Mr. President:

    The independence of the United States is not only more precious to ourselves but to the world than any single possession. Look at the United States today. We have made mistakes in the past. We have had shortcomings. We shall make mistakes in the future and fall short of our own best hopes. But none the less is there any country today on the face of the earth which can compare with this in ordered liberty, in peace, and in the largest freedom? I feel that I can say this without being accused of undue boastfulness, for it is the simple fact, and in making this treaty and taking on these obligations all that we do is in a spirit of unselfishness and in a desire for the good of mankind. But it is well to remember that we are dealing with nations every one of which has a direct individual interest to serve, and there is grave danger in an unshared idealism. Contrast the United States with any country on the face of the earth today and ask yourself whether the situation of the United States is not the best to be found. I will go as far as anyone in world service, but the first step to world service is the maintenance of the United States.
    I have always loved one flag and I cannot share that devotion [with] a mongrel banner created for a League.
    You may call me selfish if you will, conservative or reactionary, or use any other harsh adjective you see fit to apply, but an American I was born, an American I have remained all my life. I can never be anything else but an American, and I must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States first in an arrangement like this I am thinking of what is best for the world, for if the United States fails, the best hopes of mankind fail with it. I have never had but one allegiance--I cannot divide it now. I have loved but one flag and I cannot share that devotion and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for a league. Internationalism, illustrated by the Bolshevik and by the men to whom all countries are alike provided they can make money out of them, is to me repulsive. National I must remain, and in that way I like all other Americans can render the amplest service to the world. The United States is the world's best hope, but if you fetter her in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for good and endanger her very existence. Leave her to march freely through the centuries to come as in the years that have gone. Strong, generous, and confident, she has nobly served mankind. Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.
    We are told that we shall 'break the heart of the world' if we do not take this league just as it stands. I fear that the hearts of the vast majority of mankind would beat on strongly and steadily and without any quickening if the league were to perish altogether. If it should be effectively and beneficently changed the people who would lie awake in sorrow for a single night could be easily gathered in one not very large room but those who would draw a long breath of relief would reach to millions.
    We hear much of visions and I trust we shall continue to have visions and dream dreams of a fairer future for the race. But visions are one thing and visionaries are another, and the mechanical appliances of the rhetorician designed to give a picture of a present which does not exist and of a future which no man can predict are as unreal and short-lived as the steam or canvas clouds, the angels suspended on wires and the artificial lights of the stage. They pass with the moment of effect and are shabby and tawdry in the daylight. Let us at least be real. Washington's entire honesty of mind and his fearless look into the face of all facts are qualities which can never go out of fashion and which we should all do well to imitate.
    Ideals have been thrust upon us as an argument for the league until the healthy mind which rejects cant revolts from them. Are ideals confined to this deformed experiment upon a noble purpose, tainted, as it is, with bargains and tied to a peace treaty which might have been disposed of long ago to the great benefit of the world if it had not been compelled to carry this rider on its back? 'Post equitem sedet atra cura,' Horace tells us, but no blacker care ever sat behind any rider than we shall find in this covenant of doubtful and disputed interpretation as it now perches upon the treaty of peace.
    No doubt many excellent and patriotic people see a coming fulfillment of noble ideals in the words 'league for peace.' We all respect and share these aspirations and desires, but some of us see no hope, but rather defeat, for them in this murky covenant. For we, too, have our ideals, even if we differ from those who have tried to establish a monopoly of idealism. Our first ideal is our country, and we see her in the future, as in the past, giving service to all her people and to the world. Our ideal of the future is that she should continue to render that service of her own free will. She has great problems of her own to solve, very grim and perilous problems, and a right solution, if we can attain to it, would largely benefit mankind. We would have our country strong to resist a peril from the West, as she has flung back the German menace from the East. We would not have our politics distracted and embittered by the dissensions of other lands. We would not have our country's vigor exhausted or her moral force abated, by everlasting meddling and muddling in every quarrel, great and small, which afflicts the world. Our ideal is to make her ever stronger and better and finer, because in that way alone, as we believe, can she be of the greatest service to the world's peace and to the welfare of mankind.

[http://www2.volstate.edu/socialscience/FinalDocs/WWI-20s/lodgeagainst.htm]

Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), a conservative Republican politician, proved a long-term adversary of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson and, ultimately, his nemesis.

Born to a prominent Boston family on 12 May 1850, Lodge was educated at Harvard from which he emerged with a Ph.D. in political science in 1876, being admitted to the bar the same year.

Lodge acted as assistant editor, from 1873-76, of the North American Review, before lecturing on U.S. history at Harvard from 1876-79.  He co-edited the International Review (with John Torrey Morse) between 1880-81.

In 1880 Lodge was elected to the state legislature (until 1881), and to the House of Representatives in 1887 (until 1893).  He subsequently served in the Senate from 1893 until his death in 1924.

Lodge took time to write a series of historical works and biographies in addition to carving out a growing political career.  His works included biographies of Daniel Webster (1883) and George Washington (1889).

As a Senator Lodge formed a close alliance with Theodore Roosevelt.  Despite his reputation as a conservative Republican Lodge was by no means isolationist.  In favour of war with Spain in 1898, Lodge also favoured the acquisition of the Philippines.

Lodge firmly believed that America deserved (and should therefore be encouraged to develop) a prominent role in international diplomacy.  In order to achieve this he therefore argued for ongoing development of an increased army and navy, military strength being a pre-requisite to diplomatic power.

Conservative and conventional to the extent that he supported the gold standard and protection, Lodge believed incoming 1912 President Woodrow Wilson to be one of the more risky occupants of the Oval Office, with his arch-progressive notions that were anathema to conservatives of Lodge's slant.

Suspicious and contemptuous of Wilson's peace policies, Lodge welcomed U.S. involvement in the First World War, while remaining (as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) highly critical of Wilson's prosecution of the war.

A bitter opponent of Wilson (the feeling was mutual), Lodge's position was manifestly strengthened with the election of a Republican majority in the November 1918 mid-term elections.  With this election victory Lodge became Senate Majority Leader.

Lodge used his powerful position to oppose Wilson's plan for U.S. participation in the League of Nations.  Proposing a series of amendments to Wilson's bill ratifying U.S. entry into the League, Lodge succeeded in watering down U.S. involvement while simultaneously encouraging popular opposition to Wilson.

Wilson, ignoring the advice of his closest advisors (including Colonel House) refused to compromise with his Republican opponents; as a consequence Congress never ratified U.S. entry into the League.

In 1920 Lodge was one of a number of Senators who proposed (and secured) Warren G. Harding's nomination for the U.S. presidency.

Henry Cabot Lodge died on 9 November 1924 at the age of 74.

[http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/lodge.htm]