Author Says Lodge Was Critical of Ignorance
HENRY CABOT LODGE. By John A. Garraty. Copyright 1953 by Alfred A. Knopf.
Responsibility for the failure of the U.S. to enter the League of Nations was shared as much by Woodrow Wilson as by the Republican senators who fought his policies.
At least that is the view expressed in a recent biography of Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican senator who was chairman of the Foreign Relations committee when the League was being considered by the Senate. Lodge, whose grandson—Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.—now represents the U.S. in the United Nations, also was majority leader in the Senate at that time.
Bitter personal feelings between Lodge and Wilson contributed to the failure of the Senate to ratify the Versailles treaty, which contained the provisions for the U.S. entry into the League, biographer John A. Garraty writes. And it was their unwillingness to compromise that apparently caused the downfall of his plans for U.S. participation in an international organization.
A majority of the members of the Foreign Relations committee recommended ratification of the treaty, if certain amendments and reservations were added. In general, the suggested changes had the purpose of defining more clearly the responsibilities of the U.S. in the League and the right of Congress to control those duties.
The most important reservation, however, referred to Article X. As prepared by Lodge, it read: "The U.S. assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity . . . of any country . . . unless in any particular case the Congress . . . shall by act or joint resolution so provide."
William Howard Taft, who had worked for the League of Nations, blamed both sides. He wrote that Lodge and Wilson "exalt their personal prestige and the saving of their ugly faces above the welfare of the country and the world."
The Republican majority in the Senate prepared a treaty with reservations, but needed Democratic support to obtain the necessary two-thirds vote required for all treaties. The fact that the treaty could not pass either with or without the reservations illustrated the stubbornness of both sides, the book states.
Friends of Wilson tended to blame Lodge for the death of the ratification. They said he "misrepresented the effect of the treaty industriously." Lodge and his friends claimed Wilson had done the killing.
It was no secret that Lodge and Wilson were bitter enemies. Even in 1915, Lodge told his good friend Theodore Roosevelt, "I never expected to hate anyone in politics with the hatred I feel toward Wilson."
Wilson and Lodge had disagreed with some violence over a dispute with Mexico and the question of neutrality before World War I so it was no surprise that they should disagree on the Versailles treaty.
Wilson certainly did not improve his relations with Republican senators when he did not take anyone from the Senate with him to the peace negotiations in Paris. Only one Republican was included in Wilson's delegation, and he was given only a minor role.
So it was that Lodge and other Republican senators were suspicious of anything Wilson might propose. Before the President had returned to the U.S., Lodge already had made a policy speech attacking "crudeness and looseness of expression" in the treaty, although he did not openly oppose it.
Also, before Wilson had returned, 37 Republican senators had signed—partly at the instigation of Lodge—a petition saying the proposed League of Nations was unacceptable. Those 37 were enough to defeat any treaty.
An example of the bitterness between Wilson and Lodge was the note sent by Mrs. Wilson after her husband had died in 1924, just a few months before Lodge himself died.
"As the funeral is a private, and not an official one," Mrs. Wilson wrote, "and realizing that your presence there would be embarrassing to you and unwelcome to me I write to request that you do not attend."
Lodge was born in what the book termed "propitious" circumstances, including wealth, social position, and intellectual stimulation. His family lived in Boston in a society of wealth, refinement, and culture, associating with the great minds of the day.
He began in politics as an independent, but soon had moved over to the Republican side to be elected on the Republican ticket to the Massachusetts state legislature in 1878. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1880, and by 1887 he was representing his home state in Congress, where he was to work until his death in 1924.
Despite his early record as an independent, Lodge soon became known as a party regular. He and many of his friends were strongly opposed to the nomination of James G. Blaine in 1884, but when Blaine became the GOP presidential candidate, Lodge gave his support.
Quoting from the book, "Lodge was an intelligent man, but when faced with current political questions he had a closed mind. Whenever a party matter was involved he was almost totally incapable of seeing the other man's side.
"If one is to judge Lodge as a man, one must put his undeniable partisanship in its proper place, and attempt to see how it affected his ideas and his development. If one is to judge Lodge as a politician, one must realize that, being firmly committed to one party, he stood sometimes on the 'right' side of public issues and sometimes not . . ."
As a man Lodge was "proud, haughty, cynical, self-assured; often he was an equivocator, a dextrox pettifogger, a shrewd rather than a penetrating debater, a merciless critic of ignorance, coarseness, and error," Garraty writes. —Sam Teaford
Page 2 University Daily Kansan Thursday, May 20.1954
One Man's Opinion
The Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the segregation of whites and Negroes in public schools and now, like the scientists who released the first atomic bomb, is standing back to watch the results.
