Transcripts For CSPAN3 U.S. Domestic Politics Treaty Of Versailles 20240712

Degree from Oklahoma University and a phd as well. He served as assistant to a political scientist, economist, and author and teaching assistant to former u. S. Secretary of state Madeleine Albright who was here for a private dinner earlier this year to drop a name or two. [laughter] gary joined the William Jewell College Faculty in 1992 and serves as chair of the department of Political Science and director of the International Relations major. The William Jewell student body voted him professor of the year four times. Gary is also a longtime supporter of the National World war i museum and memorial and for that we are appreciative. Please give a warm welcome to dr. Gary armstrong. [applause] good evening and thank you for coming tonight. There should be a lot of interesting questions. On the hundredth anniversary of the senates first rejection of the treaty of versailles. What a great moment to talk about americas place in the world. It was a time of growing polarization and radicalization. There had been a series of race riots and the current estimate is between the summer of 1919 and the summer of 1921 Many Americans were killed. This would lead to the first bombing of an American City by our own air force. At the same time there were just two weeks before the senate would take its vote, a series of bombings that led to the red scare. It is entirely wrongly named. The people who did the bombings were anarchists, but attorney general palmer, whose own house was bombed, in a raid, launched a series of very vigorous raids to detain about 10,000 and arrest 3000 anarchists. 550 were deported. It is a time when we have race riots, radicals, we have the government using force. It is also a time, lest we forget, when americans were intensely polarized at the political level as well. On the day Woodrow Wilson appeared to ask the u. S. Congress for a declaration of war in april 1917 his famous speech had to be postponed. A very important matter had to be settled first which was who was going to have the speakership of the u. S. House of representatives . In the 1916 elections which Woodrow Wilson had barely won, they are some of the most closely fought in u. S. History. You had a virtual tie and there were hours of political and eggeling over who was going to get majority. This is the only time the Largest Party did not get the speakership. The republicans had more seats, but did not get speakership. This was the last time in American History where speakership was given because the democrats formed a small alliance with small parties. What is really interesting is that then the house turned to the question of the president s speech and declaration of war and a lot of very interesting members of congress voted no on the declaration of war. Including the first woman to sit in the u. S. House of representatives, jeanette rankin, who would vote against war after the attack on pearl harbor. She was a lifelong pacifist and could not accept the violation of her principal even if the United States was attacked in 1941. But also, the man who had just gotten the speakership of the house of representatives broke with the director of his party and refused to vote for the declaration. This is a time where Great Questions are at stake. People are intensely divided and politics is going to start impacting Foreign Policy. By the way, it is a great time because just as we are getting ready to debate how to end world war i a pandemic breaks out. The cdc estimates today about 675,000 lost their lives during the great influenza. Kansas city had about 2300 dead that is significantly larger than st. Louis who is better organized and ruthless when dealing with a pandemic. In the month of october alone 195,000 americans died. 50,000 americans died of wounds during world war i. And at about the time the senate is going to move into the most intense question about what should we do regarding the league of nations, we have the most serious medical crisis in the history of the american presidency. Woodrow wilson has a massive stroke on october 2nd. He has been on a nationwide tour. Toward the end of that tour they realized something was wrong with the president. They cleared the line, got him back as fast as they possibly could. He had been in washington, d. C. Briefly when he had the stroke. For six weeks, his wife maintained the charade there was nothing wrong with the president. No one was permitted to see the president for six weeks except the first lady, his physician, a handful of trusted aides, his own press secretary. What is interesting at is that mrs. Wilson made a terrible mistake. She isolated the president when what he probably needed the most for his longterm recovery was consistent interaction with people. That has led to a big argument we are going to see later that the president s catastrophic stroke led to an increasing rigidity in his personality that will lead him to make fundamental errors during the debate over the peace treaty. Are we talking plague or stroke, war . God bless us, we are this close to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. [laughter] so, the versailles treaty debate. It is the first time that a president of the United States proposed sweeping reforms to the fundamental basis of International Relations. It is the first time the american president goes abroad for diplomatic negotiations. Woodrow wilson goes abroad for basically seven months. People challenge this. They dont even believe he has the constitutional right to leave the territory of the United States. This is the first proposal for World Organization with something called collective security. That is the heart of the fight we are going to be exploring. This is the first time the United States will consider a treaty that technically, formally requires it to end its historical isolation. By isolation, i am using the definition we use in Political Science. You could be, in favor for example, in favor of sending missionary work. That doesnt make you an isolationist. But opposing commitments to europe could make you an imperialist and an isolationist. This will be the first time in the history of the body that the senate will invoke closure to stop the filibuster so they can actually get the business of voting done this will be the first time that the United States will the reject the senate will rejected peace treaty this is how it starts. President wilson landed back in the United States about july the 8th, 1919 from his longtime in europe. He goes to new york and then goes to washington d. C. He carries the