The key conflict in American foreign policy between 1914 and 1925 was between proponents of internationalism and supporters of the traditional American policy of isolationism. How did the debate over the Treaty of Versailles exemplify this conflict?

To help answer this question, you might want to look at the Key. Outline your answer using your own ideas first, though. For background information look at the Terms.

"If perpetual, it would be an attempt to preserve for all time unchanged the distribution of power and territory made in accordance with the views and exigencies of the Allies in this present juncture of affairs."

Elihu Root, 1920, on Wilson's idea of collective security

HOW MANY FRIENDS CAN UNCLE SAM COUNT ON IF HE SUBMITS HIS AFFAIRS TO THE WORLD COURT?

Headline in the Chicago Tribune, 1924

Henry Cabot Lodge Reservation to Article X (Nov. 1919) Source: American Spirit

"The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other country or to interfere in controversies between nations - whether members of the League or not - under the provisions of Article X, or to employ the military or naval forces of the United States under any article of the treaty for any purpose, unless in any particular case the Congress, which, under the Constituition, has the sole power to declare war or authorize the employment of the military or naval forces of the United States, shall by act or joint resolution so provide."

President Woodrow Wilson Source:American Spirit

I have endeavored to make it plain that if the Senate wishes to say what the undoubted meaning of the League is, I shall have no objection to interpretations accompanying the act of ratification itself. But when the treaty is acted upon, I must know whether it means that that we have ratified or rejected it.

We cannot rewrite this treaty. We must take it without changes which alter its meaning, or leave it, and then, after the rest of the world signed it, we must face the unthinkable task of making another and separate treaty with Germany.

But no mere assertions with regard to the wish and opinion of the country are credited. If there is any doubt as to the what the people of the country think on this vital matter, the clear and single way out is to submit it for determination at the next election to the voters of the Nation, to give as to the part of the United States is to play in completing the settlements of the war and in prevention in the future of such outrages as Germany attempted to perpetrate.

George Harvey, editor Harvey's Weekly (Aug. 9, 1919) Source: American Spirit

The first sentence of the Article provides that "the members of the League undertake to respect and preserve against external aggression the territory and existing political independence of all members of the League." The second sentence provides that the League Council shall advise upon the means by which the obligation involved in the first sentence shall be fulfilled.

If Article X be interpreted to mean anything, that meaning necessarily is that we engage to send our armed forces wherever and whenever a super-government of foreigners sitting in Switzerland orders us to send them. If it be interpreted as Mr. Wilson interprets it, the foreign super-government's powers extend only to the giving of advice which we agree to heed or ignore as our judgement dictates. One interpretation is an insult to our self respect as a nation. The other reduces the whole of Article X to a vacuum.

The way to treat Article X is to strike it out.

Woodrow Wilson's Testimony for Article X (August 19, 1919) Source: American Spirit

Why, Senator [Warren G. Harding], it is surprising that that question should be asked. If we undertake an obligation we are bound in the most solemn way to carry it out. . . . There is a national good conscience in such a matter. . . .

When I speak of a legal obligation, I mean that specifically binds you to do a particular thing under certain sanctions. That is a legal obligation. Now a moral is of course superior to a legal obligation, and, if I may say so, has greater binding force. . . .

Woodrow Wilson, 22 January 1917 Source: Diplomacy

The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? . . . There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.

House Diary, 27 March 1919 Source: Diplomacy

I thought I ought to call the President's attention to the perils of such a treaty. Among other things, it would be looked upon as a direct blow at the League of Nations. The League is suppossed to do just what this treaty proposed, and if it were necessary for the nations to make such a treaty, then why the League of Nations?

Bailey, Thomas A.; Kennedy, David M. The American Spirit. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1984.

Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Updated 25 April 1997 1:13 P.M.