitutes a renunciation of all ambition on the part of powerful nations with whom we were associated in the war. It is by no means certain that without this article any such renunciation will take place. Militaristic ambitions and imperialistic policies are by no means dead, even in counsels of the nations whom we most trust and with whom we most desire to be associated in the tasks of peace.
DEMOCRACY VERSUS IMPERIALISM
"The choice is between two ideals; on the one hand, the ideal of democracy, which represents the rights of free peoples everywhere to govern themselves, and on the other hand the ideal of imperialism which seeks to dominate by force and unjust power, an ideal which is by no means dead and which is earnestly held in many quarters still.
"Every imperialistic influence in Europe was hostile to the embodiment of Article X. in the covenant of the League of Nations, and its defeat now would mark the complete consummation of their efforts to nullify the Treaty. I hold the doctrine of Article X. as the essence of Americanism. We cannot repudiate it or weaken it without at the same time repudiating our own principles.
"The imperialist wants no League of Nations, but if, in response to the universal cry of the masses everywhere, there is to be one, he is interested to secure one suited to his own purposes, one that will permit him to continue the historic game of pawns and peoples—the juggling of provinces, the old balances of power, and the inevitable wars attendant upon these things.
"The reservation proposed would perpetuate the old order. Does any one really want to see the old game played again? Can any one really venture to take part in reviving the old order? The enemies of a League of Nations have by every true instinct centered their efforts against Article X., for it is undoubtedly the foundation of the whole structure. It is the bulwark, and the only bulwark, of the rising democracy of the world against the forces of imperialism and reaction.
"Either we should enter the League fearlessly, accepting the responsibility and not fearing the rôle of leadership, which we now enjoy, contributing our efforts toward establishing a just and permanent peace, or we should retire as gracefully as possible from the great concert of powers, by which the world was saved. For my own part, I am not willing to trust to the counsel of diplomats the working out of any salvation of the world from the things which it has suffered."