bound enormous copy of the treaty into the senate in fact, he is met by henry gift lodge who asked him if he would like help carrying the giant treaty and wilson apps and says not on your life then wilson gives this speech. The stage is set it has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of god who has let us into his way. We cannot turn back. We can only go forward, with lifted eyes and fresh and spirit, to follow the vision. It was of this that we dreamed at our birth america shall show the way the light streams upon the path ahead and nowhere else. There we reject it and break the heart of the world. This from the most accomplished rhetorician ever to become president of the United States. And this speech was a dad. It was too high. It was too flowery. But whats really interesting is youre going to see some more here in the New York Times from page coverage front page coverage of the president s speech. They get the basics of the speech, but you start to see down here some really interesting opening salvos that are already being waged the new majority leader of the senate saying dont forget we have the right to amend this treaty and we may have to prove it but two thirds vote, but we can amend it by majority vote. By the way, we republicans are now the majority because of the elections of 1918. You will also see that the president greets callers in the special rooms at the u. S. Capital. 30 democrats went to see the president and one republican. It was the first sign that very serious trouble was brewing on the fate of the treaty. Now to skip ahead. Here are the votes. 100 years ago tonight, and they closed at about 11 pm in washington d. C. Time. So i think we should all stay so we go for the full 100th hour. The vote for a set of reservations by henry kept lodge was 51 yes, 41 know the two thirds requirement for that number votes with 61. Then the vote for the treaty no reservations as president wilson himself had proposed it was 38 yes and 55 know it was not even close then in march of 20, after four months, they have another debate and another vote and this time the vote go up because 12 senators are absent. So this time the votes are 49 yes and 35 no. The requirement to pass a treaty is 56, so it has failed by seven votes. Then they have this special thing where those who were absent, although they could not vote, they could announce what their position would have been. That is how you wind up with this, 57 announced that had theyve been there, they would have voted yes or they did vote yes. 39 said that they were there and voted no or they would have voted no. Thats the highest that the senate never came. The closest the senate ever came to passing the versailles peace treaty. Now a lot of people say, this is the problem they were a group inside the senate called the irreconcilables. They said you couldnt drag us to vote for this treaty with all the horses of the american cavalry. We will not do this. Now theres a lot of discussion about how many were there im going to be using an estimate that you will see in a few different books. Normally, you will get between 15 and 18. Im going to lift the 18 and they include all kinds of fascinating senators. There is bob la follette. There is president Theodore Roosevelts attorney general and William Howard past secretary of state he was irreconcilable there was no way in the world he was going to vote for the treaty there is a new senator from illinois his name is mccormack. Now a lot of people say thats what happened these people somehow managed to defeat the treaty. Thats the story. And thats not the story at all. One of those irreconcilables is a complicated character. Hes our very own senator james read from kansas city. Senator reed had been in the senate or would be in the senate for 18 years he had been the mayor of kansas city from 1900 to 1904 when our Convention City burned and they rebuilt it. He made very clear he hat he wasnt you reconcilable because he was an isolationist. There was Something Else. He was a racist. He was very direct that he was afraid that the league of nations, with its dark skinned people, would eventually be able to outvote the white skinned people and impose a new order of racial equality at the International Level im not using some of his more incendiary quotes because they are public quotes laced with the nword. For some people, the story of james read becomes a story. A story of who opposed the treaty. Its provincialist bigotry. That sank this treaty. Thats not a good understanding of what happened here either. For example, in one of the best books about this fight, don milton coopers breaking the heart of the world, he says lets take a look at this for just a minute. A lot of people think that cosmopolitans, people who are fluent in Foreign Languages and have strong experts abroad, those would be the most people most likely to be in favor of the treaty. He says actually when you started the biographies, the people who were the most cosmopolitan members of the senate tended to be the most opposed to the treaty. So for example, that new senator mccormack was raised by a father diplomat. He used to boast and bragged that he learned to speak french before he learned to speak english. He was very involved with global affairs, but he was opposed to the treaty. This is senator knocks, the republican who had been president tapped secretary of the state. He was an irreconcilable, or hear something very interesting. During the senate debate, he announced a resolution that we now call the knox doctrine. It announced that if there were in the future any threat to the peace of europe, then the United States would regard it a grave matter, consult with friendly governments and consider the possibility of taking military action to deal with it. In other words, he is in irreconcilable, but not an isolationist. Now some people say, if its not the story of those irreconcilables who were probably provincial bigots, then surely be story is that American Public opinion wasnt ready for this gigantic step of a huge stride into a formal commitment to join the Security Architecture of world politics. In his book, power without victory, he says its time we kill that math we dont what we have what we would now call modern Public Opinion polling for another 50 years after the defeated versailles peace treaty. But what we normally used to gauge where Public Opinion was in those days was to look at where newspapers were and the evidence, he says, is overwhelming. There was very strong American Public opinion support for the treaty and for joining the league of nations. Look at that list of newspapers, except for the kansas city star. Many of them including the st. Louis post favored the treaty. He takes a look at religious organizations, which were incredibly important 100 years ago, and its overwhelming support from protestants, including that this, to catholics and jews. Labour was very in favor of the treaty, although they had some strong reservations about one component of the treaty. Seven groups like the new American Legion came out in favor of the treaty and joining the league of nations. 