It was this doctrine, that the possessors of superior physical power were as a matter of right the supervisors, if not the dictators, of those lacking the physical power to resist their commands, which was the vital element of ancient imperialism and of modern Prussianism.  Belief in it as a true theory of world polity justified the Great War in the eyes of the German people even when they doubted the plea of their Government that their national safety was in peril.  The victors, although they had fought the war with the announced purpose of proving the falsity of this pernicious doctrine and of emancipating the oppressed nationalities subject to the Central Powers, revived the doctrine with little hesitation during the negotiations at Paris and wrote it into the Covenant of the League of Nations by contriving an organization which would give practical control over the destinies of the world to an oligarchy of the Five Great Powers.  It was an assumption of the right of supremacy based on the fact that the united strength of these Powers could compel obedience.  It was a full endorsement of the theory of “the balance of power” in spite of the recognized evils of that doctrine in its practical application.  Beneath the banner of the democracies of the world was the same sinister idea which had found expression in the Congress of Vienna with its purpose of protecting the monarchical institutions of a century ago.  It proclaimed in fact that mankind must look to might rather than right, to force rather than law, in the regulation of international affairs for the future.

This defect in the theory, on which the League of Nations was to be organized, was emphasized and given permanency by the adoption of a mutual guaranty of territorial integrity and political independence against external aggression.  Since the burden of enforcing the guaranty would unavoidably fall upon the more powerful nations, they could reasonably demand the control over affairs which might develop into a situation requiring a resort to the guaranty.  In fact during a plenary session of the Peace Conference held on May 31, 1919, President Wilson stated as a broad principle that responsibility for protecting and maintaining a settlement under one of the Peace Treaties carried with it the right to determine what that settlement should be.  The application to the case of responsible guarantors is obvious and was apparently in mind when the Covenant was being evolved.  The same principle was applied throughout the negotiations at Paris.

The mutual guaranty from its affirmative nature compelled in fact, though not in form, the establishment of a ruling group, a coalition of the Great Powers, and denied, though not in terms, the equality of nations.  The oligarchy was the logical result of entering into the guaranty or the guaranty was the logical result of the creation of the oligarchy through the perpetuation of the basic idea of the Supreme War Council.  No distinction was made as to a state of war and a state of peace.  Strongly opposed to the abandonment of the principle of the equality of nations in times of peace I naturally opposed the affirmative guaranty and endeavored to persuade the President to accept as a substitute for it a self-denying or negative covenant which amounted to a promise of “hands-off” and in no way required the formation of an international oligarchy to make it effective.