Lodge Reservations
Hesitant documents regarding US entry into the League of Nations
The Lodge Reservations, written by United States Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican Majority Leader and Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, were fourteen reservations to the Treaty of Versailles and other proposed post-war agreements. The Treaty called for the creation of a League of Nations in which the promise of mutual security would hopefully prevent another major world war; the League charter, primarily written by President Woodrow Wilson, let the League set the terms for war and peace. If the League called for military action, all members would have to join in.
Lodge wanted to join the League of Nations with reservations. The Democrats in the Senate, following Wilson's direction, rejected Lodge's proposal to join the League with his reservations. Republicans opposed joining under Wilson's terms of no reservations, allowing the League to force the U.S. to enter a war without approval of Congress. In the end the Senate voted down the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and never joined the new League of Nations. Lodge's reservations were eventually incorporated into the United Nations in 1945, where the U.S. had a veto.
Reservations
Lodge's reservations proposed to give much power back to the United States in its interactions with other nations. A summary of each reservation follows:
Reservation One
Article 1 of the Treaty of Versailles permitted any member state voluntarily to withdraw from the League of Nations "provided that all its international obligations and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled." Lodge's first reservation clarified that the League could not use this clause to prevent a member state from withdrawing — at least, not when that member state was the United States.
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