Chapter 34: The Great Depression and the New Deal, 1933-1939

FDR: Politician in a WheelchairFranklin Roosevelt’s courageous fighting from polio schooled him in patience, tolerance, compassion, and strength of will—Roosevelt’s personal and political asset was his wife, Eleanor

FDR’s political career was as much hers as it was his own; she was to become the most active First Lady in history—she powerfully influenced the policies of the national government

Always she battled for the impoverished and the oppressed—infidelity between husband/wife

Franklin Roosevelt’s political appeal was amazing—his commanding presence, golden speaking voice, belief that money, rather than humanity, was expendable; he revealed a deep concern for the plight of the “forgotten man” and was assailed by the rich as a “traitor to his class”

Democrats nominated Roosevelt in 1932 and the Democratic platform for repeal of prohibition, assailed Hoover depression, and promised a balanced budget, social and economic reforms

 

Presidential Hopefuls of 1932Roosevelt seized the offensive with an attack on the Republican Old Dealers—consistently preached a New Deal for the “forgotten man,” but was annoyingly vague and contradictory

The “Brains Trust,” a small group of reform-minded intellectuals, who were predominantly college professors authored much of the later New Deal legislation, wrote many of his speeches

The high spirits of the Democrats found expression in “Happy Days Are Here Again”

Herbert Hoover remained in the White House battling the depression advocating “Prosperity Is Just Around the Corner,” “The Worst Is Past,” and “It Might Have Been Worse”

 

Hoover’s Humiliation in 1932One striking feature of the election was the beginning of a distinct shift of blacks, traditionally grateful to the Republican party of Lincoln, over to the Roosevelt camp (worst sufferers) and by the election of 1932, they became a vital element in the Democratic party (cities in North)

Hard times unquestionably ruined the Republicans; an overwhelming majority voiced a demand for a new deal—any upstanding Democratic candidate probably could have won

The preinauguration lame duck period ground slowly to an end and Hoover was still president until up to March 4, 1933—tried to hold meetings with Roosevelt to discuss war-debt muddle

With Washington deadlocked, the American economic machine clanked to a virtual halt; one worker in four

tramped the streets, banks were locking their doors all over the nation

 

FDR and the Three R’s: Relief, Recovery, ReformOn Inauguration Day, March 4, 1933, Roosevelt provided Americans with inspirational hope

He declared a nationwide banking holiday, March 6-10, as a prelude to opening the banks on a sounder basis and he summoned Congress into special session to cope with national emergency

For the Hundred Days, members cranked out remedial legislation—Roosevelt’s New Deal programs aimed at three R’s—relief, recovery, and reform of current abuses (overlapped)

Measures that Roosevelt called “must legislation”—all the new bills

Congress gave the president extraordinary blank-check powers—legislative authority to Pres.

Roosevelt was delighted to exert executive leadership—he was inclined to act by intuition

The Hundred Days Congress passed many reforms, which owed much progressive movement—New Deal embraced pre-WWI progressive ideals of unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, minimum-wage, conservation/development of national resources, and restrictions on child labor

 

Roosevelt Tackles Money and BankingCongress in an incredible eight hours had the Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933 ready

The new law invested the president with power to regulate banking transactions and foreign exchange and to reopen solvent banks—Roosevelt turned to the radio to deliver “fireside chats”

Through them, he gave assurances that it was now safer to keep money in a reopened bank than “under the mattress”—confidence returned an banks began to unlock their doors

The Emergency/Hundred Days Congress supported public reliance on the banking system by enacting the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act, a measure that provided for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured individual deposits up to $5,000

Roosevelt moved to protect the melting gold reserve and to prevent panicky hoarding; he ordered all private holdings of gold to be surrendered to the Treasury in exchange for paper currency and then took the nation off the gold standard—“managed currency” was well on its way

The goal of Roosevelt’s “managed currency” was inflation, which he believed would relieve debtor’s burdens

and stimulate new production—gold buying and increasing value of gold

The gold-buying scheme came to an end in February 1934, when FDR returned the nation to a limited gold standard for purposes of international trade only—increased amount of $ circulation

 

Creating Jobs for the JoblessOne out of every four workers was jobless when FDR took his inaugural oath (highest ever) and used federal money to assist the unemployed and “primed the pump” of industrial recovery

The Hundred Days Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a law that provided employment in government camps for about 3 million young men (driven away from crime)

Their work included reforestation, fire fighting, flood control and swamp drainage, conservation

The first major effort of the new Congress to tackle adult unemployment was the Federal Emergency Relief Act that aimed for immediate relief rather than long-range recovery

The resulting Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was headed by Harry Hopkins and granted about $3 billion to the states for wages on work projects and dole payments

