GENERAL PLAN FOR A LEAGUE OF NATIONS
It appears, from a general review of the situation prior and subsequent
to the assembling of the delegates to the Peace Conference, that
President Wilson's decision to go to Paris and to engage in person in
the negotiations was strongly influenced by his belief that it was the
only sure way of providing in the treaty of peace for the organization
of a League of Nations. While his presence in Paris was probably
affected to an extent by other considerations, as I have pointed out, it
is to be presumed that he was anxious to participate directly in the
drafting of the plan of organization of the League and to exert his
personal influence on the delegates in favor of its acceptance by
publicly addressing the Conference. This he could hardly have done
without becoming a delegate. It would seem, therefore, that the purpose
of creating a League of Nations and obtaining the incorporation of a
plan of organization in the treaty to be negotiated had much to do with
the President's presence at the peace table.
From the time that the United States entered the war in April, 1917, Mr.
Wilson held firmly to the idea that the salvation of the world from
imperialism would not be lasting unless provision was made in the peace
treaty for an international agency strong enough to prevent a future
attack upon the rights and liberties of the nations which were at so
great a cost holding in check the German armies and preventing them from
carrying out their evil designs of conquest. The object sought by the
United States in the war would not, in the views of many, be achieved
unless the world was organized to resist future aggression. The
essential thing, as the President saw it, in order to "make the world
safe for democracy" was to give permanency to the peace which would be
negotiated at the conclusion of the war. A union of the nations for the
purpose of preventing wars of aggression and conquest seemed to him the
most practical, if not the only, way of accomplishing this supreme
object, and he urged it with earnestness and eloquence in his public
addresses relating to the bases of peace.
There was much to be said in favor of the President's point of view.
Unquestionably the American people as a whole supported him in the
belief that there ought to be some international agreement, association,
or concord which would lessen the possibility of future wars. An
international organization to remove in a measure the immediate causes
of war, to provide means for the peaceable settlement of disputes
between nations, and to draw the governments into closer friendship
appealed to the general desire of the peoples of America and Europe. The
four years and more of horror and agony through which mankind had passed
must be made impossible of repetition, and there seemed no other way
than to form an international union devoted to the maintenance of peace
by composing, as far as possible, controversies which might ripen
into war.
For many years prior to 1914 an organization devoted to the prevention
of international wars had been discussed by those who gave thought to
warfare of the nations and who realized in a measure the precarious
state of international peace. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and of 1907
had been negotiated with that object, and it was only because of the
improper aspirations and hidden designs of certain powers, which were
represented at those great historic conferences, that the measures
adopted were not more expressive of the common desire of mankind and
more effective in securing the object sought. The Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the Ginn, now the World, Peace Foundation, and the
American Peace Society, and later the Society for the Judicial
Settlement of International Disputes, the League to Enforce Peace, and
many other organizations in America and in Europe were actively engaged
in considering ways and means to prevent war, to strengthen the bonds of
international good-will, and to insure the more general application of
the principles of justice to disputes between nations.
The outbreak of the war and the dreadful waste and suffering which
followed impelled the societies and associations then organized to
redoubled effort and induced the formation of new organizations. People
everywhere began to realize that their objects were real and not merely
sentimental or academic, that they were seeking practical means to
remove the conditions which had made the Great War possible. Public
opinion became more and more pronounced as the subject was more widely
discussed in the journals and periodicals of the day and at public
meetings, the divergence of views being chiefly in regard to the means
to be employed by the proposed organization and not as to the creation
of the organization, the necessity for which appeared to be
generally conceded.
With popular sentiment overwhelmingly in favor of some sort of world
union which would to an extent insure the nations against another
tragedy like the one which in November, 1918, had left the belligerents
wasted and exhausted and the whole world a prey to social and industrial
unrest, there was beyond question a demand that out of the great
international assembly at Paris there should come some common agency
devoted to the prevention of war. To ignore this all-prevalent sentiment
would have been to misrepresent the peoples of the civilized world and
would have aroused almost universal condemnation and protest. The
President was, therefore, entirely right in giving prominence to the
idea of an international union against war and in insisting that the
Peace Conference should make provision for the establishment of an
organization of the world with the prevention of future wars as its
central thought and purpose.