17 state legislatures passed resolutions including the legislatures of california and massachusetts, which happened to be the homes of the two most important opponents of the treaty. And the most important brand new single Issue Advocacy organization in the United States with something called the league for peace. It had thousands of members all over the country and they had 100,000 dollar budget to try to advocate for the treaty. It was led by the former president William Howard taft. The evidence is this treaty had the Popular Support to be approved. By the way there, were some really interesting intellectuals who were trying to make fundamental decisions about this. So theres the great feminist social worker jane adams of chicago. There is w. Be duboiss. Both of them very disappointed for their previous support Woodrow Wilson. Adams because the president had not been a vigorous supporter of the constitutional amendment to give one in the vote. By the way, he had supported in franchising women, but he had not supported doing it through a constitutional amendment. Then the boys, was furious at the president s inability to articulate publicly a strong opposition to lynching, or to articulate why we needed to stop the race riots. Whats interesting is both of them thought things over and decided they never would support Woodrow Wilson and the lead. This is Walter Lippman. By the 1960s and seventies, i am told, i have read, there was hardly any serious person of the day, that americans did not wait to see what he would think about it he was a young adviser to Woodrow Wilson and then broke with Woodrow Wilson at the new republic the new republic in the summer of 1919 published a major attack on the versailles peace treaty and the league of nations thousands of subscribers to the new republic canceled their subscriptions, angered at the attack on the president and the lead. By the way, Walter Lippman 15 years later, said this is one of the biggest mistakes in my life. If i could do things over again, i would have continued to support Woodrow Wilson and the lead. Not only is their strong public support, theres really interesting stuff going on among key american intellectuals, who are aggravated with the president , but aside overall that the possibility of progressive reform and International Governance is still worth it. Heres the last thing you need to know before we start getting to a couple of really important points. I think, using a stoplight approach, that we can get a glimpse of what the balance in the senate was about this treaty and you are going to start to suspect something pretty quickly. This is a tragedy. If we take the green and yellow, then we can see that three quarters of the senate was willing to join the league and pass the treaty the opponents were small, they were vigorous, they were energetic, they were vociferous, but they didnt have the votes to stop this treaty. The whole question of whether this treaty would go was could the green and the yellow get together. What i want to do for the next little bit is explain why they didnt. Our antagonists. These are impressive leaders. Woodrow wilson. The only ph. D. In Political Science ever to become president of the United States. He may have done so badly, he will probably be the only american president with a ph. D. In Political Science. Notice that he had quite a reputation. He had been a very important reformer at princeton university. For example, even though he was a convinced christian presbyterian, he had let the formal secularization princeton. He ended the chaotic elective system of undergraduate general education. He said if were going to have a democracy, we need some people to do some stuff together. He abolished what they then called the eating clubs, which we would then call fraternities, as incompatible with the new equality of american democracy. Hes doing a lot. What i think the most important thing to know about Woodrow Wilson is the date of his birth. And the place of his birth. He had been born in virginia and he was raised by a presbyterian pastor father in south carolina. He says that his earliest memory was of men running down the street shouting lincoln had been elected and there would be war. His fathers hospital was used as an infirmary, then as a p. O. W. Station and eventually as one of the headquarters for the regional federal army of occupation in the south. Woodrow wilson is the only president in the history of United States to know personally what total defeat looks like. The humiliation, the bitterness, the sting of it. How it can corrupt the society out of its anger and humiliation. Its going to have a big impact on how he thinks about how to and world war i. This is Theodore Roosevelt. If i ask my students what do you remember about the adore roosevelt, they all Say Something about big stick. The other thing we should remember about Theodore Roosevelt is of course he had been that week scrawny boy whose father did not know he was going to survive as ma. He told his son eventually, you must remake your body or it will kill you. He began effectively a bodybuilder. I think eventually had a chest of like 52 inches. What is really interesting is that, of course, he did that. The great crews of the great white fleet. The symbolic declaration that the United States was going to become a world power. Thats under this guy. Because both of these guys, wilson and roosevelt, are trying to figure out what probably the leaders of china are trying to figure out given that we are now the most important economic power on the planet, should our Foreign Policy change to match our new economic heft . They are going to be debating how to deal with it. Because of his role in ending the rousseau japanese war, hes the first four american president s to win the nobel peace prize. The second would be Woodrow Wilson. And this is henry cabinet lodge. So Woodrow Wilson got one of the new fangled degrees called the ph. D. We were importing them from germany in american academics. They were in love with all things german at the turn of the previous century. But Henry Cabot Lodge