The HDC created the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which made available many millions of dollars to help farmers meet their mortgages and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, was designed to refinance mortgages on nonfarm homes (bailed out mortgage-holding banks)

FDR established the Civil Works Administration (CWA) late in 1933 under Hopkins that was designed to provide temporary jobs during the cruel winter emergency

 

A Day for Every DemagogueRelief from Washington to needy families helped pull the nation through winter of 1933-1934

One danger signal was the appearance of various demagogues, notably Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest whose slogan was “Social Justice” broadcasted on radio and was anti-New Deal

Notorious among agitators were those who capitalized on popular discontent to make promises

Senator Huey (“Kingfish”) Long of LA who publicized his “Share Our Wealth” program, which would make “Every Man a King”—every family was to received $5,000 at expense of wealthy

Another was Dr. Francis Townsend of California who had the support of 5 million “senior citizens” and his plan provided for every sixty year old to receive $200 a month

Congress authorized the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935, the objective of which was

employment on useful projects—launched under Hopkins, this agency spent about $11 billion on thousands of public buildings, bridges, and hard-surfaced roads (9 million jobs)

Agencies of the WPA found part-time occupations for high school/college students and for such unemployed white-collar workers as actors, musicians, and writers (art work, too)

 

A Helping Hand for Industry and LaborThe Emergency Congress attempted to stimulate a nationwide comeback with the National Recovery Administration (NRA)—designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed

Individual industries were to work out codes of “fair competition,” under which hours of labor would be reduced so that employment could be spread over more people (minimum wages)

Workers, under the NRA, were formally guaranteed the right to organize and bargain collectively though representatives of their own choosing, the antiunion contract was forbidden

A blue eagle was the symbol of the NRA and the slogan was “We Do Our Part”

Too much self-sacrifice was expected of labor, industry and the public for such a scheme to work

Complete collapse was imminent when in 1935, the Supreme Court shot down the dying eagle in famed Schechter “sick chicken” decision—congress could not “delegate legislative powers” to the president and congressional control of interstate commerce could not apply to local business

The same act of Congress that formed the NRA authorized the Public Works Administration (PWA) intended both for industrial recovery and for unemployment relief (under Harold Ickes)

Long-range recovery—over $4 billion was spent on some 34,000 projects including the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River (irrigation, electrical power) and public buildings

Special stimulants aided the recovery of the liquor industry—imminent repeal of prohibition amendment afforded an opportunity to raise needed federal revenue and provide employment

HDC legalized light wine and beer with alcoholic content not above 3.2 percent—prohibition was officially repealed by the 21st Amendment late in 1933 and saloon doors swung open

 

Paying Farmers Not to FarmSince 1918, farmers had suffered from low prices and overproduction, especially in grain

During the depression, conditions became desperate as innumerable mortgages were foreclosed

The Emergency Congress established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)

Through “artificial scarcity” this agency was to establish “parity prices” for basic commodities

“Parity” was the price set for a product that gave it the same real value from 1909 to 1914 and the AAA would eliminate price-depressing surpluses by paying growers to reduce their crops

The millions of dollars needed for these payments were to be raised by taxing of farm products

The AAA was begun after planting of cotton crop for 1933, plants plowed, pigs slaughtered and much of their met was distributed to people on relief—“sinful” destruction of food

The Supreme Court killed the AAA in 1936 by declaring its regulatory taxation provisions unconstitutional but the New Deal Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 and withdrawal of acreage from production—shifted to conservation

The Second Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 continued conservation payments

 

Dust Bowls and Black BlizzardsLate in 1933 a prolonged drought struck the states of the trans-Mississippi Great Plains

Rainless weeks followed by winds turned the area that stretched from eastern Colorado to western Missouri into the Dust Bowl—sun was darkened by powdery topsoil

Drought and wind triggered the dust storms but there were other factors—high grain prices led to more land under cultivation, dry-farming techniques and mechanization had revolutionized Great Plains agriculture—stream tractor and disk plow left the powdery topsoil to be swept away

Tens of thousands of refugees fled their ruined acres and in five years 350,000 “Okies” and “Arkies” trekked to southern California (portrayed by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath)

The Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act (1934) made possible a suspension of mortgage foreclosures for five years, but the Supreme Court voided it—revised law was upheld (3 years)

In 1935 Roosevelt set up the Resettlement Administration, charged with the task of removing near-farmless farmers to better land—more than 200 million young trees were planted in prairie

Inspired by the Pueblo Indians of NM, Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier promoted the Indian Reorganization Act of 134 that encouraged tribes to establish local self-gov’t and to preserve their native crafts and traditions—stop loss of Indian lands; other Indians refused

