seem to be justified by anything but a
desire to discredit the work of Wilson. He had, in the previous year,
warmly advocated a League of Nations, but in the spring of 1919 he had
given the impression that he would oppose any League for which Wilson
stood sponsor. Thus he had raised objections to the preliminary draft of
the covenant which Wilson brought from Paris in February; but when Wilson
persuaded the Allies to incorporate some of the amendments then demanded
by Republican Senators, he at once found new objections. He did not dare
attack the League as a principle, in view of the uncertainty of public
opinion on the issue; but he obviously rejoiced in the President's
inability to unite the Democrats with the middle-ground Republicans, for
whom Senator McCumber stood as spokesman.

On the 19th of August a conference was held at the White House, in which
the President attempted to explain to the Foreign Relations Committee
doubtful points and to give the reasons for various aspects of the
settlement. A careful study of the stenographic report indicates that his
answers to the questions of the Republican Senators were frank, and that
he was endeavoring to remove the unfortunate effects of his former
distant attitude. His manner, however, had in it something of the
schoolmaster, and the conference was fruitless. Problems which had been
studied for months by experts of all the Powers, and to the solution of
which had been devoted long weeks of intelligent discussion, were now
passed upon superficially by men whose ignorance of foreign questions was
only too evident, and who barely concealed their determination to nullify
everything approved by the President. Hence, when the report of the
committee was finally presented on the 10th of September, the Republican
majority demanded no less than thirty-eight amendments and four
reservations. A quarter of the report was not concerned at all with the
subject under discussion, but was devoted to an attack upon Wilson's
autocratic methods and his treatment of the Senate. As was pointed out by
Senator McCumber, the single Republican who dissented from the majority
report, "not one word is said, not a single allusion made, concerning
either the great purposes of the League of Nations or the methods by
which these purposes are to be accomplished. Irony and sarcasm have been
substituted for argument and positions taken by the press or individuals
outside the Senate seem to command mo