American Isolationism Between the World Wars: The Search for a Nation's Identity 0367742896, 9780367742898

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 America and the Peace Conference
2 The Aftermath of Versailles and the Roots of Isolationism
3 American Politics and Internationalism in the 1920s
4 History, Literature, and Isolationism
5 Feeding the Isolationist Beast: Issues, Fears, and Scenarios
6 Isolationists: A Gallery
7 Isolationism and Politics in the Roosevelt Era
8 The Counterinsurgents, the Perils of Neutrality, and Pearl Harbor
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

AMERICAN ISOLATIONISM BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS

American Isolationism Between the World Wars: The Search for a Nation’s Identity ­examines the theory of isolationism in America between the world wars, ­arguing that it is an ideal that has dominated the Republic since its founding. During the interwar period, isolationists could be found among Republicans and Democrats, Catholics and Protestants, pacifists and militarists, rich and poor. While the dominant historical assessment of isolationism—that it was “provincial” and “short-sighted”—will be examined, this book argues that American isolationism between 1919 and the mid-1930s was a rational foreign policy simply because the European reversion back to politics as usual insured that the continent would remain unstable. Drawing on a wide range of newspaper and journal articles, biographies, congressional hearings, personal papers, and numerous secondary sources, Kenneth D. Rose suggests the time has come for a paradigm shift in how American isolationism is viewed. The text also ­offers a reflection on isolationism since the end of World War II, particularly the nature of isolationism during the Trump era. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of U.S. Foreign ­Relations and twentieth-century American history. Kenneth D. Rose is Professor Emeritus in History at California State University, Chico, USA. His other publications include The Great War and Americans in ­Europe, 1914–1917 (2017), Unspeakable Awfulness: America Through the Eyes of European Travelers, 1865–1900 (2014), Myth and the Greatest Generation: A ­Social History of Americans and World War II (2008), One Nation Underground: The ­Fallout Shelter in American Culture (2001), and American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition (1996).

AMERICAN ISOLATIONISM BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS The Search for a Nation’s Identity Kenneth D. Rose

First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Kenneth D. Rose The right of Kenneth D. Rose to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rose, Kenneth D. (Kenneth David), 1946– author. Title: American isolationism between the World Wars : the search for a nation’s identity / Kenneth D. Rose. Description: New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifers: LCCN 2020049708 (print) | LCCN 2020049709 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367742881 (paperback) | ISBN 9780367742898 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003156956 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—20th century. | Isolationism—United States—History—20th century. | National characteristics, American. Classifcation: LCC E744 .R815 2021 (print) | LCC E744 (ebook) | DDC 327.73009/04—dc3 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049708 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049709 ISBN: 978-0-367-74289-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-74288-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-15695-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra

To the O’Briens, with love.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Introduction

ix 1

1

America and the Peace Conference

22

2

The Aftermath of Versailles and the Roots of Isolationism

55

3

American Politics and Internationalism in the 1920s

85

4

History, Literature, and Isolationism

119

5

Feeding the Isolationist Beast: Issues, Fears, and Scenarios

169

6

Isolationists: A Gallery

189

7

Isolationism and Politics in the Roosevelt Era

222

8

The Counterinsurgents, the Perils of Neutrality, and Pearl Harbor

271

Conclusion

312

Index

325

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While only one name appears on the cover of this book, it could not have been written without the help of many. As always, my frst debt of gratitude goes to my wife Jeanne Lawrence. She is a sharp-eyed editor, but most importantly has found a way to put up with me when I am in the throes of the writing process. I have also been blessed with the invaluable help of various colleagues. Robert O’Brien was willing to take time away from his own writing projects to critique my chapter on history and literature. He has never failed to provide rich insights into whatever the topic might be. Going far beyond the call of duty to assist me was Laird Easton. He read the whole damned thing. His knowledge of European history for this time period helped me create a manuscript that was more nuanced than it otherwise would have been. We disagreed on a number of areas of interpretation, and our discussions helped me sharpen my arguments. But even when we disagreed, Laird has been nothing but supportive. I was able to access quite a lot of primary and secondary material online, much of it through Archive.org. This site was established by Google and is a real boon for historians. While I can’t comment on the merits of the Justice Department’s suit against this company, I would like to register my appreciation for the maintenance of this site. I am also very grateful for the work of Tomeka Myers at the Library of Congress. She provided invaluable assistance in my obtaining the images for this book. At Routledge, my thanks begin with Kimberley Smith, who deftly shepherded my manuscript through the initial stages. She found excellent scholars

x

Acknowledgments

to review my chapters, and their observations and suggestions made this a better book. Also at Routledge, Emily Irvine has been a resourceful and insightful editor and it has been a pleasure working with her. Karthikeyan Subramaniam ably supervised the proofreading of this document.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Leon Trotsky

INTRODUCTION

In no era of American history did the idea of isolationism produce more intense debate than in the period between the world wars. And while the “end of isolationism” was popularly declared at the conclusion of World War II, isolationism still surfaces regularly on the national scene (as we have seen with the installation of Donald Trump as president). It is a very old idea, which some trace to John Winthrop’s notion of an American “city upon a hill,” set apart from (and scrutinized by) the rest of the world, while others see its origins in the founding of the Republic and the separation from Britain. There is little argument, however, that the alpha and omega of all discussions on isolationism is George Washington’s famous “Farewell Address.” Historian Joseph Ellis calls it “a classic so seminal that it defed disagreement or even discussion.”1 While much of the frst part of Washington’s essay has been forgotten, in the last section Washington argued that “a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils,” and that the nation that habitually hated or favored another nation was “in some degree a slave.” Europe had a set of interests that were “essentially foreign to our concerns.” Why, then, asked Washington, should an America blessed by “our detached and distant situation,” “entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?” The best American policy was “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…”2 Overwhelmingly, the isolationist impulse has been directed toward Europe because historically that is where the trouble has come from. Conficts with France, Britain, and Spain stretched from the colonial era to the Great War. Americans were especially hostile toward European imperialism, and when there was talk of Europe re-colonizing the New World after the Napoleonic Wars, the United States issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. President

2

Introduction

Monroe warned that the United States would consider it “dangerous to our peace and safety” should any European power expand into the Western Hemisphere. Monroe also emphasized that the United States would not interfere in European afairs.3 This ideal became so frmly enshrined in the national ethos that everyone who became involved in foreign policy debates felt obligated to engage it in some manner or another. Isolationist Senator Bennett Clark claimed that “the men who made this country great were isolationists,” while Allen Dulles, future head of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote that “we cannot fnd safety solely in avoiding entangling alliances and through a traditional neutrality.” Like it or not, the United States was “entangled in almost every quarter of the globe in one way or another.”4 In 1939, historian (and isolationist) Charles Beard insisted that U.S. international relations should be based on “the doctrine formulated by George Washington, supplemented by James Monroe, and followed by the Government of the United States until near the end of the nineteenth century, when the frenzy for foreign adventurism burst upon the country.”5 Even Franklin Roosevelt, whose views difered wildly from Beard’s, felt it necessary in 1940 to make the not-entirely-true statement that, “The frst President of the United States warned us against entangling alliances. The present President of the United States subscribes to and follows that precept.”6 “Isolationism” is a term that has been with us for quite some time, and some historians have protested that it has outlived its usefulness and should be replaced. It is certainly true that Americans in the years between the world wars were not isolationists in terms of trade or cultural relations with other countries. And since the issuance of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has been more than willing to use its military when dealing with the nations of Latin America. In this view, the Caribbean is an American lake, over which the United States enjoys exclusive hegemony. By Wilson’s time, this region accounted for half of U.S. foreign investment, and America has not hesitated to intervene when it believed its interests were at stake.7 Secretary of State John Kerry’s declaration in 2013 that, “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over” owes more to the aspirational than the actual.8 This term really hinges on the U.S. foreign policy toward Europe and to a lesser extent Asia. Andrew Johnstone argues that, “Non-interventionism, or anti-interventionism, is a much more accurate term than isolationism when addressing the inter-war years and the run-up to World War II.”9 Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz claim that, “When historians use the term ‘isolationism,’ they are really referring to opposition to intervention in wars overseas, particularly in Europe, and to such ‘entangling alliances’ as collective security agreements or such international organizations as the League of Nations.” So far, so good, but Doenecke and Wilz are unhappy with this term because isolationism “connotes a host of vices—indiference, dangerous naiveté, appeasement of dictators—one fnds ‘anti-interventionism’ a far more

Introduction

3

accurate term.”10 Without commenting on the practicality of scrapping any words that might be used negatively (e.g., “liberal,” “conservative”) it must be said that “anti-interventionism” creates its own problems. Didn’t the U.S. government “intervene” internationally in the Washington Naval Conference, the Kellogg-Briand deliberations, and numerous disarmament conferences in the decades between the wars while still maintaining the isolationist position of refusal to commit its military to international enforcement? Defning isolationism is difcult because isolationists were so diverse. There were isolationists who were pacifsts and isolationists who favored a military buildup. There were isolationists who wanted to extend support to the Allies, and isolationists who were adamantly against it. There were isolationist women’s groups and religious organizations, as well as isolationist newspaper publishers, veterans, students, and socialists. They came from every region of the country and every social class. Despite their diferences, what united these factions was the conviction that the United States must maintain an independent foreign policy (especially in regard to the nations of Europe), and keep its military out of conficts. It is hard to improve on historian Manfred Jonas’ defnition as “unilateralism in foreign afairs and the avoidance of war.”11 Overwhelmingly, this is how “isolationism” has been used in the past, and in seeking to redefne it we may be putting forward a solution in search of a problem. Undeniably, some isolationists were unhappy with the label, but others accepted it. Gerald P. Nye, for instance, said, “I maintain that we isolationists—and here I defnitely accept the term—are realists.”12 In one measure of the utility and historical resonance of “isolationism,” the title of Doenecke’s and Wilz’s book is From Isolation to War, 1931–1941. For over a hundred years, Americans kept their military in the Western Hemisphere and made no incursions into the Old World.13 This changed in 1917, when American idealism, coupled with woeful German miscalculations, drove Americans across the Atlantic and into the Great War. Of all the conficts fought by Americans, the Great War presents the greatest contrast between the hopes expressed as the nation entered the war, and the disillusionment that followed. Other conficts, such as wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq have been less than popular, but few expected that the conclusion of these wars would see the dawning of the millennium. The Great War was diferent: It was to be an epochal struggle to preserve democracy and civilization. War itself would be brought to an end. When the confict ended and the millennium failed to materialize, Americans felt foolish and betrayed. They would spend the next two decades bitterly condemning the war as savage and unnecessary, and insisting that the United States isolate itself from any future Old World adventures. While others pleaded that America must step forward and claim its international destiny, they were a distinct minority until the mid-1930s. No other issue save the Great Depression would consume the attention of so many Americans of this generation. When Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. surveyed the national quarrels

4

Introduction

of his lifetime, including communism in the late Forties, McCarthyism in the Fifties, and Vietnam in the following decade, he said of the isolationism issue that “none so tore apart families and friendships as this fght.”14 One thing that makes the isolationism of this period intriguing is its sudden reappearance. With the conclusion of the war, there was a near consensus in the United States that the old admonishments against foreign entanglements had outlived their usefulness, and that America was poised for a new era of internationalism. As American war correspondent Frederic Villiers put it in 1918, “The war will change the face of civilization. The United States is preparing to take its place as the great guardian of the peace of the world.”15 A year later, denunciations of the war—and promotion of its isolationist corollary—could be found everywhere in American life: in literature, economics, politics, and religion. The war was excoriated by conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, farmers and laborers, and Catholics and Protestants. Jane Addams, who combined pacifsm with feminism, condemned the war and endorsed isolationism, but so did Ernest Hemingway, a veteran of that war and among our most “masculine” writers. Herbert Hoover was an isolationist and even H.  L. Mencken, who viewed war as a social Darwinist necessity, was critical of American participation in the Great War. In Congress, it was equally difcult to make any sweeping statements about the politics of isolationism. While isolationism was more dominant in the Republican party, plenty of Democrats embraced this idea. Montana Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler, for instance, was a Progressive in his politics and had worked to expose the corruption of Attorney General Harry Daugherty in the Harding Administration. He supported Roosevelt until 1937, then became one of the most outspoken of isolationists. Along the way, Wheeler gained Hollywood immortality when a book based on his fght against corruption was turned into the 1939 flm Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.16 Like Wheeler, many isolationists came from farm states in the nation’s interior rather than the coasts. Gerald P. Nye was from North Dakota, William E. Borah from Idaho, and George W. Norris from Nebraska. But this doesn’t describe Hiram Johnson, who was from California, Hamilton Fish from New York, or Henry Cabot Lodge from Massachusetts. As historian David Kennedy puts it, Isolationism may have been most pronounced in the landlocked Midwest, but Americans of both sexes, of all ages, religions, and political persuasions, from all ethnic groups and regions, shared in the postwar years a feeling of apathy toward Europe, not to mention the rest of the wretchedly quarrelsome world, that border on disgust.17 This debate brought forth abundant surprises. As America was entering the war, philosopher John Dewey endorsed American participation as an act of Progressivism. After the war, Dewey expressed fears that “we engage in foreign

Introduction  5

policies only at the risk of harming even such imperfect internal democracy as we have already achieved.”18 Then there was the case of Warren G. Harding. He had won the presidency in a landslide in 1920 endorsing foreign disengagement and the Senate’s rejection of the Versailles Treaty. But shortly before he died Harding said, I did not believe any man could confront the responsibility of a President of the United States and yet adhere to the idea that it was possible for our country to maintain an attitude of isolation and aloofness in the world.19 Father Charles E. Coughlin, the populist Catholic priest, built a huge radio audience with his attacks on big business, Jews, Communists, Prohibition, birth control, and World War I. Coughlin referred to the “futility and the barren results which have accrued to the world from this great war.”20 Coughlin’s isolationist prescription was, Less care for internationalism and more care for national prosperity; less concern for the welfare of Europe and more concern for the welfare of our millions . . . 21 Like Coughlin, Joseph P. Kennedy wielded enormous influence in the Irish-Catholic community, even though he was part of the wealthy business class that Coughlin detested. Yet Kennedy was also an isolationist. As the Second World War was raging in 1940, Kennedy said, “There’s no place in this fight for us.22 There was a huge social distance between Coughlin’s listeners and students at Harvard University, but Harvard students also condemned the Great War as an exercise to line the pockets of business interests. In a 1939 poll of 1,800 students, 95 percent opposed American entry into the Second World War.23 The resumption by Americans of their isolationist ways was jarring for a people whose entry into the Great War had been characterized by fervent idealism, and who in the war’s immediate aftermath believed that the United States was entering a new era of international involvement. Typifying the optimism of those who came of age shortly before the outbreak of the Great War was future Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who remembered passionately believing that the errors of the past were to be valiantly corrected; that human wrongs would all be righted; that the self-determination of peoples would end oppression; that human freedom and individual security would become realities; that war, in this new dawn breaking over the earth, was now a nightmare of the past.24

6

Introduction

Of all the nations that participated in the Great War, America had sufered the fewest casualties. Yet curiously, European travelers who visited the United States after the war noted that disillusionment about the war was greater here than in Europe. Perhaps, as Louise Maunsell Field noted, “those who had the highest hopes and held them the most frmly sufered the greatest disappointment.”25 Disappointment fostered revisionism. Americans busily began to reinterpret the war and to reexamine the role that the United States had played and, more importantly, should henceforward play, in world afairs. Every nation creates a history appropriate to its own time, and in this sense, all history is revisionist history. Yet there are few histories so much at variance with the actual facts as the interpretations that were crafted in the 1920s and 1930s. At the beginning of this era, it was commonplace to proclaim that the Allies won the war but lost the peace at Versailles. This argument has a great deal of merit, but American post-war revisionists increasingly argued that the war itself should never have been fought. Certainly, the revisionists performed a service by illustrating how the toxic combination of militarism, imperialism, and ethnic and racial hatred—promulgated by both the Allies and Central Powers—had poisoned the atmosphere of pre-war Europe. Where the revisionists spectacularly failed the public was in their portrayal of Germany once the war was joined. No other nation fought with such concentrated ruthlessness. The German army threw the civilized niceties into the gutter and prosecuted the war on the single premise of military necessity. When Germany violated the neutrality of Belgium and invaded that country, German Chancellor Theobald Bethman Hollweg admitted that it was a violation of international law, but Germany was in a state of necessity, and “necessity knows no law.”26 Observers were appalled at the brutality and callousness of German military operations, especially in Belgium. When E. Alexander Powell questioned General Max von Boehn on the killing of Belgian women and children, Boehn replied, “If women and children insist on getting in the way of bullets, so much the worse for women and children.”27 The Germans killed thousands of civilians in Belgium and France, and thousands more died in German submarine attacks at sea. In German-occupied territory, there were massive deportations of local workers to Germany to serve as forced labor. By the end of the war, 100,000 Belgian workers and 600,000 Polish workers had been deported.28 It was Germany that introduced Zeppelin attacks on cities and poison gas on the battlefeld. To pay for its predations Germany had drawn up plans for the post-war period that included exorbitant penalties and wholesale annexations. As historian Max Hastings put it, Europe would have paid “a dreadful forfeit” for a German victory.29 America would be targeted next. Kaiser Wilhelm had already commissioned a study on how that might be done.30 The revisionist rehabilitation of Germany as the moral equal, and in the most extreme interpretations the moral superior, of the Allies, kept an entire generation of Americans from an understanding of the Great War.

Introduction

7

German actions during the war were detestable, but Americans were also incensed by the high-handedness of the British at sea. The seizure of American mail, the denial of coal to American ships, and the “blacklisting” of American frms not approved by the British government generated considerable ill-will and prompted a massive shipbuilding program in the United States. Without the German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, and without Woodrow Wilson’s success in portraying American entry into the war as an act of Progressive idealism, Americans would probably have stayed on their side of the Atlantic. The unrestrained sinking of American ships by German submarines left the United States with no choice, yet somehow Americans lost sight of this in the decades that came after the war. Post-war Americans also embraced the totally unfounded idea that they had been the dupes of Allied propaganda during the frst two-and-a-half years of the confict and that during that period of time they had no way of confrming for themselves what was going on in Europe. In fact, the most reliable reports of war-time conditions in Europe came out of the United States because American reporters had access to the armies and governments of both the Allied and Central Powers.31 Another theory popular among revisionists was that the “real” reason the United States went to war was to preserve American business interests.32 It will be part of our task to ask ourselves why Americans produced the post-war histories—and the views on foreign policy—that they did. Race was a factor in isolationist thought, especially early in this period. As we will see, fears that the United States would be inundated by masses of immigrants feeing war-torn Europe produced the draconian immigration restrictions of the 1920s. After that, nativism played a reduced role in isolationist debates with the notable exception of anti-Semitism. Many, but certainly not all, isolationists would develop well-earned reputations as anti-Semites. Isolationists also harbored anxieties about communism, an odious product of the Great War that many believed threatened the basic underpinnings of American life. The “Red Scare” of the late teens and early 1920s quickly died from lack of oxygen, but despite its feeble appeal to the masses, communism continued to exercise the emotions of such groups as the Dies Committee and the American Legion, as well as individuals such as Father Coughlin and William Randolph Hearst. Historian Justus Doenecke has referred to the haunting fear among isolationists that “the Soviet Union would emerge as the confict’s only victor,” and even Charles Lindbergh, who repeatedly condemned the British for trying to drag the United States into the Second World War, stated that he would “a hundred times rather see my country ally herself with England” than with “the cruelty, the godlessness, and the barbarism that exists in Soviet Russia…”33 (Not to be outdone, Senator Bennett Clark asked if Americans were to be sent to their deaths “singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ under the bloody emblem of the Hammer and Sickle.”)34

8

Introduction

More important than paranoia about communism or nativism in fueling isolationism was what happened at the Versailles Peace Conference, and in the years immediately after. First, there was the repudiation by the Allies of American idealism at Versailles. This would reverberate far into the future. (As isolationist senators were arguing in opposition to the Lend-Lease bill in 1941, they released a statement saying that the Versailles Treaty “completely disregarded American concepts of democracy and peace”).35 This was certainly a European misstep, but instead of seeking to repair the damage in the years following Versailles, the former Allies seemed determined to convert newly fedged American internationalists into isolationists. French and British politicians belittled the contribution made by the American military during the war, then asked for more money from the United States. Americans were sympathetic with the need to rebuild Europe, but could not help but notice that these requests for money were happening at the same time Europeans were trying to get out of the debts they already owed. It also became obvious that Britain and France had used the opportunity of the war to enhance their colonial empires, which made anti-imperialism an isolationist argument for non-involvement in Europe. In 1939, evangelist Kirby Page insisted that what was going on in Europe was “not a war between democracy and totalitarianism, but a death grapple between rival imperialisms…”36 When Gerald P. Nye opposed sending destroyers to Britain in 1940, he characterized Britain’s position in the Second World War as “a continuation of the old European confict of power politics, a fght to save an empire.”37 Unlike Nye, General Hugh S. Johnson, a former Roosevelt Administration ofcial (he was the frst head of the National Recovery Administration) supported aid to Britain but cautioned that such assistance should only be given when it benefted the United States. Britain was not fghting our war, said Johnson, but fghting “for continued imperial domination over weaker and exploited, subdued and subject peoples.”38 The horror of the world’s frst mechanized war, brought to vivid life by the “Lost Generation” of writers, increased revulsion about the war and created the understandable desire not to repeat such carnage in the future. There was also the sense that by participating in this European war America had strayed beyond what had made her great to begin with. Historian Charles A. Beard claimed that “the people of the United States have been badly burned trying to right historic wrongs in Europe, to promote democracy there, and to act as a mediator in European quarrels.”39 As John Dos Passos put it, “Rejection of Europe is what America is all about.”40 Isolationism did not mean that the United States withdrew entirely from world afairs during the inter-war years. American business activity in the international realm was extremely active, as was American investment in foreign ventures. Americans Charles G. Dawes and Owen D. Young played decisive roles in negotiations between Germany and the Allies on the reparation issue. The United States hosted international conferences and talks, and its leaders participated in various disarmament discussions around the world. Yet the U.S.

Introduction

9

government was unwilling to commit itself to the enforcement of any agreement because American popular support simply was not there. Instead what America had to ofer was moral suasion. This was not a completely ludicrous notion because backers of this approach believed that all they had to do was to point to the Great War and the grim consequences of nations refusing to get along. In the end, however, the public revulsion of the recent war was not enough. As the political situation was deteriorating in Europe in 1935, Hamilton Fish Armstrong observed that, “There are few examples in history of the strong voluntarily handing something over to the weak in order to serve ideal justice…”41 As another world war was beginning in 1939, C. Hartley Grattan published The Deadly Parallel. The parallel in the title was of course the parallel between the start of the Great War and the start of World War  II. Grattan saw propagandists busily at work once again, noting, “Today the drama is democracy vs. Fascism; yesterday it was democracy vs. hun militarism [orig. emphasis].” That was it exactly, but these were not dichotomies invented by propagandists but were rooted in a deadly struggle to the death in which if the democracies lost, they would lose everything. It would take Americans a long time to fully absorb this basic proposition. Stout resistance toward participating in another world war continued until the attack on Pearl Harbor. A grudging credit must be given to isolationists not only for successfully keeping their views before the public for two decades but for convincing the public of the validity of those views. On the other hand, one can argue that the public did not need convincing because they already had strongly held convictions. As historian Bill Kaufmann put it, among Americans “left and right, coast and plains, was a sense that the very survival of their country was at stake.” Isolationists, according to Kaufmann, were more representative of the country “than the narrow interventionist movement, which was concentrated among the monied classes of the eastern seaboard.”42 Divining who would most likely be an isolationist or an internationalist was a doomed exercise. William Allen White, a small-town Kansas newspaper editor who might be expected to line up with the rural Midwest isolationist bloc, was instead an outspoken internationalist who created the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. On the other hand, one would assume that Harry Hopkins would have impeccable international credentials because of his role as the President’s trusted foreign adviser and chief emissary to Winston Churchill. But Hopkins was solidly in the isolationist camp until very late, and when war returned to Europe in 1939 he observed that, “I believe that we really can keep out of it. Fortunately, there is no great sentiment in this country for getting into it…”43 And always there was the shadow of the Great War. As late as 1941, with full-fedged wars raging in both Asia and Europe, Stuart Chase was urging an isolationist course for the United States by emphasizing the catastrophe of the First World War. That war, according to Chase, had smashed free speech, free enterprise within nations, free world markets, freedom of the seas, and the gold standard. It had created

10

Introduction

“Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, national socialism, barter deals, communism, autarchy, the new order in Asia, the New Deal in America, [and] the economic disintegration of the British Empire.”44 There is something about this subject of isolationism that has brought out the worst in practitioners of our craft. Unwilling to entertain any complexities (or to go to the historical record for actual evidence), too many historians have been willing to accept a consensus view. In a typical efort, the author will sprinkle in some quotes from Wilson and a few senators, then the whole post-war debate between internationalists and isolationists will be disposed of in a few sentences as the narrative hurries on. What the reader gets are gaudy, facile statements about the nature of isolationism—and generalities about the American public—that would never pass muster if a diferent subject were being engaged. For instance, in The Isolationist Impulse, Selig Adler claimed that isolationism among Americans was rooted in “an innate selfshness [that] made them reluctant to share our good fortune with other peoples.” Also contributing to the isolationist impulse, according to Adler, was an “acute nostalgia for the good old days—for cigar store wooden Indians, for the Police Gazette, and for Casey who waltzed with a strawberry blonde.”45 Could a more pathetic analysis be imagined? Joining Adler in his critique of the supposed shallowness of American isolationists was Robert A. Divine, who argued that Americans after the Great War “supported a foreign policy of self-indulgence that refected the hedonistic mood of the 1920s.”46 Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., claimed that isolationism returned after the Great War because “there was no real intention on the part of most Americans to shake ‘isolationism’ permanently,” and because “Americans were incapable of dredging up any new emotional enthusiasm for the League.”47 If Fensterwald had bothered to do any research in support of his thesis, he would have been surprised to fnd that the opposite was the case. As we will see beginning in Chapter 1, there was a deep seriousness among Americans as they contemplated the aftermath of the war, and in hundreds of articles they overwhelmingly endorsed a new internationalism—and the League of Nations. Others dismissed isolationism as the product of a parochial mind, but in fact some of the greatest minds endorsed this idea. As historian Manfred Jonas puts it, isolationism between the wars “cannot be dismissed as simple obstructionism based on ignorance and folly.” It was “the considered response to foreign and domestic developments of a large, responsible and respectable segment of the American people.”48 One of the most prominent critiques of isolationism was that the United States could have had a defnitive impact on European politics prior to World War II. Selig Adler saw isolationism as “a roadblock to the formation of an enlightened American foreign policy which conceivably might have prevented the Fascist nightmare.”49 Likewise, historian Ronald E. Powaski believes that if the United States had given Europeans, and especially the French, the security guarantees

Introduction  11

that they sought, “it may have averted the catastrophe of the Second World War. At the very least, an American guarantee may have made unnecessary the vindictive and inflexible policy that France pursued against G ­ ermany…”50 But the ancient tribal conflicts of Europe, coupled with enormous new problems, would not easily have yielded to any outside pressure, especially from a green, upstart nation that many on the continent held in contempt. This could be seen early on at Versailles when American suggestions for a more conciliatory stance toward Germany were bluntly dismissed by the French. To expect that any n ­ ation might be able to moderate the old Franco-German grudge, least of all one from a different hemisphere, was simply wishful thinking. Like the First World War, responsibility for the even greater catastrophe of the Second World War rests with Europeans themselves. In September 1939 Franklin Roosevelt addressed an Extraordinary Session of Congress to ask for a repeal of the embargo provision of the Neutrality Law. Roosevelt had always been an avid internationalist, but when he surveyed the ruined peace of Europe he said, “The disaster is not of our making; no act of ours engendered the forces which assault the foundation of civilization.”51 Many in Europe also acknowledged that the sins of the past had returned to haunt the present, and were determined that such a thing not happen again. In his diary entry for 22 September, Churchill’s private secretary John Colville wrote that if the Allies won this war, they must “treat the Germans with the utmost generosity and make a clean sweep of the past… There must be no ‘guilt clause’, no reparations and no public humiliation of Germany.”52 Why were so many Americans committed to isolationism? This study will attempt to find out, and give a fair hearing to both isolationists and internationalists. Wherever possible, primary sources will be used to give these historical actors a voice. And while there have been many excellent histories that have emphasized the isolationism of the 1930s, especially in opposition to the Roosevelt Administration, we will go back to 1919 where the isolationism of this era has its origins. Some have called American entry into the Second World War “inevitable,” but when Americans were asked in late November 1941 if war should be declared against Germany, 63 percent said no.53 The ­isolationist sentiment was so strong that it is debatable whether the United States would have been drawn in without the Pearl Harbor attack (and the German declaration of war a few days later). Joseph C. Grew, for ten years the American ambassador to Japan, expressed the belief that if Japan had only attacked the Philippines, “there would have been pacifists and isolationists at home who would have said that we have no business in the Far East…”54 By attacking Hawaii, the Japanese simultaneously united ­A mericans and pushed them into war. Roosevelt also acknowledged the strength of pre-war isolationism at the “Big Three” conference at Teheran in 1943. The President noted that, “if the Japanese had not attacked the United States he doubted very much if it would have been possible to send any American forces to Europe.”55

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Even after Americans were fully engaged in the confict, it was clear that they wanted none of the “propaganda” that had been so prevalent during the Great War. That war, and its attendant disappointments, had evaporated their susceptibility to idealistic appeals, and ofcials in charge of motivating the troops during the Second World War constantly lamented the soldiers’ indifference to ideology. Among the many falsehoods of the “Greatest Generation” premise is that an aura of intense patriotism dominated the country during World War II. Instead, Americans fought the war based on pragmatism, and with arguably less in the way of idealism than the citizens of any other nation.56 It’s also important to remember that the slaughter of the Great War had been seared into the collective memory. The horror of mechanized death, and a deeply held conviction that such a thing must never happen again, fed both isolationism in America and appeasement in Europe. Grand statements about making every sacrifce to oppose tyranny have a very diferent resonance when someone from your family is to be put in harm’s way. After the declaration of war against Japan following the Pearl Harbor attack, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was very far from being an isolationist, recalled that, “I was deeply unhappy. I remember my anxieties about my husband and brother when World War I began. I had four sons of military age.”57 A few years earlier, as the situation in Europe was deteriorating, isolationist Joseph P. Kennedy wrote a letter to his friend Robert Fisher. Both Kennedy and Fisher had sons of military age, and Kennedy agonized, “I wonder how safe your sons and mine are from war.”58 All four Roosevelt sons would serve in the military and survive. Joseph Kennedy was not so lucky. His son Joseph Kennedy, Jr., was killed in 1944 when his plane exploded in midair. In a tribute to Roosevelt in 1948, Winston Churchill claimed that the President had “changed decisively and permanently the moral axis of mankind by involving the new world inexorably and irrevocably in the fortunes of the old.”59 Indeed, the United States assumed international leadership for some seventy years after the Second World War, but that has not meant that isolationist impulses also ended. In 1950, Senator Robert A. Taft asked for a reappraisal of military aid to Europe, and in the same year, Joseph P. Kennedy demanded a withdrawal of America’s “unwise commitments” in Berlin and Korea. The following year Herbert Hoover even revived the “ocean barriers” idea, which had seemingly been repudiated by the Pearl Harbor attack, by suggesting that the United States was “surrounded by a great moat.” America, said Hoover, could be economically self-sufcient, and need not involve herself in the afairs of Europe or Asia.60 In 1961, before getting the nation involved in Vietnam, John F. Kennedy said that “we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and therefore there cannot be an American solution for every world problem.”61 In 1972, in the midst of American disillusionment about intervention in the Vietnam War, Democratic candidate George McGovern appealed to his fellow citizens to “Come Home, America.” Republican presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan revived the “America First” idea in 1996,

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13

questioning America’s far-fung international commitments. In 2011, with another election in the ofng, a number of Republican hopefuls went on record as opposing Obama’s air war against Libya. John McCain said, “This is isolationism. There’s always been an isolation strain in the Republican Party…”62 Recent developments demonstrate that a study of isolationism has never been more relevant. In a poll taken in 2013, a majority of Americans expressed the belief that the United States “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” In early 2014, after Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimea, 56 percent of Americans said that the United States should not become involved.63 In Bret Stephens’ America in Retreat, published in 2014, the author condemned the trend toward isolationism in America and identifed its chief proponent: Barack Obama. There had been widespread revulsion over American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama seemed to speak for much of the nation when he declared, “We should not be the world’s policeman.” Yet Stephens emphasized that isolationism was a bi-partisan sentiment. Far-right libertarian Rand Paul echoed Obama’s words when he insisted that, “America’s mission should always be to keep the peace, not police the world.”64 Both were drawing on a rich tradition, which can be seen in the 1939 statement of Senator Arthur Capper (R-Kansas) that, “It is not our job to determine the boundary disputes, nor the power disputes, or other Europe controversies, nor to attempt to police the world.”65 Stephens fears that isolationism has become a one-sizefts-all foreign policy, with the left embracing it as a way to endorse pacifsm, to demonstrate a reluctance to judge others, and to express liberal guilt over past actions. On the right, isolationism has become a way to avoid unintended consequences while refecting a conviction that others cannot be saved by ourselves.66 Condemning America’s “retreat doctrine,” Stephens held out hope that “as the consequences of Obama’s foreign policy become more evident” both the left and the right could make a strong case for internationalism.67 How far the world of 2014 seems from our own world! In 2016, Republican internationalists Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were routed in the primaries, while Hillary Clinton struggled against left-wing isolationist Bernie Sanders.68 In Donald Trump’s election, we produced a head of state whose hostility toward international involvement made Obama seem like a radical internationalist. No other president has been as reliably hostile toward America’s traditional European allies than Trump. Part of the problem was that in Donald Trump we had one of the most poorly prepared presidents in the nation’s history. In one example, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton claims that Trump seemed unaware that Britain was a nuclear power, and asked whether Finland was a part of Russia.69 If ignorance is bliss, then Trump came close to achieving nirvana. For America’s allies, the outlook has been considerably grimmer. The president insulted them at international gatherings, withdrew from the Paris climate accord, and threatened to withdraw the United States

14

Introduction

from NATO. He walked away from the nuclear treaty with Iran and abandoned the Kurds. His brand of “America First” nationalism eerily echoes a similar movement in the late-1930s and early-1940s. At a meeting in Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that “giving in to the fascination for withdrawal, isolationism, violence, and domination would be a grave error that future generations would very rightly make us responsible for.” Trump countered, “You know what a globalist is? A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much. And you know what? We can’t have that.” 70 In the wake of the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Trump’s chief domestic adviser Stephen Miller defended the president and summarized Trump’s global outlook: “Let’s defend our national security. Let’s put America frst. Let’s not spill American blood to fght the enemies of other countries.” 71 No isolationist from the 1920s and 1930s could have put it better, and Trump would no doubt endorse the statement that Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nevada) made in 1939: “I think one American boy, the son of an American mother, is worth more than all Central Europe.” 72 When we look at the inter-war years, we are in many ways looking at what Barbara Tuchman called “a distant mirror.” Isolationism, the huge gulf between the haves and have nots, the hostility to immigration, the concern with foreign propaganda, and suspicion of market capitalism overshadowed both that era and our own. There is also the fourishing of conspiracy theories. One commentator has compared Trump’s insistence that his loss in 2020 was due to dark forces bent on undermining the election, to the “stab-in-the-back” theory that was so popular in Germany after the Great War.73 The rise of far-right leaders internationally and the prevalence of populist rhetoric in our own nation–Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh in the 1930s and Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in our own time–has left many feeling that their country is no longer recognizable. Sanders’ questioning of “whether it makes sense to spend trillions more on endless wars, wars that often cause more problems than they solve” eerily evokes the views of many on the far right.74 As Anne Morrow Lindbergh expressed it in 1940, “In recent years, my generation has seen the beliefs, the formulas, and the creeds, that we were brought to trust implicitly, one by one thrown in danger, if not actually discarded…” 75 Consider the following quotations: “Nationalism—not ‘Internationalism’— is the indispensable bulwark of American independence.” A Trump supporter? In fact, this was a statement made by isolationist Arthur Vandenberg (R- Michigan) in 1925.76 “We must ignore the tears of sobbing sentimentalists and internationalists, and we must permanently close, lock, and bar the gates of our country to new immigration waves and then throw the keys away.” Likewise, this did not come from a Fox News commentator but from Congressman Martin Dies (D-Texas) in 1934.77 Stephen Miller, the White House aide who was the driver behind Trump’s immigration policy, even supported a complete ban on immigration “like Coolidge did.” 78

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When Bret Stephens checked back in 2019, he found an “upsurge of nativist rancor, protectionist barriers and every-nation-for-itself policies, along with deep doubts about the viability of liberal democracy and the international order. Father Coughlin and the America Firsters then; Donald Trump and the America Firsters now.” 79 Meredith Crowley has proclaimed the end of “freewheeling markets and liberalism.” The return of autarchy seems to be at hand, with the public questioning international capitalism and supporting higher tarifs reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley legislation of 1930.80 The spread of the Covid-19 virus beginning in 2020 has only increased the national inclination toward isolationism championed by Trump. Indeed, Trump is not a foreign policy outlier but represents widely held American views. Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group Foundation, notes that the foundation’s recent study on U.S. public opinion confrmed that Americans by and large supported Trump’s view of the world: No matter what party they claim allegiance to, Americans favor a foreign policy that resists entanglements abroad . . . in many ways Trump’s views align with the ways in which a majority of American taxpayers would defne the future U.S. role in the world ‘America frst’ isn’t just a Trump catchphrase. When it comes to foreign policy, it’s become a national world view.81 As this book went into production, Joe Biden was poised to become president of the United States. In the New York Times, Rick Gladstone wrote that “Mr. Biden is expected to reverse many of Mr. Trump’s isolationist and antiimmigration policies…”82 While Biden has stated that “‘America First’ has made America alone,” his administration will be characterized by both changes and continuity in American foreign policy.83 When William and Mary’s Global Research Institute surveyed over 700 university scholars in October 2020, the respondents noted that Biden had voiced support for NATO, membership in the World Health Organization, and a commitment to the Paris climate change agreement.84 Ninety-two percent of those surveyed expressed the belief that foreign governments would be more likely to cooperate with the United States with the installation of a Biden Administration.85 When the Biden camp felded questions from the Council on Foreign Relations, it indicated that the United States would rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to block Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons (a  plan complicated by the assassination of high-ranking Iranians). The Biden Administration’s posture toward China would remain much the same, with an emphasis on supporting the Hong Kong demonstrators and condemning China’s policy toward the Uighur minorities.86 (Biden once referred to President Xi Jinping as a “thug.”) In North Korea, where that nation’s ofcial news agency called Biden a rabid dog that “must be beaten to death with a stick,” it seems likely that Trump’s conciliatory approach will come to an end.87 And while

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Trump’s decision to draw down the number of troops in Afghanistan has been widely criticized, Biden’s views are not that diferent. Biden noted that “Americans are rightly weary of our longest war; I am, too.”88 It seems highly unlikely that the Biden Administration would commit large numbers of troops to a foreign war, but the future is unpredictable. Many presidents who were elected on the basis of domestic issues—such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt—found that foreign conficts dominated their administrations. It is dismayingly the case that events often overwhelm the most determined, carefully crafted policies, and that includes the policy of isolationism. By studying isolationism when it was so intensely debated, we can perhaps come to a better understanding of the appeal of an idea that seems so deeply rooted in the American psyche. The inter-war years were an age in which pacifsts claimed that peace could prevail if people simply refused to fght, historians produced histories that were wildly at odds with the facts, and businesses were vilifed for the role they had played in the Great War. There was a disgust with the shambles Europeans had made of their continent, and a determination to keep whatever pathogens Europe produced away from American shores. But Americans had created plenty of their own problems, including Red-baiting, nativism, Jim Crow, and a robust anti-Semitism. Isolationism in America brought forth such demagogues as Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh, but what Europe produced during this era was much worse. The rise of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin led to the greatest catastrophe in human history. We can only hope that history will treat our own age more kindly. Rather than a “dangerous and irresponsible bout of passivity during the interwar era,” as historian Charles A. Kupchan styles it, isolationism as a foreign policy—at least between 1919 and 1933—was both inevitable and reasonable.89 It was, in fact, the only foreign policy possible because of widespread American repugnance toward the Old World. Indeed, the chief architects of American isolationism after the Great War were Britain and France. Europeans bore the responsibility for putting their own house together, and until they did so any American involvement would have been both futile and resented. There was little evidence that the former Allied powers were up to the task. Britain abandoned France and reverted to the old strategy of pitting continental rivals against each other. For its part, France pursued a pathological enmity against Germany, culminating in the ill-fated Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. The short-sightedness of the post-war European leadership can hardly be laid at the feet of America (though they tried). With the rise of Hitler in 1933, Americans began to realize the dire threat posed by Nazi Germany, and quite properly began to divest themselves of their isolationist views. This study will look at both the tenets of isolationism and isolationists as individuals. While it is fairly easy to defne isolationism—a desire to keep the United States out of Old World entanglements that might require military force—the arguments made to achieve this goal were as varied as isolationists

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17

themselves. Isolationists often had little in common, and they accepted some arguments while violently rejecting others. But they were united in the conviction that American participation in the Great War had been a mistake and that the United States should take this lesson to heart and avoid future military commitments abroad. From this premise, one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century was born.

Notes 1 Joseph J. Ellis, American Dialogue: The Founders and Us (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018), 201. 2 Ellis, 203–04. 3 See Ronald E. Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901–1950 (New York: Greenwood, 1991), xvii. 4 Clark quoted in Thomas N. Guinsburg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States Senate from Versailles to Pearl Harbor (New York: Garland, 1982), 278–79; Allen W. Dulles, “The Cost of Peace,” Foreign Afairs 12, no. 4 ( July 1934), 578. 5 Charles A. Beard, “Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels: An Estimate of American Foreign Policy,” Harpers Magazine, September 1939, 347. 6 Quoted in Nicholas Wapshott, The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), 155. 7 Charles A. Kupchan, Isolationism: A History of America’s Eforts to Shield Itself from the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 222. 8 Quoted in “The Return of the Monroe Doctrine,” The Economist 436, no. 9212 (September 19th–25th, 2020), 35. 9 Andrew Johnstone, “Isolationism and Internationalism in American Foreign Afairs,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 9, no. 1 (March 2011), 10. 10 Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Chichester: Wiley, 2003), 4. See also Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2000). In 1940, Arthur H. Vandenberg made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that “insulation” be substituted for “isolation,” and described an insulationist as “one who wants to preserve all of the isolation which modern circumstances will permit.” Arthur H. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. (New York: Houghton Mifin, 1952), 3–4. 11 Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 [1966] (Chicago, IL: Imprint Publications, 1990), 15. 12 Gerald P. Nye, “Yes, Says Nye,” New York Times, January 14, 1940. 13 Perhaps the one exception here is Jeferson’s dispatch of American ships to fght the Barbary pirates. 14 Quoted in Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), xviii. 15 Frederic Villiers, “Must Have Aeroplanes to Win Quickly,” The Forum, October 1918, 456. 16 See Olson, 60–63. 17 David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 386. 18 Quoted in Charles DeBenedetti, “Alternative Strategies in the American Peace Movement in the 1920s,” Peace Movements in America, ed. Charles Chatfeld (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), 61. 19 Quoted in George W. Wickersham, “The Senate and Our Foreign Relations,” Foreign Afairs 2, no. 2 (December 15, 1923), 181.

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20 Charles E. Coughlin, “Lest We Forget,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930–April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 63. 21 Charles E. Coughlin, “Internationalism,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930–April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Know and O’Leary, 1931), 108. 22 Quoted in David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (New York: Penguin, 2012), 431. 23 James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 117. 24 Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 3. 25 Louise M. Field, “Idealism’s Bank Holiday,” American Points of View, 1934–1935, ed. William H. Cordell and Kathryn Coe Cordell (Garden City, NY: Doran, 1936), 67. 26 Quoted in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 240. 27 E. Alexander Powell, “General’s Reply to Belgian Charges,” New York Times, September 14, 1914. Reprinted from 13 September New York World. 28 See Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 84. 29 Max Hastings, Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War (New York: Vintage Books, 2013), 563. 30 In 2002, papers were found in the German military archive in Freiburg laying out a plan for an amphibious assault on the United States. The impetus for the study apparently originated in the Kaiser’s fears that once the Panama Canal was fnished, the United States would deny access to Germany. The plan was shelved in 1907 after the United States strengthened its navy. See Kate Connolly, “German Archive Reveals Kaiser’s Plan to Invade America,” The Guardian, May 8, 2002. See also Reinhard R. Doerries, “The Politics of Irresponsibility: Imperial Germany’s Defance of United States Neutrality during World War I,” Germany and America: Essays on Problems of International Relations and Immigration, ed. Hans L. Trefousse (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1980), 3–4. Pleading for Germany’s benign intentions is Michael Kazin, who has stated “I wish the United States had stayed out of the Great War. Imperial Germany posed no threat to the American homeland and no longterm threat to its economic interests, and the consequences of its defeat made the world a more dangerous place.” Michael Kazin, War against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), xvii. 31 See Kenneth D. Rose, The Great War and Americans in Europe, 1914–1917 (New York: Routledge, 2017). 32 The revisionist historical tradition was carried on after the war by William A. Williams and his followers. They rejected the idea that American foreign policy might be informed by any motivation other than economic and condemned every transaction on the international market as an act of imperialism. Their failure to address the brutal reality of life in the Soviet Union and its subject nations was especially egregious. See William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy [1959] (New York: Delta, 1962). For an insightful essay on the Williams school, see John A. Thompson, “William Appleman Williams and the ‘American Empire,’” Journal of American Studies 7, no. 1 (April 1973), 91–104. 33 Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2000), 236. Lindbergh quoted in Justus D. Doenecke, “Power, Markets and Ideology: The Isolationist Response to Roosevelt Policy, 1940–1941,” Watershed of Empire: Essays on New Deal Foreign Policy, ed. Leonard P. Liggio and James J. Martin (Colorado Springs, CO: Ralph Myles, 1976), 147. 34 Quoted in Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—The Election amid the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 61. Roosevelt Administration

Introduction

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48

49 50 51

52 53

19

ofcials worried over public reaction to the extension of Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union. In a letter to Churchill’s parliamentary private secretary Brendan Bracken, Roosevelt foreign policy adviser Harry Hopkins stated, “We have some difculty with our public opinion with regard to Russia. The American people don’t take aid to Russia easily.” Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, Vol. I: September 1939–January 1942 [1948] (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950), 373–74. In the end, the extension of aid to Russia passed both houses of Congress comfortably, perhaps because by September 1941 the threat posed by Nazi Germany had become apparent to all but the most extreme isolationists. Frederick R. Barkley, “Isolationists Seek to Force Nations to State War Aims,” New York Times, January 27, 1941. Kirby Page, How to Keep America Out of War (Philadelphia, PA: American Friends Service Committee, 1939), 3. “Destroyer Sale Attacked by Nye,” New York Times, September 2, 1940. Hugh S. Johnson, Hell-Bent For War (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941), 49. Charles A. Beard, The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibility of Keeping Out of War (New York: Vanguard Press, 1936), 117. See Kennedy, 387–88. Hamilton F. Armstrong, “Power Politics and the Peace Machinery,” Foreign Afairs 14, no. 1 (October 1935), 4. Bill Kaufmann, “Editor’s Introduction,” Ruth Sarles, A Story of America First: The Men and Women Who Opposed U.S. Intervention in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), xvi. Quoted in Sherwood, 125. Stuart Chase, The Road We Are Traveling, 1914–1942 (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1942), 25. Chase wrote his book before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ibid., 5. Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse: Its Twentieth-Century Reaction (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1957), 95, 94. Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979), 2. For the historiography of isolationism, see Brian McKercher, “Reaching for the Brass Ring: The Recent Historiography of Interwar Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 15, no. 4 (October 1991), 565–98; Justus Doenecke, Anti-Intervention: A Bibliographical Introduction to Isolationism and Pacifsm from World War I to the Early Cold War (New York: Garland, 1987). Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., “The Anatomy of American ‘Isolationism’ and Expansionism,” Pt. 1, The Journal of Confict Resolution 2, no. 2 ( June 1958), 121. Manfred Jonas, “Preface,” Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 [1966] (Chicago, IL: Imprint Publications, 1990), xiv; In his 1944 work The Battle against Isolation, Walter Johnson claimed that isolationist leaders “did a great disservice to the United States by morally disarming that segment of our people which accepted their leadership.” Walter Johnson, The Battle against Isolation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1944), 228. Selig Adler, The Uncertain Giant, 1921–1941: American Foreign Policy between the Wars (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 20. Powaski, 56–57. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Message to Congress Urging the Extraordinary Session to Repeal the Embargo Provision of the Neutrality Law,” Washington, D.C., September 21, 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932–1945, ed. B. D. Zevin (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1946), 192. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 26. George Gallup, “The Gallup Poll,” Washington Post, November 22, 1941.

20 Introduction

54 Joseph C. Grew, Ten Years in Japan: A Contemporary Record Drawn from the Diaries and Private and Ofcial Papers of Joseph C. Grew [1944] (London: Hammond, Hammond & Co., 1945), 426–27. 55 Quoted in Kennedy, 679. Historian Alan J. P. Taylor argued that “it is difcult to see how Roosevelt could ever have got his country into the European war, if Hitler had not gratuitously done it for him.” Alan J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (New York: Atheneum, 1966), 12–13. 56 See Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2008). Robert E. Sherwood said of the American involvement in the Second World War that, “Morale was never particularly good nor alarmingly bad. There was a minimum of fag-waving and parades. It was the frst war in American history in which the general disillusionment preceded the fring of the frst shot.” Sherwood, 442. 57 Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), 234. 58 Nasaw, 201, 366. 59 “The Text of Roosevelt Tributes by Churchill and King,” New York Times, April 13, 1948. 60 See Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 [1966] (Chicago, IL: Imprint Publications, 1990), 278–79. 61 Quoted in Williams, 7. 62 Jack Kenny, “‘Isolationism’ Now Center Stage in GOP Tent? Oh My!” New American 27 ( July 18, 2011), 21–24. 63 Paul Lewis, “Most Americans Think U.S. should ‘Mind its own Business Abroad,’ Survey Finds,” The Guardian, December 3, 2013. 64 Quoted in Bret Stephens, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder (New York: Sentinel, 2014), xii. 65 Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate, 76th. Cong., 1st. Sess., on S. J. Res. 84, “A Joint Resolution Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States for a Referendum on War,” May 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 24, and 31, 1939, 124. 66 Stephens, 19–20. 67 Stephens, 228–29. 68 See Robert Kagan, “‘America First’ Has Won,” New York Times, September 24, 2018. 69 See Peter Baker, “Bolton Book Says Trump’s Ofenses Exceeded Ukraine,” New York Times, June 18, 2020. 70 At the Paris Peace Forum, Macron wondered aloud whether the forum would be “a ringing symbol of a durable peace among nations or the photograph of the last moment of unity before the world goes down in new disorder.” See “‘America First’ Gets a Rebuke at Ceremony,” New York Times, November 12, 2018. At a United Nations gathering, Trump said, “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.” Michael Crowley and David E. Sanger, “Trump Celebrates Nationalism and Plays Down Crisis with Iran,” New York Times, September 25, 2019. At the 2018 Davos World Economic Forum, Trump insisted that, “America frst does not mean America alone.” According to Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin, “Trump’s goal in terms of trade is to promote what he sees as ‘fair trade’, not to create fortress America…” Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin, National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy (London: Pelican, 2018), 79. 71 Quoted in Mark Landler, “An Exit, a Leader Unbound and a Jittery Capital,” New York Times, December 21, 2018. Even right-wing commentators have struggled to get a handle on Trump’s brand of isolationism. In the wake of the provocative assassination of Iranian general Qassim Suleimani that Trump ordered, Charles Sykes claimed that “Trumpism is both isolationist and highly militaristic at the same time,” while Stephen K. Bannon observed that, “One of the central building blocks

Introduction

72 73 74 75 76 77

21

of why he was elected president was to get out of these foreign wars.” Michael M. Grynbaum, “The Prospect of a New Military Confict Divides Right-Wing Pundits,” New York Times, January 8, 2020. “Lifting Embargo Seen Step to War,” New York Times, September 25, 1939. Bret Stephens, “The President Contrives His Stab-in-the-Back Myth,” New York Times, November 24, 2020. Quoted in Kupchan, 361. Anne M. Lindbergh, The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 7–8. See “Big Michigander,” Time 34, no. 14 (October 2, 1939), 13. Quoted in Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 1938–1941: America on the Way to War (New York: Random House, 1989), 113. Likewise, the pleas for a more tolerant immigration policy also have echoes in the past. In 1941, Alfred E. Smith observed that we have tended to forget that this country was built up by immigrants who, in the vast majority of cases, came here to escape poverty, oppression, social restrictions, and lack of opportunity at home. The American who does not realize this has neither mental honesty nor a knowledge of our history . . .

78 79 80 81

Quoted in Israel Lundberg, “Who Are These Refugees?” Harpers Magazine 182, January 1941, 172. Katie Rogers and Jason Ed Parle, “White Nationalists’ Websites Infuenced Miller, Emails Show,” New York Times, November 19, 2019. Bret Stephens, “WWII and the Ingredients of Slaughter,” New York Times, August 31, 2019. Peter S. Goodman, “Shift in Trade Around Globe: To Go It Alone,” New York Times. December 15, 2019. Ian Bremmer, “Worlds Apart,” Time, March 4, 2019, 18. In a 2019 survey by the Center for American Progress, researchers concluded, American voters do not desire a full retreat from global afairs. They want to work with U.S. allies and international institutions to solve global challenges but only if the nation is also committed to putting its domestic house in order. They want to know that the United States is focused on its own economic and security needs frst before tackling global problems it cannot control.

82 83 84

85 86 87 88 89

Quoted in Jennifer Rubin, “Six Ways Democrats Can Zap Trump on Foreign Policy,” Washington Post, May 7, 2019. See also David Brooks, “Voters, Your Foreign Policy Views Stink!” New York Times, June 14, 2019. Rick Gladstone, “Biden to Face a Long List of Foreign Challenges, With the Chinese at the Top,” New York Times, November 9, 2020. Quoted in David E. Sanger, “Looking to End ‘America First’ and Re-engage with the World,” New York Times, November 10, 2020. At Trump’s last G20 summit meeting, he claimed that the climate treaty was not designed to save the environment, but “to kill the American economy.” He skipped part of the meeting to go golfng. “G20 Meeting Ends, Leaving wide gulf between Trump and Concerns of U.S. Allies,” New York Times, November 23, 2020. Irene E. G. Blanes et al., F P Insider Access, October 22, 2020. Council of Foreign Relations, “Candidates Answer CFR’s Questions: Joe Biden, August 1, 2019, 1–2. Gladstone. Council on Foreign Relations, 3–6. Kupchan, 9.

1 AMERICA AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE

While Europeans had been killing each other for thousands of years, there were several things that made the Great War diferent from previous conficts: This was history’s frst large-scale mechanized war, and instead of the blessings that Progress was supposed to bring to humanity, industry turned its ingenuity toward producing weapons of greater and greater destructive power. Also different from wars of the past was that the United States abandoned its traditional isolation from the Old World and sent troops to fght in Europe. Certainly this was not a foregone conclusion because at the beginning of the war Americans gaped in horror at the spectacle of “civilized” Europeans slaughtering each other wholesale. President Woodrow Wilson declared the war a “catastrophe,” while his Ambassador to Great Britain, Walter Hines Page, referred to “the deplorable medievalism” that had blossomed on that continent.1 For Brand Whitlock, American Ambassador to Belgium, the war was an atavistic return to tribalism—a “monstrous anachronism . . . driven by the cruel will of the pagan world.”2 The casualties were appalling and unprecedented. In two battles, the Somme and Verdun, almost a million men were killed in fve months.3 British Prime Minister David Lloyd George observed that these terrible losses had produced in the United States “a rut of benevolent but horrifed neutrality.”4 Americans wanted no part of this bloodbath, and President Woodrow Wilson did his very best to keep the United States out of it. Without the provocations of Germany, he might have succeeded. But over the course of two-and-a-half years of Germany’s brutal dismissal of anything outside the parameters of military necessity, and her increasing contempt for any actions the United States might take, Americans became convinced that their basic values were at stake. Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare early in 1917 (described by

America and the Peace Conference 23

historian Arthur S. Link as “one of the greatest blunders in history”), was the fnal outrage that drew America into the war on the Allied side.5 The American impact on the war cannot be overstated. The United States was the world’s premier industrial power, and by 1918 was producing 615 million tons of coal compared to Germany’s 161 million tons, 40 million tons of iron compared to Germany’s 12 million tons, and 45 million tons of steel compared to Germany’s 12 million tons.6 The German belief that its submarines could win the war before the United States could make its presence felt was a woeful miscalculation. Increased use of escorted convoys dramatically reduced losses to submarines, and the Allies could simply replace ships faster than they could be sunk. American shipbuilding increased by a factor of fourteen from its pre-war level.7 The United States also raised an immense army. By July 1918, a million U.S. troops were in France (there would be 2 million in Europe by the end of the war), and 20,000 tons of their supplies were arriving at French ports every day.8 When the American Expeditionary Force arrived, under the leadership of General John J. Pershing, the French and British were busily sniping at each other (Georges Clemenceau told Pershing that Britain was fnished as a world power, and British General Douglas Haig told Pershing that the French army was a “broken reed”). But when Pershing made it clear that the American army would be fghting as an independent unit, rather than being amalgamated into the British and French armies, the British and French buried their diferences and unifed under the banner of criticizing American military leaders, and putting impediments in the way of American success.9 Especially obstreperous was French general Ferdinand Foch, who never tired of belittling the eforts of American troops, and trying to break the American army into pieces. When Foch criticized Pershing for not having enough artillery, Pershing pointed out that the British and French had insisted that American shipping capacity be used on men rather than on artillery, and that shortfalls in the latter would be made up by the Allies.10 When Pershing asked Foch for more horses, Foch told him to get them from the United States.11 (Even Georges Clemenceau described Foch as “not superabundant in nuances.”)12 Pershing concluded that “the fxed purpose of the French, and perhaps the British, [was] that the formation of an American Army should be prevented if possible. Perhaps they do not want America to fnd her strength.”13 The British and French would disparage the contributions of the American army (after themselves being routed in the German ofensive in the spring of 1918), but the outcome of the war might have been quite diferent without the presence of American troops at Château-Thierry and nearby Belleau Wood. Here the Germans had advanced to within forty-fve miles of Paris by midJuly 1918. The United States sufered some 10,000 casualties in the grim weeks ahead, but with their French allies they were able frst to stop the German

24

America and the Peace Conference

drive south, and then launch a combined counterattack (the Second Battle of the Marne). The high number of American casualties was a function of sheer inexperience. When Harper’s correspondent Dorothy Canfeld asked a French soldier for his opinion of American troops, he said, “They are remarkably courageous, they really fght like lions,” but “[as] far as really knowing how to make modern war, they are children, just children. They make all the mistakes we made four years ago.”14 Mistake-prone or not, German General Erich Ludendorf gave credit to the American efort that was frequently lacking among the Allies. “The sheer number of Americans arriving daily at the front,” said Ludendorf, fed the feeling of “looming defeat” that aficted his army.15 Referring to the German attack that was repulsed by American troops, Ludendorf claimed that “a German victory at the Marne and near Reims, even in July, 1918, would have been able to change the situation entirely in favor of Germany.”16 Without the help of the United States, “the Entente would long before have sufered a military defeat  .  . . .”17 American participation in the war may have shortened the confict by as much as a year, and preserved France from annihilation (Winston Churchill made the stark assertion that without the intervention of the United States, “France could not have survived the year . . . .”).18 By November 1918 an armistice was declared and the fghting was over. What had it all been for? More than any other nation, the United States fought this war on idealism. Those of us who live in a more cynical age might be quick to dismiss the motivational power of such an appeal, but the personal accounts of ordinary Americans who involved themselves in this war are full of idealistic sentiments.19 Scofers might also maintain that what drove Americans into this war was to protect American loans and the American prosperity that followed from being the chief supplier of Allied armaments and food. (As we’ll see, this argument would be promoted with a vengeance in the inter-war period.) Though beloved by some analysts, economic determinism does little to explain why Americans became involved in this war. Indeed, proclaiming that the United States was entering the war to “make the world safe for American capital outlays” is not exactly soul-stirring stuf, and there is little evidence to support the notion that economics was a primary factor.20 As Wilson put it in 1916, the public was not won over by logical appeals but “by the impulses of the heart; it is moved by sympathy . . . .”21 It was sympathy for the victims of German aggression that won so many Americans over to the Allied side, but for a very long time those same Americans resisted involvement in the war because of their pacifst views. Pacifsm claimed the loyalty of a huge number of Americans, with some forty-fve new peace organizations established in the United States between 1900 and 1914. German Ambassador to the United States Johann von Bernstorf concluded that “nine-tenths of the American nation are pacifsts.”22 Wilson himself could be counted among their numbers, and German historian Gerhard Ritter has made the intriguing connection

America and the Peace Conference 25

between pacifsm and the American remove from the Old World: Wilson’s “pacifst ideology,” said Ritter, “which seemed so dogmatic and unrealistic to most Europeans, was American to the core, ultimately the upshot of the centuries-old special situation of the American continent, beyond the quarrels of the European powers.”23 Among other reasons that Wilson was not especially vulnerable to economic arguments was that unlike the Republican presidents who would succeed him in the 1920s, he came from an academic rather than a business background. Wilson won reelection in 1916 with the campaign slogan “He kept us out of war,” which was enormously appealing to the public. Historian Arthur S. Link referred to the “virtually unanimous” desire of Americans to stay out of the war as long as they could do so “without sacrifcing rights that should not be yielded.”24 When Edward G. Lowry returned to the United States in mid-December 1916 after a long absence, he observed that America was dominated by “a strong desire for peace; no desire to fght unless and until actually attacked . . . .”25 (Figure 1.1). German unrestricted submarine warfare provided both the attack and the challenge to American rights. The appeal that Wilson made to Americans to enter the war was idealistic, not economic, and he made a special plea to those involved in the Progressive movement. Many Progressives were dubious about enhanced involvement with Europe, and a good example is John Dewey. Early in 1917, Dewey published a piece called, “In a Time of National Hesitation” in which he claimed that the war in Europe exposed the chasm between the Old World and the New: “We are a new body and a new spirit in the world. . . the gallant fght for democracy and civilization fought on the soil of France is not our fght . . . .” For better or for worse, said Dewey, “we are committed to a fght for another democracy

FIGURE 1.1

“I Hope We Keep Out of It.” John T. McCutcheon. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62-48224.

