The underlying idea of the treaty is that the Germans are a guilty and vanquished people, who are indefinitely compelled, without appeal, to put at the mercy of the conquerors their lives, their property, their territory. A reading of the treaty will convince the fair-minded man that its many “jokers” are so cleverly scattered through the treaty as to nullify what provisions it does contain for setting dates for the termination of the penalties and limitations imposed upon Germany. I saw many of these “jokers” when I read the treaty. They were patent. But a clever lawyer would find many more. The late Senator Philander C. Knox, who had read the treaty through, told me in the autumn of 1919 that, from a legal point of view, there was no hope whatever of Germany’s being able to fulfil the obligations placed upon her. He brushed the economic questions aside, and showed me how Germany was trussed by the treaty in such a way that no matter what she did towards fulfilment she would still be in default. “With all the power and authority and good will in the world,” said our former secretary of state, “no nation on earth could ever acquit herself of the obligations of such a treaty. If Germany were a small nation, and her enemies bound together permanently by common interests, central Europe, under this treaty, would become within a decade a huge region inhabited by millions of slaves. As it is, the treaty indicts those who drew it up. It is a crime against civilization.” This comment was provoked when I was trying to argue with the senator that the treaty ought to be ratified with reservations. Eight months later, on May 5, 1920, Senator Knox said publicly, addressing the Senate: The Treaty of Versailles is almost universally discredited in all its parts. The majority of its negotiators concede this. Its economic terms are impossible; its League of Nations is an aggravated imitation of the worst features of the ill fated and foolish holy alliance of a century ago. It promises little but mischief unless recast on such radical lines as will entirely obliterate its identity.... We must proceed in accordance with the established beneficent and enlightened rules and principles of international law as they have heretofore obtained between civilized Christian nations. The principal features of the Treaty of Versailles are the exclusion of Germany from the League of Nations; the failure to establish or promise reciprocity in any of its provisions that would otherwise have been for the common good of the world; the violation of the principle of self-determination where it was to the interest of the victors to ignore it; the elimination of Germany from cultural and economic participation in the development of the world; and the consecration of the principle of the right of the victors in a war to confiscate the private property of the vanquished. Let us take up these features one by one, with examples.