ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
matic Corps, and other exalted personages. He did not read the newspapers, and he did not gather information from the people themselves as to what they were thinking. The people knew that the Senate of the United States would not agree to the Treaty of Versailles, nor be a party to the League of Nations. I wrote this to Mr. Balfour, and pointed out what Mr. Davis, Mr. Wilson's ambassador to London, did not do, when he addressed the Oxford Union, viz. that the Constitution of the United States gave no power of independent action to the President in making treaties, but defined and limited his power in a short sentence: "The President may make treaties by the advice, and with the consent, of the Senate."[1]
The Senate was not asked for its advice, and—but not for that reason only—refused its consent. The Senate understood the people, and the people acknowledged that understanding by electing a republican to succeed Mr. Wilson. No one in Paris or in London seemed to understand the situation; no one seemed to consider whether Mr. Wilson represented the whole of the American people or not. In all probability they did not know that Mr. Wilson originally was a minority President, that he owed his election to a split in the Republican Party, and to the skilful management of the election campaign by "Colonel" House, who had a large part in its success.
When the League of Nations held its sittings under the presidency of Mr. Balfour, I again wrote him that the
- ↑ A note from Washington on August 26, 1921, says:—
"The conclusion of the Treaty of Peace with Germany is a victory for the irreconcilable element in the Senate rather than for the President or Mr. Hughes. It is another impressive lesson to Europe of the working of the American system of government and of the almost insignificant power of the President when opposed by the Senate."
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