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ELIHU ROOT INTERPRETS THE LEAGUE 203
more important and that it might finally become some sort of safeguard of peace.
While the Root proposals, as well as those presented by Taft and Charles Evans Hughes, received some consideration and partial adoption by the conference of Versailles, they evoked no great enthusiasm, largely because of the attitude taken by our own peace delegation.
Almost three months after Mr. Root replied to my letter— June 19, 191 9— he wrote to Senator Lodge. The big issues remained, and Root had belit his efforts toward finding a solution. This second important contribution to the public record, at once given to the press, was, like his letter to me, designed to do two things: to set forth a sound, constructive policy on the merits of the League issue, and to present that policy in such a way as to unite the two wings of the Republican party. By now Mr. Root had had time for reflection concerning the performance rendered by the peacemakers at Versailles, and his views were slightly modified. The letter was prepared at the request of Senator Lodge, who specifically asked an opinion as to the amendments proposed in the March letter addressed to me.
Mr. Root, in his reply, referred approvingly to my earlier invitation, and his letter to me remained the basis and substance of his further judgment. The jurist then declared that the various amendments that were subsequently incorporated in the Covenant by the members of the conference, while dealing to some extent with the subjects of his own proposed amendments, were very inadequate and unsatisfactory.
He also stated definitely that he preferred to see the peace terms ~nd the League of Nations separate, as had been proposed in a resolution offered by Senator Knox, so that the Covenant could be considered by the people of the country without coercion from the necessities of a speedy peace.
It was pointed out clearly that nothing had been done to provide for the re-establishment and strengthening of a system of arbitration or judicial decision upon questions of legal right; that nothing had been done toward providing for the revision or development of international law. In these respects the principles maintained by the United States without variation for half a century were still ignored, and we were left with a program in which the hope of the world for future peace rested on a government of men, not of laws, following the dictates of expediency and not of right.
Nothing had been done to limit the vast and incalculable obligation which Article X of the Covenant undertook to impose upon each member of the League to preserve against aggression the territorial integrity and political independence of all members of the League all over the world.
The clause which had been inserted regarding the Monroe Doctrine