I know we talk a lot here about Wilson and the League fight but I thought it might be useful to revisit the details of the endgame of that fight in March 1920. From John Milton Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biogrpahy, pp. 558-9
"The statement-—released as a letter to Hitchcock at the end of the day on March 8-—thundered with righteous defiance and focused almost entirely on Article X: 'For myself, I could not look the soldiers of our gallant armies in the face again if I did not do everything in my power to remove every obstacle that lies in the way of this particular Article of the Covenant. . . . Any reservation which seeks to deprive the League of Nations of the force of Article X strikes at the very heart of the Covenant itself.' Without its guarantees, the League would be merely 'a futile scrap of paper,' like the guarantee of Belgium that Germany had violated in 1914. Instead of quibbling about obligations, America should fearlessly embrace 'the role of leadership which we now enjoy, contributing our efforts towards establishing a just and permanent peace.' The letter ended with a sting: 'I have been struck by the fact that practically every so-called reservation was in effect a nullification of the terms of the treaty itself. I hear of reservationists and mild reservationists, but I cannot understand the difference between a nullifier and a mild nullifier.'
"This bombshell did its destructive work. All but a few staunchly Democratic newspapers recoiled from Wilson. The Washington Post labeled him 'an affirmative irreconcilable', and the New York World carried an editorial titled 'Ratify!' which called his position 'weak and untenable.' His opponents on Capitol Hill were delighted. Senator Brandegee told reporters, 'The President strangled his own child.' On the Senate floor, Lodge mockingly thanked the president for having 'justified the position that we on this side, all alike, have taken, that there must be no obligation imposed on the United States to carry out the provisions of article 10.' Mild reservationists bristled at the 'mild nullifier' label, and Democrats openly defied Wilson, with Robert Owen of Oklahoma declaring, 'I will not follow any leader who is leading to [the treaty's] defeat or delay.' During the next ten days, the senators voted to attach the same fourteen reservations as they had voted for earlier, plus one more, offered by a Democrat, Peter Gerry of Rhode Island, affirming self-detennination for Ireland and expressing sympathy for an independent Ireland. With that, the Senate was ready to vote again on consent to the Treaty of Versailles.
"The vote came on March 14, exactly four months after the earlier votes on the treaty. This time debate lasted just six hours, and the senators considered only the treaty with the Lodge reservations plus the Gerry reservation. Several Democrats usually loyal to Wilson announced that they would vote for the treaty with these reservations. At six in the evening, when the roll call began, it looked as if enough Democrats might break with the president to supply the two thirds necessary for consent. Three of the first four answered aye, and next came Charles Culberson of Texas, who had not announced his intentions. There was talk that if he voted in favor, most other Democrats would join him. Culberson reportedly hesitated and looked perplexed before he answered nay. Everything then went as predicted. The vote was 49 in favor and 35 against, seven votes short of two thirds of the members present. A majority of Democrats voted for consent, which was a rebuke to Wilson. All but three of those who stayed with him were from the southern or border states; many of those loyal Democrats appeared to be afraid of reprisals by the president. A final bit of business was to return the treaty to the president. The following day, the secretary of the Senate carried back to the White House the same bound volume of the Treaty of Versailles that Wilson had presented to the Senate eight months earlier.
"This was the end of the League fight. Wilson had lost. The United States would never ratify that treaty and would never join the League of Nations. Many newspapers and commentators expressed regret at the outcome, and most of them laid the blame on VVilson-—properly so. Brandegee's cruel remark about Wilson's strangling his own child was not far off the mark. Wilson had blocked every effort at compromise, and only his active intransigence prevented more Democrats from voting for the treaty with the Lodge reservations. Even though he threatened to refuse to ratify the treaty, the Senate's consenting to the treaty with those reservations would have put pressure on the Republicans to take a stand for League membership on those terms in the 1920 election and, when they won, to complete the process of ratification. As things now stood, the Republicans were free to wipe the foreign policy slate clean and go their own way, which was what Lodge wanted and what they soon would do."
https://books.google.com/books?id=xOZVsyO4K2cC&pg=PA558
https://books.google.com/books?id=xOZVsyO4K2cC&pg=PA559
Here I do not want to rehash the question of "what if Wilson had been less stubborn about Article X?" I am taking this stubornness as a given, at least after the stroke (and very likely without it). I also do not want to get into the question of whether American membership in the League would have made a difference. Rather I want to ask: what happens to the League as a 1920 campaign issue if seven more Democrats had voted to defy Wilson and ratify the Treaty with the Lodge reservations? As a POD, having Culberson come out in favor of ratification just might work--he might influence enough of his fellow southern Democrats to put ratification of the treaty with the League over loyalty to Wilson.
