Ohio History Journal

ROBERT D. ACCINELLI

Was There a "New" Harding?

Warren G. Harding and the

World Court Issue, 1920-1923

 

 

 

 

In the past ten years a revised, more flattering image of Warren G. Harding and

his administration has appeared in historical writing.¹ Although many historians

still hold the Harding presidency in low esteem, a group of revisionists has sought

to upgrade its reputation. These revisionists do not agree in all respects about

either Harding or his administration, but they have produced more positive evalu-

ations than previous interpretations. Their writings indicate that the adminis-

tration, while not without its glaring defects, had its fair share of accomplish-

ments and originated domestic and foreign policies which persisted well into the

1920s. Harding himself, once judged a flat failure and the worst chief executive

in the nation's history, is depicted as an earnest, hardworking, politically shrewd

President of modest talent and moderate views-one of the lesser men to occupy

the White House, but not necessarily the worst.

Refusing to dismiss Harding as an incompetent, do-nothing President, a num-

ber of writers have contended that he became increasingly more confident, inde-

pendent, and assertive during his abbreviated stay in office, and that he signifi-

cantly altered his style of leadership and his conception of the presidency. They

have argued that upon entering office he intended to govern in close cooperation

with Congress, his cabinet, and party leaders, acting as a counselor and concili-

ator rather than as a dynamic chief executive in the tradition of Theodore Roose-

velt or Woodrow Wilson. His Whiggish conception of the presidential office and

of executive-congressional relations, his own personal insecurity and easy-going

nature, and his affinity for harmony inclined him towards a non-aggressive po-

litical style suited for achieving consensus and reducing friction. As a result,

however, of a heightened sense of the responsibilities of his office, greater po-

litical maturity, and the frustration of coping with a divided and often hostile

Congress, he shifted to a more forthright posture and came to display greater

initiative and determination in advancing his domestic and foreign program. By

late 1922 he had become bolder and more hard-hitting--a "new" Harding had

taken command in the White House.²

 

1. Louis W. Potts, "Who Was Warren G. Harding?" The Historian, XXXVI (August 1974), 621-

645, is an excellent survey of perspectives on Harding since his death. Also helpful for recent apprais-

als is Eric F. Goldman, "A Sort of Rehabilitation of Warren G. Harding," The New York Times Mag-

azine, March 26, 1972, pp. 42-43, 80-88.

2. Robert K. Murray, The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration (Minneapolis,

1969), 127-128, 376, 422, 533-534; Robert K. Murray, The Politics of Normalcy: Governmental Theory

and Practice in the Harding-Coolidge Era (New York, 1973), 22-23, 41-43, 70-73; 75-78, 86-87, 93,

98-99; Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man: The Life Behind the Masks of Warren G. Harding (Chi-

cago, 1965), 208-211, 240, 245; Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding

in His Times (New York, 1968), 552-553. In spite of a generally sensationalistic and sour treatment of

Harding, Russell does concede that the President tried to break from his past in his last months in

office.

 

Dr. Accinelli is Professor of History at the University of Toronto.

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World Court                                                            169

But to what extent had Harding in fact changed prior to his death? Had the burdens and frustrations of power indeed compelled him to shed old attitudes and habits? On the basis of his handling of the issue of membership in the Per- manent Court of International Justice (or World Court), there is reason to ques- tion how much he had changed. His conduct during the struggle over membership demonstrates that he had neither forsaken his conciliatory style nor enlarged his presidential role to the extent of insisting on his own viewpoint in the face of opposition from within the Senate and his own party.3 The Court issue plagued all the presidents of the interwar period, mainly be- cause of the controversy arising from the Court's connection with the League of Nations. First confronted with the issue during the 1920 campaign, Harding,   3. Among Harding scholars, Murray provides the best balanced account of the Court fight; his de- scription of the President's erratic performance is offset by his belief that by 1923 a "new" Harding had appeared who "had become aware of the need for more aggressive and dynamic diplomatic leadership." Murray, Harding Era, 368-374. The same author ignores the fight in his Politics of Nor- malcy but contends that Harding's leadership had markedly improved by late 1922. Sinclair's account of the fight emphasizes Harding's firmness of purpose and his desire to prove his independence of the Senate. Sinclair, Available Man, 274-277. According to Russell, by the last weeks of Harding's life, the Court had become "his . . . dominant and dominating" issue. "Defining himself as he never had before, moving beyond his party in his determination to become leader of his country, he was willing to stake his reputation on the World Court as Wilson had dared to stake his on the League of Nations." Russell, Shadow of Blooming Grove, 581. It is David H. Jenning's contention that the Court fight demonstrates that Harding had changed his mind about the primacy of party and the prerogatives of the Senate in foreign affairs. "President Harding and International Organization," Ohio History, LXXV (Spring-Summer 1966), 161-165.

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170                                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

adroitly sidestepped the controversy in the interest of party harmony and his own

election. Once in the White House he continued this "hands off" approach until

February 24, 1923, when he submitted to the Senate a proposal for membership

drafted by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. In the nearly five months

before Harding died a brouhaha erupted which divided the Republicans and

threatened to disrupt an important phase of the administration's foreign policy.

