at all out of the conflicting
national interests in Paris. There was a demonstration for him at Brest
as he left French soil, but nothing like the enthusiasm that had
greeted his arrival. This was perhaps the measure of his inevitable
decline in the estimation of Europe; it remained to be seen how he
stood at home. As early as January 1, before the Peace Conference met,
Senator Lodge, Republican leader in the Senate, had declared that the
conference ought to confine itself to the Peace Treaty and leave the
League of Nations for later discussion.

On February 14, after the first reading of the League covenant, the
President had made a hurried trip home to talk it over with the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations--a committee that had been loaded up
with enemies of the League of Nations. The members of the committee
dined with him at the White House on February 26, and the covenant was
discussed for several hours. But the President could not convert the
doubters; on March 3 Senator Lodge announced that thirty-seven
Republican Senators were opposed to the League in its present form, and
that they regarded a demand for its alteration as the exercise of the
Senate's constitutional right of advice on treaties. The President took
up the challenge, and on the following day, just before sailing back to
Paris, he declared in a public address that the League and treaty were
inextricably interwoven; that he did not intend to bring back "the
corpse of a treaty," and that those who opposed the League must be deaf
to the demands of common men the world over.

The fight was now begun. Some modifications were made in the covenant
in the direction of meeting criticisms by Elihu Root, but it was
adopted. On July 10 the treaty was laid before the Senate and referred
to the Committee on Foreign Relations, which at once began to hear
opinions on it. The President himself appeared before the committee on
August 19. Outside the Senate party lines were breaking up; the Irish
and German elements who had come into line during the war, but had felt
that their interpretation of President Wilson's ideals had been
violated by the treaty, were aligned in support of the Republican
opposition; and a certain element of the Democratic Party which
inclined to admire the theory of traditional isolation found itself in
harmony with the Republicans. On the other hand, many moderate
Republicans supported the President, chief among them Mr. Taft; and in
th