TLS, two pages on two adjoining sheets, 7 x 8.75, personal letterhead, May 22, 1922. Letter to William H. Crawford of New York. In full: "Thank you sincerely for your letter of May fourth with its interesting and important enclosure. I have not been able during my illness and convalescence to keep myself sufficiently informed of economic conditions throughout the world to qualify me to comment upon your article, but there can be no doubt that you are right in thinking that the present universal economic confusion would have been avoided if the United States had accepted the League. I hope and believe that this general truth is becoming obvious even to the slow-thinking and prejudiced business men who have surrendered their individual judgment to the leaders of the Republic party, and I hope that articles such as yours will serve to complete the enlightenment of the hitherto benighted. The men who brought about the defeat of the Treaty of Versailles are incapable of enlightenment. No amount of light would enable them to see." In very good condition, with moderate overall soiling.
The fruition of President Wilson's Fourteen Points famously established the League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, with the League's charter later incorporated into the conference's WWI-dissolving Treaty of Versailles. Representatives of each country signed the treaty in June 1919, but for the United States to accept its conditions, it had to be ratified by Congress. The Senate majority leader, Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican from Massachusetts, opposed the treaty, specifically the section regarding the League of Nations, and argued that the United States would give up too much power under the League of Nations. As a response, Lodge drafted 14 reservations—to match President Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Wilson's opposition to any amendments or reservations of the treaty subsequently concluded with its final rejection on March 19, 1920.
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