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CHAPTER I J
A Treaty without Peace
A S evidence that we considered the question still alive, on October 15, 1920, thirty-one leading Republicans issued a public statement in favor of the League of Nations in the form in which it had been endorsed by the League to Enforce Peace. It was given to the press on the evening of that day by its chairman, Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell University, operating from the University Club, New York.
The newspapers front-paged it the following morning with the intimation that it had been drawn up by Elihu Root, following a meeting in my office with Mr. Schurman, Paul D. Cravath, and George Wickersham.
This statement in letter form, I may now say, was planned with more labor and executed with more finesse than was then recognized, and despite the immediate fulminations of Mr. Cox, the Democratic candidate, and many supporting newspapers, it had the effect of turning thousands of votes to Senator Harding.
The League of Nations was definitely in politics in the 1920 campaign. Those of us who wanted to keep it out had been unsuccessful. Therefore, I wanted the situation clarified, as George White, the Democratic national chairman, had suggested. It was necessary to obtain some definite expression of what I believed to be the opinion of the majority. Also, I was not unmindful of the political aspect of the situation, and to have the declaration issued on October 15 by a group of able and unselfish men was calculated to assure vast numbers that a group of great influence in the Republican party was for international co-operation, and that the matter was not going to be dropped.
The initial declaration of the thirty-one signers was that they were 'advocates of international action to promote peace." Their considered opinion was that instead of enacting "promises negotiated by President Wilson" they favored "an agreement which modifies some of those provisions, which are objectionable to a great number of people." Concerning Article X, they concurred with Hiram Johnson, Borah, and other extremists in the belief that it practically bound the United States to go to war for any League member.