26 America and the Peace Conference

and another civilization.”26 Yet Wilson was able to convince Dewey and other Progressives that they had to embrace internationalism to achieve their goals. Dewey credited Wilson with creating a bridge over “which many a conscience crossed . . . .”27 Dewey joined Charles Beard, Herbert Croly and others in support of Wilson and the war, but these Americans also expected that at the end there would be a just peace that would not leave Germany humiliated. They also supported the idea of a League of Nations.28 Europeans, of course, were also susceptible to idealism, especially at the beginning of the war, but when idealism faltered they could always fall back on the more primal motivation of fghting for home and hearth. For the Americans, home and hearth were 3,500 miles away, and being virtually alone among the combatants they risked life and limb for an abstraction. While the argument could be made that Anzac troops (soldiers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada) were also motivated by idealism and came from distances even further away than the United States, their relations with Britain were much closer than America’s. They still had ties to the mother country that Americans had jettisoned long ago, and their participation in a war involving Britain was much more natural and personal than the more ephemeral relations Americans had with Britain. That Wilsonian idealism might pose a problem to European interests was obvious long before the Versailles Peace Conference convened in January 1919. The British conservative publication Saturday Review confessed that there is no person of whom we are so much afraid of at this hour as President Wilson . . . it is just because we know the independence of his mind and the purity of his purpose that we are afraid of him. President Wilson is an idealist, and idealists are sometimes very dangerous people.29 Also making Wilson dangerous and unconventional was that he was not on the hunt for the spoils of war, a stance he had made clear when he asked Congress for a declaration of war. Americans would “fght without rancor and without selfsh object,” said Wilson, “seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples . . . .”30 In his memoirs, Herbert Hoover insisted that the United States had fought the war less to defeat Germany than “to bring an end to aggression and war.” This is why Americans died in Europe, said Hoover, and why the United States violated “the 140 years of American tradition by a military intervention outside our hemisphere.”31 Britain’s perspective on the war was naturally quite diferent from America’s. Britain had gone to war not only because of Germany’s violation of Belgium’s sovereignty, but also for the more pragmatic reason that a German takeover of Belgian ports would threaten the British east coast.32 Other areas of British self-interest included preservation of the Empire, and countering Germany’s rising industrial and military power. The London Post cautioned that the Allied

America and the Peace Conference 27

cause had been set back “by confusing it with liberalism . . . We are fghting not for liberalism but for king and country.” The London Truth likewise observed that many British views of what that nation should get out of the war “do not square with American ideas.” The United States, after all, had not entered the war with the goal of eliminating Germany as a formidable commercial competitor to Britain, nor to see to “the further aggrandizement of the British Empire.”33 Unlike the United States and Britain, France had fought for her very existence. While French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau felt it necessary to endorse the utopianism that seemed to be in the air once the war was over (France, he said, had divested herself “of all mercenary aspirations” and was devoted to “higher and holier idealism in the conduct of the afairs of the world”) the devastation sufered by France left little room for lofty abstraction.34 It was in France where much of the combat on the Western Front had taken place, and the formerly beautiful countryside north of Paris was now silent, poxed by the detritus of war. Over 4,000 French villages and 20,000 French factories were destroyed, and 1.3 million French soldiers had been killed.35 Indeed, an observer touring France and Germany after the war who knew nothing about the confict’s outcome most likely would have concluded that Germany had been the victor and France the vanquished. When Mrs. William H. Hill of the Franco-American Committee for the Protection of Children on the Frontier toured the devastated regions of France and Belgium a year after the signing of the armistice, she found them unchanged from the previous year except that the people were gone. “On both sides of the road the land was pock-marked with shell holes. These were flled up with flthy, stagnant water.” Brilliant red poppies grew in a “grim silence of waste,” while hundreds of rats scurried over the ground. The few residents there were trying to get by on a franc and a quarter a day that was given to families whose men died in the war.36 As late as 1936, when Anne Morrow Lindbergh was in France with her husband Charles, she found the area around Reims pitted and desolated, “with barbed wire and pieces of shells, shrapnel, bones, boots, helmets, broken fragments of places.”37 (Figure 1.2). Correspondents entering the German Rhine country with Allied armies were “struck with the poignant, stinging contrast between the sleek, comfortable, unharmed German cities which slip into peace almost as easily as American cities and the burned, dynamited, tragedy-haunted French and Belgian cities.”38 The lands of Germany were “undevastated, undamaged, while the lands of France and Serbia and Poland have been made into deserts.” One of the enduring controversies of the war was whether the Allied armies should have continued into the interior of Germany to give Germans “a tangible demonstration that they have failed in what they tried to do.”39 When Coningsby Dawson, a British resident of America who had volunteered to fght for Canada, toured Germany after the war, he found that the infrastructure

28 America and the Peace Conference

FIGURE 1.2

No man’s land—once a forest in Flander’s felds. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62-50123.

of Germany’s cities, railroads, mines and industries were intact. The German people exhibited no shame as to their role in the war, and Dawson claimed that they would “repeat the crime of the last four years” the moment they were able. “One resents the smug, smiling face of Germany,” said Dawson. “Its plumpness is an insult. One knows how it has been achieved—by worldwide cannibalism.”40 When American correspondent Elbert F. Baldwin was in Coblenz, he also found unrepentant Germans, and called the decision not to invade Germany “the supremely tragical thing about the war.”41 This was the view taken by Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt, while others condemned this as an example of the militarism that the Allies had been fghting to abolish.42 Had the war been allowed to continue until a German surrender rather than an armistice, said Alonzo Englebert Taylor in the Atlantic, the Germans would have accepted conditions far harsher than those in the current treaty. Instead, Germans were being taught to feel “outraged and humiliated,” and upon these feelings “the future history of Germany will be painted.”43 Some historians of our own era, including Sally Marks, have also endorsed the argument that Germany should have been invaded, but it’s important to emphasize that more fghting meant more killing, and probably a majority in Europe (especially among those who were doing the actual dirty work) believed that there had been enough killing.44 But without an invasion, and the humiliation of Germany under the boot of foreigners, Germans were able to fabricate the fantasy that they hadn’t been

America and the Peace Conference 29

defeated. When German troops marched on Berlin’s Unter den Linden on armistice day, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Ebert told them, “I salute you who return unvanquished from the feld of battle.”45 As Wilson translator Stephen Bonsal made his way through the small towns of Germany in the aftermath of the war, many still displayed signs with the inscription “Willkommen zu unseren siegreichen Soldaten (Welcome to our victorious soldiers)”46 This was the beginning of post-war excuse making in Germany that emphasized that Germany had not lost on the feld of battle but had been “stabbed-in-the-back” by sinister forces at home.47 William L. Shirer noted that “one had to live in Germany between the wars to realize how widespread was the acceptance of this incredible legend by the German people.”48 That such German attitudes left France in a precarious position was perhaps not fully appreciated by her allies. French High Commissioner André Tardieu noted that, “the Englishman in his island behind his walls of water is incapable, whatever he does, of grasping the point of view of the French with the open frontier twice violated in ffty years . . . .”49 Herbert Adams Gibbons, an American correspondent who had covered the war from France, likewise referred to France’s unfortunate continental geography, in contrast to the “sheltered positions across the seas” enjoyed by Britain and America. The French essentials, said Gibbons, were “sanctions, répérations, sécurités,” and once she had those she would become more sympathetic to focusing on the future of an abstract humankind.50 Until then, France faced the grim prospect of German political unity, a decreasing birth rate, and a ruinous national debt.51 France could draw some hope that her new ally, the United States, could be called upon to help stabilize the European continent. American participation in the war had supposedly changed basic precepts that had guided the United States since its inception, and to an uncommon degree American opinion makers proclaimed that the days of isolationism were gone forever. American pragmatists claimed that the “parrot-like” repetition of Washington’s admonition against entangling alliances had become a “foolish tradition,” and that the war had clearly demonstrated that national life in America was “bound up with the national lives of Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.”52 At a minimum, said Gilbert M. Hitchcock (D-Nebraska), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, participation in the war had given Americans “an interest in international relations and international problems of which we shall probably never see the end.”53 Others saw a future in which the dreams of Progressive idealism seemed to be taking shape. Writing in Current Opinion, Frederic R. Coudert argued that America had moved from “a selfsh isolation into cooperation with the great progressive forces of the world.” An internationalist utopia seemed at hand, with every opportunity “to realize the dream of old-time idealists and philosophers, and create a new order . . . .”54 One commentator, celebrating the decline of American isolationism, gushed that there had been a “revival of the heroic age in our history, the renaissance

30 America and the Peace Conference

from which the unborn years will number.”55 Equally purple in his prose was Lyman Abbott. Writing in The Outlook, Abbott saw in the trend toward a democracy of nations “marks of a divinely ordered movement” dating from the days of Isaiah.56 But if American post-war commentators endorsed the new internationalism, they remained loyal to the idealism that had anchored the American involvement in the war, and were in no mood to have it disregarded in favor of an Old World business-as-usual. Even before the war was over, the editor of The Nation saw evidence that the Allies were planning to remake the map of Europe “on the old basis of seizing all that they can get . . . .”57 An article in The Dial claimed that Wilson would not be encountering the New Europe at the Versailles Conference, but the Old Europe, represented by men who had acquired power and prosperity under the old system, and would be resistant to any fundamental change in it.58 “It is so easy to play the old familiar game: so difcult to play the new,” said Wilson’s press secretary Ray Stannard Baker. Lapsing back into the comfort of well-worn ways would be almost irresistible.59 Law professor Frederick M. Davenport also warned against the old quarrels of the Old World, and questioned whether in future years America could be expected to match wits “in the gaming-table of the Allied Council.”60 It is striking the number of references to The Idea that were made in these opinion pieces. Even before the war was over, Ernest Hunter Wright observed that “we are ready to pour out our blood that the world may be rescued, but we would not barter a drop of it for patches of territory . . . .What nation before has ofered all the gold and all the lives that may be needed solely that an idea may prevail?”61 Herbert Adams Gibbons predicted that the United States would be pressured by the Allies (in the name of loyalty and solidarity) to go along with programs for territorial aggrandizement. America should resist, however, any schemes “that disregard or violate the high ideals set forth in the name of the American people by the American President.”62 Among Wilson’s most idealistic pronouncements were his “Fourteen Points,” frst enunciated in May 1916. He called for the end to secret negotiations, for freedom of the seas, and for the creation of a League of Nations to settle international disputes peacefully. His ffth point, in which he referred to the “interests of the populations concerned,” was a clear swipe at European imperialism. The Fourteen Points was a thinly veiled critique of the European system, and refected widely held American views. There was plenty here to rufe European feathers, and there would be numerous clashes with the Allied leadership in the days ahead. Historian Adam Tooze claims that Wilson’s mission before the United States entered the war “was to ensure not that the ‘right’ side won in World War I, but that no side did.”63 This would arguably become Wilson’s mission at Versailles as well. Because the war was a radical break from the past, Wilson felt justifed in breaking with a number of traditions, including the precedent that a sitting American president should not leave the country.

America and the Peace Conference  31

When he announced that he would head the American delegation to the Peace Conference at Versailles, presidential confidant Edward M. House, Secretary of State Robert Lansing, financier Bernard Baruch, and Herbert Hoover (who headed the American Commission of Relief for the first six months of 1919), all told Wilson that he could be more effective if he stayed home.64 Wilson ignored their advice, and would break with precedent in other ways as well. The catastrophe of the Great War made it clear to Wilson that the European system was bankrupt, and that the old diplomacy must be swept away. As Wilson readied himself for the Conference, everyone wanted a piece of him. A contingent of 1,000 Catholic priests in America urged that ­Wilson promote Irish independence at the Conference, while the American Jewish ­community asked Wilson to take up the rights of Jews.65 Germans wanted ­Wilson to visit that nation in the name of a “just peace,” while Swiss ­president-elect Gustave Ador entreated Wilson to endorse the Swiss cause of free access to the sea.66 When Wilson’s ship finally set out on its voyage across the Atlantic, The Nation observed that America herself had “embarked on the wild sea of E ­ uropean politics.” There were forebodings that European leaders were developing a “peace of vengeance, of imperialism and of loot . . . .” (Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty, had already declared that “we must squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak”).67 If the people did not rise and “scourge these money changers from the temple,” said The Nation, “then is the future dark indeed.”68 Jesus, of course, had been the original scourge of the money changers, and applying this parable to Wilson was not accidental. By the end of the war Wilson had achieved a Christ-like adoration, and was perhaps the most esteemed ­human being on the planet. John Maynard Keynes claimed that Wilson “enjoyed a prestige and a moral influence throughout the world unequaled in ­h istory.”69 Jane Addams called him “the center of the world’s hopes,” and H. G. Wells remembered that For a brief interval, Wilson stood alone for mankind. And in that brief interval there was a very extraordinary and significant wave of response to him throughout the earth. So eager was the situation that all humanity leapt to accept and glorify Wilson—for a phrase, for a gesture. It seized upon him as its symbol. He was transfigured in the eyes of men. He ceased to be a common statesman; he became a Messiah.70 Europeans were not capable of building a lasting peace, according to Wells, because they were encumbered by “antiquated ideas and institutions.” ­Standing alone was Wilson, a “man of great genius,” who had become “the head, the mouthpiece and representative of intelligent mankind.” 71 Wilson arrived at Brest on 13 December 1918—Friday the 13th—with the idea of touring the capitals of Europe before the beginning of the Conference.72 Certainly there

32 America and the Peace Conference

was no hint of bad luck in the days ahead because the capitals capitulated completely. In London, “it was one long wave of cheering as the presidential and royal procession passed.” There was a crowd of 20,000 at Buckingham Palace where, “Children were hoisted on their fathers’ shoulders, handkerchiefs and hats were waved, hundreds of little American fags were displayed, and men and women burst into rounds of cheers.” 73 In Italy, from the Italian frontier to Rome, Wilson’s progress took on the appearance of a “triumphal procession.” When Wilson visited the Pope, a crowd of 200,000 assembled at the Piazza di San Pietro. The Epoca (Rome) claimed that “no man in Europe since Napoleon has been more popular than President Wilson, and no one has been more loved.” 74 In Milan, The thoroughfares were choked with humanity and the President’s motor car was forced to crawl through with the greatest difculty and in constant danger of running the citizens down. The balconies, roofs, and every vantage point were black with people, and the route was plastered with posters and pictures of President Wilson . . . 75 While the French leadership was busy calculating how to navigate around Wilson, ordinary French citizens gave Wilson a rapturous reception. It had been Wilson, after all, who had sent the American troops that had saved Paris from being captured by the Germans the previous July.76 Henri Lavedan in the Paris Illustration exclaimed, “We have seen him! We have admired him! Our descendants will be dazzled in their turn and that will remain one of the magnifcences of History.” 77 Wilson was described as a “mystical fgure” with “a nimbus of hallowed expectation.” 78 The Wilsonian optimism, which had been scofed at by men of “stunted vision,” was “now recognized as the words of the prophet inspired.” 79 William Howard Taft proclaimed, “I verily believe we are in sight of the Promised Land.”80 Others were less enamored, with American voters quite possibly among them. Wilson had appealed to Americans during the of-year elections of 1918 to send to Washington a Democratic House and Senate as a way of showing approval for his post-war plans. He had added that failure to do so would be viewed by Europeans “as a repudiation of my leadership.”81 American voters, in their wisdom, sent him a Republican House and Senate. That Wilson had made a woeful miscalculation was obvious even to The Nation, stalwart supporter of Wilsonian idealism. “For the political disaster which overtook his party on Election Day,” noted The Nation, “Mr. Wilson has only himself to blame.”82 Wilson knew that any treaty he negotiated at Versailles would require a two-thirds Senate majority, and as a former history professor he should have known that Senate approval was not automatic. After the frst Hague Conference in 1899, the Senate made it clear that the acceptance of treaties would in no way compromise the principle of non-entanglement. Likewise, in

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the treaties negotiated by William Howard Taft in 1911, which would have established the precedent of appealing diplomatic disputes to The Hague Court, the Senate reserved to itself the authority to choose which disputes might be so adjudicated.83 But Wilson refused to acknowledge that the political landscape had changed, and failed to bring along any U.S. Senators to Versailles. He was pilloried by the press. Newspapers that ordinarily supported the President, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Philadelphia North American, and the Kansas City Star, expressed their dismay. Both the New York World and New York Tribune employed the phrase “grave mistake.”84 It is hard to reconcile these missteps with Wilson’s ordinarily astute decision-making. Perhaps the adoring crowds had seduced him into believing in his own divinity. For a loner who brooked no interference and had a tendency to hold common humanity at an arm’s length, the role of messiah was perhaps a too-comfortable ft. As historian Robert W. Tucker has noted, Wilson’s “unwillingness to seek advice, his disinclination to hear what was unwelcome to him, and even more, his penchant for taking an immediate dislike to those who told him what he did not wish to hear” were well known to those around him.85 British Prime Minister David Lloyd George called Wilson’s failure to bring along any senators his “greatest blunder,” and condemned Wilson’s confdant Edward M. House for encouraging the president’s “instinctive dislike of all Republicans.”86 Wilson would continue to oppose any suggestions that other Americans in authority might come to France to confer.87 At best, Wilson’s intractable opposition to outside involvement refected an anxiety that others would sabotage deliberations when the stakes had never been higher and at worst a petty fear that someone might steal his thunder.88 Wilson’s statements often had a runic quality that European politicians and diplomats scrambled to decipher. In a speech in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, he acknowledged that throughout history America had kept herself separate from European politics. Then, instead of proclaiming that those days were gone forever, the President stated, “I want to say very frankly to you that she is not now interested in European politics. But she is interested in the partnership of right between America and Europe.”89 Was Wilson saying that politics could somehow be fltered out of deliberations? And when he called for “a people’s peace,” was the President questioning a European political system of which the other delegates had all been the benefciaries?90 On the voyage over to France, American geographer Isaiah Bowman remembered Wilson telling the staf that “we would be the only disinterested people at the peace conference, and that the men whom we were about to deal with did not represent their own people.”91 Winston Churchill had much the same impression, describing Wilson as believing himself “capable of appealing to peoples and parliaments over the heads of their own governments . . . .”92 The Conference’s frst order of business was dealing with Germany. Much has been written about the “war guilt” clause of the Versailles Treaty, which

34 America and the Peace Conference

called Germany to account for her role in the war. But the word “guilt” never appears in Article 231 of the treaty, which instead speaks of German “responsibility” and “aggression.”93 Later, German propagandists would claim that the Allies had tried to burden Germany with the exclusive guilt of starting the war. None other than Adolf Hitler suggested that, It was absolutely wrong to discuss war-guilt from the standpoint that Germany alone could not be held responsible for the outbreak of the catastrophe; it would have been correct to load every bit of the blame on the shoulders of the enemy, even if this had not really corresponded to the true facts . . . 94 Also upsetting to Germans in 1919 were Articles 227 to 230, which asserted the right to bring Germans to trial for war crimes. Kaiser Wilhelm himself, who had abdicated and fed to Holland, was to be arraigned for violating “international morality and the sanctity of treaties.”95 Lloyd George and Clemenceau were enthusiastic (“Yes, judgment in England, execution in France,” said Clemenceau), but waited to see what Wilson’s views on the subject were. While Wilson had insisted toward the end of the war that Germany make the necessary constitutional changes to transform that nation into a democracy— an unsubtle hint to get rid of the Kaiser—he feared that prosecuting Wilhelm would turn him into a martyr.96 In America, opinion was split. The Nation judged that nothing that came out of the Conference was likely to be more consequential than whether or not to try the Kaiser. Wilhelm was not a person but an institution of government, and was therefore only responsible to the German people. The Nation praised the “staunch opposition” of the American delegation to this “criminal folly.”97 The same delegation was condemned by The Outlook for having an “academic mind” under which “a crime is not a crime if you call it political.”98 The Kaiser and his associates had broken the law of nations and had brought to the world not war, but “a murderous assault.” The German leadership “made themselves outlaws.”99 The New Republic observed that those who were most vociferous in calling for the Kaiser’s head were the same who had been “most bitterly opposed to general international arbitration . . . .”100 The Kaiser himself announced that he would commit suicide rather than submit to a trial, to which Senators William Borah (R-Idaho) and James Watson (R-Indiana) responded that Wilhelm might fnd this “the easiest way out.” A trial, they believed, would be a mockery because the verdict would be predetermined.101 It all became a moot point when the Dutch government refused to hand over the Kaiser, but the issue of war guilt would emerge in more urgent forms in the years ahead. As we have seen, many who toured Germany in the aftermath of the war emphasized the country’s intact infrastructure, but the lot of the German people themselves was more dire. Stephen Bonsal attended a memorial service

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in Potsdam that “was thronged with the widows and the mothers of the Junkers whose broken bodies are rotting all over Europe . . . .” In Berlin, he walked along the Friedrichstrasse and found it overwhelmed with war cripples, “who hobbled along as best they could or made imploring gestures for help . . . .”102 It is important to remember that while the peace negotiations were under way, the Allied blockade of Germany was still in force, and many Germans were sufering from hunger and even starvation. One German ofcial reported a spike in infant mortality due to an inadequate milk allowance and the inability of German mothers to nurse their children. Without food relief, the present German generation was “condemned either to death or to weakened maturity.”103 While this could be dismissed as German propaganda, Herbert Hoover, who knew something about a nation’s nutritional needs, had come to the same conclusion. His agents in Germany had revealed “the extreme jeopardy of the people generally on account of the lack of food” and “extreme sufering in some sections.”104 This issue threatened to break out into open warfare between the French, who were taking a hard line on the blockade, and American delegates who on both humanitarian and political grounds wanted food to fow into Germany once again. Without food, Germany might fall to bolshevism. The New York Times reported that Secretary of State (and U.S. delegate) Robert Lansing gave a fery speech on this subject and that the American delegation “has now declared itself publicly in favor of feeding Germany without delay. In its opinion, the whole peace efort may go to smash, unless this is done.”105 Wilson’s advisor Edward M. House agreed, noting that while public opinion might support the Allies in their maintenance of the blockade while the war was on, “it would not sustain them when they were starving women and children for the purpose of trying to force the signing of a treaty.”106 Georges Clemenceau insisted that yielding on this matter would be construed as a sign of weakness, but the French fnally gave in when Lloyd George presented evidence from British occupation forces that Germany was on the verge of famine.107 While the blockade was loosened, it was not fully repealed until the treaty was signed—another source of bitterness to Germans. Wilson’s extraordinary public esteem, coupled with his irritating habit of practicing what he preached by seeking nothing for his own country, made him a less than welcome presence among the Allied leadership (Figure 1.3). This led to the creation of a Wilson caricature in which he was either the idealistic naif, hopelessly outmatched by wily, sophisticated Europeans, or the sanctimonious blue nose whose sermons generated equal amounts of tedium and contempt. The London Post referred to the “Evangelical School of Statesmanship,” with Wilson promising “to bring down a new heaven to this old earth.”108 Georges Clemenceau embroidered on this theme in his description of Wilson as “Presbyterian” and “theological.”109 He told Edward House that talking to Wilson was “something like talking to Jesus Christ.”110 (At one point Wilson contributed to his own stereotype by asserting that his cherished

36 America and the Peace Conference

FIGURE 1.3

Big four at Versailles. From left to right: David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson. 1919. Bain News Service. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-ggbain-29038.

League of Nations would be more efective than Christianity in keeping the peace.)111 In his memoir of the Peace Conference, David Lloyd George made a number of snarky references to Wilson as “a missionary whose function it was to rescue the poor European heathen,” and a dispenser of “sermonettes.”112 John Maynard Keynes, representative of the British Exchequer at Versailles, said of Wilson that “his thought and his temperament were essentially theological not intellectual . . . .”113 Among Wilson’s critics it was Clemenceau who was most vocal in arguing that the American president was simply out of his depth. Wilson had “insufcient knowledge of the Europe lying torn to pieces at his feet,” and any understanding of the origins of this catastrophe was “beyond his ken.”114 Throughout the conference Clemenceau resisted Wilsonian ideas with “fnely tuned irony,” while French papers, taking their cue from the government, employed a “criticism of innuendo.”115 In the days ahead Lloyd George often sided with Wilson, but Clemenceau could be counted upon to oppose virtually every Wilson proposal, whether it be open negotiations, lighter reparations against Germany, the League of Nations, or the mandate system. Both Wilson and Lloyd George worried that imposing a heavy debt on Germany would weaken that nation as a future trading partner, create a seething resentment, and perhaps drive her

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into the arms of Bolsheviks. In contrast, Clemenceau insisted on a ffteen-year occupation of Germany, as well as French control of the resources of the Saar.116 Clemenceau’s hostility to Germany dated back to the Franco-Prussian War. He was twenty-eight when the confict began, and France’s defeat left him embittered. “My life hatred,” said Clemenceau, “has been for Germany because of what she has done to France.”117 Key to French justifcation for harsh terms toward Germany in 1919 was that in the Franco-Prussian War and the Great War, Germans had invaded France twice in forty-four years. While this is true, left unsaid was that the Franco-Prussian War had begun with a French declaration of war, and a French invasion of Prussia. Of the many issues that had to be settled at the Conference, the most important for Wilson and, ultimately, for the American people was the proposed establishment of a League of Nations.118 Originally among his Fourteen Points, Wilson considered the League essential to the peace because it would make another catastrophe such as the Great War impossible.119 Under the League, nations could settle their diferences peacefully, and in the process the League would become “the organized moral force of men throughout the world” and a “searching light of conscience.”120 Outside of Washington, D.C., Wilson seemed to have broad American support for the League, with thirty-four state legislatures and thirty-three governors expressing support for the League in February 1919.121 Historian Trygve Throntveit has also emphasized the wide range of support for the League among organizations that included the American Red Cross, the American Federation of Labor, the National Board of Farm Organizations, the American Bankers Association, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the Rotary Club.122 Senate Republicans were a diferent story, and even before the war was over, they were already making it clear that they would relinquish national independence “only with their dying breath.”123 Viewing the League as an infringement on American sovereignty, they were aghast at the prospect of the United States perpetually stuck to an odious European tar baby. Wilson had anticipated Senate opposition and had formulated a plan that would basically cram the League down the throats of recalcitrant senators. “I am going to insist that the League be brought out as part and parcel of the treaty itself,” said Wilson, calculating that in their desire to sign the treaty senators would be forced to accept the League.124 The Nation called Wilson’s strategy a “deliberate attempt to dragoon the Senate” which would have to carry the burden of obstructing the peace if it rejected the treaty.125 Senator-elect Joseph M. McCormick (R-Illinois) claimed that Wilson’s linkage of the League and the Treaty amounted to “a coup d’etat” against the wishes of American voters as expressed in the last election.126 Many Europeans at the conference also wanted to separate the League from the Treaty, and when Wilson returned to Europe in mid-March 1919 after a month in the United States, there was clear evidence that a movement was afoot to do so. Wilson announced that the

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League and the Treaty were not to be separated, and even made preparations to return to America should delegates not see things his way.127 The French had an especially hard time warming up to the League. Clemenceau’s assessment was that “There are probably few examples of such a misreading and disregarding of political experience in the maelstrom of abstract thought.”128 French delegate Léon Bourgeois, who actually supported a League of Nations, declared that without an armed force ready to act, the League would become little more than an “ornate piece of literature.”129 In addition to what the French perceived as the uselessness of the League, they also suspected that it would be used to advance an Anglo-Saxon agenda. (Wilson himself had proclaimed that “the League of Nations will, I confdently hope, be dominated by us Anglo-Saxons” “for the unquestionable beneft of the world.”) Also not pleasing to the French was the rejection by English-speaking delegates of French as the League’s ofcial language.130 Lloyd George, on the other hand, bristled at the idea that the League was exclusively the work of Wilson, noting the eforts that the Allies had put in on the League during the war years. (The contributions of Edward Grey were especially important.)131 Few, however, disputed the fact that at least in public perceptions, the League was Wilson’s baby. The political maxim “to get along, go along,” was in full operative force at the Conference. The Outlook was probably correct when it asserted that support of the League was “the price at which European nations have purchased President Wilson’s support of their ambitious schemes.”132 Simeon Strunsky in the Atlantic Monthly claimed that Wilson’s “only purpose” was the League, and the President was willing to pay a high cost to secure it.133 The Europeans understood this and busily set themselves to “asphyxiate” the Fourteen Points.134 Wilson’s desire for an end to secret negotiations and for “open covenants openly arrived at” was an early casualty of the conference. Ray Stannard Baker claimed that the European representatives were averse to openness because they were in thrall to the old European diplomacy “which hates publicity.” Amid press clamoring for greater access, Clemenceau claimed that it would be “a veritable suicide” to allow for daily coverage of the deliberations of the Supreme Council. Wilson did not object.135 The covenants, in Herbert Hoover’s words, “were openly departed from,” while Sumner Welles complained that in no other international meeting did the public and the press have “less guidance and less opportunity to know the truth.”136 There was more to the secrecy issue than press access at Versailles. During the war, the British and French had made a secret agreement to divide up the Ottoman Empire, and to distribute the German colonies in Africa. The Japanese had a secret deal with the Chinese to take over German concessions, and a secret treaty with the British to take over German islands north of the equator (Australia would get German islands south of the equator). In the Treaty of London, secretly signed by France and Britain in 1915, Italy was slated to receive territories in exchange for going to war against the Central Powers.137

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While Wilson claimed that he had had no knowledge of these secret treaties until he arrived in Paris in 1919, the press quickly ferreted out that he was lying. Writing in The Nation in May 1919, Lincoln Colcord said that if Wilson knew about these treaties, “it was his duty to insist upon their abrogation.” Colcord knew for a fact that Wilson had seen the treaties because Edward House told him that British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour had forwarded them to the White House in the summer of 1917.138 The European fair for connivance, and Wilson’s acquiescence, left a bitter aftertaste for many Americans. Senator William E. Borah called secret diplomacy “a menace far greater than actual war.” Every boy who had left America to fght in Europe was “to a very great extent a victim of secret diplomacy.”139 Walter Lippmann observed that the Conference’s lack of transparency was one of its greatest sources of suspicions, with the public presented with a fait accompli “which it could not reject and did not wish altogether to accept.”140 The Fourteen Points said little about reparations, of which the French were especially keen. Also, the British interpreted the freedom of the seas idea as an attack on their naval power. When the Allies were negotiating the terms of the armistice, David Lloyd George indicated that the British would maintain their naval blockade even if they had to continue the war without the United States.141 In December 1918, Winston Churchill warned that Britain would not allow “any fettering restrictions which will prevent the British Navy maintaining its well-tried and well-deserved supremacy.”142 Neither side wanted a breach over this issue, so a compromise was reached.143 The Great War totally remade the political geography of Europe. Wilhelmine Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire disappeared. Tsarist Russia was also gone, with Leon Trotsky declaring, “The revolution was born directly from the war, and the war became the touchstone of all the revolutionary parties and energies.”144 With the old order erased, one of the most difcult tasks of the Versailles delegates was bringing order to chaos—and they had to move quickly. There were only three republics in Europe when the war started. By the end of 1918 there were thirteen.145 Between 1917 and 1920, there would be twenty-seven violent changes of power in Europe.146 The solution that came out of Versailles—dominated by the “Big Three” delegations of Britain, France, and the United States—was the nation-state, what Wilson had called national self-determination.147 While there were protests about the arrangements being made, more often than not they fell on deaf ears, with the Big Three determining what these nations consisted of. A commentator noted that Clemenceau was telling the representatives of smaller nations that it is for the Great Powers to call the tune and for the rest to dance, with the best heart they can muster. One turns instinctively to where Woodrow Wilson sits, next to Clemenceau, and wonders what his thoughts and feeling might be—he who has laid down the principle of democratic self-determination for the little peoples.148

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But in the creation of nation-states the Allies had no intention of unifying Germany and Austria, even though Austria was ethnically German.149 Both Britain and France saw new European states as frewalls against Germany and the spread of bolshevism, but the British believed that Germany must be returned to the status of a great power in order to prevent a rapprochement between Germany and Russia.150 The French wanted nothing to do with restoring German power. One American observer noted in April 1919 that the French uniform was everywhere in Central Europe and that “the imperialistic idea has seized upon the French mind like a kind of madness and the obvious efort is to create a chain of States, highly militarized, organized as far as possible under French guidance . . . .”151 After touring the region in 1922, William Randolph Hearst concluded that the French plan was “to keep Central Europe prostrate, to keep it in chains industrially and fnancially, to keep it shattered into small, futile fragments of states.”152 While France was loath to employ the troubling word “alliance,” by the mid-1920s France had completed “understandings” with Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.153 Sixty million Europeans were given a nation of their own, but as historian Mark Mazower has noted, “It turned another twenty-fve million into minorities.”154 While these new nations were supposed to respect minority rights, their resentment over being told what to do (and the resentment of minorities over being placed in such nations) generated bitter discord in the decades to come.155 Hypocrisy ruled the day, as established nations tried to grab territories in the name of a spurious ethnic self-determination, while France and Britain busily absorbed territories into their colonial empires while lauding the virtues of the nation-state.156 The paternalism of the Versailles dictates was especially striking in the case of non-European territories, and historian Robert E. Hannigan has suggested that Wilson himself was more conservative than he has been portrayed, especially in terms of “national self-determination.” Wilson shared a belief with other Allied leaders that the peoples of Asia and Africa needed the supervision of representatives of more “civilized” nations. In this sense Wilson was an imperialist, says Hannigan, as well as “the most antiblack president the United States had had since at least the time of Andrew Johnson . . ..”157 While this is a very loose defnition of imperialism, there is little doubt that Wilson was a full participant in the racism of the day. When Japanese delegates proposed language that would recognize racial equality in the League covenant, it was torpedoed by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes and Woodrow Wilson. Anxieties about the Japanese were running high on the American west coast, and Wilson noted, “The bars are not up against the Japanese as yet, but they would be put up if they came in any numbers. It would be better for all concerned if they did not come.”158 When the fnal text of the Treaty was released, it “shocked people,” according to Ray Stannard Baker. It fell “far short of the warm imagination of hopeful liberals,” while at the same time the worst fears of the conservatives

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were confirmed. The treaty itself was “a terribly naked document: it makes one ashamed to read it, for it lays bare so brazenly the very soul of modern ­civilization.”159 This document was an orphan, unloved by everyone, and part of the problem in selling the treaty was that it had created so little enthusiasm among those who had crafted it. When South African Jan Christiaan Smuts, chairman of the committee that drew up the mandate provisions of the covenant, made his report he confessed “I am ashamed of it,” and that the other committee members were “also disappointed.” But it was “the best we can do now.”160 Edward M. House spoke for many who had been actively involved in creating the treaty when he wearily allowed, “To those who are saying that the Treaty is bad and should never have been made and that it will involve Europe in infinite difficulties in its enforcement, I feel like admitting it.” But he added that “it is easy to say what should have been done, but more difficult to have found a way for doing it.” The problems faced by delegates at Versailles could only have been overcome by “an unselfish and idealistic spirit . . . which was too much to expect of men come together at such a time and for such a purpose.”161 Robert Lansing described the treaty as “harsh and humiliating.” James Brown Scott, an expert in international law attached to the American delegation, believed that the Treaty would make another war “inevitable.”162 The May 8, 1919 edition of the British Daily News editorialized that “we demand both the golden eggs and the corpse of the goose that would lay them. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Germany is first stripped naked and is then told to turn out her pockets.”163 A few months earlier Norman Davis, the U.S. assistant treasury secretary, had sent a memo to Lloyd George that stated, “The problem is not determining what Germany can pay, but what the Allies can afford to receive.” In other words, reparations would require that G ­ ermany become a stronger nation, and in doing so become a threat to Europe once again.164 When Walther von Rathenau, head of the giant firm Allgemeine-­ Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, was interviewed in September by Stephen Bonsal, he claimed that Germany was being made to pay for the damages of the war even though her ability to pay had been rendered virtually impossible. Germany had become a “gangrened corpse,” said Rathenau, and the “gangrened corpse will infect the whole world.”165 Some months later, Rathenau became Minister of Foreign Affairs, and was assassinated by a far-right organization in June 1922. As historian Ian Kershaw has observed, reparations was not primarily an economic problem, but a political one, which would disturb the European political system for over a decade.166 Herbert Hoover remembered that when he read the draft of the Treaty he was appalled by the “hate and revenge” that ran through it, and concluded that the economic consequences by themselves “would pull down all Europe and thus injure the United States.” Unable to sleep, he went for an early walk and ran into John Maynard Keynes and Jan Christiaan Smuts, who had also just read the Treaty and were equally concerned. According to Hoover, “We  agreed

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that it was terrible . . . .”167 Keynes described the Treaty as a “web of sophistry and Jesuitical exegesis,” and all three men appealed to their leadership to make changes.168 In Britain, a manifesto demanding alterations in the treaty was signed by the Bishop of Oxford, Jerome K. Jerome, H. G. Wells, Lady Gilbert, John Masefeld, Arthur Henderson and others.169 Also viewing the treaty as a miscarriage of justice against Germany was Philip Kerr—the future Lord Lothian and future British Ambassador to the United States.170 Keynes observed that while Lloyd George was amenable to approaching Wilson about modifying the treaty, after having spent fve months convincing Wilson of the virtues of the treaty the prime minister found that “it was harder to de-bamboozle this old Presbyterian than it had been to bamboozle him . . . .”171 Wilson quite reasonably responded that the time to have made changes in the treaty had been when it was being written, not when it was completed.172 Not surprisingly, Clemenceau was intransigent that no changes be made. To the suggestion that the ffteen year occupation of Germany be reduced, he said he would not even reduce it to fourteen years, three hundred and sixty-four days.173 When the American public learned the details of the treaty in May of 1919, among the most appalled were those who had initially supported Wilson’s mission to Versailles. Nowhere was the bitterness and pain more striking than in the pages of The Nation, the voice of American liberalism. The Nation had previously claimed that those who opposed the fashioning of the treaty and the League did so “not because it is not good enough, but because they think it is too good.”174 With the details of the treaty now revealed, the gloves came of. The Nation described it as an “incentive to bitter hate and the ruin of a once great state . . .. The treaty has no economic basis whatsoever to ofer for peace.”175 Declaring that while the world little expected a generous peace, it was not prepared for a peace of undisguised vengeance, for a peace which openly fouts some of the plainest dictates of reason and humanity, repudiates every generous word that Mr. Wilson has ever uttered regarding Germany, fies in the face of accepted principles of law and economics, and makes the very name of democracy a reproach. In the whole history of diplomacy there is no treaty more properly to be regarded as an international crime than the amazing document which the German representatives are now asked to sign. As for Wilson, The Nation expressed doubts that he had ever believed the ideals that he had espoused. “The one-time idol of democracy stands today discredited and condemned.”176 Also turning against Wilson was William C. Bullitt. A supposed Russian expert, Bullitt had been charged by Edward House to go to Russia on a fact fnding mission. Accompanying Bullitt were muckraking journalist Lincoln

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Stefens and Swedish communist Karl Kilbom. These men soon exceeded their instructions by somehow convincing themselves that they were empowered by both Wilson and Lloyd George to negotiate a peace with the Bolsheviks. In Russia they were manipulated by Lenin, who emphasized not only the reasonableness of the Bolsheviks, but of the necessity that the Allies abandon their support of White Russians. Historian Margaret MacMillan calls Bullitt and Stefens “useful idiots” for the Soviet cause, but the Allies were having none of it.177 Lloyd George repudiated Bullitt, and from Downing Street came a statement calling Bullitt’s claims about the conversations he had with Lloyd George on the subject of Russia a “tissue of lies” and “absolutely inaccurate.”178 For his part, Wilson exhibited a decided lack of interest in the Bullitt Report, and a humiliated Bullitt quit the American delegation.179 Bullitt took his revenge when he testifed before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 1919. There he insisted that the Soviet government had established such a hold on the loyalty of Russian citizens, “that the women as well as the men are willing to starve for it.” Closer to home, Bullitt claimed that Secretary of State Robert Lansing had called parts of the Treaty “thoroughly bad,” and that Lansing had said that if the Senate and the American people truly understood the meaning of the Treaty, “it would unquestionably be defeated.”180 While Lansing did not respond at the time, in his 1921 memoir he confrmed much of what Bullitt had said. He called the terms of the peace “immeasurably harsh and humiliating,” and expressed his belief that the League was an instrument of oppression in which, “The victors in this war intend to impose their combined will upon the vanquished and to subordinate all interests to their own.”181 The signing ceremony with the Germans was a profoundly depressing event for Edward M. House. It was “elaborately staged and made as humiliating to the enemy as it well could be.” It was reminiscent of primitive times “when the conqueror dragged the conquered at his chariot wheels.”182 In the wake of disgust with the treaty, eight American aides at Versailles submitted letters of resignation.183 The French viewpoint was best represented by the ceremony held a couple of weeks later to mark the signing. It began with a delegation of a thousand French soldiers who had been maimed in the war: Very many of the mutilés have one leg, one arm, one eye gone. Many are on crutches . . . Some cannot walk; some, with both legs gone, can never walk. These are wheeled on long, low chairs by the more able-bodied wounded or by nurses. Some of mutilés are totally blind and are led by their comrades.184 In France, the horrors of the war made fesh were to be seen everywhere, which in the French view justifed whatever punishment they meted out to those who they believed had perpetrated this crime. As it was at the conclusion

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of most other wars, vengeance was the great driver at Versailles. But everyone on the planet understood that the Great War was not like other wars. Its unprecedented destruction surely dictated that a diferent path be found because a treaty of vengeance would inevitably lead to fresh horrors in future wars that promised to be worse. In 1942, in the midst of one of those future wars, Thomas Mann observed that “one must not forget that in 1919 the victorious nations held unlimited power in their hands to bring about the changes which could have prevented the present disaster. Because of egotism and lethargy they have made bad use of their plenipotence.”185 Their power was no doubt more limited than Mann claimed, but European politicians, like politicians everywhere, were driven by public opinion, and in the end succumbed to the pressure to punish. Perhaps even worse, they also seemed little inclined to examine the pre-war conditions and attitudes that had created this catastrophe. And now, in 1919, Europeans wanted Americans to sign on for further engagement in the afairs of this hapless continent.

Notes 1 Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert, Letter of 2 August 1914; Walter Hines Page to Woodrow Wilson, Letter of August 2, 1914, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, v. 30, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 328. Wilson later told his confdant Edward M. House, that he feared that the war “would throw the world back three or four centuries.” From the Diary of Colonel House, August 30, 1914, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, v. 30, 463. 2 Brand Whitlock, Belgium: A Personal Narrative, v. 1 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1919), 125. 3 Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 300. 4 David Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George: 1916–1917, v. 3 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1934), 518. 5 Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace (Arlington Heights, IL: AHM Publishing, 1979), 60. 6 See Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 93. 7 See Eric Dorn Brose, A History of the Great War: World War One and the International Crisis of the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 250; Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 251. 8 Gilbert, 437. 9 John Mosier, The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I (New York: Perennial, 2002), 276, 312. 10 See John Perry, Pershing: Commander of the Great War (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 163–64. 11 Gilbert, 477. 12 Quoted in Hew Strachan, The First World War (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 477. 13 Quoted in Perry, 164. What the Americans needed, the Allies suggested, was the guidance of British and French ofcers. This was a startling suggestion, given that the only genius that Franco-British ofcers such as John French, Douglas Haig, and Robert Nivelle had displayed was for the wastage of men on an enormous scale (this approach to warfare we now euphemistically call “attrition”). In fact, American ofcers under Pershing were excellent, and included Douglas

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MacArthur, George S. Patton, Harry Truman and George Marshall. Mosier, 332. In the fnal Allied ofensive in the fall of 1918, Americans were given responsibility for the Meuse-Argonne, a rugged region north of Verdun. During the entirety of the war the French had made absolutely no progress here, and the Germans had had four years to fortify what one staf ofcer called “the most ideal defensive terrain.” There were only three roads in this sector, and autumn rains had turned them into quagmires. Trafc was bogged down in all directions, and the infuenza epidemic had hit the troops. Georges Clemenceau urged General Ferdinand Foch to relieve Pershing and place a French general in his place. The Americans weren’t going for it, however, and when David Lloyd George told the U.S. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker that Pershing must be replaced, Baker replied, “Mr. Prime Minister, we are not in need of advice from any foreign nation as to who should lead our armies.” Americans made slow, steady progress at Meuse-Argonne, suffering heavy casualties. But the Germans were also sufering casualties, and did not have replacements for them. There was one last push on November 1, sending the Germans in full retreat. German feld marshal Paul von Hindenberg later concluded, “The American infantry in the Argonne won the war.” See Perry, 168–78. 14 Dorothy Canfeld, “Khaki Confdences at Château-Thierry,” Harpers Magazine 137, no. 822 (November 1918), 783. French General Malleterre, Governor of the Musée des Invalides and Military Critic of the Paris Temps, observed, “No army seems able to learn from the experience of others, and the Americans were no exception to this rule.” He added, I am not sure that we should have had the victory without the aid of the United States. There were those who thought that aid from across the Atlantic in the form of foodstufs and material was all we needed. But would material aid from America have sufced? There can be no doubt that the military intervention of the Americans shortened the war and put the seal upon the moral condemnation of Germany. General Malleterre, “How the War Was Won, Part 2,” trans. Herbert Adams Gibbons, Harper’s Magazine 138, no. 827 (April 1919), 607, 612 15 See John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Vintage Books, 200), 407, 411; Mosier, 320–22. 16 Erich von Ludendorf, “The American Efort,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1922, 683. 17 Erich Ludendorf, Ludendorf’s Own Story, August 1924–November 1916, v. 2 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1919), 374. While the French were loath to attribute any successes to the Americans, the gloomy assessment of the Germans at Belleau Wood was that “the [American] personnel must be called excellent,” attacks were “carried out smartly and ruthlessly. The moral efect of our fre did not materially check the advance of the infantry. The nerves of the Americans are still unshaken.” Quoted in Mosier, 322. German General Hermann von Kuhl described the American soldier as “bold if inexperienced. Lively, well nourished, and with an unused reservoir of nervous strength he appeared opposite a German army exhausted by unheard-of exertions of four years of war.” Quoted in Robert B. Asprey, The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorf Conduct World War I (New York: William Morrow, 1991), 431. 18 See David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 205; Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911–1918 (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1931), 671. Johann von Bernstorf, German Ambassador to the United States during the war, claimed that, “If America did not enter the war, the Entente were not in a position to beat us.” Johann von Bernstorf, My Three Years in America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920), 391. Historian Gerhard Ritter later added, “One thing is certain. Had America remained

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neutral, a military victory by the Entente would have been virtually impossible.” Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter: The Problem of Militarism in Germany, Volume 3: The Tragedy of Statesmanship—Bethmann Hollweg as War Chancellor (1914–1917), trans. Heinz Norden (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1972), 325. 19 See Kenneth D. Rose, The Great War and Americans in Europe, 1914–1917 (New York: Routledge, 2017). Writing in The Outlook, Ernest Hamlin Abbott claimed, “Americans are naturally idealists. They proved themselves to be such in entering the war . . . .” Ernest Hamlin Abbott, “The Wagon and the Star,” The Outlook 121, no. 8 (19 February 1919), 307. 20 Historian David Reynolds concludes that the United States “entered the conflict from idealism rather than self-interest—or, more precisely, because the administration felt that the safeguarding of American ideals (a world made safe for democracy) was integral to its interests.” David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), 414–15. 21 Quoted in Rose, 13. 22 Rose, 277. 23 Rose, 307, n 3. 24 Rose, 17. 25 Quoted in Rose, 303. 26 Quoted in Steven C. Rockefeller, John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic ­Humanism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 301. 27 Paul U. Kellogg, formerly of the American Union against Militarism, added that Wilson had “lifted the plane of our entrance into the war from that of neutral rights to an all-impressing fight for democracy.” See Kennedy, 50, 33–35. 28 Rockefeller, 302–03. 29 “Wilson’s Idealism at the Peace Table,” Literary Digest 59, no. 8 (23 November 1918), 19. 30 Woodrow Wilson, “For Declaration of War against Germany,” in Woodrow ­Wilson, War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses and Public Papers (1917–1924), v. 1, ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), 14. 31 Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure, 1874–1920 (New York: MacMillan, 1951), 454. 32 William Kelleher Storey, The First World War: A Concise Global History (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 32. 33 Quoted in “European Bewilderment at President Wilson’s Diplomacy,” Current Opinion 65, no. 3 (September 1918), 148. Godfrey Rathbone Benson, a British Liberal who was lecturing at American universities, claimed that a peace s­ ettlement that “even in appearance, enlarged the British dominions, would be a scandal . . . a frustration of the ideals which the Allies seek to establish in the world, and (finally) an intolerable nuisance to the British.” Quoted in Lord Charnwood, “What Does the American Alliance Mean to Englishmen?” American Review of Reviews 58, no. 5 (November 1918), 499. 34 Georges Clemenceau, “The Appeal of France to the Heart of America,” Current Opinion 66, no. 3 (March 1919), 151. 35 See David Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, v. 1 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), 86–87. 36 “Beginning Life All Over in Ruined France,” New York Times, September 7, 1919. 37 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936–1939 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 67. 38 Quoted in “What Germany Must Pay,” Literary Digest 59, no. 13 (December 28, 1918), 12. Orig.: Philadelphia Public Ledger. 39 “Versailles and After,” The Outlook 122, no. 10 ( July 9, 1919), 389. 40 Coningsby Dawson, “Germany Revisited,” New York Times, August 17, 1919. 41 Adding some perspective to this issue was the viewpoint of those who would ­actually do the fighting. When Baldwin raised this issue with an American

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sergeant-major, the latter responded that “we would have had to go to the Rhine, perhaps to Berlin. Would it have been worth the sacrifce?” Elbert F. Baldwin, “What Is the German Thinking About To-Day?” The Outlook 122, no. 5 ( June 4, 1919), 205. 42 Referring to the demands of Lodge and Roosevelt for unconditional surrender and “war to the bitter end,” The Nation observed, It is a curious fact that the United States, having gone to war to abolish militarism and the rule of force, and with solemn declarations to make the world safe, not for armies, but for democracy, should now be urged by Republican leaders to spurn all ofers of peace in advance, overrun Germany with its armies, and dictate the terms of settlement at Berlin. This is Junkerism and militarism of the most approved German sort. “The Way of Peace,” The Nation 107, no. 2782 (26 October 1918), 477 43 Alonzo Englebert Taylor, “Observations on the Peace,” Atlantic Monthly, October 1919, 547. 44 Sally Marks, “Mistakes and Myths: The Allies, Germany, and the Versailles Treaty, 1918–1921,” The Journal of Modern History 85, no. 3 (September 2013), 634. 45 Quoted in Strachan, 331. 46 Stephen Bonsal, Unfnished Business (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1944), 261. 47 Adolf Hitler claimed that “the Jew organized the revolution and smashed Prussia and Bavaria at once.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston, MA: Mariner, 1999), 194. 48 William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 32. 49 André Tardieu, The Truth About the Treaty (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1921), 442. 50 Herbert Adams Gibbons, “The Attitude of France toward Peace,” The Century 98, no. 1 (May 1919), 89–92. 51 Herbert Adams Gibbons, “What Confronts France,” The Century 99, no. 3 (January 1920), 346. 52 “The President’s European Visit,” The Outlook 120, no. 12 (November 27, 1918), 488. An editorial in the Denver News claimed, This nation has put aside its old aloofness . . . It no longer shies at foreign alliances—and all alliances must be more or less ‘entangling,’ in that they require reciprocity from the nations allied. It has taken its place as a world-power, having to do with European, African and Asiatic afairs . . . It will be impossible for many years, if ever, for the United States to ‘go it alone’ again . . . Quoted in “President Wilson Smashes Another Precedent and Goes to France,” Current Opinion 66, no. 1 ( January 1919), 3. 53 Gilbert M. Hitchcock, “Our New Internationalism,” The Forum, August 1918, 138. 54 Frederic R. Coudert, “The Freedom of the Seas,” Current Opinion 65, no. 5 (November 1918), 17. 55 Ralph A. Hayes, “Secretary Baker at the Front, Part II,” The Century 96, no. 6 (October 1918), 752–53, 755. Even British Prime Minister David Lloyd George momentarily succumbed to the fever of millenarianism. In the frst fush of enthusiasm following Germany’s surrender, Lloyd George proclaimed that, We must not allow any sense of revenge, any spirit of greed, any grasping desire, to override the fundamental principle of righteousness. Are we to lapse back into the old national rivalries, animosities, and competitive armaments, or are we to initiate the reign on earth of the Prince of Peace? Quoted in Robert W. Bruère, “Changing America: The New Nationalism,” Harper’s Magazine 138, no. 825 (February 1919), 290.

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56 Lyman Abbott, “The Guide of the Nations,” The Outlook 122, no. 14 (August 6, 1919), 531. 57 “The Week,” The Nation 107, no. 2784 (November 9, 1918), 539. 58 A European Liberal, “Why the Wilson Peace Policy May Fail,” The Dial, November 30, 1918, 461. 59 Ray Stannard Baker, What Wilson Did at Paris (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1919), 28. 60 Frederick M. Davenport, “The Senate Should Ratify, With Reservations,” The Outlook 122, no. 11 ( July 16, 1919), 427. 61 Ernest Hunter Wright, “What Shall We Win with the War?” The Century 96, no. 4 ( July 1918), 339. 62 Herbert Adams Gibbons, “The Armistices and Peace Negotiations,” The Century 97, no. 4 (February 1919), 542. 63 Adam Tooze, The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 (New York: Viking, 2014), 16. 64 The White House’s mundane explanation for why Wilson was personally going to the Peace Conference was “to obviate the manifest disadvantages of discussion by cable in determining the greater outlines of the fnal treaty about which he must necessarily be consulted.” “The President at the Peace Table,” Literary Digest 59, no. 9 (November 30, 1918), 14. (The New York Times wondered whether Wilson had “so little confdence in his judgment in the choice of men for these high errands that he must needs go himself.”) Quoted in Ibid., 14; See Hoover, 433. 65 See “1,021 Priests Here Petition Wilson,” New York Times, November 30, 1918; “Ask Protection for Jews,” New York Times, December 1, 1918. 66 “‘Give Us A Just Peace,’ Germans Ask Wilson,” New York Times, November 30, 1918; “Swiss Look to Wilson,” New York Times, December 22, 1918. 67 Quoted in Walter A. McDougall, France’s Rhineland Diplomacy, 1914–1924: The Last Bid for a Balance of Power in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 6. 68 “Whither Bound?” The Nation 107, no. 2789 (December 14, 1918), 718. 69 John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), 38. 70 Jane Addams, Peace and Bread in Time of War [1922] (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1945), 67; Wells quoted in Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920 (New York: Harper, 2009), 347–48. Jan Christiann Smuts added, “Probably to no human being in all history did the hopes, the prayers, the aspirations of so many millions of his fellows burn with such poignant intensity as to him at the close of the war.” Jan Christiaan Smuts, “Woodrow Wilson’s Place in History,” Current History 14, no. 1 (April 1921), 45. 71 H. G. Wells, “The Core of the Trouble,” New Republic 17, no. 212 (November 23, 1918), 93, 94. 72 Edward M. House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, ed. Charles Seymour (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1928), 245. 73 “President Wilson in Europe,” Current History 9, pt. 2, no. 2 (February 1919), 201–02. 74 “Neutrals Hail Wilson’s Coming,” New York Times, December 16, 1918. 75 “President Wilson’s Visit to Italy,” Current History 9, pt. 2, no. 2 (February 1919), 209, 213, 214. 76 “Two Million Cheer Wilson,” New York Times, December 15, 1918. 77 Quoted in “Europe’s Joyous Agony Over Mr. Wilson’s Visit,” Current Opinion 66, no. 2 (February 1919), 78. 78 Frank H. Simonds, “America and the Allies at the Peace Table,” The American Review of Reviews 59, no. 3 (March 1919), 259; “The Week,” The Nation 108, no. 2792 ( January 4, 1919). 79 A. Maurice Low, “President Wilson’s Service to the World,” The American Review of Reviews 59, no. 1 ( January 1919), 68. 80 William Howard Taft, “Problems for World Peace,” Forum, January 1919, 61.

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81 Woodrow Wilson, “Appeal for a Democratic Congress,” in Wilson, War and Peace, 287. Wilson might have profted from William McKinley’s example, who twenty years previously had appointed three members of the Senate (including one from the opposition party) to serve on a fve-man commission to negotiate the treaty ending the Spanish-American War. Robert E. Hannigan, The Great War and American Foreign Policy, 1914–24 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 232. 82 “Choose Ye This Day,” The Nation 107, no. 2785 (November 16, 1918), 573. The Republican explanation for its victory was that it had called for unconditional surrender of the Central Powers (versus Wilson’s somewhat amorphous stand). “President Wilson to Face a Republican Congress,” Literary Digest 59, no. 7 (November 16, 1918), 15. 83 Ronald E. Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901–1950 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 4–5. 84 “President Wilson at the Peace Conference—A Poll of the American Press,” The Outlook 120, no. 13 (4 December 1918), 529–30. The Outlook generously described this decision as “unfortunate.” “The President’s Absence,” The Outlook 120, no. 14 (December 11, 1918), 576. The less forgiving North American Review claimed that Wilson “ignored the Senate completely, denied it any participation in the negotiations and designated as his associates personal retainers of slight, though respectable, repute.” The Editor, “The Independence of America: Must It Be Sacrifced to Humanity?” North American Review 209, no. 4 (April 1919), 437. David Lloyd George complained of Wilson that he “never rallied frst-rate minds around him and he did not always succeed in retaining the second-rate,” which was why he placed himself at the center of the American delegation at Versailles. Lloyd George, The Truth, v. 1, 234. Of those Wilson did bring with him to Versailles, Lloyd George calls Edward M. House “intelligent, tactful, understanding and sympathetic,” but lacking any deep insight into human afairs. “It is perhaps to his credit,” said Lloyd George, “that he was not nearly as cunning as he thought he was.” The other high-profle American delegate, Secretary of State Robert Lansing, was described by Lloyd George as “a mere cypher . . . of no particular distinction or defnite personality. He just did what he was told, and was never told to do very much.” Ibid., 245, 246, 243. House said of the British prime minister, “Great man, Lloyd George. A wonderful fellow. What a fexible memory he has, and that is why it’s wise to keep his letters . . . .” Quoted in Bonsal, 177. House was described by Georges Clemenceau as, “A good American, very nearly as good as a Frenchman, a sifting, pondering mind—above all, the traditional gentleman.” Clemenceau, Grandeur, 148. 85 Robert W. Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914–1917 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 21. 86 George, The Truth, v. 1, 242. That Lloyd George believed that Wilson had blundered by not bringing along any senators was probably something that the prime minister developed in hindsight. In his memoir, Oswald Garrison Villard, who was an American correspondent at Versailles, suggests that Lloyd George was confdent that Wilson would win in the Senate: After breakfast Lloyd George and I looked out of a sitting-room window. Directly across the narrow street we saw Woodrow Wilson walking up and down in a room of his apartment. ‘A remarkable man,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘How do you think he will come out in his fght with the Senate?’ I hesitated for I was not sure of Wilson’s success, yet I felt that I must not weaken the President in my host’s eyes. So I said, ‘I think he will win. ‘So do I,’ was Lloyd George’s reply. Oswald Garrison Villard, Fighting Years: Memoirs of a Liberal Editor (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 444–45.

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87 For instance, Wilson rejected the idea of sending a joint committee of the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee to an inter-allied parliamentary conference at Versailles. “President Opposes Trip by Congressmen,” New York Times, February 28, 1919. 88 While the war was still in progress, William Howard Taft, in a letter to a friend unambiguously described his views on the Wilsonian approach to consultation. Referring to Wilson’s “vanity,” Taft claimed, “He recognizes no obligations of partnership or of decent courtesy. He thinks he is running the whole show himself.” Quoted in Forrest Davis, The Atlantic System: The Story of Anglo-American Control of the Seas [1941] (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973), 254. 89 Woodrow Wilson, “In Free Trade Hall, Manchester,” in Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers (1917–1924), v. 1, ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), 353. 90 Woodrow Wilson, “Christmas Greeting to the Soldiers of the United States,” in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 333. 91 Quoted in Davis, 250. 92 Winston Churchill, The Aftermath (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929), 112. 93 Article 231 reads as follows: The allied and associated Governments afrm and Germany accepts, the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the allied and associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies. See “Full Text of the Proposed Treaty of Peace,” New York Times, 10 June 1919. 94 Hitler, 182. 95 See Reynolds, 285. 96 Asprey, 473; Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2002), 164. 97 “Trying the Kaiser,” The Nation 108, no. 2810 (10 May 1919), 274. 98 “The Kaiser and the Law,” The Outlook 122, no. 6 ( June 11, 1919), 228. 99 “Why the Kaiser Should Be Tried,” The Outlook 122, no. 12 ( July 23, 1919), 462. The Richmond Virginian called him the “arch-criminal of the ages,” while the St. Louis Globe-Democrat said that Wilhelm must be tried to establish the doctrine of personal responsibility of rulers . . . The late Kaiser is not the only German in high place who must be brought to trial, but his trial will surpass all others in historic interest and permanent value as an object-lesson. Quoted in “Wilhelm to the Bar of Justice,” Literary Digest 59, no. 9 (30 November 1918), 12, 13. 100 “Editorial Notes,” New Republic 17, no. 214 (December 14, 1918), 176. In a bizarre footnote, Colonel Luke Lea, former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, admitted that in December 1918 he had led a contingent of American soldiers that tried to kidnap the Kaiser from his residence in Holland. They got close enough to hear the Kaiser speaking, but the unexpected arrival of Dutch guards thwarted their abduction attempt (Lea didn’t release this story until the spring of 1919, perhaps out of fears that he would be court martialed). “Lea Led Party That Tried to Kidnap Kaiser,” New York Times, 1 April 1919. 101 “Senators Discuss Fate of Ex-Kaiser,” New York Times, March 31, 1919. 102 Bonsal, 239. 103 “High Mortality of German Babies,” New York Times, March 15, 1919. 104 Richard V. Oulahan, “3,500,000 Tons Given Up,” New York Times, March 16, 1919.

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105 Richard V. Oulahan, “Lansing Warning May Hasten Peace,” New York Times, March 14, 1919. 106 House, 467. 107 MacMillan, 160. Sally Marks argues that Herbert Plumer’s note about starving children was fabricated at Lloyd George’s request. “Still,” said Marks, “the myth of the hunger blockade lives on.” Marks, 651. As previously noted, there were many others who corroborated that hunger in Germany was far from a “myth.” 108 Post quoted in “Attitude of the British Foreign Ofce to ‘Wilsonism,’” Current Opinion 66, no. 4 (April 1919), 212. 109 Quoted in Reynolds, 132. 110 Quoted in MacMillan, 18. Ibid., 477. 111 See Arthur Walworth, Wilson and his Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), 44. 112 George, The Truth, v. 1, 223, 224. 113 Keynes, 42. 114 Clemenceau, Grandeur, 167. John Maynard Keynes expressed the opinion that Wilson was “ill-informed as to European conditions.” In addition, Wilson had given no thought as to how to fesh out his ideas, and was “slow-minded and bewildered” in his negotiations with other leaders. Keynes, 43, 44. 115 Baker, 31, 32. 116 Hannigan, 176, 180. 117 Quoted in MacMillan, 27. 118 One publication argued that the three great ideas that emerged from the Great War were Prussianism, Bolshevism, and the League of Nations. “Bringing the League of Nations within the Sphere of Practical Politics,” Current Opinion 65, no. 5 (November 1918), 281. 119 “President Wilson’s Peace Program,” Current History 9, pt. 1, no. 2 (November 1918), 254. 120 Woodrow Wilson, “At the University of Paris,” in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 330. 121 Bonsal, 282. 122 Trygve Throntveit, Power Without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist Experiment (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 290–93. 123 “Editorial,” The Dial, 19 October 1918, 311. 124 Quoted in Walworth, 41. 125 “The End and the Means,” The Nation 108, no. 2803 (March 22, 1919), 416–17. 126 “League Procedure Stands,” New York Times, March 16, 1919. 127 See Baker, 38–39, 41, 66–67. 128 Clemenceau, Grandeur, 173. 129 Quoted in Bonsal, 44. 130 Quoted in Walworth, 313, 314. André Tardieu referred to “the instinctive repugnance of the Anglo-Saxons to the systematized constructions of the Latin mind . . . .” Tardieu, 91. 131 See George, The Truth, v. 1, 604–06; Reynolds, 38. 132 “Making the League a Personal Issue,” The Outlook 122, no. 7 (June 18, 1919), 278. 133 Simeon Strunsky, “The President’s Homecoming,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1919, 270, 271. Wilson biographer Patricia O’Toole notes that after Wilson forced Lloyd George and Clemenceau to pay his price (inclusion of the League in the treaty), “he was obliged to pay theirs, compromising again and again, for without the treaty there would be no League.” Patricia O’Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 387. 134 Hoover, 448. 135 Baker, 18; See MacMillan, 57. 136 Hoover, 460; Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 15.

52 America and the Peace Conference

137 See MacMillan, 98, 105; Walworth, 50, 69–70. 138 Lincoln Colcord, “Why Wilson was Defeated at Paris,” The Nation 108, no. 2811 (May 17, 1919), 782, 783. In his 27 July 1922 letter to Edward M. House, Balfour said, “I was absolutely open in 1917 with President Wilson about the Secret Treaties . . . .” Quoted in House, 365; Wilson made his claim about ignorance of the secret treaties in August 1919. See U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Testimony of President Woodrow Wilson. 66th Cong., 1st. Sess., 19 August 1919 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1919), 527. 139 William E. Borah, “The Perils of Secret Treaty Making,” Forum, December 1918, 657, 659, 665. 140 Walter Lippmann, “The Basic Problem of Democracy: I. What Modern Liberty Means,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1919, 627. 141 George, The Truth, v. 1, 77–86. The British Admiralty discussed the idea of sending a cruiser to meet Wilson’s ship at sea as a demonstration that, in the words of the Times, “Great Britain’s control of the seas has been the dominating factor” which made it possible for Wilson to cross the Atlantic. “President’s Plans Watched in London,” New York Times, November 30, 1918. 142 See “Two Navies As One,” New York Times, December 8, 1918. 143 What threatened British naval supremacy was the United States, which could outspend the British in a naval arms race. The British agreed to support the provision for the Monroe Doctrine in the League, in exchange for the United States modifying its ship building program. See MacMillan, 179. 144 Leon Trotzky, “How We Made the October Revolution,” Current History 11, no. 3 (December 1919), 506. 145 Reynolds, 4. 146 Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), 4. 147 Historian Walter A. McDougall argues that by subordinating economic concerns to political ones, Versailles delegates failed to appreciate “the degree to which politics and economies were intertwined in such questions as the Allied war debts, German reparations, or industrial raw materials distribution.” McDougall, 5. 148 Simeon Strunsky, “The Peace-Makers,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1919, 536. Belgium’s foreign minister Paul Hymans complained that “the Great Powers are bullying the little States; they are not showing the proper respect for our national rights.” Quoted in Bonsal, 162. 149 See O’Toole, 401. 150 Hannigan, 156; Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 43, 65. 151 Quoted in Tooze, 280. 152 William Randolph Hearst, “Consequences of the Peace,” June 20, 1922 [orig. published in London Evening Standard], William Randolph Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco, privately published, 1948), 609. 153 See Robert H. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952), 61. 154 Mazower, 42. 155 Mazower, 51–57. A series of “Minority Treaties,” organized by the Allies, under which the newly formed nations were to recognize the rights of minorities within their boundaries, proved to be inefective. See Gerwarth, 216–19. 156 See Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: Penguin, 2016), 116–18. 157 Hannigan, 171, 215. Hannigan adds that Wilson’s program at Versailles “was aimed at stabilizing, not altering in any fundamental way, the world that had been created

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by the leading elements of the major industrializing powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Ibid., 295. The Manchester Guardian foated the idea that America undertake “territorial obligations in the backward regions of the earth.” It singled out Liberia because “there is in the country a population of some 10,000 half-castes and negroes who are American citizens.” Quoted in “American Colonies in Africa,” Literary Digest 59, no. 10 (December 7, 1918), 20. 158 Quoted in Bonsal, 33. When Wilson met with his cabinet on February 2, 1917 to consider how to respond to Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, Secretary of Agriculture David Houston had the following recollection of Wilson’s views on race: He would say frankly that, if he felt that in order to keep the white race, or part of it strong to meet the yellow race—Japan, for instance, in alliance with Russia, dominating China—it would be wise to do nothing, he would do nothing, and would submit to anything and any imputation of weakness or cowardice. Quoted in Davis, 234. 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176

177 178 179

Baker, 63, 111. Quoted in Bonsal, 34–35. House, 488–89. Hannigan, 183–84. Quoted in “British Press,” The Nation 108, no. 2812 (May 24, 1919), 852. Quoted in McDougall, 79. Quoted in Bonsal, 225, 227. Kershaw, 121. Hoover, 461–62. Keynes, 51. See “Editorial: The Growing Revolt against the Treaty,” The Nation 108, no. 2813 (May 31, 1919), 856. Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, And America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), 155. Keynes, 54–55. House, 475. House, 473. “The Week,” The Nation 108, no. 2800 (March 1, 1919), 309. “Editorial,” The Nation 108, no. 2811 (May 17, 1919), 775. “Editorial: The Madness at Versailles,” The Nation 108, no. 2811 (May 17, 1919), 778. The Nation ran a seven-page spread consisting of excerpts from previous Wilson speeches in which he seems to contradict the terms of the treaty. (e.g., “Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished.” “We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people . . . .” “We shall be free to base peace on generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all selfsh claims to advantage on the part of the victors,” etc.) “Out of His Own Mouth: President Wilson In Opposition to the Peace Treaty,” The Nation 108, no. 2812 (24 May 1919), 846–47. See MacMillan, 78–80. See “Sees ‘Tissue of Lies’ in Bullitt Version,” New York Times, September 16, 1919. “Peace Envoys Scof at Bullitt’s Story,” New York Times, September 17, 1919. Bullitt’s letter of resignation to Wilson contained the following: That you persistently opposed most of the unjust settlements; that you accepted them only under great pressure is well known. Nevertheless it is my conviction that if you had made your fght in the open instead of behind closed doors you would have carried with you the public opinion of the world, which was yours;

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you would have been able to resist the pressure and might have established the ‘new international order, based upon broad universal principles of right and justice’ of which you used to speak. I am sorry you did not fght our fght to a fnish and that you had so little faith in the millions of men like myself in every nation who had faith in you. Quoted in “Editorial: Clearing the Air,” The Nation 108, no. 2813 (31 May 1919), 859. 180 “Bullitt Asserts Lansing Expected Treaty to Fail,” New York Times, September 13, 1919. 181 Robert Lansing, The Peace Negotiations: A Personal Narrative (Boston: Houghton Mifin, 1921), 272–73. 182 House, 487. 183 O’Toole, 393. 184 Elbert Francis Baldwin, “The Fourteenth of July at Paris,” The Outlook 122, no. 14 (August 6, 1919), 535. 185 Thomas Mann, “How to Win the Peace,” Atlantic Monthly 169, no. 2 (February 1942), 183.

