Treaty of Versailles -- The Struggle for Senate Ratification

Negotiations designed to bring an end to the world's most destructive war took place in Paris in the first six months of 1919.  The negotiations took place, however, not between the warring sides but among the victorious nations.  The result was a treaty that was presented to representatives of Germany on May 7 and signed at Versailles on June 28.  President Wilson took the Treaty back home, where a protracted and bitter political fight awaited him.

*****

Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau

Germany presented an extensive list of objections to the draft treaty on May 29.  After two weeks of uncertainty and debate among the Allies about how to respond, they decided to leave it substantially unchanged and gave the Germans a deadline to accept or reject it.  Germany's foreign minister Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau advised his government not to sign, but the German National Assembly in Weimar decided not to follow his advice and passed a resolution agreeing to the Treaty as written.  On June 21, as the deadline neared, most of the ships of the German High Seas Fleet interned at Scapa Flow were scuttled by their crews. 

 

 The Hall of Mirrors, June 28, 1919

The Treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles on June 28, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  Germany was represented by its new Foreign Minister Hermann Mueller.  After the signing, President Wilson left Paris.  In Brest he boarded the U.S.S. George Washington for his return voyage to the United States.

President Wilson Returns Home

The President arrived back in the United States on July 8.  The George Washington was met at sea by the superdreadnought U.S.S. Pennsylvania carrying members of the Cabinet and Congress and leading a flotilla of battleships, destroyers and submarine chasers, accompanied by a squadron of ten seaplanes from the Rockaway Naval Air Station and a dirigible that floated above the mast of the George Washington for more than ten miles.  The President stepped ashore at Hoboken, New Jersey, where he passed between lines of waving schoolchildren to a special ferryboat that took him across the Hudson River to the West 23rd Street Pier.  Thousands of cheering people lined the streets of Manhattan as his motorcade proceeded to Carnegie Hall, where a band struck up “Over There” and "The Star Spangled Banner."  Inside the Hall, he spoke for thirty-seven minutes, saying he was glad to be home and joking that when his ship docked he had thought for the first time in his life that Hoboken was a beautiful city.  He did not specifically mention the League of Nations in his speech, but said he hoped that when they studied the Treaty everyone would agree with him that it was a “just peace.”  He returned to Washington on the midnight train.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge

Never before in American history had a president presented a treaty to the Senate in person, but on July 10 President Wilson did so.  He was greeted and escorted into the Senate Chamber by a bipartisan committee of five senators led by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Henry Cabot Lodge.  He told the Senators that the League of Nations was the “only hope for mankind,” and that if they rejected the Treaty it would “break the heart of the world.”  

President Taft and the League to Enforce Peace

Former President William Howard Taft, a supporter of the League of Nations and the founder and president of the pro-ratification League to Enforce Peace (LEP), proposed some reservations, as did other prominent Republicans including 1916 presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes, former Secretary of State Elihu Root and Republican National Committee Chairman Will Hays.  A few days later, facing criticism from League supporters, Taft supported an LEP resolution in support of unconditional ratification, but a mixed message had been sent.

Senator Swanson

In the Senate, debate on the treaty began with a speech on July 14 by Senator Claude Swanson (Dem., Va.) in support of ratification, and President Wilson began holding meetings with Republican senators in an effort to persuade them to support the treaty.  On the last day of the month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began public hearings. 

Senator Key Pittman

In an August 12 speech on the Senate floor, Senator Lodge outlined five reservations he considered essential to ratification of the Treaty.  Similar to reservations supported by Hughes and Root, they provided that nothing in the League of Nations covenant would require the United States to send military forces into combat without the consent of Congress.  Shortly afterward, at Lodge’s request, President Wilson agreed to meet with the Foreign Relations Committee.  The meeting took place at the White House on August 19, but no progress was made toward agreement.  The battle lines were inadvertently hardened the next day when resolutions introduced by Senator Key Pittman (Dem., Nev.) in an attempt to outline mutual understandings regarding the “construction and interpretation” of the Treaty were disavowed by the “mild reservationists” who had attended the meeting.  