won one of the first phds in history from harvard university. His ph. D. Was on teutonic landholding history, which meant that like wilson and like roosevelt, he could read german. Can you imagine . President s who could actually read born languages . Now he has a long increasingly articulated view of americas place in the world. But what is also really interesting is that he hates Woodrow Wilson. Its going to get personal. That might fly a princeton, but that would never fly at harvard and its going to come back from the president of the United States. So how do they start fighting . I want to tell one story about the debate in the United States that nobody remembers. How to end world war i with imperial germany. This is going to be most energetic ferocious assault on the prerogatives of a president to lead an american Foreign Policy in the history of our republic. Were going to have a president who says at the end of world war i, i am favor of ending this war by negotiating an armistice. We will have to Republican Leaders who go to the American People and say the president is wrong. We have elections in four weeks. If you will go vote republican, we will force the president of the United States to adopt Unconditional Surrender as the policy to and world war one. What in the world . Well, of course the story begins in part with the president s famous speech called the 14 point speech. There is a lot of background to this. Its in part because there is a gigantic crisis among the allies because the bolsheviks have opened the czars secret Foreign Ministry archives and there they have found the secret treaties that promised this or that or the other thing to each other if they will defeat germany and win the war. The bolsheviks published the treaties. People all over western europe, we are finding simply for imperialism and colonialism. And that crisis, Woodrow Wilson gives this speech. Its an electrifying jolt of idealistic energy to remind people that the war does not have to be for the old agenda. The two or three things that are probably important for us, i want you to notice the first point, open governance. Now you know why he is saying that. But notice the second point. Freedom of. I want you to imagine you are a british analyst at the british Foreign Ministry. Britain lives or dies by sea power and the capacity to impose blockades. They want to know what exactly was the president meaning in 0. 2. Then take a look at, for example, 0. 5. Adjustments of Colonial Claims with references to the riches at the governed. You can imagine both the colonial officers in france and britain were staying up late at night saying what in the world is the president of the United States talking about. And then you go through a whole bunch of very interesting points and then you get to 0. 14. The british and the french figured out very quickly what was going on here. The president was making his play to displace the european system of International Relations. To say to britain and france and the old way of european imperialism, including colonialism, that the day has come and it has passed. A new american supported world order will be profoundly different than the one that you have stood for. That is why, by the way, that technically the world the United States and world war i was never an allied power. Woodrow wilson always insisted that we formally be called associated power because he did not want to endorse the old fashion warning diplomacy of the imperialists and colonizers. So whats the situation . In october 5th 1918, realizing it was losing the war, imperial germany appealed to Woodrow Wilson and Woodrow Wilson only to end the war. Britain and france were thoroughly aggrieved. Germany also said, by the way, we are appealing to you because we read your 14 point speech, but they had not. They thought that it sounded like it would be a soft way to end the war, a whole lot better than what they were going to get from the british and french. So we are going to appeal to you and you only on the basis of your 14 point speech to end this war. I want you to see, oh, by the way, a key point about this. If youre thinking in world war ii terms, i need to see this map. This is how the territorial situation look when the war actually ended. There are no allied soldiers on german territory. This is not like world war ii at all. And the germans have control of enormous swaths of part of the old russian empire. In fact, the germans are telling themselves we may be losing here but we won their. Okay. When they appeal, whats really interesting is that everybody in the United States and britain and france expected the president to reject their appeal. He stuns everyone. Instead of rejecting their appeal, he asks them a question. What he asks is really important. He says i need to know have you really accepted the 14 points . You understand if we end this war we will end it in a way it cannot be resumed. And number three, i want to ask a question. Who does your German Government speak for . Does it speak for the old classes . The Imperial Party who have led this war, or do you speak for the people . What happened was three weeks of no exchange. If you didnt notice, its all public. All of these are sent and declared on the radios. Papers all over the world are getting these on the front page. You can look at your hometown newspaper and its on the front page of the kansas star. Im using the front page of the New York Times because it was easier to get. All of these notes are here. Then notice that on october the 12th, the germans reply and say we want you to know we are accepting the 14 points and we want you to know that we agree that we will evacuate british, sorry, i mean british french and belgium territory and we want you to know that our new government speaks for the german people. At that point, everybody says wilson is going to call it off now. He stuns everybody by replying again. He says, i want you to know that we will make pace only with our supremacy. You need to stop these uboat wars because there were two ships sunk with 800 people dead. If youre serious about peace, you will not this talk. And by the way, have you read a speech that i gave at mount vernon this year about how this war will not and until it overthrows every power . Germany says a few days later, okay we stopped the you boats. We also want you to know we changed our constitution. Before now, the chancellor was hired and fired only by the emperor. We have now made the chancellor responsible to the parliament. You see what the germans are doing . They are doing one of the most complicated strategies to end a war