2 THE AFTERMATH OF VERSAILLES AND THE ROOTS OF ISOLATIONISM

Senators saw a treaty replete with problems. But their focus of hostility was the provision for a League of Nations that would obligate the United States to reverse a policy of avoiding foreign entanglements that had been the bedrock of American foreign policy since the founding of the Republic. The position taken by Henry Cabot Lodge in opposition to the League is well known, and he is sometimes portrayed as a villain who destroyed the world’s last, best chance for peace. But his views were more nuanced than they have been given credit for. In 1913, the League to Enforce Peace was created, with former president William Howard Taft as its first president. A resolution called upon nations “to establish peace among themselves,” and to enforce that peace through mediation and, if necessary, military action.1 For Lodge, this was the key. He believed that the success of such an organization would rely on “the force which the United Nations are willing to put behind the peace and order of the world.”2 In contrast to this emphasis on armed force, Wilson saw in his League “a brotherhood which will make it unnecessary in the future to maintain those crushing armaments which make the peoples suffer almost as much in peace as they suffer in war.”3 Even before the release of the full text of the treaty, opposition to the League was hardening in the Senate. On March 13 Senator Lawrence Sherman ­( R-Illinois), one of the “irreconcilables” who opposed the League in any form, complained that the United States was being asked “to become the knight-­ errant of the world.” The League, said Sherman, “sends the angel of death to every American home. In every voice to ratify it we can hear the beating of his wings.”4 Lodge claimed that the League would be “fertile in producing controversies and misunderstandings,” and would make demands to which no nation should submit in a time of peace. He offered a resolution in which the

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peace treaty would be signed and the League rejected.5 Topping these various denunciations of the League was Senator William E. Borah’s statement that, “If the Savior of Mankind should revisit the earth and declare for a League of Nations I would be opposed to it.”6 Wilson was less than diplomatic in his dismissal of his opponents. In a speech at the Metropolitan Opera House he accused them of having “a comprehensive ignorance of the state of the world,” and nurturing “a doctrine of careful selfshness.” 7 Even worse, opposition to the treaty amounted to opposition to divine providence. When Wilson formally presented the treaty to the Senate in July, he claimed that America’s destiny had been revealed not by human actions, but “by the hand of God.”8 Wilson invited the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to the White House on August 19, 1919 to discuss the treaty, and the president came in for some rough questioning. Wilson believed that he had already compromised his principles in his eforts to accommodate senators by gaining approval for a clause in the covenant that specifcally protected the Monroe Doctrine. He had also secured an amendment to allow League members to withdraw on two years’ notice. The latter, according to Stephen Bonsal, cost Wilson “a tremendous loss in moral prestige.”9 Such sacrifces had done little to placate senators, however, who focused their criticism on Article X, the mutual security element of the League. In his opening statement, Wilson called Article X “the very backbone of the whole covenant.”10 Under questioning from Senator Borah, Wilson was asked whether or not there would be a legal obligation to intervene under Article X if a member nation of the League were invaded. Wilson tied himself in rhetorical knots, arguing that while there was no legal obligation to take up arms and make war, “there might be a very strong moral obligation.”11 The senators seized on this vague formulation. Senator Warren G. Harding (R-Ohio) asked if a moral obligation wasn’t less binding, to which Wilson responded that it was “[n]ot less binding, but operative in a diferent way because of the element of judgment.” Frustrated by Wilson’s weaselly phraseology, Senator Frank B. Brandegee (R-Connecticut) observed that the diference between a legal and moral obligation seemed to be of little importance, “because we are obligated in any event.”12 Brandegee asked why, after rescuing the Allies from the German peril, there was “the moral obligation to merge ourselves with Europe forever? Wasn’t it possible to cut the “Gordian knot” of the covenant, sue for peace with Germany, and reestablish business and diplomatic relations? Wilson responded that while this was possible, “the people of the United States will never consent to it.” Brandegee pointedly replied that, “There is no way by which the people can vote on it.”13 Wilson came out of this meeting with a clear understanding that he did not have the support he needed in the Senate, and early in September he undertook a national campaign to take the issue of the treaty directly to the American people. He spoke to immense crowds: 15,000 in Kansas City, 30,000 in Tacoma, 40,000–50,000 in San Diego.14 In  Columbus, Ohio, he insisted

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that the treaty was intended not merely to end the war, but also to “prevent any similar war.” Without a League, “peace will be brought into contempt.”15 In Indianapolis, Wilson responded to criticisms that Article X would compromise American sovereignty by saying, “Every man who makes a choice to respect the rights of his neighbors deprives himself of absolute sovereignty” and once again questioned the intelligence of his critics (“If they read the English language, they do not understand the English language as I understand it”).16 The next day Wilson raised the specter of a militarist state, claiming that if the United States stood apart from the rest of the world, “We must have a great standing army,” and a “mobilized nation.”17 Meanwhile, Senator Hiram W. Johnson (R-California) was on a countertour in opposition to Wilson (even though Johnson estimated that 80 percent of Californians favored the League).18 Johnson claimed that the League makes America underwrite every territorial grab of every other nation, every wrong and injustice done to peoples, every bargain by which human beings have been handed about from one sovereignty to another, every violation of natural right and self determination, every oppression of the strong over the weak.19 In a speech in Omaha on 14 September, Johnson proclaimed, “We are at the crossroads of our national destiny. One road leads to sinister European and Asiatic complications. The other is the straight and narrow path of patriotic Americanism.” He denied that America had ever been fnancially, commercially, or socially isolated from the rest of the world. America was geographically isolated by oceans east and west—“God gave us these great oceans, and neither the League of Nations nor Woodrow Wilson can dam them up.”20 Wilson didn’t know it, but his speech in Pueblo, Colorado, would be his last on the tour. It was especially unfortunate that this was so because in many ways this speech was Wilson at his worst, combining, as it did, immigrant bashing with a conspiracy theory to explain opposition to the Treaty. The person “who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic,” said Wilson, and that “it is only certain bodies of foreign sympathizers, certain bodies of sympathy with foreign nations that are organized against this great document ….”21 As historian Robert E. Hannigan has observed, Wilson on this tour indulged in “extreme forms of demagoguery.”22 That night Wilson sufered intense headaches, followed by a terrible stroke. Knowledge of this was kept from the public, with Wilson’s physician Cary T. Grayson only referring to “nervous exhaustion,” a digestive issue, and a touch of last spring’s infuenza.23 Wilson, of course, wasn’t the only one practicing demagoguery. Senator Borah condemned Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell and E. H. Gary of United States Steel for their support of internationalism and the League

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because such ideas were “foreign to our national life” and “everlastingly at war with Americanism.” Borah linked such ideas to race riots, bombings and industrial unrest. Senator John Sharp Williams (D-Mississippi) criticized Borah (who had condemned lynchings) for confating race riots and the League of Nations. Williams said that race riots were based on sexual assault by black men on white women.24 On November 6, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations presented fourteen Reservations to the Treaty (the mocking reference to Wilson’s Fourteen Points could not have been clearer). Wilson instructed Senate Democrats not to vote for any treaty that included reservations, and when the fnal vote came on November 19, Democrats joined Republicans and the treaty was defeated.25 Wilson’s great quest was over. Just as the hopes expressed for a new millennium in Europe had been extravagant in the days before the Versailles Conference, the fnal dashing of those hopes elicited equally extreme lamentations. Hermann Keyserling called it “the greatest lost opportunity since the creation of the world,” and as things now stood, “the world never was more pregnant with bloodshed and war than it is to-day.”26 There is a footnote to this disastrous failure because there was one last efort to salvage the Treaty that showed promise. Stephen Bonsal and Henry Cabot Lodge met and went through the Treaty together, and while Lodge added a few changes, according to Bonsal they were “more concerned with verbiage” than with substantial changes.27 When Bonsal sent the modifed document to Edward M. House, House was elated, and forwarded the document to the White House. He received no response. Most likely it was destroyed by Edith Wilson or one of the other guardians of Wilson’s health.28 Wilson and House would never meet again. Something had happened to alter their relationship, and House acknowledged that “a shadow fell between us.” But its source was “a tragic mystery, a mystery that now can never be dispelled, for its explanation lies buried with him.”29 It is hard to view Wilson as anything other than a tragic fgure. Arguably, no one in the twentieth century had ever risen so high in the public’s esteem. But even at the peak of his glory, the inevitability of Wilson’s fall was clear to many. As the Versailles Conference was beginning, Oswald Garrison Villard noted that Wilson enjoyed “a popular acclaim given surely to no other man in history,” but Villard also knew that there would be troubles innumerable ahead, and was overwhelmed by “a deep feeling of pity for Mr. Wilson.”30 Roland G. Usher, history professor at Washington University, postulated that while Wilson knew that his chances of realizing his goals were slim, it was a chance worth trying. There was no disgrace in failure, and “in success there would be an achievement of which the statesmen of the ages have dreamed.”31 Some speculated that Wilson had forgotten the essentials of the democracy for which he was making the world safe, with The Outlook noting that Wilson had failed to take into account “that in a democracy great national policies are determined not by one leader but by the decision of majorities.”32

The Aftermath of Versailles 59

Others  believed that Wilson had shifted his ground from a promoter of American interests to something else entirely. Writing in the North American Review, David Jayne Hill insisted that what was needed was a peace of victory, but what Wilson was peddling instead was a peace of compromise and reconstruction. Once Wilson was committed to this course, “America’s life was no longer to him the highest purpose. He wanted to be the creator of a new world. From that moment the President no longer represented America. He was the victim of his obsession, the reconstructed world.”33 The potent punch of universal brotherhood that had fowed freely at the end of the war meant that when these extravagant hopes were crushed, the hangover was especially vicious. Commentators looking back at the frst year of peace contrasted the “moral and spiritual mood” which had won the war with the “abasement” that followed. The peace and prosperity that the world had yearned for was now a “devil’s garden,” with the world “trembling perhaps on the brink of ruin.”34 Americans had assumed that if they came to the aid of the Allies they would “behave handsomely,” but instead they reverted to “the spoils-grabbing spirit.”35 This produced what Frank H. Simmonds called “endless disillusionment” in the United States. “[W]e have touched dead low water mark, in the pessimism growing out of the war” with a future that promised general disorder and rising bolshevism.36

Europe’s Post-War Problem and the United States Who was to blame for the failure of post-war internationalism? Among historians, certainly, American isolationism is frequently cited as a prominent factor that would lead to the catastrophe of the Second World War. If only the United States had been more actively involved in the afairs of Europe, so the argument goes, things would have turned out diferently. Inherent in the critique of American isolationism is that Americans should have made decisions based on the world as it would be in 1939, rather than the world as it existed in 1919. But without a crystal ball, historical actors must make decisions on what they understand at the time, and if one examines dispassionately the factors that were paramount in 1919, isolationism was a rational choice for the United States. Because Woodrow Wilson’s reach exceeded his grasp, he has been saddled with the original sin of the demise of internationalism. But arguably it was Europe that bore the greatest responsibility. Herbert Hoover observed that “Europe said the United States ran out on them after the Peace. The fact is, Europe ran out on the United States in the Peace.”37 Imperialism returned to Europe with a vengeance after the war, with France adding a quarter of a million square miles to its colonial empire, and Britain a million square miles.38 They did it under the cover of the League of Nations’ “mandate” system. To many, the League had become a device to parcel out the spoils of war and to bolster the status quo of power relations after the war. Harold Stearns referred

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to “the amalgamated society of imperial freebooters—otherwise known as the League of Nations,” and the editor of the American Review of Reviews lamented that, “We had supposed that the war had destroyed the twin evils of militarism and imperialism,” but the Allies “appeared unblushingly as more imperialistic in their aims and plans than ever before.”39 The argument that the United States was “just as imperialistic” as France and Britain simply does not hold up on examination. The United States “­ empire” in 1919 consisted of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines and a few scattered islands. In imperialism, as in life, size matters, and if we compare the vast colonial possessions of France and especially Britain (whose colonies comprised roughly one-fourth of the planet’s land mass and 500 million inhabitants) to those of the United States, we see a massively different order of magnitude.40 The declaration of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 made it plain that the United States wanted to keep European imperialism out of the Western Hemisphere, and while Americans were momentarily seduced to take up “the white man’s burden” at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, they almost immediately regretted their status as imperialists. With the bloody suppression of the insurrection in the Philippines, and the public anger expressed in the United States through the Anti-Imperialist League, it became obvious that America’s ill-advised flirtation as a colonial power was ending almost before it began.41 By 1913, Woodrow Wilson was declaring that “the United States will never again seek an additional foot of territory by conquest”—an agenda that was the exact opposite of what the Allies were pursuing at Versailles.42 If the United States had had any interest in expanding its imperial presence, the Versailles Conference offered the perfect venue. Yet Wilson eschewed that opportunity, and while Britain, France and Italy engaged in an unseemly scramble for colonial loot, Wilson remained firm in seeking nothing for his own country. In calling for “national self-determination,” Wilson was clearly endorsing an anti-imperialist ideal. European idealists, like their American counterparts, were fond of expressing lofty sentiments, but an essential difference between the two camps was that anti-imperialism seldom came up when Europeans were doing the talking. In a 1914 letter to Theodore Roosevelt in which Rudyard Kipling was encouraging American involvement in the war, Kipling claimed that the Allies were shedding their blood “for every ideal that the United States stands for ….”43 But Kipling’s idealism included a belief in the British Empire, and he should have known that once the war was over an American endorsement of an enhanced British and French colonial system, subsidized by American money, was not going to win many adherents in the United States.44 André Tardieu asked, “[W]ho does not know that Germany alone is responsible for the disaster, for which she also suffers … ?”45 But from the American point of view, Europeans failed to acknowledge that they all shared responsibility for the catastrophe of the Great War. The Germans came the closest in their

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response to the treaty, stating that an admission of exclusive guilt would be “a lie.” They called attention to the starvation of Germans through the British blockade that had been administered with “cold deliberation,” and noted that over the last ffty years “the imperialism of all European States has chronically poisoned the international situation.”46 Indeed, the toxic combination of imperialism, nationalism, and a military arms race had created enormous tensions in Europe before the war, but at war’s end it was the wicked Germans who were solely to blame. The Germans were wicked indeed, but realpolitik was not a game they played by themselves. For all the refnements of their civilization, Europeans (not Americans) had brought on the most brutal war in human history. Wilson penetrated to  the heart of it when he referred to the “age-long wrongs which characterized the  history of Europe.”47 For millennia, the politics of Europe was based on the conception that “the strong had all the rights and that all that the weak could enjoy was what the strong permitted them to enjoy ….”48 Wilson tried to change that, but when Europeans reverted back to the old system after the war, they should not have been surprised by a lack of American sympathy toward them. Even Herbert Adams Gibbons, veteran American correspondent who had covered the war from France and had been enormously sympathetic toward French issues in the war’s immediate aftermath, was embittered by the Allied attitude toward the United States. “Because we did not play the game at Paris on the basis of grab and barter,” said Gibbons, “because we did not sanction and agree to enforce treaties that brought us absolutely no advantages, moral or material, we are now being upbraided.”49 Nor did Europeans seem to understand the huge import of the precedentbreaking involvement of the United States in a European confict. The Paris Midi referred to “the problem of curing American public opinion of its insularity,” without mentioning that insular Americans had gone to Europe and delivered victory to the Allies. It was an extraordinary event in the history of the United States, as the American remove from Europe—both geographically and philosophically—was not merely continental but hemispheric.50 There was certainly nothing pre-ordained about American intervention. Before the U.S. declaration of war, Wilson himself argued that the American distance from Europe was to the advantage of all nations because the United States possessed a “reserve moral force” that enabled her to mediate among competing interests.51 The United States became involved despite a deep ambivalence, much of it related to British behavior at sea. The British seized and censored American transatlantic mail, denied coal to American ships unless such ships were turned over to the control of the British Admiralty, and published a “blacklist” of American frms with which British subjects were not allowed to trade. Wilson pronounced himself “vexed and irritated” by these actions, and Wilson’s (and Congress’) irritation translated into passage of an enormous naval appropriations bill.52 Most Americans understood that the United States had to fght this

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war on the Allied side. As bad as British provocations were, at least no neutrals were killed at sea, as was the case with German submarine attacks. German behavior elsewhere—the violation of Belgian neutrality and the killing of Belgian civilians, the introduction of poison gas on the battlefeld, Zeppelin attacks on civilian populations, the mass deportations of Belgians and Poles—further cemented the idea that Germany and the Central Powers had to be defeated. But Americans did not fully trust their imperialist allies, and committed only to fght as an “associated” power. This prompted Britain’s King George V to ask, “Do we have a co-belligerent or an umpire?”53 The answer is that they had a co-belligerent who was indispensible. Indeed, it is hard to see how the Allies could have survived without the United States. The mutiny of French soldiers had greatly diminished the efectiveness of that army, the withdrawal of Russia from the war had collapsed the Eastern Front, the Italian army had been routed at Caporetto, and at Passchendaele the British had sufered casualties that rivaled those of the Somme. Once the war was over, however, the Allied leadership groused about the timing of the U.S. decision to go to war, and undervalued the sacrifces made by American troops. Lloyd George emphasized the enormous number of French, British, and Italian casualties and the widespread destruction in Europe. American losses, he said, “were not comparable.” Not “a single shack [was] destroyed by enemy action” in the United States.54 (André Tardieu said something similar about Britain, observing, “Not a foot of English soil served as a battlefeld.”)55 The British also acted as if the sum total of Allied sea power was wielded by them despite the fact that several hundred American ships operated on convoy and antisubmarine duty, as well as reinforcing the blockade.56 Other Britons besides Lloyd George belittled America’s war efort, including Rudyard Kipling, who compared the United States to a laborer who showed up at the end of the day and demanded a full day’s wages.57 But these critiques of American involvement pale in comparison to those of Georges Clemenceau. In 1922, Clemenceau took a tour of America, asking for greater American involvement on the European continent and warning that Germany was preparing for war. He was unsparing in his assessment of the United States, stating that “a people may be great one day, and small and mean another.” The United States had broken “all the organs of economic solidarity,” and that, “Now, we hear that we had better pay what we owe. Certainly, I do not want you to believe that we are a people who do not like to pay our debts.”58 (In fact, just a few years later he would be saying precisely that.) The reaction of Senator Borah and other “irreconcilables” to Clemenceau was perhaps predictable (Borah blamed Clemenceau for Europe’s current wretched condition), but the reporting in mainstream newspapers was also largely negative.59 The Washington Post declared Clemenceau’s contention that the United States had left France in the lurch “a libel.” And when he asked for more U.S. help in Europe, “he might recollect that the United States

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has already helped Europe and has received nothing but ungrateful reproaches in return.” “It is the rapacious, revengeful, shortsighted, and selfsh element of Europe that M. Clemenceau represents.”60 When Clemenceau spoke of American participation in the Great War, he said, “You had your soldiers killed. You spent your money lavishly. You did that to get something. Now, if you have not gotten it, may I ask you what you did it for?”61 The answer, as supplied by a Los Angeles Times editorial, was a little respect: We were stunned with surprise, when the smoke of the battle had drifted away, to be told that we were a greedy bunch of money-grabbers; that we had waited until the dangers were all over; then rushed in to try to claim the glory; that we not only did nothing to help win the war, but that we helped to save the Germans from their just deserts. Lastly, that we have an awful nerve to expect to get our money back.62 Clemenceau had not mellowed eight years later when he published his score-settling memoir Grandeur and Misery of Defeat. It was a bitter polemic in which no one was spared.63 Indeed, if any one person could be said to have totally alienated the American public against France, surely that person would be Clemenceau. We have already alluded to his treatment of Wilson and the American delegation at the peace conference, and with the war over he piled on his contempt for the United States. Clemenceau dismissed American General John J. Pershing’s refusal to put his troops under French command as the product of “the romantic side of America’s intervention to form a self-contained American army.”64 He contrasted the French war dead of 1.3 million with the 56,000 American dead, and sneered that this “had appeared to you [the United States], nevertheless, as an excessive display of solidarity.”65 America, said Clemenceau, had pursued a “policy of procrastination that cost us dear ….”66 Put another way, “America was far away and took her time to come to the war.”67 Clemenceau had told the French Chamber of Deputies in December 1918 that “without America and England, France would perhaps no longer actually exist.”68 In later years Clemenceau had seemingly forgotten that America had delivered France from non-existence, establishing a tradition of French ingratitude that would be carried on by Charles De Gaulle at the conclusion of the Second World War. Indeed, it would be difcult to fnd anyone more maladroit in building good Franco-American relations than Clemenceau. Clemenceau believed that because the European allies had sufered greater casualties than the United States, American loans should be viewed as America’s contribution to victory, and thus written down dramatically.69 This was a popular view in Britain as well. Seemingly forgotten was that the Allied war efort would most likely have ground to a halt without American armaments and food. (A secret British report made in October 1916 suggested that any disruption in American

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supplies would “practically stop the war.”)70 Apparently these American contributions had not been enough. The Allies wanted more, and now the lifeline of American money that had been celebrated during the confict became the flthy lucre of the post-war years. As William Randolph Hearst put it, “Uncle Santa Claus became Uncle Shylock.” 71 Overwhelmingly, Americans supported the view that being condemned as a nation of Shylocks had been their only reward for coming to the rescue of the Allies. Even Franklin Roosevelt, who had little in common with Hearst politically, mused, “We fortunately never had a chance to fnd out what our ‘reward’ would have been if Germany had won that war.” 72 In one grotesquely inappropriate comparison, Clemenceau whined that in the American insistence that France pay its war debts, France was “ruined by the Americans in peace-time after being ruined by the Germans in war.” 73 Like a dissipated lord being presented with the bill while his head was still throbbing from the night before, Clemenceau groaned that the United States was “presenting us with a tradesman’s account that does more honor to her greed than to her self-respect.” 74 (Historian Robert H. Ferrell observed that if war debts were a tradesman’s account, “so also were reparations, although Clemenceau would never have admitted that.”)75 Making Clemenceau’s complaint even more disgraceful was that of the $10 billion Americans loaned to Europe (the equivalent of about $150 billion in 2020 dollars), over $3 billion had been loaned out after the war to help European economic recovery.76 Writing in the New York Times in 1923, Edwin L. James condemned the United States for asking that other nations reduce their demands for what was owed them, without in turn reducing the demands for what was owed America. This hypocrisy, said James, had undermined the moral authority of the United States.77 There is a diference, however, between a pledge freely given and widely celebrated (American war loans) and a fnancial penalty imposed on an unwilling nation that Americans consistently viewed as punitive and counterproductive (reparations). In a 5 August 1920 letter to Lloyd George, Wilson bluntly rejected the Allies’ suggestion that the United States abrogate the debts that they owed to America so that the Allies would not have to extract as much money from Germany. The government failed to see the logic in such a linkage, said Wilson, and he made it clear “that it cannot consent to connect the reparation question with that of intergovernmental indebtedness.” 78 Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of U.S. Steel, compared the French complaints about their war debts to the German insistence that the treaty respecting Belgian neutrality was only “a scrap of paper.” Gary said, Most of us remember clearly what took place and what was said during the war by those who borrowed money; how urgent they were, how profuse in promise, how grateful for accommodations; and it is difcult to believe there is a change in sentiment.

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Further exasperating Americans, according to George Wheeler Hinman, Jr., were huge post-war European expenditures for the military “despite pleas of national poverty,” and the widespread belief in the United States that French policy was destroying Germany’s ability to pay.79 Indeed, by 1924 France had invaded the German Ruhr region and was maintaining the largest army on the planet with 750,000 troops.80 More bluntly and to the point, Calvin Coolidge articulated what was obvious to most Americans: “They hired the money, didn’t they?”81 The issue of European war debts—and the soreness of Americans at the suggestion that they be written off—would remain a constant throughout the twenties and into the thirties. Americans were not unsympathetic to the debt dilemma faced by Europeans, and during the 1920s the World War Foreign Debt Commission reduced the rate of interest on British war debts from 5 to 3.3 percent (canceling 19.3 percent of British debts), and reduced the interest on French debts to 1.6 percent (reducing more than half of French debts).82 But the idea that these debts should be annulled was rejected by virtually everyone. When he gave a speech before the Council of Foreign Relations in 1925, ­Secretary of State Frank Kellogg observed that, It is true that many of these [Allied] countries suffered more than the United States because they were the immediate theatre of the war and lay in the path of its devastation. Yet it should be remembered that had the United States not intervened, the losses of these debtor countries would have been incalculably greater. In the meantime, American taxpayers were on the hook for the $10 billion that the Allies didn’t want to pay.83 Historian Stephen A. Schuker has noted that in contrast to France and Italy, Britain was fully able to pay her war debts. But the British government ­calculated that if it delayed matters and blurred the distinctions between its own financial solvency and the insolvency of other debtor nations “it could embarrass the United States into outright cancellation.” The refusal of the American government to link reparations and war debts, said Schuker, must be viewed in the light of “repeated maneuvers” by the British and continental powers “to throw the entire burden of adjustment on the American taxpayer.”84 In addition to the money Americans had already spent in Europe, the Allies clearly expected that they would keep on spending. In a 1920 memorandum to the President, Norman Davis, assistant secretary of the Treasury, summed up the Allied strategy as making “Germany indemnify them for having started the war and to make us indemnify them for not having entered the war sooner.”85 The New York American noted that while the United States was not going to have any of its war costs reimbursed from European assets, Europeans still expected America to expend more money in policing European states that were

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in disorder. Indeed, in 1921 the United States still had 10,000 troops in the Rhineland. “Let the European governments which are pocketing the gains of the war we won for them pay the cost of their own police forces,” said the American.86 A key document that contributed to the American mood of disillusionment about the war was The Economic Consequences of the Peace by British economist John Maynard Keynes. Published in 1919, it was an international phenomenon, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. It was extensively quoted in the U.S. Senate by Republicans eager to derail the Versailles Treaty.87 The draconian reparations against Germany, said Keynes, were “abhorrent and detestable” and would result in reducing that nation “to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness ….”88 Principally to blame for the economic dictates of the treaty was Georges Clemenceau. According to Keynes, Clemenceau “had one illusion—France; and one disillusion—mankind, including Frenchmen, and his colleagues not least.” In the French prime minister’s view, said Keynes, European history was “a perpetual prize-fght,” and here Clemenceau resembled Otto von Bismarck more than any other political fgure.89 (Not surprisingly, Clemenceau described Keynes as someone “with some knowledge of economics but neither imagination nor character ….”)90 Keynes feared that in the aftermath of the treaty not just Germany but the rest of Europe would succumb to “the rapid depression of the standard of life.” Not all would sufer these deprivations in silence. Some would turn to remedies that could “submerge civilization itself.”91 Essential to addressing this danger, said Keynes, was money—specifcally American money. The United States had been unstinting in its fnancial assistance during the confict, “and without this assistance the Allies could never have won the war ….”92 Keynes suggested that the United States could make one further contribution by forgiving the $10 billion in debts owed by the Allies. Much of this money had gone to Britain, which in turn had used it to support her continental partners. As part of Keynes’ plan Britain herself would write of $4.5 billion in debt, to the beneft of both France and Italy.93 This would save European nations from a “crushing burden.”94 What is most striking to the reader is that while Keynes was pleading for American fnancial relief for Europe, he simultaneously cast doubt on whether Europe was worthy of the efort. Keynes ruled out further loans to European nations because, “They are not to be trusted with resources which they would devote to the furtherance of policies” that would be repugnant to Americans. Keynes sympathized with the desire of Americans “to be quit of the turmoil, the complication, the violence, the expense, and, above all, the unintelligibility of the European problems ….” 95 Why, then, should the United States write of these massive debts? For an economist, Keynes makes the strangely sentimental/nostalgic argument that these debts should

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be forgiven for “what Europe has meant to her [America] and still means to her, what Europe, the mother of art and of knowledge, in spite of everything, still is and still will be ….” 96 The future of Europe was clouded because rather than committing to a clear-eyed assessment of where responsibility for the war lay, scapegoats were summoned to take the blame. Germany had its “stab-in-the-back” narrative, and the Allies had Hun militarism. Also, in the explanation for the crippling infation that followed the war, Allied governments tried to cover up their own malfeasance by laying the blame on “profteers.” By stirring up popular hatred against the “entrepreneur class of capitalists,” said Keynes, “these same governments were threatening to upend the social and economic foundations of society.”97 The capitalist critique that Keynes mentioned would cross the Atlantic and reach its climax in the Nye Committee Hearings of the 1930s. But even before America declared war in 1917, some were already condemning United States involvement in similar terms. Senator George W. Norris, who voted against declaring war against Germany, argued that, “War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall Street …. Their object in having war and in preparing for war is to make money.” “Let Europe solve her problems as we have solved ours,” said Norris. “Let Europe bear her burdens as we have borne ours.”98 Winston Churchill lamented that if only Wilson had made “common cause” with Lloyd George and Clemenceau, the three might have exerted “benefcent power over the wide scene of European tragedy.”99 But if what Churchill meant by common cause was America signing on for Europe’s “deep-seated tribal instincts of nationalism, imperialism, age-old hates, memories of deep wrongs, ferce distrusts and impellent fears,” then the United States could perhaps be forgiven for opting out.100 David Jayne Hill, who opposed American participation in the League, had certainly never been isolated from European afairs. He had been the American Ambassador to Germany and Minister to Switzerland and The Netherlands, as well as Assistant Secretary of State from 1898 to 1903. Hill pleaded against further amalgamation with Europe by quoting none other than Woodrow Wilson: You understand that the nations of Europe have again and again clashed with one another in competitive interest. It is impossible for men to forget these sharp issues that were drawn between them in times past. It is impossible for men to believe that all ambitions have all of a sudden been foregone. They remember territory that was coveted; they remember rights that it was attempted to extort; they remember political ambitions which it was attempted to realize—and, which they believe that men have come into a diferent temper, they cannot forget these things, and so they do not resort to one another for a dispassionate view of the matters in controversy.

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Hill’s impeccable logic was that, “If this is a just estimate of the European nations, it would appear to be the part of wisdom for a distant people to keep as far as possible from intervention.”101 Wilson’s bete noir Henry Cabot Lodge was in basic agreement, noting, “Europe has the inheritance of confict and wars—wars which have gone on for many centuries. We cannot understand the feeling that those wars and hatreds have engendered.”102 One thing that united Europeans after the war was the consensus that Europe had a problem, and that it was America’s responsibility to save Europe from itself. Theodor Wolf, editor of the Berliner Tágeblatt, suggested that under the guidance of the United States, the Allies “could have bound the Germans to them by a treaty of friendship, which might have resulted in peace and security for all.”103 When Alexander Redlich, editor of the French publication Gazette de Voss, claimed in 1920 that Germany was cheating on the treaty, he said that “the chief cause is the vote by which the United States Senate refused to ratify it.”104 The British likewise looked to America for European salvation. In Lloyd George’s second volume on the peace negotiations, published in 1938, there is a section called “Defection of the United States.” After belittling Wilson and making condescending remarks on the contributions made by America in his frst volume, Lloyd George made the argument that only a more involved United States could have salvaged the peace because of Europe’s “animosities of centuries” and “the national hatreds that poison the blood of Europe ….”105 British Foreign Minister Edward Grey also referred to the “interracial jealousies of Europe,” arguing that without the involvement of America the old order of things will revive, the old consequences will recur, there will again be some great catastrophe of war, in which the United States will again fnd itself compelled to intervene, for the same reason and at no less or even greater cost than in 1917.106 In an article in Atlantic Monthly G. Lowes Dickinson, an Englishman who had made key contributions to the idea of a league of nations, confessed that, “Europe, I agree, has deserved all this—deserved it by her war, and still more by her peace. But is that a reason why America should stand aloof? Can she even aford to do so, in her own interest?”107 If Europe was as rife with such hatreds and poisons to which Europeans themselves confessed, what motivation was there for the United States to become more involved? Self-interest, as Dickinson suggested, was one possible motivation, but what impact could even an actively involved United States have on such deep-seated animosities? (And we have to remember that the United States in 1919 was nowhere near being the economic and military powerhouse she would be in 1945.) University of Edinburg professor Charles Sarolea summarized the post-war situation in Europe as it appeared in 1923: “Europe is given over to chaos and confusion, and she makes America largely

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responsible for that chaos.” “Europe certainly has no right to blame America,” said Sarolea, insisting that the United States was simply following the course that every European nation would have taken if found in a similar situation. As for handing out more funds to Europe, it “would be like giving money to a confrmed drunkard of violent temperament, with the full knowledge that, if we supply the drunkard with the means of getting drunk, he is almost certain to commit a murderous assault.”108 If the situation were reversed, how many European statesmen would suggest a greater involvement in the afairs of a violent, chaotic United States? The closest analogy was the American Civil War. While both Britain and France toyed with the idea of recognizing the Confederacy (Britain went so far as to allow the construction of Confederate vessels in British shipyards), in the end both wisely backed of and avoided intervening in American political afairs. In the context of 1919 (and resisting the impulse to look twenty years into the future), it is hard to argue against the reasonableness of the isolationist position. The British critique of American isolationism was especially rich, leavened as it was with more than a dollop of hypocrisy. In fact, the United States was now pursuing a strategy that had defned British foreign policy for much of the nineteenth century. In 1896 British Prime Minister Robert Salisbury told Queen Victoria that isolation posed “much less danger than the danger of being dragged into wars which do not concern us.” In the same year, First Lord of the Admiralty Edward Goschen insisted that, “Our isolation is not an isolation of weakness, or of contempt for ourselves; it is deliberately chosen, the freedom to act as we choose in any circumstances that may arise.”109 Another political leader claimed that the nation had never been isolated commercially, fnancially, or socially, but only in the sense “that we have not bound ourselves by alliance to mix up in the quarrels of others—only in the sense that we have attended to our own business. Is not that kind of ‘isolation’ the very thing that is best for us and the world?”110 In this case, however, the politician was former American senator Albert J. Beveridge, and he was making his comments in 1919. Britain’s involvement in the afairs of continental Europe after the war was reticent at best. Arguably, America’s rejection of a military alliance with Britain and France was a godsend for British statesmen because it gave them license to abandon France and instead revert back to the 500-year-old strategy of playing one continental power of against another. British historian A. J. P. Taylor has argued that it was this Franco-British split, not American isolationism, that doomed any post-war peace in Europe.111 Summing up British foreign policy in 1938, Fortune mused that, To balance the power Englishmen will break their word or keep it, desert their friends or kill their enemies … Sometimes the result has been tragedy for democracy, sometimes it has been tragedy for autocracy. But always the end value for England has been a divided European continent.112

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Writing from Britain, another observer saw in the American hesitancy to immerse herself in the afairs of Europe a startling resemblance to dominant political thoughts and prejudices here … The vast majority of Englishmen—so strong is the reaction from the war—are only too anxious to get back to their splendid isolation from European quarrels.113 Historians have often faulted post-war Americans for their lack of vision and insularity. In 1941, as he was encouraging the United States to become involved in another European war, Forrest Davis claimed that in the debate over the treaty, the Senate had “appealed to the cowardice, the selfshness, and the parochialism of the American people.”114 Recently, historian David Kennedy has referred to Americans and “the complacent parochialism they had reembraced after the debacle of the Great War.”115 While it is fairly easy to fnd examples of hayseed isolationism (e.g., William E. Borah’s declaration that the country needed more “Americanism” and less “cosmopolitanism”), a dispassionate analysis of the post-war situation confrms that there was more to the American rejection of enhanced political ties with Europe than a stunted vision.116 When he looked back at the Versailles Conference, South African Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts claimed that, “It was not Wilson who failed there, but humanity itself.”117 While Wilson could be criticized for presenting the fnal treaty as being in accord with the Fourteen Points, “Little or nothing had been expected from the other leaders,” and as a consequence “the whole failure was put to the account of Woodrow Wilson.”118 The Allies gave Wilson an “innocent little sop” in the form of the League of Nations, while they produced “a Punic peace, the same sort of peace as the victor had dictated to the vanquished for thousands of years.” Smuts argued that the Versailles Peace destroyed the idealism that came out of the sacrifces of the war, and “did almost as much as the war itself in shattering the structure of Western civilization.”119 Once the war was over Americans clearly expected that that the Allies would accept their share of the responsibility for creating a system that made the Great War inevitable. And, beyond this, there was the hope that Europeans would create a new system that would prevent a similar catastrophe from happening again. Europeans weren’t willing to do that, however, and from this unwillingness we can date American disillusionment and isolationism. By the mid-1920s Europeans themselves (at least French and British journalists) were recognizing that their nations had blundered. André Géraud noted of the peace negotiations that France “failed, under the stress of popular emotions, to state the problem in its correct terms.” Instead, France too freely indulged in what Géraud called “‘anthropomorphism’—the denunciation of the individuals whose actions had led to the war.”120 As for Britain, A. G. Gardiner referred to “blunders in policy” that “alienated the sympathies even of the best elements in  American

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public life.” After the British election of 1918, statesmen had bound themselves with “impossible and unscrupulous pledges” which prevented them from supporting American representatives at Versailles. It was, he said, “a disaster” that would reverberate into future generations.121 When Englishman Henry L. Stuart looked at post-war Europe from the viewpoint of an American he speculated that, “Europeans as a whole must seem a helpless race, bewildered actors in a vast and tragic blunder.” When the old and new worlds came into contact during the war, it came at a time when “the older was bankrupt and had little to show save the rags and tatters of its civilization.”122 One of the supposed victims of the Great War was American idealism. In 1920, Manya Gordon Strunsky claimed that “fve years of intensive living in the sphere of ideals have used up the nerves of the man in the street. The public is tired of over-exalted claims.”123 More recently, historian Michael Kazin has claimed that, “Most Americans soured on Wilson’s world-saving mission soon after the Great War ended ….”124 In fact, what Americans soured on was not the Wilsonian idealism that they themselves endorsed, but Europe’s lack of idealism.125 In the frst days after the armistice ordinary Europeans embraced this idealism as well, which accounts for Wilson’s enormous popularity as the conference was getting under way. Anatole France noted that Wilson’s sincerity had “fred the masses of war-weary Europe. He felt, and they with him, that before this fre of faith and good will toward men all the powers of darkness must scatter.”126 Europe’s political leaders, however, refused to change fundamentally the old system that had created so much sufering. A misplaced loyalty to ingrained habits, and a contempt for the vision that Wilson represented, ensured that the sufering would continue far into the future. Undeniably, many of Wilson’s wounds were self-inficted. Lloyd George saw in Wilson a Jekyll/ Hyde character: On the one hand there was his idealism and his undoubted integrity. On the other there were his personal hatreds, his suspiciousness, his intolerance of criticism and his complete lack of generosity towards men who dared to difer from him.127 Even those who supported Wilson admitted to his defects. Wilson’s translator, Stephen Bonsal, referred to “the petty attitudes and gestures which disfgure his character ….”128 Ray Stannard Baker, who served as Wilson’s press secretary at Versailles and would go on to act as the editor of Wilson’s papers, wrote in his memoir of the Conference that Wilson was the greatest “master in the expression of ideas and ideals,” but that he had “no genius for telling what he does.”129 Surely Wilson was aware of his personal faws, but he had faith that The Idea could transcend the merely personal. Of all the things Wilson said on his September tour, nothing was more poignant or heart-felt than his assertion that

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failure to win approval for the treaty would mean betrayal of those Americans who had crossed the Atlantic to fght in this war. He envisioned gathering the troops together and saying, Boys, I told you before you went across the seas that this was a war against wars, and I did my best to fulfll the promise, but I am obliged to come to you in mortifcation and shame and say I have not been able to fulfll the promise. You are betrayed. You fought for something that you did not get.130 Wilson also fought for something he did not get, and in the end was as much a victim of the war as any soldier. His agonizing diplomatic failure and his willingness to sacrifce his health on the altar of the League of Nations had for some made Wilson a martyr. In Laurence Stallings’ 1924 novel Plumes (Stallings himself was a war casualty), there is a remarkable scene in which Esme, the wife of a severely wounded soldier, witnesses inauguration day in Washington as the old president, Woodrow Wilson, accompanies the new, Warren G. Harding, to the capitol. Esme muses that, It was clear to her that the forces of darkness had encompassed the President about at Versailles, but she held that no reason to vilify him for failing to re-make a world … Wilson was a great man; next to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he had best impressed the ideals of human brotherhood into permanent literary form.131 As people gathered along the route from the White House to the Capitol, Esme compared them to “other watchers who with aching hearts posted themselves along a route that led to a hill called Golgotha.”132 Historian Margaret MacMillan reminds us that, “It was easy to mock Wilson, and many did. It is also easy to forget how important his principles were in 1919 and how many people, and not just in the United States, wanted to believe in his great dream of a better world. They had, after all, a terrible reference point in the ruin left by the Great War.”133 Wilson had convinced Americans to go to war by appealing to their idealism, but in the war’s aftermath the limits of idealism were clearly exposed. Historian Patricia O’Toole observes that, “Wilson had tried, but moral suasion was not enough; it rarely is when the stakes are high.”134

The New Era and the Pull of the War While the United States sufered less in the Great War than any other nation, the war’s impact was nevertheless profound. Indeed, it is impossible to talk about post-war American politics, foreign policy, or even culture without

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reference to this confict. There was an anxiety, and in many cases a hysteria, in post-war domestic life in the United States that can’t be explained without the negative legacy of the Great War and the Versailles Conference. The Russian Revolution was clearly a product of the war, and beginning in 1919 America launched a long-running “red scare” during which ofcials took seriously the threat that Soviet Russia would somehow be able to export bolshevism to the United States (despite the fact that the Soviets were barely able to keep their own country together). Using the supposed red menace as a justifcation, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer authorized massive raids against “radicals” (mostly Eastern European immigrants). They had, he said, set in motion a revolution that was eating its way into the homes of the American workman, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society.135 Overheated prose aside, the brutality of these raids caused real sufering. In the minds of many Americans, bolshevism, socialism, trade unionism and, it must be said, membership in minority ethnic and racial groups, became confated, and it wasn’t only Justice Department agents who were involved. In street clashes around the country veterans became the shock troops in attacks against anyone who seemed to deviate from “100 percent Americanism” (a phrase that no one seemed to be able to defne).136 The dough boy soldier, the darling of the American public during the war, now became the thug who enforced moral conformity through vigilante actions. He even had his own publication called Treat ‘em Rough. It was founded in 1919 by Arthur Guy Empey, who had served with British forces before American entry into the war. A memoir of his war experiences called Over the Top was published in 1917, and sold an astonishing 350,000 copies (it was later turned into a flm).137 Now in the post-war period, Empey took on the role of thug-in-chief, urging that, “If you feel like fghting, go out and smash a Red— it is a great sport knocking them of soap-boxes.” As far as handling an agitator, Back him into a corner (there is no danger in this—he won’t fght—none of them will), take him by the throat with your left hand, haul back that good Yankee fst of yours and preach to him True Americanism … Many took Empey’s advice, and in the frst week of May a group of soldiers and sailors in New York demolished the headquarters of the Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Marines’ Protective Association (a group of veterans who were members of the A.F.L.) No arrests were made.138 In Cleveland, one person was killed and scores

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injured when a soldier at the head of a socialist procession refused to discard the red flag he carried. According to the New York Times, “The police charged the crowd, swinging their clubs with good effect. Several of the Socialists drew revolvers and fired in the air, but were finally driven back.” Socialist headquarters “was totally wrecked when a throng of soldiers and civilians charged the place, driving the radicals out and completely demolishing the building.”139 In Boston, 300 policemen assisted by soldiers and sailors, attacked a group of ­“radicals” who were attempting to stage a parade. Three policemen and a civilian were shot, and there were 112 arrests.140 For the most part, the American press, like the local police, passively accepted this extra-legal violence. The Nation was one of the few publications willing to render accurate reporting. At the bottom of it all, argued The Nation, was the war. It was to be expected that “the world war would bring widespread lawlessness in its train. It is the moral breakdown of war in another phase that we are witnessing ….”141 There was intense labor unrest beginning in 1919, which included a steel strike, a police strike in Boston, and a general strike in Seattle.142 There was a strike against textile industries in Lawrence, Massachusetts, an event that became entangled with immigration as most of the strikers were foreigners from various nations in Eastern Europe. In a strategy to make it difficult for them to organize (and to keep wages low), the owners of the mills had made sure that no more than 15 percent of any one ethnic group worked at a single factory, and had purposefully mixed immigrant groups together that were traditionally hostile to one another. The workers struck anyway, and the police responded with savagery. The owners claimed that the strike was “an attempt on the part of Eastern Europeans to impose upon America the fallacious economics of a misguided Russia.”143 Immigration to America had greatly slowed during the war years, but between June 1920 and June 1921, 800,000 immigrants entered the country, most from Eastern and Southern Europe.144 Congress began work on draconian immigration restriction, and once again the lessons of the war (or the perceived lessons of the war) were cited in justification. In an article entitled “Americanization and Immigration,” Robert De C. Ward claimed that the war had taught Americans that “millions of our foreign-born are in no way assimilated,” and that parts of the United States had become a “polyglot boarding house.”145 An immigration restriction bill was passed in 1921, and an even more restrictive bill—the Johnson-Reed Act—was signed into law in 1924. Establishing quotas at 2 percent of the 1890 population of aliens, the law greatly favored immigrant groups from Northern and Western Europe, while penalizing groups from Eastern and Southern Europe. The total annual quota for all groups was pegged at 153,000. The law also effectively put an end to Asian immigration.146 The immediate post-war period saw an appalling uptick in lynching and racial violence. According to the Hampton Institute, lynching in 1918 had increased by 60 percent over 1917, and there was a slight increase in the first six

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months of 1919. In this eighteen month period, 83 blacks were lynched. Racial unrest was often referred to as “the Negro problem,” but Herbert J. Seligmann of the NAACP articulated what was obvious to American blacks: it was not the black man that was the problem, “but the attitude of the white man towards him.”147 The Montgomery Journal, in the meantime, worried that lynching had a deleterious impact on the economy, and that “it is interpreted as the evidence of a low state of civilization.”148 In the last week of July 1919, Washington, D.C. experienced its first race riot since 1857. Acting on rumors that the wife of a returning serviceman had been “jostled by two Negroes,” a mob of 400–500 whites, led by servicemen, began beating up local blacks. As in other soldier-led actions, the police did little to restrain the mob. The rioting did not cease until the town was occupied by the military. Seven were killed. There was a racial clash in Chicago that was even more serious. It began when a black bather drifted over to a section of beach reserved for whites, and blacks and whites began throwing stones at each other. Thirty were killed and hundreds wounded before the end of this affair.149 Even passage of the 18th (Prohibition) Amendment to the Constitution, a social reform decades in the making, was arguably a product of the war. Newspaperman H. L. Mencken claimed that its passage was made possible by “the war hysteria of the time,” and he was probably right.150 Proponents of Prohibition had eagerly connected the war against the German “Hun” with the war against alcohol and the German-dominated brewing industry in the United States. Purley Baker of the Anti-Saloon League described Germans as a people who “eat like gluttons and drink like swine.” Two weeks after the end of the war, Baker referred to the German-American Alliance and asked rhetorically, Does anyone doubt, in the light of the immediate past, that if there had not been a strong, virile, Prohibition movement to combat the propaganda of this disloyal but well financed organization, that America would have been sufficiently Germanized to have kept her out of the war?151 The war also cast a long shadow on American culture. In an article that a­ ppeared in The Century in 1920, Webb Waldron noted that, to the amazement of Broadway producers, plays that could only be called “tragic pieces” were outperforming the usual farces and melodramas. When he talked to booksellers around the country, Webb was told that there had been a huge demand for serious works. The Education of Henry Adams had sold over 150,000 copies, The ­Economic Consequences of the Peace 50,000.152 While the public still eagerly consumed the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Zane Grey, and Geneva ­Stratton-Porter, the works of John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and other Lost Generation writers regularly made best-seller lists in the decades after the war. By January 1941, Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls had sold an astonishing 400,000 copies and was being snapped up by 50,000 readers a week.153

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Every older generation seems to fnd it necessary to condemn the younger generation, which was no less true of the post-war period than any other era. In a Vanity Fair article, Maurice Manners (a dream pairing of name with content) excoriated “our modern young” for fashing in and out of restaurants; dancing strange dances without decorum (and it is quite easy to dance, even strange dances, with an appreciable amount of it); dashing about together unchaperoned at all hours of the day and night, in taxis and autos, in town and country; drinking, betting, borrowing money, idling, sporting, card-playing, firting, a law unto themselves, and acknowledging no other.154 Many readers were no doubt wondering where they could sign up for such giddy, deplorable behavior, but some were ofended and took such charges seriously. In the Atlantic Monthly, John F. Carter wrote a piece entitled, “‘Those Wild Young People’ By One of Them.” It was a manifesto for post-war youth that took their elders to task for the shambles they had made of the world. Carter sardonically observed that “the older generation had certainly pretty well ruined this world before passing it on to us,” and that “my generation is disillusioned, and, I think, to a certain extent, brutalized by the cataclysm which their complacent folly engendered … [orig. emphasis]” With “the rottenness and shortcomings of all governments” exposed, the young had “little time for the noble procrastinations of modesty or for the elaborate rigamarole of chivalry, and little patience for the lovely formulas of an inefective faith.” What separated this generation from the last one was “our devastating and brutal frankness,” and a “recklessness and ability that we were taught by war. We are also quite fatalistic in our outlook on the tepid perils of tame living.”155 In her analysis of the younger generation, Jane Addams generally agreed. Addams found that “a cult of frankness” and a rejection against Victorian mores was absorbing the energy of the young. As for those who had come before them, Addams concluded that of all the generations who had lived on the earth, “our generation has the least claim to advise the next.” It was Addams’ generation, after all, that failed to avert the Great War and “the annihilation of ten million young men.”156 In the years ahead, the young of military age and students would be among the most strident of isolationists.

Notes 1 See Charles A. Kupchan, Isolationism: A History of America’s Eforts to Shield Itself from the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 233. 2 Quoted in William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 228; The roots of the League to Enforce Peace can be traced to the eforts of Theodore Marburg, a  Baltimore peace reformer, who in 1910 created the Judicial Settlement

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3

4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13

of International Disputes. It was endorsed by both Wilson and William Howard Taft. In 1915 it became the League to Enforce Peace. See Forrest Davis, The Atlantic System: The Story of Anglo-American Control of the Seas [1941] (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973), 203. For a brief history on the rise and fall of the League to Enforce Peace, see Lawrence Lowell, “We Tried to Enforce Peace,” Atlantic Monthly 166, no. 2 (August 1940), 189–94. Woodrow Wilson, “In the French Chamber of Deputies,” in Woodrow Wilson, War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers (1917–1924), v. 1, ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), 408. Wilson added, however, that “if the moral force of the world will not sufce, the physical force of the world shall.” Quoted in Arthur Walworth, Wilson and his Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), 120. Lawrence Sherman, “The United States Should Not Join the League of Nations,” Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints, ed. William Dudley (San Diego: Greenhaven, 1995), 84–85, 90. “Lodge Counsels Caution,” New York Times, March 1, 1919; “Want Peace Terms First,” New York Times, March 4, 1919. “Making the League of Nations into a Political Party Issue,” Current Opinion 66, no. 4 (April 1919), 206. Woodrow Wilson, “Address at a Public Meeting in New York City, On the Eve of his Departure for Europe,” March 4, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 447, 451. Woodrow Wilson, “Address to the Senate of the United States,” July 10, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 551. Stephen Bonsal, Unfnished Business (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1944), 208–09. “Cecil Holds League Vital Peace Factor,” New York Times, 20 March 1919. However, there was speculation that any efort to give special recognition to the Monroe Doctrine would also lead to special demands from other governments, such as Japanese claims in China. See Richard V. Oulahan, “Peril Seen in Amendments,” New York Times, March 20, 1919. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, “Testimony of President Woodrow Wilson,” 66th Cong., 1st. Sess., August 19, 1919 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1919), 503, 504. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Testimony of President Woodrow Wilson,” 512. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Testimony of President Woodrow Wilson,” 517, 536. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Testimony of President Woodrow Wilson,” 550–51. One of the most interesting exchanges concerned America’s entry into the war: Do you think if Germany had committed no act of war or no act of injustice against our citizens that we would have gotten into this war? THE PRESIDENT: I do think so. SENATOR MCCUMBER: You think we would have gotten in anyway? THE PRESIDENT: I do. SENATOR MCCUMBER [NORTH DAKOTA]:

Unfortunately, Wilson did not elaborate on what, other than an act of war, would have pulled the United States into the confict. Ibid., 538. 14 “President Wilson’s Speaking Tour,” Current History 11, no. 1 (October 1919), 19–20. 15 Woodrow Wilson, “Address delivered at Columbus, Ohio,” September 4, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 593, 596.

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16 Woodrow Wilson, “Address delivered at Coliseum, Indianapolis, Ind.,” September 4, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 610, 615. 17 Woodrow Wilson, “Address at Coliseum, St. Louis, Mo.,” September 5, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 638. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels also argued that unless the United States accepted the League, America would have to continue building ships until it had “incomparably the biggest navy in the world.” Quoted in Davis, 265. 18 See Trygve Throntveit, Power without Glory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist Experiment (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 294. 19 “Johnson Assails Wilson in Indiana,” New York Times, September 12, 1919. 20 “Johnson is Hailed as Next President,” New York Times, September 14, 1919. 21 “Explains Our Voting Power in the League,” New York Times, September 27, 1919. 22 Robert E. Hannigan, The Great War and American Foreign Policy, 1914–24 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 239. 23 “President Wilson Better, Sleeping Naturally Once More,” New York Times, October 4, 1919. 24 “Borah Sees Rioting as Treaty Warning,” New York Times, September 30, 1919. 25 Walworth, 543. 26 Hermann Keyserling, “Peace, Or War Everlasting?” Atlantic Monthly, April 1920, 556, 561. 27 Bonsal, 274. 28 See Walworth, 541–42. 29 Edward M. House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, ed. Charles Seymour (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1928), 518. 30 Oswald Garrison Villard, “Foreign Correspondence: On the Eve of the Conference,” The Nation 108, no. 2797 (February 8, 1919), 193, 195. 31 Roland G. Usher, “Our Foreign Policy and Peace Problems,” Forum, December 1918, 686. 32 “What Shall We Do About the League of Nations?” The Outlook 123, no. 9 (December 3, 1919), 407. 33 David Jayne Hill, “The Débâcle of Dogmatism,” North American Review 209, no. 5 (May 1919), 587, 598. 34 “The Old and the New,” New York Times, January 1, 1920. 35 “The Progress of the World,” American Review of Reviews 60, no. 6 (December 1919), 552. 36 Frank H. Simonds, “The First Year of Peace,” American Review of Reviews 60, no. 6 (December 1919), 583, 89. 37 Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure, 1874–1920 (New York: MacMillan, 1951), 471. 38 Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: 2016), 147. 39 Harold Stearns, America and the Young Intellectual [1921] (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973), 112; “The Progress of the World,” American Review of Reviews 62, no.  4 (October 1920), 341. Herbert Hoover commented that, “no one has yet been able to fnd any practical diference” between mandates and colonies. Hoover, 454. 40 See “The Empire,” Review of Reviews 95, no. 3 (March 1937), 45–46. 41 See Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1969). 42 Quoted in Justus D. Doenecke, Nothing Less Than War: A New History of America’s Entry into World War I (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 3. The United States pulled its last garrison out of Latin America in 1934, and through the Tydings-McDufe Act promised independence to the Philippines within ten years. See David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 391–92.

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43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63

In 1940, Fortune called the Philippines “a moral headache.” “The Philippines,” Fortune 21, no. 6 ( June 1940), 47. Rudyard Kipling to Frank N. Doubleday, Letter of October 20, 1914, The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, v. 4, 1911–19, ed. Thomas Pinney (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996), 261. Herbert Hoover claimed that if Clemenceau actually had a belief system, it was that “force always triumphed over abstract justice” and that “the strong ought to direct the weak.” Lloyd George, on the other hand, was an opportunist supreme—“a magnifcent leader of the mob” who was willing to adopt “any cause that led up the political ladder of the day.” Wilson the idealist was “easy prey for such adroitness.” Hoover, 450, 449. André Tardieu, The Truth About the Treaty (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1921), 467. Quoted in David Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, v. 1 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), 678–79. Woodrow Wilson, “Delivered on Western Tour September 4 to September 25, 1919, At Columbus, Ohio,” September 4, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 597. Woodrow Wilson, “Speech at Luncheon at Hotel Statler, St. Louis, Mo.,” September 5, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 622. Herbert Adams Gibbons, “Wanted: An American Foreign Policy,” The Century 100, no. 4 (August 1920), 481. Quoted in “See League ‘Dislocated,’” New York Times, November 15, 1919. Herbert Hoover noted that the Great War threw into stark relief “the enormous distance that we of America [had] grown away from Europe in a century and a half of our National existence.” “Mr. Hoover Returns,” The Outlook 123, no. 5 (October  1, 1919), 170. Quoted in Robert W. Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914–1917 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007), 6. See Woodrow Wilson to Edward M. House, Letter of July 23, 1916, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, v. 37, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 467; Burton J. Hendrick, The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, v. 2 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1923), 185. Quoted in Throntveit, 244. George, The Truth, v. 1, 87. Tardieu, 443. See Hannigan, 108. See Robert H. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952), 42. “Germans Prepare for War!” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1922. Grafton Wilcox, “Borah Blames Europe Misery on Clemenceau,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 1922. “Mr. Clemenceau’s Advice,” Washington Post, November 24, 1922. “Clemenceau Lists 45 Cases of German War Preparations,” New York Times, November 29, 1922. “Lay on Clemenceau,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1922. When he referred to Europeans in 1924, Henry Cabot Lodge said, “They forget that the United States only seven years ago went to the rescue of freedom and civilization in Europe of their own motion, unbound by any obligations.” Henry Cabot Lodge, “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921–1924,” Foreign Afairs 2, no. 4 (June 15, 1924), 538. He accused Lloyd George and the British of “applying themselves heartily to the task of sparing Germany” and sowing “dissension among the peoples of the Continent, so as to secure peace for her own conquests.” French general Ferdinand Foch, according to Clemenceau, “threw on the dung heap that religion of discipline

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64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83

84

which he had himself practiced and taught throughout his whole career.” Georges Clemenceau, Grandeur and Misery of Victory, trans. F. M. Atkinson (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930), 120–21, 123. Clemenceau, 64. Clemenceau, 175. Clemenceau, 176. “The Tiger Speaks,” The Outlook 121, no. 3 ( January 15, 1919), 86. Quoted in Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2002), 32. Hannigan, 175. Enclosure I, n.1, Edward Mandell House to Woodrow Wilson, with Enclosures, Letter of January 16, 1917, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, v. 40, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 495; Robert H. Zieger, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefeld, 2001), 49. William Randolph Hearst, “International Dishonor,” June 24, 1931, in Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, ed. William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco, CA: privately published, 1948), 614. Quoted in Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, Vol. I: September 1939 – January 1942 [1948] (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950), 129. Clemenceau, 177. Clemenceau added, “America has broken us in the economic sphere for an indeterminate time. What can we expect from an ideologist whose ideology has run dry, who most generously gives his blood and then seeks compensations in cash?” Ibid., 403. Clemenceau, 25. Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 119. See Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 40. For historical dollar equivalents, see cpiinfationcalculator.com. Edwin L. James, “Our Advice Alone Leaves Europe Cold,” New York Times, January 13, 1923. Quoted in Walter Lippmann, The United States in World Afairs: An Account of American Foreign Relations, 1931 (New York: Published for the Council on Foreign Relations by Harper & Brothers, 1932), 159–60. George Wheeler Hinman, Jr. “Europe’s Debts to the United States,” Current History 19, no. 4 ( January 1924), 571–72, 568, 569. Sisley Huddleston, “Personalities and Politics in France,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1925, 111. Quoted in Cushing Strout, The American Image of the Old World (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 173. Coolidge added that, “Our National Treasury is not in the banking business. We did not make these loans as a banking enterprise.” Quoted in Robert Sobel, Coolidge: An American Enigma (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1998), 340. See Ronald E. Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe (New York: Greenwood, 1991), 40. Frank B. Kellogg, “Some Foreign Policies of the United States,” Foreign Afairs Special Supplement 4, no. 2 ( January 1926), ix, x. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes insisted in 1923 on “the essential diference between the questions of Germany’s capacity to pay and of the practical methods to secure reparations from Germany, and payment by the Allies of their debts to the United States, which constitute distinct obligations.” Quoted in L. Ethan Ellis, Republican Foreign Policy, 1921–1933 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1968), 200. Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe: The Financial Crisis of 1924 and the Adoption of the Dawes Plan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976), 11.

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85 Quoted in Jerome Frank, Save America First: How to Make Our Democracy Work (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), 159–60. 86 New York American quoted in “Remobilizing for Peace,” Literary Digest 59, no. 10 (December 7, 1918), 11. On American troops in the Rhineland, see Hannigan, 283. 87 Adam Tooze, The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 (New York: Viking, 2014), 295. 88 John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), 225. Others in Britain sharing this point of view included E. H. Carr and Harold Nicolson. See Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019), 45. 89 Keynes, 29, 32, 34. 90 Georges Clemenceau, “Introduction,” in Tardieu, xi. 91 Keynes, 228. 92 Keynes, 273. 93 Keynes, 271–72. 94 Keynes, 278. 95 Keynes, 284–85. 96 Keynes, 286. 97 Keynes, 236–37. 98 George W. Norris, “The United States Should Not Enter World War I,” Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints, ed. William Dudley (San Diego: Greenhaven, 1995), 73, 74. 99 Churchill, 478. 100 Hoover, 476–79. 101 David Jayne Hill, “The Obstruction of Peace,” North American Review 209, no. 4 (April 1919), 458. Hill also worried that increased engagement in Europe would result in additional domestic turmoil in America because “we have in the United States all the races, all the race afections, and all the race prejudices that exist in Europe.” Quoted in Charles DeBenedetti, “Alternative Strategies in the American Peace Movement,” Peace Movements in America, ed. Charles Chatfeld (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), 59. 102 Lodge, 539. 103 Quoted in Bonsal, 250. Clemenceau believed that Germany had not been punished enough, and warned against “dangerous tolerance.” Germans, he said, “see the future only through the blood-red mists of a civilization grafted upon the survival of barbarism.” Clemenceau also referred to “Germans, beaten but not crushed, ready by a rare blending of shameless trickery and pugnacity to aspire to hegemony.” Clemenceau, “Introduction,” in Tardieu, xiv, xv, xviii. Historian William L. Shirer noted that when Germans complained about the punishments imposed upon their nation in 1919 they had seemingly forgotten the punishments they themselves had imposed on Russia the previous year at Brest Litovsk. Russia had been deprived of territory almost as large as Turkey and Austria-Hungary combined, in addition to losing most of her iron ore and coal, as well as a 6 billion mark indemnity. See William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 57. 104 Quoted in Tardieu, 462. 105 David Lloyd George, The Truth About the Peace Treaties, v. 2 (London: Victor Gollanz, 1938), 1411–12. Lloyd George accepted no responsibility for the treaty’s failures after the conference, but blamed the “unimpressive array of second-rate statesmen” who came after him. Ibid., 1403–04. Richard von Kühlmann claimed that Lloyd George knew at the time that the Versailles Treaty was “not a wise instrument,” but was hobbled by “the violent oratory of which he had delivered himself under the spell of the moment and in sympathy with the mood of his audiences.” Richard von Kühlmann, “Germany and France: The Problem of Reconciliation,” Foreign Afairs 11, no. 1 (1 October 1932), 138.

