gave a dinner at
the White House to members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
and of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for the purpose of
explaining to them the terms of the Covenant. There was no official
report of what occurred at this dinner, but it was stated that some of
the senators objected to the Covenant on the ground that it was
contrary to our traditional policies and inconsistent with our
Constitution and form of government. On March 4, the day before the
President left New York to resume his duties at the Conference,
Senators Lodge and Knox issued a round robin, signed by thirty-seven
senators, declaring that they would not vote for the Covenant in the
form proposed, and that consideration of the League of Nations should
be postponed until peace had been concluded with Germany. That same
night the President made a speech at the Metropolitan Opera House in
New York City in which, after explaining and defining the Covenant, he
said: "When that treaty comes back gentlemen on this side will find the
Covenant not only in it, but so many threads of the treaty tied to the
Covenant that you cannot dissect the Covenant from the treaty without
destroying the whole vital structure." In this same address he also
said: "The first thing I am going to tell the people on the other side
of the water is that an overwhelming majority of the American people is
in favour of the League of Nations. I know that this is true. I have
had unmistakable intimations of it from all parts of the country, and
the voice rings true in every case." The President was evidently quite
confident that public sentiment would compel the Senate to ratify the
peace treaty, including the Covenant of the League. A nation-wide
propaganda was being carried on by the League to Enforce Peace and
other organizations, and public sentiment for the League appeared to be
overwhelming. The President took back to Paris with him various
suggestions of changes in the Covenant, and later ex-President Taft,
Elihu Root, and Charles E. Hughes proposed amendments which were
forwarded to him and carefully considered by the commission. Some of
these suggestions, such as the reservation of the Monroe Doctrine and
the right of withdrawal from the League, were embodied in the final
draft.

When the President returned to Paris he found that Secretary Lansing
and Colonel House had consented to the separation of the League from
the treaty of peace. He