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why didnt the US join the League of Nations if it was proposed by Wilson?
9 Answers
- Karin CLv 61 decade agoFavorite Answer
Wilson was going against the general feelings of the people in trying to get us to join the League.
Wilson was perceived by the general population as somewhat of an elitist "ivory tower" intellectual-- he was the first President to have a Ph.D., he was an academician at a time when many people never finished high school, and he was out of step with the feelings of a lot of the common people, who felt that we should mind our own business and let the Europeans deal with their own problems. We were still hurting from World War I, and it seemed unreasonable to a lot of people that we should get involved in problems overseas.
What you have to understand about Wilson's time is that at that time, there was a great sense of physical isolation of the United States from Europe and Asia and Africa. Air transport was still in the experimental stage; if you wanted to travel overseas, you had to travel by boat, which was beyond the means of most people. Radio broadcasting was also still somewhat of a novelty, so there was not the instantaneousness in communication at great distances like there is now. If something happens in Iraq, for example, it's possible for us to hear about it within minutes of it happening. Back then, it might take days for news in some places overseas to get to the US, so there was no sense of immediacy.
It was also felt that the physical distance between us and other countries protected us from possible attack. The general feeling of the people was that involvement in European affairs could only result in us having to get into fights that had no real bearing on our safety or national interests.
Wilson, on the other hand, felt that unless we wanted to be an isolationist backwater and just shrug off whatever was happening in the rest of the world, we had to try to participate in events. He also felt a philosophical attraction to the idea of something like the League of Nations as an alternative to wars. In this Wilson was both something of a visionary and an idealist.
Ultimately Wilson's political opponents here were successful in rallying people to oppose joining the League, and the US did slip into a period of isolationism that only ended when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and brought us into World War II.
- Kevin CLv 41 decade ago
Because the Senate then was smarter than the Senate that ratified the U.S. entry into the United Nations. International organizations like the League of Nations and the United Nations are mostly a way for the poorer nationa to take from the richer ones.
For example, look how Kofi Annan's son got rich in the Iraq oil for food scam. The Senate after World War I realized that whatever checks the League of Nations would write would be coming from the American taxpayers.
- ?Lv 44 years ago
The U.S. Senate did no longer ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which exceptionally a lot meant that u.s. in no way joined the League of countries. Plus, the Senate rejected President Wilson's alliances with large Britain and France. All in all, Wilson could no longer do something with out the Senate's consent. i'm uncertain if Wilson and the Senate had a similar view on the Treaty of Versailles, yet i comprehend that the U.S. had to compromise with large Britain and France via fact those 2 countries had to rid Germany of each little thing as revenge.
- 1 decade ago
A lot of people, called "Isolationists", didn't want the U.S. to join anything. Involvement in World War I, which cost the U.S. 117,000 dead and more than 200,000 wounded, reinforced the isolationist reaction, and the fact that our dead and wounded were only a fraction of the millions killed and wounded in the war was no consolation to anybody touched by our country's involvement. They took George Washington's parting advice, "Avoid entangling foreign alliances" as doctrine, but most people now feel that membership in the U.N. and other international agreements are essential to "waging peace" and avoiding wars that it is possible to avoid.
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- GerryLv 71 decade ago
Congress voted against it while President Wilson was discussing it in France following the conclusion of WWI. This is the shortest answer for now however you can research this at the Library of Congress. Follow this link below:
- Anonymous1 decade ago
We knew it was too weak to do anything. Wilson just thought it was better than nothing for the rest of the world.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
We don't just automatically do what our President's suggest. The LoL was en even more feeble but well-intentioned predecessor concept than the UN.
- 1 decade ago
many of those joining the league, did not have large armies, and were not economically strong, so we would have had to support our new allies if attacked, we could not rely on them to support us.