For a time Harding championed the proposal, refusing to capitulate to its critics

in and out of the Senate. Ultimately, however, his resistance crumbled under

pressure, and he reverted to a strategy of conciliation, first by forsaking the origi-

nal proposal for an impractical compromise plan, then by retreating into a smoke-

cloud of ambiguity.

The campaign of 1920 offered a preview of Harding's later trouble with the

Court issue and of the conciliatory style he would bring to the White House. By

1920 the creation of a world court had become not just well-established Republi-

can doctrine but the method of international cooperation most widely accepted

by the American people.⁴ Shortly after the beginning of the campaign, a specially-

appointed Committee of Jurists (which included Elihu Root, the Republican party

sage and the best known American advocate of a court) completed a draft-scheme

for the World Court, thus making it a virtual certainty that an international ju-

diciary would come into existence under the auspices of the League. Dubbed the

"Root Court" by the press, the proposed tribunal was a source of potential em-

barrassment for Harding, who was determined to waffle on the issue of League

membership so as to keep his party united and ensure his own election. If he em-

braced the Court he would aggravate those Republicans who wanted him to steer

clear of the League, but if he repudiated it he would offend those, including the

influential Root, who were not totally out of sympathy with the League and were

pleased with the establishment of the Court. "If a 'Root Branch', so to speak, can

be grafted upon the Wilson League," reported The Literary Digest in a survey of

Republican press opinion, "the fruit of the tree will apparently be more to the

taste of many Republicans who have been telling us not to touch or taste or han-

dle it."5 As Harding and his advisers perceived, in order to maintain party unity

it would be necessary to devise a formula acceptable to all factions with regard to

both the League and the Court. To take a definite stand one way or another on

the Court without taking into account different opinions about the League would

be politically self-defeating.⁶

For a time in late August, the Harding camp considered making the Court part

of a substitute for the League. Will Hays, the Republican campaign manager,

cabled Root (then still in Europe) for his opinion of such a plan, only to be advised

that Harding's wisest course was not to abandon the Versailles Treaty entirely

but to advocate an "Americanized League" as opposed to the "Wilson League."⁷

 

4. Warren F. Kuehl, Seeking World Order (Nashville, 1969), 280, 340.

5. "A Supreme Court for Quarreling Nations," The Literary Digest, LXVI (August 14, 1920), 17.

6. Scholars have ignored Harding's deft management of the Court issue in the campaign. An ex-

ception is Randolph Downes, The Rise of Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1865-1920 (Columbus, 1970),

ch. 23. My own interpretation differs somewhat from that of Downes, who fails to appreciate that

Harding's hazy endorsement of the world court idea was politically useful not only as an alternative

(along with the association of nations idea) to the "Wilson League" but as a way of avoiding divisive-

ness among Republicans over relations with the League-sponsored World Court.

7. Will Hays to Elihu Root [no date, typescript of a telegram], Elihu Root Papers, Library of Con-

gress, hereafter cited as Root Papers; Root to George Harvey [no date, typescript of a telegram], War-

ren G. Harding Papers, Ohio Historical Society, hereafter cited as Harding Papers. According to Arthur

Sweetser, an American associated with the League Secretariat who was in close contact with Root at

this time, Root felt that the Court could not replace the League because it was limited to legal dis-

putes; he preferred to take the League as it was, with whatever reservations were necessary, and then

improve it from within, rather than risk chaos by destroying it. Arthur Sweetser to Eric Drummond,

August 31, 1920, Arthur Sweetser Papers, Library of Congress.

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World Court                                                                    171

 

By vetoing the plan outlined in the Hays cable, Root obliged Harding to come up

with a somewhat different proposal for international cooperation. In a speech on

August 28 the Republican nominee offered as an alternative to the "Wilson

League," an "international association for conference and a world court whose

verdicts upon justiciable questions this country in common with all nations would

be willing and able to uphold." After broadly and vaguely sketching his proposal,

Harding pledged that he would, after his election, call a conference of the best

men in the country to formulate a plan; until then he could not be more specific.⁸

For the remainder of the campaign he played a series of variations on the themes

introduced in this address. He ignored the "Root Court," taking no public posi-

tion on possible American membership. Instead, he embraced the idea of a world

court and often contrasted the coercive, politically-oriented features of the Cove-

nant with the legalist approach to international cooperation which was the main-

stay of conservative internationalists such as Root. Although die-hard Republican

anti-Leaguers remained apprehensive lest he either endorse the Court or tone

down his criticism of the League now that the Court was attached to it, Harding

did not budge from his position of August 28th.⁹ To do so would have been to

upset the delicate political balance he sought to maintain and to play into the

hands of the Democrats, who insisted that the Court was inseparable from and

dependent on the League.10 "I am for a Court," the Republican candidate as-

sured the powerful Henry Cabot Lodge, "either under the original plan or, as part

of any new compact which we may make with foreign countries, but certainly not

as an answer to our objections to the League."1^l

Following his election, Harding met with Republican leaders in a series of

conferences at his home in Marion, Ohio. As yet undecided about a concrete

foreign policy program, he nevertheless took his campaign proposal seriously and

hoped to be able to implement it while keeping his party, the public, and the Sen-

ate behind him.¹² The conferences confirmed what his campaign experiences had

already made all too obvious--to wit, that while many Republicans could agree

on the need for a world court, there were some who had no use at all for the World

