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224 NATIONAL POLITICS I91O-I922
Church and religious groups seem to have been almost unanimously in favor of the League. It was endorsed by the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the United Brethren in Christ Board of Bishops, the Gideons, Disciples of Christ, Church Peace Union, National Society of Christian Endeavor, Religious Education Association, Northern Baptist Convention, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and many other state and regional groups.
Some of the staunchest backers of the League to Enforce Peace were business and professional leaders. The league was endorsed by the American Bar Association, the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Economic League, the National Retail Dry Goods Association, the American Manufacturers Export Association, the National Association of Builders Exchange, the National Association of Merchant Tailors, and many others. It was supported by most of organized Labor. Farmers' groups likewise were strongly in favor of the League idea. Women's civic groups generally supported it.
The attitude of returning servicemen, however, was not clearly crystallized. Petitions from newly formed American Legion posts were sent to Congress from time to time, but never enough to clarify the position of the veterans as a group.
Many racial groups, particularly the Irish, were opposed to the League.
A majority of the newspapers supported the League editorially in varying degrees. Many Republican and independent papers were favorable, and according to the Congressional Record, sixty-six Republican and fifty-six independent papers backed the League, while 95 per cent of the Democratic press was favorable.
During the period of uneasy and unreal peace that separated the two world wars, Winston Churchill delivered one of his poetic prophecies, warning of things to come. The world did not hang upon his words then as it came to do later. In fact, his words were hardly heeded. Mr. Churchill thus wrote in 1929, referring to the peacemaking at Versailles:
It is a tale that is told, from which we may draw the knowledge and comprehension needed for the future. The disproportion between the quarrels of nations and the suffering which fighting out those quarrels involves; the poor and barren prizes which reward sublime endeavor on the battlefield; the fleeting triumphs of war; slow rebuilding; the awful risks so hardily run; the doom missed by a hair's breadth, by the spin of a coin, by the accident of an accident— all this should make the preventing of another great war the main preoccupation of mankind.
In reviewing the crucial peacemaking events of a generation ago, where I occupied a ringside seat, I have been constantly impressed by