i have ever heard of. First reach out to what you think is your softest opponent. Second, started democratizing revolution that you hope wont get out of control and order in order to win favor with the liberal leader of that softer power. Then october 23rd, wilson replies and says i will now talk to the allies about giving you an armistice, but i want to make it really clear about a key point. If we will have to be deal with the military autocrats of germany who started in continued this war, now or in the future, then we cannot discuss the negotiations. I want to surrender. What in the world . All the way through this, there are two people who are volcanic in their anger at the president. They are Theodore Roosevelt, ex president who won the nobel peace prize, and senator Henry Cabot Lodge. What are they angry about . Log says to the senate and the opening debate about the president s note diplomacy, if we stop the war now weve lost. It logic says if we do not defeat the german army on german soil in front of the german people, they will never admit it and we will have to fight a war like this again in 20 years. Theodore roosevelt says a premature piece before the issues are readily settled means another war in 12 years. You know roosevelt also says i dont agree with this democracy top. I have admired german progressivism, but its time for us to say honestly that the german people have been debauched and corrupted by imperialism. They have supported the German Government all the way through this war. Therefore, it does not make sense to hope that if the german people takeover germany that we will get a peaceful germany. I favor putting this war all the way through to its brutal and just like lincoln decided in 1865. Then both Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge Say Something that turns out to be absolutely crucial. The future peace will depend on whether or not the United States has a Strong Alliance with france and britain. Not international law, not democracy, whether or not there will be peace depends on the balance of power and americas commitment to it. There is what Woodrow Wilson is thinking. He had given a famous speech a year and a half before, a couple of months before the United States entered the war. The kid who had gone through the defeated south was remembering something. The only way to get to peace is to have a peace without victory. If we have full complete military victory, it will mean a piece forced upon the loser in victors terms imposed on the vanquished. It will be accepted and humiliation and under duress. You see where this is coming from. A few weeks later, he asks the American Congress to declare war to make the world safe for democracy. The Adele Roosevelt says i told you, this man does not know what he is talking about. How in the world can he give a speech like that where he doesnt see any moral issue involved in trying to stop germany and its outrageous. Then a few weeks later, gave a speech calling for a war for democracy all over the planet. This tells us one thing. Woodrow wilson has the phenomenal capacity to rationalize at the level of moral principle any policy preference he wants. He is not a serious person. He is in fact a direct danger to the stability of american Foreign Policy. What was wilson doing . This is a complicated topic. I think Woodrow Wilson had an idea that you cant find in his speeches. I think you can find it when you look consistently at his actions. Woodrow wilson believed there were two germanys. One germany led by the kaiser and one germany led by the urban educated socialist leaning german people. We can live with one, we cannot accept the other. Therefore, what he wanted to do was defeat but not crushed germany. He wanted that educated pro socialist germany eventually to rise without going bolsheviks because and if it was true serious. He wanted to precipitate internal reform, but he did not want revolution inside germany. In fact, he has a series of confrontations with american senators who are saying you have to go all the way he looks at them and says senator, would you rather have the kaiser or the bolsheviks . Now thats a revealing comment. Then i think that there is something going on here. He wants to make the British Empire and france dependent upon the United States so that he can then compel them to accept americas view of what the peace should be like. Heres the key point. I think that there is a connection between 0. 2 and 0. 4. Woodrow wilson regularly condemned, heres what i think hes thinking. If germany is crushed, britain and france will realize they dont need me. I therefore need a germany that is not crushed. That still has sufficient latent and long term power that britain and france realize they must depend on the United States. And if they do that, then i have them. And i can force them into a more liberal and more progressive and more globalist version of International Relations. This guy can be subtle. Lodge frequently was not. Hes a really complicated guy, but he says no every so often politics comes down to simple things. We are more likely to have a real piece if we insist on a real victory. Like defeating napoleon, like defeating the confederacy, or skip ahead to 1945 with germany in japan. Were complete military defeat meant complete reorientation and a longterm peace possible. What happens . Woodrow wilson loses the election. Woodrow wilson and his party, the democrats, lose the senate and the house and therefore Woodrow Wilson in 1918, in the most important elections that no one in america remembers, became the only commanderinchief in wartime to lose control of the congress. Thats until george bush in 2006. Okay . And the new republican majority leader who is also going to therefore take the chairman schiff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is, oh my gosh, there were a couple of really interesting defeats. This is senator lewis. He is the first minority whip or majority whip in the history of the u. S. Senate. He had survived in september 1918 while on a Diplomatic Mission to europe the torpedoing of the ship he was on. At the beginning of the no diplomacy debate in the senate, he introduced a resolution calling for the senate to support president wilson and the way he wanted to end the war and he was defeated. Heres another guy who got defeated. This is dorsey shackle furred. An important guy from an important college. Hes the second longest serving member of congress. Hes very important, although we dont really remember this because he was the guy who got the bill to start federal aid for highway construction in the United