A thought about President Charles Evans Hughes in 1919

Would he have gone to Paris personally or sent (say) Secretary of State Elihu Root to negotiate?

If the latter, I can just see Woodrow Wilson's argument as he seeks his comeback in 1920 (without the strain of being president in 1919 we'll assume that his stroke is butterflied away): "No wonder the peace treaty is so full of injustices. The president failed to use his personal prestige to fight on the scene for a fairer treaty. *I* would have gone to Paris personally..." and a lot of voters would agree with this, "yeah, if the president had just gone to Paris personally, it would have been hard for Clemenceau and Lloyd George to resist his proposals..."
 
Assuming Hughes lead the country in war, it is highly unlikely he would have chosen such a partisan diplomacy like Wilson did. Whoever lead the delegation, there'd be prominent Republicans AND Democrats as opposed to the Democrats only show under Wilson's messianic delusions. I don't think the Treaty, whatever the treaty's details were like, would be controversial or partisan as IOTL.

Wilson might make an appeal that he would have been a better statesman or some such, but overall I don't think he could use the details of the treaty as weapon. Too many prominent Democrats will have their names on it.
 
My guess is that the Democrats both in the peace delegation and in the Senate will have it both ways--they will go along (grumbling) with the treaty and yet say it would have been a better treaty if *they* had been the ones to negotiate (for despite the presence of Democrats in Paris, still it is, in the public's mind, essentially the administration's treaty). And that will probably work politically--people are not going to blame the treaty on the party which did not control the White House.
 
I suggest Hughes would send both Secretary of State Root and former president Theodore Roosevelt to head the delegation: the latter since he was so well known and respected throughout Europe. Chances are they'd have Champ Clark and Oscar Underwood for traveling companions.
 
C. E. Hughes was no moron. For something as important as this, I have to think he would have gone to Europe personally, and taken both Democrats and Republicans along for the ride.
 
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