 

Battling Bankers and Big Business

Reformists were determined to curb the “money changers” who had played with investors before the Wall Street crash of 1929—HDC passed “Truth in Securities Act” (Federal Securities Act) which required promoters to transmit information regarding the soundness of stocks and bonds

In 1934 Congress authorized the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which was designed as a watchdog administrative agency—New Dealers directed fire at public utility holding companies, those supercorporations—example of the collapse of Samuel Insull’s empire

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 delivered a “death sentence” to this type of bloated growth, except where it might be deemed economically needful

 

The TVA Harnesses the Tennessee RiverThe electric-power industry attracted the fire of New Deal reformers (growth to $13 billion)

As a public utility, it reached directly and regularly into the pocketbooks of consumers and New Dealers accused it of using excess rates—Tennessee River provided a rare opportunity

The river contained some 2.5 million of the most poverty-stricken people in America; by developing the hydroelectric potential of area, Washington could combine immediate advantage of putting thousands to work with a long-term project for reforming the power monopoly

The Hundred Days Congress passed an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933 and this enterprise was largely a result of Senator George Norris of Nebraska

This new agency was determined to discover precisely how much the production and distribution of electricity cost—utility corporations lashed back at this low cost of TVA power

The gigantic project brought to the area not only full employment and cheap electric power, but low-cost housing, abundant cheap nitrates, restoration of eroded soil, reforestation, flood control

Conservative reaction against the “socialistic” New Deal would confine the TVA to Tennessee

 

Housing Reform and Social SecurityTo speed recovery and better homes, Roosevelt set up the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) as early as 1934—the building industry was to be stimulated by small loans to householders, both from improving their dwellings and for completing new ones

Congress bolstered the program in 1937 by authorizing the United States Housing Authority (USHA)—an agency designed to lend money to states or communities for low-cost construction

New deal efforts to expand the project collided with opposition from real estate promoters, builders, and landlords—the slum areas in America ceased growing and even shrank

Success of New Dealers in field of unemployment insurance and old age pensions

The Social Security Act of 1935 provided for federal-state unemployment insurance and to provide security for old age, categories of retired workers were to receive regular payments from Washington that was financed by a payroll tax on both employers and employees (dependents)

Republican opposition to the sweeping new legislation was bitter

Social security was largely inspired by the example of some of the more highly industrialized nations of Europe—American workers had to be employed to get coverage

 

A New Deal for Unskilled LaborThe NRA had been a godsend to organized labor—walkouts occurred in the summer of 1934, including a paralyzing general strike in San Francisco, broken by vigilante tactics

Fruit of Congress’ deliberations was the Wagner or National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which recreated a powerful new National Labor Relations Board for administrative purposes and reasserted the right of labor to engage in self-organization and to bargain collectively

Encouraged by the NLRB, a host of unskilled workers began to organize into effective unions

The leader of this drive was John L. Lewis and in 1935, he succeeded in forming the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) within the ranks of the skilled American Federation of Labor

In 1936, the older federation suspended the unions associated with the new organization

The rebellious CIO moved on a concerted scale into the huge automobile industry; late in 1936, workers resorted to a technique known as the sit-down strike and refused to leave the factories

The CIO won a resounding victory when General Motors recognized its union

The US Steel Company granted rights of unionization to its CIO-organized employees but the little steel companies found back savagely—Memorial Day massacre in Republic Steel Company

In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (Wages and Hour Bill) and industries involved in interstate commerce were to set up minimum wage and maximum-hour levels

Labor by children under sixteen was forbidden and these reforms were bitterly opposed by many industrialists, especially by southern textile manufacturers who profited from low-wage labor

The CIO surged forward, breaking completely with the AF of L in 1938 and became known as the Congress of Industrial Organization under the presidency of John L. Lewis (4 million)

 

Landon Challenges “the Champ” in 1936As the presidential campaign of 1936 neared, the New Dealers were on top of the world—the exultant Democrats renominated Roosevelt on a platform squarely endorsing the New Deal

Republicans settled on governor of Kansas, Alfred M. Landon whose platform condemned the New Deal for its radicalism, experimentation, confusion, and “frightful waste”

Backing Landon, ex-president Hoover echoed the American Liberty League (conservatives)

Roosevelt denounced the “economic royalists” who sought to hide “behind the flag”

A landslide overwhelmed Landon as the Republicans carried only two states (VT, Maine)

The battle of 1936 bore out Republican charges of class warfare—the needy economic groups were lined up against the greedy economic groups (CIO contributed much to Roosevelt)

