enthusiasm of war time had stirred them while the contest lasted; when it was over, they wished to recover their normal poise. In doing this, they tried to forget their own exalted feelings, and to ignore the expressions of exalted feeling on the part of others. Wilson had done more than any other man to put the emotionalism of war into words, and the very act of getting away from it all made necessary a repudiation of the war leader. In any case the leaders of opinion turned upon Wilson and his work with a savage bitterness unusual even in American politics.

Some of the opposition was purely partisan. A new presidential contest was approaching, and Wilson must not be allowed to make any capital for his party out of the Peace of Versailles. It became necessary therefore to defeat his project. Other critics felt that in the main the Treaty and the League were good, but that the United States had not been adequately safeguarded. This group called for reservations to the Covenant, designed to protect the United States against possible exploitation by her erstwhile associates in arms. Still others objected to what they regarded as the crying injustices in the Treaty, such as the transfer of German rights in China to the Japanese, or to the ill-concealed land-grabbing under the mandates arrangement. These theorists contrasted the concrete terms of the Treaty with the abstract principles of Wilson before November 1918, and because the Treaty failed to measure up to an impossible standard, they would have none of it. For one reason or another the country took sides, for or against Wilson's work.

In the Senate the natural desire of the Republicans to discredit a Democratic President was intensified by Wilson's patent neglect of the sensibilities of that august body during the war and the negotiations. Senators hated him for ignoring them in making up the peace delegation. Furthermore both Senate and House felt that during the war executive authority had annihilated legislative authority, and they were preparing to restore the "constitutional" balance between the two branches of the government. In some respects the attitude of Congress toward Wilson after the Great War was like that toward Andrew Johnson after the Civil War. In both cases Congress was determined to put the President "in his place," and in doing so the legislature used as a means the biggest issue before the country: in 1866, Reconstruction; in 1919, the League of Nations.

In the Senate the policy of the opposition was finally embodied in a

OPPOSITION TO THE TREATY

789

series of "reservations" to the Covenant, all designed to emphasize the Constitutional and Congressional limitations upon executive conduct of foreign affairs, and to make plain the traditional policy of the United States in keeping clear of "entangling alliances." These reservations would have made it possible for Congress to take the United States out of the League, and to decide whether, when, and under what circumstances the United States should act under the Covenant. One reservation placed the Monroe Doctrine beyond the reach of the League, while another withheld the assent of this country to the transfer of Shantung to Japan. The United States refused to assume any obligation under Article X. One important argument against the League was the belief that, because the British Dominions were members, the British Empire would have six votes, while the United States would have only one, and a reservation was made to cover this. But the critics overlooked the point that the Caribbean protectorates of the United States were members of the League, and that the hold which the United States has on the Panama Republic, Cuba, or on Nicaragua, for example, is far more potent than the hold of Great Britain on Canada or Australia.

These reservations were embodied in the ratifying resolutions, and in this form they twice passed the Senate by a majority vote, once in November, 1919, and again in March, 1920. But the necessary two thirds could not be secured, so the United States stayed out of the League, and, technically remained at war with Germany. Many friends of the League felt that the Reservations would not have weakened the Covenant seriously, and that President Wilson might have accepted them with less violence to his principles than in the acceptance of the Shantung award. But he refused to allow his party followers to vote for them, and in so doing he helped to defeat the League.

He opposed all plans for compromise largely if not entirely because he objected to the spirit and the aim back of the reservations. He knew that they had been framed to exalt the Senate, and to humiliate him, and he was in no mood to be humiliated. With his fighting blood thus aroused, he preferred to lose the League rather than to grant a thing to Senator Lodge and his other Republican foes.

In addition to the Treaty of Versailles, President Wilson brought back from Paris a treaty of alliance with France, designed to guarantee assistance to that country while the League was still an experi

ment. That document was turned over to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and it never emerged. It never had the slightest prospect of ratification, because it was in all respects a genuine "entangling alliance."

When the Senate repudiated the work which he had helped to complete in Paris, President Wilson attempted, as Roosevelt had done with some of his policies, to appeal to the people. For that purpose he began a tour of the West, speaking as he went, urging the people to insist upon the ratification of the Treaty. Overlooking the fact that his appeal of October, 1918, had failed, he hoped to find in popular support the backing which Congress refused to give him. But his exertions in Paris had overtaxed his strength, and in the course of his tour he suffered a serious physical collapse. For weeks he was unable to attend to his duties as President, and it was only with extreme suffering that he was able to resume his place as his administration drew to a close.

After defeating the Treaty of Versailles, so far as the United States was concerned, the Republicans endeavored to find a way to make peace with Germany. In May, 1920, Congress adopted a series of resolutions drawn up by Senator Knox of Pennsylvania, declaring the war at an end, and reserving to the United States any rights which would have been hers had she ratified the Treaty of Versailles. This experiment in getting out of the war by the back door President Wilson vetoed, in a message saturated with contempt. Such a peace he declared "is, or ought to be, inconceivable." After this second exchange of shots, the President and the Senate dropped the issue, and the state of war continued until after the inauguration of President Harding.

CHAPTER LXX

THE UNITED STATES AND THE CARIBBEAN

The participation of the United States in the European War was in a way a kind of historical accident, something which neither Europe nor America had been able to foresee, at least until 1916, and certainly something which the United States, as a whole, would not have voluntarily chosen. Had the policy of the German government been tempered by wisdom the United States would have felt no call "to make the world safe for democracy." Any doubt on this point before 1919 must have been removed by the general acquiescence in the repudiation of the Peace of Versailles. The country was tired of Europe and its problems, and it desired above everything else if the vote in 1920 is any index to national desire to forget the whole tangle of woes across the Atlantic.

Perhaps the Latin American countries south of the Rio Grande wish that the United States would turn its back on them as completely as it has affected to do on Europe. That, however, is a very different story. Latin America, and especially the region around the Caribbean, has become the field of chief interest in the foreign policy of the United States.

Probably no part of the world holds out brighter prospects for the future than that part of America below the Rio Grande. Taken as a whole these former Spanish and Portuguese colonies have tremendous stretches of undeveloped, fertile land, extensive enough to take care of the population of the whole of Europe, and more; at the same time these countries have the resources to produce food and raw materials for the whole world. The Argentine Republic alone, with a population of around 10,000,000, could easily support a population twice the size of that in the United States to-day. These lands are in the main suitable for white settlements, and as they grow they will furnish almost unlimited markets for manufactures.

Ever since the fall of the Spanish empire in the new world the United States has had an interest in Latin American affairs. The Monroe Doctrine is over a hundred years old, and it is far more

important now, and more heavily charged with meaning, than ever before. This diplomatic interest has had important consequences for all American states. To this has been added a steadily-growing commercial interest, with the result that the United States has become the dominant factor in Latin American commerce. The following table shows what has been taking place:

1 Stuart, Latin America and the United States, pp. 10-11.

This increase of nearly 400 per cent in the volume of the trade of the United States with Latin America shows what an elaborate superstructure is being raised above the Monroe Doctrine.

THE CARIBBEAN

While this commercial expansion has not been confined to any one nation or part of Latin America, it has developed more actively in the Caribbean region than elsewhere. These small republics are a valuable series of markets along the route to and from the Panama Canal. Moreover in the matter of climate and soil they hold out certain advantages which appeal strongly to American investors. The economic interests of the Central American states turn them naturally toward the Caribbean. Their ports send out supplies for New Orleans and New York; tropical fruit, rubber, hard wood, and sugar. Much of this trade has grown out of plantations developed by Amer ican individuals or corporations. American capital plus the Ameri