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106 Quoted in “The Senate and the Peace Treaty,” Current History 11, no. 3 (March 1920), 398. 107 G. Lowes Dickinson, “S O S—Europe to America,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1921, 249. 108 Charles Sarolea, “Europe’s Indictment of America,” Current History 19, no. 2 (November 1923), 185–87; After touring Europe in 1922, William Randolph Hearst returned even more convinced that the United States must avoid entangling herself with the continent. “The problems of even the victorious nations of Europe,” said Hearst, “are very grave, while the problems of the defeated nations are overwhelming, and almost, it would seem insoluble if present conditions continue.” William Randolph Hearst, “Consequences of the Peace,” June 20, 1922 [orig. published in the London Evening Standard], in Hearst, Selections from the Writings, 608–09. 109 Quoted in Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (New York: Random House, 2014), 40. 110 Albert J. Beveridge, “Pitfalls of a ‘League of Nations,’” North American Review 209, no. 3 (March 1919), 313. Henry Cabot Lodge claimed that, By meddling in all the diferences which may arise among any portion or fragment of human-kind we simply fritter away our infuence and injure ourselves to no good purpose…. The fact that we have been separated by our geographical situation and by our consistent policy from the broils of Europe has made us more than any one thing capable of performing the great work which we performed in the war against Germany and our disinterestedness is of far more value to the world than our eternal meddling in every possible dispute could ever be. “Speech of Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator from Massachusetts, In the Senate, August 12, 1919,” The Treaty of Versailles: American Opinion (Cambridge, MA: Old Colony Trust Company, 1919), 29.

111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

120

Writing twenty years later, Arnold J. Toynbee confrmed that in the past British foreign policy had not difered much from that of the United States, but modern times and modern weapons had greatly reduced the barrier of the English Channel, and had “compelled British isolationism to stop far short of American isolationism.” Arnold J. Toynbee, “A Turning Point in History,” Foreign Afairs 17, no. 2 ( January 1939), 305. See A. J. P. Taylor, Origins of the Second World War (New York: Athenium, 1966), 34–43. “Great Britain’s Europe,” Fortune 17, no. 6 (December 1938), 92. “An English Letter,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1920, 564. Davis, 271. Kennedy, 233. Borah quoted in Thomas N. Guinsburg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States Senate from Versailles to Pearl Harbor (New York: Garland, 1982), 31. Jan Christiaan Smuts, “Woodrow Wilson’s Place in History,” Current History 14, no. 1 (April 1921), 47. Smuts, 46. Smuts, 47, 46. As he contemplated the ghastliness of the war and its aftermath in 1934, Joseph Wood Krutch mused whether “civilization itself was not a mistake and if the ‘noble savage’ was not more to be envied than the heir to Europe’s culture.” Joseph Wood Krutch, “Was Europe a Success?” American Points of View, 1934–1935, ed. William H. Cordell and Kathryn Coe Cordell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1936), 33–34. André Géraud, “French Responsibilities in Europe,” Foreign Afairs 5, no. 2 ( January 1927), 243–44.

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121 A. G. Gardiner, “The Prospects of Anglo-American Friendship,” Foreign Afairs 5, no. 1 (October 1, 1926), 9. 122 Henry L. Stuart, “As an Englishman Sees It,” Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans, ed. Harold E. Stearns (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922), 486. 123 Manya Gordon Strunsky, “Bolshevik Realities and American Fancies,” The Century 99, no. 5 (March 1920), 680. 124 Michael Kazin, Book Review of Patricia O’Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made, New York Times Book Review, June 24, 2018, 20. 125 In the midst of a second world war, Arthur M. Schlesinger reminded readers that idealism had been embraced by even the most pragmatic of Americans. While the most famous comment made by conservative Republican President Calvin Coolidge was, “The business of America is business,” Coolidge had added, “The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists.” Arthur M. Schlesinger, “‘What Then is the American, this New Man?’” American Historical Review 48, no. 2 ( January 1943), 239. It is undoubtedly true that Americans often oversold their own virtues. In his reaction to Europeans who referred to America as a “Shylock” nation and who sneered at American deeds, Senator Hiram Johnson claimed that in contrast to a “sinister” Europe of “blood and iron,” the United States was the only nation on the planet that had pursued an international policy of “idealism” and “altruism.” Reinhold Niebuhr drily observed that the altruistic Johnson had worked vigorously to gain passage of the Japanese Exclusion Act. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), 108. 126 “Anatole France’s Diagnosis of the Disease That Is Killing Europe,” Current Opinion 69, no. 4 (October 1920), 513. 127 Lloyd George, The Truth, v. 1, 230. Yet in his personal relations, Lloyd George found Wilson “even-tempered and agreeable. He had the charm which emanates from a fne intelligence, integrity of purpose and a complete absence of querulousness or cantankerousness.” When Clemenceau asked Lloyd George point blank what he thought of Wilson, Lloyd George said, “‘I like him, and I like him very much better now than I did at the beginning.’ ‘So do I,’ said the Tiger.” Ibid., 228. 128 Bonsal, 42. 129 Ray Stannard Baker, What Wilson Did at Paris (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1919), 46, vii. Historian Robert E. Hannigan claims that Wilson “had an infnite capacity to defne other countries’ policies he did not like as ‘selfsh’ and ‘irresponsible’ and his own policies as the reverse.” Hannigan, 295. 130 “Address at Luncheon at Hotel Statler, St. Louis, Mo.,” September 5, 1919, in Wilson, War and Peace, v. 1, 633. 131 Laurence Stallings, Plumes [1924] (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 215–16. 132 Stallings, 217. 133 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 14–15. Today Wilson’s legacy as a Progressive and peace maker has been widely dismissed in favor of a focus on Wilson as a racist. See Dick Lehr, “The Racist Legacy of Woodrow Wilson,” The Atlantic, November 27, 2015; Gabriel Fisher, “Princeton and the Fight over Woodrow Wilson’s Legacy,” New Yorker, November 25, 2015. 134 Patricia O’Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), xviii. 135 Quoted in The Twenties: Fords, Flappers & Fanatics, ed. George E. Mowry (Englewood Clifs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 122. 136 Referring to the Americanization movement, Walter Lippmann said that “in some of its public manifestations [it] has as much resemblance to patriotism as the rape of the Sabine women had to the love of Dante for Beatrice.” Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Morals (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 63.

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137 See Kenneth D. Rose, The Great War and Americans in Europe, 1914–1917 (New York: Routledge, 2017), 132. 138 “The Week,” The Nation 108, no. 2809 (May 3, 1919), 675. 139 “1 Dead, Many Hurt in Cleveland Riot,” New York Times, May 2, 1919. 140 “Radicals and Police Fight in Boston Riot,” New York Times, May 2, 1919. 141 “The May Day Rioting,” The Nation 108, no. 2810 (May 10, 1919), 726. 142 See “The Steel Strike,” The Outlook 123, no. 5 (October 1, 1919), 169; Gregory Mason, “No Bolshevism for Boston,” The Outlook 123, no. 4 (September 24, 1919), 124–25; William MacDonald, “The New United States: The Seattle Strike and Afterwards,” The Nation 108, no. 2804 (March 29, 1919), 469–70. 143 “The Blame for Lawrence,” The Nation 108, no. 2808 (April 26, 1919), 650. 144 See Ronald Allen Goldberg, America in the Twenties (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 112, 115. 145 Robert De C. Ward, “Americanization and Immigration,” The American Review of Reviews 59, no. 5 (May 1919), 512, 513. 146 See Alan M. Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880–1921 (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2001), 209–11. 147 Herbert J. Seligmann, “What is Behind the Negro Uprisings?” Current Opinion 67, no. 3 (September 1919), 154. 148 “Southern Protests against Lynching,” The Outlook 122, no. 12 (July 23, 1919), 493. 149 See “Service Men Beat Negroes in Race Riot at Capital,” New York Times, July 21, 1919; “Troops Patrol Capital to Nip Riot Outbreaks,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 1919; “Chicago Race Riots Renewed,” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1919; “Militia Called to End Race Riots,” Washington Post, July 31, 1919. 150 H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Fourth Series [1924] (New York: Library of America, 2010), 94. 151 “Proceedings of the Special Conference Called by the Board of Directors of the Anti-Saloon League of America for the Purpose of Launching a Movement for World-Wide Prohibition,” Held at Columbus, Ohio, 19, 20, 21, and 22 November 1918, 77, 75–76. 152 Webb Waldron, “Where is America Going? Part 3,” The Century 100, no. 3 ( July 1920), 429. 153 “The Hemingways in Sun Valley,” Life, January 6, 1941, 49. 154 Maurice Manners, “The Ways of Our Modern Young,” Vanity Fair 13, no. 4 (December 1919), 65. 155 John F. Carter, Jr., “‘Those Wild Young People’ By One of Them,”Atlantic Monthly, September 1920, 302–04. 156 Jane Addams, The Jane Addams Reader, ed. Jean Bethke Elshtain (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 297, 298, 302.

3 AMERICAN POLITICS AND INTERNATIONALISM IN THE 1920S

That the war would have a decisive impact on American politics became obvious as the two political parties met in the summer of 1920 to select a candidate for president. The intense debate over the peace treaty and the League of Nations was still on everybody’s mind. At the Republican convention, delegates were serenaded by the Columbus Glee Club, who regaled them with a tune sung to the melody of “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean.” Oh, Wilson went over the ocean, Yes, Wilson went over the sea It seems he conceived a big notion, That boss of the world he would be. He says that our Lodge is pro-German, Because he won’t sign on the line. He treated them [the Senate] more than the vermin, That still live just over the Rhine. Wake up, wake up, Attend to your work in America. Wake up, wake up, Your job’s in your own U.S.A.!1 The Republican platform declared that the Versailles Treaty had “threatened the very existence of the United States as an independent power—threatened its sovereignty, threatened its peace, threatened its life.”2 In contrast, the Democrats characterized “as utterly vain, if not vicious,” the Republican contention that the League of Nations in any way menaced the

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sovereignty of the United States, and expressed their support for Wilson (what choice did they have?).3 Their chosen candidate, James Cox (with Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate), declared that under Wilson the ancient dream of “everlasting peace was at hand but our Republican Senators abandoned it for the satisfaction of personal grudges.”4 None of the leading Republican presidential candidates were able to secure a majority, and as a compromise the Republicans nominated Warren G. Harding, a political mediocrity who excited no great enthusiasm but was acceptable to most. It was clear that the previous era of political Titans, with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as their party’s standard bearers, was over. As Herbert Adams Gibbons puts it, “Harding and Cox! The imaginative, the emotional, the spoiled by thrills among the electors in both parties feel that they have received a cold douche.”5 During the campaign, Harding and his running mate Calvin Coolidge promised a “return to normalcy,” a vague formulation that served as a substitute for any real ideas. In the midst of it all Walter Lippmann asked, “Just what is Mr. Harding trying to say anyway? Presumably some idea is lodged in his brain and panting for utterance beyond the normal human impulse to fnd a good reason for his candidacy.”6 A campaign predicated on a lack of substance seemingly had great appeal to the American electorate because the Republicans registered one of the biggest landslide victories in American history. In his frst speech as president, Harding told Americans that, “You just didn’t want a surrender of the United States of America; you wanted America to go on under American ideals. That’s why you didn’t care for the League which is now deceased.” 7 Senator Hiram Johnson pronounced himself “delighted with President Harding’s reafrmance of our nation-old policy and with his emphatic words concerning Old World entanglements.”8 Musing on Harding’s election, British writer G. Lowes Dickinson said that “the only thing we here can understand about it is, that it marks a fnal condemnation by the American people of the man we hailed as a prophet.”9 Two years after the election, Harvard University professor William Bennett Munro summed up the lesson of 1919–1920, which was that the two parties could expect a hostile reaction from voters if they allowed the country to be drawn “into anything that might be regarded as an ‘entanglement.’” The answer to the question of why there was so little of American international leadership in 1923 “is that there was so much of it in 1919.”10 In a November 30, 1923 speech, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes summarized American views on foreign afairs in the following way: We are still opposed to alliances. We refuse to commit ourselves in advance with respect to the employment of the power of the United States in unknown contingencies. We reserve our judgment to act upon occasion as our sense of duty permits.11

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When American Ambassador to Great Britain George Harvey retired in 1923, he stated that “the national American foreign policy is to have no foreign policy.”12 Certainly, American business interests were extremely active abroad, which inevitably became entangled with politics. Secretary of State Hughes emphasized that all political questions “had some economic force lying back of them.”13 In this view international commerce and investment became “the only sure path to peace.” As historian Emily S. Rosenberg has noted, the ­period from the end of the Great War to the beginning of the Depression “was marked by a remarkable outflow of U.S. capital, commodities, and culture.”14 As for diplomacy, historian Robert H. Ferrell has claimed that Americans of the 1920s made a number of assumptions, including that the Great War had been an aberration that would not be repeated, that in the post-war world both ­Europeans and Asians could take care of themselves, and that the greatest force for peace in the world was moral rather than military.15American diplomacy in the 1920s was provisional in the sense that the United States was not willing to make commitments that would obligate it to take any meaningful action on the world stage. Three examples will help illustrate the path of American foreign affairs during the 1920s.

Washington Naval Conference As the decade of the 1920s began, the economic strain of an arms buildup was beginning to take a toll throughout the world. The Japanese, for instance, had spent one-third of the national budget on their navy in 1920, and in testimony before the House Major General Tasker H. Bliss, who had served in France during the war and at the Versailles Conference, argued that “our present form of civilization cannot stand the great strain of military preparation much ­longer.”16 Also testifying was General John J. Pershing, who cautioned that “if people cannot reach such an agreement at this time we might well ask ourselves whether or not civilization was reaching in the right direction.”17 There was also pressure on Congress and the president from the Federal Council of Churches and other peace groups who were calling for disarmament.18 Early in 1921 President Warren G. Harding indicated that he would be calling for an international meeting on naval disarmament, and in July 1921 Secretary of State Hughes issued invitations to the major naval powers—Britain, Japan, France, and Italy—to attend a conference in Washington. Holland, Portugal, and ­Belgium were also invited to take part in discussions on Pacific and Far Eastern questions. As part of the conference’s ground rules, Hughes insisted that the delegates be civilian, with naval personnel acting only as advisers.19 Hughes put himself at the head of the American delegation, but he was not going to make the mistake Wilson made at Versailles by not involving any ­senators. Hughes included Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and Oscar W. Underwood as delegates, along with Elihu Root.20

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There was little doubt that this conference had public support. Within days of the invitations being sent, the New York Times editorialized that, The sentiment in this country for disarmament under proper conditions is very pronounced, based not only upon the tremendous expenditures involved, but also upon the emphatic opposition in the public mind to the building up of a big army and navy.21 At Princeton, representatives from forty eastern colleges met and issued a resolution condemning the cost of armaments, along with a reminder that “the generation which are present would in all probability bear the brunt of a future war ….” They expressed “unqualified approval” of the Washington Conference. Colonel Dolier, former commander of the American Legion, compared the robust growth of the Legion to “what he hoped would be the growth of the disarmament sentiment.”22 The Conference even received the blessing of Thomas W. Lamont of J. P. Morgan, who saw in arms limitations “the lifting of an enormous burden of taxation” on business.23 The conference opened in Washington on November 12, 1921. Instead of the usual platitudes that everyone was expecting from the opening address, Hughes dropped a bombshell (if such a term can be used to describe a disarmament conference) by laying out detailed proposals. Hughes asked that the United States, Britain, and Japan scrap sixty-six capital ships (battleships) among them. America by herself would be scrapping thirty of these vessels. The numerical ratio of capital ships for the five powers (United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) would be 5-5-3.1-1.75-1.75. The United States would retain eighteen capital ships, twenty-two for Britain and ten for Japan, and no nation’s capital ships could be replaced for ten years.24 One British observer quipped that, “Hughes has sunk in thirty-five minutes more ships than all the admirals in the world have sunk in a cycle of centuries.”25 The Conference might also have included discussions on limiting landbased armaments, but in the months previous France had already made it clear that she was having none of it. France maintained the most powerful army on the planet, and French prime minister (and Conference delegate) Aristide Briand insisted that France remain on guard until “the German people shall have accepted democracy and shall have denounced the pan-Germanist spirit of 1914.”26 French newspapers were in agreement, with the Journal declaring that disarmament was “the greatest illusion of all,” and asking readers to imagine France without an effective military “in the face of sixty millions of Germans feasting on hate and dreams of revenge!”27 While at the Conference, Briand claimed that Germany had been busily preparing for war, and that “we do not intend to leave France defenseless. France must, to all intents and purposes, protect herself.”28 The British were especially critical of the French stand in Washington. Correspondent J. G. Hamilton took

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note of the dampening efect of Briand’s speech, making Briand “the skeleton at this enthusiastic feast.” Moreover, Briand’s “lurid picture of Europe” had only confrmed the instinct of Americans against foreign entanglements.29 Former British army colonel Charles Á Court Repington observed that French insecurity, which was based on the absence of an Anglo-American alliance, had resulted in France inficting on Germany “one humiliation after another, in order to make her, and keep her, weak.”30 In a post-war twist, British foreign minister George Nathaniel Curzon accused France, rather than the United States, of being isolationist in her actions in Europe.31 If reduction of land forces was one of the failures of the Conference, limitations on cruisers and submarines was another. The latter was especially important to the British, who had undergone the ordeal of German submarine warfare during the Great War. Once again, an agreement from France could not be secured because French delegates insisted that their support for the ratio on capital ships was contingent on being allowed 300,000 tons of other classes of ships.32 As historian L. Ethan Ellis put it, “the surrender on submarines and auxiliaries was the necessary price of France’s acceptance of a ratio beneath her pride if not her pocketbook.”33 The practical consequence was that in the years ahead there would be an intense cruiser competition between the United States, Britain, and Japan. The Conference was also unable to put a limit on aircraft because as one committee report put it, limiting aircraft would “shut the door on progress,” and hobble aeronautical science.34 What was accomplished at the Washington Conference included the FivePower Naval Treaty which obliged the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy to accept the limitations on capital ships previously referred to. This treaty lasted until 1936.35 Britain’s agreement on this point was especially striking because historically Britain had always depended on the strength and excellence of her navy to protect her interests. As previously noted, just three years earlier, in December 1918, Winston Churchill had proclaimed that Britain would never countenance any restrictions on her naval supremacy.36 A key to Britain’s acquiescence in Washington was that to some extent they were already self-limiting these ships. British naval critic Arthur Hungerford Pollen noted that even before the Conference, Britain had not built a capital ship in the last six years, or a ship of any class in the last three years because “there is no enemy for such ships to meet.”37 Others saw the agreement to limit capital ships as a simple recognition that the day of these behemoths had passed. Not only were capital ships prohibitively expensive to build (the construction cost of a battleship had risen from $5 million in 1900 to $40 million by 1920), but as Lothrop Stoddard put it in 1922, “the submarine and the aëroplane has made, or is fast making, the capital ship so much obsolete junk.” In this interpretation, what happened at Washington had less to do with reducing armaments than with “stripping for action.”38 The British Joint Army and Navy Board still found it necessary to

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defend the capital ship as “the backbone of the feet” but also admitted that aircraft had “adequate ofensive power to sink or seriously damage any naval vessel at present constructed ….” The only limitation on aircraft destructiveness was their fight range.39 Some visionaries could even see a solution to this problem. British Admiral A. Ernle M. Chatfeld believed that scrapped battleships could be repurposed into aircraft carriers, and that, “The number of aircraft carriers present in a feet action will decide who is to command the air, and command of the air is likely to be vital in the next naval battle ….”40 Alone among the nations assembled at Washington in embracing the spirit of reducing naval vessels was the United States. Between 1922 and 1929, the U.S. built naval vessels totaling 83,000 tons. The British Empire: 325,000 tons, Japan: 324,000 tons, France: 271,000 tons, and Italy: 204,000 tons.41 One critic described the American navy after the Washington Conference as “a navy not sufciently strong to prevent war, nor yet sufciently strong to win the war— but one just sufciently weak to lose the war.”42 Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed that in the years after the Washington Conference the government had become complacent, luxuriating in “the beautiful dream that all naval questions really had been settled for good and all.”43 Also signed at the Washington Conference was the Four-Power Treaty between Britain, France, Japan, and the United States. Japan had been less than pleased to have been allowed fewer capital ships than the United States and Britain, and had insisted on a provision that would continue to allow her dominance in the Far East. Under this agreement Britain and the United States agreed to maintain the status quo, meaning that they would not further fortify their Pacifc territories. The implications of this agreement for China were especially signifcant. While Japan had agreed to an “Open Door” in China that would allow all nations the opportunity to conduct commerce there, provisions of the treaty gave Japan overwhelming power in the Far Eastern region. A number of observers believed that the Washington Conference increased the possibility of confict between Japan and the United States. Samuel W. McCall, three-time governor of Massachusetts who covered the Conference for the Boston Globe, argued that the ability of the West to protect China from the aggressions of Japan had been much reduced by the abandonment of America’s right to fortify Manila and Guam.44 An unfortifed Guam meant that the Philippines could not be protected and, in the bigger picture, “would result in adding about three years to the duration of a war with Japan.”45 U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske agreed, and predicted a series of Japanese encroachments on American interests in the Far East. Such encroachments would increase tensions, and in the end might entice Japan to move against the Philippines “and force us into a highly expensive war ….”46 If we make the argument that what Britain got out of the Washington Conference was the limitation of an extremely expensive class of ships of dubious future viability, that the Conference ceded to Japan dominance in the Far East, and

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that France got the freedom to address her own interests in Europe, what did the United States get out of the Washington Conference?47 In a 1921 article in the New York Times, Raymond B. Fosdick argued that the real purpose of the Conference had been less about engaging arms limitations and adjustments in the Pacifc than enabling the Harding administration to establish “a new association of nations, difering from the existing one only in having a Republican instead of a Democratic birth certifcate.”48 Petit Journal correspondent Marcel Ray also claimed that one of the principal results of the Conference was that it allowed the United States “to participate in certain common questions where they cannot remain isolated,” but even here the United States government seemed determined to remain isolated. In the case of the Four-Power Treaty, for instance, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee inserted a clause stating that the United States recognized “no commitment to armed force, no alliance, no obligation to join in any defense.”49 When President Harding submitted these treaties to the Senate for ratifcation, he acknowledged that they did not commit the signatories to “any kind of an alliance, entanglement, or involvement.” To the charge that this made these treaties “meaningless,” Harding pleaded for the good faith of nations. If nations could not live with mutual trust and respect, said the President, then “brutal, armed force will dominate, and the sorrows and burdens of war in this decade will be turned to the chaos and hopelessness of the next.”50

The French Occupation of the Ruhr No event better illustrates how far apart the war-winning Allied coalition had drifted in the post-war years than the crisis in the German Ruhr industrial region in 1923. It also marked a crucial shift in how Americans viewed the uses of military power in Europe. In the previous year, U.S. Secretary of State Hughes had proposed the creation of a commission that would determine Germany’s ability to pay reparations. This idea was rejected by France, in part because around the same time French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré had sent Adrien Louis Dariac to the Ruhr and Rhineland to report on conditions there. The contents of the secret “Dariac Report” soon leaked out, frst in the Manchester Guardian, which called the report “a nightmare of frank brutality.”51 Dariac suggested separating the Rhineland from Germany with a customs barrier, replacing Prussian ofcials with Rhenish ones, convoking an assembly and detaching from Germany “a free Rhineland under the military guard of France and Belgium.”52 France could get her reparations, said the Dariac Report, from “the Stinnes and Thyssens and Krupps and of the great syndicates, the true holders of German capital … There are the Germans who can pay, and the fat can be fried out of them if need be.”53 The extent to which Germany was able to pay reparations produced a lot of heat in the post-war years.54 Germany was running a huge budget defcit to pay for pensions, unemployment relief, and housing subsidies. German

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industrialists did not want to submit to heavy taxation, and no one in Germany wanted to pay the true cost of food, or of maintaining the postal service and the railroads. The German government’s response was to print money, and by the autumn of 1922 there was hyperinfation. Historians are split on where to lay the blame. Adam Fergusson claims that the fault lay with the “weak acquiescence of the new men in power,” who “printed notes to satisfy everyone ….”55 But according to historian Stephen A. Schuker, the alternative of economic stabilization “meant defation, increased unemployment, and probably social unrest.”56 As German industrialist Hugo Stinnes put it, “the choice had been between infation and revolution.”57 Internationally, the signs were clear that Germany was entering an economic crisis. The Standard Oil Company reported at the beginning of 1923 that Germany’s fnancial and economic resources would be exhausted within three months, and London and New York bankers noted German cash balances abroad had shrunken by a huge percentage during the same time period.58 The cost of ordinary purchases in Germany swelled to grotesque levels. Ernest Hemingway reported from Kehl in April that a bottle of Champagne cost 38,000 marks.59 It would get worse. The value of the German mark in 1923 would descend to 4.2 trillion Reichsmarks to one U.S. dollar.60 Entangled with German hyperinfation was the question of reparations. France believed that Germany would continue to evade payments unless forced to do so, while the British contended that Germany could and would pay as long as its sovereignty was not compromised. In January 1923, with German reparations in the form of coal and coke deliveries sinking, and with the Dariac Report in hand, France and Belgium began contemplating an invasion of the Ruhr.61 In a resolution put forward by the Reparations Committee, France, Belgium, and Italy agreed that Germany was in default. Britain voted against it. Perhaps these difering points of view refected what each had gotten from the war. Britain had arguably achieved her goals with the demise of the German navy (and her merchant marine and colonies) and was keen to reestablish a prosperous Germany as a trading partner. France needed reparations and security, and had gotten neither.62 According to historian Bruce Kent, lurking in the sub-strata of Poincaré’s motivations for the Ruhr incursion was a desire to “frighten” the German government into stabilization, and to “blackmail” Britain and the United States into making fnancial concessions. When none of these three governments responded appropriately, Poincaré went ahead with the invasion “to save his political skin.”63 British Prime Minister Bonar Law sent a preemptive telegram to British armed forces not to take part in any advance on the Rhine (since allied armies were technically under French control). On January 10 the U.S. government also ordered American troops on the Rhine to withdraw. This action, coupled with American suggestions that the Treaty of Versailles be modifed in favor of Germany, did not go down well in France.64

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German public opinion against the French spiked immediately. The Deutsche Zeitung claimed that if the French entered the Ruhr they would be tearing up the Versailles Treaty, freeing Germany to act as she pleased. “We must make it hell for the French to stay in the Rhineland and the Ruhr. There must be a general strike of all workers, employes [sic], ofcials and members of the free professions.” The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung contended, “A great nation driven to desperation has ever found the way that leads to vengeance! Either Germany will rise again or go to ruin together with France.”65 American public opinion was not greatly diferent from the German. A Washington Post editorial claimed that French action against the Ruhr would be furnishing Germany with “a valid excuse for war,” and drew a parallel between the situation in the Ruhr and French resentment of Germany’s occupation of Alsace and Lorraine before the Great War. France was choosing a military option when other measures were available, said the Post, and “a fresh cause of future war between France and Germany is about to be furnished by France.”66 As French and Belgian troops moved into the Ruhr, the reaction in Germany was predictably hostile, and included an early instance of Adolf Hitler rousing the rabble in Munich. In January 1923 Hitler addressed a number of mass meetings. According to Los Angeles Times reporter Larry Rue, Hitler asked, Has our fatherland become a nation of slaves? Our protest against France must turn to a frantic determination to square matters with the scoundrels in our country who are responsible for the whole misery. We must not say down with France, but ‘Down with our own traitors and criminals.’ We want the organization of an army of revenge for the fatherland. Following the speech, mobs broke into hotels demanding the expulsion of all non-citizens, and ordering dance-hall orchestras to play only German music. People on the streets were stopped and asked for their identity cards to show that they were not foreigners. “The Jews are reported to be feeing from Munich,” said Rue. “The banks are rushed with demands for money, while many have gone to the police to demand protection in case of pogroms.”67 A  few days later, a massive protest rally of some 100,000 was staged in Berlin, where there were denunciations of the Versailles Treaty and a pledge that Germans would “never submit to the slavery of being compelled to work under force of the bayonets of peace-breakers.” A group of 5,000 “young students and followers of the reactionary Bavarian leader, Hitler” tried to break through the Brandenburg Gate.68 Invading the Ruhr was one thing, but getting the workers to mine the coal was another proposition altogether. As the New York Times put it, “There are machine guns at the corners of the streets, but they will not produce coal for France.”69 The French, however, believed that German morale in the Ruhr

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was low, and that no strike would last long because miners were running out of the necessities of life. With time, France could “wean both the Rhineland and Ruhr away from Prussia.” 70 But German mine workers continued to leave their jobs, as did workers in other industries in the Ruhr. After rioting broke out in Dusseldorf on January 25, the French declared martial law.71 Miners descended into the mines but did not work, and a rail strike in the region made it virtually impossible for the French to move any coal into France.72 When the French arrested Fritz Thyssen, a scion of one of Germany’s mightiest industrial families, some 65,000 people employed in Thyssen mines declared a strike.73 In one month of occupation, the French had received less than one-fourth of the 2 million tons of coal stipulated by the Reparations Committee for January. The German government began posting bulletins proclaiming that the Ruhr invasion had abrogated the Versailles Treaty: “We have nothing more to pay on reparations. Give your money to pay the workmen of the Ruhr who are on strike for love of their country.” This appeal brought in billions of marks. Leipzig by itself raised 2 billion marks in three days. Meanwhile, 22,000 miners in the French province of Lorraine went on strike, calculating that the Ruhr coal stoppage would make mine owners come to the table.74 In quick succession, French authorities announced that the death penalty would be imposed for any act of sabotage, and that they would institute a blockade on products from the Ruhr to the rest of Germany.75 The French and Belgians were now operating the Ruhr railroad system because only 357 of the 170,000 Reichsbahn employees would work for France. Some 147,000 railroad workers, government employees, and their families were exiled from the zone of occupation.76 Bands of young Germans began shooting at French soldiers.77 Washington Post reporter Wythe Williams called the situation in the Ruhr “an economic Verdun.” The French said that they had 50,000 troops in the area (the British believed that it was closer to 100,000), but the German combination of passive resistance and guerrilla warfare had kept Germany in the ascendency in this battle of wills between two nations. “Broadly speaking,” said Williams, “the Ruhr today is a paralyzed territory for all the good it is doing France.” 78 Whatever sympathy the French and Belgians had been able to garner at the beginning of this afair was now lost as these two nations began to take actions for which the Germans had been excoriated during the Great War. Germany’s horrid treatment of civilians during the war and her willingness to violate the Geneva Conventions’s proscription against collective punishment had produced world-wide outrage.79 Now French authorities in early March announced that “where acts of sabotage occur and the culprit cannot be found the community will be punished.” When a French telephone line was cut at Kettwig and a fne of 1 million marks was not paid, the French arrested the Burgomaster— an act reminiscent of German hostage taking in Belgium.80 A  week later in Buer, a French military ofcer and a railroad man were killed, quickly followed by the French killing of fve and wounding of thirteen rioters  in that town.

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The  French told the city council that Buer’s Burgomaster would be executed for any further violence against the French. This was followed by a declaration of martial law, under which residents were only allowed to walk in the middle of streets and could not have their hands in their pockets.81 In mid-April, French soldiers were examining automobiles to be requisitioned outside of a Krupp facility in Essen when the plant’s siren sounded and thousands poured into the streets. Surrounded by German workers, the French frst fred into the air, then into the crowd, killing eleven. Four of Krupp’s directors were taken into custody. The Outlook protested that this incident was “nothing to compare” with the German treatment of civilians in Belgium (an acknowledgment that many would make the connection) but if the scale differed the principle seemed to be the same.82 Denunciations of German “militarism” had been a major Allied motif during the war. Now it was Germany’s turn to tar France with the same brush. When German President Friedrich Ebert addressed a group of 1,500 delegates from the Ruhr, he claimed that “the spirit of militarists and the thirst for economic dictatorship still prevailed.”83 Johann Heinrich von Bernstorf, German ambassador to the United States during the war and member of the German parliament after the war, wrote an article for the American magazine Current History in which he characterized events in the Ruhr as “the struggle of pacifsm versus militarism and might. It was the struggle against the belief that economic questions can be settled by bayonets.”84 The ironies were considerable. As The Nation observed, “By the jest of fate the Prussians have been called upon to lead the frst great national test of the power of pacifc resistance.”85 Sabotage against French occupation and strikes against French attempts to take over mining and coke operations continued throughout the region.86 With German public opinion in the Ruhr and Rhineland running heavily against the invaders, the French and Belgians at various times shut down 400 newspapers and issued fnes and prison sentences against eighty-two editors and thirty-one publishers.87 In Essen, there was a crime wave as local police abdicated enforcing local laws and dumped it into the lap of the occupation forces.88 In Dusseldorf, the French seized 60 million marks from the city treasury to pay for sabotage repairs, and jailed twenty-two of Dusseldorf ’s customs and tax collectors.89 The occupation of the Ruhr also produced the worst crisis between France and Britain since before the war. There had been squabbling between the two nations over French encouragement of Polish aspirations and British encouragement of Greek aspirations, but the Ruhr invasion was a diferent matter altogether.90 A disgusted George Bernard Shaw contended that “plundering and kicking the enemy to death when he is down should not be called fne names such as Reparation and Indemnity and the like.”91 The British foreign ofce issued a statement alleging that the French invasion of the Ruhr was “a violation of the principles of the public right and humanity,” that it was contrary to

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the Versailles Treaty, and that it was a breach of international law that would inevitably produce “a recrudesce of war and bloodshed.”92 In a speech to the House of Commons, David Lloyd George observed that Germany’s national spirit had for the frst time since the end of the war “been aroused by the French action.”93 If such curt statements had been made before the war, said Los Angeles Times Reporter S. Fred Hogue, it might have produced a Franco-British confict. While the Great War had made nations less eager to fy at each other’s throats, “enough had been said to assure that Britain would be neutral in an Anglo-German confict.”94 In June 1923, the British Parliament voted funds to more than double the size of the newly created Royal Air Force—whose principal function was to deter a French attack on Britain.95 The ofcial American position was represented in Secretary of State Hughes’ suggestion that the nations involved should call upon a commission of fnanciers. The French government issued a statement that it would “consider as unfriendly and even hostile any efort at mediation.”96 For many Americans, the crisis in the Ruhr confrmed that Europe was still besotted with militarism and imperialism, with this time France playing the role of worst ofender. American scholar J. D. Whelpley suggested that the invasion of the Ruhr was the opening move that would “carry the French frontier to the Rhine and beyond ….” The lure of a “greater France” boded ill for the future of disarmament.97 For isolationists such as William E. Borah (R-Idaho), the Ruhr invasion furnished one more reason why Americans should “never enter into anything in the nature of political attachments with foreign powers … We see no way of helping Europe while these protagonists of war, these militaristic and imperialistic polices dominate the whole continent.” The Americans who had gone to fght in France, he said, had “certainly died for no such purpose as this.”98 Senators Gilbert Hitchcock, David I. Walsh, Burton K. Wheeler, and John Sharp Williams all expressed dismay at what had happened in the Ruhr.99 This reaction was not limited to politicians from the American hinterland. When the American writer Malcolm Cowley, who had driven a French munitions truck during the war, replied to an article asserting that the United States had become “the concentration point for the vices and vulgarities of the world,” he insisted, “America is just as god-damned good as Europe—worse in some ways, better in others, fresher material, inclined to stay at peace instead of marching into the Ruhr.”100 At a minimum, said the Washington Post, the Ruhr occupation had destroyed any possibility of a friendship between Germany and France, and that the best that could be hoped for was an “avoidance of war.”101 Another writer suggested that the confict had already begun, and that, “France and Germany have resumed the war which began in 1914 and paused in 1918. The issues have not changed, only the conditions.”102 In May, Baron Krupp von Bohlen and other Krupp ofcials were convicted by French court martial for inciting violence at Essen. The Baron received a ffteen year sentence and was fned 100 million marks. By the end of the

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month 46,000 miners and 70,000 workers in the metal trades were on strike in the Ruhr. In June, Belgians seized German hostages at Hochfeld in retaliation for the killing of ten Belgian soldiers at the Hochfeld Bridge, and the French grabbed the assets of the Dortmund Reichsbank. Martial law was declared at Bochum and Recklinghausen after the murder of three French soldiers. In July the city of Barmen was occupied by the French, hostages were taken and 8 million marks were confscated in reprisal for the kidnapping of two French soldiers. Finally, on September 26 German President Friedrich Ebert and Chancellor Gustav Stresemann formally declared the end of German resistance.103 The French and Belgians claimed victory, noting that while the cost of operations in the Ruhr had amounted to 700 million francs, they had extracted 1 billion francs in revenues.104 This was a doubtful claim but even if true, this was a victory of the Pyrrhic variety because of the extremely negative impact that this event had on public opinion, not only in Germany but in the United States and Britain as well.105 By the end of this afair, 147,000 Germans had been expelled from the Ruhr, 2,000 had been wounded, and 376 killed.106 One more footnote to this afair should be added. A German veteran of the Great War named Fritz Kuhn had been employed in the German chemical industry when the French moved into the Ruhr. In Munich, he took part in what he called “the revolution” against the French, but he ended up losing his job. According to Kuhn, “We were thrown out by the French Army of Occupation. A colored regiment came in. A woman was not safe there any more.” In 1923, Kuhn and his wife immigrated frst to Mexico, then the United States. By the mid-1930s Kuhn was President of the German-American Bund.107

Dawes Plan “The French policy in the Ruhr and Rhineland provinces is wrecking Europe,” complained the Los Angeles Times, and the only thing preventing an even worse catastrophe was pressure on the French from the United States and Britain.108 As 1924 began the wreckage was obvious in Germany, where the nation was paralyzed by the collapse of the value of the mark. There was an economic crisis in France as well, with the franc locked in a downward spiral. Part of the problem was that Raymond Poincaré refused to entertain the notion that there would be any modifcation of the 132 billion gold marks that Germany owed France in reparations.109 In the previous year the editor of the London Spectacle wondered wistfully if America could “once more save Europe” not through the force of arms but by “good advice and the arts of conciliation.” The United States could “examine judicially the whole question of Reparations, estimate the greatest amount Germany can pay without being deprived of hope and the means of recovery, and then recommend a plan for securing the rapid restoration of the Rhineland

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to Germany …”110 This is exactly what would happen in 1924, not through the good ofces of the American government, but through a group of independent Americans that included Charles G. Dawes, a Chicago banker, Owen D. Young, chairman of the board of General Electric, and Henry M. Robinson, a Los Angeles banker. They announced that they would go to Europe and form a committee to look into the fnancial crisis. They emphasized, however, that they would be working as private citizens—not as representatives of the State Department or any other agency—and would pay their own expenses.111 At the committee’s opening session, Dawes was blunt in setting priorities: “Let us frst help Germany to get well.” When Germany had a stable currency and a balanced budget, “there will be demonstrated the capacity of Germany to pay.” (Figure 3.1)112 Reaction from Germany was overwhelmingly positive, with the Boersen Zeitung arguing, “Let the frst evidences of a reparations policy of ‘sound common sense’ be manifested and Germany will get the credit she needs to make

FIGURE 3.1

Charles G. Dawes. March 1925. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ-43041.

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good on self-help.”113 Poincaré proclaimed that France would stay in the Ruhr until paid, but France not only had the problem of collecting from a recalcitrant debtor, but of addressing her own debts to the Allies. Commenting on what France owed to Americans, Poincaré observed that “even those who are most friendly to us don’t yet talk about annulling the debts.”114 Indeed, the previous autumn Secretary Hughes had noted that the American government maintained that there was an “essential diference” between the question of Germany’s ability to pay reparations and “payment by the Allies of their debts to the United States, which constitute distinct obligations.”115 In contrast to France’s refusal to leave the Ruhr until paid, German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann insisted that no reparations would be forthcoming until Germany’s sovereignty was restored, her economy rehabilitated, her boundaries guaranteed, and a fnal sum fxed for Germany to pay.116 As the world contemplated this Franco-German renewal of the irresistible force and the immovable object, there was considerable surprise when ten days later the German government found the 100 million marks for the frst installment of maintaining the armies of occupation for 1924. Experts in Germany had previously deemed this impossible.117 This marked the beginning of a radical restructuring of the German economy. The German government wiped from the books all government bonds and war loans, and announced that it would pay neither the principal nor interest on public debts until reparation payments had been made. Private bonds and mortgages, which had been virtually worthless, were restored to 10 percent of their original value and were now subject to a 2 percent Reich tax. The state railroads and postal service would now operate independently and for proft.118 The only explanation for these rapid-fre developments is that Germany wanted to demonstrate her eagerness to cooperate with the Dawes Committee (which had already insisted that Germany would have to take up tax burdens similar to other European nations).119 There was also the promise of American investment money in Germany, a large part of which would be coming from the J. P. Morgan company. Jack Morgan observed in 1922 that while there was a great deal to be said for France forcing Germany into a perpetual state of weakness, “I fear they will regret it because they will get no more money.”120 When the Dawes Plan was released early in April 1924, it called for the radical restructuring of the Reichsbank under Allied control as “an essential agency for creating in Germany a unifed and stable economy.” The rich in Germany would be subject to higher taxes (“It can be said with confdence that the wealthier classes have escaped with far less than their proper share of the national burden ….”) The Dawes Plan also took Germany to task for sending assets abroad to avoid payments to war creditors, and suggested that funds for reparations could come from assessments on German railroads and industries.121 The German government now imposed defationary economic measures against public sector spending and higher taxes against business and other

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special interests. Hjalmar Schacht, head of the new Reichsbank, observed that German businesses would have to learn “to obey, not command.” Proceeds from Reich taxes quintupled between December 1923 and the new year.122 When the American members of the Dawes committee returned to the United States, they urged American participation in half of a $200 million loan to Germany, emphasizing the soundness of such an investment.123 There was an election coming up in Germany, and Chancellor Wilhelm Marx asked voters to vote only for the parties that approved of the Dawes Plan, while warning that any deviation from order and reason would be “the end of the reich and the destruction of the nation.” He added that he would like to see a few regiments from the Ruhr army of occupation transferred to the south, “to observe what effect this would produce on the squawkers of Munich ….”124 The Dawes Plan went into effect in August 1924, and initially everyone seemed to get something out of it. Some $200 million was raised for Germany, with the J. P. Morgan Company subscribing to over half. Jack Morgan made it clear that this loan was contingent on Germany being given complete control of her territories.125 (When he toured the United States, Harry Kessler, economist, diplomat, and aesthete also endorsed this view: “If Germany is to be the milch cow of Europe, she must not be cut to pieces or she cannot give milk.”)126 The loan was made, and France evacuated the Ruhr. The impact of the Dawes Plan on the German economy was significant. For the first time since the end of the war unemployment dropped below 1 million (to 650,000), and both retail sales and wages were up considerably.127 By the fourth year of the Dawes Plan, Germany had paid $1.25 billion in reparations, had borrowed $1.5 billion, and the Allies had made payments on American war loans. Owen D. Young established the Young Plan in 1929, which scaled down reparations from $32 billion to $8 billion and set up a schedule to complete payments in fifty-eight years. At the end of the decade, however, investments in Germany were no longer rolling in as they once had. There were concerns over dubious German fiscal practices, and it had also become obvious that this cyclical financial enterprise depended on good economic times.128 Still, the years between 1924 and 1929 were arguably the best that Europe would see between the wars. European industrial production rose by 20 percent in four years, as did international trade.129 The economic system was stabilized and tensions between nations decreased. Tensions within Germany also (temporarily) decreased, with Munich’s British Consul-General Robert Clive observing that six months of national economic stabilization “had already had a calming effect on the Nationalist hotheads.”130 That this era would not survive the Great Depression should not tempt us to underestimate what had been accomplished. British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald called the Dawes Plan “the first really negotiated agreement since the war … we sign it with a feeling that we have turned our backs on the terrible years of war and war ­mentality.”131 Gerhart H. Seger, who served in the Reichstag for four

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years before feeing Nazi persecution, said of the Dawes and Young plans that, “Those were the only occasions when we got any considerable help in the settling of foreign problems.”132 Americans such as Dawes, Young and Morgan played key roles, but the United States government did not. Emphasizing this point, Secretary Hughes told German ambassador Otto Wiedfeldt that the U.S. government would not assume responsibility for any loan to Germany nor would it guarantee the Dawes Plan.133 The Washington Post observed that despite such protestations of the “unofcial” nature of the Dawes mission, European governments continued to see evidence that the United States was making its “‘reentrance into European afairs.’”134 Europe had clearly underestimated American repugnance for European entanglements, said the Post. The majority of Americans, we believe, would rather lose the money owed by France than risk the complications that would arise from American participation in European politics … the Ruhr question is foreign to American policy, like all other European political questions.135

Kellogg-Briand Pact One of the connections between the Washington Naval Conference and what would be called the Kellogg-Briand Pact was that when President Warren Harding introduced Secretary of State Hughes at the opening session of the Washington Conference, Harding had said he wanted not just arms limitations, but “war outlawed.”136 The American Committee for the Outlawry of War was established in the same year to do exactly that. With corporate lawyer S. O. Levinson as chairman, the Committee sought to remove war as a legitimate means of solving disputes, and envisioned that an international court could be empowered to handle controversies that might lead to war.137 In the U.S. Senate, the Borah plan (named after Senator William E. Borah) was introduced early in 1923 to outlaw war. It would make war “a public crime under the law of nations,” called for a “judicial substitute for war,” and asked nations “to indict and punish its own international war breeders or instigators and war profteers.”138 Others promoting this idea included the directors of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. With a $10 million endowment and an annual operating budget of over $600,000, the Carnegie organization wielded an enormous infuence. While Nicholas Murray Butler, the Endowment’s president, and James T. Shotwell, director of the Endowment’s Division of Economics and History, were in favor of outlawing war, their views difered in several key areas from the Levinson group. Shotwell and Butler wanted to ban “aggressive war” but not “defensive war,” and endorsed the idea of being able to levy fnancial penalties against violators.139 At base, the two believed

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that only an armed force could enforce peace.140 This was roughly the stance taken by the League of Nations, which was ready to employ a blockade against international wrongdoers.141 In contrast, the Levinson group declared, in the words of John Dewey, that outlawing war would rely on “the organized moral sentiment of the world.”142 This idea had gained little traction among the French, who could not aford to be as utopian on this subject as Americans. Since the Versailles Conference, Franco-American relations had been strained. The United States had rejected the peace pact and League of Nations membership, had refused to enter into a military alliance with France and was insisting that France pay back her war loans. Aggressive French involvement in Europe, with the Ruhr invasion serving as a prime example, also encouraged some Americans to condemn France as militaristic. In 1925, France’s foreign minister Aristide Briand had accrued a great deal of prestige to himself (and a Nobel Peace Prize) for his work on the Locarno Treaty. France, Germany, Belgium, Britain, and Italy had met in Locarno, Switzerland, to adjust land disputes that had arisen under the Versailles Treaty. At the end of the meeting Germany agreed to recognize the western borders that had been drawn up (but, signifcantly, not eastern borders). Germany, France, and Belgium also pledged not to attack each other. At the time, Locarno was considered to be a great step forward for peace, and in the aftermath Germany joined the League of Nations.143 Briand’s international acclaim suffered a setback, however, when France refused to participate in the Geneva Conference of 1927 (which sought to extend to smaller vessels the limitations that had been put on capital ships at the Washington Conference).144 Relations between France and the United States were at a low ebb in 1927, and when James Shotwell visited Briand in the spring of that year Shotwell suggested that Briand might improve the situation by publicly condemning war as a national policy.145 With 1927 also marking the ten-year anniversary of America’s entry into the Great War, Briand issued a statement proposing to join with the United States in “any mutual engagement tending to outlaw war, to use an American expression, as between these two countries.”146 The timing was perfect because one month later, on May 21, 1927, relations between France and the United States received a huge boost when Charles Lindbergh few across the Atlantic and received a rapturous French reception. Was there really any danger of America and France going to war against each other? As Senator Borah put it, “If there is no shadow of danger of war between these two republics, what is the need of making any treaty whatever renouncing war between them?”147 At best, Briand’s motives were mixed. Writing in the Washington Post, Albert W. Fox declared that Briand’s purpose was “so transparent that all excepting the uninitiated see through it.” This was a “smoke screen” to divert the public from France’s unwillingness to honor her debts to the United States.148 Others worried that Briand’s bilateral proposal

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“would amount to a defensive alliance between the two Governments.”149 The skepticism was shared at the State Department, where J. Theodore Marringer, chief of the department’s Division of Western Europe, claimed that Briand was trying to distract the public from the fact that France had absented herself from the Geneva Conference. The vagueness of Briand’s proclamation seemed intended to “to give the efect of a kind of perpetual alliance between the United States and France,” as well as to postpone the debt settlement and to “create a feeling that payment was unnecessary.”150 Still, it would not look good if the United States rejected out of hand a call to end war. A way out was suggested by Senator Borah. Why not include other powers in the deliberations? If the proposal was broadened many of the objections would be removed. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg had been thinking along the same lines. In a letter to President Coolidge, Kellogg brought up the idea of bringing in Britain and Japan, which would “dispel any idea that we were willing to negotiate any special agreement with France.”151 Kellogg now suggested that instead of a bilateral agreement, France and the United States could make “a more signal contribution to world peace” by including the other major powers in a declaration renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.152 Now it was Briand who found himself on the horns of a dilemma. The possible chaotic impact of a multilateral pact on deals that Briand had already negotiated—and on the League of Nations—was considerable. Briand “had been planning a pleasant little Franco-American picnic” full of meaningless words, but Kellogg’s multilateralism would compromise both the French situation and the system in Europe that had been established since the war.153 Briand was no doubt tempted to reject the Kellogg proposal, but that would imperil his reputation as a great peacemaker. As historian Robert H. Ferrell put it, “Briand could neither accept nor refuse Kellogg’s ofer.”154 Some saw in the Kellogg negotiations the beginning of the end of American isolationism. Writing in the Yale Review, Charles P. Howland insisted that the next president would have to impress upon the public that it was “a completely established economic and cultural fact” that isolation had disappeared.155 The London Times editorialized that after a long absence, the United States “is growing sensitive again to the confusing course of the world’s afairs.” After all, “American prestige is incomplete in isolation.”156 Calvin Coolidge, who had become president after Harding’s death in 1923, clearly did not agree. He had been cool toward Briand’s overtures, and in his State of the Union address in December 1927 Coolidge had restated his isolationist position: “It is recognized that we are independent, detached, and can and do take a disinterested position in relation to international afairs.”157 Elihu Root said of Coolidge that he “did not have an internationalist hair in his head.”158 But Coolidge and members of Congress were getting considerable pressure from pacifst groups. While Kellogg was holding pacifsts in contempt (“a set of God-damned fools”), the White House was receiving 200 letters a day and the

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State Department 600 a day—all overwhelmingly supporting the peace initiative.159 This was in addition to the hundreds of thousands of pamphlets printed by Levinson’s committee that were sent to groups and clubs all over the country (and to individuals on Senator Borah’s and Senator Arthur Capper’s [R-Kansas] mailing lists).160 Coolidge acceded to Kellogg’s idea in part because it made for good politics. Frenchman August Gauvain, writing in Debats, claimed that “Coolidge continues to wish at all costs to have a pacifc program for the coming Presidential election.”161 As the agreement was being formulated, Kellogg rejected the French phrase “aggressive war” (as noted, a distinction made by the Carnegie group and by the League of Nations) because the Coolidge administration had made it clear that it would not want to be put in the position of determining which nation was an aggressor and which was not.162 By August 1928 the fnal wording was completed, with nations pledging to renounce war “as an instrument of national policy” and to resolve all conficts “by pacifc means.”163 Fifteen nations signed the pact on August 27. Eventually sixty-three nations would sign. The American press praised the pact, with The Republican (Springfeld, Massachusetts) expressing the hope that the treaty would help “to erect the wire entanglements against resort to war,” and The Constitution (Atlanta) claiming that if such a treaty been in place in 1914, “Germany would have hesitated a long time before taking the step that cost 10,000,000 lives.” The New York World stressed the “moral obligation” that Kellogg had assumed on behalf of the American people, and French writer Jules Sauerwein noted that the United States had taken on “a world-wide responsibility of which she shunned the risk during the last ten years ….”164 In fact, the United States had assumed neither obligations nor responsibilities, and neither had anyone else. Britain, for instance, insisted that the treaty did not hinder its “freedom of action” in regard to “certain regions of which the welfare and integrity constitute a special and vital interest.”165 As historian David Reynolds has noted, American foreign policy after the war was dedicated to peace “but not to any mechanisms for its enforcement.”166 Frank Kellogg himself claimed that the nations he had negotiated with “knew perfectly well that the United States would never sign a treaty imposing any obligation on itself to apply sanctions or come to the help of anybody.”167 There was nothing in the treaty about wars of self-defense, and there were no provisions for enforcement against violators. Even John Dewey, who supported Kellogg-Briand, conceded that “each nation is its own judge as to whether a war in self-defense is necessary ….”168 Furthermore, the signatories agreed that if one of the parties broke the treaty, the others would be released from their pledges.169 Such troubling details did not appear in the pact itself. For James T. Shotwell, this treaty meant that the United States could both have its cake and eat it too. It could be internationally active without the annoying obligations. Internationalism and isolationism could coexist because, “this renunciation of war can be made

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without an increase of our involvement in Europe.”170 Because Kellogg-Briand obligated the United States to do nothing, and because senators were receiving heavy pressure from pacifst groups, passage in the Senate was a foregone conclusion. Perhaps the pact was a refection of the nation’s chief executive. In 1927, Walter Lippmann referred to Calvin Coolidge’s “genius for inactivity,” and noted that whenever there seemed to be any inclination that the Congress might be in danger of doing something Coolidge could be counted upon to administer a wet blanket.171 Coolidge praised the pact as a “most solemn declaration against war,” but added that it did not “commit us before the event to any mode of action ….”172 Kellogg-Briand was criticized by both the left and the right. On the far left was William Z. Foster of the Communist Party of the United States. When he was nominated by his party to run for president in 1928, Foster called Kellogg-Briand a “pseudo-peace maneuver for covering up the preparations for war by the Imperialists ….”173 On the far right was radio priest Charles E. Coughlin. Writing in 1931, Coughlin, whose powers of analysis often failed him, proved to be unexpectedly insightful when it came to American foreign policy eforts of the 1920s: “You can no more outlaw war by Peace Pacts and London Conferences and Naval Disarmament Treaties than you can outlaw thievery and brigandry.”174 Moderates also had their doubts about the pact, and in a rare moment of agreement with Coughlin, Franklin Roosevelt observed that “war cannot be outlawed by resolution alone. That has failed for two thousand years.”175 Senator William Cabell Bruce (D-Maryland) believed that this pact would be as efective in suppressing war “as a carpet would be to smother an earthquake,” and just a few years later the earthquake struck with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria.176 The “punishment” for Japan’s aggression, as dispensed by the signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, was that they did not recognize its “legality.” This wistful notion, that if something is objectionable its existence won’t be acknowledged, became known as the “Stimson Doctrine,” named after Henry L. Stimson who had become Secretary of State in 1929.177 Both Kellogg and Stimson believed that what Stimson called a “revulsion against war” could somehow be harnessed to keep the peace.178 But in a Foreign Affairs article Walter Mallory claimed that what happened in Manchuria had forced the world to “reëxamine the whole peace machinery which has been set up since the World War … “179 By 1933, the practical results were obvious: “Japan has acted as it would have acted before 1914. It wanted Manchuria and has taken it. The League of Nations and the Kellogg might as well not have been.”180 Writing in 1935, Bertram D. Hulen described the League of Nations, Kellogg-Briand and other treaties and organizations seeking peace as “demonstrated failures.” It was, said Hulen, “still a world governed by force” in which treaties were respected “only so long as nations fnd it convenient to observe them ….”181

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Merle Curti, who was sympathetic toward peace movements in America, also condemned the “shortcomings and hollowness” of Kellogg-Briand. Under the category of damning with faint praise, he referred to the pact’s “immeasurable educational value.”182 By 1940, with another full-fedged war in progress, Charles G. Fenwick described the pact as “little more than a New Year’s resolution.”183 Kellogg-Briand has continued to receive rough treatment from scholars. In Republican Foreign Policy, 1921–1933, L. Ethan Ellis refers to the treaty’s “tentative and ultimately worthless promises,” but recently Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro have tried to rehabilitate Kellogg-Briand. To their credit, they acknowledge the overwhelmingly negative appraisals of this pact: “childish, just childish” (George Kennan), “singularly vacuous” (Ian Kershaw) and “the international equivalent of an air kiss” ( James M. Lindsay).184 But Hathaway and Shapiro claim that while Kellogg-Briand did not end wars between states, “it marked the beginning of the end—and, with it, the replacement of one international order with another.” They assert that “the deadliest conficts have become less common” and that the pact’s goal of ending war between states had been “remarkably successful.”185 These energetic claims are simply too weighty to hang on the slender reed of Kellogg-Briand. This pact did not stop World War II from breaking out, nor has it stopped wars from developing in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan (to name a few). Even if nations bother to defer to such niceties as the outlawing of war, they have the option of carrying out military operations without declaring war, or they can contend that they are exercising the basic right of self-defense.186 The real reason there have been no wars between major powers since 1945 is rooted not in Kellogg-Briand, but in the brutal reality of nuclear weapons. The perpetually upbeat Hathaway and Shapiro, however, are unwilling to engage this bald fact, perhaps because Mutually Assured Destruction puts human beings in a less than fattering light. Throughout the 1920s, American foreign policy toward Europe changed little, with both internationalism and military preparedness emitting a bad odor. L. Ethan Ellis has referred to the “divorcement of military and naval professionals” from Republican politics during this era, with appalling consequences for the status of the nation’s military.187 Exhibit number one is Calvin Coolidge’s speech at Gettysburg in 1928 in which he proclaimed that, “A people which gives itself over to great armaments and military display runs greater danger of creating within itself a quarrelsome war spirit ….” Rather than spending money on arms, Coolidge suggested that national defense could be better served by debt payment and reduction of taxes. “With this method of preparedness, the more we have of it the more peaceful we become.” Whenever the United States had become involved in a confict in the past, said Coolidge, “it has entered it in such a state of unpreparedness as to demonstrate that it was not sought or even expected ….”188 Appallingly, this sentiment was not

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exclusive to American politics. British Liberals were solidly behind disarmament and at the British Labour party conference in 1933, delegates voted in favor of total disarmament and a general strike if war should come.189 That unpreparedness was somehow a virtue that refected glory on the nation was an even more foolish notion than Kellogg-Briand’s “non-recognition” of international transgressions.190 With the end of the 1920s and the onset of the Great Depression every nation on the planet sufered economically. This was doubly true of Germany, where long-term foreign investment had ceased even before the Depression as money from both the United States and Europe was diverted into the American bull market of 1928.191 The stock market crash and the economic defation that followed put investors and creditors in a panic. By June of 1931, Germany’s foreign debt amounted to $2.272 billion, with over 55 percent of this held in the United States.192 With the German economy threatening to go into free fall, President Hoover declared a one-year moratorium on all foreign debts owed to the American government.193 In the previous month, Hoover had pointedly noted that European debtors to the United States were spending $5 billion a year on armaments—twenty times greater than Europe’s annual payments to America.194 As part of this announcement, the President felt it necessary to make clear that, The repayment of debts due to us from the Allies for the advance for war and reconstruction were settled upon a basis not contingent upon German reparations or related thereto. Therefore, reparations is necessarily wholly a European problem with which we have no relation. I do not approve in any remote sense of the cancellation of the debts to us.195 On this one issue—that the Allies must pay their debts to the United States—the American public (and its leadership) was consistent throughout the inter-war era. Even after the debt moratorium, Americans were not going to let it rest. In 1934, Congress passed the Johnson Act (named after its Senate sponsor Hiram Johnson) that made it illegal for foreign nations in debt to the United States to market their bonds in America. Johnson described it as a weapon “in dealing with these European welshers ….”196 President Franklin Roosevelt needed the support of the western progressives for his domestic programs, and signed it. In an address to Congress, he referred to the “sacredness” of European obligations. The end result was that no European nation (except for Finland) made any further payments on their debts to the United States.197 While Americans had the right to insist that Europeans honor their war debts, the post-war economic system established by the United States made it difcult for them to do so. The Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922 put in place a very high tarif. This forced Europeans to pay their American debts with gold, and as Winston Churchill put it, “The service of the American

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debt was particularly difcult to render to a country which had newly raised its tarifs to even higher limits, and was soon to bury in its vaults nearly all the gold yet dug up.”198 Some of the debt could be paid with money from private loans from American banks and investment companies, but these loans came to an end with the advent of the Great Depression.199 When President Herbert Hoover addressed an audience of Iowa farmers in 1930, he said, “We are part of the world, the disturbance of whose remotest populations afects our fnancial systems, our markets and the price of farm products.”200 Then he signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Act, which put into place even higher tarifs. This further separated America from the rest of the world and made it even more unlikely that Europeans would be able to pay of their debts with exports to America.201 Even some isolationists acknowledged that American economic policy had made it impossible for war debts to be paid. In testimony before the Senate in 1939, Stuart Chase observed of European debtors that, “They have not paid and do not intend to. In a very real sense they cannot pay, because our tarif policy makes it impossible for them to pay in goods.”202 There is little doubt that the Depression produced a timidity in American foreign policy during the Hoover years.203 In 1931 John W. Davis argued that anyone examining American foreign afairs “is somewhat at a loss to discover any continuity of policy and of purpose running through it.”204 Yet it would be hard to argue that American statesmanship was somehow forceful and dynamic during the previous decade. Tentative, ceremonial, and devoid of substance are better descriptors. Hoover biographer Kenneth Whyte characterizes the various Republican peace initiatives that preceded Hoover as “a clever, sanctimonious, and somewhat disingenuous way for an isolationist party to express an interest in international afairs ….” Foreign entanglements could be avoided, while allowing America “to trade from a position of unprecedented dominance.”205 But it is difcult to see what the government of the United States could otherwise have done. Popular opinion in America showed no enthusiasm for becoming more politically involved in the afairs of Europe. As Walter Lippmann put it, while Americans wanted to see all wars prevented, when it came to the prevention of war by international action, “they are not prepared to contribute any commitments” which would make a diference in Europe.206 There was a clear distaste in the United States for French aggression in central Europe, and for the British efort to maintain her colonies against popular uprisings in places that included Hong Kong, India, South Africa, Palestine, Egypt, Ireland, and the West Indies.207 Nor did the attempts of the former Allies to default on their war debts win many friends in America. Finally, the intense U.S. involvement in European afairs during the Great War and the disappointment that came afterward produced an undeniable apathy among Americans. As a Los Angeles newspaper put it in 1927, “a change of Ministers in France is of less importance to the residents of Los Angeles than a change of grade

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on an  important thoroughfare.”208 Even if we conjure up a post-war United States that was diferent than it was—that is, an internationalist America willing both to forgive European debts and to look the other way when it came to European imperialism—it is doubtful that it could have had a fundamental impact on a Europe hobbled by old grievances superimposed on massive new problems. The United States had the economic and military power—and the willingness—to transform Europe at the end of the Second World War, but not at the end of the First.

Notes 1 Quoted by Frederick M. Davenport, “Conservative America in Convention Assembled,” The Outlook 1125, no. 8 ( June 23, 1920), 375. 2 “The Republican Convention,” Current History 12, no. 4 ( July 1920), 551. 3 “The Democratic Convention,” Current History 12, no. 5 (August 1920), 830. 4 James Middleton Cox, “Why Vote the Democratic Ticket,” The Forum (September–October 1920), 154. 5 Herbert Adams Gibbons, “The Presidential Campaign,” The Century 100, no. 6 (October 1920), 832, 833. 6 Walter Lippmann, “An Anticipation of Harding,” in Men of Destiny, (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 108. 7 “The National Election,” Current History 13, no. 3 (December 1920), 369. 8 Quoted in “Senators Commend New Foreign Policy,” New York Times, March 5, 1921. 9 G. Lowes Dickinson, “S O S—Europe to America,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1921, 247. 10 William Bennett Munro, “Two Years of President Harding,” Atlantic Monthly, March 1923, 390. 11 Charles Evans Hughes, “The Foreign Policy of the United States,” Current History 19, no. 4 ( January 1924), 579. 12 Quoted in George W. Wickersham, “The Senate and our Foreign Relations,” Foreign Afairs 2, no. 2 (15 December 1923), 177. 13 Quoted in William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy [1959] (New York: Delta, 1962), 132. 14 Emily S. Rosenberg, “Twenties/Twenties Hindsight,” Foreign Policy 120 (September/October 2000), 84. 15 Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 20. 16 Robert H. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952), 43; “For America to Act,” New York Times, January 15, 1921. 17 “Pershing Favors 5-Power Disarming,” New York Times, February 3, 1921. The American government also spent almost $107 million on college R.O.T.C. programs between 1921 and 1931. James Wechsler, Revolt on the Campus [1935] (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), 123. 18 See Merle Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936 [1936] (Boston, MA: J. S. Canner, 1959), 291. 19 Stephen Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars: v. 1: The Period of Anglo-American Antagonism, 1919–1929 (New York: Walker and Company, 1968), 301–02.