Blacks had now shaken off their traditional allegiance to the Republican party

FDR won primarily because he appealed to the “forgotten man”—coalition of the South, blacks, urbanites, and the poor—marshaled the support of the “New Immigrants”

 

Nine Old Men on the Supreme BenchRoosevelt took the president oath on January 20, 1937, instead of the traditional March 4

The 20th Amendment to Constitution had been ratified in 1933, which swept away postelection lame duck session of Congress and shortened by six weeks the period before inauguration

Roosevelt interpreted his reelection as a mandate to continue New Deal reforms

In nine major cases involving the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration had been thwarted seven times and he grew impatient to the obstruction conservatism of the Court

Democracy, in his view, meant rule by the people—Supreme Court should reflect public opinion

Early in 1937, Roosevelt caught the country by surprise bluntly asking Congress for legislation to permit him to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire—the maximum membership could then be fifteen (injecting new blood)

 

The Court Changes CourseCongress and the nation were promptly convulsed over the scheme to “pack” the Supreme Court with a “dictator bill”—Roosevelt was vilified for attempting to upset the balance in gov’t

Justice Owen J. Roberts began to vote on the side of his liberal colleagues—upheld principle of state minimum wage for women, upheld Wagner Act and the Social Security Act

Congress voted to pay for justices over seventy who retired—replaced by Justice Hugo Black

Congress finally passed a court reform bill, a version that applied only to lower courts—Roosevelt suffered his first major legislative defeat at the hands of his own party in Congress

The Court, as he had hoped, became markedly more friendly to New Deal reforms—a succession of deaths and resignations enabled him in time to make nine appointments to the tribunal

FDR aroused conservatives of both parties in Congress that few New Deal reforms were passed after 1937; Roosevelt squandered much of the political goodwill that had carried him previously

 

The Twilight of the New DealUnemployment persisted in 1936 at about 15 percent and recovery had been modest

In 1937 the economy took another sharp downturn, a severe depression-within-the-depression that the president’s critics quickly dubbed the “Roosevelt recession”—government policies had caused the nosedive as social security taxes bit into payrolls and balanced budget problems

Roosevelt at last embraced the recommendation of the British economist John Maynard Keynes

In April 1937, Roosevelt announced a bold program to stimulate the economy by planned deficit spending—“Keynesianism” became the new economic orthodoxy and remained so for decades

Roosevelt in 1937 urged Congress to authorize a sweeping reorganization of the national administration in the interests of efficiency—issue became tangled up with ambitions but in 1939, Congress passed the Reorganization Act (limited powers for administrative reforms)

The Hatch Act of 1939 barred federal administrative officials, except the highest policy-making officers, from active political campaigning and soliciting and forbade the use of government funds for political purposes as well as the collection of campaign contributions from people receiving relief payments—broadened in 1940 to limit campaign contributions/expenditures

By 1938 the New Deal had clearly lost most of its early momentum; in the congressional elections of 1938, Republicans cut heavily into the New Deal majorities in Congress

 

New Deal or Raw Deal?Foes of the New Deal condemned its alleged waste, incompetence, confusion, contradictions, and cross-purposes-Roosevelt was accused by conservations of being Jewish and tapping Jews

They accused Roosevelt of confusing noise and movement with progress—“bureaucratic meddling” and “regimentation” were also bitter complaints of anti-New Dealers

The federal government became incomparably the largest single business in the country

The national debt had stood at an enormous figure of $19 billion in 1932 and $40 billion by 1939

US stood for “unlimited spending”—business was bitter; business people declared that they could pull themselves out of the depression if they could only get the federal gov’t off them

Private enterprise was being stifled by “planned economy,” “creeping socialism”

States’ rights were being ignored while the gov’t were competing in business with its citizens

Heavy fire was directed AT Roosevelt’s attempts to browbeat the Supreme Court and to create a “dummy Congress”—the most damning indictment of the New Deal was that it had failed to cure the depression—gap between production and consumption was not closed

Millions of men and women were still unemployed in 1939 not until WWII did prosperity return

 

FDR’s Balance SheetThe New Deal had relived the worst of the crisis in 1933; it promoted the philosophy of “Balancing the human budget” and accepted the principle that the federal gov’t was morally bound to prevent mass hunger and starvation by “managing” the economy

The Washington regime was to be used, not feared—FDR had been patron to business tycoons

Roosevelt purged American capitalism of some of its worst abuses and the New Deal helped stifle the American Socialist party—Roosevelt provided bold reform without a revolution

He has been called the greatest American conservative since Hamilton—he exercised that power to relieve the erosion of the nation’s greatest physical resources—its people

Chapter 35: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War, 1933-1941

The London ConferenceAmericans in the 1930s tried to turn their backs on the world’s problems