Court and others for whom it meant a great deal.13 When the conferences ended,

Harding's intentions with regard to the Court were as clouded as ever, and they

remained so after he entered the White House. Neither in his inaugural address

nor in his message to Congress on April 12 (in which he rejected League mem-

bership) did he provide any clue as to his plans.¹⁴ For nearly two years there was

very little heard from the White House about the World Court.

Without the assistance of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, Harding

might not have had an opportunity to break his silence. Of all the men who headed

 

 

8. New York Times, August 29, 1920, 12:2-8.

9. Henry Cabot Lodge to Harding, September 17, 1920, Henry Cabot Lodge Papers, Massachusetts

Historical Society; Harding to Lodge, September 1, 1920, Ibid.; Harding to Hiram Johnson, Septem-

ber 6, 1920, Hiram Johnson Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.

10. For statements emphasizing the relation of the Court to the League by James Cox, the Demo-

cratic presidential nominee, and by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, see New York Times, Sep-

tember 16, 1920, 1:6, September 17, 1920, 10:8.

11. Harding to Lodge, September 20, 1920, Harding Papers.

12. Harding to Frank Brandegee, December 30, 1920, Ibid.

13. Several anti-Leaguers who talked with Harding, among them Senator Albert Fall of New Mexi-

co and Philander Knox, the senator from Pennsylvania and former secretary of state, were open-

minded about membership in a court, providing it was unconnected with the League. New York Times,

December 31, 1920, 1:8, December 16, 1920, 9:1-2. Root, who naturally did not share their views,

came away from a long discussion with Harding in mid-December in an optimistic mood, hoping that

membership in the World Court would follow Charles Evans Hughes' installation as secretary of

state. Root to M. M. Adatci, February 22, 1921, Root Papers.

14. New York Times, March 5, 1921, 4:2, April 13, 1921, 1:8.

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172                                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

the State Department between the wars, none was more dedicated to the Court

than Hughes.¹⁵ It fell to him to sound out the member-states belonging to the

Court as to the proper terms for American participation and to formulate the

proposal which Harding sent to the Senate. Harding presumably kept abreast of

progress towards a proposal, but remained on the sidelines in this period of

preparation; as was his custom, he acknowledged Hughes' superior talent and

expertise in foreign affairs by giving him relatively free rein.

For more than a year, Hughes did nothing about membership, partly because

the Court was not inaugurated until January of 1922 but mainly because he was

preoccupied with the separate peace treaties and the Washington Naval Confer-

ence treaties and felt compelled to maintain the goodwill of the Senate by re-

maining aloof from the League and the Court. He was sensitive, however, to

charges from pro-Leaguers that he was deliberately snubbing both institutions,

and he was aware of a growing sentiment for membership in the Court.16 On May

6, 1922, a delegation from the Federal Council of Churches, one of the largest

groups in the peace movement, presented him with a memorial favoring mem-

bership.¹⁷ Although Hughes contended that entry was not immediately possible,

he not long afterwards received a letter from a spokesman for the delegation

intimating that the Council would feel obligated to begin a public movement for

membership even if the administration were not prepared to act.¹⁸ Precisely what

effect the Council's stance had on Hughes is hard to tell, but it may not have been

coincidental that several weeks later he initiated discussions with the member-

states. In any event, his decision was consistent with the thaw in the adminis-

tration's frigid attitude towards the League, sufficiently advanced by mid-1922 to

permit the State Department to send "unofficial observers" to meetings of League

agencies.

In early June the Secretary asked William Howard Taft, then serving as Chief

Justice of the United States Supreme Court, to make inquiries about member-

ship during an upcoming visit to Great Britain at the head of a distinguished

group of American lawyers. A leading Republican, League sympathizer, and a

well-known advocate of a judicial tribunal, the former President was eminently

qualified to act as a go-between. Not wanting to work through the League or alert

the anti-Leaguers about possible membership in the Court, Hughes chose to ap-

proach the member-states privately and indirectly. Although this process proved

slow and somewhat awkward, it allowed Hughes to prepare the Court proposal

without fanfare or controversy.

While in Britain, Taft spoke with Sir Edward Grey, the former Foreign Secre-

tary, with Arthur Lord Balfour, the British representative on the League Council,

as well as with Robert Cecil, who had participated in drafting the League Cove-

nant, and with Walter Lord Phillimore, who had co-authored with Root the plan

which formed the basis for the Statute of the Court. All agreed that something

could be done to satisfy the two conditions which Hughes believed indispensable

for membership; first, that the United States not enter into any official relation

 

 

 

15. Merlo Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes, 2 vols. (New York, 1951), II, ch. 57, is useful for Hughes'

general policy towards the Court, but neither he nor any other author has described how Hughes

actually went about preparing the proposal for membership.

