To pre-empt the Japanese, House sought to persuade Balfour to accept an amendment to the Covenant’s preamble that would include a quotation taken from the Declaration of Independence to the effect that all men were created equal. ‘Colonel H’s view was that such a preamble, however little it squared with American practice, would appeal to American sentiment, and would make the rest of the formula more acceptable to American public opinion.’13 Balfour’s response was striking. The claim that all men were created equal, Balfour objected, ‘was an eighteenth-century proposition which he did not
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