But as war seemed imminent in Europe, Roosevelt eventually concluded that the United States could no longer remain aloof—events gradually brought the American people around to his thinking: no nation was safe in an era

of international anarchy

The 66-nation London Economic Conference, meeting summer of 1933, revealed how Roosevelt’s foreign policy was subordinated to his strategy for domestic economic recovery

The London Conference hoped to organize an international attack on the global depression

Exchange-rate stabilization was essential to the revival of world trade (gone by 1933)

Roosevelt sent an American delegation to the conference (SS Hull) but the president wanted to pursue gold and inflationary policies at home as a means of stimulating American recovery

Roosevelt was unwilling to sacrifice the possibility of domestic recovery and he scolded the conference for attempting to stabilize currencies, declaring America’s withdrawal

The delegates adjourned empty-handed, amid cries of American bad faith

The collapse of the London Conference strengthened the global trend toward extreme nationalism, making international cooperation more difficult in the 1930s

The persistence of American isolationism played directly into the hands of dictators

 

Freedom for (from?) the Filipinos and Recognition for the RussiansRoosevelt matched isolationism from Europe with withdrawal from Asia (Far East imperialism)

In hard times, Americans were eager to drop their expensive tropical liability in the Philippine Islands (low-wag Filipino workers and Philippine competition in the sugar industry)

Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934 that provided for the independence of the Philippines after a twelve-year period of economic and political guidance—by 1946

The US agreed to relinquish its army bases but not its naval bases

The American people were not so much giving freedom to the Philippines as they were freeing themselves from the Philippines—proposed to leave the Philippines to their fate

American isolationists rejoiced while Japanese militarists calculated that they had little to fear from an inward-looking America that was abandoning its principal possession in Asia

Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933—over the protest of anticommunist conservatives, as well as Roman Catholics offended by Kremlin’s antireligious policies

He was motivated in part by the hope of trade with Soviet Russia, as well as by the desire to bolster the Soviet

Union as a counterweight to the threat of German power and Japanese power

 

Becoming a Good NeighborRoosevelt said, “I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the Good Neighbor”

Roosevelt’s withdrawal suggested that the US was giving up its ambition to be a world power

The Great Depression had cooled off Yankee economic aggressiveness and now the hated marines were protecting fewer dollars—Roosevelt was eager to line up the Latin Americans to help defend the Western Hemisphere by renouncing armed intervention (Monroe Doctrine)

At the Seventh Pan-American Conference, the US formally endorsed nonintervention

The last marines departed from Haiti in 1934 and in the same year, Cuba was released from the Platt Amendment, Panama was given uplift in 1936, as Washington relaxed its grip

The Good Neighbor policy was tested in Mexico when the Mexican gov’t seized Yankee oil properties in 1938 but Roosevelt worked out a settlement in 1941

Roosevelt’s policy paid rich dividends in goodwill among the peoples to the south

 

Secretary Hull’s Reciprocal Trade AgreementsAssociated with Good Neighborism was the reciprocal trade policy of the New Dealers

Created by the Secretary of State Hull, he believed that a nation could sell abroad only as it buys abroad, that tariff barriers choke off foreign trade, and that trade wars beget shooting wars

Responding to Hull-Roosevelt leadership, Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934—this enlightened measure was aimed at both relief and recovery

It activated the low-tariff policies of the New Dealers—amended parts of the Hawley-Smoot law

Roosevelt could lower rates by as much as 50 percent, provided that the other country involved was willing to respond with similar reductions—did not need formal approval of the Senate

Secretary Hull negotiated pacts with 21 countries by the end of 1939 and U.S. foreign trade increased appreciably—Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act was a landmark piece of legislation and reversed the traditional high-protective-tariff policy that had persisted for so long

Paved way for the American-led free-trade international economic system after WW II

 

Impulses Toward Storm-Cellar IsolationismPost-WW I and post-Great Depression, spawned the ominous spread of totalitarianism

The state was everything—the Communist USSR led the way with dictator Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, a Fascist, seized the reins of power in Italy and Adolf Hitler held control in Germany

Hitler was the most dangerous of the dictators because he combined tremendous power with impulsiveness—he secured control of the Nazi party by making political capital of the Treaty of Versailles and Germany’s depression-spawned unemployment (Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936)

International gangsterism spread in the Far East, where Japan ruled—it resented the Treaty of Versailles and demanded additional space for its teeming millions, on its crowded island nation

Tokyo gave notice in 1934 of the termination of the twelve-year-old Washington Naval Treaty and at London a year later, it ended all hole of effective naval disarmament (accelerated ships)

Mussolini, seeking glory and empire in Africa, brutally attacked Ethiopia in 1935; the League could have crushed Mussolini but the League did not want to risk global hostilities

