It is plain now, and will become plainer as the years elapse, that the Republican opposition to the League was primarily partisan politics and a rooted personal dislike of the chief proponent of the League, Mr. Wilson. His reëlection in 1916, the first reëlection of an incumbent Democratic President since Andrew Jackson, had greatly disturbed the Republican leaders. The prestige of the Republican party was threatened by this Democratic leader. His reception in Europe added to their distress. For the sake of the sacred cause of Republicanism, this menace of Democratic leadership must be destroyed, even though in destroying it the leaders should swallow their own words and reverse their own former positions on world adjustment. An attempt was made by enemies of the President to give the impression to the country that an association of nations was one of the "fool ideas" of Woodrow Wilson; that in making it part of his Fourteen Points, he was giving free rein to his idealism. As a matter of fact, the idea did not originate with Woodrow Wilson. If its American origin were traced, it would be found that the earliest supporters of the idea were Republicans. I remember with what reluctance the President accepted the invitation of the League to Enforce Peace, tendered by Mr. Taft, to deliver an address on May 27, 1916, at the New Willard Hotel, Washington, a meeting at which one of the principal speakers was no less a personage than Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, with Mr. Taft presiding. For many months the President had been revolving this idea in his mind and for a long time he was reluctant to accept any invitation that would seem to give approval to the idea. He patiently waited to make a complete survey of the whole world situation, to be convinced that the permanent participation of the United States in world affairs was a necessity if peace was to be secured. It was not an easy thing to draw the President away from the traditional policy of aloofness and isolation which had characterized the attitude of the United States in all international affairs. But the invitation to discuss universal peace, urged upon the President by ex-President William H. Taft, was finally accepted.