States, which will eventually lead to our federal highway system. And he had served in congress for nine terms, but he got buried in the election of 1918. In fact, the Democratic Party in boone county here in the state of missouri refused to renominate him. Why was he defeated . He had a post preparedness. He said we dont need to build an army, theres no way the germans can get across the ocean. We do not need all this stuff. He had voted for the court Malcolm Moore resolution which urged americans not to get on ships that could be going into uboat torpedoes owns. He had voted against the declaration of war as well in the summer of 1918, the voters in his district in missouri had had enough and threw him out. Why is that important . Because there is a really interesting little side note. Ive always kind of wondered. Have you ever heard the phrase fighting to make for safer democracy . I wondered is that something that intellectuals talked about after Woodrow Wilsons speech . A few years ago, workmen removed a brass plaque on the west face of a Historic Building on my campus, jewel hall. They said armstrong, you need to come see this. You wont believe what was behind the brass plaque. When they got the brass plaque off, there was this marble thing on our juul hall that says dedicated to the members of this class who are fighting to make the world safe for democracy. President tense. Fighting to make the world safer democracy. That is evidence that the president s idea caught fire. Even in my little college, even in our little part of missouri. There were big ideas at stake and the ideas of isolationist sworn trouble. Why is this important . Because theres an argument that everything i just said is wrong. Probably the most famous argument for what led to the wilson defeat in the elections of 1918 has nothing to do with the war, its all about the price of wheat. The administration had made a gigantic mistake. It controlled the price of cotton and then made sure that congress in the south got very strong profits to grow more cotton during the war. But they had not controlled the price of wheat and the price of wheat had gone back and forth and government had urged wheat farmers to plant a lot of wheat to feed the army. If there was oversupply, the price of wheat collapsed and what youve got for this argument is people who do not care about the war. What they were angry about with the price of wheat. And what you see is that in districts that had low wheat, medium wheat and high wheat. Oh, we see the more wheat that is grown in a district, the more likely it is it went republican. In other words, this has nothing to do with the war. This has to do with domestic politics and economics. Im not sure that is true. Because there was Something Else going on in the summer of 1918. There was a new group called the National Security league that did something no one had ever thought of before. They put out guides to how congressman had voted. What they did was they looked at eight votes and then they ranked whether or not the congressman had voted wrong or right, because the National Security league was in total favor of the war, and then they started publishing them in newspaper after newspaper after newspaper and the white house started getting telegrams and phone calls. Oh my gosh, we are in trouble. What started to happen was that once the election came through, the higher people were on the National Security league, the more likely they were to be defeated. Another where its, heres pretty interesting evidence that the war mattered in addition to week. Okay, so they are fighting like crazy. Even before we get to the treaty. Now what happens at a treaty fight. Woodrow wilson has three ideas to reform International Relations fundamentally. The first idea is what we will call collective security. Thats a special word in Political Science. What it means is a commitment by every government in the world to resist aggression, even when they have no vital interest at stake. So libya attacks mozambique and uruguay eclairs war. Thailand invades vermont and mexico declares war. That is the idea of collective security. Its not the idea of collective defense which is what we have a nato. Nato is all about everybody responding to an attack. His second idea is what is called National Self determinism determination. He never use the word, the bolsheviks use the word. The third idea was democracy. He started an argument that now, i think, is empirically valid. That no two liberal democracies have ever gone to war against each other. You can think of an exception. Let me know. If you come up with a really good exception, i will give you 400 dollars and we will write the most kicking article in Political Science. I think its actually true. You can imagine what this means. You can get world peace without world government and empire and the second coming. That is if country would become democracies. Lastly, adopt the lead. These are his big ideas. Im going to concentrate on this one. Theres lots of stuff to talk about here, but it turns out that for the league fight, its really that one that is part of it. Okay, by the way you need to know something. There are about 125 articles in the versailles peace treaty. The first 25 are the company for the league of nations. Woodrow wilson wanted the league of nations in the peace treaty to end the war with germany so that they could not be pulled apart. They wanted them intertwined together. This is article ten and saying something fundamental. Read it for me. Let me ask you a question. If ireland rose up against the British Empire and the United States had signed this, with the United States have any commitment . External aggression. It would not. What i want you to look at this this is a extremely controversial part of the versailles peace treaty. It is the shantung controversy. Its about a couple of different ways. Shantung it had been an area of china the journey took over in 1898. When germans took over, it applied the doctrine of extra territoriality. If a german businessman raped and murdered a chinese woman, the Chinese Police could not touch him. Only German Police operated their protection. When world war i began, japan was now in the eye of Great Britain. So japan declared war on germany, occupied a bunch of german possessions in the pacific and then took over the shantung peninsula. Then a deeper sight peace conference, Woodrow Wilson realized, for a couple of reasons, that he needed japan support for the treaty. He said to the japanese, what is it going to take . The japanese had a great idea. We want one little thing. We want a racial