The great bulk of the American people, at the time that the President
left the United States to attend the Peace Conference, undoubtedly
believed that some sort of organization of this nature was necessary,
and I am convinced that the same popular belief prevailed in all other
civilized countries. It is possible that this assertion may seem too
emphatic to some who have opposed the plan for a League of Nations,
which appears in the first articles of the Treaty of Versailles, but, if
these opponents of the plan will go back to the time of which I am
writing, and avoid the impressions made upon them by subsequent events,
they will find, I believe, that even their own views have materially
changed since December, 1918. It is true that concrete plans had then
been suggested, but so far as the public knew the President had not
adopted any of them or formulated one of his own. He had not then
disclosed the provisions of his "Covenant."
The mass of the people were only concerned with the general idea. There
was no well-defined opposition to that idea. At least it was not vocal.
Even the defeat of the Democratic Party in the Congressional elections
of November, 1918, could not be interpreted to be a repudiation of the
formation of a world organization. That election, by which both Houses
of Congress became Republican, was a popular rebuke to Mr. Wilson for
the partisanship shown in his letter of October addressed to the
American people, in which he practically asserted that it was
unpatriotic to support the Republican candidates. The indignation and
resentment aroused by that injudicious and unwarranted attack upon the
loyalty of his political opponents lost to the Democratic Party the
Senate and largely reduced its membership in the House of
Representatives if it did not in fact deprive the party of control of
that body. The result, however, did not mean that the President's ideas
as to the terms of peace were repudiated, but that his practical
assertion, that refusal to accept his policies was unpatriotic, was
repudiated by the American people.
It is very apparent to one, who without prejudice reviews the state of
public sentiment in December, 1918, that the trouble, which later
developed as to a League of Nations, did not lie in the necessity of
convincing the peoples of the world, their governments, and their
delegates to the Paris Conference that it was desirable to organize the
world to prevent future wars, but in deciding upon the form and
functions of the organization to be created. As to these details, which
of course affected the character, the powers, and the duties of the
organization, there had been for years a wide divergence of opinion.
Some advocated the use of international force to prevent a nation from
warring against another. Some favored coercion by means of general
ostracism and non-intercourse. Some believed that the application of
legal justice through the medium of international tribunals and
commissions was the only practical method of settling disputes which
might become causes of war. And some emphasized the importance of a
mutual agreement to postpone actual hostilities until there could be an
investigation as to the merits of a controversy. There were thus two
general classes of powers proposed which were in the one case political
and in the other juridical. The cleavage of opinion was along these
lines, although it possibly was not recognized by the general public. It
was not only shown in the proposed powers, but also in the proposed form
of the organization, the one centering on a politico-diplomatic body,
and the other on an international judiciary. Naturally the details of
any plan proposed would become the subject of discussion and the
advisability of adopting the provisions would arouse controversy and
dispute. Thus unanimity in approving a world organization did not mean
that opinions might not differ radically in working out the fundamental
principles of its form and functions, to say nothing of the detailed
plan based on these principles.
In May, 1916, President Wilson accepted an invitation to address the
first annual meeting of the League to Enforce Peace, which was to be
held in Washington. After preparing his address he went over it and
erased all reference to the use of physical force in preventing wars. I
mention this as indicative of the state of uncertainty in which he was
in the spring of 1916 as to the functions and powers of the
international organization to maintain peace which he then advocated. By
January, 1917, he had become convinced that the use of force was the
practical method of checking aggressions. This conversion was probably
due to the fact that he had in his own mind worked out, as one of the
essential bases of peace, to which he was then giving much thought, a
mutual guaranty of territorial integrity and political independence,
which had been the chief article of a proposed Pan-American Treaty
prepared early in 1915 and to which he referred in his address before
the League to Enforce Peace. He appears to have reached the conclusion
that a guaranty of this sort would be of little value unless supported
by the threatened, and, if necessary, the actual, employment of force.
The President was entirely logical in this attitude. A guaranty against
physical aggression would be practically worthless if it did not rest on
an agreement to protect with physical force. An undertaking to protect
carried with it the idea of using effectual measures to insure
protection. They were inseparable; and the President, having adopted an
affirmative guaranty against aggression as a cardinal provision--perhaps
I should say _the_ cardinal provision--of the anticipated peace treaty,
could not avoid becoming the advocate of the use of force in making good
the guaranty.
During the year 1918 the general idea of the formation of an
international organization to prevent war was increasingly discussed in
the press of the United States and Europe and engaged the thought of the
Governments of the Powers at war with the German Empire. On January 8 of
that year President Wilson in an address to Congress proclaimed his
"Fourteen Points," the adoption of which he considered necessary to a
just and stable peace. The last of these "Points" explicitly states the
basis of the proposed international organization and the fundamental
reason for its formation. It is as follows:
"XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific
covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political
independence and territorial integrity to great and small
states alike."
