The Treaty of Versailles, which was a peace treaty that called for the end of World
War 1(between Germany and the Allies), was defeated in the Senate by an unknown
alliance of two forces. The two forces were President Wilson's "all or nothing" attitude
and the strong opponents of the Treaty in the Senate.
William Borah (Sen, Idaho), one of the "irreconcilables", brings out a clear
weakness in the Covenant of the League of Nations in his speech to the Senate. The
weakness is that will any country really feel comfortable, or approve of, another country's
government dealing with their domestic affairs and concerns, especially if they have an
army to support whatever they decide. He also brings up a point that no one would
approve of a tribunal, with 41 other nations in it, to settle a problem that might arise
between members of the nation because what one nation sees a vital, another nation may
see as wasteful, which might just lead to another World War. The League as he describes
it is contradictorial in all that it is to accomplish ("force to destroy force, conflict to
prevent conflict, militarism to destroy militarism, war to prevent war") and it can't work
like that because it has no authority to back up its own judgment. This goes against
Wilson's idea of the League because he helped create it and it is a very important and big
step to him in creating a worldwide government (Doc A)
The Treaty as portrayed in The New Republic is useless, which is a strong reason it
shouldn't be passed. It wasn't useless in the sense that it would officially end the war, but
in a sense that it would not "moralize nationalism". The moralization of nationalism could
be achieved by ending the separation of classes and ambitions that could only be enjoyed
by some, not all, people in the country. According to the journalist the Treaty doesn't
make even...