So the Senate ratifies the treaty and Wilson refuses to complete ratification--and what then? I am not as convinced as Cooper that the Republicans would say, "Well, now that the treaty has passed, we have to support it." Rather, they might use Wilson's refusal to ratify as an excuse to say that the process must now start over, and that the Lodge reservations might now not be sufficient. Or their platform might hedge on that question in an attempt to satisfy everyone from mild reservationsts to irreconcilables.
And what about the Democratic platform? In OTL it tried to appeal to both Wilsonians and reservationists:
"We endorse the President's view of our international obligations and his firm stand against reservations designed to cut to pieces the vital provisions of the Versailles Treaty and we commend the Democrats in Congress for voting against resolutions for separate peace which would disgrace the nation.
"We advocate the immediate ratification of the treaty without reservations which would impair its essential integrity; but do not oppose the acceptance of any reservations making clearer or more specific the obligations of the United States to the league associates. Only by doing this may we retrieve the reputation of this nation among the powers of the earth and recover the moral leadership which President Wilson won and which Republican politicians at Washington sacrificed. Only by doing this may we hope to aid effectively in the restoration of order throughout the world and to take the place which we should assume in the front rank of spiritual, commercial and industrial advancement.
"We reject as utterly vain, if not vicious, the Republican assumption that ratification of the treaty and membership in the League of Nations would in any wise impair the integrity or independence of our country. The fact that the covenant has been entered into by twenty-nine nations, all as jealous of their independence as we of ours, is a sufficient refutation of such a charge. The President repeatedly has declared, and this Convention reaffirms, that all our duties and obligations as a member of the league must be fulfilled in strict conformity with the Constitution of the United States, embodied in which is the fundamental requirement of declaratory action by the Congress before this nation may become a participant in any war..." http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29592
This sort of "well, we'll accept some sort of reservations" hedging would not IMO be available to the Democrats if the Senate voted to ratify with the Lodge reservations. The platform would either have to support the treaty, Lodge reservations and all, or back Wilson's position (which would mean in this ATL rejecting the position of a large majority of Democratic senators). Which would they choose?
"The statement-—released as a letter to Hitchcock at the end of the day on March 8-—thundered with righteous defiance and focused almost entirely on Article X: 'For myself, I could not look the soldiers of our gallant armies in the face again if I did not do everything in my power to remove every obstacle that lies in the way of this particular Article of the Covenant. . . . Any reservation which seeks to deprive the League of Nations of the force of Article X strikes at the very heart of the Covenant itself.' Without its guarantees, the League would be merely 'a futile scrap of paper,' like the guarantee of Belgium that Germany had violated in 1914. Instead of quibbling about obligations, America should fearlessly embrace 'the role of leadership which we now enjoy, contributing our efforts towards establishing a just and permanent peace.' The letter ended with a sting: 'I have been struck by the fact that practically every so-called reservation was in effect a nullification of the terms of the treaty itself. I hear of reservationists and mild reservationists, but I cannot understand the difference between a nullifier and a mild nullifier.'
"This bombshell did its destructive work. All but a few staunchly Democratic newspapers recoiled from Wilson. The Washington Post labeled him 'an affirmative irreconcilable', and the New York World carried an editorial titled 'Ratify!' which called his position 'weak and untenable.' His opponents on Capitol Hill were delighted. Senator Brandegee told reporters, 'The President strangled his own child.' On the Senate floor, Lodge mockingly thanked the president for having 'justified the position that we on this side, all alike, have taken, that there must be no obligation imposed on the United States to carry out the provisions of article 10.' Mild reservationists bristled at the 'mild nullifier' label, and Democrats openly defied Wilson, with Robert Owen of Oklahoma declaring, 'I will not follow any leader who is leading to [the treaty's] defeat or delay.' During the next ten days, the senators voted to attach the same fourteen reservations as they had voted for earlier, plus one more, offered by a Democrat, Peter Gerry of Rhode Island, affirming self-detennination for Ireland and expressing sympathy for an independent Ireland. With that, the Senate was ready to vote again on consent to the Treaty of Versailles.
