USA HISTORY

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM(1890 1919)

TREATY OF VERSAILLES

[SOURCES]
A Republican Senator who disagreed with the Versailles Treaty because it would force them to get involved with European affairs.

(A) ** Henry Cabot Lodge

(B) Woodrow Wilson

(C) Alfred Thayer Mahan

(D) Upton Sinclair

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -Republican Senators Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts (center), a “Reservationist, ” and William Borah of Idaho (left), an “Irreconcilable, ” led opposition to the Treaty of Versailles. Many factors led to rejection of the treaty, including bitter animosity between Lodge and the Democratic president.

Concept note-2: -The Senate has, at times, rejected treaties when its members felt their concerns were not adequately addressed. In 1919 the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I, in part because President Woodrow Wilson had failed to take senators’ objections to the agreement into consideration.

Concept note-3: -Radical right-wing political forces-especially the National Socialist Workers’ Party, or the Nazis-would gain support in the 1920s and ‘30s by promising to reverse the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty.

Concept note-4: -Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Massachusetts) objected to many details of the Treaty of Versailles, particularly the League of Nations. He believed that membership in the League of Nations would entangle the United States in foreign affairs and prevent the country from acting independently in such matters.