This declaration may be considered in view of subsequent developments to
be a sufficiently clear announcement of the President's theory as to the
plan of organization which ought to be adopted, but at the time the
exact character of the "mutual guarantees" was not disclosed and aroused
little comment. I do not believe that Congress, much less the public at
large, understood the purpose that the President had in mind.
Undoubtedly, too, a sense of loyalty to the Chief Executive, while the
war was in progress, and the desire to avoid giving comfort of any sort
to the enemy, prevented a critical discussion of the announced bases of
peace, some of which were at the time academic, premature, and liable to
modification if conditions changed.
In March Lord Phillimore and his colleagues made their preliminary
report to the British Government on "a League of Nations" and this was
followed in July by their final report, copies of which reached the
President soon after they were made. The time had arrived for putting
into concrete form the general ideas that the President held, and
Colonel House, whom some believed to be the real author of Mr. Wilson's
conception of a world union, prepared, I am informed, the draft of a
scheme of organization. This draft was either sent or handed to the
President and discussed with him. To what extent it was amended or
revised by Mr. Wilson I do not know, but in a modified form it became
the typewritten draft of the Covenant which he took with him to Paris,
where it underwent several changes. In it was the guaranty of 1915,
1916, 1917, and 1918, which, from the form in which it appeared,
logically required the use of force to give it effect.
Previous to the departure of the American Commission for Paris, on
December 4, 1918, the President did not consult me as to his plan for a
League of Nations. He did not show me a copy of the plan or even mention
that one had been put into writing. I think that there were two reasons
for his not doing so, although I was the official adviser whom he should
naturally consult on such matters.
The first reason, I believe, was due to the following facts. In our
conversations prior to 1918 I had uniformly opposed the idea of the
employment of international force to compel a nation to respect the
rights of other nations and had repeatedly urged judicial settlement as
the practical way of composing international controversies, though I did
not favor the use of force to compel such settlement.
To show my opposition to an international agreement providing for the
use of force and to show that President Wilson knew of this opposition
and the reasons for it, I quote a letter which I wrote to him in May,
1916, that is, two years and a half before the end of the war:
"_May 25, 1916_
"My DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
"I had hoped to see you to-morrow at Cabinet meeting, but to-day the
Doctor refused to allow me to leave the house this week. I intended
when I saw you to say something about the purposes of the League to
Enforce Peace, which is to meet here, and at the banquet of which I
understand you are to speak on Saturday night. I would have preferred
to talk the matter over with you, but as that is impossible I have
taken the liberty to write you this letter, although in doing so I am
violating the directions of the Doctor.
"While I have not had time or opportunity to study carefully the
objects of the proposed League to Enforce Peace, I understand the
fundamental ideas are these, which are to be embodied in a general
treaty of the nations: _First_, an agreement to submit all
differences which fail of diplomatic adjustment to arbitration or a
board of conciliation; and, _second_, in case a government fails to
comply with this provision, an agreement that the other parties will
unite in compelling it to do so by an exercise of force.
"With the first agreement I am in accord to an extent, but I cannot
see how it is practicable to apply it in case of a continuing
invasion of fundamental national or individual rights unless some
authoritative international body has the power to impose and enforce
an order in the nature of an injunction, which will prevent the
aggressor from further action until arbitration has settled the
rights of the parties. How this can be done in a practical way I have
not attempted to work out, but the problem is not easy, especially
the part which relates to the enforcement of the order.
"It is, however, the second agreement in regard to the imposition of
international arbitration by force, which seems to me the most
difficult, especially when viewed from the standpoint of its effects
on our national sovereignty and national interests. It is needless to
go into the manifest questions arising when the _modus operandi_ of
the agreement is considered. Such questions as: Who may demand
international intervention? What body will decide whether the demand
should be complied with? How will the international forces be
constituted? Who will take charge of the military and naval
operations? Who will pay the expenses of the war (for war it
will be)?
"Perplexing as these questions appear to me, I am more concerned with
the direct effect on this country. I do not believe that it is wise
to limit our independence of action, a sovereign right, to the will
of other powers beyond this hemisphere. In any representative
international body clothed with authority to require of the nations
to employ their armies and navies to coerce one of their number, we
would be in the minority. I do not believe that we should put
ourselves in the position of being compelled to send our armed forces
to Europe or Asia or, in the alternative, of repudiating our treaty
obligation. Neither our sovereignty nor our interests would accord
with such a proposition, and I am convinced that popular opinion as
well as the Senate would reject a treaty framed along such lines.
