depriving China or any other peoples of anything which they now possess,” (Pomeroy, 1951, p. 45; quoted in Farrell, 1994, p. 295).
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In January 1918, after America had begun sending its boys “Over There,” the General Board of the US Navy looked east, where Japan had cut off America’s lines of communications to Guam and the Philippines. The board recommended acquisitions in the Marshall Islands, Carolines, and Marianas: “The Marianas were of outstanding importance, because of their proximity to Japan and to the American island [Guam]. Their position in the immediate vicinity of Guam is capable of development into submarine bases within supporting distance of Japan, and, in the event of war, this would make their continued possession by that country a perpetual menace to Guam, and to any fleet operations undertaken for the relief of the Philippines,” (Pomeroy, 1951, p. 69; quoted in Farrell, 1994, p. 295).
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At the end of World War I, November 11, 1918, the idealistic democrat President Woodrow Wilson personally drafted the Versailles Peace Treaty—in particular, the section creating the League of Nations, leaving the issue of decolonization to that international organization. Wilson was not aware that by the spring of 1917, Japan had secretly collected pledges from England, France, Russia and Italy to support their claim to German Micronesia after the war (Peattie, 1988, p. 47; Weller, 1944, p. 80). Wilson was not surprised when Japan asked the League for permission to continue governing the former German islands of Micronesia. However, he was surprised when the League of Nations dialogues began and Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy announced their secret pledges to Japan and supported Japan’s request for annexation of the German possessions north of the Equator. In May, despite Wilson’s protests, the League awarded a Class C Mandate over German Micronesia to Japan.
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Senator Lodge, who had supported the US acquisition of Micronesia after the Spanish-American War, now chided President Wilson for not taking the islands from Germany, despite warnings from Japan. However, when Wilson’s treaty came to the Senate for ratification, Lodge (then chairman of the Foreign Relations committee) was more dedicated to defeating the democrats in the 1920 presidential election than ratifying Wilson’s treaty with its League of Nations organization. “Throughout the entire proceedings,” wrote W. Still Hult, “runs the theme of party politics which ultimately decided the action of the Senate.” (Holt, W. Stull. Treaties Defeated by the Senate: A Study of the Struggle Between President and Senate Over the Conduct of Foreign Relations. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1933, p.249). On March 19, 1920, the United States Senate rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 49-35, falling seven votes short of a two-thirds majority needed for approval. Therefore, the United States did not become a member of the 2nd Marianas History Conference 2013 ・ !421