Senator Philander Knox

The failure to arrive at a satisfactory compromise emboldened the “irreconcilables” opposed to League membership, and a few days later, on August 23, the Foreign Relations Committee voted in favor of an amendment to the Treaty that would return Shantung to China.  The Committee approved three more amendments, including one to equalize the votes of the United States and the British Empire in the General Assembly.  In response, the White House announced that the President would embark on a “swing around the circle,” a cross-country speaking tour to the west coast and back, with speeches planned in fifty cities in thirty days in support of the Treaty as written.  Senator Philander Knox of Pennsylvania, an influential Republican who had served as Attorney General under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt and as Secretary of State under President Taft, joined the ranks of the “irreconcilables” with a speech on August 29 in which he condemned the treaty as “not the treaty but the truce of Versailles,” which would “kill the goose that we expect to lay the golden eggs.”  He advocated instead what came to be known as the “Knox Doctrine,” which would simply pledge the United States to cooperate with other nations in the event of a threat to the peace of Europe.

Greeting the Crowds in St.Louis

On September 3, President Wilson departed on his cross-country speaking tour.   His first stop was a luncheon address in Columbus, Ohio, the home of Republican Senator Warren G. Harding, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a treaty opponent.  That evening the President spoke in Indianapolis, Indiana, a state represented by two other Republican senators.  His next stops were in St. Louis and Kansas City, reflecting the fact that one of Missouri’s senators, James A. Reed, was the most outspoken Democratic opponent of the Treaty.  Speeches, sometimes two a day, followed at Des Moines, Omaha, Sioux Falls, Minneapolis and St. Paul.  

William C. Bullitt

 

Secretary of State Lansing

As his train crossed Montana, Wilson learned of the September 12 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of William C. Bullitt, a member of the American delegation to the peace conference who had resigned in protest when the final terms had been agreed to.  In his testimony, Bullitt revealed that Secretary of State Lansing had shared many of his own concerns about the Treaty and the League in a private conversation.  Among other things, Lansing had called the League “entirely useless” and designed to serve the interests of England and France.  In response to press inquiries, Lansing declined comment, instead sending a telegram to Wilson that reached him several days later in Los Angeles, in which he called Bullitt's conduct “despicable and outrageous” but stopped short of an outright denial.

Speaking in Pueblo

Returning from the west coast, President Wilson issued a statement challenging the Senate to hold an up or down vote on the treaty without amendments or reservations.  After struggling through a speech in Pueblo, Colorado on September 25, he collapsed from what was described by his physician Admiral Cary Grayson as “nervous exhaustion.”  At Wichita, his next scheduled stop, the remainder of his speaking tour was cancelled.  His train took him directly back to Washington, arriving on September 28.  

The Treaty Goes to the Senate

On September 10, during the president’s absence from Washington, the Foreign Relations Committee forwarded the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate with thirty-eight amendments and four reservations, along with hearing transcripts and a report signed by Senator Lodge on behalf of the Republican majority stating that “the committee believes that the League as it stands will breed wars instead of securing peace.”  One of the amendments, called the Johnson Amendment after its author Senator Hiram Johnson, would equalize the vote of the United States and the British Empire in the General Assembly.  Others dealt with the Japanese occupation of Shantung, and others with the makeup of international commissions involving American interests.  The next day the Committee’s Democratic minority submitted its report arguing for ratification of the treaty without amendments or reservations.

Admiral Grayson

On October 2, a few days after returning to the White House, President Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke.  Admiral Grayson continued to refuse to provide information about the President’s condition beyond the initial announcement that he was suffering from “nervous exhaustion.”  The President's incapacity forced the cancellation of a reception for the visiting King and Queen of Belgium.

Senator Moses

The following week, Senator George H. Moses (Rep., N.H.) wrote in a letter to a constituent that the President was “a very sick man” who was “unable to undergo any experience which requires concentration of mind.”  When Moses’ letter was leaked to the press, Grayson questioned the Senator’s medical qualifications and said he “must have information that I do not possess.”  Several amendments to the Treaty were defeated in the Senate, including the amendments to limit voting by the British Empire and to delete the provision allowing Japanese occupation of Shantung.  Meanwhile, French President Poincare issued a declaration in Paris stating that, because Great Britain, Italy and France had ratified the Treaty of Versailles, France’s state of war with Germany was at an end.  

