November 16th (1919)

I am now making a record of my talks with Lodge, although the high hopes with which they inspired House and myself, rather less so, two weeks ago are gone. Not a word has come to House from the White House, not even an acknowledgment that the important communication has been received.

The Senator and I went over the Covenant, Article by Article. Here are some of the details. In our final session there was an official copy of the Treaty on the library table, also one of the so-called Lodge Reservations before the Senate but, so far as I can remember, we did not once refer to them. It was on the printed copy of the Covenant that I brought with me that the Senator made the changes and inserted the interlineations which if accepted, he thought, would smooth the way to ratification. The changes ran to about forty words, the “inserts” to about fifty. It seemed to me they were more concerned with verbiage than with the object and the intent of the instrument. In my judgment, they were complementary to, rather than limiting, any substantial purpose of the Covenant. In this they differed sharply from the Reservations Lodge had introduced into the Senate and which are now blocking the path to ratification.

The Senator, frankly and repeatedly, stated that his interest or, as he put it several times, his anxiety, centered around Article X, which the President often refers to as the “heart of the Covenant,” and his suggestion, indeed his demand, was to the effect that none of the obligations or commitments incurred under this provision should be undertaken without the approval of the Senate and the concurrence of the House. When Lodge had finished what he had to say, I expressed my pleasure at the helpful collaboration of the chairman of the Committee, and with reason, I think. What he asked for now was decidedly milder than the reservations before the Senate, but there was, I ventured to point out, one drawback to any change, even if merely of verbiage, because, in this case, the document would have to be referred back to all the co-signers of the Covenant and this might open the gates to other changes and would certainly result in delay. I also ventured to say that the clarification of Article X which he urged was implicit in the Article itself. I argued “it goes without saying,” for a variety of obvious reasons, that the sanction of the Senate and the approval of the House, which alone can furnish the money, would have to be forthcoming before aggressive or even defensive action against an aggressor nation could be undertaken.

“If it goes without saying,” commented the Senator somewhat tartly, “there is no harm in saying it—and much advantage.”

Good-naturedly the Senator now chaffed me about the expression I had used, “it goes without saying,” which he thought was a “barbarism. He then went on to express his opinion of the language in which the world charter was drawn, and it was a poor one.

“As an English production it does not rank high.” Then more in chaff than in earnest, he said: “It might get by at Princeton but certainly not at Harvard.”

I agreed, but absolved the President of personal responsibility. The Covenant was, I explained, “the product of many minds and not a few pens. Every sentence had to be translated into several languages and then retranslated back a dozen times, and each time every word was subjected to the suspicious scrutiny of eyes which were looking for something other than grammatical mistakes or awkward phrases.”

As an illustration of how the document grew, I repeated the words of General Smuts on presenting to the Commission his Article dealing with mandates. “I can see many places where there is room for improvement and clarification,” he admitted. “But this agreement has been reached through long and weary nights of discussion within the Committee and I warn you that if even a word is changed or perhaps even a comma, the whole edifice will collapse. We would have to begin all over again.”

This interested and rather softened the hitherto austere outlook of the Senator, and he said: “Of course I admit that the Covenant has a noble objective in view. But will it stand up? And if it crashes, will we not be involved?”

I admitted that both the League and the Covenant, like all instruments that sprang from the brain of man, could bear watching, but I added: “We can get out on two years’ notice. If I am not mistaken, that method of escape from possible disaster was suggested by you or your committee. To put it over, and the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine reservation, insisted upon by many Senators, cost the President his most bitter struggles.”

As to this Lodge made no admission or even comment.

The business of our meeting having been concluded, the Senator began to talk, as he had so often before, about George Borrow, that strange, vagrant genius for whom he had a rare cult. Here at last was a subject upon which we were in perfect agreement, and when I furnished him with one or two items of interest in regard to the less-known chapters in the wanderer’s life, that Arthur Evans, also a great Borrow fan, had passed on to me in Paris, the Senator was profuse in his thanks.

Once out of the house, I hastened to the post office at Union Station and registered the copy of the Covenant on which Lodge had made his notations. And when this was out of the way I by telephone called up the Colonel, who was in bed, and told him in veiled language of the important document that would be in his hands in the morning.

I was rewarded by a whoop of joy. So much for the record.¹