of Nations" (to "insure peace and justice throughout the world") when he was undercut by his own Secretary of State, who told the press on December 21 that America "was drawing near the verge of war" (Walworth 75). That blunt statement "vexed him greatly," Walworth writes (76), and meanwhile the antipathy between the British (who wanted the U.S. to join the allies) and America (where Wilson was hoping diplomacy would keep the U.S. out of the conflict) was on a downward slide. The British were "infuriated" when Wilson, ever the diplomat, appealed to the Germans by saying European statesmen "on both sides of the conflict were 'virtually the same.'"
             How did Congress react to Wilson's pre-war diplomacy? In the U.S. Senate, "conservatives were as alarmed as Princeton's trustees had been by Wilson's soaring aspirations," Walworth writes on page 77. Republicans angrily attacked his League of Nations idea; Henry Cabot Lodge "attacked the president publicly and privately." What galled conservatives was that the U.S., under Wilson's plan, would spearhead the League of Nations and fund a major part of the expense, along with sending troops to defend other neutral nations being attacked. Senator Borah of Idaho expressed the view that Wilson's proposal would "plunge the nation into the storm center of European politics" and "destroy" the Monroe Doctrine as well.
             The events leading up to U.S. going to war. In their book, Major Problems In American Foreign Relations Volume II: Since 1914, authors Merrill and Patterson present essays by historian scholars who have interesting perspectives on the build-up to war and the war's outcome. Essayist Thomas Knock explains that organizations advocating peace and also organizations advocating bold international power moves by America were in place in the years and months le...