 Senator Hitchcock

For much of November the Senate was occupied debating and voting on a series of proposed amendments and reservations to the proposed Treaty.  The ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Gilbert Hitchcock (Dem., Neb.), led the campaign for ratification.  A cloture rule, adopted after the Armed Ships Bill filibuster in 1917 but applied now for the first time, limited each senator’s time to speak, but there was no limit to the number of senators who could have their say.  All of the proposed amendments were defeated, as were most of the reservations other than those proposed by the Foreign Relations Committee.  Now expanded to fourteen (possibly to match the president's fourteen points) and referred to as the “Lodge reservations,” they were:

1. The U.S. will be the sole judge of whether it has satisfied the conditions for withdrawal from the League
2. The U.S. assumes no obligation under Article X to defend the territorial integrity of member nations or to interfere in disputes between other nations
3. The U.S. will not accept any mandates except by action of Congress
4. The U.S. will be the sole judge of what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction
5. The U.S. will be the sole judge of the applicability and interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine
6. The U.S. retains full liberty of action with respect to controversies between China and Japan regarding the province of Shantung
7. The U.S. Congress will provide by law for the appointment of representatives to the League
8. The reparation commission may interfere with U.S.-German trade only to the extent approved by Congress
9. The U.S. is not obligated to pay League expenses without Congressional approval
10. If the U.S. adopts a limitation of armaments proposed by the League, it can restore them at any time without the League's consent
11. The U.S. may permit nationals of treaty-breaking states to continue their personal, financial and commercial relations with Americans
12. Nothing in the Treaty infringes on any rights of American citizens
13. No obligation to join future League organizations
14. The U.S. will not be bound by any vote in which a member, including its colonies, has cast more than one vote


The LEP continued to send a mixed message, generally supporting the Treaty but voting down a resolution to oppose the Lodge Reservations.  In doing so it followed the lead of two of its most prominent members, former President Taft and Harvard President Lawrence Lowell, who argued that some reservations might be necessary to get the Treaty ratified.  After two meetings with the President, Senator Gilbert Hitchcock, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, summarized the President’s views in a draft letter, which he gave to Mrs. Wilson.  She read it to the President, revised it as he directed, and returned it to Senator Hitchcock, who shared it with his fellow Democrats.  Promptly leaked to the press, it said that in the President’s opinion “the resolution [for ratification with the Lodge reservations] does not provide for ratification, but rather for nullification of the treaty,” and that he “hope[s] the friends and supporters of the treaty will vote against the Lodge resolution of ratification.”  The President’s firm rejection led to the Treaty’s defeat.  Three final votes on consent to the Treaty were taken on November 19, two with the “Lodge reservations” attached and one with no reservations. All three failed to pass, and the Senate adjourned, bringing the session to a close.  President Wilson declined to make any statement in response to the Senate’s action, and refused even to see Senator Hitchcock when he called at the White House.  Hitchcock and other treaty supporters resolved to bring the treaty before the Senate again in the next session of Congress, which (as the Constitution provided prior to to the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933) would begin two weeks later, on the first Monday in December.  

 Senator Fall

President Wilson delivered the annual State of the Union message on the first day of the new session of Congress.  His physical condition making it impossible for him to  appear in person, he delivered the message in writing for the first time in his presidency.  Despite its importance, he did not mention either the Treaty or the controversy over its ratification.  This, in addition to the President’s refusal to see Senator Hitchcock a week earlier, increased concern in Congress about his ability to perform the duties of his office.  When an American citizen was seized in Mexico, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appointed a subcommittee of two (Senator Hitchcock and Republican Senator Albert Fall) to visit the White House and discuss the matter with the President in person, with the additional unspoken goal of assessing the President's capacity.  After the meeting both senators judged him “perfectly capable of handling the situation,” a conclusion perhaps aided by the dim light in the President’s bedroom, by the artful arrangement of the bedclothes, and most importantly by the message that arrived during the meeting that the American citizen had been released.  In the Senate, efforts to reach an accommodation regarding acceptable reservations continued until mid-December, when the White House issued a statement that seemed to foreclose any hope that the President might be willing to compromise.  It said “the hope of the Republican leaders of the Senate that the President would presently make some move which will relieve the situation with regard to the treaty is entirely without foundation,” and insisted that the President has “no compromise or concession of any kind in mind,” but intends “that the Republican leaders of the Senate shall continue to bear the undivided responsibility for the fate of the treaty and the present condition of the world in consequence of that fate.”  Still hoping to find an acceptable formula, Senator Hitchcock said he agreed with the President that concession or compromise is for the Senate, not the President, and that Senate supporters of the Treaty “will continue to seek a compromise between the Lodge reservations and those I offered last November.”  Senator Lodge, the Republican leader, blocked a proposal by Senator Oscar Underwood (Dem., Ala.) to establish a conciliation committee of ten senators to reach a compromise. 