"It is possible that the difficulty might be obviated by the
establishment of geographical zones, and leaving to the groups of
nations thus formed the enforcement of the peaceful settlement of
disputes. But if that is done why should all the world participate?
We have adopted a much modified form of this idea in the proposed
Pan-American Treaty by the 'guaranty' article. But I would not like
to see its stipulations extended to the European powers so that they,
with our full agreement, would have the right to cross the ocean and
stop quarrels between two American Republics. Such authority would be
a serious menace to the Monroe Doctrine and a greater menace to the
Pan-American Doctrine.
"It appears to me that, if the first idea of the League can be worked
out in a practical way and an international body constituted to
determine when steps should be taken to enforce compliance, the use
of force might be avoided by outlawing the offending nation. No
nation to-day can live unto itself. The industrial and commercial
activities of the world are too closely interwoven for a nation
isolated from the other nations to thrive and prosper. A tremendous
economic pressure could be imposed on the outlawed nation by all
other nations denying it intercourse of every nature, even
communication, in a word make that nation a pariah, and so to remain
until it was willing to perform its obligations.
"I am not at all sure that this means is entirely feasible. I see
many difficulties which would have to be met under certain
conditions. But I do think that it is more practical in operation and
less objectionable from the standpoint of national rights and
interests than the one proposed by the League. It does not appear to
me that the use of physical force is in any way practical or
advisable.
"I presume that you are far more familiar than I am with the details
of the plans of the League and that it may be presumptuous on my part
to write you as I have. I nevertheless felt it my duty to frankly
give you my views on the subject and I have done so.
"Faithfully yours
"ROBERT LANSING
"THE PRESIDENT
"_The White House_"
The President, thus early advised of my unqualified opposition to any
plan which was similar in principle to the one advocated by the League
to Enforce Peace, naturally concluded that I would look with disfavor on
an international guaranty which by implication, if not by declaration,
compelled the use of force to give it effect. Doubtless he felt that I
would not be disposed to aid in perfecting a plan which had as its
central idea a guaranty of that nature. Disliking opposition to a plan
or policy which he had originated or made his own by adoption, he
preferred to consult those who without debate accepted his judgment and
were in sympathy with his ideas. Undoubtedly the President by refraining
from asking my advice spared himself from listening to arguments against
the guaranty and the use of force which struck at the very root of his
plan, for I should, if I had been asked, have stated my views with
entire frankness.
The other reason for not consulting me, as I now realize, but did not at
the time, was that I belonged to the legal profession. It is a fact,
which Mr. Wilson has taken no trouble to conceal, that he does not value
the advice of lawyers except on strictly legal questions, and that he
considers their objections and criticisms on other subjects to be too
often based on mere technicalities and their judgments to be warped by
an undue regard for precedent. This prejudice against the legal
profession in general was exhibited on more than one occasion during our
sojourn at Paris. Looking back over my years of intercourse with the
President I can now see that he chafed under the restraints imposed by
usage and even by enacted laws if they interfered with his acting in a
way which seemed to him right or justified by conditions. I do not say
that he was lawless. He was not that, but he conformed grudgingly and
with manifest displeasure to legal limitations. It was a thankless task
to question a proposed course of action on the ground of illegality,
because he appeared to be irritated by such an obstacle to his will and
to transfer his irritation against the law to the one who raised it as
an objection. I think that he was especially resentful toward any one
who volunteered criticism based on a legal provision, precept, or
precedent, apparently assuming that the critic opposed his purpose on
the merits and in order to defeat it interposed needless legal
objections. It is unnecessary to comment on the prejudice which such an
attitude of mind made evident.
After the President's exceptionally strong address at the Metropolitan
Opera House in New York on September 27, 1918, I realized the great
importance which he gave to the creation of a League of Nations and in
view of this I devoted time and study to the subject, giving particular
attention to the British and French suggestions, both of which
emphasized judicial settlement. Knowing that the President had been in
consultation with Colonel House on the various phases of the peace to be
negotiated as well as on the terms of the armistice, I asked the latter
what he knew about the former's scheme for a League of Nations.
The Colonel discreetly avoided disclosing the details of the plan, but
from our conversation I gained an idea of the general principles of the
proposed organization and the way in which the President intended to
apply them.
After the Colonel and his party had sailed for France and in expectation
of being consulted on the subject by President Wilson, I put my thoughts
on the League of Nations into writing. In a note, which is dated October
27, 1918, appears the following:
"From the little I know of the President's plan I am sure that it is
impracticable. There is in it too much altruistic cooperation. No
account is taken of national selfishness and the mutual suspicions
which control international relations. It may be noble thinking, but
it is not true thinking.
