NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
League of Nations. A living thing is born (Foley 149). With these words, United States President Woodrow Wilson presented the first draft of the Covenant to the nations attending the Paris Conference of 1919 and to those around the world. This Covenant was to establish an international organization that would promote peace and security throughout the world and provide a forum through which the different interests of nations could be peacefully resolved. President Wilson named this living thing the League of Nations. After the four devastating years of the First World War, an Armistice was finally signed in 1918 and the nations around the world began to realize that some sort of new international system had to be established to prevent the recurrence of so great a disaster.
This hatred of war spread throughout the civilized world and eventually lead to the formation of the League of Nations. During its short life span of twenty years, all of the recognized nations at one point or other be! came a member of the League, with the exception of one: the United States. How was it possible, then, that a country that takes pride in peaceful negotiation and international leadership exclude itself from the very institution it helped create? President Woodrow Wilson had no doubt that the United States should join the League of Nations. The nation had been united in war and therefore, he assumed, would be no less united in their support for his Fourteen Points, which served as a model for the Covenant of the League.
Upon failing to gain support from Congress, Wilson announced to the world that he would attend the Paris Conference in person and resolved that the establishment of the League should become its first and principal task. By this, he believed that he was representing the will of the American people. Proving to be untrue, Wilson tried defeat the opposing arguments within his country by explaining that, America and her determinations now constitute the balance of moral force in the world, and if we do not use that moral force we will be of all peoples the most derelict. We are in the presence of this great choice, whether we will stand by the mass of our own people and the mass of mankind (Foley 147! ).
The president failed to achieve broad domestic consensus on international foreign policy and about commitments abroad (Schild). Therefore, after eight months of debate, Wilson was able to gather a large majority (57 to 37) but still lacked the necessary two-thirds of the votes in the United States Senate required to approve the Treaty of Versailles and US membership in the League of Nations (Fisher 17). The American ruling class did not accept his scheme of a global foreign policy but rather embraced isolationism (Khodnev 24). In addition, there were more complex problems facing the League than simply ensuring that there was enough domestic support for the international peacekeeping organization.
Examples of this occurred in the 1930 s, with the inability of the League to prevent aggressions in China and Ethiopia. There was neither military force nor any efficient decision-making body to follow through with the judgments of the League. Although the United States was coming closer to the League of Nations, in mid-February 1932, before his nomination as the Democratic candidate for President, Franklin D. Roosevelt stated that though he had fought hard for the Covenant in President Wilsons day, he did not wish the United States to join the League as it had since developed (Walters 2: 564).
Although it is true that both presidents believed in collective security as the ultimate guarantee of national safety, Roosevelt's security concept, differed radically and deliberately from Wilsonian collective security (Schild 27). Roosevelt was of the opinion that the US should participate in the League or some sort of world court. However, Roosevelt was never as optimistic as Wilson was. During his campaign for vice-presidency in 1920, Roosevelt promoted a strong pro-League platform and advocated Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and membership into the League of Nations.
Unlike Wilson, who focus! d on the idealistic aspects of the League, Roosevelt described the practical necessity (Schild 28) of the League. Therefore, Roosevelt emphasized, if the United States did not eventually join the League, that it would eventually degenerate into a new Holy Alliance (Schild) dominated by European states. This flexible, open-minded approach to the League of Nations radically contrasted Wilsons all-or-nothing attitude and therefore allowed Roosevelt to successfully gather enough approval (with amendments and reservations) to get the necessary majority in the US Senate.
The main reason that Roosevelt was reluctant to make a stronger effort to join the League was the widespread domestic sentiment to avoid any more entanglements in foreign affairs. These American convictions were again apparent in 1935 when Roosevelt's attempts to lead the United States into the World Court were defeated by his isolationist opponents. The American opinion on isolationism was altogether tran! sorted at the dawn of the Second World War. Again, as at the end of the First World War, the need for a new international security organization, with the United States at the head, was needed immediately. Roosevelt called for a new institution that would overcome the weaknesses of the League, ensuring that all-powerful states that could enforce collective security decisions would be members, therefore preventing any future aggression.
Throughout the Second World War, the US State Department privately drafted detailed studies about the shortcomings of the League in its efforts to prevent aggressions. That inability, an August 1943 study found, was based on a conflict between member states and the League (Schild 31). The authors of the study included that they were impressed with how fast the League reacted to a potential problem and that the speed with which a solution was implemented was remarkable. The League of Nations, for example, was ultimately unable to implement any solution to the Ethiopian Crisis.
This was, the study maintained, not from the inadequacies of the League, but rather because of the lack of determination on behalf of the member states (Schild). Thus, it is possible to apply their findings to the aforementioned reasons that are considered why the United States never became a member state of the League of Nations. If Roosevelt was unsure to begin with of the abilities of the League! ue, then it is documented that because of the aggressions that occurred in the 1930 s, he and the rest of the American people totally lost faith in the power and adequacy of the League.
Simply put, they assumed that the League was, by design, at fault and therefore dismissed its abilities altogether and chose to remain outside of the League, practicing a policy of isolationism. If this is the case, then one of the many reasons that the United States never joined the League could have simply been a misinformation... or maybe even a prejudice toward any sort of new world order. Works Cited.
Fisher, Irving. League or War? New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923. Foley, Hamilton.
Woodrow Wilsons Case for the League of Nations. New York: Kraus Reprint Co. , 1969. Khodnev, Alexander S. The Legacies of Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations in Russia. (Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, pt. 2). World Affairs 158. 1 (Summer 1995): 18 - 26. Schild, George.
The Roosevelt Administration and the United Nations: Re-Creation or Rejection of the League Experience? (Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, pt. 2). World Affairs 158. 1 (Summer 1995): 26 - 35. Walters, F. P. A History of the League of Nations. 2 vols.
London: Oxford University Press, 1952.
Free research essays on topics related to: league of nations, treaty of versailles, first world war, president woodrow wilson, second world war
Research essay sample on President Woodrow Wilson Second World War