equality clause in the versailles peace treaty. We want you to acknowledge that International Relations is no longer for white people exclusively. We want you to start saying from the beginning, and by the way, we would appreciate it if you would make sure, when we passed that clause, that your legislature in the state of california knows it. Woodrow wilson says yes we can do this. He takes that part of the treaty back and his advisers say mister president you cannot agree to the racial equality clause. Because remember, hes a democrat. Where is the heart of democratic support in the congress . Its in the segregationist south. So Woodrow Wilson goes back to the japanese and says we need to talk again. Im not sure i can do that. What else do you have on your wish list . We want that. Woodrow wilson hates what hes about to do because he is going to give an area of china inhabited by chinese to japan. Thats in order to keep japans support for the treaty. This violates the principles of determination that he has been talking about. By the way, i need to tell you one other small part of the story. When this became public, Chinese University students poured out of the universities in protest in something called the may 4th, 1919 movement. They were profoundly angry that china was being ripped apart and oversight peace treaty after Woodrow Wilson had talked about self determination. And its one of the reasons why University Students in china today are still honored. Because at that crucial moment, they were the light of the national consciousness. Okay. So imagine for just a moment that china goes to war to recover shantung. Remember who lives in shantung. Chinese. Whos running shantung . Japanese. If china went to war to recover that territory and the United States signed this, would we have any obligations now . United states would be expected to go to war against china. It has launched a justified war of liberation to recover its own territory. And the opponents of the league say weve got wilson. The great moral list has just discovered that attempting to apply universal moral principles to the incredibly complex historical reality of International Relations is asking for trouble. They start going around the country saying, by the way, are you willing to die for Japanese Imperial control of shandong . The president s moral prestige takes an enormous hit over the shandong controversy. Okay . This is fighting bob lah fall it. He said its time to realize what is going on here. Hes angry he is going to strongly oppose the treaty. These group of men who sat in a secret complaint for months were not peacemakers, they were war makers. They are sowing the seeds of conflict all over the world. But what they are doing is trying to cover it up by the collective security provisions of the league of nations. Because what they are really going to do is try to set up a system where if you ever challenge what they want by force, we all go to war to try to maintain their imperialist status quo collective security. So Henry Cabot Lodge goes to work. He tries, initially, to get amendments to the treaty, but that doesnt work because the amendments need to be accepted by every other member who signed the treaty. So they Start Talking about a concept called reservations. Thats where you signed the treaty but you make a declaration about how you are going to interpret parts of the treaty. Notice what his first reservation is. Wilson screwed up. We are not obliged to anything in that list. Then he says, lets keep going. Wilson was unclear in his treaty, i want to make it clear that the United States can withdraw from the league of nations at a moments notice. Then he says, by the way, the United States will have exclusive control over its territory. The league of nations cannot be involved in domestic internal affairs. Then he says congress has to approve all funds so you cant get any money for the league of nations unless we approve it. Then he says even if the league of nations starts disarmament, if the United States is threatened, we reserve the right to increase our ornaments and then comes the big one. This will start the whole flight. This is where almost all of the energy where the league of nations is going to be. What hes going to do is say the United States assumes no obligations under article ten. You can call article ten a moral guideline. You can call it a general principle. What you cannot call it is an enforceable treaty obligation. By the way, this is a small constitutional issue. Only the congress has the right to declare war. You cant use an International Treaty to do in and run around congress is authority to declare war. Does this kind of sound like the Police Action in korea a few years later . So then they vote. Lodges reservations go down. He cannot get enough votes for his reservations. Whats really going on here . What weve got is not a fight between isolationist and internationalists. What we have going on here is a fight between two rival internationalists. Wilsons consistently liberal. Lodge lodge is consistently conservative and realist lodge lodge says if you want the 20 barrier states around germany. Wilson wants collective security. Lodge says no. Alliances are the key to peace, not legal commitments that have nothing to do with national interests. The heart of it to lodge stop wilson. The stakes are too serious. So they get into a fight. It is one fight after another. The whole question becomes president wilson does not have the votes to get the tricky through unless he compromises with lodge. Lodge is willing to get the treaty through, but only if wilson compromises and knocks off article ten. The question is could you build a bridge between these two, at least initially, you positions. What we can do is declare article ten a near moral obligation. That infuriates Woodrow Wilson. For what you could do, its a by the way we want to acknowledge our reservation that congress will have the final authority, but theyre concerned that will undermine the credibility of the commitment. But you could do this, you could say the United States understands whether guards to his advice, and that is an interesting compromise. Heres the really interesting point that was Woodrow Wilsons secret compromise. Woodrow wilson himself as he set out for his nationwide tour, to talk to the American People he realized there may be a problem in talking to the democratic leader and he had written on his own typewriter, for reservations. Including this one and if you cant get the treaty through and i will accept this and you get the treated through so what happened . If Woodrow Wilson