16. Pusey, Hughes, II, 595-597. Hughes was sensitive about his seeming indifference to the Court.

Hughes to Edwin Gay, August 1, 1922, Charles Evans Hughes Papers, Library of Congress, hereafter

cited as Hughes Papers.

17. Memorial presented by representatives of the Federal Council of Churches, May 6, 1922, deci-

mal files, Department of State, Washington, D.C., 500.C114/172. Materials from State Department

files will hereafter be cited by file number.

18. William Adams Brown to Hughes, May 15, 1922, 500.C1 14/184.

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World Court                                                            173

 

with the League or incur any obligations under the Versailles Treaty; second,

that it enter as an equal with the other member-states, having the right to partici-

pate in the election of judges. (The Statute of the Court delegated to the Council

and Assembly of the League the right to elect judges, which meant that the United

States would not automatically share in this right as did other memberstates, all

of whom belonged to the League.) Although pleased by Taft's optimistic report

after his return, Hughes remained uncertain about the best method for securing

membership and he had no time to devote to the problem, since he was about to

leave on an extended trip to Latin America.¹⁹ Over the next several months it was

Taft who explored the problem in correspondence with Cecil, Lord Phillimore,

and Root, which was turned over to Hughes after his return.

With the benefit of the Taft correspondence and other expert advice, Hughes

was able to formulate a proposal for membership based on four reservations, the

two most important of which safeguarded against any relation with the League

or Covenant and permitted participation in the election of judges. Because of his

careful behind-the-scenes preparation, Hughes was all but assured that the

member-states would find his terms satisfactory and he could reasonably hope

for the Senate's approval as well. On February 17, Hughes sent the proposal to

Harding, reminding him in a personal note that it was consistent with his cam-

paign statements as well as with the party platform and assuring him that the

reservations barred any entanglement with the League.²⁰ A week later Harding

sent the proposal to the Senate. The upper house was caught by surprise, the only

intimation of the administration's interest in membership having come four

months earlier in a speech by Hughes in Boston.²¹ At that time Hughes had also

consulted Lodge, who remained noncommittal.²² Neither Hughes nor Harding

apparently made any other attempt to consult or secure the approval of other

Senate leaders regarding membership. Moreover, Harding boldly submitted the

proposal only a day after the Senate had rebuffed him by failing to act upon a

ship-subsidy measure which he strongly favored. Since only six days remained

before adjournment, the Foreign Relations Committee postponed consideration

until the next session. Hughes thought the postponement advantageous because

it would provide a long interval in which "all pertinent questions may be thor-

oughly discussed and public opinion find expression."²³

If Hughes anticipated a public response which would swamp all opposition, he

soon had reason to be disappointed. The next five months were the most turbu-

lent of Harding's presidency. Already under fire from Republican dissidents for

his domestic views, Harding now had to withstand an even more damaging as-

sault because of the Court proposal. Not since the League fight had foreign af-

fairs and domestic politics combined in such an explosive mixture.

During these months Harding pursued membership with remarkable zeal con-

sidering his prior history of carefully guarded ambiguity. He took personal charge

of the proposal, no longer leaving the initiative entirely in Hughes' hands. His

public statements and private correspondence reveal him as a well-meaning,

dedicated advocate of membership who was convinced that the nation could as-

sist in extending the rule of law and fulfill its obligation to the Court without de-

parting from a middle-of-the-road policy of cooperation without entanglement.

 

 

 

19. William Howard Taft to Hughes, July 21, 1922, 500.C114/236; Hughes to Taft, August 1, 1922,

Ibid.

20. Hughes to Harding, February 17, 1923, 500.CI14/225a.

21. New York Times, February 25, 1923, 1:8.

22. Pusey, Hughes, 11, 598.

23. Hughes to John Bassett Moore, March 16, 1923, 500.CI14/247a.

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174                                                          OHIO HISTORY

If he valued membership for its own sake, he also realized that it could bring political gains as well; with the next election on the horizon, he would not want to disappoint those Americans who admired the Court or have his critics charge that his many campaign endorsements of the world court idea had been empty phrases. As he readily conceded, some sort of Court proposal was necessary as a "political gesture, to give evidence that we are keeping faith."24 Coupled with the Washington Naval Conference treaties, the proposal would demonstrate his ad- ministration's dedication to peace and non-entangling cooperation. Although the evidence is vague, it may also be that Harding considered calling another inter- national conference after the Senate acted upon the proposal, perhaps as a way of making good on his "associations of nations" pledge.25 The fact that Harding was so forthright in submitting the proposal and in as- suming personal control over it confirms the view that he had become more self- assertive by early 1923. Yet the fact remains that his enlarged conception of his       24. Harding to Jonathan Bourne, Jr., April 30, 1923, Harding Papers. 25. In one speech Harding spoke about a "voluntary conference" to bring understanding among nations and codify international law; New York Times, April 25, 1923, 2:2-5. In a letter written in mid-June but not made public until after his death, he denied that his repudiation of the League had "destroyed the hope that there may be found a way to world association and attending world under- standing." Walter Wellman, the journalist who received the letter, said that Harding was determined to have the country perform its international duty and that he wished the Court issue settled so that in the coming year he could issue invitations to a world congress. New York Times, August 27, 1923, 10:8.

