Lodge opposed League of Nations

It is the birthday of historian and politician Henry Cabot Lodge (1850), who advocated intervention in Cuba that led to the Spanish-American War, annexation of the Philippines after the war, and limits on immigration, especially of the low skilled and poorly educated. He staunchly believed Americans should drop hyphenated designations such as Irish-American or Italian-American and just be American. He hated Woodrow Wilson and criticized his reluctance to get into World War I. He thought that Germany should be crushed and crippled so it could never again threaten the stability of Europe. He successfully fought United States membership in the League of Nations, and vehemently opposed the Treaty of Versailles because it didn’t require Germany’s unconditional surrender. Lodge wrote biographies, including Alexander Hamilton (1882), Daniel Webster (1883), George Washington (1889), and Theodore Roosevelt (1919), as well as other historical works.