Lodge Reservations - Defeat of The Treaty By Senatorial Debate

Defeat of The Treaty By Senatorial Debate

On September 16, 1919, Senator Lodge called the treaty up for consideration by the full Senate. On November 15, the chamber was still considering the treaty when, for the first time in its history, the Senate voted to invoke cloture – to cut off debate – on the treaty. Four days later, the Senate voted on Lodge’s resolution to advise and consent to ratification subject to the reservations. The vote was 55 in favor and 39 opposed. A two-thirds vote being required, the resolution failed. The Senators who favored ratification of the treaty without reservations had joined with the “irreconcilables,” those who opposed the treaty under any circumstances, to defeat the reservations. The Senate then considered a resolution to advise and consent to ratification of the treaty without reservations. The vote was 53 in favor and 38 opposed. A two-thirds vote being required, the resolution failed. After 55 days of debate, the Senate had rejected the Treaty of Versailles by 8 votes.

The final blow to the Treaty and the Reservations occurred on March 19, 1920, when the treaty was defeated by 7 votes.

Many attribute the Treaty's failure to President Wilson's diminished health at the time of the defeat and to his total unwillingness to compromise. On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a massive stroke that affected the left side of his body. He gradually recovered from this stroke, but took its toll on his health. Thomas A. Bailey, professor of History at Stanford University for almost 40 years, wrote that "Wilson's physical and mental condition had a profoundly important bearing on the final defeat of the treaty." Several prominent thinkers believed that if Wilson had been functioning at his pre-stroke level, he would have been able to bridge the discrepancies between the two forms of Reservations concerning the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson's doctor, Edwin A. Weinstein, felt that "had Wilson been in full health, he would have found the formula to reconcile the differences between the Lodge and Hitchcock Reservations." (Arthur Link) His illness affected him in that it incapacitated part of his left side. After the stroke, Wilson would distance himself from his paralyzed arm by referring to the arm as "it". His stroke also seemed to polarize his emotions (Arthur Link), causing him to become even more stubborn when dealing with the reservations.

Another factor in the defeat of the Treaty was Wilson's staunch belief that the people supported him. This assumption led him to formulate his Jackson Day letter, in which he calamitously made the treaty an issue of the upcoming presidential election. This letter sealed the fate of the Treaty by "converting what had really not been a partisan issue, except in the parliamentary sense, into a hostage of party loyalty and politics." (Arthur Link) Wilson's challenge was persuading the people of the validity of his opinions. Wilson's career path, one centered in academia, had rarely led to a position requiring public support. After serving as the president of Princeton College for 8 years from 1902–1910, he served as governor of New Jersey for two years (1911–1913), until he was inaugurated as President in 1913. In the matters of public persuasion, he simply didn't have enough experience.