The Central Powers must not be left out of the League, or it would force them for mutual protection to form a second League of Nations, which the neutral states would almost certainly join. The result would be two great camps, each preparing for a new and greater life-and-death struggle.
Even the term League of Nations was a misnomer, for according to the proposed plan the nations of the world were divided into three classes.
First.—Signatories to the covenant confined perhaps to the five great Entente Powers—British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, and United States.
Second.—States not signatory, but named in the protocol, including possibly such Entente Powers, if any, as were not signatories, as well as other states neutral in the war.
Third.—Those states which are neither signatories nor protocol states which must furnish guaranties as to their intention to be bound by their international obligations, to be admitted to the League.
Thus the League of Nations, said Senator Knox, in the sense of all the nations was not created by the document, nor were the states members of the League treated as equals. He pointed out the difficulties in withdrawing from the League. "Once in this union we remain there no matter how onerous its gigantic burdens may become."
The climax to the senatorial discussion came when Senator Lodge circulated a proposal to reject the League of Nations constitution as then drafted. Thirty-nine members of the next Senate, said Senator Lodge, approved of the proposal, and read out their names. The thirty-nine members of the next Senate, if they stood fast for rejecting the League's constitution, would represent more than one-third of the body which must ratify any treaty by a two-thirds vote before it became effective.
Immediately after Congress adjourned on March 4, 1919, President Wilson left Washington for New York, where he delivered an address on the League in the evening of that date at the Metropolitan Opera House.
President Wilson in his address covered much the same ground he had traversed in his Boston speech, and paid his respects to the critics of the covenant in somewhat scathing terms. He was amazed that there should be in some quarters such ignorance of the state of the world. "These gentlemen do not know what the mind of men is just now. Everybody else does. I do not know where they have been closeted. I do not know by what influences they have been blinded; but I do know that they have been separated from the general currents of the thought of mankind.... I have heard no counsel of generosity in their criticism. I have heard no constructive suggestions. I have heard nothing except 'will it not be dangerous to us to help the world?' It will be fatal to us not to help it."
After concluding his address President Wilson and party boarded the George Washington and sailed again for France.