ncerned with the general idea. There
was no well-defined opposition to that idea. At least it was not vocal.
Even the defeat of the Democratic Party in the Congressional elections
of November, 1918, could not be interpreted to be a repudiation of the
formation of a world organization. That election, by which both Houses
of Congress became Republican, was a popular rebuke to Mr. Wilson for
the partisanship shown in his letter of October addressed to the
American people, in which he practically asserted that it was
unpatriotic to support the Republican candidates. The indignation and
resentment aroused by that injudicious and unwarranted attack upon the
loyalty of his political opponents lost to the Democratic Party the
Senate and largely reduced its membership in the House of
Representatives if it did not in fact deprive the party of control of
that body. The result, however, did not mean that the President's ideas
as to the terms of peace were repudiated, but that his practical
assertion, that refusal to accept his policies was unpatriotic, was
repudiated by the American people.

It is very apparent to one, who without prejudice reviews the state of
public sentiment in December, 1918, that the trouble, which later
developed as to a League of Nations, did not lie in the necessity of
convincing the peoples of the world, their governments, and their
delegates to the Paris Conference that it was desirable to organize the
world to prevent future wars, but in deciding upon the form and
functions of the organization to be created. As to these details, which
of course affected the character, the powers, and the duties of the
organization, there had been for years a wide divergence of opinion.
Some advocated the use of international force to prevent a nation from
warring against another. Some favored coercion by means of general
ostracism and non-intercourse. Some believed that the application of
legal justice through the medium of international tribunals and
commissions was the only practical method of settling disputes which
might become causes of war. And some emphasized the importance of a
mutual agreement to postpone actual hostilities until there could be an
investigation as to the merits of a controversy. There were thus two
general classes of powers proposed which were in the one case political
and in the other juridical. The cleavage of opinion was along these
lines, although it possibly was not recognized by the genera