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20 L. Ethan Ellis, Republican Foreign Policy, 1921–1933 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1968), 100. 21 “The Disarmament Movement,” New York Times, July 12, 1921. 22 “40 Colleges Plead for Disarmament,” New York Times, October 27, 1921. 23 “Bankers Unanimous For a Cut in Navies,” New York Times, November 15, 1921. Among the few naysayers was Herbert Adams Gibbons, who claimed that the Conference was “doomed to failure” because it did not include Germany and Russia, and because France would not listen to any suggestions that she reduce her military without an alliance with Britain and the United States. Herbert Adams Gibbons, “World Politics versus Disarmament,” The Century 103, no. 1 (November 1921), 147. 24 “Proposal for a Limitation of Naval Armament, Presented by the Secretary of State at the First Plenary Session of the Conference,” November 12, 1921, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1922, Volume I, Document 34 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1938). See “Concrete Naval Armament Cut Proposed by America,” Los Angeles Times, November 13, 1921; Roskill, 311. 25 Quoted in Ronald Allen Goldberg, America in the Twenties (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 70. Hughes had the ability to quickly absorb the most intricate details of an issue. One senator noted that when Hughes met with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to discuss the new treaty with Germany, he spoke extensively without notes: “Never before had we met a Secretary of State who so thoroughly understood his subject, and who so clearly explained every phase of it.” Arthur Wallace Dunn, “Hughes and the Conference,” American Review of Reviews 54, no. 4 (October 1921), 381. 26 Quoted in Edwin L. James, “France Unwilling to Reduce Her Army,” New York Times, July 12, 1921. 27 Quoted in Edwin L. James, “French Pessimistic on Plans to Disarm,” New York Times, July 15, 1921. James Bryce, former British ambassador to the United States, observed that the hatred was not just on one side, and that, “The victors bear as much resentment against the vanquished as the vanquished do against the victors.” “Bryce Sees Seeds of War in Treaty,” Washington Post, August 3, 1921. 28 “Full Ofcial Text of the Speeches at Yesterday’s Session of the Conference,” New York Times, November 22, 1921. 29 J. G. Hamilton, “Declares Briand Chilled Delegates,” New York Times, November 24, 1921. 30 Charles Á Court Repington, “Disarmament and the State of Europe,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1921, 660. 31 “Plain Words to France,” New York Times, November 25, 1921. 32 Roskill, 327–28; Ellis, 118–19. 33 Ellis, 135. 34 Roskill, 323. By 1926 one commentator worried that “the world is in danger of drifting on into a race of aerial armaments paralleling that naval competition which marked the years immediately preceding the late war.” Edward P. Warner, “Aerial Armament and Disarmament,” Foreign Afairs 4, no. 4 ( July 1926), 625. 35 Lamar Middleton, “Treaty Diplomacy Since the First World War,” War in the Twentieth Century, ed. Willard Waller (New York: Random House, 1940), 324. 36 See “Two Navies As One,” New York Times, December 8, 1918. 37 Arthur Hungerford Pollen, “England’s Navy and Disarmament,” Atlantic Monthly, December 1921, 829. 38 Ronald E. Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901–1950 (New York, Greenwood, 1991), 33; Lothrop

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39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

Stoddard, “The Month in World Afairs,” The Century 103, no. 4 (February 1922), 631. Hector C. Bywater, “The Limitation of Naval Armaments,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1922, 263–64. Roskill, 310. George Fielding Eliot, The Ramparts We Watch: A Study of the Problems of American National Defense (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1938), 5. British Field-Marshal Henry Will quoted in A Student of Sea Power, “The United States Navy: A Plain Statement,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1924, 251. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Our Foreign Policy: A Democratic View,” Foreign Afairs 6, no. 4 ( July 1, 1928), 577–79. See Samuel W. McCall, “The Washington Conference,” Atlantic Monthly, March 1922, 392; Middleton, 325. William Howard Gardiner, “A Naval View of the Conference: Fleet and Base Limitations,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1922, 532. Bradley A. Fiske, “The Limitation of Armaments,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1925, 138. Marcel Ray, “Says Briand Got All He Sought,” New York Times, November 25, 1921. Raymond B. Fosdick, “The League and the Washington Conference,” New York Times, September 18, 1921. Marcel Ray, “Says Briand Got All He Sought,” New York Times, November 25, 1921; “Agreement on Treaty,” Los Angeles Times, February 25, 1922. “Message of President Harding to the Senate,” February 10, 1922, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1922, Volume I, Document 87 ( Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1938). “A Week of the World,” The Living Age 315, no. 4091 (2 December 1922), 497. “Calls a Sheep’s Tail a Leg,” The Nation 116, no. 3002 (10 January 1923), 30. “Value of the Ruhr,” New York Times, November 17, 1922. Germany’s ability to pay its reparations is still debated among historians. For an excellent summary of the argument that Germany was fnancially able to cover its reparations, see “Versailles Revisited,” The Economist, 6th–12th July 2019, 16. Adam Fergusson, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Defcit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinfation in Weimar Germany (New York: Public Afairs, 2012), 123. Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe: The Financial Crisis and the Adoption of the Dawes Plan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976), 12. See David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), 134. J. D. Whelpley, “The Issue in the Ruhr: I—The Road to Imperialism,” The Outlook, 133, no. 11 (14 March 1923), 477. Fergusson, 137. Reynolds, 135. “The Break at Paris,” Washington Post, January 5, 1923. “The New Crisis in Europe,” The Outlook 133, no. 3 ( January 15, 1923), 116–17. Bruce Kent, The Spoils of War: The Politics, Economics, and Diplomacy of Reparations, 1918–1932 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), 209. “French War Leaders Plan Activity,” New York Times, 5 January 1923; Samuel Dashiel, “France Is Deeply Hurt,” Los Angeles Times, January 12, 1923. Cyril Brown, “German Hope Turns to American Help,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1923. “France’s Threat of Force,” Washington Post, January 7, 1923. Larry Rue, “Europe Staggering on Brink of Second Thirty-Year War,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1923.

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68 “Monster Berlin Mobs Howl Against Seizure,” Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1923. In November 1923, Hitler staged his “Beer Hall Putsch” in an attempt to seize power in Bavaria. The coup was a failure. When Hitler was put on trial, he used it as an opportunity to air his right-wing views. He was found guilty, and under the German Penal Code he should have received a sentence of life in prison. Instead, he received only a five-year sentence and was released after  nine months. See William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A  History of Nazi G ­ ermany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 78. 69 “French Invaders Face Big Problems,” New York Times, January 12, 1923. 70 “Endurance Test On in the Ruhr,” New York Times, January 22, 1923. 71 “Ruhr Germans to Have Taste of Martial Law,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1923. 72 “Rail Strike Broken on Rhine and Ruhr, but the Miners Quit,” New York Times, February 3, 1923. 73 “The French in the Ruhr,” The Outlook 133, no. 5 ( January 31, 1923). 74 “Ruhr Rail Situation in Almost Hopeless State,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1923. 75 “Mailed Fist for Ruhr,” Los Angeles Times, February 8, 1923; Edwin L. James, “Germany Is Cut Off from All Products of Occupied Areas,” New York Times, February 12, 1923. 76 Adam Tooze, The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, ­1916–1931 (New York: Viking, 2014), 442. 77 See Edwin L. James, “Allies to Operate Trains,” New York Times, February 13, 1923; John Clayton, “Germans in Ruhr Resort to Guerrilla Warfare,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1923. 78 Wythe Williams, “Ruhr Invasion Seen as Economic Verdun,” Washington Post, February 25, 1923. 79 See John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 420; Hugh Gibson, A Diplomatic Diary (London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1917), 132. 80 “French Fine Towns for Sabotage Acts,” New York Times, March 3, 1923. On ­hostage taking in Belgium, see Will Irwin, Men, Women and War (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1915), 56. 81 See “Frenchmen Slain in Ruhr Basin Town,” Washington Post, March 3, 1923; “Rioters Shot Down at Buer,” New York Times, March 13, 1923; “Reprisals ­Ordered for Ruhr Violence,” Washington Post, March 14, 1923. 82 “The Bloodshed at Krupp’s,” The Outlook 133, no. 15 (April 11, 1923), 624. 83 Quoted in John Clayton, “Ebert Urges Defiance,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1923. 84 Johann Heinrich A. von Bernstorff, “The German Stand on Reparations,” Current History 19, no. 1 (October 1923), 24. 85 “Germany’s Moral Equivalent for War,” The Nation 116, no. 3005 (February 7, 1923). 86 “1 Killed, 6 Injured in Rhineland Wreck,” New York Times, March 17, 1923; “16,000 Miners Strike as French Take Coke Plant,” Washington Post, March 15, 1923. 87 “400 Newspapers Silenced,” New York Times, March 20, 1923. 88 Cyril Brown, “Wave of Crime in Ruhr,” Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1923. 89 “French Take German Funds to Pay Sabotage Repairs,” Washington Post, March 22, 1923. 90 See Frank H. Simmonds, “Anglo-French Disputes,” American Review of Reviews 64, no. 3 (September 1921).

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91 “A Dialogue on Things in General between George Bernard Shaw and Archibald Henderson,” Harper’s Magazine, May 1924, 709. 92 “Britain Warns France against Ruhr Violence in Unsent Cabinet Note,” Washington Post, March 17, 1923. 93 “The Attack by Lloyd George on French Policy,” Current History 18, no. 2 (May 1923), 255. 94 Fred Hogue, “Close-Ups of Europe,” Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1923. 95 Tooze, 446. 96 “We Stand on Hughes’s Hint,” New York Times, January 5, 1923; Edwin L. James, “France Warns All Mediation Eforts Will Be Unfriendly,” New York Times, March 18, 1923. 97 Whelpley, 478. 98 “Borah Tells Europe Why We Do Not Help,” New York Times, January 10, 1923. 99 “‘Utterly Brutal and Insane,’” The Nation 116, no. 3003 ( January 24, 1923), 84. 100 Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s [1934] (New York: Viking, 1951), 106–07. 101 “The Franco-German Situation,” Washington Post, March 7, 1923. 102 Frank H. Simmonds, “The Siege of Germany,” American Review of Reviews 67, no. 3 (March 1923), 261. Historian Stephen A. Schuker emphasizes that reparations took on a symbolic signifcance that magnifed the importance of the actual economic and fnancial issues at stake. It became the vehicle for prolonging the Franco-German confict. For the German government, and even at times for the French, it developed into nothing less than a continuation of the war by economic means. Schucker, 6. 103 “Chronology of the World’s History for the year 1923,” New York Times, January 28, 1924. 104 Tooze, 448. 105 Mulling over the impact of the Ruhr invasion some years later, Richard von Kühlmann concluded that German nationalism had been bolstered, and that France had “rapidly dispersed the reserves of sympathy which she had accumulated abroad, and produced in turn the specter of French isolation.” Richard von Kühlmann, “Germany and France: The Problem of Reconciliation,” Foreign Afairs 11, no. 1 (October 1, 1932), 141. 106 Fergusson, 130. 107 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States. 75th Congress, 3rd. Sess., v. 6, 17 August 1939, 3786. 108 “Visitor Fears New War Near,” Los Angeles Times, March 4, 1924. 109 Edwin L. James, “Franc at Lowest as Experts Gather for German Inquiry,” New York Times, January 13, 1924. 110 Quoted in “England’s Insistent Appeal to Uncle Sam,” American Review of Reviews 67, no. 4 (April 1923), 422. 111 “Dawes and Young Reticent in Paris,” New York Times, January 8, 1924; “Americans Are Paying Their Own Expenses,” New York Times, January 9, 1924. 112 Quoted in “Common Sense in Europe is Demanded by Dawes,” Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1924. 113 Cyril Brown, “Germans Are Pleased at Dawes Speech,” New York Times, January 16, 1924. 114 “Poincare Defance Wins Big Victory by Deputies’ Vote,” New York Times, January 19, 1924. 115 Quoted in Ellis, 200.

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116 Cyril Brown, “Ready to Welcome Experts to Berlin,” New York Times, January 20, 1924. 117 “Germany Making An Efort,” New York Times, January 31, 1924. 118 Cyril Brown, “Germany Wipes Out Her Internal Debt,” New York Times, February 1, 1924. 119 “Dawes Frames another Budget,” New York Times, February 26, 1924. 120 Quoted in Walter A. McDougall, France’s Rhineland Diplomacy, 1914–1924: The Last Bid for a Balance of Power in Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 379. 121 “Dawes Committee Report in Full by Cable,” New York Times, April 10, 1924. 122 Tooze, 460. 123 “Dawes Party Back,” New York Times, April 29, 1924. 124 “Marx Visits Ruhr,” Washington Post, April 28, 1924. 125 “France Clings to the Ruhr,” Washington Post, April 28, 1924. 126 Quoted in Russell Porter, “Kessler Expects Republic to Stand,” New York Times, April 17, 1924. 127 Shirer, 117. 128 Ellis, 201–04; Reynolds, 135–36. 129 Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: Penguin, 2016), 153. 130 Quoted in Fergusson, 221. 131 Quoted in Schuker, 383. 132 See Seger testimony in Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v. 8, September 25, 1939, 5192. Even at the peak of the Dawes Plan success in 1928, German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann emphasized that European economic recovery was still in a precarious state. It was, he said, “like dancing on a volcano.” Quoted in Kershaw, 150. 133 Tooze, 458. 134 “America and Europe’s Afairs,” Washington Post, January 14, 1924. 135 “The European Question,” Washington Post, January 20, 1920. 136 J. G. Hamilton, “Says America Has Justifed her Call,” New York Times, November 13, 1921. 137 John Dewey, “Outlawry of War,” in John Dewey, The Later Works, 1925–1953, v. 8: 1933, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), 14. 138 Quoted in Walter Lippmann, “‘The Outlawry of War,’” in Lippmann, Men of Destiny, 168. 139 Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, The Internationalists: How A Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), 116–18. 140 Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 21–22. 141 See Edwin L. James, “Briand to Propose Wider Peace Role by United States,” New York Times, January 2, 1928. 142 Dewey, “Outlawry of War,” 15. 143 See Sally Marks, The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918–1933 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 69–71. 144 Marks, 89; The conference failed to gain approval among participants to further limit ship building. Congress passed a bill in February 1929 that authorized construction of ffteen 10,000-ton cruisers—fve each in fscal 1929, 1930 and 1931 (and one aircraft carrier). When British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald slowed down naval construction in 1929, President Hoover held up construction of three cruisers for fscal year 1929. See Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 259. 145 Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 68–69.

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146 “Statement Made to the Associated Press by the French Minister for Foreign Afairs (Briand), April 6, 1927, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1927, Volume II, Document 662 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1942). 147 William E. Borah, “Our Great Treaty to Outlaw All Wars,” New York Times, February 5, 1928. 148 Albert W. Fox, “Coolidge Opposed to Plan by Briand to ‘Outlaw War,’” Washington Post, June 3, 1927. 149 Richard V. Oulahan, “Seeks to Satisfy France,” New York Times, January 2, 1928. 150 “Memorandum by the Chief of Western European Afairs (Marriner),” June 24, 1927, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1927, Volume II, Document 672 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1942). 151 “The Secretary of State to President Coolidge,” June 21, 1927, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1927, Volume II, Document 669 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1942). 152 “The Secretary of State to the French Ambassador (Claudel),” December 28, 1927, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1927, Volume II, Document 685 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1942). See also Richard V. Oulahan, “Borah for Widening Treaty against War,” New York Times, December 24, 1927; “Extension of Pact against New Wars Asked by Kellogg,” Washington Post, January 4, 1928. 153 “Briand in a Hole,” Washington Post, March 12, 1928. 154 Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 146. As Assistant Secretary William R. Castle noted, “I do not think the French will agree [to the multilateral treaty proposal], but I think they will have an awful time not to agree.” Quoted in Ibid., 164. 155 “Next Steps in Foreign Policy,” New York Times, June 14, 1928. 156 Quoted in “Britain Sees Us Dropping Isolation,” New York Times, March 3, 1928. 157 Quoted in Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 131. 158 Quoted in Robert Sobel, Coolidge: An American Enigma (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1998), 339. 159 Kellogg quoted in Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Chichester: Wiley, 2012), 15. On letters sent to Washington in support of the peace initiative, see Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 238–39. In another example, Senator Walter Evans Edge (R-New Jersey), received a petition supporting Kellogg and Briand signed by 17,000 from groups that included the League of Women Voters, General Federation of Women’s Clubs, League of Nations Non-Partisan Association and the College Club of East and West Orange, New Jersey. “Agreement in Sight on 15 Cruisers Now, With 10 Optional,” New York Times, February 18, 1928. 160 Hathaway and Shapiro, 113–14. 161 “France is Suspicious of Kellogg’s Plan,” New York Times, April 15, 1928. 162 See “Kellogg Draws Second Treaty Note to France,” Washington Post, January 12, 1928 and Richard V. Oulahan, “Borah for Widening Treaty against War,” New York Times, December 24, 1927. 163 Quoted in Hathaway and Shapiro, 128. 164 World quoted in “Press Comment on the Anti-War Treaty,” New York Times, August 28, 1928; Jules Sauerwein, “Calls Us Guardians of Europe’s Peace,” New York Times, July 23, 1928. 165 Quoted in Thomas N. Guinsburg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States Senate From Versailles to Pearl Harbor (New York: Garland, 1981), 121. 166 Reynolds, 231. 167 Quoted in Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 241. 168 Dewey, “Outlawry of War,” 15, 17.

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169 Hathaway and Shapiro, 127. 170 James T. Shotwell, “How the Anti-War Compact Binds Us,” New York Times, July 29, 1928. 171 Walter Lippmann, “Calvin Coolidge: Puritanism Deluxe,” Intellectual Alienation in the 1920s, ed. Milton Plesur, (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1970), 23. Walter Lippmann, The Method of Freedom (New York: Macmillan, 1934). Lippmann claimed that persons in Western nations after the war reluctantly came to the conclusion that “the old order cannot be restored,” yet it was that exactly that accounted for  the huge popularity of Coolidge and Mellon. “Their social outlook was not only pre-war; it antedated the whole era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and was the most frankly conservative which had been expressed in America since the days of Mark Hanna.” Lippmann, The Method of Freedom, 8. 172 Quoted in Sobel, 357. 173 Quoted in Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v.9, September 29, 1939, 5396. 174 Charles E. Coughlin, “The Pact with the Past!” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October 1930–April 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 183. 175 Roosevelt, “Our Foreign Policy,” 585. For Hamilton Fish Armstrong, KelloggBriand “was a contribution less to world peace than to international mystifcation.” Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “We or They”: Two Worlds in Confict (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 70–71. 176 Quoted in Ferrell, Peace in Their Time, 243. 177 Historian L. Ethan Ellis observes that the United States was not alone in eschewing an efective response to Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Britain and France did no better, making the United States “no more than a shareholder in disaster.” Ellis, 368–69. 178 See Henry L. Stimson, “Basis of American Foreign Policy During the Past Four Years,” Foreign Afairs 11, no. 3 (April 1933), 383–96. 179 Walter H. Mallory, “The Permanent Confict in Manchuria,” Foreign Afairs 10, no. 2 ( January 1931), 220. 180 Nathaniel Pefer, “Manchuria: A Warning to America,” Harper’s Magazine 166 (February 1933), 301. 181 Bertram D. Hulen, “Washington Seeking Peace in Neutrality,” New York Times, August 25, 1935. 182 Curti, 294. 183 Charles G. Fenwick, American Neutrality: Trial and Failure [1940] (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), 26. Lamar Middleton added that “it appears today incredible that men of mature intelligence could believe that nations would be bound by such an illusive pledge ….” Middleton, 329. Writing four years later, Sumner Welles said that Kellogg fostered the illusion that “the mere formulation of a wish is equivalent to positive action.” Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 47. 184 Hathaway and Shapiro, xii. Hathaway and Shapiro draw an analogy between home ownership and national sovereignty. The home owner has the title to his property just as the state has sovereignty over the nation, and no one has the right to take it by force. Problematically, Hathaway and Shapiro declare that, “The True Sovereignty is the State that had Sovereignty in 1928 [orig. emphasis]” A lot has happened in a hundred years, and the authors acknowledge that new territories “continue to be sources of international confict.” Ibid., 354. 185 Hathaway and Shapiro, xiii–xv.

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186 In June 1941, Edgar Snow claimed that, “To Japan goes the dubious distinction of being the frst modern power to revive the deviousness of the undeclared war ….” Edgar Snow, “How America Can Take the Ofensive: II,” Fortune 23, no. 6 ( June 1941), 69. Walter Lippmann pointed out that among the many faws of KelloggBriand was that, “Not only are the really serious enterprises of conquest not necessarily preceded by declarations of war, but they do not necessarily involve the use of organized armies.” Walter Lippmann, “The Struggle Over Austria,” Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935 (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 336. 187 Ellis, 101. 188 “Coolidge Calls Nation to Win World to Peace,” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1928. 189 Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019), 25. 190 Political sensibilities would shift radically over the coming eleven years, which can be seen in the contrast between Coolidge’s statement and Franklin Roosevelt’s 1939 reference to “the old, old lesson that probability of attack is mightily decreased by the assurance of an ever ready defense.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress—A Warning to Dictator Nations, Washington, DC,” January 4, 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1946), 165. 191 Walter Lippmann, The United States in World Afairs: An Account of American Foreign Relations, 1931 (New York: Published by the Council on Foreign Relations by Harper & Brothers, 1932), 135. 192 Lippmann, The United States in World Afairs, 1931, 145. 193 “Messages of the President of the United States to Congress: Message of December 10, 1931,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1931, v. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1946), xxiii. 194 “Universal Crisis,” Time 17, no. 20 (May 18, 1931), 18. 195 “Messages of the President of the United States to Congress: Message of December 10, 1931,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1931, v. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1946), xxiv. 196 Quoted in Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932–45 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 90. 197 Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 92–94. It wasn’t as if they were out of money. At the close of the fscal year in March 1934, the British government reported the largest surplus in ten years, but it paid nothing on American war debts. Senator Robinson of Indiana compared Britain with individual debtors, who believe that with a careless wave of the hand they could get rid of the mortgages on their homes, their grocery and furniture and clothing bills, and spend their money for new purposes without regard to valid existing debts … W. O. S., “Britain’s Budget Surpluses and War Debts,” Foreign Afairs14, no. 1 (October 1935), 163–64. 198 Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm [1948] (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1985), 23. 199 See Ronald E. Seavoy, An Economic History of the United States, from 1607 to the Present (New York: Routledge, 2006), 279–80; John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929 (New York: Mariner Books, 2009), 180–84. 200 David L. Cohn, “Isolation: The Dodo,” Atlantic Monthly 164, no. 2 (August 1939), 159. 201 Charles S. Maier notes that Keynes and his followers “urged that their societies more or less disconnect from the international market and seek higher employment levels autarkically—that is, that they cease to fret about exchange rates.

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202

203 204 205 206 207 208

Indeed, abandonment of old currency parities followed almost by force majeur after 1931.” Charles S. Maier, In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 170. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate, 76th Cong., 1st. Sess., on S. J. Res. 84, “A Joint Resolution Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States for a Referendum on War,” May 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 24, and 31, 1939, 63. See Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression, 5. John W. Davis, “Introduction,” Foreign Afairs Special Supplement 9, no. 2 ( January 1931), ii. Kenneth Whyte, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2017), 373. Walter Lippmann, “While the World Is Arming,” in Interpretations: 1933–1935, ed. Walter Lippmann (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 338. See Tooze, 374–93. Quoted in Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels against War: The American Peace Movment, 1933–1983 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984), 26.

4 HISTORY, LITERATURE, AND ISOLATIONISM

The refusal of the U.S. government to obligate itself to any international ­commitments, and the complementary growth of isolationism in America, were fueled by an aggressive historical revisionism, and by the literature produced by Lost Generation writers. As Americans settled into a post-war miasma of disillusionment, they were increasingly receptive to scholarly works that questioned the basic premises of the war. They were also moved by the literature of the post-war era that described in graphic detail the horror and futility of the late war, and raised doubts about the patriotic fervor that had drawn the United States into that conflict. This was no less true in Europe, where in Britain there was the publication of works by Vera Brittain, Siegfried Sassoon, and Robert Graves, from France the novels of Henri Barbusse and Gabriel Chevallier and, from Germany, the incomparable All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich ­Maria Remarque. These works fueled pacifism on both sides of the Atlantic.1 In ­A merica, history provided the logic for isolationism, and literature the passion.

Early Revisionism German politicians, not surprisingly, were at the forefront of presenting a view of the war at variance with that of the former Allies. One of the best examples of how Allied and German views of the conflict differed in the post-war era can be found in the pages of Foreign Affairs, which in 1925 invited Wilhelm Marx and Raymond Poincaré to write articles with the identical title “The Responsibility for the War.” Marx, former Chancellor of the German Republic, laid the guilt for starting the war squarely on the Russians and the French. In 1914, the Allied powers were so much stronger than the Central Powers, claimed Marx, that any aggression on the part of Germany would have been “almost suicidal.”

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Marx argued that Russia had received from France “plein pouvoir” (full authority) to operate as she pleased in the Balkans, even if that meant a world war. Students of the war will note that supposed French assurances of plein pouvoir to Russia was identical to the “blank check” of support that Germany gave Austria-Hungary, but Marx argues that the Kaiser had assented only to assist Austria-Hungary in “a purely local war.”2 When it was French Premier Raymond Poincaré’s turn to write on the origins of the war, he reminded readers that it was Germany that declared war on Russia and France, violated Belgian neutrality, invaded France, and forced the United States into the war on the Allied side. “Against these unalterable truths the gates of hell themselves shall not prevail.” But Poincaré admitted that these truths were, in fact, being challenged, and that, “especially in the United States, the combined propaganda of Germany and the Soviets has sown confusion in the minds even of well-meaning men of high standing.”3 Indeed, what we fnd in America in the inter-war period is a radical reassessment of the Great War—a deviation from assumptions that had seemed frmly rooted just a few years previously. While all history is arguably revisionist, few eras have produced histories so grotesquely at variance with the facts as this one, nor so seductive to the general public. As John Kenneth Turner sarcastically put it in Shall It Be Again? (1922), “there is danger that millions of Americans may still remain under the misapprehension that we saved America and humanity from a power of singular wickedness ….”4 Revisionism was a liberal cause, and it was championed by two important journals, The Nation and The New Republic. Historian Michael Wreszin noted that, “Revisionism served liberals and progressives in the same way that the bloody shirt had served conservatives in the 1880s and 1890s ….”5 Supporting revisionism was especially gratifying for The Nation’s editor Oswald Garrison Villard, who had opposed American intervention from the beginning. “We pacifsts are again able to speak publicly and fnd ourselves on the winning side,” he crowed.6 The rough agenda of the revisionists was to dispose of the idea that Allied nations had fought the war for idealistic reasons, and to rehabilitate Germany by dismissing the idea that she bore exclusive guilt for starting the war. They further sought to show that the real reason the United States had entered the war was due to a conspiracy cooked up by fnanciers and munitions makers. In 1924, Harry Elmer Barnes (who was then professor of “Sociological History” at Smith College) published an article in Current History focusing on the question of war guilt. He condemned the “scape-goat theory” of sole German guilt, and ranked national responsibility for starting the war in the order of Austria, Russia, France, Germany, and England.7 The article was turned into a full-length book, The Genesis of the World War in 1926, which we will examine in some detail later. Barnes’ article had an immediate impact on both scholars and the general public. Prominent American historian Albert Bushnell Hart,

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who had endorsed U.S. participation in the Great War, declared, “A Barnes battle is being fought in other periodicals over this same question. Not only is the uprightness of France, England, and Germany assailed, but the common sense of the leaders of the American people.”8 Current History created a special feature called “Assessing the Blame for the World War: A Symposium.” Scholars mostly agreed that the political atmosphere of pre-war Europe was poisonous and that both the Allies and Central Powers shared responsibility, but they were also dismayed by Barnes’ shifting the guilt for starting the war to the Allies. A. E. Morse of Princeton observed, “It is difficult to see how anybody but a German would be satisfied by this account.”9 Quincy Wright of the University of Chicago placed the blame squarely on Germany for not reigning in Austrian aggression, and William E. Lingelbach from the University of Pennsylvania cited Germany’s violation of Belgium neutrality, its attack on France and “the ruthless warfare on land and sea followed by the arrogant and stupid diplomacy of the Central Powers.”10 What most concerned these professors was the future impact of revisionist thinking by Barnes and his ilk. Frank Maloy Anderson of Darmouth College called Barnes’ article “seriously misleading” and “likely to exercise an unfortunate influence.”11 As Charles Seymour put it, “many people now spend their time in fulminating against the ‘wickedness’ of the Allies. Such an attitude is worse than useless.”12

How the War Began The basic facts of the war, such as what precipitated the crisis in the Balkans and what happened in Belgium, were turned on their heads. In The Genesis of the World War (1926), Barnes endorsed Wilhelm Marx’s claim that it was the Russians and the French, and not the Germans, who manipulated the situation in the Balkans so that they could take advantage of a crisis that would lead to a European war.13 In the wake of the Franz Ferdinand assassination, Austria only wanted a local punitive war while France and Russia desired a general European conflagration.14 In Germany, claimed Barnes, everyone in the government “from the Kaiser down” was opposed to war. In the end G ­ ermany was the victim of “Austrian obstinacy,” and the German military only took action to protect Germany from an aggressive Russia.15 Arguing in a similar vein, C.  Hartley Grattan claimed that Russian mobilization (which made war “a mere formality”) was based on a French promise of support, and that ­Austrian mobilization (which preceded Russia’s) was only a “local mobilization.”16 Barnes further claimed that Britain entered the war because of a secret agreement with France and not to protect Belgium, which he called “pure subterfuge.” If only Britain had stayed out of the war, sighed Barnes, she would have been the beneficiary of “German gratitude and an Anglo-German ­Entente which would have dominated the Eastern Hemisphere.”17

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A crucial issue that American revisionists had to engage was Germany’s violation of international law in its invasion of Belgium. The Belgium issue more than anything turned Americans against Germany in the early months of the war, and continued to be a public relations nightmare for Germany throughout the confict. Indeed, only a few post-war writers were willing to defend Germany’s invasion. Among the most cynical was C. Hartley Grattan, who basically said treaties were made to be broken (“treaties have never been regarded as especially sacred instruments by any nation on the face of the globe”).18 Hubert Herring seemed to suggest that Americans had somehow been miseducated on this point (“‘Necessity knows no law’—that was Germany’s philosophy, or so American school boys were taught in the spring of 1915”).19 That American school boys had in fact been properly instructed was easy enough to confrm. As German troops moved into Belgium, German Chancellor Theobald Bethmann Hollweg himself stated, “Gentlemen, we are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law. Our troops have already entered Belgian territory. Gentlemen, this is a breach of international law ….”20 Even more daunting to the revisionists was the task of justifying the subsequent death and destruction that the German army visited on Belgium’s civilian population. The roots of the German army’s behavior in Belgium can be traced to the Franco-Prussian War, when French volunteer irregulars (called franc-tireurs or free-shooters) conducted guerrilla operations against German troops.21 The German army anticipated that a similar scenario would unfold in Belgium, and while no such organized civilian resistance took place, that did not stop the Germans from acting as if it had.22 German commanders were instructed to impose penalties on entire communities, with the most shocking example being the destruction of the city of Louvain with its library of irreplaceable volumes.23 Thousands of civilians in Belgium and northern France lost their lives to the German army (some 5,521 civilians in Belgium, and 896 in France).24 John Kenneth Turner’s strategy for dealing with German predations in Belgium was to ignore the question all together, and instead to subject the reader to a forty-two page digression on “Wilson imperialism” and American policy in Mexico, Haiti, and Nicaragua.25 When revisionists did engage the atrocities issue, they employed the unsupportable argument that because some atrocity stories were clearly false (the cutting of of the hands of Belgian children by the Germans was a favorite), therefore no atrocities took place. Harry Elmer Barnes, for instance, claimed that atrocity stories “have been utterly repudiated by both Entente and neutral investigators,” while C. Hartley Grattan and Stuart Chase likewise maintained that these atrocity stories, in Grattan’s words, “will not bear investigation.”26 Grattan also claimed that the destruction at Louvain was “astoundingly overestimated for propaganda purposes,” and claims that when Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the American legation in Belgium, visited Louvain he found justifcation for the destruction that did take place. In point

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of fact, the grim spectacle at Louvain included, in addition to the burning of the library, unrestrained looting and the execution of civilians. Twenty percent of homes in Louvain were set on fre. As for Gibson, a German ofcer told him, “We shall wipe it out … For generations people will come here to see what we have done!”27 Walter Millis accepted the francs tireurs explanation, claiming that Belgian atrocity tales were “exaggerated” and that such horrors were created not by the Germans, but by war itself.28 Both Walter Millis and C. Hartley Grattan cite a letter, signed by a number of American reporters early in the war, that they had witnessed no German atrocities in Belgium.29 Millis’ and Grattan’s use of evidence can charitably be described as selective, as one of the signatories of this letter, Irvin S. Cobb, later described areas of Belgium where “scarcely one stone had been left to stand upon another; where the felds were ravaged; where the male villagers had been shot in squads; where the miserable survivors had been left to [die] in holes, like wild beasts.”30 In Aerschot, another American reporter, E. Alexander Powell, was one of the frst foreigners to enter the city after the Germans got through with it. Seventy-nine civilians were executed and 1,100 buildings destroyed.31 Non-reporters also witnessed German atrocities. Edward Allen Cantrel, who was in Belgium to extricate his sick wife, was in a town near the coast when he saw thirteen Belgian newsboys lined up and shot by German soldiers for selling London newspapers.32 There were hundreds of similar tales, including, most damningly, entries from journals kept by German soldiers.33 The revisionists didn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, however, and their claim that all atrocity tales were falsifed continued to resonate with the public, including some who were in high places. As late as 1936, Senator Bennett Clark (D-Missouri) referred to “the manufactured atrocity stories in the invasion of Belgium ….”34 Post-war revisionist history was fought on a number of fronts, but one popular approach was to employ the two-wrongs-make-a-right argument in which German misbehavior, while not exonerated, could somehow be explained away because the Allies were “just as bad.” Thus, according to John Kenneth Turner, “‘democratic’ England [was] more autocratic, irresponsible, and secret in its diplomacy than was ‘autocratic’ Germany,” and German “militarism” was no diferent than that of any other nation.35 Stuart Chase proclaimed that “German lies were few and feeble; Allied lies were many and strong.”36

Foreign Propaganda in America In a Foreign Afairs article in 1926, Edwin F. Gay claimed that when the future historian inquired into why the United States entered the war, “he will reject the idea that by specious propaganda she was misled into entering.”37 Unfortunately, Gay’s was a voice in the wilderness during the 1920s and 1930s because the assertion that foreign propaganda in America had led to an almost

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universal ignorance about the war was holy writ among the revisionists. Americans were, said Harry Elmer Barnes, “at the mercy of the falsifed atrocity pictures and other propaganda poured into this country by the Allies.” Even Americans of great intellectual standing “completely succumbed to this same propaganda ….”38 Hubert Herring referred to “the insidious undermining of neutrality by propaganda” and Walter Millis insisted on “the nearly absolute Allied command over all channels of communication and opinion ….”39 For C. Hartley Grattan, the American press was “gagged” by the British, and “honest, unbiased news simply disappeared.” In the end, “American newspapers gave up the fght and conformed to the censor’s notions.”40 Of the histories that were written between the wars, the classic text on propaganda (classic because scholars still refer to it) was H. C. Peterson’s 1939 Propaganda for War: The Campaign against American Neutrality, 1914–1917.41 In his Preface, Peterson’s isolationism is made clear, with references to the danger of the United States becoming “a partisan to all the world’s troubles,” and a warning to U.S. citizens that “they sufer no illusions as to what can be achieved by American intervention.”42 Peterson justifes his emphasis on British propaganda because British arguments became American arguments.43 Taking up the claim that numerous writers had already made in the 1920s, Peterson asserts that with the cutting of the cable between Germany and the United States, American newspapers had to get their war news “where it was available—and that was from England.” While American correspondents in Europe struggled against British restrictions, in the end “they were helpless victims of circumstance.”44 Peterson suggests that Germany was not responsible for starting the war, and tries to exonerate Austria-Hungary’s role in the Balkans crisis by shifting the blame to Serbia and Russia. As it was for other revisionists, Germany’s invasion of Belgium was a problem for Peterson, which he engages by conjuring up the irrelevant justifcation that “Germany was not the only nation which violated its written agreements.”45 Peterson repeats the atrocity tales that Britain cooked up about German behavior in Belgium—the rapes, the impaled children, etc.—which were, indeed, clearly false.46 But when Peterson is forced to engage the abundant evidence that real atrocities were committed by the German army in Belgium, he employs the classic tactic of retreating to the passive voice (“Hostages were taken, buildings were destroyed in reprisal, and occasionally in retaliation, individuals, or groups of people were executed”) before hurrying past this distasteful subject.47 Forcing the facts to ft a thesis was as much of a problem for Peterson as it was for other writers of this era, and in his grand summation Peterson claimed that British propagandists in the United States “had a free feld and controlled public opinion almost as closely as they did within their own boundaries.”48 In fact, nothing was further from the truth, but that has not stopped subsequent historians (including, most lamentably, George F. Kennan) from making the same assertion.49 Two false premises were at work here: that because the

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United States entered the Great War on the Allied side, ergo British propaganda was superior, and that Americans had no way of verifying what was happening in Europe except through British propaganda. Why this myth has continued to fourish is somewhat of a mystery because unlike every nation involved in the war, the neutral United States did not have to impose censorship on its citizens or press. American reporters had access to the armies and governments of both the Allied and Central Powers—and made extensive use of this privilege. American newspapers and periodicals could, and did, print whatever stories they wanted about the war. Indeed, Americans were better informed about the war—at least for the frst two-and-a-half years—than the citizens of any other nation. It was the warring nations that labored in ignorance about the course of the war, and Europeans learned to depend on American press reports to fnd out what was really going on.50 American publications aired both the Allied and German points of view, and American reporters who went to Europe were scrupulous in gathering the facts of the war. One of these facts was Germany’s horrifc decision to use gas on the battlefeld. Gas was frst employed by the German army at Second Ypres in 1915, where American reporter E. Alexander Powell saw “a long line of men with blackened and distorted features, the sweat standing in glistening beads upon their foreheads as they fought for breath, heaving, chocking, panting, gasping, like fsh which have been thrown upon the bank to die.”51 American doctor Harvey Cushing treated one gas victim who was “blue as a sailor’s serge, simply pouring out with every cough a thick albuminous secretion” and fghting for air.52 C. Hartley Grattan seems to be unmoved by such facts, however, and quotes a number of authorities who claimed that gas was a legitimate weapon that produced low casualties. He even argued that the German use of gas was sanctioned under the Hague Conventions.53 In fact, Germany’s portrayal as “autocratic, militaristic, and brutally imperialistic” had nothing to do with propaganda, and everything to do with the reports of scores of Americans who went to Europe and observed German military operations for themselves.54 In the end, Americans had all the information they needed for an informed opinion and, as Booth Tarkington put it, the Germans saw that “an impartial mind had judged them.”55 Aside from German behavior in Belgium, nothing excited greater horror or indignation in the United States than the operation of German submarines. While the legal status of the submarine had not been settled under international law, what was in place were the rules of cruiser warfare, under which a warship was expected to warn a merchant ship that she was about to be sunk, and to give the captain of that ship sufcient time to get crew and passengers into lifeboats. Because submarines were vulnerable when surfaced, and because they could not carry a sufcient number of sailors to serve as prize crews for seized vessels, submarines had to attack without warning.56 The result was that German submarine operations generated one crisis after another between Germany and the

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United States. Most famous was the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in May 1915, with the loss of 1,200 lives. The reaction of the American press was nearly universal in its outrage. The Outlook was typical, condemning the Lusitania attack not as an act of war, but as “the crime of murder.”57 The quick sinking of the Lusitania was no doubt related to the cargo of munitions she was carrying. H. C. Peterson claimed that among American newspapers, “The subject of the cargo was dismissed or given but scant attention,” which was simply not true. The New York Times, among other publications, raised this issue.58 Post-war historians found ingenious ways to justify this horrible tragedy. Walter Millis’ response was that war itself is murder, and besides, Lusitania passengers could have “stayed out of the war zone.”59 Charles Callan Tansill endorsed the conspiracy theory (promoted by the Kaiser) that the British had intentionally left the Lusitania unguarded by their warships so that outrage over American casualties might bring the United States into the war.60 Another argument was that there was a sort of moral equivalency between German submarine attacks and the British blockade. Hubert Herring complained that the Wilson administration “refused to see any connection between the British ‘blockade’ and the German counterattack with submarines.”61 For Harry Elmer Barnes, German submarine attacks were ordered only in response to “British lawlessness” and were in no sense “more atrocious in fact or law than those English violations of neutral rights.”62 What the revisionists could not do was mitigate the sheer horror that the Lusitania sinking produced. In 1938, historian Bernard DeVoto postulated that most Americans remembered where they were when they heard the news: No one who lived through it has forgotten it. The horror that woke across the continent has been, ever since then, a cornerstone experience, a monument for the orientation of judgment. Here was a savagery new to warfare …63 Against the taking of 1,200 lives, sixty-three of them children, legalistic arguments and conspiracy theories were shameful, even monstrous. No civilian died at sea because of British naval operations, while thousands perished from German submarines, and thousands more at the hands of the German army.64 This bald fact was ignored by our post-war revisionists and, sadly, by some contemporary historians who should know better. Michael Kazin, for instance, editor of the left-wing publication Dissent and champion of pacifsts, has put himself in the remarkably contradictory position of defending German brutality against civilians during the war. He approvingly quotes one wartime editor who said that “The Belgians are reaping what they sowed” during the German invasion because of the acts King Leopold committed in the Congo.65 Likewise, Kazin implies that the passengers on the Lusitania had it coming (they were warned, they could have taken another ship, etc.)66 Even contemporary

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historian Niall Ferguson, who views the Allied war against Germany with some skepticism, observes that “the moral superiority [of the Allied Powers] over the Central Powers with respect to neutrals and non-combatants was one of the few respects in which they truly were superior.”67

The Business Critique Americans worshipped at the altar of big business after the war, and the classic example of this adoration is Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knows. Here Christ is portrayed as “the founder of modern business,” a “go-getter” and the “greatest salesman of his age.” It was the biggest literary seller in 1925 and 1926.68 America was enthralled by the geniuses who were busting unions and manipulating the stock market, and few in the 1920s dared suggest that it was American economic interests that pushed the United States into the Great War. John Kenneth Turner was one of the few. He argued that [so] long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fght for them in war.69 With the coming of the Great Depression there was an enormous backlash against capitalism, and the Great War was reinterpreted yet again to reveal the insidious infuence of big business. Taking the business critique to the extreme was C. Hartley Grattan. In his frst book Why We Fought (1929) he was both an apologist for German actions during the Great War as well as a critic of the Allies. But there was no suggestion that the basic nature of capitalism was the root cause of the Great War. By the time he published Preface to Chaos: War in the Making in 1936, the world had sufered through seven years of economic depression and the forces of fascism had risen in Italy and Germany. In the interim, Grattan himself had become a Marxist. In his Introduction, Grattan claims that the logic of capitalism cannot include “depressed classes,” and that property and profts were capitalism’s “criteria of social health.” 70 Grattan saw little diference between democratic and fascist states, claiming that, “The social democratic, the conservative capitalist, and the fascist states are all variants of capitalism ….” Communism, said Grattan, would release the community from the exploitation of private property.71 As for the Great War, Grattan repeats most of the untruths that he had already covered in Why We Fought: that Americans had no way of determining the truth about the war and were totally at the mercy of British propaganda, and that the Germans had every right to sink the Lusitania.72 But Preface to Chaos has a sharper economic tone, with Grattan claiming that American bankers and munitions makers created the conditions that made participation in the war

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“possible, logical, and, to preserve the values it had created, necessary ….” 73 No one was safe from the judgment of this smug Marxist. Pacifsts, for instance, prompted Grattan’s “sardonic hilarity” because they advocated no fundamental change in the economic system, while other critics of the war also erred by ignoring that the confict’s primary cause was capitalism.74 Grattan dismissed the viability of neutrality, because it was “not a peace policy but a war policy.” Neutrality was merely a hurdle between a nation and war, which would only slow participation.75 Inherent in American capitalism, said Grattan, was imperialism, which inevitably meant involvement in other people’s wars.76 Isolationism was a lost cause: “The only visible alternative is domestic revolution.” 77 While it is tempting to consign Grattan to the farleft fringe, the anti-capitalist critique was embraced by deeper thinkers than him. In 1929, University of Chicago economist Paul H. Douglas and John Dewey co-founded the League for Independent Political Action under the rubric “Capitalism must be destroyed.” Dewey believed that Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to put a human face on capitalism was a wasted efort because “no such compromise with a decaying system is possible.” 78 Charles A. Beard also weighed in with an economic critique. He had made a signal contribution to economic history years earlier with the publication of the landmark An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution in 1913. Beard had argued that when the founding fathers formulated the Constitution, they had been primarily motivated by economic interests rather than by political principles. In 1936, he would make the same argument about the Great War with the publication of The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibility of Keeping Out of War. Beard called money “the worst of all contrabands” because it dominates everything else. If the United States had refused to make loans to belligerents during the war, claimed Beard, the war would have ended sooner.79 Bankers and other business interests had encouraged American participation in the war, and the German submarine campaign precipitated a crisis in America because it smashed into business profts.80 Rather than blaming German submarines for bringing the United States into the war, “Why not attribute the cause to the action of the United States government in acquiescing to British actions?”81 In Beard’s view, America’s argument that it had the right to sell arms to belligerents had led to the entry of the United States into the war, and that insistence on neutral rights increased the possibility of being drawn into any war.82 To forestall such a thing from happening again, Beard called for a ban on loans and munitions to belligerents under what he called “mandatory neutrality.”83 Beard’s argument becomes a bit sketchy at this point. Should a neutral nation dispense with any rights for itself? Beard is silent on this question, but claims that America had been burned in the Great War, and “we shall be badly burned again if we keep on insisting that it is our obligation to do good in Europe.” Finally, in a metaphor beloved of isolationists, Beard said “we should concentrate our attention on tilling our own garden.”84

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The one real contribution the revisionists made was to question the idea that Germany bore exclusive responsibility for starting the war. J. A. Hobson claimed that among the consequences of assigning exclusive guilt to Germany had been “a hardening of the German heart” against admitting that they too played an unsavory role in this afair. It had also created “a cloud of righteousness” that enveloped the Allies and blinded them to the consequences of their punitive policies.85 Revisionists also played an important role in bringing to the public’s attention the shifting opinions of the Allied leadership since the end of the war. In “They All Lied,” Lewis S. Gannett examined ofcial documents from the war that indicated that blame could be found throughout Europe. The experience left Gannett overwhelmed by “a general contempt for the international race of diplomats.”86 This led to the question, if guilt was more evenly distributed, where did that leave the Versailles Treaty? Albert Jay Nock argued that without Germany’s exclusive guilt (he judged German responsibility as “extremely small”) the treaty was “indefensible, for it was constructed wholly on that assumption.”87 Even the Allied leadership seemed to be having doubts. Gannett quotes David Lloyd George saying, “For the Allies German responsibility for the war is fundamental.” It was the basis on which the treaty had been erected, and if that was “repudiated or abandoned the treaty is destroyed.” Lloyd George added, The more one reads memoirs and books written in the various countries of what happened before August 1, 1914, the more one realizes that no one at the head of afairs quite meant war. It was something into which they glided, or rather staggered and stumbled. Raymond Poincaré asked, “In fact if it was not the Central Powers that brought on the war why should they be condemned to pay for it? If there is divided responsibility then in justice there should be a division of the costs.”88 The revisionists deserve credit for bringing before the public a more nuanced view of pre-war conditions in Europe. Where the revisionists spectacularly failed was in their analysis of the conduct of the war once it was joined. They made excuses for the German killing of civilians in Belgium and northern France, and the German introduction of poison gas seemingly did not bother them. German submarine attacks on passenger liners were dismissed. Revisionists distorted the impact of foreign propaganda on American decisionmaking, and discounted any notion that Americans became involved in the Great War because they believed Germany was a genuine threat to civilization. Instead, they concocted a conspiracy theory that posited that the “real” reason Americans went to war was to preserve American business interests. Summing up the revisionist impulse in 1937, Hamilton Fish Armstrong concluded that, “In a surge of reaction against all that they had been through in 1917–1918 the American people decided to learn nothing from that experience.”89

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Any discussion of revisionism in the inter-war period inevitably leads to H.  L. Mencken, who serves as a bridge between the history produced in this era and its literature. Arguably the original revisionist, Mencken began his rebellion in 1914 by taking up the German cause, proclaiming that the Germans are wholly right, and that they deserve to win and that they will win. I go, as the saying is, the whole hog. That is to say, I swallow not only the Germans themselves, but also and more especially the Kaiser, and not only the Kaiser, but also the whole war machine [orig. emphasis]. In the battle between autocracy and democracy, Mencken announced “Down with mob rule! … Down with democracy.”90 Latter, he condemned the treatment that German-Americans were given during the war.91 No one was less inclined toward traditional notions of moral behavior and rationality than H. L. Mencken. As editor of Smart Set and as a social critic, Mencken’s outspoken views on literature and morality left an indelible mark on the decade after the war. In 1926, Walter Lippmann called Mencken “the most powerful personal infuence on this whole generation of educated people.” He added that Mencken was efective because “his appeal is not from mind to mind but from viscera to viscera.”92 Depending on one’s point of view, no one during the 1920s was more irritating—or more refreshingly original—than H. L. Mencken. Mencken boldly went forth where others feared to tread, with seemingly little concern for what the public might think of him. For instance, in the years before the war, Social Darwinism had enjoyed a considerable vogue, with promoters insisting that war would reinvigorate a feminized society and create in its place a hard manliness. After the ghastly spectacle of the Great War, it seemed that Social Darwinism had sufered a well-deserved demise—except in the case of H. L. Mencken. War, said Mencken in 1926, “is a combat of men who believe that a short and adventurous life, full of changing scenes and high hazards, is better than a safe and dull one ….” Armed confict “makes for resolution, endurance, enterprise, and courage. It puts down the sordid yearnings of ignoble men.”93 This was roughly the opposite view of those who actually had experienced war, which raises the question of whether Mencken really believed what he said. There is little doubt that Mencken delighted in his role as a professional provocateur, but there is a diference between promoting a genuinely held view that is at odds with a conformist society, and saying something simply for its shock value. The good Mencken rendered an invaluable service by exposing the absurdities and hypocrisies of the culture, the bad Mencken too often embraced the role of Imp of Perversity. While Mencken celebrated war in general and the German efort in particular, he excoriated the American part in the war, referring to the propaganda campaign to stir America’s “war psychosis,” Wilson’s “hypocritical” Fourteen Points, and enormous business profts. “The

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war was fought ignobly,” said Mencken, “its frst and most obvious efect was to raise up a horde of cads, and set them in authority as spokesmen of the nation.”94 Mencken took some pride in being the founding father of post-war revisionism. After speaking out against the war, and being accused of being a German spy in the pay of the Kaiser, “other controversialists took up the jehad where I left of,” with university professors (who, it must be said, had a better understanding of how the war was fought than Mencken) targeted by their students. Students all over the country began holding meetings and “finging insults at their tutors.”95 One critic, commenting on the generational change that had taken place, argued that the heavy wine of idealism had turned to vinegar, racialism gave way to cynicism; H. L. Mencken supplanted H. G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis took the place of Upton Sinclair and the undergraduate intellectual ceased to frown and began to sneer.96 While others praised the virtues of American life (in contrast to wicked Europe) no one, except perhaps Sinclair Lewis, was more withering in his critique of the idiocies of mainstream American society than Mencken. His tirades against “the swineries” of the American Legion and the Ku Klux Klan, and his broadsides against Prohibition, fundamentalism, and the “booboisie” made him essential and irreplaceable in this decade. But as biographer Fred Hobson notes, by the 1930s Mencken “seemed out of step in everything ….” He was mostly deserted by the reading public and by fellow intellectuals, and seemed to have little sympathy for those out of work (the “incompetent unemployed”) or for migrants feeing the Great Plains (the “anthropoids of the dust bowl”). He was opposed to government handouts, and excoriated the Roosevelt administration for what he saw as its creeping socialism.97 By the late 1930s his long-standing hatred of the British and their supposed propaganda had been rekindled. In a letter to Ezra Pound he wrote, “Thousands of persons, apparently intelligent, are swallowing the same stuf today that they swallowed twenty-three years ago.” Roosevelt, he claimed, had assumed the same role as Wilson in World War I, and further condemned the president as motivated solely by political expediency. If Roosevelt “became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he so sorely needs,” said Mencken, “he would begin fattening up a missionary in the White House backyard come Wednesday.”98 Mencken had an intense dislike of Hitler, but never spoke out publicly against him.99 Instead, as he had done in the Great War, he expressed sympathy with Germany. As the Battle of Britain commenced, Mencken said, “Every time a bomb falls on London I think of the German children who starved after the Armistice.”100 It is one of the great curiosities of Mencken’s life that at the same time he was making public statements in support of Germany, he was quietly working to help Jews escape from Hitler’s terror.101

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Literature In 1921, when the British playwright St. John Ervine was asked about the state of American literature, he snifed, “Why is it that this great, eager, inquiring country is not producing great or meritable writers at the rate at which European countries have produced them?”102 Van Wyck Brooks mostly agreed as he surveyed the last ffty years of American literature, referring to “the singular impotence of its creative spirit.” But he saw hope in the younger generation who were alienated from the present order and “highly susceptible to new ideas.”103 Just three years later H. L. Mencken claimed that there was an American literature emerging that was “extremely reassuring, and even a bit exhilarating.” Writers in the United States were examining their society, and presenting it in a way that was “wholly American.” Indeed, Mencken saw evidence that leadership in the realm of letters “may eventually transfer itself from the eastern shore of the Atlantic to the western shore.”104 Mencken was right. American writers were on their way to producing one of the greatest literary outpourings since the Renaissance. This was the literature of the Lost Generation, and the crucial event of these writers’ lives, and for the entire “Generation of 1914” in Europe, was the war.105 Ellen Glasgow noted in 1938 that, “Until American idealism had been safely buried in Flanders, a belief in the happy end was as imperative in philosophy as it was essential in fction.” Becoming unmoored from the literary tradition was frightening, but as Glasgow put it, there was the compensatory “blessing not to believe, and the even more hardly won liberty not to be glad.”106 In their vivid descriptions of the war and its traumas, and in their disgust and disillusionment with the whole afair, Lost Generation writers would provide an important source for post-war isolationism.107 Ernest Hemingway credits Gertrude Stein, whose salon in Paris became the center for post-war expatriate American artists, with creating the term. It began with Stein’s disappointment in the repair job a young French mechanic had done on her car. The garage owner apologized, and noted that the young man had served in the war and had missed the necessary vocational training. He was part of what the garage owner called a génération perdue. Stein returned and addressed herself to Hemingway. “‘That’s what you are. That’s what you all are,’ Miss Stein said. ‘All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.’” Hemingway was resistant at frst (“the hell with her lost-generation talk and all the dirty, easy labels”), but Hemingway and others from this generation would soon begin to explore the artistic possibilities of this idea.108 While Americans were isolating themselves from Europe during the postwar years, American writers had seemingly taken the opposite tack by settling in Europe and isolating themselves from America. But it was a provisional isolation in which these expatriates did not fully become immersed in a new

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culture, and in which they often clung tenaciously to their Americanism. Joseph Freeman, who was part of this American community in Paris during the 1920s (Freeman had literary aspirations but paid the bills by working in the Paris ofce of the Chicago Tribune) was probably more perceptive than most in recognizing the contradictions of this self-imposed exile. He maintained that “we were outsiders in Europe, but that was just what we wanted to be, privileged aliens who were not responsible to the society in which we lived, Americans in Paris.” Ironically, living in Europe made this group “self-consciously, even aggressively, American … I realized how attached I was to many things which at home I had pretended to despise—movies, jazz, the American language.” The longer the time you spent in Paris, “the better you liked New York; the better you liked New York, the longer you wanted to stay in Paris.”109 Eugene Bagger, another American living in France, put it in more pedestrian terms: “Ask your expatriate friends to name three reasons why they prefer living in France to living at home, and it is a safe bet that the answer of every one of them will include the clause ‘Because it is cheaper.’”110 Archibald MacLeish insisted that not only did I never meet an expatriate in Paris, I never met an American who wasn’t, in Paris, busy with American plans and purposes and material. Dos was writing Manhattan Transfer, Ernest was writing short stories about the state of Michigan, Scott was writing—well, Scott didn’t do any writing that I heard of!111 It is important to remember that post-war Paris was something less than a European playground. For MacLeish, the overwhelming impression of Paris was “the total absence of the young, even young women, because young women didn’t look young. They looked old. They were dressed in black and their faces were unsmiling.”112 Some American writers asked why it was necessary to leave the United States at all. In 1925, Sherwood Anderson argued that, “The American who tries to escape by running of to live, say in Europe, is putting himself out of it altogether. To get at the story he has got to stay where the story is.”113 Whether they went to Europe or stayed home, it was undeniably the case that the literature produced by this group was startlingly diferent from what American writers had produced before. In Exile’s Return, Malcolm Cowley goes to the heart of what made this generation lost: It was lost because its training had prepared it for another world than existed after the war (and because the war prepared it only for travel and excitement). It was lost because it tried to live in exile. It was lost because it accepted no older guides to conduct and because it had formed a false

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picture of society and the writer’s place in it. The generation belonged to a period of transition from values already fxed to values that had to be created.114 Most Lost Generation writers did not actually experience combat during the war, though some came close. F. Scott Fitzgerald enlisted but was never sent to Europe. H. L. Mencken went to Europe and did some reporting.115 The case of E. E. Cummings was among the most singular. He volunteered for the Norton-Harjes American Ambulance Corps, and reported for duty in France. While it is not clear what Cummings expected, he bridled under discipline, and held the military bureaucracy in contempt. After several letters home in which Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown expressed their disgust, the two were arrested and sent to a camp for the disgruntled and the vaguely treasonous. Thus, before he had the opportunity to actually drive an ambulance, Cummings found himself in an “enormous room” with others like him. This experience would be the inspiration for his novel The Enormous Room.116 We will concentrate on those who had a direct experience of war because they could speak with an authority that others could not. These include Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, both of whom served as ambulance drivers, William March and Laurence Stallings, who fought in France for the Marine Corps, Archibald MacLeish, who served frst as an ambulance driver then as an artillery ofcer, and Robert Sherwood who served with the Canadian army. Malcolm Cowley drove a French munitions truck during the war, and claimed that wartime had given Americans “courage, extravagance, fatalism, these being the virtues of men at war; they taught us to regard as vices the civilian virtues of thrift, caution, and sobriety; they made us fear boredom more than death.”117 The impact of the war was felt everywhere, but for veterans, as Major-General William Harding Carter observed, “the world will comprise only two classes, those who have been over there and those who have not ….”118 It was a crucial divide, and Hemingway noted of his post-war years in Paris that, “In those days we did not trust anyone who had not been in the war ….”119 John Dos Passos was among the frst to appear in print (in 1920), though the initial impact of One Man’s Initiation—1917 was decidedly underwhelming (Figure 4.1). It sold a total of sixty-three copies in six months, and was neglected by the critics until Dos Passos’ subsequent publication of Three Soldiers.120 The autobiographical elements of Initiation are patently obvious, especially in the light of the letters Dos Passos wrote as he entered the war. As it was for so many, the arc from altruistic inexperience to disillusioned experience took on a painful inevitability. Just a few days after America entered the war, Dos Passos wrote to a friend that, Don’t think that I’ve gone militarist or believe in conscription—far from it. I merely want to see a little of the war personally—and, then too,

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FIGURE 4.1

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John Dos Passos. 1939. Eric Schaal. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62–132344.

I rather believe that the deeper we Americans go into it, the harder we put our shoulders to the muskets and our breasts to the bayonets, the sooner the butchery will stop.121 Four months later, after experiencing his frst week with the ambulance near Verdun, Dos Passos wrote, The war is utter damn nonsense—a vast cancer fed by lies and self seeking malignity on the part of those who don’t do the fghting … None of the poor devils whose mangled dirty bodies I take to the hospital in my ambulance really give a damn about any of the aims of this ridiculous afair … Dos Passos added, “everything said & written & thought in America about the war is lies ….”122 Taking note of the lack of bitterness between enemy soldiers, Dos Passos insisted, “People don’t hate much at the front, there’s no one to hate,

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except the poor devils across the way, whom they know to be as miserable as themselves.”123 As for the meaning of the whole thing, Dos Passos asks, “And what’s it for, What’s it for? … The utter goddamned ridiculousness of things so takes your breath away that you have no other recourse than the lame one of profanity ….”124 When the volunteer ambulance on the French front was taken over by the American army, Dos Passos left and eventually returned to America to be inducted into the American Ambulance Service.125 His most vivid memory of training with these green recruits occurred when they were subjected to a crude propaganda film in which German soldiers were very clumsily atrocious—I could feel a wave of hatred go through the men. Muttered oaths and shouted imprecations—God-damned ­bastards—cocksuckers every one of them—were sincere. The men were furious with war—kill kill kill…For the fellow beside me I gathered that he had a notion that in The War he would be engaged in constantly snatching halfraped Belgian women from the bloody claws of Huns …126 Two weeks after the war ended, their ship arrived in Le Havre.127 Martin Howe, Dos Passos’ protagonist in One Man’s Initiation—1917, is coincidentally a young American attached to the French ambulance. Initiation is filled with the ardent expressions of dismay and outrage of a young person recently schooled in the realities of war and life. Though often callow and labored in its construction, Initiation also contains several remarkable passages, and develops themes that other Lost Generation authors would engage, including alienation from the official patriotic line, a feeling of kinship with the enemy, a questioning of faith and religion, and the sheer horror and stupidity of mechanized combat. Humiliated by his former naivete, Martin looks back at the patriotic displays and propaganda that dominated America as the United States prepared for war—“the menacing, exultant flags along all the streets before we went to war, the gradual unbaring of teeth, gradual lulling to sleep of people’s humanity and sense by the phrases, the phrases ….”128 Whatever hatred he may have felt against the enemy is cleansed from Martin on the battlefield, and as he ministers to a wounded German, he muses, “At last they were washed out, all the hatreds, all the lies, in blood and sweat. Nothing was left but the quiet friendliness of beings alike in every part, eternally alike.”129 The wounds he encounters are horrific. In one case, Where the middle of the man had been, where had been the curved belly and the genitals, where the thighs had joined with a strong swerving of muscles to the trunk, was a depression, a hollow pool of blood, that glinted a little in the cold diffusion of grey light from the west.130

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Crucifxes were ubiquitous in Catholic France, and soldiers often identifed their own suferings with the agonies of Christ. In one especially efective scene, Martin comes across a crucifx that had been propped up: He stared curiously at the fallen jowl and the cavernous eyes that had meant for some country sculptor ages ago the utterest agony of pain. Suddenly he noticed that where the crown of thorns had been about the forehead of the Christ someone had wound barbed wire. He smiled, and asked the swaying fgure in his mind: ‘And You, what do You think of it?’ For an instant he could feel wire barbs ripping through his own fesh.131 Martin began to sense his own will being paralyzed by “that gangrened ghost of the past that is killing Europe to-day with its infection of hate and greed of murder.”132 “Did he accept all this stench and flth and degradation of slavery as part of the divine order of things? Or did he burn with loathing and revolt?”133 After talking to a group of French soldiers, Martin notes that they reached the consensus that war was nothing but “a hideous method of mutual suicide.” Then he asks, “Have we the courage of our own faith?”134 In contrast to One Man’s Initiation—1917, the publication of Dos Passos’ Three Soldiers garnered a lot of attention—and controversy. Less about war and more about the crushing, soul-destroying brutality of the military establishment, Dos Passos described Three Soldiers as follows: The frst part is at training camp in America, the second part at the front, the third in that strange underground world of deserters and AWOL’s, the underside of the pomp of war. There is going to be rather a lot of murder and sudden death in it.135 The reviews seemed to be equally divided between those who loved Three Soldiers and those who hated it. Among the former was John Peale Bishop who in his Vanity Fair review pronounced Dos Passos “a genius,” and Henry Seidel Canby of the New York Evening Post, who referred to the novel as “a passionate study of human nature under fre.”136 In a review entitled “Insulting the Army” that appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Coningsby Dawson called Three Soldiers “either a base libel or a hideous truth,” and referred to its characters as “spineless, self-centered weaklings ….” Norman Shannon Hall in Foreign Service characterized Three Soldiers as “400 pages of the most unjust misstatements that ever went unpunished.”137 Dos Passos’ full reckoning with the Great War would come with the publication of his U.S.A. Trilogy in the 1930s. Consisting of The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936), the U.S.A. Trilogy is a monumental

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achievement in American literature. Vast in scope and complex in structure, it includes both fctional characters and biographical sketches of real people, stream-of-consciousness musings in “Camera Eye” sections, and contemporaneous news reports in “Newsreel” segments. The U.S.A. Trilogy is passionate and sardonic, and nearly impossible to comprehend in its entirety. Even limiting our analysis to Dos Passos’ material on the Great War is daunting because the author begins his examination before American involvement in the war and extends it to long after the war is over. In The 42nd Parallel, he introduces the foolishly naive Gertrude Moorehouse, who in a conversation repeats one of the most outrageously false atrocity tales of the war: “Of course it is terrible what the Huns have done, cutting the hands of Belgian children, and all that ….” At the end of her ruminations she declares, “I’ll join the Red Cross,” she said, “I can’t wait to get to France.”138 Moving from the naive to the mercenary, Dos Passos takes a swipe at a war profteering in one of his “Newsreel” sections: At the annual meeting of the stockholders of the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, a $2,500,000 melon was cut. The present capital stock was increased. The profts for the year were 259 per cent.139 Dos Passos hits his stride in 1919, with Americans fully engaged in the war. As the full horror of mechanized war becomes a grim, daily reality, a Camera Eye segment that no doubt resonated from Dos Passos’ own war experiences is introduced. Here an ambulance driver remembers “the grey crooked fngers the thick drip of blood of the canvas the bubbling when the lung cases try to breathe the muddy scraps of fesh you put in the ambulance alive and haul out dead.”140 Dos Passos contrasts this with the militarist posturing of Theodore Roosevelt and his self-aggrandizing tale of his charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War (“This was the Rubicon, the Fight, the Old Glory, the Just Cause”). Comments Dos Passos: “It was too bad that the regulars had gotten up San Juan Hill frst from the other side, that there was no need to get up San Juan Hill.”141 Dos Passos is equally withering in his observations of Roosevelt’s great political rival, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s career is examined in terms of hypocrisy, pairing quotations from his speeches with his actions: ‘I wish to take this occasion to say that the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest;’ And he landed the marines at Vera Cruz. Five months after his reelection on the slogan He Kept us out of War, Wilson pushed the Armed Ship Bill through congress and declared that a state of war existed between the United States and the Central Powers. Force without stint or limit, force to the utmost [original emphases]142

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There are denunciations of war profteering levied against the House of Morgan, and horrifying sketches of mob brutality against strikers, but Dos Passos chooses to end 1919 with “The Body of an American.” The subject is an unknown American soldier killed in battle who will be buried in an elaborate ceremony at Arlington Cemetery. This tale begins at a military morgue in France, with the morticians trying to fgure out which of the many unknown soldiers to send back to Washington. (“Make sure he ain’t a dinge, boys, make sure he ain’t a guinea or a kike”). After a group portrait of the many hapless John Does who met their ends in the army, Dos Passos focuses on the one chosen to represent the many. Killed by a shell that “had his number on it,” his record lost by a drunken sergeant, this soldier’s “blood ran into the ground, the brains oozed out of the cracked skull and were licked up by the trench rats, the belly swelled and raised a generation of bluebottle fies ….” They gather what is left of the body and took it home to God’s country on a battleship and buried it in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheatre in the Arlington National Cemetery and draped the Old Glory over it and the bugler played taps and Mr. Harding prayed to God and the diplomats and the generals and the admirals and the brasshats and the politicians and the handsomely dressed ladies out of the society column of the Washington Post stood up solemn and thought how beautiful sad Old Glory God’s Country it was to have the bugler play taps and the three volleys made their ears ring Where his chest ought to have been they pinned the Congressional Medal . . .143 In its mordant contrast between the ghastly realities of the battlefeld and the empty, patriotic posturing of those safely ensconced at home, this surely must rank as one of the angriest meditations on war in our language. The war is over in The Big Money, but its impact continues to be felt. There seemed to be some hope coming out of Russia, where “the great storm of revolt had broken,” but at Versailles delegates busily set about “slamming the shutters against the storm, against the new, against hope.” In the end “the old men won,” and the hopes of working people were decimated: “[U]nder the cover of the bunting of Woodrow Wilson’s phrases the monopolies cracked down. American democracy was crushed.”144 The reviews of the U.S.A. Trilogy were ecstatic. In a 1938 piece in Partisan Review, Lionel Trilling judged it the most important American achievement of the decade.145 In the New Republic, Malcolm Cowley focused on the ideas that

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Dos Passos was expressing, including the divide between the classes—“there is no longer any bond between them; they are two nations.” Dos Passos, said Cowley, “loathes the frozen country that the capitalists have been creating ….”146 The greatest tribute came from Jean-Paul Sartre, who in 1938 said, “I regard Dos Passos as the greatest writer of our time.”147 War in the second decade of the twentieth century was overwhelmingly a profession practiced by men, but female nurses often had the gruesome task of putting the men back together. Mary Dexter, who worked in the American War Hospital in Devonshire, initially found the viewing of certain medical procedures a terrible ordeal. But she made herself look, and fnally was able to bear it. In letters home she did not describe any wounds because “they are all too awful.”148 Like everyone who came into contact with the wounded, she was impressed by their good humor and acceptance of their sufering. One of her patients had had his arm torn away by a shell, but he joked with everyone and kept the ward laughing while his wound was being dressed. The only sign he gave of his own agony was that his lips and the cords in his neck were “twitching incessantly with pain.”149 Madeleine Zabriskie Doty called the stoicism of wounded soldiers “unbelievable.” There were no complaints, only the comment, “‘C’est la guerre, que voulez-vous?’”150 Works of fction based on the experiences of American nurses during the Great War are rare, but we should mention one memoir because it was extraordinary in so many ways. Ellen N. La Motte’s The Backwash of War: The Human Wreckage of the Battlefeld as Witnessed by an American Nurse was published in 1916, while the war was still in progress. The contempt that La Motte displays for authority and idealism, and her deep abhorrence of the insanity of war, puts her solidly in the tradition of Lost Generation writers. La Motte begins her story under the chapter heading of “Heroes”: When he could stand it no longer, he fred a revolver up through the roof of his mouth, but he made a mess of it. The ball tore out his left eye, and then lodged somewhere under his skull … Since he failed in the job, his life must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well enough to be stood up against a wall and shot. This is war.151 The heroism of military sacrifce is nowhere to be found in La Motte’s account. She held her own wartime profession in contempt, describing the two categories of patients that came under her care as those who were “mutilated for life, a burden to themselves and to society,” and those who could be patched together to a point where “they could again shoulder eighty pounds of marching kit, and be torn to pieces again on the fring line.”152 No one escapes La Motte’s scorn, including the surgeon who only reluctantly agrees to operate on a ten-year-old Belgian boy, the soldiers in the ward who complain about the boy’s constant crying for his mother, and the mother herself, who has to be persuaded to see her dying son and leaves as soon as she can.153

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The Backwash of War is also a feminist critique. The army had decreed that no wives be allowed to come into the war zone because of their potential to undermine morale. “But always there are plenty of women,” observed La Motte. “Never wives, who mean responsibility, but just women, who only mean distraction and amusement, just as food and wine.”154 La Motte concluded her sardonic account by observing that while there were some who could write about the heroic aspects of war, “I must write you of what I have seen, the other side, the backwash.”155 This author had the rare distinction of having three governments—France, Britain, and the United States—ban her book.156 In her unvarnished engagement with the consequences of battle, La Motte produced a masterwork that deserves to be placed in the top rank of war memoirs. Fear was one of the constants of war. In a letter he wrote during the Second Battle of the Marne, Archibald MacLeish said “I have heard death close overhead & have felt the swiftness of death & have seen the hand of death.” The most common death in the Great War was by artillery shell, and when a shell passes overhead the heart numbs with elemental dread & there is a taste in the throat as of powder smoke: there is a lull that seems eternities long—then a leap of the earth underfoot & a shock of the air—then a dead reëchoing roar that seems to come out of the center of the earth. Then silence blank as a white wall in the rain.157 MacLeish survived the war, but his brother, an aviator, did not, and died one month before the armistice. MacLeish went on to write a number of poems about the war, such as “The Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak,” but one of his most moving was “Lines for an Interment,” written in 1933. MacLeish clearly had his brother in mind, but he said that he was also lamenting “the nature of memory and what happens to it, what happens to great hopes and great tragedies.”158 In this poem, the author addresses the dead soldier, telling him that the idealism that motivated him to fght has been dismissed as naïve. Now everyone knows that the war was fought for economic reasons, and passionate novels have been written condemning the “useless death” of the many. The world has moved on and You can rest in the rain in the Belgian meadow— Now that it’s all explained away and forgotten: Now that the earth is hard and the wood rots.159 As it was for other Lost Generation writers, the loss and grief that was the end product of war convinced MacLeish that the United States should never again entangle itself in the politics of Europe. As time went on, however, MacLeish would be among the frst of this group to renounce isolationism and argue for American engagement in opposition to fascism.