"What I fear is that a lot of dreamers and theorists will be selected
to work out an organization instead of men whose experience and
common sense will tell them not to attempt anything which will not
work. The scheme ought to be simple and practical. If the federation,
or whatever it may be called, is given too much power or if its
machinery is complex, my belief is that it will be unable to function
or else will be defied. I can see lots of trouble ahead unless
impractical enthusiasts and fanatics are suppressed. This is a time
when sober thought, caution, and common sense should control."
On November 22, 1918, after I had been formally designated as a Peace
Commissioner, I made another note for the purpose of crystallizing my
own thought on the subject of a League of Nations. Although President
Wilson had not then consulted me in any way regarding his plan of
organization, I felt sure that he would, and I wished to be prepared to
give him my opinion concerning the fundamentals of the plan which might
be proposed on behalf of the United States. I saw, or thought that I
saw, a disposition to adopt physical might as the basis of the
organization, because the guaranty, which the President had announced in
Point XIV and evidently purposed to advocate, seemed to require the use
of force in the event that it became necessary to make it good.
From the note of November 22 I quote the following:
"The legal principle [of the equality of nations], whatever its basis
in fact, must be preserved, otherwise force rather than law, the
power to act rather than the right to act, becomes the fundamental
principle of organization, just as it has been in all previous
Congresses and Concerts of the European Powers.
"It appears to me that a positive guaranty of territorial integrity
and political independence by the nations would have to rest upon an
open recognition of dominant coercive power in the articles of
agreement, the power being commercial and economic as well as
physical. The wisdom of entering into such a guaranty is questionable
and should be carefully considered before being adopted.
"In order to avoid the recognition of force as a basis and the
question of dominant force with the unavoidable classification of
nations into 'big' and 'little,' 'strong' and 'weak,' the desired
result of a guaranty might be attained by entering into a mutual
undertaking _not_ to impair the territorial integrity or to violate
the political sovereignty of any state. The breach of this
undertaking would be a breach of the treaty and would sever the
relations of the offending nation with all other signatories."
I have given these two extracts from my notes in order to show the views
that I held, at the time the American Commission was about to depart
from the United States, in regard to the character of the guaranty which
the President intended to make the central feature of the League of
Nations. In the carrying out of his scheme and in creating an
organization to give effect to the guaranty I believed that I saw as an
unavoidable consequence an exaltation of force and an overlordship of
the strong nations. Under such conditions it would be impossible to
preserve within the organization the equality of nations, a precept of
international law which was the universally recognized basis of
intercourse between nations in time of peace. This I considered most
unwise and a return to the old order, from which every one hoped that
the victory over the Central Empires had freed the world.
The views expressed in the notes quoted formed the basis for my
subsequent course of action as an American Commissioner at Paris in
relation to the League of Nations. Convinced from previous experience
that to oppose every form of guaranty by the nations assembled at Paris
would be futile in view of the President's apparent determination to
compel the adoption of that principle, I endeavored to find a form of
guaranty that would be less objectionable than the one which the
President had in mind. The commitment of the United States to any
guaranty seemed to me at least questionable, though to prevent it seemed
impossible in the circumstances. It did not seem politic to try to
persuade the President to abandon the idea altogether. I was certain
that that could not be done. If he could be induced to modify his plan
so as to avoid a direct undertaking to protect other nations from
aggression, the result would be all that could be expected. I was
guided, therefore, chiefly by expediency rather than by principle in
presenting my views to the President and in openly approving the idea of
a guaranty.
The only opportunity that I had to learn more of the President's plan
for a League before arriving in Paris was an hour's interview with him
on the U.S.S. George Washington some days after we sailed from New York.
He showed me nothing in writing, but explained in a general way his
views as to the form, purpose, and powers of a League. From this
conversation I gathered that my fears as to the proposed organization
were justified and that it was to be based on the principle of
diplomatic adjustment rather than that of judicial settlement and that
political expediency tinctured with morality was to be the standard of
determination of an international controversy rather than strict
legal justice.
In view of the President's apparent fixity of purpose it seemed unwise
to criticize the plan until I could deliver to him a substitute in
writing for the mutual guaranty which he evidently considered to be the
chief feature of the plan. I did not attempt to debate the subject with
him believing it better to submit my ideas in concrete form, as I had
learned from experience that Mr. Wilson preferred to have matters for
his decision presented in writing rather than by word of mouth.