William Howard Taft
Pointe-au-Pic, Quebec, Canada, July 10, 1919
Taft Reviews the League of Nations!
TLS

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, Typed Letter Signed, to Gus Karger, July 10, 1919, Pointe-a-Pic, P.Q., Canada. Taft wrote "Confidential" at top of first page. 5 pp., 8" x 10.5". Stains from paper clips; general toning.

In this lengthy letter, former President Taft reviews the Covenant of the League of Nations for his close friend, journalist Gus Karger, in Washington. Writing from his summer retreat along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, Taft offers four reservations or interpretations that he believed should be made part of any Senate ratification of the Treaty. He also discusses the views of Senators Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and Selden P. Spencer of Missouri, former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator Elihu Root of New York, and Republican National Committee Chairman Will H. Hays. At the time he wrote this letter, Taft was a member of the faculty of the Yale Law School, but two years later, he would be appointed Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Excerpts
"It is the threat of Article X that is going to be effective, and the more you weaken it, the less useful the League becomes. I have limited the operation of Article X to five years, to conform as near as practical to Root's recommendation in his letter to Hays." (p1)

"The fourth is in respect to the Monroe Doctrine. It seems to me to cover every part of the Monroe Doctrine that we have any right to claim, and it excludes non-American nations from any interference in this hemisphere to enforce Article X unless we choose to invite them in." (p1-2)

"The attitude of Lodge and Spencer, and even of Root, that we can not define the Monroe Doctrine, because we intend to make it as broad as we choose in exclusion of non-American nations from any relation at all with the western hemisphere, is German, is domineering, is bullying, is offensive, and is wholly unwarranted by any precedent." (p2)

"The advantage of limiting our obligations under Article X to five years is that it is likely to induce acquiescence in this limitation on the part of other nations, because having the right to withdraw from the League altogether by two years' notice, they are not conceding anything substantial in acquiescing in the effectiveness of our notice to withdraw from the obligations of Article X at the end of five years. Meantime, there will doubtless be much consideration given to amendments of the League and to perfecting its omissions and straightening out its possible inconsistencies. In other words, if we get into the League on the ground floor, I have no doubt we shall stay in, if we ought to stay in; that the actual operation of the League will get rid of many bogies now conjured up to frighten. More than this, it will keep us in close touch with the other great powers and the powers of the world in tiding over this period immediately after the war, so critical in the history of the world, when we must contribute all our moral force to stabilizing the regions east of France, through Russia and Siberia and in Asia Minor." (p2-3)

"these suggestions...are only tentative, but they show what is running in my mind. If I were Wilson, I certainly wouldn't go beyond them, and I believe he can go before the country with them and secure the support of the people in refusing anything more." (p3)

"I think the Covenant as it is is entirely safe for the United States, and that we might well ratify the treaty without a change, but of course it is better to remove concern as to the operation of the League from the minds of conscientious objectors where it does not in substance weaken the strength of the Covenant." (p3)

"The Senate of the United States advises and consents to the ratification of said Treaty, with the following reservations and interpretations to be made a part of the instrument of ratification:
"First, that the obligations of the United States under Article X shall not continue longer than five years from the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty, unless the President and the Senate of the United States, by a vote of two-thirds of the members present, shall affirmatively consent to an extension of the same." (p4)

Historical Background
The Covenant of the League of Nations was established as part of the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919. The Covenant consisted of a preamble and 26 articles. It created an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, that was dedicated to preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. The League of Nations continued to operate until it was dissolved in 1946 and replaced by the United Nations, which included the United States among its founding members. The League had 42 founding members, and 21 countries joined later, though it never had more than 58 member countries at one time. The Soviet Union became a member in 1934 but was expelled in 1939 for invading Finland.

Although President Woodrow Wilson was one of the architects of the League of Nations, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1919, he was unable to convince the Senate that the United States should join. Wilson returned from Paris in February 1919, eager to submit the Treaty and Covenant to Congress for its consent and ratification. Although there was strong popular support for the league, opposition in Congress and the press was growing. A Senate Republican coalition led by Republican majority leader Henry Cabot Lodge wanted a League with the reservation that only the Senate could take the United States into war. Critics objected most strenuously to Article X, which required all members of the League to assist any member threatened by external aggression. Isolationists in Congress considered the article a direct violation of American sovereignty and were opposed to further U.S. involvement in international conflicts.

Lodge also served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On November 19, 1919, Lodge's committee reported the treaty to the full Senate with 14 reservations, and the Senate for the first time in its history rejected a peace treaty by a vote of 53-38. When the Senate reconsidered the Treaty of Versailles on March 19, 1920, the 49-35 vote in favor of joining the League fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority required by the Constitution. The refusal of the United States to join the League substantially limited its power and credibility. In November 1920, Warren G. Harding was elected president on a platform that opposed joining the League of Nations.

William Howard Taft (1857-1930) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated from Yale College in 1878. He received a bachelor of laws degree in 1880 from Cincinnati Law School. After gaining admission to the bar, Taft worked on the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper full time, covering local courts. After a brief stint as an assistant prosecutor, Taft was appointed to the Superior Court of Cincinnati in 1887. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him as Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held until Harrison appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals, where he served from 1892 to 1900. He was Governor-General of the Philippines from 1901 to 1903, then Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1904 to 1908. In 1908, he was elected President of the United States as a Republican over Democrat William Jennings Bryan. After his defeat in the three-way election of 1912, Taft joined the faculty of the Yale Law School from 1913 to 1921, when President Warren G. Harding appointed him as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a position he held until his death nine years later.

Gustav J. Karger (1866-1924) was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany, and came to the United States with his parents in 1873. He was educated in Ohio and studied law. He served as city editor of the Cincinnati Post before moving to Washington in 1899, where he served as a correspondent for the Cincinnati Times-Star. In 1908, he served as Republican candidate William Howard Taft's personal press agent during his successful presidential campaign. He also played a prominent role in the 1920 campaign of Warren G. Harding. For a time, he served as president of the National Press Club. At Karger's funeral, also attended by President Calvin Coolidge, Chief Justice Taft was one of the honorary pallbearers and offered a tribute to the press about his friend.

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8" x 10.5"