 Joseph Tumulty

At the end of December the President’s secretary Joseph Tumulty met separately with the President and Senator Hitchcock, leading to speculation that the New Year might see the President become more involved in the ratification debate.

 

The Willard Hotel

The Democratic Party’s annual Jackson Day dinner was held January 8 at two adjacent hotels, the Willard and the Washington.  A letter from President Wilson stating his views on Treaty ratification was read to the attendees at both locations.  He repeated his insistence that the treaty must be accepted without substantive reservations and insisted that if the Senate were to reject the treaty the next election would be a “great and solemn referendum” on the issue.  The letter added, however, that there would be “no reasonable objection to interpretations accompanying the act of ratification, provided they do not form a part of the formal ratification itself.”  Former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan (alternating with former Speaker of the House Champ Clark) addressed both groups, urging acceptance of any concessions necessary to achieve ratification.  A series of bipartisan meetings began on January 15, but ended on January 30 when Republicans refused to agree to any weakening of the Lodge reservations, including an amended reservation to Article X proposed by former President Taft.  

Viscount Grey

On January 31 Viscount Grey of Fallodon, the former foreign minister of Great Britain, returned to Great Britain after a brief period in the United States as a special ambassador.  While in the United States he had met with Secretary Lansing, Senator Lodge and others involved in the ratification debate, but his attempts to meet with President Wilson had failed, possibly because of comments about Mrs. Wilson that had been attributed to a member of Grey’s staff.  Following his return home, Grey wrote a long letter to the London Times, also published in the United States, in which he urged the Allies to accept reservations necessary to achieve American participation in the League.

Bainbridge Colby

President Wilson reacted angrily to the publication of Viscount Grey’s letter, regarding it as foreign interference in domestic politics.  On February 5 he issued a statement that if Grey were still the ambassador “his government would have been promptly asked to withdraw him.”  Secretary of State Lansing made no public comment, but had let it be known that he welcomed Grey’s letter as a step toward favorable Senate action on the Treaty.  On February 7, Wilson sent Lansing a harsh letter demanding to know whether it was true that he had convened the cabinet without his knowledge.  Lansing replied on February 13, saying he had called informal meetings of the cabinet in an effort to keep the government running as smoothly as possible during Wilson's incapacity, and offered to resign “if you think I have failed in my loyalty to you.”  Wilson immediately accepted Lansing’s resignation, and on February 25, to the astonishment of most observers, appointed Bainbridge Colby, a New York lawyer with no apparent qualifications for the office, to replace him.

The Missing Link

On February 9, the Senate voted to reconsider the Treaty of Versailles, again with the Lodge reservations.  Over the next few weeks debate continued and other amendments and reservations were voted down except for a single additional reservation added at the last minute in support of Irish independence.  President Wilson, in a statement released to Senator Hitchcock on March 8, rejected any attempt at compromise.  Specifically defending Article X, he wrote that "I could not look the soldiers of our gallant armies in the face again if I did not do everything in my power to remove every obstacle that lies in the way of this particular article of the Covenant," and said that any reservation lessening the force of Article X "cuts at the very heart and life of the Covenant itself."  "Every so-called reservation," he insisted, is "in effect a nullification of the terms of the treaty itself."  Several treaty supporters, including Democrats who had voted against the Lodge reservations, were nevertheless inclined to vote for ratification with the reservations, preferring what they regarded as an imperfect treaty to no treaty at all (and no U.S. membership in the League of Nations).  President Wilson, however, remained adamant in his opposition, not only to reservations but to the Treaty itself if reservations were included in the instrument of ratification.  When the vote was taken on March 19, his all-or-nothing position prevailed as the Treaty went down to defeat.  The vote was 49 in favor and 35 against, seven votes short of the required two-thirds majority.