himself secretly had accepted a way to bridge this, and to build this bridge. What happened . Okay, so will joe wilson made a series of mistakes. One mistake was that when he went to negotiate, the versailles peace treaty, he took no major republican leader into his confidence about what he was trying to do. And the effective it will that made it wilsons peace and wilsons treaty, not americas treaty. But the idea was he went on this gigantic tour, wasted enormous amount of energy, and changed no votes when what he needed to be doing, was sitting in washington with an iron fisted negotiations trying to find a compromise. Wilson, almost certainly overestimated at this moment, the power of Public Opinion to change votes in the senate but a lot of his most important defenders, say this is the key point the Woodrow Wilson who wrote this, was still healthy. But in november 1919 and march 1920, wilson ordered democrats to order no to vote no on the treaty. Rather than accept the reservations. He boarded his own offspring. And the idea was his psychological rigidity, was what caused this collapse, and made it impossible for him to make this compromise. So the consequences, of a gigantic medical crisis. And wilson refused to compromise. What therefore, is the story that we are trying to see here, and what were seeing is probably there was no way to get the versailles peace treaty through it wasnt had written it. Was it possible to get any version of the versailles peace treaty through that would be a lot looser a lot less firm and yes there was a way. And who is the person who stopped it . It was Woodrow Wilson himself. And the result, was that the key piece of european Security Architecture, that everybody had expected was missing. And if significant forces in europe rose to challenge the versailles peace treaty, the key thing that was needed for europe stabilization was absent. And that is a story of why wilsons piece lost. Thank you. Folks we have time for two questions, you are welcome to come down to either mike and dr. Armstrong will be available after the program for additional questions. Oh i thought i was going to escape all right,. First of all thank you so much, and its very interesting and very informative and personally, i guess i would consider myself more in the lodge view of things, in terms of a certain realism, especially with respect to barrier states. And would you be able to comment, on obviously through wilsons 0. 10 in his 14 points. He was very much in favor of self determination, and in Eastern Europe, and were there any concerns about having any kind of check in the east to a defeated journey. Obviously the soviet union at that point was in turmoil and only Great Britain and france was lead to the west. But the balkans, sort of became even more of a mess after the war. So if you could comment on that. Sure well Woodrow Wilson thought they league of nations, could bring the european states and Central Europe and Eastern Europe together, and there would be a strong british french and American Security commitment. So if the germans or the soviets ever attempted to invade, they would have confidence that those three great powers would be involved. So his idea i think was that there is a part of the versailles peace treaty called a guarantee, and that was the deal that bolton and made. So if you will agree to reduce your met demands about germany, then the United States will commit anything quite this way but the United States will commit that if germany will come after you again we will be committed to your defense. And that part of the treaty didnt survive either. So wilson was clearly thinking, that the best thing would be for germany to change, and you see that it can adopt peaceful democratic development. But if it doesnt, the league of nations will represent this commitment of security. Does that help . Thank you very much, for and enlightening and entertaining presentation. I was wondering in your opinion, when you look at the various points of view, of victory versus defeat, complete defeat and setting up barrier states and so on and do you have a personal opinion on which wouldve been the better way to go . To avoid the Second World War and such . I personally believe that collective security, cannot work. And i think there are three problems with collective security so the first problem is it assumes that governments will go to war on things that are not in their vital interest. And they will not take Major Military risk, for things that are not in their vital interest. Second collective security freezes the territorial status quo. Because now people say, hey i dont have to make a compromise with you about given you this province, or this because if you come over that border, that activates aggression and therefore i can expect the International Community to come. Thats what does it freezes borders all over the world, and adjustment at the borders are crucial and overtime, to maintaining peace. And the third thing, i do not believe the anybody agrees on how they fight aggression. So, if you were to watch a brilliant International Relations major, at georgetown interview Georgetown University sorry in eight 1968, who said i reject conscription in the vietnam war, because while our government calls that an act of aggression, its actually a civil war, and therefore i have no duty for that. So that same guy, he became president of United States. In the 1990s, that was bill clinton. He said that what was going on in bosnia, constituted aggression. There were lots of people who said its a civil war. So my sense is that, its not an agreement as to what aggression is, and government decides what their position, is and then they hired lawyers, to argue that its aggression are not aggression, so it turns out that collective security is an actual shift control of what wilson thought it would control. And 25 years ago there were a group of american scholars, who wanted to resuscitate this after the cold war. But they gave up. In the disaster of the balkan wars. Where they realized that even if aggression, you know is the cleansing was going, on people were not taking serious military risks to try to stop it. As far as i know, even today there are no major scholars, on collective security as a concept. And it has died. Folks we are going to conclude our program, so thank you for everyone joining us and another thank you to doctor gary armstrong, and you may ask your questions after thank you. Up next the panel of historians, discuss the 1916 election and Foreign Policy. They talk about American Relations with europe, in Central America and mexico