Berlin, November 29, 1937. Dear Mr. President: You have very kindly thanked me for my book, which I am afraid you will never have time to read, though there are some conclusions in the book that ought to be worthwhile. I might say that in the winter of 1935, a day or two after the Senate on such a minority vote rejected your recommendation of accepting the World Court at the Hague, I offered my resignation in a formal letter to Judge Moore. He and Secretary Hull discussed it and seemed not to agree with me. Perhaps they did not even mention it to you. The reason I offered my resignation then was purely domestic. The men who drafted our Constitution did not intend that a minority of Senators should always be able to defeat the majority and the President on matters of foreign policy. I cannot take your time now to give you various evidences of this - the minority definition in the Constitution was intended to apply to four great States which had a majority of the popular vote, i.e., Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. We should probably have missed the Constitution if this concession to the majority had been denied. But almost from the beginning Senators have seemed to think the purpose was to allow a minority of the Senate to defeat anything in international matters that they wish. If my resignation had been accepted I would have spoken to various audiences in the country and made the point The President, The White House, Washington, D.C. |