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World Court                                                                 175

 

presidential role and the alteration in his conciliatory style had definite limits.

As the Court controversy grew louder and more menacing, he became uncertain

and apprehensive, with the result that the Hughes proposal was left in the lurch

and the entire Court issue thrown into confusion.

In his dealings with the Court's critics, Harding always insisted that the vast

majority of Americans were on his side, and the acclaim heaped on the proposal

seemed to indicate that he was right. Applauded by many newspapers, the pro-

posal was also endorsed by a wide variety of national organizations.²⁶ A pro-

Court campaign also got underway through the peace movement which would

soon make membership the nation's foremost peace measure.²⁷ Because many

peace groups were pro-League their support was a mixed blessing for the admin-

istration, which wanted nothing more than to divorce the League issue from the

Court proposal. Also ranging themselves behind the proposal were most Demo-

cratic spokesmen, who thus ensured that it would have bipartisan support. To be

sure, there were a few fervent pro-League Democrats who sympathized with a

statement issued by Woodrow Wilson calling for unconditional membership in the

Court and for entry into the League. Yet most Democratic politicians realized

that there was no profit in rebuffing the proposal, particularly since party leaders

had praised the Court during the presidential campaign and since membership

could be construed as a step towards closer association with the League.²⁸ "It

looks as if we may get in [the League] on the installment plan," quipped Senator

Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska.²⁹ Less charitable was the waspish Carter Glass

of Virginia, who shrugged off the proposal as a "harmless thing, the lifting of a

hat to a passerby, so to speak."³⁰ By minimizing the proposal's significance and

playing up the Court's relation with the League, the Democrats knew they would

irritate the administration. They also knew that Harding needed their votes to

attain the required two-thirds majority in the Senate and that he had his hands

full with troublemakers in his own party. They were content to back the proposal

in their own fashion while the Republicans squabbled over it.

In spite of the proposal's apparent popularity and bipartisan character, it at-

tracted a large and noisy contingent of critics, all of them anti-Leaguers who

found membership in a "League Court" repugnant and who feared that the closer

the United States got to Geneva, the greater the danger of being entrapped in

the League itself. The New York American, the premier daily in the Hearst chain,

warned that Harding was asking the Senate to "make haste to put the United

States in a position of obedience to a Supreme Court chosen by and controlled by

the League of Nations. Having refused to be led into the League of Nations

through the front door, the American people are now to be squeezed in through

the kitchen door."³¹ In agreement with the Hearst press and other anti-League

newspapers were such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Dis-

 

 

 

 

 

26. New York Times: May 3, 1923, 18:8 (American Federation of Labor); May 11, 1923, 8:3 (Na-

tional Chamber of Commerce); May 17, 1923, 8:1 (National Association of Manufacturers); April 18,

1923, 2:5 (National Republican Club); April 15, 1923, 2:6 (League of Women Voters); September 1,

1923, 5:1 (American Bar Association).

27. In late May, for example, the Federal Council of Churches appealed to over 20,000 congrega-

tions to inform their Senators of their support, Ibid., June 1, 1923, 1:1; and in July the National Coun-

cil for the Prevention of War included an endorsement in the platform for its "Law-Not-War" Day

which was to be celebrated in over 2,000 communities across the country, Ibid., July 28, 1923, 3:1.

28. Wilson's statement was printed in Ibid., April 14, 1923, 1:4.

29. Ibid., February 25, 1923, 1:8.

30. Ibid., April 25, 1923, 1:5.

31. New York American, February 28, 1923.

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176                                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

 

abled Veteran's League as well as a trio of well-known irreconcilables, Robert

La Follette, William E. Borah, and Hiram Johnson.³²

The protests of the anti-Courters caused a good deal of handwringing among

administration stalwarts, who feared that the controversy might further divide a

party already at odds over domestic issues. Not only had the party fared poorly in

the 1922 midterm elections, but a progressive bloc had emerged in Congress

which was expected to hold the balance of power in the next session, and there

was talk of a third party in 1924. La Follette, Johnson, and Borah were in vary-

ing degrees critical of the administration's domestic program, and each was touted

as a possible presidential candidate. Yet not only the mavericks were in revolt

against the proposal; it was likewise denounced by two high party officials, the

chairmen of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and of the Re-

publican National Committee.33 No one was more distressed about the political

repercussions of the proposal than Senator James Watson of Indiana, an anti-

Leaguer close to the White House, who was reportedly working with Lodge and

Frank Brandegee of Connecticut, also an anti-Leauger, to persuade Harding that

the controversy would split the party.³⁴ Harding's Secretary of War, John Weeks,

was also apprehensive about the controversy, as was Attorney-General Harry

Daugherty.35

In the face of mounting complaints and anxiety, Harding remained steadfast

for nearly four months, refusing to alter the proposal or to abandon the quest for

