ABSTRACT
Wilson would need a two-thirds majority in the Senate for the ratification of the Versailles Treaty and U.S. participation in the League of Nations. Many senators saw the League as an infringement on American sovereignty, and believed that League membership would obligate the United States to participate in an endless round of European wars. Wilson now took the League issue directly to the American people on an ambitious speaking tour around the country. The pace was brutal, and Wilson’s health was failing. Finally in Colorado, Wilson suffered a massive stroke and was an invalid for the rest of his presidency. The Senate rejected both the Treaty and the League. Americans turned to isolationism not merely because of the League, but also because of European contempt for the United States. In the memoirs of persons such as Clemenceau and Lloyd George we see clear disdain for the American contribution to the war and complaints about the timing of the American decision to enter the war. In addition, the nations these two represented resented having to pay back the $10 billion (about $150 billion in today’s money) they owed the United States. Americans could also not help but notice that Britain and France had used the cover of the mandate system to enhance their colonial holdings after the war, and that neither had acknowledged their responsibilities for creating the system that produced this conflict. Now these nations wanted more American involvement in Europe and more American money. The hubris was breath-taking. This chapter ends with the domestic impact of the war in the United States in the early 1920s, which included a red scare, race riots, labor unrest, and widespread anti-immigrant agitation.