Isolationism received a strong boost form these alarms abroad—they remembered their debts

In 1934, Congress passed the Johnson Debt Default Act, which prevented debt-dodging nations from borrowing further in the U.S.—“have-not” powers were out to become “have” powers

Strong nationwide sentiment welled up for a constitutional amendment to forbid a declaration of war by Congress—except in case of invasion—unless there was a favorable popular referendum

 

Congress Legislates NeutralityAs 1930s lengthened, the press condemned the munitions manufacturers and a Senate committee, headed by Senator Nye of ND was appointed in 1934 to investigate the “blood business”

Because the munitions makers had made money out of the war, many citizens leaped to the illogical conclusion that these soulless scavengers had caused the war in order to make money

Responding to overwhelming popular pressure, Congress made haste to legislate the nation out of war—Neutrality Acts of 1935-1937 stipulated that when the president proclaimed the existence of a foreign war, certain restrictions would automatically go into effect—no American could legally sail on a belligerent ship, sell

or transport munitions, or make loans to belligerent

This legislation in effect marked an abandonment of the traditional policy of freedom of the seas

The Neutrality Acts were tailored to keep the nation out of a conflict like World War I

America falsely assumed that the decision for peace or war lay in its own hands, not in those of the forces already unleashed in the world—enormous power to shape international events

Statutory neutrality was of dubious morality; it actually overbalanced the scales in favor of the dictators, who had armed themselves to the teeth—declining to use its vast industrial strength to aid its democratic friends and defeat its totalitarian foes, it helped goad the aggressors

 

America Dooms Loyalist SpainThe Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 was a lesson in the folly of neutrality-by-legislation

Spanish rebels rose against the republican government in Madrid headed by General Francisco Franco—aided by Hitler and Mussolini, he overthrew Loyalist regime (assisted by Soviet Union)

Washington continued official relations with the Loyalist gov’t; this regime should have been free to purchase munitions but US amended neutrality to include an arms embargo

Uncle Sam watched Franco supported by his fellow dictators, strangle the republican gov’t of Spain; they further encouraged the dictators to take the dangerous road that led to WW II

America declined to build up its armed forces to a point where it could deter the aggressors

Not until 1938 did Congress come to grips with the problem when it passed a billion-dollar naval construction act—America had allowed its navy to decline in relative strength

 

Appeasing Japan and GermanyIn 1937, Japan touched off the explosion that led to an all-out invasion of China—start of WW II

Roosevelt refused to call the China incident an officially declared war—if he had, he would have cut off the munitions on which the Chinese were desperately dependent—Japanese still bought

In Chicago President Roosevelt delivered his “Quarantine Speech” in the autumn of 1937—he called for “positive endeavors” to “quarantine” the aggressors—with economic embargoes

The speech triggered a cyclone of protest from isolationists and other foes of involvement—Roosevelt retreated but in December 1937, Japanese aviators sank an American gunboat, the Panay, in Chinese waters but Tokyo

hastened to make the necessary apologies and pay

In 1935 he flouted the Treaty of Versailles by introducing compulsory military service in Germany; the next year he brazenly marched into the demilitarized German Rhineland

Hitler undertook to persecute and then exterminate the Jewish population in the areas under his control—in the end he wiped out about 6 million innocent victims (military machine)

In March 1938, Hitler occupied Austria and he began to make demands for the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and the leaders of Britain and France sought to bring the dispute to the table

A conference was finally held in Munich, Germany in September 1938 and the Western European democracies, unprepared for war, betrayed Czechoslovakia to Germany

“Appeasement” of the dictators turned out to be merely surrender and in March 1939, Hitler suddenly erased the rest of Czechoslovakia from the map, contrary to his solemn vows

 

Hitler’s Belligerency and U.S. NeutralityJoseph Stalin was a key to the peace puzzle and in the summer of 1939, the British and French were negotiating with Moscow, hopeful of securing a mutual-defense treaty to halt Hitler

The Soviet Union astounded the world b signing, on August 23, 1939, a nonaggression treaty with the German dictator—the Hitler-Stalin pact meant that Hitler could now wage war on Poland and the Western democracies, without fear of the Soviet Union turning against him

The Soviet dictator was plotting to turn his German accomplice against the West democracies, the two warring camps would then kill each other, and leave Stalin bestriding Europe

With the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hitler demanded from Poland a return of the areas wrested from Germany after WW I and failing to secure satisfaction, he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939

Britain and France, honoring the commitments to Poland, promptly declared war; but they were powerless to aid Poland, which succumbed in three weeks to Hitler’s smashing strategy of terror

