634 Chapter 23 Woodrow Wilson and the Great War
have been ratified. When the Senate balloted again in
March, half the Democrats voted for the treaty with
the Lodge Reservations. The others, mostly southern
party regulars, joined the irreconcilables. Together
they mustered thirty-five votes, seven more than the
one-third that meant defeat.
Henry Cabot Lodge’s Objections to the
Treaty of Versaillesatwww.myhistorylab.comThe Red Scare
Business boomed in 1919 as consumers spent wartime
savings on cars, homes, and other goods that had been
in short supply during the conflict. But temporary
shortages caused inflation; by 1920 the cost of living
stood at more than twice the level of 1913. Workers
demanded that their wages be increased as well. The
unions, grown strong during the war, struck for wage
increases. Over four million workers, one in five in the
labor force, were on strike at some time during 1919.
The activities of radicals in the labor movement
led millions of citizens to associate unionism and
strikes with the new threat of communist world revo-
lution. Although there were only a relative handful of
communists in the United States, Russia’s experience
persuaded many that a tiny minority of ruthless revo-
lutionaries could take over a nation of millions if con-
ditions were right. Communists appointed themselves
the champions of workers; labor unrest attracted them
magnetically. When strikes broke out, some accompa-
nied by violence, many people interpreted them as
communist-inspired preludes to revolution.
But organized labor in America had seldom been
truly radical. The Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) had made little impression in most industries.
But some labor leaders had been attracted to socialism,
and many Americans failed to distinguish between the
common ends sought by communists and socialists and
the entirely different methods by which they proposed
to achieve those ends. When a general strike paralyzed
Seattle in February 1919, the fact that a procommunist
had helped organize it sent shivers down countless con-
servative spines. When the radical William Z. Foster
began a drive to organize the steel industry at about
this time, the fears became more intense. In September
1919 a total of 343,000 steelworkers walked off their
jobs, and in the same month the Boston police went on
strike. Violence marked the steel strike, and the suspen-
sion of police protection in Boston led to looting and
fighting that ended only when Governor Calvin
Coolidge called out the National Guard.
During the same period a handful of terrorists
caused widespread alarm by attempting to murder
various prominent persons, including John D.
Rockefeller, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., andReadtheDocumentA coalition of Democratic and moderate
Republican senators could easily have carried the treaty.
That no such coalition was organized was Wilson’s
fault. Lodge obtained the simple majority necessary to
add his reservations to the treaty merely by keeping his
own party united. When the time came for the final roll
call on November 19, Wilson, bitter and emotionally
distraught, urged the Democrats to vote for rejection.
“Better a thousand times to go down fighting than to
dip your colors to dishonorable compromise,” he
explained to his wife. Thus the amended treaty failed,
thirty-five to fifty-five, the irreconcilables and the
Democrats voting against it. Lodge then allowed the
original draft without his reservations to come to a
vote. Again the result was defeat, thirty-eight to fifty-
three. Only one Republican cast a ballot for ratification.
Dismayed but not yet crushed, friends of the
League in both parties forced reconsideration of the
treaty early in 1920. Neither Lodge nor Wilson
would yield an inch. Lodge, who had little confidence
in the effectiveness of any league of nations, was
under no compulsion to compromise. Wilson, who
believed that the League was the world’s best hope,
did have such a compulsion. Yet he would not com-
promise either, and this ensured the treaty’s defeat.
Wilson’s behavior is further evidence of his physi-
cal and mental decline. Had he died or stepped down,
the treaty, with reservations, would almost certainly
This 1920 photograph of Wilson, with his second wife, Edith, was the
first taken since his stroke.