A number of other reservations were offered and rejected. Under the rules of the Senate, amendments and reservations to a treaty may be adopted by a majority vote, while a treaty can be ratified only by a two-thirds vote. A number of senators who were opposed to the treaty voted for the Lodge reservations in order to insure its defeat. When the vote on the treaty with the reservations was taken November 19, it stood 39 for and 55 against. A motion to reconsider the vote was then adopted, and Senator Hitchcock, the Democratic leader, proposed five reservations covering the right of withdrawal, domestic questions, the Monroe Doctrine, the right of Congress to decide on the employment of the naval and military forces of the United States in any case arising under Article X, and restrictions on the voting powers of self-governing colonies or dominions. These reservations were rejected, the vote being 41 to 50. Another vote was then taken on the treaty with the Lodge reservations, the result being 41 for and 51 against. Senator Underwood then offered a resolution to ratify the treaty without reservations of any kind. The vote on this resolution was 38 for and 53 against. It was now evident that there was little prospect of securing the ratification of the treaty without compromise. On January 8, 1920, a letter from the President was read at the Jackson Day dinner in Washington, in which he refused to accept the decision of the Senate as final and said: "There can be no reasonable objection to interpretations accompanying the act of ratification itself. But when the treaty is acted upon, I must know whether it means that we have ratified or rejected it. We cannot rewrite this treaty. We must take it without changes which alter its meaning, or leave it, and then, after the rest of the world has signed it, we must face the unthinkable task of making another and separate kind of treaty with Germany." In conclusion he declared: "If there is any doubt as to what the people of the country think on this vital matter, the clear and single way out is to submit it for determination at the next election to the voters of the nation, to give the next election the form of a great and solemn referendum, a referendum as to the part the United States is to play in completing the settlements of the war and in the prevention in the future of such outrages as Germany attempted to perpetrate."