"The vote came on March 14, exactly four months after the earlier votes on the treaty. This time debate lasted just six hours, and the senators considered only the treaty with the Lodge reservations plus the Gerry reservation. Several Democrats usually loyal to Wilson announced that they would vote for the treaty with these reservations. At six in the evening, when the roll call began, it looked as if enough Democrats might break with the president to supply the two thirds necessary for consent. Three of the first four answered aye, and next came Charles Culberson of Texas, who had not announced his intentions. There was talk that if he voted in favor, most other Democrats would join him. Culberson reportedly hesitated and looked perplexed before he answered nay. Everything then went as predicted. The vote was 49 in favor and 35 against, seven votes short of two thirds of the members present. A majority of Democrats voted for consent, which was a rebuke to Wilson. All but three of those who stayed with him were from the southern or border states; many of those loyal Democrats appeared to be afraid of reprisals by the president. A final bit of business was to return the treaty to the president. The following day, the secretary of the Senate carried back to the White House the same bound volume of the Treaty of Versailles that Wilson had presented to the Senate eight months earlier.
"This was the end of the League fight. Wilson had lost. The United States would never ratify that treaty and would never join the League of Nations. Many newspapers and commentators expressed regret at the outcome, and most of them laid the blame on VVilson-—properly so. Brandegee's cruel remark about Wilson's strangling his own child was not far off the mark. Wilson had blocked every effort at compromise, and only his active intransigence prevented more Democrats from voting for the treaty with the Lodge reservations. Even though he threatened to refuse to ratify the treaty, the Senate's consenting to the treaty with those reservations would have put pressure on the Republicans to take a stand for League membership on those terms in the 1920 election and, when they won, to complete the process of ratification. As things now stood, the Republicans were free to wipe the foreign policy slate clean and go their own way, which was what Lodge wanted and what they soon would do."
https://books.google.com/books?id=xOZVsyO4K2cC&pg=PA558
https://books.google.com/books?id=xOZVsyO4K2cC&pg=PA559
Here I do not want to rehash the question of "what if Wilson had been less stubborn about Article X?" I am taking this stubornness as a given, at least after the stroke (and very likely without it). I also do not want to get into the question of whether American membership in the League would have made a difference. Rather I want to ask: what happens to the League as a 1920 campaign issue if seven more Democrats had voted to defy Wilson and ratify the Treaty with the Lodge reservations? As a POD, having Culberson come out in favor of ratification just might work--he might influence enough of his fellow southern Democrats to put ratification of the treaty with the League over loyalty to Wilson.
So the Senate ratifies the treaty and Wilson refuses to complete ratification--and what then? I am not as convinced as Cooper that the Republicans would say, "Well, now that the treaty has passed, we have to support it." Rather, they might use Wilson's refusal to ratify as an excuse to say that the process must now start over, and that the Lodge reservations might now not be sufficient. Or their platform might hedge on that question in an attempt to satisfy everyone from mild reservationsts to irreconcilables.
And what about the Democratic platform? In OTL it tried to appeal to both Wilsonians and reservationists:
"We endorse the President's view of our international obligations and his firm stand against reservations designed to cut to pieces the vital provisions of the Versailles Treaty and we commend the Democrats in Congress for voting against resolutions for separate peace which would disgrace the nation.
"We advocate the immediate ratification of the treaty without reservations which would impair its essential integrity; but do not oppose the acceptance of any reservations making clearer or more specific the obligations of the United States to the league associates. Only by doing this may we retrieve the reputation of this nation among the powers of the earth and recover the moral leadership which President Wilson won and which Republican politicians at Washington sacrificed. Only by doing this may we hope to aid effectively in the restoration of order throughout the world and to take the place which we should assume in the front rank of spiritual, commercial and industrial advancement.
"We reject as utterly vain, if not vicious, the Republican assumption that ratification of the treaty and membership in the League of Nations would in any wise impair the integrity or independence of our country. The fact that the covenant has been entered into by twenty-nine nations, all as jealous of their independence as we of ours, is a sufficient refutation of such a charge. The President repeatedly has declared, and this Convention reaffirms, that all our duties and obligations as a member of the league must be fulfilled in strict conformity with the Constitution of the United States, embodied in which is the fundamental requirement of declaratory action by the Congress before this nation may become a participant in any war..." http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29592
This sort of "well, we'll accept some sort of reservations" hedging would not IMO be available to the Democrats if the Senate voted to ratify with the Lodge reservations. The platform would either have to support the treaty, Lodge reservations and all, or back Wilson's position (which would mean in this ATL rejecting the position of a large majority of Democratic senators). Which would they choose?
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