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FIGURE 4.2

Ernest Hemingway. World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.

Overwhelmingly the most praised American literary work of the Great War, and the one most familiar to the public, is Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (Figure 4.2). As in other Lost Generation writings, the themes of skepticism toward patriotic appeals, loss of religious faith, and the brutalizing impact of the war on all who came near it are richly developed here. But Hemingway’s conversion from idealist to skeptic seemingly took much longer than it did for Dos Passos. This can clearly be seen in Hemingway’s letter to his family shortly after he had been wounded while serving in the Italian ambulance corps. And you can only sufer so much, you know, and it does give you an awfully satisfactory feeling to be wounded. It’s getting beaten up in a good cause. There are no heroes in this war. We all ofer our bodies and only a few are chosen, but it shouldn’t refect any special credit on those that

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are chosen. They are just the lucky ones. I am very proud and happy that mine was chosen, but it shouldn’t give me any extra credit … When a mother brings a son into the world she must know that some day the son will die, and the mother of a man that has died for his country should be the proudest woman in the world, and the happiest. And how much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered.160 While it was common for the wounded to try to reassure their families, Hemingway’s burst of patriotism (“the good cause”) and his invocation of the Spartan Mother went far beyond mere reassurance. Hemingway’s biographer James R. Mellow believes it took years for Hemingway to fully absorb the signifcance of his wound. In the aftermath Hemingway sufered from insomnia, and had to sleep with a light on for fear he might die at night. Mellow concludes that, “Whether the afiction lasted for several months or several years is another of the clues and false clues with which Hemingway, like an Indian, covered his tracks in life.” Hemingway later noted that his experiences of war in Italy “gave me a touchstone by which I could tell whether stories were true or false and being wounded was a password.”161 The autobiographical elements in Farewell are even more obvious than in Initiation. Hemingway’s protagonist Frederic Henry is an American ambulance driver in Italy (like Hemingway), who is wounded in the leg (like Hemingway), and who, like Hemingway, falls in love with his nurse. The diference here is that Henry gets the girl while the real-life Hemingway was rejected illustrating one of the advantages of writing a novel that features a character like yourself. This novel also shows a distinct evolution in Hemingway’s thinking about the war. As A Farewell to Arms begins, Frederic Henry has been drifting through life with seemingly little in the way of motivation. Several times he is asked why he joined the Italian ambulance and he answers variously that he was in Italy and spoke Italian or, “There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”162 Henry’s relationship with nurse Catherine Barkley also elicits no great passion (“I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards.”)163 We will see no paeans to patriotism in Farewell, let alone characters expressing satisfaction in being a casualty. When Henry is wounded by a trench mortar that strikes while he and the ambulance drivers are eating lunch, he refuses to put himself in a heroic light, noting, “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”164 What Hemingway referred to as “the cause” in his letter is discounted as pure idiocy in Farewell, with one of the mechanics in Henry’s section observing, “There is a class that controls a country that is stupid and does

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not realize anything and never can. That is why we have this war.”165 Henry himself comes up with the grim assessment that “nobody was whipping any one on the Western front. Perhaps wars weren’t won any more.”166 In one of the most famous passages in this novel, the romance of war and patriotism are thoroughly disposed of in the following manner: I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifce and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifces were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it … Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.167 The references to religion in Farewell are many. Early on, one character expresses the view that “all thinking men are atheists,” and in a discussion with the priest, Henry confrms that he did not love God, but that “I am afraid of Him in the night sometimes.”168 After Henry falls in love with nurse Barkley in spite of himself, she presents him with a Saint Anthony medal for luck. At the same time she confesses that she does not believe in God: “You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got.”169 In the wake of the continuing stupidity of the confict and the debacle of the Italian retreat at Caporetto, Henry fnally decides to leave the war and become a deserter (and it is difcult to think of another American novel from Hemingway’s era in which the protagonist is a deserter, outside of Red Badge of Courage). He will reunite with Barkley, and they will take refuge in Switzerland. Barkley is pregnant, and will end up delivering a still born baby as she struggles for her life in a hospital. In a moment of abject pathos, Henry desperately prays to a God he doesn’t believe in (“Oh, God, please don’t let her die. I’ll do anything for you if you won’t let her die. Please, please, please don’t let her die.”)170 Catherine will die anyway, because the God he has prayed to is either indiferent or malevolent. Henry remembers being on a camping trip when he himself had once been in a God-like position. He had put a log full of ants on the fre, and as the ants frantically scurried about some fell into the fre, while others survived but were badly singed: I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log of the fre and throw it out where the ants could get of onto the ground. But I did not do anything but throw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have the

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cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants.171 Edmund Wilson said of Hemingway that “his heroes are almost always defeated physically, nervously, practically,” and that in the end the only victories they can claim are “moral ones.”172 Bitter, nihilistic and beautifully written, A Farewell to Arms brilliantly makes the case against the cruelty of war.173 In Hemingway’s short story “Soldier’s Home,” the subject is a single soldier, Harold Krebs, as he returns to a small Kansas town after the war. Krebs has been on occupation duty in Germany, and by the time he returns the residents of the town have all grown bored of war stories. People will only listen to him if he lies and, “A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told.”174 Like Frederic Henry, Krebs seems unmotivated to do anything: He would have liked to have a girl but he did not want to have to spend a long time getting her. He did not want to get into the intrigue and the politics. He did not want to have to do any courting. He did not want to tell any more lies. It wasn’t worth it.175 Krebs spends his time sleeping in, and occasionally wandering into town. Krebs’ mother tells him that his father “thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven’t got a defnite aim in life,” which certainly seems to be the case.176 The conclusion to this story is shocking because its circumstances are so mundane. Over the breakfast table Krebs’ mother is encouraging her son to fnd some sort of employment, at the end of which Krebs asks, “Is that all?” “Yes. Don’t you love your mother, dear boy?” “No,” Krebs said. His mother looked at him across the table. Her eyes were shiny. She started crying. “I don’t love anybody,” Krebs said. Krebs immediately realizes that by telling the truth he has hurt his mother, and he apologizes. His mother has Krebs kneel down while she prays: “Now, you pray, Harold,” she said. “I can’t,” Krebs said. “Try, Harold.” “I can’t.” “Do you want me to pray for you?” “Yes.”

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In the fnal paragraph Krebs ruminates, He had tried so to keep his life from being complicated. Still, none of it had touched him. He had felt sorry for his mother and she had made him lie. He would go to Kansas City and get a job and she would feel all right about it.177 The detritus of spiritual and moral numbness left by the war is brought home here with devastating efect because of the quietness and ordinariness of the setting. “Soldier’s Home” is a literary gem in a small package. Hemingway himself regarded it highly, and in a 1924 letter described it as “the best short story I ever wrote ….”178 William March also directly experienced the war as a marine who saw heavy fghting in France. He was wounded at Belleau Wood, and returned to action four weeks later. In the assault on Blanc Mont, a fortifed German position, the marines sufered casualties of 1,800 wounded and 494 killed. March was again wounded, but refused to leave his post until the German counterattack was repulsed. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Navy Cross.179 March’s biographer Roy S. Simmonds observes of March that, He clearly harbored an ambivalent attitude toward the war and his own participation in it. There can be little doubt that he had been deeply disturbed and afected by some of his war experiences, not all of which were necessarily related to battle … he was still obviously in a somewhat confused state of mind. In this, certainly, he was no diferent from thousands of other returning veterans.180 Because March was a soldier and not an ambulance driver, he was faced not only with the possibility of being killed, but of killing others. The latter was often more traumatic than the former. One story that March told a number of times, apparently in an attempt to exorcise his demons, concerned coming face to face with a young German soldier. March had instinctively lunged at him with his bayonet. The bayonet pierced his throat, and the German soldier died with his wide eyes staring into March’s face. In addition to talking about this incident March tried to expunge this memory by writing about it in Company K. But as it was for so many others, the war would haunt March’s days and nights for the rest of his life.181 In Company K March produced a masterpiece, the greatest novel about World War I ever written by an American. Its relative neglect by the literary establishment is a scandal. Company K was completed in 1933, but a section of that novel called “Nine Prisoners” appeared in Forum magazine in November 1931. Many praised March, but others accused him of “having murdered the

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good name and good sense of millions of American soldiers.” One reader said that March was obviously “one of these peace-at-any-price people, who, having either never been a soldier at all or having been stationed at some camp during the war, believes himself an expert on the horrors of fghting.”182 Company K has a complex structure with 113 separate sections, each named after a soldier. Many make repeat appearances as we follow them through training camp, the war and into the post-war years. In the very frst section, we meet the narrator of these stories Private Joseph Delaney, who also reveals himself to be the “author” of the book. Delaney is having a discussion with his wife about why a feld where a terrible battle has taken place reverts so quickly to its original state. His wife claims that the fertilization of the ground by blood and decomposing bodies was an entirely natural process. Delaney, however, muses that “God is so sickened with men, and their unending cruelty to each other, that he covers the places where they have been as quickly as possible.”183 In Company K troops are given a thorough indoctrination, including religious. Their minister tells them that they are not soldiers in the ordinary sense of the word, but crusaders for God and country. The troops are deeply moved, with one declaring, ‘I’ve been thinking over what he said about this being the war to end injustice. I don’t mind getting killed to do a thing of that sort. I don’t mind, since the people coming after me will live in happiness and peace…. ’184 Such statements will seem embarrassingly naive once these soldiers experience the war for themselves. Their education begins when they land in France and begin frolicking about the local village. But the residents, many of whom are wearing black, don’t give the Americans the welcome they think they deserve. One soldier complains that these French seem to have lost “their pep.” An English woman observing this scene steps forward and explains that the townspeople are wearing black in mourning. As one soldier puts it, “I’ve thought many times afterward what clowns we must have seemed.”185 The innocence of these newly minted soldiers quickly falls by the wayside, and a prominent theme in Company K is the coarsening efect that war has on the troops. There is the sniper who observed of the men he killed that “I never thought of them as men, but as dolls, and it was hard to believe that anything as small as that could feel pain or sorrow.” In another example two hungry troops fnd—and devour—a blood-soaked loaf of bread from a dead German’s knapsack.186 The troops are frequently cruel to each other, such as the group of soldiers who conspire against a fellow soldier who earnestly wants to preserve his chastity. His “friends” hire a prostitute who presents herself as a simple country girl who is only seeking physical intimacy to momentarily forget the sadness of the war. She gives him a sexual disease, to the hilarity of the troops.187

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The cruelty that they sometimes exhibit toward each other is partially redeemed by a feeling of commonality and empathy toward the enemy. In one case, an informal agreement is reached between Germans and Americans in which the Germans come down to the stream to swim or wash their clothes in the morning, and in the afternoon the Americans do the same. Both sides honored this informal agreement and neither molested the other. (In point of fact, such agreements were extremely common during the Great War.)188 One soldier ruminates that “If the common soldiers of each army could just get together by a river bank and talk things over calmly, no war could possibly last as long as a week.”189 One of the most harrowing scenes in Company K also features a sympathetic interplay between enemy soldiers. After a horribly wounded American soldier becomes entangled in the wire with his guts hanging out (“like a badly arranged bouquet of blue roses”), he is comforted by a German soldier. The American knows he is dying and, determined that his death not be used to excite patriotism or to promote other wars, he throws away everything that could possibly identify him. He is exultant, and tells the German, “‘I’ve beaten them all!—Nobody will ever use me as a symbol. Nobody will ever tell lies over my dead body now!’” The German is sobbing, deeply afected by this soldier’s terrible agony. Finally, the American asks the German to kill him, which he does with a trembling hand.190 Among the onerous duties of the war was writing letters of condolence to the relatives of the dead. There was a sort of template for such letters that emphasized the patriotism of the deceased, and the painlessness of his death, but fnally the Company K clerk who was assigned this duty could not write another lie, and composed a letter more rooted in reality: Dear Madam: Your son, Francis, died needlessly in Belleau Wood. You will be interested to hear that at the time of his death he was crawling with vermin and weak from diarrhea. His feet were swollen and rotten and they stank. He lived like a frightened animal, cold and hungry. Then, on June 6th, a piece of shrapnel hit him and he died in agony, slowly. You’d never believe that he could live three hours, but he did. He lived three full hours screaming and cursing by turns. He had nothing to hold on to, you see: He had learned long ago that what he had been taught to believe by you, his mother, who loved him, under the meaningless names of honor, courage and patriotism, were all lies . . . In the end, this letter is wadded up and thrown away.191 The ofcers leading these troops are incompetent—or worse. When one of them orders a squad to take up a position in a grove of trees, his sergeant objects that the area would immediately attract German shell fre. The ofcer insists that his order be carried out, the grove of trees is shelled by the Germans, and

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everyone in the squad is killed.192 In another instance an ofcer is killed by a man whom the ofcer is continually sending out on patrol without any sleep.193 The most despicable act by an ofcer, an act that will reverberate far into the future for the soldiers who must take part, is the order by Captain Matlock to kill a group of German prisoners. The reaction of the men charged with this duty covers the entire moral gamut. The sergeant who must see that this order is carried out is troubled, but reasons that in the military system soldiers are obliged to do as they are told, “and leave the thinking to their superior ofcers.”194 When the prisoners are lined up in a ravine, one soldier throws down his rife and refuses to participate, while another takes part in the execution, but is sickened by it—“Everything I was ever taught to believe about mercy, justice and virtue is a lie … But the biggest lie of all are the words ‘God is Love.’” One will rummage among the bodies looking for souvenirs, while another falls to the ground and swears never to hurt anything for as long as he lives.195 After the killing of the prisoners, Captain Matlock orders the company to attend church services. The prospect of hearing yet another sermon asking God “to spare all the American Galahads and destroy their enemies” is too much for one private, who suggests that the Germans are also praying to God to deliver them from their enemies: “‘Let’s pick out diferent Gods to pray to. It seems silly for both sides to be praying to the same one!’”196 Challenges to the religious faith that so many had taken for granted before landing in France is a prominent theme. In one of the most moving scenes, Private Edward Romano is on sentry duty when he sees a man with long hair and bare feet walking toward him across No Man’s Land. Romano is going to shoot him until he realizes that this is Christ. Romano begins cursing at him: “‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself to let this go on! —You ought to be ashamed! ….’” Christ raises his arms and says, “‘Tell me what to do, if you know! ….’” The scene ends with the two of them weeping together.197 Another soldier contemplating the fares in the evening sky has a revelation of God in which “my despair, are, in His sight, as meaningless, and, no doubt, as remote as are the ascending and falling rockets to my fnite mind.”198 The war ofcially ends in November 1918, but there will be no armistice for these troops, who will continue to fght this war for their rest of their lives. Private Manuel Burt, who like March bayonetted a German soldier in the throat, is haunted day and night by the ghost of this soldier. Burt loses his job, moves regularly, changes his name, but the German always fnds him. ‘Why did you kill me?’ he asked sadly. ‘Why did you want to do that?’ ‘I wouldn’t do it again’ I whispered. ‘Before God, I wouldn’t.’199 The soldiers who were involved in the killing of the prisoners will be deeply afected by this act. One turns to a life of crime and is sentenced to death. He refuses any soothing words from the chaplain because any notion of a merciful

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God died when he was called upon to execute the prisoners.200 Private Everett Quails returns to a life of farming, but his cattle die and his crops fail. Quails has connected his misfortunes with the killing of the prisoners, and when his baby son becomes ill Quails begs God to punish him and not his baby. The baby dies and Quails commits suicide.201 Others not connected to the killing of the prisoners also sufer. One is rejected by his fancée because his face has been disfgured in the war.202 Another, who had been a promising pianist before the war, has had his hand destroyed by shrapnel.203 A special day is declared in honor of one soldier (presided over by the president of the local bank). The following day he applies for a loan and is rejected.204 March crafted a number of stories with war as a theme (e.g. “The Holly Wreath,” “To the Rear”) but one of the most singular was “This Heavy Load,” which was published in 1934. The story concerns a tenant at a rooming house, who narrates a tale about a veteran he meets named Downey who little by little reveals his history. Downy had been happily married with two children, and enlisted when war was declared. He survives, but is profoundly shocked by what he has seen. Once sure of what constituted good and evil, he now views them as “equally meaningless.” He begins to resent his wife for her “smug sense of right and wrong,” and when she convinces him to attend a church service he becomes “slightly sickened, not believing any man could be as harsh and as stupid as the minister seemed.” He abruptly gets up and goes home. When his wife arrives later, she fnds him smashing up the furniture with an axe. That evening he leaves. He drifts from city to city, and began writing pamphlets in which he proved there was no God. When the narrator asks him what he was looking for, Downey replies, “‘I wish to God I did know. If I knew that, I could lay down this heavy load and rest.’” In the meantime, he has been carving a block of wood at the boarding house, about which he refuses to discuss. When the carving is fnally fnished, he tells the narrator what he has been working on: ‘Why shouldn’t I make a god of my own?’ he asked …. ‘Why not? I could not accept the god of other people.’ ‘I am creating an eager god who loves joy, laughter, and dancing; not cruelty, not bloodshed.’ Upon completion he knelt before it with his “‘heart swelling with joy and love as if it would burst through my side . . ..’” “‘Nothing can ever touch me again. Nothing!. . .Pain, hunger, old age, death; they’re meaningless words now.’” At the end, the narrator comments that man “is not a completed thing,” but is only part of other things that he cannot understand. And while he talks a great deal about freedom, “he can never be free: for he is a frail, lost creature, too weak to walk unaided ….”205 When Arthur Ruhl reviewed Company K in the Saturday Review of Literature, he took note of March’s “continuous heaping up of bitterness and irony”

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without any positive compensations. March, said Ruhl, had created a “reverse romanticism.”206 Historian David Kennedy also believes that Lost Generation writers were driven by an anti-romantic impulse. The disillusionment so prominent in their writings was a way to separate themselves from an earlier generation of writers, who clung to more traditional notions of morality and rationality.207 As H. L. Mencken put it, the war ended a literary “epoch of sweetness and light.”208 Like March, Laurence Stallings also served with the marines on the Western Front. He was wounded in the leg, and spent eight months in hospitals in France, and two years in hospitals in the United States, until it was fnally deemed necessary to amputate his leg. After the war he had a career in journalism reviewing drama and books for the New York World and then the New York Sun. He met Maxwell Anderson while working at the World, and in 1924 the two collaborated on the play What Price Glory? Stallings provided most of the dialog. Set during the war, What Price Glory? depicts the struggle between a marine captain and a sergeant for the love of a young girl. But what the public found most intriguing about this play was not the cross-rank romantic competition, but the way the characters talked.209 The military establishment was less intrigued than appalled, and army General Robert L. Bullard and navy Admiral Charles F. Plunkitt lodged a complaint with the federal attorney asserting that the “profanity-besprinkled” What Price Glory? “curtails enlistments and in that way violates the national defense act.” The complaint was also forwarded to New York Mayor Hylan, who had involved himself in a campaign to eliminate “nudity, obscenity and indecency” from New York theaters.210 To the extent that Stallings is remembered at all today, it is for What Price Glory? But in the same year this play appeared Stallings also published his novel Plumes. Like Company K, it has undeservedly been relegated to second-class literary status. Plumes is less about war itself than the continuing impact of war long after the shooting is over. No work produced by an American does a better job depicting the struggles of veteran readjustment, with the possible exception of the 1946 flm The Best Years of Our Lives. After a brief description of the Plumes, a Georgia family of no great distinction, our story begins in earnest with the young Richard Plume enrolling in a college in the small southern town of Woodland. After meeting, and falling in love with Esme Dozier, who has taken up the study of biology under the infuence of her uncle, Richard decides that he too will become a biologist. Their romance blossoms as they spend countless hours roaming about the surrounding countryside. In the years ahead the two, together and separately, will constantly look back to these Edenic days.211 Shortly after the two are married, war is declared and, despite some ambivalence, Richard enlists in the army. He leaves behind him a pregnant wife. The novel abruptly jumps ahead to April 1919. Esme and her child Dickie are

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on their way to New York to visit Richard. He has been seriously wounded in the leg and is now in a military hospital. When Richard is reunited with Esme, Somewhere in the dim centers of his twisted, wrenched brain he knew the pain that lay ahead for her and for himself …She knew that he was realizing her own agony, as she was immersed in his. They clung thus and went shares in sufering.212 Richard briefy returns to Woodland for Christmas but he feels smothered by the sympathy he receives and wants to lash out at people who only mean him well. In fact, he feels himself to be a fool rather than a hero. When one person suggests that over time he will be able to master his bitterness, Richard responds, “Good God, do you mean to say that as I grow old I’ll become dishonest enough to make myself out to be anything but a broken fool?”213 Richard must undergo an endless series of operations on his leg, and is placed in the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. After being released in December 1920, he announces his intention of seeking work in Washington. He joins the legion of the disabled, who “sold leafets and magazines, shouted their contempt for conservative citizens, gave up positions as quickly as philanthropists located them, snarled, fought, howled and hobbled through various benefciary channels of the government ….”214 Leaving Dickie with relatives, Esme joins Richard in Washington and their ordeal begins in earnest. Afordable housing is in short supply, as are jobs. Richard fnally lands a job at a government bureau as a biologist. His supervisor, Mr. Gary, is also partially disabled from the war, and the two will immediately become friends. Their conversations about the war constitute the intellectual core of the novel, and Gary will prove to be even more cynical than Richard. Richard muses that, “It was the tragedy of our lives that we had to be mutilated at the pleasure of dolts and fools,” but adds wistfully that before he left for Europe “there was a spirit America had never known before, a willingness to look at life in terms of humanity and not of imaginary geographical lines.” Gary sneers that, “Your phantom of humanistic purpose came when your government was spending a hundred and ffty million dollars a day. Any country can have a golden age if it will throw gold to the rabble.”215 Gary’s advice to Richard is to acquiesce to the reality—and the meaninglessness—of his loss: “It will save you from the delusion of service in the sense of crusading.”216 But Richard can’t let it go. He wishes he could change and reclaim his old life and spirit, “And yet I fare up within me. Chasms of fury. Unquenchable anger at myself and at the ignorance that victimized me.”217 The chief victim of his restlessness and anger will be Esme, who tells Richard that, “You’re killing us both by staying,” and asks why they in particular seem to have been hit so hard. Richard responds that people like them were “all over the world, weeping into one another’s arms this minute, crippled, blinded, insane. Crippled

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Richards killing pitiful Esmes, and little children unconscious of it all.”218 As in most Lost Generation literature, religion occupies an overwhelmingly ­negative place. Richard ruminates that Christ may have died on the cross for him, but “I did the same thing, and voluntarily…. A foolish little Christ all over again…. And after all, the man of Nazareth had only three short hours upon a cross. I’ve had hundreds.”219 Also crucified is Esme’s and Richard’s marriage. Richard is constantly being recycled back to the hospital, while Esme struggles to make ends meet and to keep up Richard’s spirits and her own. Finally Esme declares that their life is “hopeless.” She has challenged Richard to deny it, but he is forced to agree. “They had never admitted this until now. Both seemed relieved that the secret was out.”220 Richard finally drives Esme away from him. He takes up living in a commune with other disabled veterans (seventeen men “in various stages of mutilation and decay”) and advocating for veterans’ rights.221 He will be reunited with Esme and Dickie when he returns to the hospital for his final ­operation—an amputation. On an outing to Arlington Cemetery, Richard ­fi nally surrenders. “‘You’re right,’ he said, turning from Esme. ‘I can’t do anything. What chance has that poor little boy yonder against all these dead men? I’ll go home with you any time you say. I’m through.’”222 Richard and Esme’s agony make Plumes difficult to get through, but few novels so fully demonstrate the continuing agony of war. A review from the Los Angeles Times in 1924 had it about right: It is the one book that has come out of America that brings home fully and frightfully the bitter cost of the war to those that paid it with their heart’s blood. And it is so moving and true a story that even those who are bound to think the author extreme and biased should read it as a piece of art.223 Plumes was adapted into King Vidor’s film The Big Parade, and Stallings himself was active in Hollywood. He wrote or collaborated on screenplays that included The Big Parade, Old Ironsides, Northwest Passage, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon. He wrote a stage adaptation of A Farewell to Arms, which Hemingway (and the public) mostly hated. In 1933 he edited and wrote captions for the favorably reviewed The First World War: A Pictorial History.224 Also among American writers who experienced combat during the war was playwright Robert E. Sherwood. Rejected for U.S. military service in 1917 (Sherwood was six feet eight inches tall), Sherwood went to Canada and enlisted in the Canadian army.225 As it was for many green troops, when his division landed in France Sherwood remembered that he was “full of a spirit of high ­adventure—I was a Crusader.”226 The crusading spirit didn’t last long, and upon taking his place in the trenches Sherwood found himself under attack not only by Germans, but by rats and lice as well. At Vimy Ridge he was among

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those who were hit by a German gas attack.227 He fnished the war recuperating from coronary problems, and complications from gassing and cuts.228 After the war, Sherwood worked for Vanity Fair and reviewed flms for Life magazine. He was especially cutting when reviewing war flms that featured a heightened jingoism, and among the few Great War flms he praised was The Big Parade. This flm, he said, recognized that there was “no place for heroic hokum in pictures of a confict that was, above all things, depressingly real.”229 Horrifed by the war he had experienced and fearful that another might emerge, Sherwood wrote a number of plays with an anti-war theme. An early entry was The Road to Rome (1927), where Sherwood’s own disgust with politicians who supported war and corporations that profted from it could be presented under the cover of ancient Rome.230 It is fair to say that like most Americans, Sherwood supported neutrality for much of the 1930s, and was appalled by the power and profts of the munitions industry. But by the late 1930s he was deeply troubled by the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, and in Idiot’s Delight (1936) Sherwood took on both of these demons. The play is set in a hotel in the Italian Alps. Because of tensions between Italy and France, transportation facilities have been locked down and the hotel’s guests are stranded. The guests include Harry Van, leader of a group of chorus girl entertainers. Also at the lodge is an Italian captain, a Marxist named Quillery, the German doctor Waldersee, and the Russian woman Irene who has accompanied Archille Weber, a munitions maker. Early on the doctor laments that the atmosphere in Germany was not good for medical researchers such as himself because, “They are infected with the same virus as here. Chauvinistic nationalism. They expect all bacteriologists to work on germs to put in bombs to drop from airplanes.”231 Weber doesn’t make his appearance until later in the play, but some of the residents know that he is in the hotel. Quillery describes Weber as a master “of the one real League of Nations. The League of Schneider-Creusot, and Krupp, and Skoda, and Vickers and Dupont. The League of Death! [orig. emphasis]”232 Weber will be the center of the play’s moral indignation, but he’s adroit at defending his position from “all these little people” who consider him an arch-villain because I furnish them with what they want, which is the illusion of power. That is what they vote for in their frightened governments—what they cheer for on their national holidays—what they glorify in their anthems, and their monuments, and their waving fags!233 Irene has struck up a friendship with Van, and while she attacks Weber she also takes Van to task for being a “sentimental idealist. You believe in the goodness of human nature, don’t you?” She describes Weber as “necessary to civilization” and a “true man of the world. He is above petty nationalism ….”234

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Finally the war has started as Italian planes fy overhead to bomb French targets. The hotel’s guests begin to scatter to the railroad station for the last trains out. Van is incensed by the outbreak of hostilities. “Weber—and a million like him—they can’t take the credit for all of this. Who is it that did this dirty trick on a lot of decent people? And why do we let them get away with it [orig. emphasis]?”235 It’s obvious that there is not going to be any divine intervention because earlier in the play God is described as a “Poor, lonely old soul. Sitting up in heaven, with nothing to do, but play solitaire. Poor, dear God. Playing Idiot’s Delight. The game that never means anything, and never ends.”236 Weber leaves without Irene, and Van lets his troupe depart without him. At the end the hotel is attacked by bombers, but Van and Irene refuse to take shelter. In the fnal scene they are sitting at the piano and singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” accompanied by the din of bombs exploding around them.237 Sherwood was embittered by his own experience of war, and in his postscript to Idiot’s Delight declares that, “If decent people will continue to be intoxicated by the synthetic spirit of patriotism, pumped into them by megalomaniac leaders, and will continue to have faith in the ‘security’ provided by those lethal weapons sold to them by the armaments industry, then war is inevitable …” 238 In one review of Idiot’s Delight a critic referred to “passionate attacks upon militaristic nationalism.”239 Sherwood was also obviously disturbed by recent developments in Europe. He began questioning his own pacifsm and neutrality, suggesting that if Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States held frm, they “will defeat Fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan, and will remove the threat of war which is Fascism’s last gesture of self-justifcation.”240 Sherwood became a supporter of Roosevelt and eventually one of his speech writers (he called the president “a  statesman who is both overwhelmingly popular and right”).241 In truth, Sherwood had some atoning to do for previous sins, noting that, “In 1920, I confess with deep shame, my frst vote as an American citizen was cast for Warren G. Harding. Thus I did my bit in the great betrayal.”242 Finding that his “pacifsm wavers every day,” Sherwood lamented that, “The Hitlers, Mussolinis, Jap war lords have outraged and insulted every standard of decency so steadily that it’s impossible not to cheer when someone strong stands up & indicates an intention to kick the living shit out of them.”243 The Munich Conference of 1938 and Britain’s and France’s capitulation to Germany fnished of Sherwood’s non-interventionist views, and he noted in his diary that “I feel that I must start to battle for one thing: the end of our isolation.”244 In 1938, Sherwood’s play Abe Lincoln in Illinois was staged. Here Lincoln agonizes over the decision to go to war just as Roosevelt was doing. Reviewing the play in the New York World Telegram, Heywood Broun called it “the fnest piece of propaganda ever to come into our theater.” Sherwood called Lincoln “the supreme non-isolationist in his essential faith.”245

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By 1940 Sherwood’s conversion from isolationist to internationalist was complete, and of the writers we have examined he became the most outspoken for American engagement. That year he published There Shall Be No Night, both a protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland and a call to arms. In this play a Finnish scientist and his family are living an existence devoted to peaceful pursuits. But with the Russian invasion of their country, the family undergoes a transformation and dedicates itself to resisting the invasion.246 Audiences were reportedly moved by the performance of this play on Broadway, and reviews were overwhelmingly positive. One exception was the review by Washington columnist Raymond Clapper, who after frst conceding that the play might have “a deep infuence upon national feeling about the war,” condemned it as “a rank infammatory job, pleading for intervention.”247 In fact, the Russian invasion of Finland was one of the few events in the inter-war period that drew isolationists and internationalists together. Herbert Hoover established the Finnish Relief Fund, and isolationist publisher Robert McCormick, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, and Fiorello La Guardia all registered their support.248 Sherwood was also making his views known outside the world of the theater. He condemned the “bootlickers of Hitler” and accused both Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh of having a “traitorous point of view.”249 On June 10, 1940, he took out an ad that appeared in a number of major newspapers. At the top it proclaimed “Stop Hitler Now” (Figure 7.4) and went on to insist, We can Help—If We will Act Now—before it is forever too late. We can help by sending planes, guns, munitions, food. We can help to end the fear that American boys will fght and die in another Flanders, closer to home. Sherwood asked readers to send letters to the president “urging that the real defense of our country must begin NOW—with aid to the Allies [orig. emphasis]!”250 Much of the money for Sherwood’s ad was put forward by TimeLife publisher Henry Luce, who had also experienced a recent conversion to interventionism.251 The public response to the ad was mostly unfavorable.252 Other writers viewed the prospect of another war in a number of complicated ways. John Dos Passos’ biographer Townsend Ludington notes that Dos Passos never acknowledged that there was a strong isolationist sentiment in the United States. Dos Passos believed that during the 1930s the United States should have interceded with France and Britain to force them to be sterner with Hitler and Mussolini. This might have kept the United States out of the war, which was Dos Passos’ ultimate goal. But as Ludington notes, this “would have demanded an internationalism of the United States to achieve isolationist ends.”253 Some writers actually went to Europe and immersed themselves in the conficts of the 1930s. These included Dos Passos and Hemingway who

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were in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and who had a famous falling out over the role of the Communist Party. In 1935, Laurence Stallings brought four photographers and a feet of trucks to Ethiopia to cover the invasion by Italy— despite the fact that he walked with an artifcial leg.254 Ernest Hemingway was extremely blunt in his declaration that the United States should avoid any involvement in a European confict. In his “Notes on the Next War,” written in 1935, Hemingway insisted that no nation in Europe was America’s friend, and no country but one’s own was worth fghting for. “Never again,” said Hemingway, “should this nation be put into a European war through mistaken idealism, through propaganda, through the desire to back our creditors” or at the behest of anyone “to make a going concern of a mismanaged one.”255 Hemingway referred to the “hell broth” that was brewing in Europe, where Hitler especially wanted war “fervently, patriotically, and almost religiously.”256 The nature of war itself had changed, and while in former times it was supposedly sweet and ftting to die for your country, in modern war everyone loses. “You will die like a dog for no good reason.” This was also a business critique, with Hemingway inveighing against the “dirty combinations” and “criminals and swine” who profted from war.257 “We were fools to be sucked in once on a European war,” said Hemingway, “and we should never be sucked in again.”258 But once the United States was sucked into another war, Hemingway seemed to change his tune. He stated that, “The last war, during the years 1915, 1916, 1917, was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied.”259 This was consistent with previous statements, but Hemingway added that in the world of 1942 “there will be no lasting peace, nor any possibility of a just peace, until all lands where the people are ruled, exploited and governed by any government whatsoever against their consent are given their freedom [orig. emphasis].”260 Even Woodrow Wilson might have hesitated to make such an impossible, universalist declaration. Hemingway professed to hate war, but insisted that there were worse things than war, “and all of them come with defeat.” “The more you hate war,” said Hemingway, “the more you know that once you are forced into it, for whatever reason it may be, you have to win it.”261 William March’s views were more guarded. His biographer Roy S. Simmonds saw in his subject someone who was “a pacifst at heart and an abhorer of violence.”262 In a letter to the editor of Forum in 1931, March said, My present attitude toward war is this. If there were a war impending, my conscience and my special knowledge would impel me to do what I could to prevent it. Failing that, I would make the best of a bad situation and reënlist immediately in any combat unit which would accept in its ranks such a battered, half-blinded old hulk.263

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Because of the rise of fascism, Archibald MacLeish, who had so brilliantly articulated the senselessness of the last war, was forced to evolve in his thinking. In May 1940, he published “The Irresponsibles” in The Nation. In this indictment of American intellectuals, MacLeish charged that they spoke of the war in ­Europe as “no concern of theirs.” Instead intellectuals saw unfolding events in Europe in terms of imperialism, the struggle for markets, and propaganda in newspapers and on the radio. In fact, said MacLeish, the crisis of our time is in its essentials a revolt against the common culture of the West … It is a revolution of negatives, a revolution of despair … It is a revolution created out of misery by dread of yet more misery, a revolution created out of disorder by terror of disorder. It is a revolution of gangs, a revolution against [orig. emphasis].264 Taking on the novels of Dos Passos and Hemingway, MacLeish condemned their impact on American youth who rejected the idea that a “free society of free men is worth fighting for.”265 MacLeish later said of his academic and writing friends that they “were damned if they were going to be sold down the river again; they weren’t going to be caught again by anything like Mr. Wilson’s rhetoric; they weren’t going to wait as we all did three or four years after the First World War to discover we’d been had … ” Hitler changed everything, and now “we had no choice, and that the war, instead of being what the First World War was, a vicious deceit, was a war that had to be fought . . ..”266 When Malcolm Cowley looked at the twenty-year odyssey of Lost Generation writers, he saw them passing through four stages. They first thought of themselves as exiles even when living at home, then they went to Europe, often with the idea of staying there forever. Ironically, this taught them to admire their own country, though they preferred to do so from a distance. They did return home, but set themselves apart from society. With the advent of the Great Depression, society began a struggle among different groups, and here the exiles were finally reintegrated as they became involved in the struggle themselves.267 But the leaders of the struggle were from a younger generation. Few from the Lost Generation wrote socially conscious works. And while their political views were mostly liberal, their opinions often differed. Their rebellion was unpolitical and individual, and “also essentially conservative.”268 While Lost Generation writers were conservative in the political sense— that they did not endorse a wholesale restructuring of the political or economic systems—they were cultural radicals on a number of fronts. Their descriptions of war and combat were presented with a graphic detail never before seen in American letters. Here they contributed much of the vocabulary for the isolationist debate. When isolationists condemned the “horrors of war,” they most likely were not drawing on first-hand experience but on what Lost Generation veterans had produced. Dos Passos, Hemingway, March and others had been

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there, and knew what they were talking about. But while mainstream isolationists were impacted by the literature of the Lost Generation, they were not willing to go as far as these writers had. They balked at coming to grips with the nihilism of war. And while isolationists were willing enough to condemn what they called “propaganda,” they refused to denigrate patriotism or suggest that God was a meaningless concept, as had the writers of the Lost Generation. Inevitably, the day of these writers passed, and though they continued to publish, by the end of the Second World War most of their best work was behind them. As Laurence Stallings put it, “Like a lot of writers, I had just one thing to say and I said it. There wasn’t any more.”269 But their contributions should not be doubted. For twenty years the Lost Generation had a greater impact on society than any group of writers—before or since.

Notes 1 See Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019), 24. 2 Wilhelm Marx, “The Responsibility for the War,” Foreign Afairs 4, no. 2 ( January 1926), 181, 187, 192 3 Raymond Poincaré, “The Responsibility for the War,” Foreign Afairs 4, no. 1 (October 1925), 1–2, 19. Revisionist American history continued to be a source of irritation to the French. André Géraud noted that “the reversal of sentiment perceptible among many Americans in the question of national responsibilities for the origin of the World War … bafes us on this side more than can be conveyed in mere words.” André Géraud, “French Responsibilities in Europe,” Foreign Afairs 5, no. 2 ( January 1927), 243. 4 John Kenneth Turner, Shall It Be Again? (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1922), 200. 5 Michael Wreszin, Oswald Garrison Villard: Pacifst at War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965), 156. 6 Wreszin, 154. 7 Harry Elmer Barnes, “Assessing the Blame for the World War: A Revised Judgment Based on All the Available Documents,” Current History 20, no. 2 (May 1924), 194. 8 Albert Bushnell Hart, “Dissent from the Conclusions of Professor Barnes,” Current History 20, no. 2 (May 1924), 196. 9 “Assessing the Blame for the World War: A Symposium,” Current History 20, no. 3 ( June 1924), 455. 10 “Assessing the Blame Symposium,” 458, 454. 11 “Assessing the Blame Symposium,” 459. 12 “Assessing the Blame Symposium,” 453. 13 Harry Elmer Barnes, The Genesis of the World War: An Introduction to the Problem of War Guilt [1926] (Grosse Pointe, MI: Scholarly Press, 1968), 655. 14 Barnes, Genesis, 659. In a review of The Genesis of the World War in Foreign Afairs, Bernadotte E. Schmitt said that, “As a protest against the old notion of unique German responsibility for the war, it will be welcomed by all honest men, but as an attempt to set up a new doctrine of unique Franco-Russian responsibility, it must be unhesitatingly rejected.” Bernadotte E. Schmitt, “July, 1914,” Foreign Afairs 5, no. 1 (October 1926), 147. 15 Barnes, Genesis, 233, 301, 235. Sidney Bradshaw Fay likewise contended that “Germany did not plot a European War, did not want one, and made genuine,

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16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26

27

28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38

though belated eforts, to avert one. She was the victim of her alliance with Austria and of her own folly.” Sidney Bradshaw Fay, The Origins of the World War (New York: Macmillan, 1928), 552. C. Hartley Grattan, Why We Fought (New York: Vanguard, 1929), 19. Barnes, Genesis, 530. Grattan, Why We Fought, 66. Herbert Herring, And So to War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1938), 15. Quoted in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 240. Barnes addresses this issue with the weak, that is to say, irrelevant argument that the invasion of Belgium was “contemplated by other powers.” There was no obligation for Britain to come to the aid of Belgium because while the treaty of 1839 bound those who signed it not to violate Belgian neutrality themselves, “It did not in any way bind them to intervene to protect Belgian neutrality.” Barnes, Genesis, 290–91. John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 1. John Horne and Alan Kramer call the German army’s anxieties about franc-tireur attacks a “delusion” and “a collective fantasy in 1914 of one of its own worst fears.” Horne and Kramer, 419–21. Horne and Kramer, 420. Hew Strachan, The First World War (New York: Penguin, 2005), 49. Turner, 319–361. Barnes, Genesis, 292; Grattan, Why We Fought, 69. Chase added that most atrocity stories “were subsequently proved to be without foundation.” Stuart Chase, The New Western Front (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 131. For a discussion of Great War atrocities, real and otherwise, see Kenneth D. Rose, The Great War and Americans in Europe, 1914–1917 (New York: Routledge, 2017), 62–86. See Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 43. When Gibson asked a German ofcer if collective punishment wasn’t a violation of the Geneva Convention, he was told, “All Belgians are dogs, and all would do these things unless they are taught what will happen to them.” Hugh Gibson, A Diplomatic Diary (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917), 132. Walter Millis, Road to War: America 1914–1917 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1935), 66, 73, 67. Millis, 68; Grattan, Why We Fought, 72. Irvin S. Cobb, Speaking of Prussians (New York: George H. Doran, 1917), 33. E. Alexander Powell, Slanting Lines of Steel (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 67. “Kentucky Hunter Fought Germans,” New York Times, November 24, 1914. Under Article 75 of the German Instruction for Campaign Service soldiers were encouraged to keep daily journals that could be used later for campaign histories. The French collected a large number of these journals from the battlefeld, and gave American Arthur Gleason the opportunity to look at them. Gleason emphasized that none of the journals had been altered in any way. The entries describe in graphic detail the horrors that the German army inficted on the Belgians. Arthur Gleason, Our Part in the Great War (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1917), 171–88. Bennett Clark, “Congress Should Legislate a Mandatory Arms Embargo against All Belligerents,” Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints, ed. William Dudley (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1995), 100. Turner, 171, 176, 190. Chase, 130. Edwin F. Gay, “War Loans or Subsidies,” Foreign Afairs 4, no. 3 (April 1926), 397. Barnes, Genesis, 614, 624.

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39 Herring, 11; Millis, 64. Edwin Borchard and William Potter Lage condemned Britain’s “adroit and efective propaganda operating to persuade the United States into seeing only one side of the issue.” Edward Borchard and William Potter Lage, Neutrality for the United States (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937), 33. 40 Grattan, Why We Fought, 42, 44. In one bizarre variation of the America-ashapless-victim-of-propaganda theme, Harry Elmer Barnes claims that Woodrow Wilson passively accepted British predations at sea because he had fallen under the powerful infuence of Walter Hines Page, American Ambassador to Great Britain. In Barnes’ portrayal there were no limits to the powers of this Anglophile Svengali. In fact, the greatest impact that Page had on Wilson was to excite irritation, which fnally succumbed to indiference. 41 See also Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time: Containing An Assortment of Lies Circulated throughout the Nations during the Great War (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1928). 42 H. C. Peterson, Propaganda for War: The Campaign against American Neutrality, 1914–1917 [1939] (Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1968), vii. 43 Critics such as John Crosby Brown pointed out that revisionists never mentioned any German propaganda in the United States. John Crosby Brown, “American Isolation: Propaganda Pro and Con,” Foreign Afairs 18, no. 1 (October 1939), 39. Peterson, viii. 44 Peterson, 14. 45 Peterson, 43–45. 46 Peterson, 55–63. 47 Peterson, 53. 48 Peterson, 350. 49 Kennan referred to the “superiority of British propaganda” in America. George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 65. William Philpott claims that by 1917 “it was clear the Allies were winning the propaganda battle in the United States ….” William Philpott, War of Attrition: Fighting the First World War (New York: Overlook Press, 2014), 262. See also Z. A. B. Zeman, The Gentlemen Negotiators: A Diplomatic History of the First World War (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 170. 50 Frequently these stories would be printed in the United States, and then would recross the Atlantic. Thus the British public frst heard of the sinking of the cruiser Audacious from a Philadelphia Public Ledger story, and learned that the First Battle of Ypres had taken place from American reporter William G. Shepherd (the only correspondent present). Likewise, it was American reporter Karl von Wiegand who was the frst to inform German citizens about the Battle of Masurian Lake. See Rose, 5–6, 15–16, 206–07. 51 E. Alexander Powell, “On the British Battle Line,” Scribner’s Magazine 58, no. 4 (October 1915), 462. 52 Harvey Cushing, From A Surgeon’s Journal, 1915–1918 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1936), 69. 53 Grattan, Why We Fought, 70. The Hague Convention of 1899 had outlawed the use of gas from “projectiles,” but Germans justifed their use of gas through the technicality of releasing gas from containers rather than projectiles. See Eric Dorn Brose, A History of the Great War: World War One and the International Crisis of the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 120. 54 Grattan, Why We Fought, 181. 55 Booth Tarkington, “Why Americans Are Pro-Ally,” Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times 4, no. 3 ( June 1916), 462. 56 See John Terraine, Business in Great Waters: The U-Boat Wars, 1916–1945 (London: Leo Cooper, 1989), 5–10.

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57 “The Lusitania Massacre: I—What Should America Do?” The Outlook, May 19, 1915, 112. 58 Peterson, 126; See “Doubt One Torpedo Sank the Cunarder,” New York Times, May 8, 1915. 59 Millis, 169–70. 60 Charles Callan Tansill, America Goes to War (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1938), 288–89. 61 Herring, 16. 62 Barnes, Genesis, 597. Referring to Wilson’s insistence that he would not submit to German submarines, Edwin Borchard and William Potter Lage claimed that Wilson “had already submitted so completely to the British impositions and to British armaments on merchantmen ….” Borchard and Lage, 57. 63 Bernard DeVoto, “The Day We Celebrate,” Harpers Magazine 177, July 1938, 221. 64 In the wake of the Lusitania crisis, the British noted that a ship carrying contraband made her liable to capture, “but certainly not to destruction, with the loss of a large portion of her crew and passengers.” “The Warning and the Consequence— England Answers Germany,” The New York Times Current History of the European War 2, no. 3 ( June 1915), 416. Among those seeking to repudiate revisionist arguments was Newton D. Baker, who produced an enormous article (weighing in at eighty-fve pages) in Foreign Afairs. In an examination of the reasons America went to war, Baker rejected pacifstic and economic arguments in favor of the proposition that it was the responsibility of government to protect human life, which was being taken by German submarine warfare. See Newton D. Baker, “Why We Went to War,” Foreign Afairs 15, no. 1 (October 1936), 1–85. 65 Michael Kazin, War against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 229–30. 66 Kazin, 59. 67 Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 247. In The War of the World, Ferguson quotes Bernhard Dernburg shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania: The American people cannot visualize the spectacle of a hundred thousand … German children starving by slow degrees as a result of the British blockade, but they can visualize the pitiful face of a little child drowning amidst the wreckage caused by a German torpedo. Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Confict and the Descent of the West (New York: Penguin, 2006), 114. 68 See Ronald Allen Goldberg, America in the Twenties (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 96. 69 Turner, 418. 70 C. Hartley Grattan, Preface to Chaos: War in the Making (New York: Dodge, 1936), x, xi. 71 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, xii, xiii. 72 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, 31–32, 42, 53–54. 73 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, 63. 74 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, 3, 7, 51–52. 75 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, 177, 178. 76 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, 193. 77 Grattan, Preface to Chaos, 166. 78 See David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 220–21. 79 Charles A. Beard, The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibility of Keeping Out of War (New York: Vanguard Press, 1936), 35.

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80 81 82 83 84

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Beard, Devil Theory, 102–03, 99–100. Beard, Devil Theory, 91. Beard, Devil Theory, 114. Beard, Devil Theory, 122. Beard, Devil Theory, 120. Beard claimed that, those Americans who refuse to plunge blindly into the maelstrom of European and Asiatic politics are not defeatist or neurotic. They are giving evidence of sanity, not cowardice; of adult thinking as distinguished from infantilism. Experience has educated them and made them all the more determined to concentrate their energies on the making of a civilization within the circle of their continental domain. Charles A. Beard, “Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels: An Estimate of American Foreign Policy,” Harpers Magazine 179, September 1939, 350–51.

85 Hobson believed that, Every wrong and injurious provision of the treaty, the alienation of German lands and populations, the impossible reparations, the plunder of the private property of her nationals abroad, the interference with her waterways and her internal fnance, the enforced depreciation of her currency, and the hundred ills from which she, and the rest of Europe with her, are now sufering is rooted in the poisonous doctrine of Germany’s sole war-guilt. J. A. Hobson, “Germany’s ‘Moral Ofensive,’” Review of Die Moralische Ofensive by Von Prinz Max von Baden, The Nation 113, no. 2944 (7 December 1921), 661. 86 Lewis S. Gannett, “They All Lied,” The Nation 115, no. 2988 (11 October 1922), 353. 87 Albert Jay Nock, The Myth of a Guilty Nation (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1922), 5, 6. 88 Gannett, 353. In 1926, Edward Grey looked at Europe before the war and cited, “The enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them—it was these that made the war inevitable.” Quoted in Charles A. Beard, “Bigger and Better Armaments,” Harper’s Magazine 158 ( January 1929), 142. 89 Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “We Or They”: Two Worlds in Confict (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 66. 90 Quoted in Fred Hobson, Mencken: A Life (New York: Random House, 1994), 137. 91 H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Fourth Series [1924] (New York: Library of America, 2010), 9. 92 Walter Lippmann, “H. L. Mencken,” Walter Lippmann, Men of Destiny (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 61, 63. 93 H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Fifth Series [1926] (New York: Library of America, 2010), 192, 193. 94 Mencken, Prejudices: Fourth Series, 95, 118, 167. 95 H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Sixth Series [1927] (New York: Library of America, 2010), 416. 96 Lewis Browne quoted in James Wechsler, Revolt on the Campus [1935] (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), 38–39. 97 Fred Hobson, 381–82. 98 Quoted in Fred Hobson, 421; Mencken quoted in Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), xxiii. 99 Fred Hobson, 404. 100 Quoted in Fred Hobson, 435.

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101 Fred Hobson, 422. 102 St. John Ervine, “American Literature: Now and To Be,” Part 1, The Century 101, no. 4 (February 1921), 461. 103 Van Wyck Brooks, “The Literary Life,” Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans, ed. Harold E. Stearns (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922), 179, 197. 104 Mencken, Prejudices: Fourth Series, 166–67. 105 See Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). 106 Ellen Glasgow, A Certain Measure (New York, 1938), 118. 107 “The legacy of literature, and its efects on the shaping of memory,” said historian Hew Strachan, “have proved far more infuential than economic or political realities.” Strachan, xv. 108 Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 29–31. In 1928, Transition magazine asked American expatriates the question, “Why Do Americans Live in Europe?” The respondents included seventeen American artists. Gertrude Stein said that she lived in France because, “Your parent’s home is never a place to work it is a nice place to be brought up.” Robert McAlmon said he preferred France to America “because there is less interference with private life here. There is interference, but to a foreigner, there is a fanciful freedom and grace of life not obtainable elsewhere.” Berenice Abbott believed that “The very complex nature of America is, if possible, better understood from a distance than at close range.” Kathleen Cannell said that she preferred to live in America but she couldn’t aford it. “I fnd the American life and climate stimulating. Americans in Europe are apt to go soft.” “Why Do Americans Live In Europe?” Transition 14 (Fall 1928), 97–98, 98, 111, 117. 109 Joseph Freeman, An American Testament: A Narrative of Rebels and Romantics [1936] (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 183. 110 Eugene Bagger, “Uprooted Americans,” Harper’s Magazine 159 (September 1929), 476. 111 Archibald MacLeish, Refections, ed. Bernard A. Drabeck and Helen E. Ellis (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 66. 112 MacLeish, Refections, 23. 113 Sherwood Anderson, “Living in America,” Intellectual Alienation in the 1920s, ed. Milton Plesur (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1970), 34. 114 Malcolm Cowley, Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s [1934] (New York: Viking, 1951), 9. 115 See H. L. Mencken, “Ludendorf,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1917, 824; H. L. Mencken, “Reminiscence,” in H. L. Mencken, The Impossible H. L. Mencken: A Selection of His Best Newspaper Stories, ed. Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (New York: Anchor Books, 1991), 626. 116 See Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, E. E. Cummings: A Biography (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2004), 111–21. 117 Cowley, 38. 118 Major-General William Harding Carter, “After the War,” North American Review 208, no. 6 (December 1918), 857. 119 Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 82. 120 See “Introduction,” John Dos Passos: The Critical Heritage, ed. Barry Maine (London: Routledge, 2005), 3. 121 John Dos Passos, The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos, ed. Townsend Ludington (Boston, MA: Gambit, 1973), 71. 122 Dos Passos, Fourteenth Chronicle, 92. 123 Dos Passos, Fourteenth Chronicle, 98.

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124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154

155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

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Dos Passos, Fourteenth Chronicle, 94. Dos Passos, Fourteenth Chronicle, 102, 213. Dos Passos, Fourteenth Chronicle, 219. Dos Passos, Fourteenth Chronicle, 232. John Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation—1917 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1920), 114–15. Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation, 104. Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation, 35. Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation, 71. Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation, 113. Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation, 102. Dos Passos, One Man’s Initiation, 119. Quoted in Townsend Ludington, John Dos Passos: A Twentieth Century Odyssey (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980), 186. John Dos Passos: The Critical Heritage, 26, 32. John Dos Passos: The Critical Heritage, 27, 29, 41. John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel (New York: Library of America, 1996), 311, 312. Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel, 312. John Dos Passos, 1919 (New York: Library of America, 1996), 446. Dos Passos, 1919, 482. Dos Passos, 1919, 566. Dos Passos, 1919, 760. John Dos Passos, The Big Money (New York: Library of America, 1996), 853, 852. Quoted in John Dos Passos: The Critical Heritage, 157. Quoted in John Dos Passos: The Critical Heritage, 141 Quoted in John Dos Passos: The Critical Heritage, 171 Mary Dexter, In the Soldier’s Service: War Experiences of Mary Dexter, England, Belgium, France, 1914–1918 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1918), 19, 84. Dexter, 12. Madeleine Zabriskie Doty, Short Rations: An American Woman in Germany, 1915–1916 (New York: The Century Company, 1917), 61. Ellen N. La Motte, The Backwash of War: The Human Wreckage of the Battlefeld as Witnessed by an American Nurse (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 3–4. La Motte, 7. La Motte, 67–73. La Motte, 102–03. Eighty of every one thousand British soldiers contracted venereal disease. The rate was higher for the Germans, lower for the French. See G. J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914–1918 (New York: Delta, 2006), 303. La Motte, 105. Dorothy and Carl J. Schneider, Into the Breach: American Women Overseas in World War I (New York: Viking, 1991), 198. Archibald MacLeish, “Letter of 6 March 1918 to Francis Hyde Bangs,” Archibald MacLeish, Letters of Archibald MacLeish, 1907 to 1982 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1983), 44–45. MacLeish, Refections, 87. MacLeish, Refections, 86. Ernest Hemingway, “Letter of 18 October 1918 to His Family,” in Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961, ed. Carlos Baker (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981), 19. James R. Mellow, Hemingway: A Life without Consequences (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1992), 64, 65. Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms [1929] (New York: Scribner, 2003), 22, 18.

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163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179

Hemingway, Farewell, 30. Hemingway, Farewell, 63. Hemingway, Farewell, 51. Hemingway, Farewell, 118. Hemingway, Farewell, 185–86. Hemingway, Farewell, 8, 72. Hemingway, Farewell, 116. Hemingway, Farewell, 330. Hemingway, Farewell, 327–28. Edmund Wilson, “Ernest Hemingway: Bourdon Gauge of Morale,” Atlantic Monthly, 164, no. 1 ( July 1939), 46. In a 1958 interview, Hemingway claimed he rewrote the last page of A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times. “Ernest Hemingway Interview,” The Paris Review Interviews, v. 1 (Edinburgh: Cannon Gate, 2006), 39. Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home,” The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1987), 111. Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home,” 112–13. Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home,” 115. Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home,” 116. Ernest Hemingway, “Letter of 10 December 1924 to Robert McAlmon,” Hemingway, Selected Letters, 139. Roy S. Simmonds, The Two Worlds of William March (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984), 14–17. The Croix citation read: During the operations in Blanc Mont region, October 3rd-4th, 1918, he left a shelter to rescue the wounded. On October 5th, during a counterattack, the enemy having advanced to within 300 meters of the frst aid station, he immediately entered the engagement and though wounded refused to be evacuated until the Germans were thrown back. Ibid., 17.

180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201

Simmonds, 21. Simmonds, 23. Simmonds, 53. William March, Company K [1933] (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1961), 16. March, Company K, 23. March, Company K, 26–27. March, Company K, 47, 56–57. March, Company K, 105–07. See Tony Ashworth, Trench Warfare 1914–1918: The Live and Let Live System (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980). March, Company K, 90. March, Company K, 178–82. March, Company K, 101–02. March, Company K, 61–64. March, Company K, 91–95. March, Company K, 122–25. March, Company K, 133–37. March, Company K, 138–39. March, Company K, 52–53. March, Company K, 97. March, Company K, 245–53. March, Company K, 209–11. March, Company K, 221–23.

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202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244

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March, Company K, 226–27. March, Company K, 230–31. March, Company K, 219–20. William March, “This Heavy Load,” The Best Short Stories 1934 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story, ed. Edward J. O’Brien (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1934), 258–59, 261, 264–66. Quoted in Simmonds, 73. David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 218–27. Mencken, Prejudices: Fourth Series, 168. “Laurence Stallings Dead at 73; ‘What Price Glory?’ Co-Author,” New York Times, February 29, 1968. “New York Censors Say Play Violates U.S. Defense Act,” Washington Post, September 26, 1924. Laurence Stallings, Plumes [1924] (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 34–50. Stallings, 67. Stallings, 82. Stallings, 92. Stallings, 126–27. Stallings, 128. Stallings, 171. Stallings, 161, 163. Stallings, 199. Stallings, 193. Stallings, 282. Stallings, 347. “The Times Literary Page, Books and their Makers,” Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1924. “Laurence Stallings Dead at 73; ‘What Price Glory?’ Co-Author,” New York Times, February 29, 1968. Harriet Hyman Alonso, Robert E. Sherwood: The Playwright in Peace and War (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), 45–46. Quoted in Alonso, 49. Alonso, 54–55. Alonso, 58–59. Quoted in Alonso, 79. Alonso, 97–99. Robert Emmett Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), 60. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 80. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 107. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 123–24. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 162. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 103–04. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 187. Sherwood, “Postscript,” Idiot’s Delight, 189–90. Brooks Atkinson, “Pulitzer Laurels,” New York Times, May 10, 1936. Sherwood, “Postscript,” Idiot’s Delight, 190. Quoted in Alonso, 192. Quoted in John Gassner, “Robert Emmet Sherwood,” Atlantic Monthly 169, no. 1 ( January 1942), 30. Quoted in Alonso, 188–89. See Alonso, 190.