Stalin came in on the kill for his share of old Russian Poland—World War II had now started

President Roosevelt issued the routine proclamations of neutrality—Americans were overwhelmingly anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler—they believed that the forces of righteousness would triumph—ill prepared Britain and France urgently needed American airplanes and other weapons

Neutrality Act of 1937 raised a sternly forbidding hand; Roosevelt considered lifting embargo

The Neutrality Act of 1939 provided that European democracies might buy American war materials, but only on “cash-and-carry basis”—transport money bought munitions on own ships

Roosevelt was now authorized to proclaim danger zones in which American merchant ships would be forbidden

to enter—this law clearly favored the democracies against the dictators

Overseas demand for war goods brought a sharp upswing from the recession of 1937-1938 and ultimately solved the decade-long unemployment crisis

 

The Fall of FranceThe months following the collapse of Poland were known as the “phony war” as Hitler shifted his victorious division from Poland for a knockout blow at FranceThe Soviets attacked Finland in an effort to secure strategic buffer territory; the debt-paying Finns were granted $30 million by Congress for nonmilitary supplies but Finland surrendered

An end to the “phony war” came in April 1940 when Hitler overran Denmark and Norway and the next month he attacked Netherlands and Belgium, followed by a paralyzing blow at France

By late June France was forced to surrender but a successful evacuation from the French port of Dunkirk saved the bulk of the British shattered and partially disarmed army

The crisis brought forth an inspired leader in Prime Minister Winston Churchill

France’s sudden collapse shocked Americans; the Britons were all that stood between Hitler and the death of constitutional gov’t in Europe—possibilities seemed to pose a dire threat to US

Roosevelt moved with electrifying energy and called upon the nation to build huge airfleets and a two-ocean navy, which could also check Japan—appropriated a sum of $37 billion in a year

Congress passed a conscription law, approved 9/6/1940 and under this measure, provision was made for training each year 1.2 million troops and 800,000 reserves (first peacetime draft)

At the Havana Conference of 1940, the US agreed to share with its twenty New World neighbors the responsibility of upholding the Monroe Doctrine (bracing Latin America bulwark)

 

Bolstering Britain with the Destroyer Deal (1940)

As Britain alone stood between Hitler and his dream of world domination, the wisdom of the neutrality seemed increasingly questionable; Hitler launched air attacks Britain in August 1940 in preparation for invasion in September and for months the Battle of Britain raged in the air over the British Isles; Royal Air Force’s tenacious defense led Hitler to postpone invasion

Debate intensified in the US over what foreign policy to embrace

Sympathy for Britain grew, but it was not sufficient to push the United States into war

Roosevelt faced a historic decision: whether to assumed a “Fortress America” defense posture or to bolster

beleaguered Britain by all means short of war itself—both sides had their advocates

Supporters of aid to Britain formed propaganda groups—Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (direct succor to the British and could appeal for assistance to the democracies)

The isolationists organized the America First Committee—they contended that America should concentrate what strength it had to defend its own shores, lest Hitler cross Atlantic (Lindbergh)

Britain was in critical need of destroyers, for German submarines were threatening to starve it out with attacks on shipping—Roosevelt moved in September to transfer to Great Britain fifty destroyers left over form World War I (British gave US eight defensive base sites in NA and SA)

The exchange was achieved by a simple presidential agreement; condemnation arose form America Firsters and other isolationists, as well as from anti-administration Republicans

Shirting warships from a neutral US to a belligerent Britain was a flagrant violation of neutral obligations; most Americans were determined to provided British with “all aid short of war”

 

FDR Shatters the Two-Term Tradition (1940)

The two leading Republican aspirants was Senator Robert Taft of Ohio and Thomas Dewey of New York but the convention was swept off its feet by Wendell L. Willkie

He had been a Democrat and had been a head of a huge public utilities corporation but his great appeal lay in his personality, for his trustful and honest homespun, Lincolnesque way

Delegates finally accepted this political upstart as the only candidate who could beat Roosevelt

The Republican platform condemned FDR’s alleged dictatorship, was well as the New Deal while Democratic critics branded him “the rich man’s Roosevelt”

Roosevelt delayed to the last minute the announcement of his decision to challenge the sacred two-term tradition; he thought he owed his experience hand to the service of this country

The Democrats realized that only the Champ could defeat Willkie and drafted him unanimously

Willkie made over five hundred speeches, criticizing Roosevelt’s aid-to-Britain policies; he refrained from assailing the president’s interventionism because he saw eye-to-eye with FDR

Both promised to stay out of the war; both promised to strengthen the nation’s defenses so Willkie hit hard at Roosveltian “dictatorship” and the third term—Roosevelt triumphed

