The Stage Is Set.

As the 1920s began, the United States still struggled to bring World War I to an official end. Although the actual fighting had ceased in November 1918 and peace negotiations had been concluded during the spring of 1919, the U.S. Senate had not ratified the Treaty of Versailles — the peace agreement the Allies forced on a defeated Germany. The Senate's failure to ratify the treaty was testimony to bitter divisions over the controversial peace agreement. President Woodrow Wilson, who had negotiated the treaty, was paralyzed, having suffered two debilitating strokes in late 1919, and was unable to spearhead a campaign for its passage. The fate of the treaty rested with a divided Senate, which had failed to produce the two-thirds majority needed for ratification on its first vote, taken on 19 November 1919.

Wilson's Plan.

Wilson...