Under Four Administrations Part 36

President Wilson a.s.sured us that, while he was somewhat tired, he felt in good condition. He said he had had a number of conferences with individual Senators who had objected to the ratification of the treaty, and that he had given them explanations regarding the main points in dispute, namely, Article X, guaranteeing against external aggression; Article XXI, providing that nothing in the Covenant should be deemed to affect the validity of the Monroe Doctrine; and Article I, providing that any member of the League may, after two years' notice, withdraw from the League. These were the main subjects covered by the reservations formulated by the moderate group headed by Senators Kellogg and Mcc.u.mber.

We suggested that it might be of good result if the President could in some public and formal way make his explanations and interpretations regarding these points. The question was how this could best be done.

The President believed it would be preferable if one of the Senators of the opposition addressed to him a letter of inquiry, so framed as to enable the President to give his views. It was then understood that Dr.

Lowell, Mr. McCormick, and I should confer with Senator Hitchc.o.c.k, the Democratic leader of the minority of the Committee on Foreign Relations, who could advise us as to what member of the Republican majority on the committee it would be best for us to confer with.

After our conference with the President, we went to the Senate and found the Committee on Foreign Relations in session, examining Secretary of State Lansing. Senator Hitchc.o.c.k suggested that we call on Senator Mcc.u.mber, but as he was not then in Was.h.i.+ngton, Dr. Lowell and I called on Senator Kellogg. The latter told us what we already knew, namely, that he was in favor of the League and was scheduled to make his speech in the Senate advocating the ratification of the treaty with the reservations his group had formulated, which reservations he felt confident were not in the nature of amendments, but interpretative only, and therefore would not require resubmission either to the Plenary Session or to Germany. Dr. Lowell and I outlined our plan regarding the letter to the President, asking for his interpretation of the articles above referred to. While Senator Kellogg personally favored this plan, he said he would first have to confer with the members of his group, and he believed they would be favorably inclined. We then inquired whether the President's interpretations and clarifications might not serve the purpose of making the reservations unnecessary. The Senator said "no,"

but that the reservations could recite the fact that they were based upon the President's interpretations. We arranged that Senators Kellogg and Hitchc.o.c.k should confer upon the subject with a view of preparing such a tentative letter of inquiry which might be shown to the President in advance, and to which the President could reply, giving his interpretations.

After leaving Senator Kellogg, we again called on Senator Hitchc.o.c.k. In all of these conferences between the Senators of the various groups, we acted as the "honest brokers" for the League. Senator Hitchc.o.c.k thought very favorably of our plan and believed it would work out advantageously. Dr. Lowell and I felt gratified with our day's work, though, as matters developed, nothing came of this plan.

In this connection I cannot refrain from quoting a story which Dr.

Lowell told apropos of the problem. The story, as I recall it, was that a noted colored preacher was holding a service in which he read a chapter from Isaiah referring to the Seraphim. After the service one of the colored brethren asked the preacher what was "the difference between a Seraphim and a terrapin." The latter, rubbing his head, replied: "My son, I grant you there is a difference, but they have made it up."

Unfortunately, while there was, in words at least, if not in context, a difference between the reservations offered by the Administration group, the group of mild reservationists, and the majority group, yet, for reasons that I need not enter into here, they did not "make it up."

In concluding this chapter and in closing these memoirs, I cannot resist reflecting how much wiser the Allied Powers and America were in the conduct of the war than in the making of peace, and afterwards. In war they finally pooled their strength and won; in the peace terms they again drew measurably apart. The men who framed the peace terms subordinated world policies to home politics. The United States, by reason of a contest between the Administration and the majority group in the Senate, allowed its sense of world responsibility to be negated by partisan differences. Reconstruction is being halted. And why? Because the leading statesmen of the Entente Powers still lack the economic wisdom, or, what is the equivalent, the courage, to shape their international policies along world economic lines. My own country, in withholding its cooperation, is equally culpable. The result is tension and derangement in the relations.h.i.+p of nations.

As the malady from which this and other countries are suffering is world-wide, so must the remedy be world-wide. And America cannot free herself from the responsibility by isolating herself and refusing to do her part in applying the remedial measures necessary to restore normal conditions. The remedy does not consist in the lessening or weakening of sovereignty by individual states. It consists in the enlargement of their sovereign functions in concert with and in just relations to other states for the administration of common interests. It requires no surrender of sovereignty for individual states to conform their policies to the world's common needs.

THE END