You may call
me selfish if you will, conservative or reactionary, or use any other harsh
adjective you see fit to apply, but an American I was born and an American I
have remained all my life. I can never be anything else but an American, and I
must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States
first in an arrangement like this, I am thinking what is best for the world.
For if the United States fails, the best hopes of mankind fail with it. I have
never had but one allegiance–I cannot divide it now. I have never loved but
one flag and I cannot share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel
banner invented for the League....
Are the
ideals that are confined to this deformed experiment upon a noble purpose,
tainted, as it is with bargains and tied to a peace treaty which might have
been disposed of long ago to the great benefit of the world if it had not been
compelled to carry this rider on its back?
We all share
these aspirations and desires, but some of us see no hope, but rather defeat,
for them in this murky covenant. For we, too have our ideals, even if we
differ from those who have tried to establish a monopoly on idealism. Our
ideal is our country...
We would have
this country strong to resist a peril from the West, as she has flung back the
German menace from the East. We would not have our politics distracted and
embittered by dissensions from other lands. We would not have our country's
vigor exhausted, or her moral force abated, by everlasting meddling and
muddling in every quarrel great and small, which afflicts the world. Our ideal
is to make her even stronger and better and finer, because in this way alone,
as we believe, can she be of the greatest service to the world's peace and the
welfare of mankind.
Mr.
President, after Mr. Lincoln had been elected President, before he assumed the
duties of the office and at the time when all indications were to the effect
that we would soon be in the midst of civil strife, a friend from the city of
Washington wrote him for instructions. Mr. Lincoln wrote back in a single
line, 'Entertain no compromise; have none of it.' That states the position I
occupy at this time and which I have in my humble way occupied from the first
contention in regard to this proposal of entering the League of Nations....
Have we not
been told day by day for the last nine months that the Senate of the United
States, a coordinate part of the treaty-making power, should accept this
league as it was written because the wise men sitting in Versailles had so
written it, and has not every possible influence and every source of power in
public opinion been organized and directed against the Senate to compel it to
do that thing?
What is the
result of all this? We are in the midst of all the affairs of Europe. We have
joined in alliance with all European concerns. We have joined in alliance with
all the European nations which have thus far joined the league, and all
nations which may be admitted to the league. We are sitting there dabbling in
their affairs and intermeddling in their concerns. In other words, Mr.
President–and this comes to the question which is fundamental with me–we have
forfeited and surrendered, once and for all, the great policy of 'no
entangling alliances' upon which the strength of this Republic has been
founded for 150 years....
There is
another and even more commanding reason why I shall record my vote against
this treaty. It imperils what I conceive to be the underlying, the very first
principles of this Republic. It is in conflict with the right of our people to
govern themselves free from all restraint, legal or moral, of foreign
powers...I will not I can not, give up my belief that America must, not alone
for the happiness of her own people, but for the moral guidance and greater
contentment of the world, be permitted to live her own life. Next to the tie
which binds a man to his God is the tie which binds a man to his country, and
all schemes, all plans, however ambitious and fascinating they seem in their
proposal, but which embarrass or entangle and impede or shackle her sovereign
will, which would compromise her freedom of action I unhesitatingly put behind
me....
Sir, we are
told that this treaty means peace. Even so, I would not pay the price. Would
you purchase peace at the cost of our independence?...
Mr.
President, to recapitulate, Europe is still Europe, with all her racial
antipathies and imperialistic appetites, with the same standards of
government, whatever name Government may bear, and the same strange
conceptions of right and justice in whatever terms she may clothe her schemes
of ambition. She is unchanged, and if we assume the task of effectuating a
change, save as in the past by whatever power precept and example may exert,
we will end by becoming Europeanized in our standards and in our conceptions
of civilization or we will fall into disintegration and as a Republic die. If
we give up our independence and enter her councils with one vote, if we
surrender our seat of authority here upon the Western Continent, this place of
command to which the living God directed our fathers that they, free from all
foreign entanglements, might work out a new scheme of government, if we quit
our own stand upon foreign soil, we shall return as our President returned
from Versailles, stripped of our principles and shorn of our ideals. Look upon
his experience. The thoughtful will gather from it a lesson of deep and
lasting significance.