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245 Quoted in Alonso, 200, 203. 246 Robert E. Sherwood, There Shall Be No Night (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940). In one review of the play, Nelson B. Bell described There Shall Be No Night as “the most profoundly thoughtful, the most intensely dramatic and the most hopeful drama that has come out of the present war in Europe.” Nelson B. Bell, “Lunts Receive Ovation in New Sherwood Play,” Washington Post, April 23, 1940. 247 “In First Current War Play, ‘There Shall Be No Night,’ the Lunts Stir Broadway,” Life, May 13, 1940, 48. 248 See Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979), 82–83. 249 “Sherwood Assails Ford, Lindbergh,” New York Times, August 26, 1940. 250 “Stop Hitler Now!” New York Times, June 10, 1940. 251 Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), 149. 252 Alonso, 215. John Wharton, a lawyer who had advised Sherwood on the creation of the Playwright’s Company, raised most of the $24,000 advertisement costs. Ibid., 214, 196. 253 Townsend Ludington, John Dos Passos: A Twentieth Century Odyssey (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980), 412–13. 254 “Laurence Stallings Dead at 73; ‘What Price Glory?’ Co-Author,” New York Times, February 29, 1968. 255 Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War.” American Points of View, 1934–1935, ed. William H. Cordell and Kathryn Coe Cordell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1936), 2. Originally published in Esquire, September 1935. 256 Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War,” 8, 5. 257 Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War,” 5, 6. 258 Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War,” 8. 259 Ernest Hemingway, “Introduction,” Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time (New York: Bramhall House, 1942), xiii. 260 Hemingway, “Introduction,” xxi. 261 Hemingway, “Introduction,” xxvi–xxvii. 262 Simmonds, 25. 263 Quoted in Simmonds, 54. 264 Archibald MacLeish, “The Irresponsibles,” The Nation 150, no. 20 (May 18, 1940), 619–20. 265 Quoted in “A Nation Unprepared,” The Washington Post, May 29, 1940. 266 MacLeish, Refections, 145. Some were unrepentant. Cummings’ biographer Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno said of Cummings that he considered American involvement in the Great War a blunder, and would remain a staunch isolationist in the post-war years. He supported Wendell Willkie in 1940, and even after the attack on Pearl Harbor he remained anti-war. He wrote in his diary that, “The only nation to whom I owe allegiance is imagination.” Sawyer-Lauçanno, 413, 432, 441. 267 Cowley, 289–91. 268 Cowley, 295. 269 “Laurence Stallings Dead at 73; ‘What Price Glory?’ Co-Author,” New York Times, February 29, 1968.

5 FEEDING THE ISOLATIONIST BEAST Issues, Fears, and Scenarios

One of the difculties in discussing the isolationist impulse in America is that aside from an obvious conviction that the United States avoid foreign conficts, it is hard to say what else isolationists had in common. There was an extremely broad range of groups and individuals who acquired the isolationist label, and the issues raised by isolationism covered an equally wide gamut, from the utopian to the coldly analytic. Under the former was disarmament. Here the focus was on the arms rather than on use of the arms, with the idea that if the number of arms were reduced, the inclination to use them would also be reduced. Critics focused on the backward logic of this notion, but isolationist utopians saw disarmament as a lode stone that would lead to a world without confict. A diferent group of isolationists made the more solid argument that American involvement in a foreign confict would inevitably lead to a diminishment of civil liberties. In this case, all isolationists had to do was refer back to the Great War, when such legislation as the Alien and Sedition Acts had indeed curtailed the freedoms of Americans. To address this issue, isolationists argued that they could keep democratic institutions intact through military and economic self-sufciency, a “fortress America” isolated from the rest of the world. There were complications innumerable regardless of the approach isolationists took, but the question that haunted isolationists of every ilk was this: Would it be possible for the United States to maintain a strict neutrality while a world war was raging?

Disarmament Of all the ideas that peace advocates put forth for preventing another war, none was as prominent as military disarmament. In 1931, Herbert Hoover claimed that, The burden of taxes to support armament is greater today than before the Great War, and the economic instability of the world is defnitely due in

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part to this cause and the fears which these huge armaments at all times create.1 On both sides of the Atlantic numerous conferences were convened to address this issue. A thread that passed through countless debates was the conviction that if nations could be persuaded to give up their arms, then war could be eliminated. The most naive even argued that if a nation unilaterally disarmed and ceased being “war-like,” other nations would not make war against it. Front and center in the disarmament debate was the vilifcation of the armaments industry, with an emphasis on its outlandish profts. The most popular solution put forward was a government monopoly on arms production, and as we will see in Chapter 6 this recommendation will be put forward by the Nye Committee. But it should be emphasized that there was no consensus on this issue among isolationists. The Chicago Tribune, for instance, was reliably isolationist, but its publisher, Robert McCormick, had benefted greatly from free-market capitalism. Thus the Tribune emphasized that a government takeover of the armaments industry “would be the most expensive and sanguinary folly in our history. . . . Nationalization would waste the nation’s resources and imperil victory. It represents neither economy, nor justice, nor military efciency.”2 Then there was the issue of employment in arms industries. Christian Century, while endorsing government ownership, was insightful enough to realize that one of the chief benefts of defense contracts under the current system was that these contracts brought good jobs. For instance, there was the case of the Vinson bill, a large naval appropriations measure before Congress. Here the prospect of high-paying shipyard work had short-circuited the “normal peace desires of the workers,” who did not oppose the Vinson bill.3 Others who saw the link between jobs and war spending included C. Hartley Grattan, who conceded that labor’s stake in the armaments industry was “considerable.”4 By the summer of 1939 not only the United States but virtually every nation on the planet was gearing up its military spending. British historian and diplomat Edward Hallett Carr observed that rearmament “provided the frst substantial cure for unemployment . . . workers have learned that unemployment can be cured by a gigantic programme of economically unremunerative expenditure on armaments . . . .”5: In a 1934 article called “Arms and the Men,” Fortune emphasized the cozy relationship that existed among international armaments manufacturers. Even during the Great War, while the Allies and Central Powers were doing battle against each other, “the cordiality of the armament makers” was in no way compromised because warring nations seemed to put a higher priority on the preservation of company property than on human life. Fortune used the example of the French-controlled mines and smelters of the Briery basin. When there was fghting in the area, the Germans abstained from fring on the Briery works,

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and eventually the Germans took over and began running the complex themselves. This would provide three-fourths of the ore Germany produced during the war, which of course was used to create weapons to kill French soldiers. To the uninitiated, the obvious solution was to bombard Briery, but now it was the French who abstained from such action. While the argument could have been made that the French hoped to recapture Briery and wanted the works intact, the argument the French instead used was that if they bombarded Briery, the Germans would destroy the French mines at Dombasle. As Fortune put it, “if the French and Germans had each leveled the other’s smelters the war would have ended sooner. And so would War-time profts.”6 But “what hot-head was there who would want to upset the apple cart under these circumstances?” 7 For munitions makers, “killing is their business, armaments are their stock in trade; governments are their customers . . . .”8 The profts were extreme because killing a single soldier during the Great War cost about $25,000.9 Still, the alternative of government ownership presented vexing problems. As Fortune noted, “the state would have to take over most of the essential industries of modern life,” and for anyone who was not a 100 percent socialist, “that is not simple at all.”10 In 1934, H. C. Engelbrecht published an article called “The Problem of the Munitions Industry.” He emphasized that it was a mistake to view the arms industry in terms of good and evil because it “has only one point of view, and that is the commercial. It knows no politics, it knows no friends, it knows neither right nor wrong in international relations. It knows but one thing—customers.”11 The armaments industry, said Engelbrecht, “did not create war; it was created by war.” The manufacturing of munitions could not be eliminated until war itself was abolished.12 The following year Engelbrecht and his writing partner F. C. Hanighen published Merchants of Death. Despite its overwrought title, it has a subtlety often missing from other books inquiring into the manufacturing of munitions and is worth looking at in some detail because of its widespread infuence. In their examination of the complex relationship that existed among fnancial institutions, armament manufacturers, primary industries (such as steel and coal) and the government, Engelbrecht and Hanighen noted that the Du Pont Company, Bethlehem Steel, and U.S. Steel were all nestled within the Morgan fnancial group.13 The government also played a role, encouraging armaments makers to maintain facilities for the production of armor plate, munitions, airplanes, etc., all in the name of military preparedness.14 As a consequence, arms makers did well during times of peace, and outrageously well during times of war. This could clearly be seen during the Great War, when trade with the Allies by a still neutral United States produced spectacular profts. Like others, Engelbrecht and Hanighen could not help but refer to the fortunes of the Du Pont Company, which provided some 40 percent of the ammunition used by the Allies. Du Pont stock rose from $20 to $1,000 a share

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by the end of the war. Its work force increased from 5,000 to 100,000.15 Other American armaments frms also reported astronomical earnings. Taking the profts out of armaments was cited by many as a way to put a curb on this industry, but in 1935 New York fnancier Bernard Baruch argued that such a curb might hinder the successful prosecution of a war. He saw nothing wrong, however, in limiting the profts in arms to “a small and reasonable return on the moneys invested . . . .” That year, the House of Representatives did exactly that by voting in favor of the McSwain war profts bill. But when the Senate took up a similar bill under which the government would take all but $10,000 in individual earnings and limit corporate earnings to 3 percent during wartime, momentum stalled and Congress’s attempts to limit the profts in armaments died.16 Engelbrecht and Hanighen claimed that the ordinary principles of business and economics simply did not apply when it came to defense contracts, and they used Midvale Steel as an example. Executives at Midvale reasonably felt that if they could underbid their competitors, Carnegie Steel and Bethlehem Steel, for armor plate, they could win government contracts. Midvale was left out in the cold, however, and was not able to secure any contracts until it raised its prices to the same level as Carnegie and Bethlehem. Engelbrecht and Hanighen speculate that this curious business model was predicated on the government’s attempt to encourage a native armor plate industry.17 When legislators, with more than a little justifcation, began to suspect that the government was being gouged, there was a move in Congress to build a government armor plant. Panicked armor plate manufacturers launched a vigorous campaign, arguing that a government-run plant would be redundant because armor plate plants already existed, that a government plant would create an inferior product, and that it would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money. Bethlehem took the lead, placing ads in over 3,200 newspapers and distributing throughout the country millions of copies of some twenty-six bulletins on this theme. Editorials in newspapers endorsed the arguments of the armor plate manufacturers, with the end result that the government armor plate plant was never built.18 That banking and munitions interests in the United States were powerful is undeniable, but it is a diferent proposition altogether to argue that it was the desire to protect American investments that brought the United States into the Great War. While others were blunt in making this assertion, Merchants of Death demurs, noting that, “It is not contended here that the United States fought in the World War solely because of its armament makers and their fnanciers.” Instead, the authors slyly make the argument they want to make (while avoiding attribution) by quoting someone else. In this case, Senator Hamilton Fish, who asked, “Is it not a fact that the World War was started by the shipment of munitions? . . . Was not the cause of the war our continued shipping of munitions abroad?”19 Engelbrecht and Hanighen claimed that even though the prominence of arms dealers represented “a growing menace to world peace,” and threatened

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to place war “in the center of our economic life,” the solution of government ownership of munitions industries was replete with problems.20 One complication was that the non-arms producing countries of the world had the right to buy arms from others—as sanctifed both by the Hague Convention of 1907 and the League of Nations.21 Indeed, looking back at German complaints about American arms shipments to the Allies during the Great War, we fnd American ofcials repeatedly pointing out that under Article 7 of the Hague Convention, a neutral government could not prevent private companies from transferring munitions to belligerents. In 1907, the United States had actually opposed this provision but Germany insisted on its inclusion.22 Also hobbling efective international control was the question of what, exactly, constituted war materiel. The best, and most controversial example, was the British blockade of Germany during the Great War under which almost everything was classifed as contraband, including food.23 The difculties in reaching a consensus on arms control was illustrated by the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1919. The meeting was called because of widespread fears that the huge number of munitions left over from the war would make their way into the wrong hands. The treaty negotiated by delegates established as a principle that only recognized governments should have access to such arms. This time it was the United States that refused to ratify, because it wanted to funnel arms to revolutionaries in South America.24 When the Allies imposed arms limitations on Germany after the war, they stated that it was “the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations.” But there was a split between Great Britain, which believed security would follow arms limitations, and France, which wanted the security before any arms reductions. The Soviet delegate to the League of Nation’s Preparatory Disarmament Commission urged absolute and complete disarmament in 1928, and was chided by the president of the Commission for being unconstructive. Only Germany and Turkey supported the Soviet proposal.25 As historian Walter Consuelo Langsam noted, The continuing unfriendly attitude and acts of victorious France; the ceaseless quarreling over the Ruhr, the Rhineland occupation, the Saar, and reparation; the fruitless wrangling over security and disarmament; the steadily swelling armament expenditures of Germany’s neighbors; all these tended to feed the indignation and anger of many Germans.26 The League of Nations tried repeatedly to bring about a conference on disarmament, and by 1930, the Preparatory Disarmament Commission had met— and failed—for the seventh time. Dutch Chairman Jonkheer Dr. J. Loudon admitted that the realization of disarmament “is scarcely conceivable in the present political and moral situation of the world.”27 Still, eforts continued and the World Disarmament Conference met in Geneva beginning in February

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1932. Franklin Roosevelt lobbied for a reduction of weapons and a nonaggression pact but ofered no commitment of American intervention if a nation was attacked.28 Historian Robert H. Ferrell notes that the conference “quickly reached the familiar impasse, of French demands for disarmament through security and American demands for security through disarmament.”29 This desultory gathering dragged on until 1934, but it really ended in the previous year when Germany pointed out that she had disarmed under the Versailles Treaty but that no one else had. Germany had a point. The United States, France, and Britain had brokered an agreement that German armaments would be subject to supervision for four years before other heavily armed nations such as France would begin to reduce their own armaments. Nothing happened.30 When Secretary of State Stimson met with German government ofcials in 1931, he said that Germany would be able to make a strong case at the upcoming conference, and that “her very defenselessness was her very best defense.”31 The efect of these words on German ofcials can be imagined. As Allen W. Dulles noted, Germany had waited in vain for almost fourteen years for others to disarm as she had.32 In 1933 Germany withdrew both from the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations. Senator Gerald P. Nye insisted in 1934 that disarmament conferences failed because they “are manipulated, are played with, are infuenced, by lobbyists for the munitions makers,” but it was obviously more complicated than that.33 Tasker H. Bliss called the reduction of armaments “the very slipperiest of all slippery problems to take hold of.”34 For Engelbrecht and Hanighen, the problem of arms was rooted in the nature of civilization itself. The world would remain an armed camp “until the basic elements of our present civilization have been changed.”35

The End of Democracy and Fortress America Former U.S. army intelligence ofcer George Fielding Eliot claimed that liberty was both achieved and destroyed by the sword. Eliot could bring some practical knowledge to bear as he had been in the Australian military during the Gallipoli campaign during the Great War. When the next war came, said Eliot, laws would be passed that in a single day would create a “totalitarian dictatorship” under the control of the president.36 Others with this point of view included Stuart Chase and C. Hartley Grattan, with Chase arguing that American participation in an aggressive war would mean “sacrifcing nearly every vestige of the Bill of Rights,” and Grattan bluntly stating that a major war would bring fascism to the United States. “It will be The End—Finis. It will be the blackout of American democracy.”37 As an adjunct to this idea, if the United States could somehow stay out of the confict, she could preserve the culture that Europeans themselves were in the process of destroying. Charles Lindbergh believed America should resist

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involvement “if for no other reason than that one strong western nation may be left to preserve the fame of civilization . . . ”38 In coming years the United States could “recolonize” Europe, as Richard Aldington put it, “with the civilization preserved in an intact America.”39 Herbert Hoover predicted that the next war would be “the most barbarous war we have ever known,” and that both victor and vanquished would sufer “almost equally.” If the United States committed itself to such a confict it would face the consequence of “personal liberty restricted for generations. We should have none of it.”40 Hoover also recalled a private conversation he had with Joseph Kennedy in November 1940 in which Kennedy said that if America had to choose between staying out of the war, and supporting Britain (and running the chance of becoming a totalitarian state), “we have to take the risk of British defeat . . . .”41 American involvement in the war, according to Kingman Brewster, Jr., and Spencer Klaw, meant that, “Democracy and freedom would obviously have to be scuttled.” “We take our stand here on this side of the Atlantic, precarious as it is, because at least it ofers a chance for the maintenance of all the things we care about in America . . . .”42 This was not an argument that could be easily dismissed by internationalists. Government control invariably becomes heavier during wartime, as was seen in the United States during the Great War. The government assumed enormous powers, not only clamping down on dissent and freedom of speech, but also intruding itself into the realms of labor and business (such as taking control of the nation’s railroads). By 1940, American isolationists who feared government overreach could point to what was happening in Britain and France. Geofrey Crowther, editor of The Economist, argued that since the outbreak of the war, France and Britain had become “nearly as totalitarian as Germany.” But because the situation required drastic action, it was better for a democracy “to give itself the power to act swiftly, secretly, and powerfully than for it to go down to defeat.” What redeemed British totalitarianism, said Crowther, was that “there is every evidence that it will be temporary.”43 Churchill’s personal secretary John Colville was less sure. While he acknowledged that “in a totalitarian war even a democracy must surrender its liberties,” he asked “will state control, once instituted, ever be abandoned?”44 In the years ahead, isolationists would be left with the cold comfort of vindication as they watched the Roosevelt Administration suppress numerous civil liberties after the United States entered the Second World War. As Francis Biddle, who served both as solicitor general and attorney general under Roosevelt put it, the president believed that “rights should yield to the necessities of war. Rights came after victory, not before.”45 George Fielding Eliot was convinced that America’s democracy could remain intact if the United States chose to fght a war mainly at sea. The manpower needs would be considerably less than those required by a land army, and the nation’s economic (and political) life would be less disrupted.46 This strategy was possible because America enjoyed a position similar to Britain’s before the

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development of warplanes that could reach Britain from the European continent.47 Because of America’s better geographical position, Eliot argued that the United States should put her money into naval power, thereby protecting her interests and maintaining her democracy without involving herself in the struggles of Europe.48 Once again, the Great War served as a point of reference. The Washington Post noted that during this confict international law was swept away by the British navy, as it expanded the defnition of contraband, seized cargoes, blacklisted exporters, and cordoned of large sections of the ocean from which neutral ships were excluded. In a future war the United States would not be able to remain neutral without sufcient naval strength: “It must either have a strong defensive navy or it must join the next Great War on one side or the other.”49 With a strong naval force, it might be possible for the United States to create a “fortress America,” or what Samuel Crowther called “a national policy of self-containedness.”50 Combined with a steadily decreasing economic dependence on European imports (it had been reduced from 47 percent in 1914 to 29 percent in 1938), the United States might be able to maintain an economic isolationism that would assure American independence during a major confict.51 Crowther contended that with the exceptions of cofee, tea, raw silk, tin, and for the time being, sugar and rubber, America need not import anything, and a huge home market meant that the United States did not have to export anything.52 Protected by her military, American wage standards could be maintained and national policy could be shaped by national needs, rather than by “international traditions.”53 Norman Thomas, who was both a socialist and an isolationist, also cited “our lack of dependence upon foreign trade for our economic life.”54 When Brooks Emeny looked at the twenty-six commodities deemed strategic in time of war, he judged that the United States, the British Empire and, to a lesser extent, Russia, were “outstanding in potential wartime self-sufciency.” A shortage of nickel could be addressed “through a seizure if necessary of Canadian sources.”55 The United States was blessed with “a well-nigh impregnable continent,” said Stuart Chase, and Americans could live comfortably on their own resources.56 So rather than sending Americans of to save “the British empire, perhaps, or Mr. Morgan’s pocketbook, or the Polish Corridor, or the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” the United States should appropriate money for an adequate defense, but nothing for “military adventures into the Old World.”57 Jerome Frank, who served in the Security and Exchange Commission under Roosevelt also lobbied for American economic independence, “free from the dangers and disturbances of a distracted world.”58 Unlike most fortress America advocates, he had actually done some thinking about how this would work economically. America would need “national minimum labor standards” which would create a robust American home market that would absorb any

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surplus produced by American agriculture and industry.59 Idled workers could be put to work by the government and compensated with decent wages paid for by taxation.60 Who would bear the brunt of this taxation was left unsaid, but Frank’s complaints about labor inequities clearly indicated he believed the rich should pick up the tab.

Veterans No one had a greater right to involve themselves in questions of a future war than those who had recently been discharged from the last war. The dead and wounded of the Great War were bad enough, but the trauma of combat so brilliantly portrayed by Lost Generation writers—and the psychiatric casualties— was another sobering factor for veterans. By the end of the war some 100,000 American servicemen were being treated for shell shock in army hospitals.61 In 1919, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., son of the president, organized the American Legion. It was created for members of the American military who had been in uniform during the Great War. Its numbers were impressive. By 1920, the Legion had a membership of 843,000, some 20 percent of those eligible.62 Although ofcially nonpartisan, the Legion would become a deeply conservative force in American politics. At the Legion’s 1920 convention, members urged Congress to impose compulsory military training, and “Americanization.”63 The latter was a slippery concept, but the American Legion Weekly made it clear that what the organization had in mind was a sort of patriotic cleansing of immigrants and “radicals.” It seems that even the English language was found lacking in Americanism, with the Legion asking, When the United States starts its Americanization school for foreigners why not inform these aliens that they are about to be taught the American language? Why not drop a stale tradition, throw polemics overboard, refute the straight-laced sticklers for grammatical precedent and announce to the world that there is a new language? As for radicals, while the war was being fought “they were sowing their seeds of destruction and anarchy and laying the fres which they hope make a Russia of the United States.” The solution? “Cleanse the country of the skulkers whose insane ambition is to wreck it.”64 The similarity of this notion to the stab-inthe-back accusations coming out of post-war Germany is obvious. The violence by veterans against bolshevists, socialists, and trade unionists has been referred to elsewhere. Perhaps the best known incident that involved Legionnaires was the “Centralia Massacre.” On Armistice Day (November 11, 1919) the Legion post in Centralia, Washington, made plans to attack the town’s IWW (International Workers of the World) hall. Word had leaked out about the Legion’s plan, and when the Legion attacked the hall they were fred

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upon by IWW members both within the hall and across the street. Three Legionnaires were killed, and a fourth died in pursuit of IWW member Wesley Everest. After Everest was captured and put in jail, a mob entered the jail and took him out to be hanged.65 In addition to the extra-legal ramifcations of this incident, it was also an embarrassment to the Legion that these supposedly seasoned veterans were routed by radicals. Not surprisingly, an editorial in the American Legion Weekly fudged the details, referring only to “the mad viciousness of a recent attack by Red agitators upon an Armistice Day parade which resulted in the death of four veterans . . . .”66 In the years ahead the Legion promoted bills to outlaw the Communist party, to encourage investigations of “subversion,” to require teacher loyalty oaths and oppose eforts of unskilled workers to organize.67 As tensions increased in Europe in the 1930s, the Legion became more preoccupied with foreign afairs. The Legion endorsed the Neutrality Act of 1935, pledging to support “the maintenance of absolute neutrality by the United States Government.” In the same year it opposed the Ludlow Amendment, which would have called for a national referendum on the decision by the United States to enter into a war.68 Historian Raymond Moley, Jr., notes that the Legion generally supported government policies, and “shared the national revulsion from war.” For instance, in 1937 the Legion advocated “a strict policy of neutrality regarding foreign afairs” and further urged that the United States “be kept from any alliance which might draw this country into war.”69 Life magazine reported that at their 1939 national convention, Legionnaires “gave Isolationist Henry Ford a great ovation. They cheered many a ‘let’s keep out’ speech,” and petitioned Congress to “do everything it could to keep America at peace.” 70 This was also the view of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, another veterans’ group of 250,000. As war was beginning in Europe the VFW endorsed strict neutrality and called for a special session of Congress “to prevent any chance of diplomatic blunders.” 71 Perhaps the closest we can come to revealing the mindset of Legion members is a poll taken in 1939. When asked about their military service during the Great War, 38 percent called it a “great experience,” 25 percent said they had been “glad to serve their country and to do their duty,” and only 8 percent regretted having served. Interestingly, 44 percent believed that the war had been a mistake. The survey attributed this disillusionment more to the blunders made after the war and the destruction currently under way in Europe, “rather than an opinion that our own part in the World War was an error.” Summing it up, Historian William Pencak says the Legionnaires were simultaneously unhappy with the outcome of the war “while glorying in the role they themselves had played.” 72 It is not a stretch to observe that Americans in general viewed the war in the same way. Finally, in 1940 the Legion abandoned its sixteen-year position on neutrality and came out in favor of aid to Britain. Even at this point it was obvious the

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Legion was still laboring under the illusion that British propaganda had been responsible for bringing the United States into the Great War because it also asked Congress to block the spread of war propaganda.73 The Legion’s fnal split from isolationism came at the Legion’s national meeting in September 1941, when Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox “brought the American Legion Convention to its feet cheering” when he declared that the U.S. Navy now had orders to “capture or destroy” Axis vessels that threatened supply lines. The other speeches, including those of New York Mayor LaGuardia and Legion Commander Milo J. Warner, supported the administration’s foreign policy, indicating, as the New York Times put it, “that any eforts to get an isolation-tinged resolution out of the convention had small chance of success.” 74 Of the Americans who had served in the Great War, the two most celebrated were Eddie Rickenbacker and Alvin York. Both were Medal of Honor recipients, but their life stories were very diferent. Rickenbacker, the son of German-speaking parents from Switzerland, was a successful race car driver before the war. He endorsed the American decision to go to war following Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare.75 As a fyer during the war, he eventually became America’s top ace. Rickenbacker was one of the founders of the American Legion after the war, and made speeches around the country in favor of military preparedness (especially in the feld of aviation). As he put it, “I was hopeful that those of us who had been through the horrors of war could make our voices heard in favor of keeping America strong as the best means of preventing aggression against it.” 76 Like many Americans, he believed that the indemnity forced on Germany was too high, and in 1922 he presented what he called the Rickenbacker Plan for World Peace. This called for the reduction of German reparation payments and a loan from the United States to Germany to help stabilize the government. Without such concessions, said Rickenbacker, “I could foresee some kind of dictatorship arising.” 77 Congress was unresponsive. Politically, Rickenbacker supported Roosevelt in 1932 because he believed Roosevelt was “sound and conservative.” Roosevelt soon fell out of favor with Rickenbacker, however, after the president moved toward “liberalism and socialism.” The country, said Rickenbacker, was “steadily becoming a socialized welfare state.” 78 In 1935, Rickenbacker went to Germany and, with Hermann Goering serving as host, was given a tour of German aviation facilities. Rickenbacker believed that Goering probably showed him things that should have remained classifed, but Goering may have been playing a more subtle game by trying to intimidate the Western democracies with an awesome display of aerial power. Rickenbacker was fond of portraying himself as a Cassandra whom no one would heed. On the lack of enthusiasm for his Plan for World Peace, for instance, he observed that “had our nation’s leaders only listened to me earlier, the entire war could have been prevented.” 79 Nor did Rickenbacker gain much traction when he described how the Germans were training pilots who were  cooks, drivers,

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and mechanics. He was met with incredulity even after pointing out that “I myself had been a mechanic . . . .”80 In the years before the American involvement in the war Rickenbacker continued to urge preparedness—and isolationism. “While we in America were blinded by our ideals,” said the aviator, “the Axis powers were driving relentlessly onward in their determination to rule the world.”81 He would join the America First Committee. Perhaps even more celebrated than Eddie Rickenbacker was Alvin C. York (Figure 5.1). One of a family of eleven in rural Tennessee, York had originally considered becoming a conscientious objector because he believed that violence was contrary to his religion. He was persuaded that such was not the case, and he and his division was sent to France to fght in the Meuse-Argonne ofensive. In the operation that won for him the Medal of Honor, York killed at least twenty-fve German soldiers and captured another 132. Upon his return to the United States he refused any payments for personal appearances or endorsements, and returned

FIGURE 5.1

Alvin C. York. ca. 1918–1920. Bain News Service. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-ggbain-29128.

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to farming. He worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Like Rickenbacker, he was a founding member of the American Legion. Also like Rickenbacker, he was extremely outspoken on American foreign policy as war threatened both in Europe and Asia. In an Armistice Day speech in 1937, York referred to Japan’s war against China and predicted “after it conquers that country it is going to come over here . . . I’d just as soon we got into it now as later.”82 After the Munich Conference, where British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to hand over to Hitler Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, York noted (correctly as it turned out) that Hitler “has been given what he wanted this time, but he’ll ask for more.” York also emphasized his willingness to fght again.83

Peace Activists Peace activists in the inter-war era were frequently lumped in with isolationists, which they resented because isolationists tended to endorse nationalism, which as far as peace activists were concerned was part of the problem. Pacifsts mostly came from the political left, and could not help but be repelled by what historian Lawrence S. Wittner has called isolationism’s “right-wing aura.”84 Certainly, peace advocates could draw on a vivid object lesson from the last war. Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia University president and head of the Carnegie Endowment, observed in 1920 that the arguments for peace that had been put forward in the years before the Great War were now made “so much more efectively, so much more convincingly” by that confict that “they now sound like pleas in a dead language.”85 Peace activists drew their greatest strength from church groups, women’s organizations, and students, but even within these categories there were divisions. In 1936, Merle Curti wrote a history of peace activism, and delineated the various factions comprising this movement. There were peace conservatives, who believed that peace could be obtained through treaties of arbitration and a more robust world court (but without changing the political or economic status quo). Peace activist liberals, on the other hand, were hopelessly fractured between those who wanted the United States to consult with the League of Nations and those who saw the League as a political instrument of Old World powers. Others embraced more mainline isolationism, calling for strict neutrality and no loans to belligerents. Some peace activists sought to hobble the war-making power of the federal government by promoting the Ludlow resolution (under which a national referendum would be held on the decision to go to war). The Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters’ International wanted to deprive the state of the manpower needed to fght a war, while members of the American League against War and Fascism believed that peace was impossible in a capitalist system.86 The possibility of a future war struck especially close to home for young people, because they would be the ones fghting it. There was a robust student

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movement against war, with polls consistently showing widespread student resistance to military service. In 1933, the student newspaper at Brown University polled 21,000 students at sixty-fve colleges. 8,400 pledged themselves to complete pacifsm and 7,200 said they would fght only in the event of an invasion. The same year 500 Vassar College women, led by the college’s president, paraded through the streets of Poughkeepsie chanting “no more battleships, we want schools.”87 The Literary Digest took a poll of 65,000 college students in 1935, and 81 percent said they would refuse to serve in the military if the United States invaded another country, and 16.5 percent said they would not fght even if the United States was invaded.88 Also in 1935, 175,000 students participated in an anti-war strike, with many of them taking the Oxford Pledge. This oath had originated at Oxford University in 1933, when students of the Oxford Union voted 275 to 153 that “this House will not fght for King and country in any war.” The students of Cambridge also endorsed pacifsm in 1927, 1930, 1932, and 1933.89 The student anti-war campaign produced some of pacifst movement’s wittiest moments. At Harvard, students formed the Committee for the Recognition of Classroom Generals, which awarded armchair citations and tin soldiers to interventionist professors.90 Not to be outdone, the students of Princeton University created the Veterans of Future Wars. Members argued that after fghting the next war they would be due a bonus in 1965. But since veteran bonuses were always paid early, they demanded an immediate cash payment of one-thousand dollars for every male between eighteen and thirtysix. This would enable those who would be killed or wounded in a future confict to have “the full beneft of their country’s gratitude” while still living. The Veterans claimed a membership of 30,000, and even established a Future Gold Star Mothers auxiliary, whose members demanded payments from the government so that they could go to Europe to visit the grave sites of their future husbands and sons. William Randolph Hearst, whom we’ll meet later on, was simultaneously on a campaign to purge universities of “radical” students and professors. In response, 3,000 Columbia University students created the “William Randolph Hearst Post No.1, Veterans of Future Wars.”91 Student resistance would continue into the 1940s. On April 19, 1940, 10,000 students skipped class and gathered in New York in a rally for peace. Others across the country did the same.92 When Secretary of State Cordell Hull addressed an audience at Harvard in June 1940, he referred to nations “overrun and enslaved by the exercise of brute force” and the “folly” of isolationism. Simultaneously, the Harvard Students’ Union issued a pamphlet that read, “We have learnt the lessons of the Class of 1917. Nothing will move our determination to stay out of this war.”93 At Cornell, students built a six-foot high tank made of cardboard and sent it to the White House with the message, “Dear President Roosevelt—keep America out of war.” After the German invasion of Poland, the Yale News stated, “there is no preponderance of good or evil on

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either side.”94 Even as the Lend-Lease Bill was being considered in February 1941, 3,000 persons attending a protest meeting put on by the American Youth Congress heard the bill denounced as a device of “Wall Street and Downing street imperialism.”95 Among the most efective of the pacifst groups was the Women’s International League (WIL). This organization made it its business to inform constituents of the status of bills before Congress, and provided guidance for sending telegrams and letters to political leaders. The WIL also staged splashy stunts such as the “peace caravan” of 1931. This consisted of some 150 cars that traveled from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., with stops along the way to promote peace. Upon arrival in Washington, a petition was presented to Herbert Hoover with 150,000 signatures.96 There was a strong maternalist element in women’s pacifst groups that had carried over from the Great War, when Charlotte Perkins Gilman had described war as “maleness in its absurdest extreme.” Women, and especially mothers, were supposedly endowed with a natural repugnance against war. As the Woman’s Peace Party put it,” “As women, we are especially the custodian of the life of the ages.”97 Among those picking up this theme in the post-war decades was Kathleen Norris. A social critic and novelist (she would publish an eye-popping ninetythree novels in her career), Norris argued that women had the power to stop war, and that it was “a woman’s task and duty” to do so. She was one of the leaders of the Legion of Mothers of America, an organization created by William Randolph Hearst. Norris also spoke at gatherings sponsored by the America First Committee and was consistent with her message that the United States should “stay out of foreign wars and defend itself only if invaded.”98 While Norris sometimes made assertions and dispensed advice that resonated poorly with the public (such as insisting during the Depression that anyone who wanted a job could get one, and telling mothers that they should arm themselves so they could deal with enemy parachutists), for the most part she was an efective spokesperson for the isolationist cause.99 This could not be said of Elizabeth Dilling, whose involvement in politics often bordered on the bizarre. In 1934 she published The Red Network, which combined a maternalist critique with anti-Communism. This catalog of 1,300 suspected communists (Dilling referred to the “Red network of radicalism”) was a wild assortment that included Eleanor Roosevelt, Senator William E. Borah, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Jane Addams. Dilling believed that the time had come for an “American Joan of Arc,” and made it clear that she saw herself in that role.”100 In 1941, Dilling and a large group of women representing “The Mothers’ Crusade to Defeat Bill 1776” gathered outside the Senate chamber as the Lend-Lease debate began.101 They blocked the ofce of Senator Carter Glass (D-Vrginia) and tried to hang journalist Dorothy Thompson in efgy on the east gate of the White House entrance. Dilling called Glass “an overaged destroyer of American youth,” and in Thompson’s case Dilling explained that

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she wanted “to give Dorothy to the White House for a present because she wants to give away a million of our boys.”102 Utopianism was a chronic problem among pacifsts, which often alienated those who were working to achieve practical steps toward peace. For instance, when Robert La Follette commented on the Dawes Committee, which had successfully relieved tensions in Europe by negotiating a fnancial settlement to the reparations issue, he made a sneering reference to the “strong-boxes of international fnanciers.” Refecting on La Follette and other pacifsts, the New York Times observed, “Their uniform position is that all’s wrong with the world, but that nobody must be allowed to set any part of it right except themselves.”103 Pacifsts were often aficted with a tin ear as regards public opinion, promoting ideas and programs that were totally unpalatable to the general public. The Women’s Peace Union, for instance, supported a constitutional amendment that would deprive Congress of the power to declare war or to maintain a military establishment. It succeeded in enlisting exactly one congressional backer, Senator Lynn Frazier (R-North Dakota). The group attacked the Boy Scouts as a “kindergarten for war,” and tried to convince members not to become involved in the Red Cross because it was “an integral part of the war business.”104 The WPU recruited Jeannette Rankin to help with its work, but Rankin quickly fell out of favor because she favored U.S. participation in the League of Nations and the World Court.105 (Rankin would go on to become the only member of Congress to vote against a declaration of war against Japan.) As for fascism, WPU leader Elinor Byrnes saw it as a “state of mind” and, according to historian Harriet Hyman Alonso, “did not wish to blame Hitler, the man, but rather Nazism, the idea.”106 Among the most extreme of utopians was Kirby Page, an infuential evangelist. In “How to Keep America out of War,” Page emphasized that war was not compatible with the teachings of Christ. He acknowledged that Hitler was clearly responsible for starting the war, “But the question must be raised: are we dealing with a sinner or a fellow-sinner [orig. emphasis]?”107 The concept of a “just war” was alien to Kirby, who encouraged churches to renounce war “without qualifcation.” Kirby was teetering on the edge of American religious orthodoxy, but what placed him on the far fringes was his statement that “if someone must perish it is better for the innocent to die for the guilty than for the innocent in self-defense to kill the guilty.”108

Notes 1 “Messages of the President of the United States to Congress: Message of December 10, 1931,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1931, v. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1946), xxv. 2 Quoted in “Nationalization of Munitions Supply,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1935. 3 “Stop the Next War Now!” Christian Century 51, no. 11 (March 14, 1934), 352. 4 C. Hartley Grattan, Preface to Chaos: War in the Making (New York: Dodge, 1936), 78.

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5 Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations [1939] (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), 238. 6 “Arms and the Men,” Fortune 9, no. 3 (March 1934), 114, 116. 7 “Arms and the Men,” 114, 116. 8 “Arms and the Men,” 53. 9 “Arms and the Men,” 53. 10 “Arms and the Men,” 125. 11 H. C. Engelbrecht, “The Problem of the Munitions Industry,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July–November 1934, 121. 12 Engelbrecht, “The Problem of the Munitions Industry,” 125. 13 H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen, Merchants of Death: A Study of the International Armament Industry (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1935), 141–42. 14 Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 145. 15 Walter Consuelo Langsam, “The Peace of Paris: Europe between Two Wars,” War in the Twentieth Century, ed. Willard Waller (New York: Random House, 1940), 110; Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 173–80. 16 Merle Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936 [1936] (Boston, MA: J. S. Canner, 1959), 283–84. 17 Englebrecht and Hanighen, 184. 18 Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 184–85. 19 Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 176. 20 Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 257, 263. 21 Engelbrecht, and Hanighen, 263, 264. 22 See Kenneth D. Rose, The Great War and Americans in Europe, 1914–1917 (New York: Routledge, 2017), 259. 23 See Z. A. B. Zeman, The Gentlemen Negotiators: A Diplomatic History of the First World War (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 178–81. 24 Engelbrecht, and Hanighen, 267–68. 25 Langsam, 110. 26 Langsam, 116. 27 “The League: ‘Better a Failure . . . !’” Time 16, no. 20 (November 17, 1930), 21. 28 As historian Robert Dallek notes, “In short, the White House made it clear that the administration would do nothing to reverse America’s determination to isolate itself from conficts abroad.” Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life (New York: Penguin, 2018), 161. 29 Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 207. 30 Walter Lippmann, “The Disarmament Crisis,” in Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935 (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 331; Ferrell, 214. 31 “Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With Members of the German Government at Embassy Dinner, Berlin, July 25, 1931,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1931, v. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1946), 552. 32 Allen W. Dulles, “Germany and the Crisis in Disarmament,” Foreign Afairs 12, no. 2 ( January 1934), 267–68. Even Adolf Hitler, whose military buildup in Germany forced so many other nations to rearm, felt obliged to say in 1940 that, “The present armament burden is crushing the life out of all peoples; it cannot continue much longer. The national economy of every nation will crash before much further time elapses.” Quoted in an interview of Hitler by Sumner Welles, Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 105. 33 Quoted in Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 127–28. 34 Tasker H. Bliss, “What Is Disarmament?” Foreign Afairs 4, no. 3 (April 1926), 367.

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35 Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 265–71. When Joseph Wood Krutch contemplated the ghastliness of the war and its aftermath in 1934, he wondered “if civilization itself was not a mistake and if the ‘noble savage, was not more to be envied than the heir to Europe’s culture.” Joseph Wood Krutch, “Was Europe a Success?” American Points of View, 1934–1935, ed. William H. Cordell and Kathryn Coe Cordell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1936), 33–34. Originally published in The Nation, August 15–September 5, 1934. 36 George Fielding Eliot, The Ramparts We Watch: A Study of the Problems of American National Defense (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1938), 341, 345–46. 37 Stuart Chase, The New Western Front (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 173; C. Hartley Grattan, The Deadly Parallel (New York: Stackpole Sons, 1939), 154, 157. General Hugh S. Johnson also argued that if the United States became involved in the war “it is doubtful whether either our free economic system or our democratic political system could survive the necessary war-dictatorship.” Hugh S. Johnson, “The European War, 1939: I. Can Hitler Invade America?” Current History, November 1939, 13. 38 Charles A. Lindbergh, “What Substitute for War?” Atlantic Monthly 165, no. 3 (March 1940), 308. 39 Richard Aldington, “For Armistice Day, 1939,” Atlantic Monthly 164, no. 5 (November 1939), 686. 40 Quoted in Kenneth Whyte, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 563. 41 Quoted in David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (New York: Penguin, 2012), 503. 42 Kingman Brewster, Jr. and Spencer Klaw, “We Stand Here,” Atlantic Monthly 166, no. 3 (September 1940), 278, 279. Hamilton Fish Armstrong also believed that liberalism would not survive government curbs needed to win a future war, and that in war’s aftermath there would be “economic deterioration and social disorder” for every nation involved. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “We Or They”: Two Worlds in Confict (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 45–46. 43 Geofrey Crowther, “Can Democracy Survive the War?” New York Times, January 21, 1940. 44 John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 139. 45 Quoted in Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), 108. 46 Eliot, 344–47. 47 Eliot, 45, 43. 48 Eliot, 351, 349. Hubert Herring claimed that an enhanced American navy would be advantageous to Britain, and that “when the need came the United States could be counted upon to handle Japan, while English ships and men were used to police the threatened waters of the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic.” Herbert Herring, And So to War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1938), 105–06. 49 “Why the Navy Must Be Strong,” Washington Post, January 9, 1928; Building a great navy or adequate national defense was beyond the abilities of the Republican presidents of the previous era. George Fielding Eliot observed of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover that “none of them had any personal connection with, or frst-hand knowledge of, the defense forces of the nation and the problems generally grouped under the heading of national defense.” Roosevelt, on the other hand, had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy and “it was not necessary for him to laboriously try to learn the ABC’s of military policy.” Eliot, 17. 50 Samuel Crowther, America Self-Contained (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1933), 108.

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51 See “The Sixth Fortune Round Table: The United States and Foreign Trade,” Fortune 21, no. 4 (April 1940), 90. 52 Samuel Crowther, 242, 231. 53 Samuel Crowther, 335, 339, 230. 54 Norman Thomas, “We Needn’t Go to War,” Harpers Magazine 177, November 1938, 661. 55 Brooks Emeny, The Strategy of Raw Materials: A Study of America in Peace and War (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 166–67, 171. 56 Chase, New Western Front, 172, 83. 57 Chase, New Western Front, 16, 173. 58 Jerome Frank, Save America First: How to Make Our Democracy Work (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), 89. 59 Frank, 90, 122. 60 Frank, 376. 61 The term “shell shock” had been invented by British physician Frederick Mott, but by World War II the term had been abandoned in favor of “traumatic neurosis.” See S. Kirson Weinberg, “The Combat Neuroses,” American Journal of Sociology 51, no. 5 (March 1946), 466 n. 4. The Veterans Administration spent some 1 billion dollars on their care. William Pencak, For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919– 1941 (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1989), 28; By the mid-1940s, of the 11,501 veterans of the Great War who were still receiving hospital care, 81 percent were psychiatric disorders. Robert H. Zieger, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefeld, 2001), 111. See also Ben Shephard, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 123–32. 62 Pencak, 49. 63 Roscoe Baker, The American Legion and American Foreign Policy (New York: Bookman Associates, 1954), 118. 64 “Editorial,” American Legion Weekly 1, no. 20 (14 November 1919), 12. 65 See Tom Copeland, The Centralia Tragedy of 1919: Elmer Smith and the Wobblies (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993); John M. McClelland Jr., Wobbly War: The Centralia Story (Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society, 1987). 66 “Editorial,” American Legion Weekly 1, no. 22 (28 November 1919), 12. 67 Pencak, 11. 68 Baker, 156–61. 69 Raymond Moley, Jr., The American Legion Story (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1966), 247. 70 “New War Fails to Panic Veterans of An Old One,” Life, October 9, 1939, 21. 71 “V.F.W. Makes Plea for Congress Call,” New York Times, September 2, 1939. 72 Pencak, 44. See David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 177–87. 73 Baker, 172–73. 74 Byron Darnton, “Knox Tells Plans,” New York Times, September 16, 1941. 75 Edward V. Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker (Englewood Clifs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 81. See also: Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus [1919], ed. Arch Whitehouse (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965). 76 Rickenbacker, 251. 77 Rickenbacker, 253. 78 Rickenbacker, 184, 424. 79 Rickenbacker, 269. Rickenbacker noted that, “I am still asking myself why our statesmen ignored my straight-forward and comparatively inexpensive solution to the basically simple problem of Germany in 1922? Couldn’t they see what was going to happen? I could.” Ibid., 154.

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80 Rickenbacker, 265. 81 Rickenbacker, 255, 270. 82 Douglas V. Mastriano, Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014), 175. 83 Mastriano, 176. 84 Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933–1983 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984), 25. 85 Quoted in Curti, 271. 86 Curti, 277–82, 286–87. 87 Wittner, 6. 88 Charles Chatfeld, For Peace and Justice: Pacifsm in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971), 259–60. 89 Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Dungan Books, 2019), 24, 25. 90 Olson, 222. 91 Chatfeld, 271–72. For Future Gold Star Mothers, see Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Chichester: Wiley, 2012), 14. 92 “10,000 Here Join in Peace Rallies,” New York Times, April 20, 1940. 93 “Isolationist View Is ‘Folly’ Hull Asserts,” Washington Post, June 21, 1940. 94 Arnold Whitridge, “Where Do You Stand? An Open letter to American Undergraduates,” Atlantic Monthly 166, no. 2 (August 1940), 134. 95 “Lease-Lend Bill Fought,” New York Times, February 1, 1941; Gallup pollsters concluded that young people were more likely to oppose entry into the war than their elders. George Gallup, “Youths Oppose War Entry Stronger Than Their Elders,” Los Angeles Times, February 8, 1941. Harvard history professor Roger Merriman’s use of the word “shrimps” (creatures possessing a nerve cord but no brain) to describe youthful isolationists was endorsed by Roosevelt. In a letter to Merriman Roosevelt said, “There are too many of them in all the Colleges and Universities—male and female.” Quoted in Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election amid the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 43. 96 Curti, 276; Chatfeld, 161. 97 Quoted in Rose, 288–89. 98 Deanna Paoli Gumina, A Woman of Certain Importance: A Biography of Kathleen Norris (Calistoga, CA: Illuminations Press, 2004), 235, 247, 241. 99 Gumina, 271; Dunn, 239. 100 “Socialite Puts ‘Reds’ in Book,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1934. 101 “‘Red Network’ Author Arrested in Capitol,” New York Times, February 18, 1941. 102 “Efgy of Writer Seized in Capital,” New York Times, February 24, 1941. 103 “Seeing With One Eye,” New York Times, April 5, 1924. 104 Harriet Hyman Alonso, The Women’s Peace Union and the Outlawry of War, 1921–1942 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 30, 167. 105 Alonso, 110. 106 Alonso, 160. 107 Kirby Page, “How to Keep America Out of War” (Philadelphia, PA: American Friends Service Committee, 1939), 8. 108 Page, 76, 68.

6 ISOLATIONISTS A Gallery

The absurd variety of isolationists almost seems like the setup for a joke in which a Nazi, a Catholic priest, a publishing mogul, an aviator, and a pacifst walk into a bar. The Nazi was Fritz Kuhn, a German immigrant who founded the militant German-American Bund and was an active promoter of Hitler in the United States. Father Charles E. Coughlin was the Catholic priest, who built an American radio empire denouncing a host of ills that he saw plaguing American life. Publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst conducted an isolationist campaign through his stable of newspapers, and even ran for political ofce himself. Hearst had the greatest reach, but other isolationists in the publishing business included Robert McCormick, owner of the Chicago Tribune, Frank A. Munsey, publisher of three New York newspapers (the Sun, the Telegraph, and the Herald) and William Rockhill Nelson (Kansas City Star).1 Among the best-known of the many agitators for isolationism was Charles Lindbergh. Already famous for his solo fight across the Atlantic in 1927—and for the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932—Lindbergh attracted immense crowds as he hammered away at the importance of American military preparedness and avoiding foreign conficts. Oswald Garrison Villard was also a passionate isolationist, but in contrast to Lindbergh he was a pacifst who hated everything that had to do with the military. Like Fritz Kuhn, he came from a German background. Unlike Kuhn, Villard despised Adolf Hitler.

Fritz Kuhn Kuhn had been a German citizen who had fought for Germany in the Great War. Like many he had resisted the French invasion of the Ruhr, and blamed the French for the loss of his job. In 1923 he left Germany, frst for Mexico,

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then the United States.2 Kuhn moved to Detroit, and ended up on Henry Ford’s research staf. He became a citizen in 1933, and shortly thereafter became president of the German-American Bund.3 From colonial days, there had been a large German immigration to the United States. Germans in America created their own German-language schools and newspapers, and formed the German-American Alliance—the largest ethnic group in the country. During the Great War this organization had mostly dedicated itself to fghting Prohibition and to keeping America out of the confict.4 The German-American groups that dominated during the 1930s, however, took on a much darker hue. Like the organizations that preceded them, these new groups understood that the United States would never enter the confict on the side of Germany, and their isolationism consisted in trying to keep America from joining the Allied side. The German organizations that rose to prominence in the 1930s tended to be both aggressively anti-Semitic and proNazi (the German-American Congress for Democracy, a counter-Nazi group, would not be created until 1941).5 At a large rally in July 1935, two of these groups, the League of National German Societies and the German-American Conference, referred to New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia as “a Red and a Jew.” This denunciation was apparently rooted in La Guardia’s refusal to issue a masseur’s license to one Paul W. Kress (a German-American) and because the mayor was linked to an incident in which citizens tore down a swastika that was displayed on a ship’s bow.6 The following year, at a “German Day Fete” in Madison Square Garden, organizers announced that their intention was to “unite German parties of Germany in a common recognition that German blood belongs together.” 7 Of all the German groups in America, however, it was the GermanAmerican Bund that attracted the most attention, in part because of its adoption of Nazi symbols and stagecraft. In a gathering of some 4,000 at the Hippodrome in February 1937, Nazi guards in white shirts, the so-called Ordnungsdienst, were on duty and at the opening of the meeting marched into the hall. Upon the command ‘present arms’ they stood at attention while the American national anthem was played and the crowd gave the Nazi salute. Kuhn called the German-American Bund “the militant organ of the German element of the United States.”8 Later that summer, organizers issued a statement declaring that “our battle is the battle of all the hundred million Aryan (white gentile) citizens of these United States ….”9 The German-American Bund ran some seventeen camps in America, and the one at Andover, New Jersey (“Camp Nordland”), immediately attracted unwanted attention. Representatives William M. Citron (D-Connecticut) and

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Samuel Dickstein (D-New York) both pressed for investigations of this camp, where Citron believed “direction and control is not only by aliens but probably indirectly the present German government.”10 At a gathering of 25,000 for “German Day of Long Island,” Kuhn insisted that Bund camps were not being used for military training and that the swastika fag was never fown without the American fag.11 The American Legion also opposed the camp, with Wilbur Fuller of the Sussex Post of the Legion declaring, “The Bund should be disbanded immediately and its leaders deported.” He suggested that locals take action “to remove the alien blot from their midst.” Another Legion member complained that “youths were being taught to goose-step and salute the swastika,” and that Camp Nordland displayed a large photograph of Hitler, but a photograph of Roosevelt was “conspicuous by its absence.” To rumors that the Legion might raid the camp, August Kapprott, New Jersey leader of the Bund, responded, “If there is going to be any physical action by any of these private organizations, they will not get away alive.”12 Andover was now ground zero for the Bund and its opponents. Some 12,000 gathered at what the New York Times called a “Nazi fete” in Andover to support the camp. Donald Shea, founder of the National Gentile League, appeared wearing a black cap lettered “American Fascist.” “The issue today is Jewism versus Gentilism,” said Shea, and he called for the immediate deportation of European Jews as well as a boycott of merchants “who employ Jews in preference to Gentiles. We have already launched our boycott against the New York Jews’ World Fair.”13 J. Edgar Hoover announced that an investigation of Nazi activities in the United States was under way, and Representative Dickstein claimed that German aliens and German-Americans were joining militias to gain military training.14 Such criticisms seemingly had no efect on German-American organizers. When 20,000 assembled at Madison Square Garden to celebrate “German Day,” a telegram was sent to Berlin “thanking Herr Hitler for freeing Germany from the treaty of Versailles and from the ‘errors of Marxism.’”15 Near Southbury, Connecticut, local constables arrested two workers clearing brush near a pro-Nazi camp. Their crime was working on Sunday, which was in violation of a local blue law.16 Later, Southbury residents voted 142 to 91 in favor of a zoning ordinance that banned Nazi camps.17 A number of other towns also passed anti-Bund legislation banning parades in which foreign fags were displayed.18 In contrast, Dixon Ryan Fox, president of Union College, New York, allowed Fritz Kuhn to appear at the college. His response to the criticism he received was, “We could not honor our own convictions very highly if we refused to test them [students] from time to time by contrary opinion or doctrine.”19 Wherever the Bund assembled there were confrontations—with increasing violence. In October 1937, there was a Bund parade in Yorkville at which “four

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minor scufes” were reported.20 At a Bund gathering in Bufalo, where it was estimated that half of the audience of 700 were American Legionnaires, the featured speaker was interrupted by former Assemblyman Frederick Hamer, who ascended the rostrum and began delivering a speech of his own. When Hammer asserted that his forebears left Germany because they ‘did not like the military aggression’ of the nation, some one in the hall shouted: ‘Coward!’ ‘Come outside with me and we’ll settle that right now,’ Hammer retorted. In a moment a half dozen fghts fared in the hall and women spectators fed screaming.21 At a Bund meeting in Philadelphia in March 1938, a group of anti-Nazis “turned the gathering into a riot.” Scores were injured.22 There was fghting in front of the Yorkville Casino where 2,000 Bund members had shown up to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Thirty were injured.23 In Brooklyn, four thugs attacked Charles Weiss, editor of the anti-Nazi magazine Uncle Sam. They beat him, scratched swastikas on his chest and back and ransacked his ofces.24 On a higher level of criminal mischief, a federal court convicted Bund founder Ignatz Griebl of espionage in 1938. The court declared him to be “chief of the biggest spy ring ever found in the United States in peacetime.” Several other Bund members were also convicted and were sent to Leavenworth. Griebl, who at the time was a lieutenant in the U.S. army reserve, escaped to Germany.25 In June 1938, Kuhn announced that the Bund would open up ten new camps in the United States, bringing the total to thirty-two. At an enquiry of the New York state legislature the same month, Kuhn claimed that 60 percent of government ofcials were Jewish, and that both parties were “under the control of the House of Rothschild.”26 (Later he would refer to Roosevelt’s “Jew Deal.”)27 Kuhn admitted that the Bund’s aims were the same as the Nazis, and that “it wasn’t the Jews who built up this country. They came later where there was something to grab.”28 German Ambassador to the United States Hans Heinrich Dieckhof told American Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the German government ofcially forbade German citizens from joining groups such as the German-American Bund, but others suspected the Nazi government of involvement in American domestic afairs. Representative Dickstein claimed that Germany had poured some $4 million into the United States to support groups such as the Bund.29 Indeed, Hans Thomsen, the German chargé d’afaires in Washington, adroitly promoted isolationism in America. He claimed to have a good relationship with the America First Committee, and funneled money into the Committee to Keep America Out of Foreign Wars, and into the Make Europe Pay War Debts Committee. In one instance, Thomson was impressed by a speech given by Senator Gerald Nye, and persuaded Nye to allow the German embassy to print and circulate 100,000 copies of it.30

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Some light was shed on Kuhn’s activities during the Dies Committee hearings. The committee had retained the services of John C. Metcalfe, a newspaper reporter who worked for the Chicago Daily Times (and who had been born in Germany), to go undercover and gather information about Kuhn and the Bund. According to Metcalfe, Kuhn bragged to him about his infuence: “I have removed the former German Ambassador, Hans Luther. I have a secret relationship with Germany. I can get anything I want.” The Bund asserted that it only had American members, but Metcalfe said that there were also German members. Estimates of the number of Bund members varied wildly, with the Bund claiming that it had 6,500 members, while the Department of Justice estimated membership at 8,500. Metcalfe believed that 25,000 was more accurate.31 In his own testimony before the committee, Kuhn admitted that he went to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics, and took uniformed groups with him. They paraded in the streets with swastika arm bands under an American fag. Kuhn had his picture taken with Hitler but claimed that he didn’t discuss anything with him.32 Late in 1939 Kuhn was sent to prison for embezzling money from his own organization. In all, the campaign to Nazify America was extremely inept, as exemplifed by a propaganda pamphlet called George Washington: The First Nazi.33

Charles E. Coughlin Charles E. Coughlin was a Catholic priest who presided over the National Shrine of the Little Flower in suburban Detroit. Better known as Father Coughlin, he was a populist in his political views, casting himself as the champion of the working class and arguing that capitalism in America had made possible the rise of two of his other great hatreds, socialism and communism. He also raged against Prohibition (“a smoke screen which beclouded the vision of the people of our nation”) and birth control (variously, “a remedy for our social conditions in the cesspool of Grecian vice,” and a “surrender” to the “ideas of paganism”)34 He was blatantly anti-Semitic, and like most other isolationists referred to “the ruin of the Great War upon whose altars so many millions of human lives had been ofered up, for what foolish purpose no man knows.”35 He blamed the Treaty of Versailles for crushing Germany fnancially and making a “mockery of peace.”36 By 1939, Harpers contributor Lillian Symes would credit Coughlin with “expressing most successfully and in terms more closely allied to those of the early Nazis, the anti ‘red’, anti-labor, anti-International Banker (so easily translated into anti-Semitic) resentments of our lower middle classes.”37 Coughlin began his radio broadcasts in 1926, but really found his voice— and a national audience—during the lean years of the Great Depression. The number of listeners to Coughlin’s radio show is hard to calculate, but the American Institute of Public Opinion estimated that in December 1938,

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15 million listened to one or more broadcasts, and that there were 3.5 million regular listeners. The survey concluded that listeners were most likely to be Democrats, city dwellers, and from the lower income bracket.38 Coughlin’s followers could have a considerable impact on national politics. In the Spanish Civil War, Coughlin supported the generals over the republicans because of the republic’s anti-clerical stance. Franklin Roosevelt was considering lifting the arms embargo in favor of the republic, but Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes told the president that such a move “would mean the loss of every Catholic voter next fall.” Indeed, when the radio priest asked listeners to write to their representatives and demand that the Spanish arms embargo not be lifted, Congress was fooded with some 100,000 telegrams.39 Coughlin originally supported Roosevelt, and spoke at the 1932 Democratic Convention. He later cabled Roosevelt and said, “I am with you to the end. Say the word and I will follow.”40 In March of 1934 he judged the New Deal “more or less successful” and called Roosevelt’s inaugural address “the most important message delivered in the United States since the Declaration of Independence.”41 Eight months later, the bloom was of the rose, with Coughlin taking the Democratic party to task for failing to address the problem of income distribution, and even calling into question the viability of America’s party system (“obsolete,” controlled by “unseen masters,” and little better than “putrefying carcasses”).42 Later, he would call Roosevelt “a liar,” and make the suggestion that the president’s real name should be “Rosenfeld.”43 Coughlin created the National Union for Social Justice to “rescue American democracy” from both the Republican and Democratic parties. When the National Union failed to make any impact on the 1936 elections, Coughlin admitted that the group had been “thoroughly discredited” and announced that he was withdrawing from all radio activity (he was back at it a couple of months later).44 Coughlin was nothing if not ambitious. In addition to starting his own political party, he formed a labor union to organize auto workers in competition with the American Federation of Labor.45 His failure here was as complete as his involvement in party politics. Coughlin was passionate in his denunciations of capitalism, arguing in 1932 that “a disease is ravishing this country—the disease being the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.” Without a change in these conditions, “we’ll have a revolution.”46 In his appeal for the creation of the National Union for Social Justice, he envisioned a group that would address income disparities and lobby for social justice legislation.47 He could see in the future the inevitable dissolution of capitalism. 48 While these views might seem Marxist to the casual observer, Coughlin was embracing the tradition of Christian socialism. Enunciated by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” set out the relations between labor and capital.49 In May 1931, on the fortieth anniversary of that encyclical, Pope Pius XI issued his own encyclical. The Pope was seeking a new relationship between capital and labor because the

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current system “permits capitalists to grow rich while labor remains doomed to a life of hard toil.” The pontif also condemned communism and socialism, and expressed the hope that class war would give way to class collaboration.50 Coughlin made the argument that communism rose out of the “evils of capitalism,” which was logical enough, but he also claimed that there was no real diference between the two (“Marxian socialism and capitalism are Siamese twins”) and what was needed instead was a “Christian deal” or “socialized capitalism.” He was vague on the details.51 The indefatigable Coughlin founded an anticommunist school near Detroit, and was somehow able to induce two-hundred school children to stand with their arms outstretched in the form of a cross and take an oath: “I pledge myself to do all in my power to destroy communism.” If necessary, they would sacrifce their lives “rather than obey the dictates of Karl Marx and those who hate our country and our church.”52 President Roosevelt, said Coughlin, was a “communist” who was “surrounded by atheists ….”53 Coughlin combined the themes outlined above to create a distinctive isolationism. Going after the banking establishment was an extremely popular tack for isolationists (Senator Burton K. Wheeler [D-Montana] claimed in 1941 that American foreign policy was being dictated by “bankers who think more of their dollars than they do of American democracy”) but Coughlin raised it to a new level.54 He claimed that capitalistic greed had produced “idleness and hunger and discontent.” Condemning the trafcking in “blood bonds,” the radio priest saw entanglement in foreign alliances as a device to redeem “the muddled investments of international fnanciers.”55 British bankers and British propaganda were favorite targets of Coughlin’s (he no doubt knew that Brit bashing would resonate with his Irish-Catholic listeners). There were snide remarks about the United States “minding England’s business,” and expressions of anxiety that Americans were in danger of becoming “the cat’s-paws for saving the international bankers of the British Empire.”56 Coughlin’s brand of isolationism was also represented by those who wrote pieces for his publication Social Justice. One of them, Edward Lodge Curran (like Coughlin a Catholic priest) was arguably even more extreme in his views. He called the Versailles Treaty “a doctrine of hatred and injustice” designed to “preserve the evils of international Capitalism.”57 Subtlety was not Curran’s long suit: “Destroy the power of international bankers!” said Curran. “Destroy this super-government and fnancial dictatorship.”58 (After the war started, Curran founded the National Committee for the Preservation of Americanism against Internationalism.)59 It should again be emphasized, however, that isolationism attracted not only unhinged populists. Senator Homer T. Bone (D-Washington) and Senator William E. Borah (R-Idaho), who were progressive in their politics, were also isolationists. Both wrote articles for Social Justice. In Bone’s contribution he claimed that if America took on the role of policing the world, she would have to abandon her eforts to make the United States a

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better place. “The highest duty of all of us is to strive earnestly, right now, to make America safe for Americans. IN AMERICA [orig. emphasis].”60 Some Social Justice contributors went so far as to defend Hitler. Mark Meecham, for instance, claimed that “Mr. Hitler is no more a villain than any other German who would attempt to lead Germany in revolt” against the injustices imposed on her. When Germany annexed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, “Peace-loving statesmen throughout the world rejoiced at the announcement.”61 This was a claim that Coughlin himself embraced, arguing that those who opposed Germany’s absorption of the Sudetenland had been “duped by propaganda and Leftist leadership.”62 As one Social Justice contributor put it, “It is fortunate for the twentieth century that it produced a man of the caliber of Neville Chamberlain ….”63 Coughlin’s comments on Jews garnered for himself a well-deserved reputation as an anti-Semite. He drew on the standard-issue anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews controlled “the system of international fnance which has crucifed the world to the cross of depression.”64 But he also claimed that Jews dominated the communist parties in both Russia and Germany. Throughout his career Coughlin promoted himself as a vigilant opponent of “British propaganda,” but proved to be peculiarly susceptible to Nazi propaganda when it came to Jews. In November 1938, he alleged that persecution of Christians in Russia, Mexico and Spain was much greater than the persecution of Jews by Nazis. He also claimed that ffty-six of the ffty-nine members of the Soviet Central Committee were Jews. After his radio station WMCA was forced to intervene with a statement that Coughlin had “uttered certain mistakes of fact,” Coughlin admitted that his statistics had been borrowed from Nazi sources.65 Undaunted, Coughlin went on to assert that the Jewish promotion of communism in Germany had forced that nation to embrace Nazism.66 Just in case he had not made himself clear, Coughlin insisted that Americans were not going to get involved in a war “for the sake of revenging the ill treatment meted out to any Jew or group of Jews resident in Germany or elsewhere . . . .”67 Not surprisingly, Coughlin had the full approval of the Nazi regime, which declared that, “The German hero in America for the moment is the Rev. Charles E. Coughlin because of his radio speech representing National Socialism as a defensive front against bolshevism.” Attempts to censor him were described as a “typical case of Jewish terrorism of American public opinion.”68 Coughlin spoke at German-American Bund rallies, insisting that, “When we get through with the Jews in America, they’ll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing.” When war broke out in Europe he supported Hitler’s “sacred war … against the Jews.”69 Coughlinism, as one observer put it, was “the thread on which American fascism has been strung.” 70 Unfortunately, Coughlin’s anti-Semitism was not an anomaly but deeply rooted in American society. In 1920, Henry Ford published a 200-page pamphlet called The International Jew in which he claimed that, “Jewish infuence in