membership. To his worried secretary of war he admitted that there were "diffi-

culties and embarrassments" arising out of the proposal and that he was "not in-

different to the anxiety of my friends both in and outside the administration";

nevertheless, he added, "I should be quite without respect for myself ... if I

turned tail and ran away from it [the proposal] because of threatening political

embarrassments. Most of the opposition comes from men in the Senate who are

never concerned about the good fortunes of the present administration, and not a

little of it comes from aspiring men who are anxious to cause a division in the

party rather than think of the becoming attitude of this republic in dealing with

the world solution of a problem which we ourselves introduced."³⁶

During this period Harding, along with Hughes, Secretary of Commerce Her-

bert Hoover, and Root, laid out the case for membership and replied to the allega-

tions of the anti-Courters in a series of widely publicized addresses.³⁷ In a speech in

New York before the annual luncheon of the Associated Press, Harding denied

wanting to sneak the country into the League "by the side door, or the back door

or the cellar door." Although insisting that he did not want to make membership

a "party question," he contended that the Republican party had often gone on

record in favor of a court and that "if any party, repeatedly advocating a world

court, is to be rended by the suggestion of an effort to perform in accordance with

 

 

 

 

 

32. "Seeing Ghosts in the World Court," Current Opinion, LXXIV (May 21, 1924), 651; New York

Times, July 1, 1923, 1:2;16:2. For Borah's views see John Chalmers Vinson, William E. Borah and the

Outlawry of War (Athens, 1957), 75; for Johnson's, New York Times, March 9, 1923, 1:5;3:4, for La

Follette's, "The World Court," La Follette's Magazine, XV (May 1923), 68.

33. New York Times, April 21, 1923, 1:1, "The Republican Rumpus," The Literary Digest, LXXVII

(June 9, 1923), 10-11.

34. New York Times, April 25, 1923, 1:5, 8.

35. Harding to John W. Weeks, April 12, 1923, Harding Papers; Daugherty to Harding, April 24,

1923, Ibid.

36. Harding to Weeks, April 12, 1923, Harding Papers.

37. New York Times, April 28, 1923, 2 (Hughes); April 12, 1923, 1:1; 6:1-4 (Hoover); April 27,

1923, 7:1 (Root).

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World Court                                                                      177

 

its pledges, it needs a new appraisal of its assets."³⁸

The national response to this speech pleased Hughes and Hoover, whose sup-

port of Harding's position helped offset the protests from critics and doubters,

and the President himself thought that "on the whole" the proposal was now "in

pretty good shape."³⁹ In order to avoid unnecessary controversy, Harding kept

his own public statements to a minimum for the next several months, but he con-

tinued to solicit support in numerous personal letters, in what amounted to his

own private campaign of persuasion. Directed at influential citizens on both sides

of the issue, the letters left no doubt that his heart was set on membership and

that he was anxious to remove objections arising from the Court's relation to the

League.⁴⁰

In the weeks following the Associated Press speech, the controversy, instead of

abating, grew more intense. There were reports that Borah planned to join with

La Follette and George Moses, the New Hampshire irreconcilable and chairman

of the Senate Campaign Committee, in a summer campaign against the pro-

posal.⁴1 Even more dismaying was a letter from Lodge to the Governor of Mis-

souri, made public on April 29, warning that the Court's relations with the League,

particularly in the election of judges, posed such serious difficulties that the Sen-

ate might not be content with the Hughes reservations.⁴² The Massachusetts

senator was only one of seven Republican members of the Foreign Relations

Committee who either disapproved of the proposal or had doubts about it.⁴³ Fol-

lowing a visit to the White House, Watson of Indiana reported that about twenty-

two senators were disinclined to accept membership without reservations mak-

ing it plain that the country was not entering the League.⁴⁴ Of the few Senate Re-

publicans siding publicly with the administration, not one was of the stature of

Borah, Lodge, or La Follette. The proposal's future in the Senate was uncertain

at best. Meanwhile as the controversy grew more divisive, farm protest raged

through the prairie states, rumors of scandal gathered around the administration,

and dissension persisted among Republicans because of domestic issues.

It was under these circumstances that Harding made an unexpected and un-

wise about-face on the Court issue. Some time before departing on his "voyage

to understanding" to Alaska on June 20, he decided that a compromise was in

order. Having tried unsuccessfully to allay fears about the consequences of mem-

bership in the "League Court," he sought to quiet them once and for all by rec-

ommending a separation of the Court from the League. His compromise plan

called upon the League to give up its administrative relation with the Court, its

exclusive right to request advisory opinions, and its role in the elections of judges.

The member-states would either conduct elections apart from the League or,

 

 

 

38. Ibid., April 25, 1923, 2:2-5. Harding told a friend that his speech was intended to "clarify the

atmosphere" and that he was especially concerned about "quietly divorcing the International Court

from the League of Nations proposition." He thought he had done so when the proposal was submitted,

but it now appeared that "a good many extremists have so persistently urged that this is the beginning

of a fellowship in the League that the whole situation has been greatly embarrassed." Harding to John

A. Stewart, April 19, 1923. Harding Papers.

39. Hughes to Harding, April 26, 1923, Hughes Papers; Hoover to Lewis H. Smith, April 25, 1923,

Herbert Hoover Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, hereafter cited as Hoover

Papers; Harding to Nicholas Murray Butler, May 1, 1923, Harding Papers.

