THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN
The Editor Reserves . . . The Last Column ONE of the most momentous, and in many respects, one of the most melancholy chapters in American history is the story of the turbulent struggle between...
...The facts in Col...
...This version of a significant chapter of history has lately been exposed as largely fiction—and by a man who had a seat behind the scenes and an unrivaled opportunity to learn the facts...
...Bonsai tells how he conferred with Lodge, the leader of the "irreconcilables" to sound him out on the prospect of a compromise acceptable to both sides: "Lodge was extremely courteous, even, it seemed to me, considerate...
...House was delighted with the prospect of agreement, that "the Treaty and the Covenant would probably have been brought into the haven of ratification by a vote of 81 to 13"—IF President Wilson had not barricaded himself in the White House and refused to see or confer with anyone, even his closest advisers, and spurned every proposal for a give-and-take compromise...
...Bonsai makes it clear that neither he nor House had much admiration for Lodge, but they were overjoyed by the prospect of reaching agreement which would save the heart of the Treaty and the Covenant...
...I could not bring myself to be responsible for that...
...This, says my friend, is a lie on the McCormick scale...
...It is a story which is as timely as the current struggle in Washington, as helpful in its terse warning as the simple sign: "Dead End Street...
...The changes (he suggested) ran to about 40 words, the 'Inserts' to about 50...
...As the dramatic story unfolds in Col...
...Doubtless with the best intentions the President is kept prisoner in his sickroom...
...They have portrayed Sen...
...Lodge, noting the growing opposition to the League among the people, was losing his mood to compromise...
...In my judgment, they were complementary to, rather than limiting, any substantial purpose of the Covenant...
...Bonsai's long secret diary constitute a powerful reply to my friend, but more important, to the historians who gave him and millions like him the distorted picture of that struggle over the Treaty...
...Bonsai notes that Col...
...This is a situation about which we can do nothing...
...So the full story of the Lodge-Bonsai negotiations and how they might well have led to a give-and-take agreement was never told until Col...
...I think Lodge was hurt in his vanity, which is enormous, by the fact that the President did not accept with enthusiasm the olive branch...
...Bonsai kept a secret diary, now published in a book, Unfinished Business (Doubleday, Doran, $3), which makes most of the recorded versions of the Wilson-Senate struggle pretty obsolete...
...House confided in him that their chief in the White House never acknowledged any letter or memorandum on the Lodge compromise, that he (House) suppressed the entire "incident" in his monumental Intimate Papers, on which historians rely for much of their background material, because had the public known of the unheeded offer of reconciliation from the "irreconcilables," "the criticism of the President's unbending attitude, already strong, even from his close adherents, would have increased in violence...
...M.H.R...
...Stephen Bon-sal, who was confidential adviser to Col...
...Henry Cabot Lodge and his associates as bitter-enders whose hatred of Wilson and contempt for idealism caused them to spurn all reasonable compromise...
...The Senator and I went over the Covenant, article by article...
...It seemed to me they were more concerned with verbiage than with the object and intent of the instrument...
...Edward House and interpreter for Woodrow Wilson at the Peace Conference...
...Bonsai's long secret notes, we learn that compromise was in the air in 1919, that Lodge was prepared to make great concessions, that Col...
...He is Col...
...House Suppressed The Facts The proportion of sulphurous letters in my mail has been growing of late—doubtless a sign of these nerve-wracking, short-tempered times, not to mention my own tendency to dish it out...
...Lodge Was Considerate' Now, Col...
...My friend was especially disgusted with my observation that President Roosevelt's quarrel with Congress might result in "a tragic repetition of the fate of Woodrow Wilson, who cut himself off from Congress and the country and pursued his lonely course to defeat...
...One recent letter, from a friend in the Government service, takes bitter exception to a recent column I wrote on the Barkley-Roosevelt explosion of a month or so ago...
...Indeed, I came to the conclusion that the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee was in the mood to compromise...
...Bonsai noted in his diary that the psychological moment was fast slipping away...
...The Editor Reserves . . . The Last Column ONE of the most momentous, and in many respects, one of the most melancholy chapters in American history is the story of the turbulent struggle between Woodrow Wilson and the Senate "irreconcilables" over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations after World War I. For more than two decades now the history books have presented the struggle as one between light and darkness...
...Bonsai published Unfinished Business a few weeks ago...
...Conversely, the historians have pictured Wilson as a knight in shining armor, but one who was prepared to make any concession to win his ideal of a league to preserve peace...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 15
