WHY DID THE US NOT JOIN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS?
The US Senate refused to ratify the Peace Treaties including the Covenant of the League of Nations (especially Article X in the Covenant that stated that the members of the League agreed to use their power to resist aggression wherever it might occur - known as the "Collective Security clause"). In 1921 they made three separate Peace Treaties with Germany, Austria and Hungary. So why did not the US Senate ratify the Peace Treaties?;
  • Political opponents claimed that the concept of the League ran counter to the Founding Fathers advice against "entangling alliances" with foreign nations...
  • Political opponents also claimed that the concept of the League was against the Monroe Doctrine (the Monroe Doctrine is a United States policy introduced on December 2, 1823, which stated that further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed by the United States of America as acts of aggression requiring US intervention)
  • Presidential elections 1920 – since President Wilson was ill he did not run for President in the election 1920 - but his successor, James M Cox, made the League a major part of the Democratic Campaign. The Republican Candidate Warren G Harding won a landslide victory: 60.36% against 34.19%. One of his slogans had been "return to normalcy" - this included America isolating itself from European affairs. He declared that the ratification of the treaties was a "dead issue"...
  • The Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge ( Massachusetts ) by several historians claimed to be the first Senate majority leader said "The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her powerful good, and endanger her very existence. Leave her to march freely through the centuries to come, as in the years that have gone. Strong, generous, and confident, she has nobly served mankind. Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance; this great land of ordered liberty. For if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin." His view had a great impact on the public opinion...
The public opinion included arguments like;
  • Some Americans (quite a few) were very critic against the Peace Treaties. Many of them were recent immigrants and there were of course millions of German, Austrian, Hungarian, etc... immigrants who had never approved America joining the war against their old home countries. They did not the US to now support the League as it squeezed reparation payments out of the defeated countries.
  • To many Americans the plans for the League of Nations suggested America was promising to send it troops to settle every little conflict around the world. They wanted no part of that...
  • Other Americans worried about the economic cost of joining the League. They thought it was like the US would sign a "blank cheque"... By signing the US would promise to solve all international problems regardless of the cost. The US had become a powerful country by isolationism therefore the US should continue to just mind its own business.
  • Some Americans opposed the League because they were "Anti-British", "Anti-French" or just against the idea of colonial possessions. They feared that the League of Nations would be under British and French control. Then the US would be forced to fight for the British and/or French Empire. They found that idea revolting...
 
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