40. The letters went to acquaintances and prominent citizens such as Mrs. Thomas Winters, an

official of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, Harding to Winters, May 3, 1923, Harding Pa-

pers; and Frank Munsey, anti-League editor of the New York Herald, Harding to Munsey, May 12,

1923, Ibid.

41. New York Times, May 16, 1923, 21:1-2.

42. Ibid., April 29, 1923, 1:1; 3:1.

43. Ibid., May 16, 1923, 21:1, May 22, 1923, 4:2.

44. Ibid., June 7, 1923, 21:4.

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alternatively, have the judges fill vacancies with appointees of their own choice.

According to George Harvey, the anti-League Ambassador to Great Britain who

drafted the plan, Harding was determined to secure membership, but he wanted

to avoid an inevitable disaster for his party by uniting it behind a compromise. If

the Democrats rejected the new arrangement, Harding believed they would re-

veal their insincerity about membership and forfeit public support.⁴⁵ It seems

clear that the beleaguered President was prepared to make major concessions to

the anti-Court faction in order to keep the party together and to facilitate Senate

approval of membership. Once these critics were silenced, there were only the

Democrats to worry about, and they presumably would find it awkward to reject

the compromise without appearing to place their loyalty to the League ahead of

their support for the Court. As for the member-states, Harding must have been

persuaded that they would accept his recommendations for the sake of American

membership. He had been assured by Harvey that the British would approve

taking the election of judges out of the hands of the League, and the ambassador

may have offered similar guarantees about other important member-states as

well. To what extent, if any, Harding consulted with Hughes about the new plan

is unknown, but it is possible that he accepted it over Hughes' objection. Accord-

ing to an associate in the State Department, Hughes approved of the new method

for electing judges but expressed "considerable doubt whether it would be prac-

ticable from a world point of view."⁴⁶ Not one to ignore political realities or the

opinion of the Senate, the secretary nonetheless could not have been pleased

with a decision to substitute a cumbersome, hastily conceived compromise for a

proposal to which he had given thorough consideration and which would satisfy

the member-states.

At St. Louis, the first stop on his cross-country journey, Harding introduced

the new plan to a convocation of ten thousand Rotarians and a nationwide radio

audience. Disingenuously describing the plan as an amplification of his original

proposal rather than as a compromise, he stated that with the Senate's permis-

sion he would begin negotiations with the member-states in the expectation that

they would understand that he wanted membership in a genuine world court and

on an equal basis and without loss of sovereignty. Turning to the Court critics, he

stated that he was "interested in harmonizing opposing elements" and that he

was "more anxious to effect our helpful commitment to the court" than he was

"to score a victory for executive insistence."

I shall not attempt to coerce the Senate of the United States. I shall make no demand

upon the people. I shall not try to impose my will upon anybody or any person. I shall em-

bark on no crusade.⁴⁷

Clearly this was not the militant Harding of the Associated Press address who

 

 

45. Shortly alter Harding died, Harvey revealed to Calvin Coolidge that he was the author of the

compromise plan. See his memorandum of a conversation with Coolidge in Willis F. Johnson, George

Harvey: "A Passionate Patriot" (Boston, 1929), 395. In another memorandum presented to Coolidge

at that time he outlined the strategy behind the plan. "The United States and the World Court", en-

closure in Harvey to the President [Coolidge], August 17, 1923, Calvin Coolidge Papers, Library of

Congress.

46. The Diary of William Phillips [unpublished], June 22, July 6, 1923, Houghton Library, Harvard

University, hereafter cited as Phillips Diary. Phillips, an Assistant Secretary of State, believed that

Harding's "idea was that if the Court was self-appointing he might be able to keep the irreconcilables

in line, otherwise our participation would be doomed; [n.d.], Ibid.

47. James W. Murphy, comp., Speeches and Addresses of Warren G. Harding, President of the

United States, Delivered During the Course of His Tour from Washington, D.C., to Alaska and Re-

turn to San Francisco, June 20 to August 2, 1923 (privately published, 1923), 3747 (hereafter cited as

Harding's Last Speeches).

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World Court                                                            179

spoke, but Harding the conciliator, mindful of the discord in his party, respectful of the Senate, ready to meet his anti-League critics half way. The kindest judgment one can pass on the St. Louis plan is that it was a well- intentioned blunder. While the compromise did silence some anti-Courters, Borah among them, others continued to assail membership, including Johnson and the Hearst press.48 Beside raising doubts among pro-Court Republicans, the plan angered the Democrats, who damned it as impracticable and harmful to the, Court.49 Membership had become a partisan issue and Harding had jeopardized Democratic votes which were indispensable to the passage of any proposal for membership. Signs of distress also appeared in the peace movement; one pro- Courter informed Hughes that the plans of his group for a newspaper poll were collapsing because of opposition to the speech in both parties.50 In the highly un- likely event that the plan had succeeded in uniting the country and the Senate, it           48. New York Times, June 29, 1923, 10:2; "Hiram Johnson's Opening Gun," The Literary Digest, LXXVIII (August 4, 1923), 16; New York American, June 23, 18:1-2. 49. New York Timers, July  1, 1923, VII, 1:3-5. 50. Samuel Colcord to Hughes, August 2, 1923, Hughes Papers.