Naturally the most violent reaction comes from the South, despite the fact that the court will not issue specific decrees on the subject until after it hears further arguments next fall.
For there will be many after-effects of the new ruling, as reactions from all over the U. S already have indicated.
The most reactionary reaction has come from such men as Gov. Herman Talmage, Georgia, who said, "It (the court) has blatantly ignored all law and precedent and usurped from the Congress and the people the power to amend the Constitution and from the Congress the authority to make the laws of the land."
Other southerners were almost as outspoken. Rep. Sam Engelhardt (D-Ala.) declared, "We are going to keep every brick in our segregation wall intact."
Gov. Talmadge previously had stated "there never will be mixed schools while I am governor."
Another with a long record of opposition to non-segregation, Gov. James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, didn't like the decision but he urged "all of our people, white and colored, to exercise restraint and preserve order."
But despite the reverberations, no one is expecting the South to secede, although the GOP may lose some southern gains racked up in the 1952 election.
Kansas, one of the states which permits segregation (in public schools of first-class cities), won't be much affected by the decision, since steps already have been taken to do away with the practice.
In the South it is a different matter, however. There, where the white man occasionally finds himself in the minority, prejudices are deep-rooted. Those persons whose great-grandparents were slave owners don't find it easy to accept Negroes as equals.
But as much as the South rejects equality, it is even more opposed to northerners meddling in southern affairs, an argument that dates at least as far back as the 1830s, when South Carolina wanted to nullify a federal tariff.
Admittedly the Supreme Court stepped on toes when it banned segregation, but we believe those were taken in the right direction.
Bitterness may result, but it is quite probable the ruling will gain gradual acceptance in all states. This is 1954 and not 1861, remember. Ft. Sumter was fired upon once but it won't happen again.
—Sam Teaford
Daily Hansan
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The Public Wants To Know
Moral Issues Involved In Army-McCarthyCase
The Army-McCarthy hearings have been recessed until Monday while all the principles involved settle the issue of a presidential directive forbidding John Adams from testifying as to what took place at an executive conference last Jan. 21 in the office of Attorney General Herbert Brownell.
It has been established that those attending this meeting included Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams, Mr. Brownell, Deputy Attorney General William P. Rogers, United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and Gerald Morgan, an administrative assistant to the President.
The directive was addressed to Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson, and said in part that "the principle of separation of powers must be maintained regardless of who might be benefited by such disclosures" (as to just what took place at the meeting).
One can easily take issue with this opinion by the President. Of course it is essential to maintain separation of powers in our government, but in this case the directive seriously hampers efforts at getting all the information necessary to conclude the hearings. The first public reaction to the directive seemed to be that it strongly hinted that the President himself was the one who gave the order to the Army to press charges against Sen. McCarthy and his staff. This may or may not be true, but certainly the public has the right to know just who did give the order.
Another issue involved is McCarthy's so-called "fifth column" which appears to be operating effectively within nearly every department and agency in Washington.
A moral question is involved here. It is understandable that some of our government employees would be willing to turn over to Sen. McCarthy and his staff information regarding other employees suspected of being Communists or of being engaged in some type of subversive activity. We don't like Communists or communism in America, and are willing to do what we can to rid ourselves of this menace.
But there is also a disciplinary question involved. There is absolutely no excuse for turning over information of this nature to unauthorized persons against direct orders of the executive branch. Many people thought Gen McArthur's ideas for fighting the "police action" in Korea were right, but former President Truman had no choice except to fire him for defying orders and policy of the administration. The same principle is involved here. The government cannot tolerate employees who give out information against orders, regardless of whether or not it is the right thing to do morally. The executive branch should have some means of finding out who is giving out this information, and should then take prompt action to rid our bureaus and agencies of all such persons.
Many politicians now express the opinion that the hearings will not be resumed, that they have run up against a brick wall. Many Democrats hold this opinion and many Republicans wish they could. The hearings have been long and tedious, and the American public is getting tired of them. Still it would be an injustice to shut them off now with so many important issues pending that haven't been settled to anyone's satisfaction.
Certainly we can't ask any man to surrender his conscientious moral judgment on any of these points, and moral judgment is deeply involved. But let us not forget that we cannot expect government to be efficient or expedient unless strict disciplinary measures are maintained and enforced. —Court Ernst
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