Voters generally felt that should war come, the experience hand of the tired leader was needed

 

Congress Passes the Landmark Lend-

Lease LawBy late 1940, Britain was near the end of its financial end; Roosevelt was determined to eliminate the need for debts and had the scheme of lending/leasing American arms

The Lend-Lease Bill was praised by the administration as a device that would keep the nation out of the war rather than drag it in—it would send a limitless supply of arms to the victims of aggression, who in turn would finish the job and keep the war on their side of the Atlantic

Most of the opposition came from isolationists and anti-Roosevelt Republicans (“blank-check bill”) but the bill was approved in March 1941 by sweeping majorities in Congress

America had thus pledged itself to bolster those nations that were indirectly defending it by fighting aggression—at the end of the war, America had sent about $50 billion worth of arms

The Lend-Lease Bill marked the abandonment of any pretense of neutrality; the bill would involve a grave risk of war, but most Americans were prepared to take that change

Lend-lease had result of gearing US industry for all-out war production (increased capacity)

Hitler saw lend-lease as an unofficial declaration of war (no more avoiding attacking US ships)

 

Hitler’s Assault on the Soviet Union Spawns the Atlantic CharterTwo events marked the course of World War II before the assault on Pearl Harbor in December 1941; one was the fall of France in June 1940 and the other was Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Hitler and Stalin had been uneasy allies under the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939)

They could not decide on how to divide potential territorial spoils between them, but Stalin balked at dominant German control of the Balkans so Hitler decided to crush his ally

On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched a devastating attack on his Soviet neighbor; Roosevelt quickly promised assistance and backed up his words by making some military supplies available

He extended $1 billion in lend-lease (of a total $11 billion) and meanwhile, the valor of the red army, combined with the paralysis of an early Russian winter, had halted Hitler’s invaders

The Atlantic Conference was held in August 1941; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill secretly met with Roosevelt on a warship off of Newfoundland and this was the first of a series of history-making conferences that discussed such things including Japan in the Far East

This get-together formed the eight-point Atlantic Charter, covenant that outlined aspirations of the democracies for a better world at war’s end (accepted by Roosevelt, Churchill, Soviet Union)

Opposing imperialistic annexations, it promised self-determination concerning territorial changes, affirmed the right of a people to choose their own form of government, and declared for disarmament and a peace of security, pending a “permanent system of general security”

It was gratifying to subject populations but the agreement was roundly condemned in the United States by isolationists and others hostile to Roosevelt—nation was no longer neutral

 

U.S. Destroyers and Hitler’s U-boats ClashRoosevelt made the fateful decision to convoy in July 1941—the president issued orders to the navy to escort lend-lease shipments as far as Iceland where the British would take them

Inevitable clashes with submarines ensued even though Hitler’s orders were to strike at American warships only in self-defense (after the US destroyer Greer was attacked in September 1941, Roosevelt proclaimed a shoot-on-sight policy; Kearny and Reuben James attacked)

Congress, responding to public pressures and confronted with a shooting war, voted in mid-November 1941 to pull the teeth from the now-useless Neutrality Act of 1939 (merchant ships could now be legally armed and they could enter the combat zones with munitions for Britain)

 

Surprise Assault on Pearl HarborJapan had been Germany’s ally since September 1840; Japan was bogged by the “China incident” and its war machine was dependent on immense shipments from the US

Washington, late in 1940, finally imposed the first of its embargoes on Japan-bound supplies and the blow as followed in mid-1941 by a freezing of Japanese assets in the US

Japanese leaders could knuckle under to the US or break out of the embargo with an attack

Tense negotiations with Japan took place in Washington during November and early December 1941 and the US insisted that Japanese clear out of China to renew trade relations but they choose the sword—but the United States as a democracy, could not shoot first

Japanese bombers attacked on the “Black Sunday” morning of December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor

About three thousand Americans died, many aircraft were destroyed, the battleship fleet virtually wiped out but the three priceless aircraft carriers happened to be outside the harbor

Germany and Italy, allies of Japan, spared Congress the indecision of debate by declaring war on December 11, 1941 and that challenge was accepted on the same day by unanimous vote

 

America’s Transformation from Bystander to BelligerentJapan’s gamble in Hawaii paid off only in the short run; the Pacific fleet had been largely destroyed, but the sneak attack aroused and united America (many had not wanted war)

This treacherous attack was but the last explosion in a long chain reaction—they wished to half Japan’s conquests in the Far East, which menaced not only American trade and security but international peace as well—Roosevelt administration felt compelled to extend unneutral aid

Rather than let democracy die and dictatorship rule supreme, most citizens were evidently determined to support a policy that might lead to war and that it did