The next day President Wilson sailed for the United States, and on July 10 personally presented the treaty to the Senate with an earnest appeal for prompt ratification. The Committee on Foreign Relations, to which the treaty was referred, proceeded with great deliberation, and on July 31 began a series of public hearings which lasted until September 12. The Committee called before it Secretary Lansing and several of the technical advisors to the American delegation, including B. M. Baruch, economic adviser, Norman H. Davis, financial adviser, and David Hunter Miller, legal adviser. The Committee also called before it a number of American citizens who had had no official connection with the negotiations but who wished to speak in behalf of foreign groups, including Thomas F. Millard for China, Joseph W. Folk for Egypt, Dudley Field Malone for India, and a large delegation of Americans of Irish descent, who opposed the League of Nations on the ground that it would stand in the way of Ireland's aspiration for independence. The rival claims of Jugo-Slavs and Italians to Fiume, the demand of Albania for self-determination, the claims of Greece to Thrace, and arguments for and against the separation of Austria and Hungary were all presented at great length to the Committee. On August 19 the President received the Committee at the White House, and after submitting a written statement on certain features of the Covenant, he was questioned by members of the Committee and a general discussion followed. Meanwhile, the treaty was being openly debated in the Senate. The President had been an advocate of publicity in diplomacy as well as in other things, and the Senate now undertook to use his own weapon against him by a public attack on the treaty. Although the opposition to the treaty was started in the Senate by Lodge, Borah, Johnson, Sherman, Reed, and Poindexter, it was not confined to that body. Throughout the country there were persons of liberal views who favored the League of Nations but objected to the severe terms imposed on Germany, and charged the President with having proved false to the principles of the Fourteen Points. There were others who did not object to a severe peace, but who were bound fast by the tradition of isolation and thought membership in the League of Nations would involve the sacrifice of national sovereignty. The main object of attack was Article X, which guaranteed the territorial integrity and political independence of all the members of the League. President Wilson stated to the Senate Committee that he regarded Article X as "the very backbone of the whole Covenant," and that "without it the League would be hardly more than an influential debating society." The opponents of the League declared that this article would embroil the United States in the internal affairs of Europe, and that it deprived Congress of its constitutional right to declare war.