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still would have foundered because of objections from the member-states, who

would have been loathe to sever the Court from the League.51

Unfortunately, Harding's own assessment of the response to the St. Louis plan

is unknown. Nevertheless it is significant that he continued to affirm his desire

for membership to audiences on his "voyage to understanding," but never again

referred to the compromise nor to the original proposal.⁵² This suggests that he

thought it expedient to accentuate the need for membership rather than dwell on

the vexing issue of precisely what terms he endorsed. Returning to the strategy

of his presidential campaign, he took refuge in ambiguity so as to protect himself

from politically harmful dissent and provide time in which to determine a proper

course of action. What course he would have chosen had he lived there is no way

of telling, but in a major address he was to have delivered in San Francisco he

intimated that his primary concern was to find a reasonable and acceptable

method for entry without insisting on having his own way:

As President, speaking for the United States, I am more interested in adherence to such

a tribunal [the World Court] in the best form attainable, than I am concerned about the

triumph of Presidential insistence. The big thing is the firm establishment of the court and

our cordial adherence thereto. All else is mere detail. No matter what the critics may say,

we have the obligation of duly recognizing constituted authority, and I had rather have the

Senate grant its support and have the United States favor the permanent court than pro-

long a controversy and defeat the main purpose. I respect the Senate precisely as I would

have it respect the Presidency, and I can appraise opposition which is conscientiously in-

spired.⁵³

Still faithful to the principle of membership, Harding clearly preferred to build

agreement through cooperation with the Senate, thereby avoiding the contro-

versy a militant strategy would produce.

It is evident from  Harding's behavior in the last phase of the conflict that he

reverted to a strategy of consensus-building and deference to the power and pre-

rogatives of the Senate which he would not have considered inappropriate when

he entered the White House. No doubt recalling Wilson's defeat on the League

issue, he chose to be a conciliator rather than a crusader. This was a familiar and

comfortable role which had proved effective in the past in managing the Court

issue. During the 1920 campaign he had defused the issue by means of a nebu-

lous endorsement of a world court; once in office, he kept quiet about the issue,

leaving it to Hughes to choose the appropriate time and method for transforming

the endorsement into concrete policy. It was a sign of self-assurance and de-

termination on Harding's part that he submitted the proposal without the ad-

vance approval of Senate leaders and on the heels of a serious setback in the

upper house on a high-priority domestic measure. For a time after the controversy

 

 

 

51. Phillips was informed by the French Ambassador that the member-states would never consent

to the plan. Phillips himself felt that Harding, in addition to having made membership impossible, had

enormously weakened the nation's prestige by "giving away so palpably to the irreconcilables"; Phillips

Diary, June 25, 1923.

52. For Harding's remarks about the Court while on his journey see Murphy, Harding's Last

Speeches.

53. Ibid., 385, italics added. The San Francisco speech was prepared by the White House staff in

Washington and reached the presidential party at Vancouver. With Harding's approval, Hoover made

some changes "pledging his administration to the World Court and to a larger degree of world co-

operation in maintaining peace which I knew Secretary Hughes would approve." Herbert Hoover,

The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, 2 vols. (New York, 1952), II, 50. In a memorandum, "President

Harding's Last Illness and Death," dated August 25, 1923, Hoover noted that the speech seemed to

be much on Harding's mind and that he thought it his most important message on foreign relations;

the memorandum is in the Hoover Papers.

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World Court                                                         181

 

began, he stood his ground, offering additional proof of a more activist presi-

dential style by taking the proposal under his own care and by making a substan-

tial contribution to efforts to rally public support and disarm the proposal's critics.

But as the struggle grew more heated, the party fell into greater disarray and the

proposal's prospects in the Senate grew dimmer-all this with a presidential

election in the following year. At St. Louis Harding took remedial action to silence

anti-League critics and make membership more palatable to Republican sena-

tors. His compromise plan, while offered in good faith and under trying circum-

stances, provoked partisan conflict with the Democrats and jeopardized the

membership he sought to assure. From the St. Louis speech to his death less

than a month later, conciliation and ambiguity were the keynotes of Harding's

approach to the Court issue. His San Francisco statement resembled his 1920

position in its avoidance of specifics and its insistence on cooperation with the

Senate as opposed to its conformity with his own viewpoint. His performance in

this final test of his leadership reveals a President who had, indeed, grown in de-

termination and initiative, yet who remained a harmonizer, intent on quieting

discord in his own party and on cooperating with, rather than dictating to, the

Senate. On the Court issue it was the "old" Harding who gained the upper hand

in the end.

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