Peace and the Treaty.—Two great tasks remained when active war ceased. The first was to secure a settlement and register it in a treaty or series of treaties, thus returning so far as possible to normal international relations. The second was to reconstitute the world and to protect it, if possible, against future wars. A third task for the United States was its internal reconstruction by putting an end to the special war laws and conditions and by readjusting business, transportation and labour.
The first two of these tasks are described in detail elsewhere (see Peace Conference and League of Nations). In addition to the suggestions made in the winter of 1916-7 President Wilson put forward on Jan. 9 1918, during the height of the war, “fourteen points” (see Wilson, Woodrow) which he considered a necessary basis for the peace of the nations and a subsequent world agreement. These points he enlarged in later addresses to twenty-seven. The Germans afterwards asserted that the points were an essential part of the Armistice. One week after the signature of that document President Wilson decided that he would attend the necessary Peace Conference in person. As soon as Congress assembled he announced that purpose and designated as peace commissioners with himself four others Secretary Lansing, Col. House of Texas, his most intimate friend and political adviser, Gen. Bliss of the army, and Mr. White, formerly minister to France. These commissioners were not passed upon by the Senate, only one of them was a Republican, and not one was a member of either the Senate or the House. To Republicans it seemed that the President meant it to be a Democratic peace as well as a Democratic war. In the Peace Conference President Wilson, as representative of the richest and most powerful nation in the world, became one of the four representatives of the four Great Powers Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States who engineered the Treaty.
President Wilson was deeply interested in the League of Nations; and, when he found that the French were not ready to adopt such a plan without some guarantee of protection, he signed a treaty of alliance between the United States, France and Great Britain pledging the United States to join in war in case of the invasion of France by Germany. No one familiar with the temper of Congress and of the American people should have supposed that such a treaty would be ratified. President Wilson returned home for a short stay (Feb. 24-March 4), defending the general terms of the Treaty and the Covenant of the League of Nations, of which he was the most significant draftsman. He returned to Paris and on June 28 1919, he and the four commissioners signed for the United States the formal Treaty of Versailles, including the Covenant of the League of Nations, which was interwoven into the text of the Treaty. Upon one of the subjects covered by the territorial adjustments of the Treaty in which the people of the United States felt a deep national interest—the continued occupation of Shantung by the Japanese—the President reluctantly gave way and consented to its retention by the Japanese, in spite of the general adverse opinion in the United States.
The Treaty had many powerful supporters in the United States among all parties, particularly ex-President Taft, the League of Free Nations and the League to Enforce Peace, in which A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard University, was the leading spirit. The Senate, which had the constitutional right to pass upon the Treaty by a two-thirds majority, was divided into strongly opposed groups. Most of the Democrats, under the lead of Senator Hitchcock, followed the President in favouring the Treaty with the Covenant as it stood. A group of Republicans, headed by Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, favoured “amendments” to the Treaty and “reservations” as to the League which would have maimed but not killed the two projects. The contest ostensibly centred about Art. X. of the Treaty, under which the members of the League undertook “to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League,” and agreed that in case of need the Council should “advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.” This group expressed fear lest the United States be drawn into foreign wars and insisted that “no American soldiers or sailors must be sent to fight in other lands at the bidding of the League of Nations.” The President, on the other hand, regarded Art. X. as the heart of the whole Treaty. Another group wished reservations that would practically destroy the document. A small but implacable junto, headed by Borah of Idaho and Johnson of California, were against both the Treaty and the Covenant in any form or with any reservations.
The President declined at the critical moment to accept either amendments or reservations, except certain minor alterations approved by himself. Senator Knox of Pennsylvania proposed a resolution intended to put an end to the fictitious state of war with Germany. It was passed by both Houses, but was vetoed by the President (May 27 1920). After strenuous debate and by a test vote, Nov. 19 1919, the Senate refused to ratify the Peace Treaty with reservations the vote being 55 to 39 in favour, but not the necessary two-thirds. Thus after five months' discussion the Treaty was rejected, and the United States was left in the absurd situation of remaining at war with Germany and Austria though all hostilities had ceased a year before.
President Wilson until the last moment believed that he could force ratification of the Treaty by his logic and influence. September 26, while on a speaking trip through the country in favour of the Treaty, he was struck down by paralysis; when he rallied sufficiently to think of public business he continued to hope that he would recover. His Cabinet and closest friends joined in an attempt to minimize the extent of the President's illness, though for months he was unable to see even members of his Cabinet. Had he possessed his usual mental force, the result would probably have been the same. The difficulty with the Treaty and the League was that both were signed by a body of so-called commissioners who represented no lawful authority except that of the President. The only one who held public office or responsibility was Lansing, who by his own account fundamentally differed from the President at Paris but always surrendered his convictions. Whether President Wilson, or the statesmen who opposed him in the Senate, had the clearer view of the state of the world and the duties of the United States, whether the opposition could have been avoided by taking counsel with a larger group of competent men, cannot now be decided. The fundamental fact is that the opposition to the Covenant was strong enough to prevent the ratification of the Treaty even with serious reservations: the representatives of the United States at Paris were out of accord with the constitutional treaty-making power of the nation. Since the President had the last word in framing treaties, nothing could be done.
Rehabilitation.—The task of post bellum economic adjustment was entirely within the control of the people of the United States, except so far as foreign trade was involved. The census of 1920 showed a pop. of 105,000,000 in the continental area and 12,000,000 more in the dependencies. At the end of the war the Federal Government by war statutes was controlling the food supply and its distribution, manufactures, the coal supply and shipments, railways, telegraphs and telephones, foreign commerce and shipping, the care of the property of aliens through an Alien Property Custodian, as well as the conditions of interstate labour and of labour in other fields, through a War Labor Administrator, and a National War Labor Board. For foreign commerce there was still a Shipping Board, an Emergency Fleet Board, a War Trade Board and a War Finance Board. Two million American soldiers were overseas and wanted to come home as soon as possible. The average cost of living was about 80% higher than in 1914. The United States had spent on the war about $35,500,000,000, including $9,500,000,000 loaned to the Allies. Congress was willing enough to impose high taxes, and the people were ready to pay them; but expenditures after peace came continued on a scale far beyond any previous experience of the country. This complicated condition was to be readjusted by a Government made up of a President physically unable to perform his duties, a Senate and a House opposed to him in politics, and a group of abnormal war agencies. No swift or judicious result could be expected.