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German afairs came strongly to the front during the 1914–1918 war. It came with all the directness and attack of a fying wedge, as if previously prepared ….” Germany, said Ford, was brought low by bolshevism, and Jewish control of the press, the food supply, and industry. Free copies of The International Jew were handed out at Ford dealerships.71 Ford pledged to assist Germany in its rearmament, and a grateful Hitler awarded him a medal for the military vehicles produced at the Ford-Werke plant in Cologne.72 Few isolationists were as anti-Semitic as Coughlin and Ford, but there were frequent isolationist references to supposed Jewish infuence on American life. In 1923, Senator Robert La Follette introduced a resolution that placed responsibility for the Great War on international bankers, singling out the Jewish Rothschilds.73 During the debate over the lifting of the arms embargo, Hiram Johnson, in a letter to his son, wrote that, “The Jews, and every newspaper that they had an interest in—and they are many—were shouting for repeal of the embargo.” 74 Isolationist Senators Gerald Nye and Bennett Champ Clark believed that motion pictures were a source of war propaganda, and because Jews controlled at least half of the flm industry, these two were left open to charges of anti-Semitism.75 German flm propagandist Leni Riefenstahl visited the United States in 1938 to promote her flm Olympia. Five days after she arrived, there were the Nazi Kristallnacht attacks on Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues, but this unpleasantness seemingly didn’t dampen her American welcome. She noted that Henry Ford gave her a Model T and “praised the elimination of unemployment in our country and in general seemed to have a soft spot for [National] Socialism.” 76 This was not greatly surprising. In Mein Kampf, Hitler had claimed that Jews in the United States were increasingly “the controlling masters of the producers,” and that “only a single great man, Ford, to their fury, still maintains full independence.” 77 (One of Hitler’s aides went so far as to travel to Detroit in 1924 to ask Ford for funding, but was turned down.)78 Riefenstahl also met with Walt Disney in Hollywood, who “warmly welcomed me and showed me his extensive studios and even his latest work. It was gratifying to learn how thoroughly proper Americans distance themselves from the smear campaigns of the Jews.” 79 Major General George Van Horn Moseley, former commander of the U.S. Third Army, claimed in 1939 that the purpose of the war in Europe was “establishing Jewish hegemony throughout the world.” In private, he called Jews “crude and unclean, animal-like things.” Moseley’s views did not attract much attention until January 1940, when the FBI arrested eighteen members of the Christian Front and charged them with the attempted overthrow of the United States government. They planned to place Moseley in the White House. There was no evidence that Moseley knew of this conspiracy.80 The American Catholic publication The Commonweal held Coughlin, Social Justice and other antiSemitic proselytizers “directly responsible” for precipitating this incident.81

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As the Jewish crisis in Europe worsened in the late-1930s, polls taken in 1938 and 1939 showed that few Americans favored allowing increased numbers of European Jews to immigrate to the United States. When a Fortune poll asked in July 1938, “What is your attitude toward allowing German, Austrian, and other political refugees to come into the U.S.?” 67.4 percent answered, “With conditions as they are we should try to keep them out.” Fortune commented, “So much, then, for the hospitality of our melting pot.”82 Complicating the narrative was a split between American Jews whose origins were in Eastern Europe, and the long-established, more prosperous Jews who had come from Germany. This latter group was almost as resistant as the general population to allowing large numbers of additional Jews (especially from Eastern Europe) to immigrate to the United States. Walter Lippmann, himself a Jew of German origins, wrote that “The rich and vulgar and pretentious Jews of our big American cities” were “the real fountain of anti-Semitism.”83 Anti-Semitism became worse once America was pulled into the war. Mississippi Representative John Rankin referred to Walter Winchell on the House foor as a “little kike.” Jews were accused of shirking military duty, of profteering, and blamed for getting the United States into the war in the frst place. In a 1944 poll, Americans responded that Jews were a greater “menace” to the United States than German-Americans or Japanese-Americans.84

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst is best known to the public today as the character on which Orson Welles based his 1941 flm Citizen Kane (Figure 6.1). Everyone at the time recognized that this devastating portrait of a newspaper magnate whose personal failures reduced him to a pathetic fgure was aimed at Hearst. Hearst himself expended enormous energy trying to kill the flm.85 Like the fctional character of Kane, Hearst did indeed enjoy enormous fame and wealth. In 1927, he was publishing twenty-seven newspapers in sixteen of the largest U.S. cities (13 percent of all American dailies), as well as nine monthly magazines. He also had Hearst Corporation radio stations in eleven cities. The Hearst Empire pulled in more than $15 million in profts in 1927.86 But the popularity of Hearst publications did not necessarily extend to Hearst the man, especially when he entered the political realm. While he served two terms in Congress, he was defeated when he ran for mayor of New York City. Voters rejected him when he ran for governor of New York, as did the Democratic party when he tried to secure the nomination for president. Hearst had bitterly opposed American participation in the Great War, claiming that involvement in European afairs was foreign to American tradition and “obviously opposed to our best interests as a nation.”87 He ran anti-British editorials and excused the German sinking of the Lusitania as within the “accepted rules of civilized warfare.” Hearst insisted that, “No sensible man will believe

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FIGURE 6.1

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William Randolph Hearst. Harris & Ewing. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-ggbain-29128.

the assurance of the Allies that they fght for humanity and the rights of small nations,” and claimed that the fnal victory of the Central Powers was just as sure as “the Amen in church.”88 According to biographer Ben Procter, increasing numbers of Americans began to view his statements as “unpatriotic, indeed bordering just short of treason.”89 Like H. L. Mencken, Hearst was a revisionist before it was popular. It was also during the Great War that Hearst began to develop fully his “yellow peril” obsession. What most disturbed Hearst about the war in Europe was that it meant a weakening of white nations, and “a corresponding strengthening of Oriental aims, ideals, and ambitions.” “The yellow man’s civilization is being built from the ruins of the white man’s civilization ….”90 When the war was over it was not surprising that Hearst opposed American membership in the League of Nations, claiming that the Allies had “created a covenant which transferred militarism and imperialism from the people they had fought to the people they had led ….”91

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Like many who saw themselves as Progressives, Hearst had supported Roosevelt in 1932. Shortly thereafter Hearst became convinced that Roosevelt had repudiated the Democratic Party’s policies and had embraced “the platform of the Karl Marx Socialists in almost every word and letter.”92 Much of the Roosevelt administration, said Hearst, “is more Communistic than the Communists themselves.”93 Hearst’s anti-communist campaign of the mid-1930s was conducted at the same time as the Dies Committee’s investigations of communism. The supposed threat of communism at the nation’s universities especially exercised Hearst. When the Hearst-owned Syracuse Journal ran the headline “Drive All Radical Professors and Students from the University” in 1934, it had already received a wire from Hearst advising the editor to “support the actions of the universities in throwing out those communists and say, furthermore, that they ought to be thrown out of the country.”94 The backlash from the academy was fierce. A group of twenty New York educators that included Charles Beard and John Dewey denounced Hearst and accused him of harboring fascist views. When 15,000 gathered at Madison Square Garden for an anti-Hearst rally in February 1935, they heard Beard describe him as “an enemy of everything that is best in the American tradition …. No person with intellectual honesty or moral integrity will touch him with a ten foot pole.”95 (It should be noted, however, that Beard shared Hearst’s views on isolationism.) Not one to be easily chastened, Hearst doubled down on his anti-communist rants in the months ahead: While we fatuously do nothing to stop them, the Communists here in America are boring into our ARMY, our NAVY, our SCHOOLS, our FACTORIES, our POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS, and are, as they did in France, gradually worming their way—MASKED—into HIGH PLACES IN THE GOVERNMENT [orig. emphasis].96 Hearst continued to promote his anti-Asian campaign. It was his goal “to prevent these Orientals swarming into the country and absolutely overrunning it  …. This is not prejudice. It is race preservation.”97 He suggested that the federal government set an example “by rounding up undesirable aliens from all parts of the country and deporting them with a zeal worthy of the cause.”98 Simple racism, however, doesn’t adequately describe Hearst because he also condemned New York’s Century Club for rejecting Jacques Loeb’s application because he was Jewish. Hearst was appalled that in “a country supposed to be free from prejudices of race and creed, a man of this distinction should be affronted for reasons of race and creed.”99 He also advocated using former ­German colonies in Africa as a homeland “for persecuted and dispossessed Jews.”100 For all his involvement in the political realm, Hearst could also be dismayingly naive. In the fall of 1934 he flew to Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hearst asked him about religious and racial discrimination, Hitler declared that

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in his government “all discrimination is disappearing.” While Hearst didn’t accept this at face value, he did allow himself after the meeting to be photographed with some leading Nazis, including the virulently anti-Semitic Alfred Rosenberg. This left Hearst open to charges that he himself was anti-Semitic.101 Like most isolationists, Hearst returned again and again to the Great War, which he viewed as a European civil war, conducted for the purposes of “aggression and aggrandizement.” America had strayed from Washington’s injunction against foreign entanglements, and “for no good reason” had become involved in the confict.102 Developments in the immediate post-war were equally dispiriting. The Versailles Treaty, said Hearst, was unjust, and was certain to result in future wars.103 In fact, Hearst believed that only two conditions prevailed in Europe: “One is a state of war and the other is a state of preparation for the next war ….”104 Also typical of isolationists, Hearst harbored resentment toward Britain based on Britain’s lack of appreciation of American contributions during the Great War, and on Britain’s reluctance to pay her debts. Having been burned once, “we are not disposed to immolate ourselves again on the altar of friendship for Britain.”105 Hearst advocated increased military spending, and believed along with Lindbergh that the key to defending the United States was through a robust air force.106 Unlike Father Coughlin, Hearst defended capitalism, but feared that “another World War would universally and overwhelmingly end it.”107

Oswald Garrison Villard Among our isolationists, Oswald Villard had the rare distinction of vigorously opposing American entry into three diferent wars: the Spanish-American War, the Great War, and World War II. He referred to the Spanish-American confict as “an absolutely needless war,” and became a founder of the Anti-Imperialist League. He worked assiduously to gain independence for the territories gained in the confict.108 His eforts in the cause of liberalism were wide-ranging, including co-founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was drawing on a family tradition. His mother, Fanny (Garrison) Villard was the daughter of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and helped create the Women’s Peace Movement. Villard’s family had lived briefy in Germany when Villard was an infant before moving to the United States. Villard’s father was both a newspaper reporter and a shrewd investor, and after making a lot of money in American railroads, bought The New York Evening Post and The Nation. 109 Villard would work at both publications, and his longstanding pacifsm eventually led to his departure from the Post during the Great War, and from The Nation (where he served as editor) in 1940.110 Villard was initially attracted to Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom agenda of social reforms, but was appalled by Wilson’s segregationist policies.111

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Disturbed by what he saw as the increasing militarization of America, Villard founded the League to Limit Armaments in 1914.112 He called the American decision to enter the Great War in April 1917 “the great tragedy,” a betrayal of America’s fundamental foreign policy to “remain aloof from the jealousies, intrigues, and wars of Europe ….”113 As a correspondent covering the Versailles Conference, Villard already harbored an extreme bitterness toward Wilson. He acknowledged in his memoir, however, that Wilson was “the only possible barrier between a peace of folly, rapacity, and vindictiveness ….” But Villard also knew Wilson’s “cowardice, knew his egotism, knew his readiness to compromise, and to persuade himself that surrendering to your opponent was, in a tight place, the height of political skill ….”114 Like virtually every other isolationist, Villard condemned what he saw as the Allies’ brutal settlement against Germany.115 Villard had looked forward to the creation of an organization that would resolve international disputes, but in his opposition to the League of Nations he let the perfect become the enemy of the good. He was unhappy with the draft of the League because there was no directive for the nationalization of the armaments industry and for the abolition of conscription.116 Did Villard really believe that any nation on the planet would sign of on such provisions? In the end, the shortcomings of the League and the fact that it was attached to the hated Treaty of Versailles prompted Villard and The Nation to fght against both. There was more than a little humiliation in joining the likes of Henry Cabot Lodge and giving “aid and comfort to those whom we opposed at every other point ….”117 As we have seen, Villard was active in promoting revisionist history in the 1920s. There was little else in this decade that brought him joy. He became involved in Robert La Follette’s run for the presidency in 1924, even though he no doubt knew that this candidacy was doomed.118 Like other pacifsts, he was disappointed in the original version of S. O. Levinson’s plan for the outlawry of war because it did not disavow the right of self-defense, and because Levinson had conceded that it might be necessary for a nation to maintain a small citizen’s army for defense. For Villard, this was tantamount to mandatory military training.119 Even the Washington Conference, in Villard’s estimation, “cast a dark shadow over the world” because it failed to deal with chemical weapons and the submarine. Yet Villard added that this dark cloud would have a silver lining “if by reason of this failure men’s hopes turn from the utopian dream [of arms limitation] to the practical possibilities of abolishing war.” Villard’s biographer Michael Wreszin adds, “Why Villard should view arms limitation as more utopian than the abolition of war is not entirely clear.”120 As Hitler increased his power in Germany, Villard was under no illusions as to what it meant for the rest of the world. In one speech in 1934, he claimed, “There will be no escape from it. We are to choose once more whether we are to be free men or whether we are to be human beings enslaved.” Villard was

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in favor of the former Allied nations instituting an economic and diplomatic boycott of Germany, but he did not sanction the use of force.121 He was critical of French and British appeasement, and encouraged those nations to act “with great vigor” against the threat posed by Hitler. But as a pacifst he could not admit that such vigor must inevitably mean military force, and as an isolationist he did not want America to get involved.122 He was increasingly torn apart by the contradictions of his own beliefs. The Nation itself was changing. Villard sold the magazine in 1935, and by 1937 Freda Kirchwey, who had been with the publication since 1918, was the owner and editor. She was strongly anti-fascist and supportive of Roosevelt’s foreign policy. Villard continued to write a column for The Nation, but his views and those of the magazine had drifted apart. The last six months of his tenure at The Nation—from January to June 1940—encapsulated the agony of Villard and pacifsts everywhere as the uselessness of their philosophy in the face of Hitler’s aggression became obvious. For instance, when The Nation ran a story on the wholesale murder of Jews in Poland ordered by Hitler, its conclusion was, “There can be no neutrality toward this mass extermination.”123 But Villard did not engage such pressing matters. In the same issue, Villard said that if he were president and had to deal with the situation in Europe, he would ask the belligerents “to state their peace terms,” then explore the possibility of sending representatives to discuss a settlement. That this was a pathetically weak suggestion in the face of mass murder must have seemed obvious even to Villard.124 He continued to cling to pacifsm (“I have not changed my pacifst position”) but his twenty-year diatribe against the British now foundered on the reality of war. The British “are defending everything that is decent in the life of nations,” said Villard. “I want with all my heart to have the Allies win ….”125 Villard and Kirchwey were increasingly at loggerheads, with Kirchwey taking Americans to task for their willingness “to hold on to our neutrality even if it means subsidizing aggression in every corner of the world ….”126 Americans wanted to see Hitler defeated, said Kirchwey, but shied away from risks or responsibilities. “They watch the death grapple in Europe as an audience watches a melodrama, demanding with deep emotion that the villain get his just desserts but comfortably detached from the job of seeing that he gets them.”127 With the fall of France, Kirchwey claimed that the United States was already at war because of the very nature of fascism. And while Americans had tried to avoid the full implications of involvement, “we have been driven further and further into the struggle. And now we are in it for the duration.”128 Kirchwey had given Villard quite a bit to chew on, and in his last two columns for The Nation he was only able to put up a weak defense. Villard belabored the obvious when he observed that the magazine’s endorsement of an American military buildup was based “on the theory that sooner or later we shall have to fght the dictators who have at this moment apparently won the

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war …” His argument against such a buildup was that the fascists could not win in the long run, and that an enhanced American military would inevitably lead to the end of democracy. He did not suggest an alternative.129 In his fnal column Villard announced his resignation because of diferences with the editors over American foreign policy. He referred to The Nation’s abandonment of opposition to “all war” [orig. emphasis] which had been the chief glory of that publication. In a parting shot he predicted that the Nation’s editors would some day realize that their proposals would end social progress, lower the standard of living, enslave labor, and turn the United States into a totalitarian state.130 In her withering response, Freda Kirchwey said that after reading Villard’s column she felt that she had been transported to “a dream world.” Villard had retreated from the reality “that a system of highly organized tyranny” now controlled the continent of Europe, and was “attempting to impose itself on the world.”131 Villard kept active after leaving The Nation, testifying before a Senate subcommittee that “the road to dictatorship is open” if Roosevelt was elected to a third term.132 After having voted for socialist Norman Thomas in the previous two elections, Villard announced that he was endorsing Wendell Willkie in 1940.133 As his former pacifst colleagues dropped away, Villard was increasingly isolated. “Blood-thirsty pacifsts,” he called them.134 But Villard seemingly compromised his own principles by joining the America First Committee, which put an emphasis on military preparedness. He eventually realized this himself and resigned, but why had he joined in the frst place?135 Like other isolationists, he worried that Jews were using their money and infuence on behalf of American intervention.136

Walter Lippmann The inclusion of Walter Lippmann in a gallery of isolationists is counterintuitive because by the early 1940s Lippmann became indelibly associated with American interventionism (Figure 6.2). But in Lippmann’s story we can distinguish the path that many took from isolationism to a desire for a more active U.S. foreign policy. Lippmann was an avid internationalist before America entered the Great War, viewing the United States as a “straggling democracy,” lacking in “high purpose.” He yearned for an international union that would end the nationalism that had torn apart the world for centuries.137 He was appalled by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, and opposed American participation in the League of Nations because it would further the imperial ambitions of France, which, he said, was dreaming of the glory days of Louis XIV and Napoleon.138 Lippmann’s move toward isolationism could be seen in 1922, when he argued that democracies generally had to choose between isolation and a diplomacy that betrayed their ideals. The most successful democracies (Switzerland,

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FIGURE 6.2

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Walter Lippmann. Harris & Ewing. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-21695.

Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) “have had no foreign policy in the European sense of the word.”139 Like others, he struggled with how humanity might eliminate war as a means of settling disputes. In “The Political Equivalent of War” (1928), Lippmann entertained the moral suasion notion of changing the human heart, but admitted that humans were in the same position they had been for 2,000 years, with their ideals and practices hopelessly at odds.140 A peaceful settlement of a dispute, he believed, could only take place when the status quo and those who wanted to disrupt the status quo found mutual beneft. As an example Lippmann cited the invasion of the Ruhr, when France tried, and failed, to impose the Versailles settlement on Germany. But with France’s acceptance of the Dawes Plan, she began to get reparations again and Germany signed the Locarno agreement. In the long run, however, war would not be abolished until there was an international organization that could preserve order, and be “wise enough to welcome changes in that order.”141

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Lippmann did not specify how such a government was to be achieved, and it should be noted that in addition to his disapproval of the League of Nations, Lippmann endorsed the Senate’s rejection of American involvement in the World Court. The Court, like the League, had been tainted by European politics, said Lippmann, and used the example of the Court’s opinion on the Austro-German tarif of 1931, where “the judges divided according to the diplomatic aims of the nations they came from …”142 Like most Americans, Lippmann watched with apprehension as Hitler rose to power in the mid-1930s. The symbolism of the Nazi book burnings in 1933 was, to Lippmann, unmistakable: Germany believed “that violence is the means by which human problems must be solved.”143 The only peace possible in Europe, according to Lippmann was freezing the existing borders, and the only alternative to such a peace was “general war.”144 Still, Lippmann’s “cold appraisal” of America’s interest in 1935 led him to the conclusion that the United States could contribute nothing to peace in Europe. For the time being, the best course for America was to stand apart from European politics.145 If war came, however, Lippmann was skeptical that the nation would be able to maintain any kind of credible neutrality. Belligerent nations would inevitably interfere in American commerce, leaving the United States with the choice to either “go to war or to let ‘neutral rights’ be unenforced.” Since the War of 1812, American neutrality in a war in which a great sea power was engaged had proved to be illusory.146

America First Committee and Charles Lindbergh The largest isolationist group by far was the America First Committee (AFC). Making its debut on September 4, 1940—the day after a deal was announced for sending American destroyers to Britain—the AFC would eventually amass a membership of 800,000. No other anti-war group could boast of larger numbers, nor of a more diverse membership. Sinclair Lewis, E. E. Cummings, Charles Lindbergh, Gerald Ford, and Lillian Gish were members. Flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker was a member, as was Hanford MacNider, founder of the American Legion. But pacifst novelist Kathleen Norris also belonged to the AFC. John F. Kennedy sent a check for $100 to the AFC, and his brother Robert Kennedy, Jr., helped organize the Harvard branch. Gore Vidal did the same thing at Exeter, while William F. Buckley supported the AFC at his prep school, Millbrook.147 Founded by R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., a law school student at Yale, and General Robert E. Wood, chairman of the board of Sears Roebuck, America First was headquartered in Chicago. The city’s large numbers of German-Americans and Irish-Americans provided a natural constituency for an isolationist organization. Chicago’s Midwest location also drew on a sentiment against foreign involvement that was more prevalent in this part of the country than on the

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Atlantic or Pacifc seaboards. In addition, the Chicago Tribune, published by Robert McCormick, was arguably even more isolationist in its editorials than the Hearst newspapers. (During the debate in Congress on the Lend-Lease bill, the Tribune declared that the purpose of the legislation was “the destruction of the American Republic.”) Nearly two-thirds of the people who would join the AFC lived within a three-hundred-mile radius of Chicago.148 It should be emphasized that while the AFC was anti-war, it was not antimilitary. The frst line in the “America First Creed” is: “I believe in an impregnable national defense.” The creed goes on to declare that “we should keep our country out of the Old World’s everlasting family quarrels. Our fathers came to America because they were sick of them. Let’s not stick our necks back into them.” Membership was open to all patriotic Americans, but, “We exclude from our rolls Fascists, Nazis, Communists, and members of the Bund.”149 Enforcing these exclusions was a constant headache for the AFC, and as AFC historian Ruth Sarles noted, “Because it was to Germany’s advantage for the United States to stay out of the war, it was inevitable that the America First Committee would be accused of pro-Nazism.” Local chapters were forever weeding out members who spread anti-Semitism.150 Among the most high-profle anti-Semites who were asked to leave the AFC was Henry Ford.151 Coughlinites also tried to get involved, and AFC Chairman General Robert E. Wood bluntly told them, “We don’t want you people.”152 Indelibly associated with the AFC was Charles Lindbergh, who towered above virtually everyone in terms of public esteem. No American has been more adored than was Lindbergh after his solo fight across the Atlantic in 1927, and no one received a more genuine outpouring of sympathy than Lindbergh after his child was kidnapped from his New Jersey home in 1932. Beginning in the late 1930s, Lindbergh put his enormous prestige on the line when he became an outspoken isolationist. Lindbergh may have felt he was carrying on a family tradition. His father, Charles Lindbergh, Sr., a fve-time representative from Minnesota, had also embroiled himself in public controversy when on March 1, 1917, he made a speech that condemned “dollar plutocracy vs. Patriotic America,” and lamented that, “The man who reasons and exercises good sense today may be hanged in efgy tomorrow by the jingoes.”153 The younger Lindbergh became a lightning rod for national politics, attracting fervent admirers and equally fervent detractors. Aligning himself with the America First Committee, he spoke to huge gatherings (and these speeches were frequently broadcast over the radio) in 1940 and 1941. It is not going too far to claim that Lindbergh was the tail wagging the America First dog, and that without him this committee would have been very much diminished (Figure 6.3). Lindbergh had undeniable star power. He spoke to 40,000 at Chicago’s Soldier Field.154 A crowd of 12,000 heard him speak in Minneapolis, and 22,000 turned out for his speech at Madison Square Garden. In New York as in other cities, “The audience was highly demonstrative and noisy, breaking into

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FIGURE 6.3

Burton K. Wheeler, Charles A. Lindbergh, Kathleen Norris, and Norman Thomas at an America First Rally at Madison Square Garden, New York. 1941. Associated Press. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62-111262.

speeches with repeated outbursts of applause for every statement that America wants to keep out of war,” and “for all assertions that the United States is strong and mighty enough not to worry about its defense from any invader.”155 When Lindbergh was introduced at the Hollywood Bowl, the crowd of 20,000 “burst into a terrifc roar to leave no doubt of their approval of America’s erstwhile ‘Lone Eagle.’”156 The counter-rallies were also huge. Some 20,000 showed up at the Boston Commons for a gathering sponsored by the Boston Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Speakers told the crowd that if France and Britain fell, America would have to face the dictators of Europe by herself. It was, said former Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell, “a struggle over conficting ideas of civilization to which we cannot be indiferent.”157 One of Lindbergh’s key points was that America could maintain its isolationism because “we still have two great oceans between us and the warring armies of Europe and Asia.” Any invasion force could be countered by American air forces. “We need not fear a foreign invasion,” said Lindbergh, unless Americans themselves brought it on by quarreling and “meddling with afairs abroad.”158 In another speech he said, “It is one thing for England and Germany to bomb

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each other across the English Channel. It is an entirely diferent problem for Europe to bomb America across the Atlantic Ocean.”159 The ocean barriers thesis had been around long before Lindbergh. In the early days of the Great War, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Walter Hines Page had said, “Again and again I thank God for the Atlantic Ocean.”160 But the Atlantic proved to be a poor barrier to keeping America out of that war, and a couple of decades later it seemed even less likely to do the job. In 1940 playwright Robert E. Sherwood expressed his scorn that “misguided isolationists” still believed that the Atlantic and Pacifc Oceans were “just as broad as in the days of sailing vessels.”161 Writing in the Washington Post, Mark Sullivan warned that a continued belief in ocean barriers “will be fatal to us.”162 It was “a century-old fallacy,” said Sullivan, “that the Atlantic is a moat defending us against invasion from Europe.”163 The ocean barriers idea, however, was not as ludicrous as its critics made it out to be. Historian Richard M. Ketchum notes that in 1938 it took a day and a night to fy across the continental United States. Pan American Airways’ China Clipper took sixty hours to fy between San Francisco and Manila, with stops along the way. There were no regularly scheduled transatlantic fights between Europe and America until 1939, and most ocean liners traveling from Europe to the United States took fve days to cross the Atlantic.164 Even some who would later become internationalists were seduced by ocean barriers. Walter Lippmann, for instance, claimed in 1935 that “the two oceans, an adequate navy and a small professional army, are sufcient protection as a frst line of defense ….”165 More controversial than ocean barriers were other things Lindbergh said. He worried that “we have alienated the most powerful military nations of both Europe and Asia,” and suggested that if Germany won the confict in Europe, the United States would be able to come to an accommodation with that nation (“cooperation is never impossible when there is sufcient gain on both sides ….”)166 As Lindbergh was making these statements in 1940, the United States was considering providing Britain with military equipment, and a presidential campaign was also underway. In the aftermath of Roosevelt’s convincing victory, Herbert Hoover met with Lindbergh and according to Lindbergh “we discussed the possibility of Roosevelt being impeached before his term expires.”167 Just as inter-war revisionists had resorted to logical contortions to shift responsibility for starting the Great War, Lindbergh now did the same thing to excuse German aggression in the Second World War. “After all,” he said, “it was France and Britain who declared war.”168 The “downfall of the democracies in Europe,” said Lindbergh, was precipitated not by Nazi Germany, but by “the interventionists who led their nations into war uninformed and unprepared.”169 Testifying before the House Foreign Afairs Committee on the Lend-Lease bill, Lindbergh said that Britain could not win against Germany

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and should pursue a negotiated peace. Of the two enemies, he said, “I think one (side) is just about as much at fault as the other. I want neither side to win.”170 Germany’s Nazi government fully approved of Lindbergh, noting that, “In view of the moral terrorism exerted by interventionists this courage shown is exemplary.”171 In a dispatch sent from Washington, German military attaché Friedrich von Boetticher claimed that, “The Jewish element and Roosevelt fear the spiritual and, particularly, the moral superiority of this man.”172 In May 1941, at a rally in Minneapolis, Lindbergh took on the mantle of martyr to free speech (“I do not know how much longer free speech will be allowed in this country. But as long as our laws permit it, I intend to continue telling you what I believe”). The response from the crowd was a standing ­ovation.173 In Asia as in Europe, Axis powers were following Lindbergh’s activities closely. In fighting near Chungking, Japan dropped bombs as well as leaflets quoting Lindbergh’s Minneapolis speech. Japan stressed the disunity of the United States and the unlikelihood of American support for China.174 Making Lindbergh’s position more personally painful was that many people with whom he was close publicly spoke out against him. Elizabeth Morrow, president of Smith College and Lindbergh’s mother-in-law, supported repealing the arms embargo provision under the neutrality laws and sending supplies to the Allies.175 Speaking on the radio on behalf of the Committee for American Defense Through Aid for the Allies, Morrow said, “I believe that everything we have which we could give without impairing our own safety—‘all that is within us’—should go to help them [the allies] win on the field of battle.”176 Henry Breckinridge, a long-time friend of Lindbergh who had advised him during the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, warned that, “If France and England go down we shall face alone the dictators.”177 He also made his contempt for isolationists clear: “Against the people’s discernment of the stark and awful truth they cry propaganda, international bankers, warmongers.”178 Of Lindbergh’s critics in the Roosevelt administration, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes was clearly the most blunt (Clare Boothe Luce described Ickes as having “the soul of a meat axe and the mind of a commissar”).179 Ickes called Lindbergh “the No. 1 United States Nazi fellow traveler” and asserted that “every act of his and every word … proves he wants Germany to win.”180 Lindbergh, according to Ickes, was “a Hitler stooge” and his supporters “Nazi wolves in Pacifists’ clothing.”181 Lindbergh’s critics in Congress included Senator Claude Pepper (D-Florida), who called the aviator “the chief of the fifth column in this country ….”182 By 1941, support for isolationism was badly eroding. Gallup polls indicated that 52 percent favored American convoys in the Atlantic, and 62 percent opposed a negotiated peace between Britain and Germany.183 The logic of ­isolationists’ statements became more and more tortured. Wittingly or not, they were borrowing from the Nazi playbook. For instance, as German planes were pounding Polish cities on September 1, 1939, Hitler labeled Britain the

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“real aggressor,” who was trying to precipitate a general conflict in Europe “­a fter driving Poland into war.”184 In a speech in San Francisco in early July 1941, Lindbergh claimed that, “Intervention by England and France in the war between Germany and Poland did not save Poland; it postponed the war between Germany and Russia, and brought the defeat of France and the devastation of England.”185 Likewise, when Congress was considering a military conscription law in 1940, Senator Robert Taft employed fantastical logic in his observation that conscription “was in force in Belgium, in Holland, in France, and it did not do them any good ….”186 Finally, on September 11, 1941 at a rally in Des Moines, Lindbergh stepped over the line into pure bigotry when he started talking about Jews. “Their greatest danger to this country,” said Lindbergh, “lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.” In one of Lindbergh’s most notorious statements, he said that “the three most important groups which have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.”187 Even the Keep America Out of War Congress expressed its “deep disappointment” with Lindbergh’s comments on Jews. The Committee to Defend America observed that “one of the cruelest and most used methods of the Nazis is to lay blame for misfortune on the shoulders of the Jewish people and whip up hatred against them,” and that Lindbergh had done exactly that in Des Moines.188 The AFC was well aware of its dependence on Lindbergh, and spent considerable effort trying to enlist other celebrity isolationists. Ambassador to Britain Joseph Kennedy was one possibility. In 1940 Kennedy had said, “There is no reason—economic, financial, or social—to justify the United States entering the war.”189 In November of that year, one month before he tendered his resignation, Kennedy proclaimed, “I’m willing to spend all I’ve got to keep us out of the war.”190 Unfortunately for the AFC, Kennedy remained loyal to Roosevelt.191 Thus, while others made speeches and radio broadcasts on behalf of America First, including twenty members of the Senate and thirty-four members of the House, Lindbergh remained by far the greatest asset that the Committee had. As Ruth Sarles notes in her official history of America First, “every one of the 118 chapters represented had indicated that a Lindbergh meeting was a ‘must’ item on their programs for the next few months.”192 Fort Wayne, Indiana, “won” a Lindbergh speech by demonstrating that in its American First membership drive it had the greatest percentage increase (Life magazine observed that Fort Wayne also had the highest percentage of German-born or persons of German ancestry in America.)193 After Des Moines, however, the tide was clearly changing against isolationism in general and Lindbergh in particular. When Gallup pollsters asked, “If Lindbergh, Wheeler, Nye and others start a Keep-Out-of-War party and enter candidates in the next Congressional elections, would you vote for the candidate of that party?” only 16 percent said “yes.”194 Lindbergh’s rapturous

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receptions have been referred to, but when Burton K. Wheeler spoke in Billings a few days after Lindbergh’s Des Moines speech, he reportedly “was greeted with boos and a volley of eggs when he mentioned the name of Charles A. Lindbergh … ”195 Still, right up until Pearl Harbor America First remained the nation’s premier anti-war organization. Socialist Norman Thomas reviled America First’s “armed isolationism and hemispheric imperialism,” but admitted that this group was “the nearest to a mass organization against war.”196 Anne Morrow Lindbergh who, as the wife of Charles Lindbergh, was herself constantly in the public eye, is a good example of the ordeal that pacifsts went through during this era. She was twelve when the Great War ended, and dates her pacifsm from “the hopeful post-World War I atmosphere of belief in ‘a war to end all wars.’” The literature of the post-war years, especially Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, made an “indelible impression” on her, and convinced her “that war was the ultimate evil.”197 Her husband Charles was less utopian, insisting that for all nations Force was the fnal arbiter. “I recognize that he is right,” said Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “but I feel still bitter and rebellious about it. Isn’t there something that is not contained in that creed?”198 Anne Morrow Lindbergh got to see Germany up close in the late 1930s, and seemed hopelessly conficted. She abhorred Germans for their “treatment of the Jews, their brute-force manner, their stupidity, their rudeness, their regimentation,” yet praised them for their “spirit of hope, pride, and self-sacrifce.”199 Lindbergh’s confusion was encapsulated in her 1940 publication The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith. In this volume she lumped together fascism, Nazism and communism as the consequence of “our great material advance at the expense of our moral and spiritual one …” Germany, Italy and Russia had “discovered how to use new social and economic forces … They have felt the wave of the future and they have leapt upon it.” She refused to see the European war as a struggle between good and evil, and rejected the notion that the things that people condemned about Germany were innately German. They were, said Lindbergh, “born of war, revolution, defeat, frustration and sufering.”200 The Great Depression had also brought trauma to the United States, and Anne insisted that the frst duty of Americans was “reform at home rather than crusade abroad.”201 Parsing what it was that Anne Morrow Lindbergh actually meant was heavy work. President Roosevelt’s interpretation was that some people believed that “tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future—and that freedom is an ebbing tide.”202 Historian Lynne Olson described her ideas as “half-baked, her writing cloudy, imprecise, poetic, somewhat mystical, and illogical.”203 Others were less generous. Dorothy Thompson claimed that Charles Lindbergh would use Wave of the Future as a handbook for the creation of a fascist state in America, while Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes called the book “the Bible of every American Nazi, fascist, Bundist and Appeaser.” Wave was a huge hit, selling 50,000 copies in

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just two months, but in the years ahead Anne Morrow Lindbergh very much regretted its publication. “I didn’t have the right to write it,” she said. “I didn’t know enough.”204 ----The spectrum of isolationist opinions, ideas and personalities was extremely broad, and it is hard to think of another movement that was able to build a coalition from such a disparate group, and to maintain members’ loyalty for some twenty years. Under ordinary circumstances, many of these individuals would have been at each other’s throats. But on the basic proposition of isolationism—that the United States should oppose foreign entanglements and foreign wars—America came as close to national unity as it was likely to get until the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Notes 1 Nicholas Wapshott, The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), 7. 2 See Testimony of Fritz Kuhn, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th, 1st. Sess., v. 6, August 17, 1939, 3706. 3 “Kuhn Admits Aims Are Same as Nazis,’” New York Times, June 24, 1938. 4 Clifton J. Child, The German-Americans in Politics (New York: Arno Press, 1970), 3–4. 5 See “U.S. Germans Open A Loyalty Drive,” New York Times, March 3, 1941. 6 “Mayor Denounced by 6,000 Germans,” New York Times, July 31, 1935. 7 “German Day Fete in Garden Oct. 4,” New York Times, August 14, 1936. 8 “Nazi Rally Assails Aims of Communism,” New York Times, February 13, 1937. 9 “Nazis Here Rebuke Foes,” New York Times, July 5, 1937. 10 “Federal Men Asked to Sift Nazi Camps,” New York Times, July 23, 1937. 11 Kuhn accused Dickstein of making “libelous utterances against GermanAmericans with a view of making them the object of public hatred and contempt.” “25,000 Hear Critics of Nazis Assailed,” New York Times, August 30, 1937. 12 “Bund Camp Defes Raid,” Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1937; “Alien Allegiance Scored by Legion,” New York Times, September 11, 1937. 13 “12,000 at Nazi Fete Hear Boycott Plan,” New York Times, September 6, 1937. 14 “G-Men Study Nazi Bund’s Air as Paper Charges Plot,” Washington Post, September 10, 1937; “U.S. Nazis Flock to Join Militia, Dickstein Says,” Washington Post, September 23, 1937. Hoover later reported that the F.B.I. “made no recommendations for legal action against the organization.” “Hoover Reports on Kuhn and Bund,” New York Times, January 6, 1938. 15 “Germans at Rally Felicitate Hitler,” New York Times, October 4, 1937. 16 “Sunday ‘Blue Law’ Snags Pro-Nazi Campers,” New York Times, December 6, 1937. 17 “Town Meeting Votes to Bar Summer Camp of Nazi Bund,” Washington Post, December 15, 1937. 18 “Nazi Rallies Banned in Two Communities,” New York Times, May 11, 1938. 19 “Kuhn Speech at Union Defended by Dr. Fox,” New York Times, December 14, 1937.

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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

“1,300 Police Guard 800 Nazi Paraders,” New York Times, October 31, 1937. “Fights End Meeting of Bund in Bufalo,” New York Times, February 14, 1938. “Anti-Nazis Storm Meeting of Bund,” Washington Post, March 25, 1938. “Thirty Injured in Bund Riot,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1938. “Four Thugs Raid Anti-Nazi Magazine Here,” New York Times, April 23, 1938. Albert Grzesinski, “Hitler’s Branch Ofces, U.S.A.,” Current History and Forum, November 26, 1940, 12. “Bund Will Open Ten New Camps,” Los Angeles Times, June 6, 1938; “Bund Leader Says Jews Control Both Major Parties,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1938. Quoted in Sarah Churchwell, Behold America: The Entangled History of “America First” and “The American Dream” (New York: Basic Books, 2018), 233. “Kuhn Admits Aims Are Same as Nazis,’” New York Times, June 24, 1938. “Hitler Tells Reich Citizens Not to Join Bund in U.S.,” Washington Post, March 1, 1938; “Nazis in U.S. Put Under Triple Fire,” New York Times, May 1, 1938. Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election Amid the Storm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 233–40. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 75th Congress, 3rd. Sess., v. 1, August 12, 1938, 11, 12, 21. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Congress, 1st. Sess., v. 6, August 17, 1939, 3773–74. See Tim Bourverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019), 310. Charles E. Coughlin, “Slaughter of the Innocents,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930—April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 213. Charles E. Coughlin, “The Great Betrayal,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930—April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 246; “Coughlin Sees ‘Betrayal,’” New York Times, March 23, 1931. Charles E. Coughlin, “Prosperity,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930–April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Know and O’Leary, 1931), 138. Coughlin, “Prosperity,”139, 143. Lillian Symes, “Fascism for America—Threat or Scarehead?” Harpers Magazine 179, June 1939, 41. “Coughlin Has 3 1/2 Million Listeners,” Washington Post, January 8, 1939. Ickes quoted in Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2012), 65; “Coughlin Plea Spurs Wires to Congress,” New York Times, January 16, 1939; “100,000 Wire Congress to Keep Spanish Embargo,” New York Times, January 17, 1939. Quoted in Wapshott, 29. When Eleanor Roosevelt was asked in 1932 what the President thought of Coughlin, she said, “He disliked and distrusted him.” Ibid., 29. “Coughlin Reviews Year,” New York Times, March 5, 1934. “Radio Priest Sees New Deal at Crossroads,” Washington Post, November 12, 1934; “Coughlin Demands Two New Parties,” New York Times, November 5, 1934. “Coughlin in Apology to President,” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1936; Anthony Rhodes, Propaganda, The Art of Persuasion: World War II (New York: Chelsea House, 1976), 141. “Coughlin Criticizes Old and New Deals,” New York Times, April 27, 1936; “Coughlin Quits Air, Suspends his Union, Saying Farewell,” New York Times, November 8, 1936. “Union Begun by Coughlin,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1935. “Priest Defends His Radio Talks,” New York Times, May 10, 1932.

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55

56

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“5,000,000 Recruits Asked by Coughlin,” New York Times, November 19, 1934. “Coughlin Predicts End of Capitalism,” New York Times, December 31, 1934. “Pope Will Broadcast to World on Friday,” New York Times, May 12, 1931. Arnaldo Cortesi, “Pope Demands Justice for Workers, With Fairer Distribution of Wealth,” New York Times, May 16, 1931. “Coughlin Raps Capitalism for Communism Rise,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1936; “State Capitalism Urged by Coughlin,” New York Times, February 19, 1934. “Coughlin Runs School in War on Radicalism,” Washington Post, October 4, 1935. “Father Coughlin Brands Roosevelt as Communist,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1936. “Wheeler Sees US ‘Rushing’ Into War,” New York Times, April 28, 1941. Wheeler gained some unwanted publicity when it was revealed that he used his franking privileges to send out cards to 1 million persons. The cards contained quotes from prominent isolationists, and urged that citizens write to the White House in favor of staying out of the European war. “Wheeler Franked Anti-War Speeches,” New York Times, July 25, 1941. Charles E. Coughlin, “Internationalism,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930–April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 103; Charles E. Coughlin, “Prosperity,” Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930–April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 143. “Coughlin Charges Link with League,” New York Times, November 25, 1935; “Coughlin to Expose ‘Benedict Arnolds,” New York Times, November 4, 1935. Historian John E. Moser argues that while “a certain degree of Anglophobia could be found among almost all Americans” after the Great War, “the most vehement expressions of anti-British rhetoric came from those who believed themselves to be on the ‘outside’ of the country’s political, social, and cultural elite. The denunciations of British policy so commonly made by Irish- and German-Americans, northern liberals and socialists, southern populists, and midwestern progressives were directed as much toward Wall Street and Big Business as they were at the British.” John E. Moser, Twisting the Lion’s Tail: American Anglophobia between the World Wars (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 193. Edward Lodge Curran, “The Challenge of the Pact and the Challenge of Social Justice,” Social Justice, September 4, 1939, 15. Edward Lodge Curran, “Grand Larceny: The Story of Boom Time America,” Social Justice, February 28, 1938. See “Edward Curran, Right-Wing Priest,” New York Times, February 16, 1974. Homer T. Bone, “To Police the World Is to Abandon Eforts Here,” Social Justice, March 7, 1938, 17. See William E. Borah, “No Foreign Entanglements,” Social Justice, July 11, 1938, 13. Representative George H. Tinkham (R-Massachusetts) cited the infuence of “British propaganda” on American newspapers, and worried that the United States was on the road to becoming a “puppet state of Great Britain.” George H. Tinkham, “Events Now Parallel Those Preceding War in 1917,” Social Justice, March 7, 1938, 17. Across the Atlantic, Winston Churchill’s private secretary John Colville lamented in November 1939 that, “The power of our propaganda in the U.S. and elsewhere does not seem very formidable.” John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 48. Mark Meecham, “Danger: Propaganda at Work,” Social Justice, October 10, 1938, 10. “Coughlin Denounces ‘Mongerers of War,’” New York Times, March 27, 1939. Joseph P. Wright, “Vicious Versailles,” Social Justice, October 17, 1938. “Coughlin Lays Woes to ‘Internationalism,’” New York Times, February 20, 1939.

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65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

86 87 88 89 90

“WMCA Contradicts Coughlin on Jews,” New York Times, November 21, 1938. “Anti-Semite Charge Denied by Coughlin,” New York Times, June 5, 1939. “‘Boycott’ On Hatred Urged by Coughlin,” New York Times, January 30, 1939. “Germany to Keep Dieckhof at Home,” New York Times, November 27, 1938. Coughlin claimed that he was not anti-Semitic but anti-communist. See Charles E. Coughlin, “Am I An Anti-Semite?” (Detroit, MI: Condon, 1939). Quoted in Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 1938–1941: America on the Way to War (New York: Random House, 1989), 124. Dale Kramer, “The American Fascists,” Harper’s Magazine 181, September 1940, 384. Max Wallace, The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 43–44. Dunn, 60. Wallace, 28. Hiram W. Johnson to Hiram W. Johnson, Jr., Letter of November 5, 1939. Hiram Johnson Papers, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Box 8, Online Archive of California, BANC C-B 581. Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 188. Quoted in Wapshott, 107. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston, MA: Houghton Miflin, 1999), 639. Gerhard L. Weinberg, “Hitler’s Image of the United States,” American Historical Review 69, no. 4 ( July 1964), 1007. Quoted in Wapshott, 107. Wallace, 243–44. “The Hypnotized,” The Commonweal 31, no. 14 ( January 26, 1940), 293. “The Fortune Quarterly Survey: XII: Foreign Aggressions and the Refugees,” Fortune 17, no. 1 ( July 1938), 80. See David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 411–12. See Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2008), 144–49. Hearst ofered RKO studio head George J. Schaefer $800,000 to destroy the negatives and prints. When Schaefer declined, Hearst launched “a whispering campaign implying that Welles had communistic leanings, that Schaefer was antiSemitic, and that Kane attacked the American way of life.” Ben Procter, William Randolph Hearst: The Later Years, 1911–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 231–33. See also the documentary The Battle over Citizen Kane (1996), dir. Thomas Lennon and Michael Epstein, WGBH Boston. Procter, 137; See also Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 16. William Randolph Hearst, “What Kind of Peace?” October 10, 1919, in William Randolph Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco, CA: privately published, 1948), 592. “The Case of Mr. Hearst and his Newspapers,” Current Opinion 65, no. 1 ( July 1918), 5, 6. Procter, 47. William Randolph Hearst, “The Cost of Kings,” September 3, 1914, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 567; William Randolph Hearst, “Let the People Decide,” July 1, 1917, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 576.

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91 William Randolph Hearst, “The Covenant of the League of Nations,” January 26, 1920, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 608. 92 William Randolph Hearst, “A Reply to the President,” September 21, 1936, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 130. 93 William Randolph Hearst, “The San Francisco Strike,” July 23, 1934, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 109. 94 See James Wechsler, Revolt on the Campus [1935] (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), 224–25. 95 Procter, 195–96. 96 William Randolph Hearst, “Communism in France,” July 3, 1936, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 127. 97 William Randolph Hearst, “Japanese Exclusion,” April 15, 1923, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 256. 98 William Randolph Hearst, “Deportation of Undesirable Aliens,” March 19, 1930, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 257. 99 William Randolph Hearst, “Letter to the Editor of the New York American,” May 15, 1913, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 24. 100 William Randolph Hearst, “Radio Address of May 28, 1939,” in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 37. Aryan race theory was rejected by Hearst, who claimed that America had been made stronger by its incorporation of various racial groups. Lest anyone see an inconsistency in Hearst’s views on race, given his denunciations of Asian groups, Hearst emphasized that his approval of racial amalgamation was limited to “ASSIMILABLE RACES” [orig. emphasis]. William Randolph Hearst, “The American Races,” July 31, 1938, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 27–28. 101 Procter, 187. 102 William Randolph Hearst, “European Militarism,” June 23, 1931, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 560. 103 William Randolph Hearst, “France and Italy,” February 20, 1939, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 286. 104 William Randolph Hearst, “European Wars,” September 24, 1934, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 561. 105 William Randolph Hearst, “The Triumph of Democracy—America and the British Empire,” January 27, 1939, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 285. 106 William Randolph Hearst, “The First Line,” March 27, 1938, in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 388. 107 Hearst, “European Militarism,” in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 560. 108 Michael Wreszin, Oswald Garrison Villard: Pacifst at War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965), 21–22. 109 Oswald Garrison Villard, Fighting Years: Memoirs of a Liberal Editor (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 12–15; D. Joy Humes, Oswald Garrison Villard, Liberal of the 1920s (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1960), 2–3. 110 Humes, 195–96. 111 “The colored people were left much worse of than when Wilson took ofce, for the precedent had been set; for the frst time the American democracy had ofcially told the world that there were two classes of citizens under its fag.” Villard, Fighting Years, 241. 112 Villard, Fighting Years, 248. Wilson’s decision to ban from the mails the September 14, 1918 issue of The Nation because it protested the government’s infringement

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129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

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on civil liberties also did not endear Wilson to Villard. See Trygve Throntveit, Power without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist Experiment (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 265. Villard, Fighting Years, 326. Villard, Fighting Years, 386. “They really believed that their military success gave them the right to deprive Germany of millions of her people, much of her soil, half of her coal supply, and three-fourths of her iron ore, all of her colonies, all her great steamships, the free use of her railways, and free disposal of her industrial products, and get away with it without paying a dreadful price.” Villard, Fighting Years, 447. Villard, Fighting Years, 379. Villard, Fighting Years, 460. Wreszin, 164–67. Wreszin, 176. Wreszin, 181. Wreszin, 235–36. Wreszin, 237. See Oswald Garrison Villard, “Wanted: A Sane Defense Policy,” Harper’s Magazine 178, April 1939, 449–456. Howard Daniel, “Mass Murder in Poland,” The Nation 150, no. 4 ( January 27, 1940), 94. Oswald Garrison Villard, “Issues and Men,” The Nation 150, no. 4 ( January 27, 1940), 101. Villard, “Issues and Men,” 130. Freda Kirchwey, “Can We Stay Neutral?” The Nation 150, no. 16 (April 20, 1940), 504. Freda Kirchwey, “America Is Not Neutral,” The Nation 150, no. 20 (May 18, 1940), 613–14. Freda Kirchwey, “What Next?” The Nation 150, no. 25 ( June 22, 1940), 744. Even in the wake of naked German aggression in Europe, said Kirchwey, the isolationists go no further than “to decry ‘hysteria’ and insist that Germany can never physically attack this continent.” Freda Kirchwey, “Saving the Front Line,” The Nation 150, no. 23 ( June 8, 1940), 695. In August 1940, Kirchwey appeared at a forum with Norman Angell sponsored by the women’s division of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Kirchwey argued that “we must lend all possible strength to any point where fascism is being opposed, and that means England right now.” “Isolationism Held A Menace to U.S.,” New York Times, August 30, 1940. Oswald Garrison Villard, “Issues and Men,” The Nation 150, no. 25 ( June 22, 1940), 757. Oswald Garrison Villard, “Valedictory,” The Nation 150, no. 26 ( June 29, 1940), 782. Freda Kirchwey, “Escape and Appeasement,” The Nation 150, no. 26 ( June 29, 1940). “Asserts President Shows Up 3D Term,” New York Times, September 26, 1940. “Letters to The Times: Mr. Villard’s Position,” New York Times, October 25, 1940. “Villard Arrives Here to Give Antiwar Talks,” Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1941. Ruth Sarles, A Story of America First: The Men and Women Who Opposed U.S. Intervention in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 23. Wreszin, 267–68. Quoted in D. Steven Blum, Walter Lippmann: Cosmopolitanism in the Century of Total War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 48, 49. Walter Lippmann, “The Defeat of the World Court,” Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1935–1935, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 248–49; See Blum, 52.

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139 Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922), 271. 140 Walter Lippmann, “The Political Equivalent of War,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1928, 182. 141 Lippmann, “The Political Equivalent of War,” 186–87. 142 Lippmann, “The Defeat of the World Court,” 348. 143 Walter Lippmann, “The Nazi Book-Burning,” in Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 327. 144 Walter Lippmann, “Hitlerism and the Basis of Power,” in Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 325. 145 Lippmann, “The Defeat of the World Court,” 350. 146 Walter Lippmann, “While the World is Arming,” in Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 330–40. 147 Bill Kaufmann, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Ruth Sarles, A Story of America First: The Men and Women Who Opposed U.S. Intervention in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), xvi, xxii, xxxiv. Sarles, 17–18. 148 Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1940 (New York: Random House, 2014), 278, 227. 149 Under “Principles,” the AFC stated, “Our frst duty is to keep America out of foreign wars. Our entry would only destroy democracy, not save it.” Quoted in Kaufmann, lv–lviii. 150 Sarles, 40, 51. 151 Sarles, 50. 152 Quoted in Kaufmann, xxxi. 153 Bob White, “Listen to Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1940. 154 “Lindbergh Urges We ‘Cooperate’ With Germany if Reich Wins War,” New York Times, August 5, 1940. 155 “Throng Hails Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1941; “Lindbergh Joins in Wheeler Plea to U.S. to Shun War,” New York Times, May 24, 1941. 156 “Throng Hears Lindbergh in Fight on War,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1941. 157 “20,000 at Boston Ask Aid to Allies,” New York Times, June 17, 1940. 158 “Lindbergh Pleads for End of Hysterical Invasion Fear,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1940. 159 “Propaganda Restudy of Foreign Policy,” New York Times, October 31, 1940. 160 Quoted in Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (New York: Random House, 2014), 637. 161 “Sherwood Assails Ford, Lindbergh,” New York Times, August 26, 1940. 162 Mark Sullivan, “Lindbergh Errs,” Washington Post, May 21, 1940. 163 Mark Sullivan, “Enforced Education,” Washington Post, August 17, 1940. 164 Ketchum, 125. In June 1940, Life ran a story on how the Pan American Clipper had fown from America to Europe in twenty-three hours. “Life Flies the Atlantic,” June 3, 1940, 17. 165 Walter Lippmann, “What Can Congress Do to Reduce the Chances of War?” Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935 (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 352. 166 “United States Being Led to War, Says Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1940; “Lindbergh Urges We ‘Cooperate’ With Germany if Reich Wins War,” New York Times, August 5, 1940. Referring to German domination in Europe, Barnet Nover observed that, “To assume, as Col. Lindbergh seems to, that this power would be friendly to us provided we took good care not to rufe its feathers is to fy in the face of all the grim facts of the last few years.” Barnet Nover, “America and Europe,” Washington Post, October 16, 1940. 167 Quoted in Wallace, 284. 168 Quoted in Dorothy Thompson, “Hitler’s Lost War,” Washington Post, February 12, 1941.

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169 “The Text of Colonel Lindbergh’s Address at Rally of the America First Committee Here,” New York Times, April 24, 1941. 170 “Lindbergh Raps War Aid Bill,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1941. Walter Lippmann observed that just a few days after Lindbergh’s declaration that Britain’s defeat was inevitable, Hitler had said that “a heavy year of confict stands before us,” and that there would be “immeasurable demands on our people of the German homeland.” Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow: Col. Lindbergh Vs. Hitler,” Washington Post, April 22, 1941. 171 “German Ofcials Take Their Hats Of to Lindbergh,” Washington Post, January 25, 1941. 172 Quoted in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 750. 173 “Throng Hails Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 1941. 174 “Japanese Drop Lindbergh Speech Leafets Along with Bombs in Attack on Chungking,” New York Times, June 6, 1941. 175 “Mrs. Morrow Endorses Plea for Allied Planes,” New York Times, May 29, 1940. 176 “Mrs. Morrow, Yale Head Urge Aid for Allies,” Washington Post, June 5, 1940. 177 “20,000 at Boston Ask Aid to Allies,” New York Times, June 17, 1940. 178 “Breckinridge Denounces U.S. ‘Munich Men,’” Washington Post, April 17, 1941. 179 Quoted in Sarles, 108. 180 “Lindbergh and Other Isolationists Branded Hitler Tools by Ickes,” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1941. 181 “Ickes Bids US War as Nazis Push East,” New York Times, June 27, 1941. After a May 1940 speech in which Lindbergh denounced the “defense hysteria” and condemned “powerful elements” in the country who “controlled the machinery of infuence and propaganda” and were trying to involve the United States in the war, Roosevelt told Henry Morgenthau, Jr. that, “I am convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.” Quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 47–48. 182 “Pepper Denounces Plea by Lindbergh,” New York Times, August 6, 1940. 183 George Gallup, “The Gallup Poll,” Washington Post, June 4, 1941; George Gallup, “The Gallup Poll,” Washington Post, June 28, 1941. 184 “Hitler Hurls 10-Year-War Defance,” Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1939; In a Foreign Afairs article, Alfred von Wegerer also employed fantastical logic, arguing that, “One cannot escape the conclusion that Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia and the settlement of the Danzig and Corridor questions in the way intended by Hitler, need not have caused Britain and France to involve Europe anew in a general war.” Alfred von Wegerer, “The Origins of This War: A German View,” Foreign Afairs 18, no. 4 ( July 1940), 718. 185 Quoted in Sarles, 115. 186 Quoted in Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow: Fantasy and Reality in Defense,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1940. 187 “Flyer Names ‘War Groups,’” Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1941. Privately, Lindbergh noted that, “Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country.” Quoted in Wapshott, 142. 188 “Lindbergh Hit by Own Camp,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1941; “Assail Lindbergh for Iowa Speech,” New York Times, September 13, 1941. 189 Quoted in Nasaw, 431. 190 Quoted in Nasaw, 499. 191 Nasaw, 511. 192 Sarles, 139, 118.

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193 “Life’s Reports,” Life, December 1, 1941, 18. 194 George Gallup, “‘Keep-Out-of-War’ Party Opposed by Most Voters, Survey Indicates,” New York Times, September 21, 1941. 195 “Eggs and Boos Greet Wheeler When He Mentions Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 1941. 196 Quoted in Chatfeld, 321. 197 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936–1939 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), xxv. 198 Lindbergh, The Flower and the Nettle, 32. 199 Lindbergh, The Flower and the Nettle, 101. 200 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 18–19, 23. 201 Lindbergh, The Wave of the Future, 25, 29. 202 Quoted in Dunn, 291. 203 Olson, 244. 204 Olson, 245–46. See also Wapshott, 217–18. For an excellent summary of reviews for Wave of the Future, see Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2000), 54–55.

7 ISOLATIONISM AND POLITICS IN THE ROOSEVELT ERA

The wide range of isolationist concerns during the 1930s was refected in several key Congressional hearings. The Nye Committee took on capitalism—chiefy the armaments business—and put forward the solution of a state-owned munitions industry. The main concern of the Dies Committee, on the other hand, was communism which, it seems, was to be found everywhere. Here Chairman Martin Dies (D-Texas) took full advantage of the bogus isolationist belief that America had been hoodwinked by foreign propaganda during the Great War. Dies promised to investigate “the difusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries ….”1 Bringing more heat than light, these hearings tended to degenerate into forums for committee members to air their own prejudices. Witnesses who shared those points of view were indulged regardless of their qualifcations, while those with diferent views could expect a thorough grilling.

Congress: Dies Committee Hearings The Dies Committee, also known as the House Un-American Activities Committee, had several precursors including the 1930 Fish Committee (headed by Hamilton Fish III) and the McCormack-Dickstein Committee (1934–1937). All were dedicated to rooting out communist infuences, and to a lesser degree, fascism. Under Dies, the Committee held hearings in Washington, D.C., New York, and Detroit, and would be active from 1938 to 1944. Clearly targeted were those who were left of center, with a distinct anti-urban bias. Dies claimed that his committee had the support “of nearly all small-town and rural congressmen” united against “the men from the big cities which … are politically controlled by foreigners and transplanted Negroes.”2 The committee

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heard witnesses condemn the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American Civil Liberties Union, and various labor organizations. Also scrutinized were programs established under the Roosevelt administration, the majority of which seemed to be “fronts” for the Communist Party. Writing in The Nation, Kenneth G. Crawford described the four conservative members of the committee as “bent on a campaign of New Deal destruction.” Roosevelt himself referred to the methods of the Dies Committee as “sordid.”3 Eleanor Roosevelt remembered that she and her husband looked over a list sent to them by the Dies Committee of people suspect of being Communists or subversives. Among the malefactors were Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Navy Secretary Frank Knox, and the President’s mother.4 Today the Dies Committee hearings are mostly remembered for the accusations made by witnesses without any corroborating evidence, and for the spectacularly dim-witted examination of Hallie Flanagan, national director of the Federal Theater Project, by Congressman Joe Starnes (D-Alabama). The problem with witnesses could be seen in the testimony of Edwin P. Banta and Ralph De Sola. Both complained that the Federal Writers’ Program was dominated by the Communist Party. If the Committee began with the premise that the motives of communists were sinister and communists themselves were not to be trusted, Banta and De Sola undermined their own testimony by confessing that they themselves were former communists.5 In another example, when Harper L. Knowles testifed before the committee, he described himself as being from “the radical research committee of the American Legion, Department of California.” The committee was apparently satisfed that these credentials qualifed him as an expert on higher education, and allowed Knowles to testify. “At the University of California we fnd the following professors and teachers have interested themselves in the left-wing movement,” said Knowles. “It is not claimed nor alleged that all of them are members of the Communist Party, but it is defnitely stated that they are used as tools for the furtherance of that left-wing movement.”6 The Committee did interview some real communists, including Earl Browder, Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States. Browder emphasized the spectacular growth of the party, claiming that in 1939 membership stood at 100,000 (up from 7,000 in 1929). Most American members of the party, according to Browder, were found in larger industrial cities.7 Also appearing before the committee was William Z. Foster, the American Communist Party’s National Chairman. In testimony pointedly aimed at the Southern members of the committee, Foster declared that the Communist Party advocated the “freeing of oppressed nationalities” and that “the Negroes in America are worse of than the Jews in Germany, bad of as they are.”8 The Dies Committee went through the fnancial records of the U.S. Communist Party, and was disappointed to fnd that the bulk of the funds came from membership dues rather than from Moscow.9

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Criticism of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appears in volume after volume of the Dies hearings, and in response the ACLU pointed out what was obvious to any unbiased observer: that the normal rules of evidence had been ignored, and that witnesses of no standing or credibility had been allowed to air their grievances without cross-examination or any opportunity to reply. According to Arthur Garfield Hays, General Counsel of the ACLU, the committee was conducting “not an investigation but a p­ rosecution,” with the committee as “prosecutor, judge, and jury.” Hays concluded that the committee’s activities were “little short of a public scandal and that the sooner its unprincipled attacks upon progressive forces in American life are stopped the better for the country. We look to the incoming House to end its unsavory career.”10 At least one committee member, Jerry Voorhis (D-California), worried about the adverse effect that the hearings might have. He mentioned a statement by Howard Coonley, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, in which Coonley had referenced the work of the Dies Committee and had urged members to “weed out” persons who might be “reds.” Real Soviet agents, said Voorhis, “would no doubt welcome a blundering campaign of dismissal from jobs based on inconclusive evidence.”11 Occasionally the Dies Committee found a witness who could provide some real insights, and one of these was Gerhart H. Seger, who for four years was a member of the Reichstag as a Social Democrat. While he was in Germany, Seger had opposed the policies of Adolf Hitler, and was put into a camp with others who had criticized the Nazi regime. Upon his release in 1934 he came to the United States.12 In accounting for Hitler’s rise, Seger estimated that 30 percent was due to the Treaty of Versailles and the Allied attitude toward ­Germany after the war, 30 percent could be attributed to the newness of democracy in Germany, and that 40 percent was due to the fact that Germany was “in a worse economic crisis than was true of any other country.”13 The “one great mistake” of the German Republic, according to Seger, was that, “We were too lenient with those who abused the possibilities of free speech and of democratic institutions.”14 On the other end of the intellectual spectrum was the questioning of Hallie Flanagan, National Director of the Federal Theater Project, by Congressman Joe Starnes. Flanagan testified that she had spent some two-and-a-half months in Russia studying theater, and had also attended some ballet performances: MRS. FLANAGAN: For instance, I went to their ballet a great deal. They gave a

beautiful ballet based on fairy tales. They have a great many ... CONGRESSMAN STARNES: All those fairy tales have a little moral to them,

don’t they? What we call a moral? MRS. FLANAGAN: Not that I know of. CONGRESSMAN STARNES: I don’t know whether it would be a moral in

­Russia or not.15

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While meandering and pointless, Starnes’ examination thus far had at least not been embarrassing. After Flanagan assured Starnes that “we have never done a play which was propaganda for communism,” Starnes referred to an article written by Flanagan in which she had referred to the playwright Marlowe: CONGRESSMAN STARNES: You are quoting from this Marlowe. Is he a

Communist? MRS. FLANAGAN: I am very sorry. I was quoting from Christopher Marlowe. CONGRESSMAN STARNES: Tell us who Marlowe is, so we can get the proper

reference, because that is all that we want to do. MRS. FLANAGAN: Put in the record that he was the greatest dramatist in the

period of Shakespeare, immediately preceding Shakespeare.16

According to the New York Times, “There was loud laughter from the audience,” but Starnes apparently felt that he had not humiliated himself sufciently.17 CONGRESSMAN STARNES: Of course, we had what some people call

Communists back in the days of the Greek theater. MRS. FLANAGAN: Quite true. CONGRESSMAN STARNES: And I believe Mr. Euripedes was guilty of teaching class consciousness also, wasn’t he?18 The Dies Committee hearings dragged on into the war, becoming even less relevant than they had been before. In 1944, committee member John M. Costello (D-California) announced that the committee was delving into the activities of the American labor union Congress of Industrial Organizations. Costello claimed that there was defnitely a link between the union’s Political Action Committee “and Communist organizations, or persons representing Communist organizations, throughout the country ….”19 With the country in the midst of the greatest confict in human history (and with communist Russia an ally of the United States), looking under the skirts of labor unions for “red” infuences was further confrmation that the Dies Committee hearings were a spectacular waste of the taxpayers’ money. In its anxieties about Old World infuences, its obsession with communism (and its eagerness to associate it with the Roosevelt Administration), the Dies Committee was rooted frmly in the isolationist tradition. As noted, anti-communism informed the isolationism of the American Legion, William Randolph Hearst, Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, and many others.

Congress: The Nye Committee Hearings By the end of the 1920s the armaments industry was coming under increasing criticism. In debate over the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, Senator Arthur Capper (R-Kansas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

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bluntly stated that “armament provokes war,” and that, “Prevention of war by greater and greater weight of armament is simply a confession that war is inevitable, if not desirable.”20 This view gained popularity over the next several years, and came to full fruition in the Nye Committee Hearings of the mid-1930s. Charged by the U.S. Senate to investigate the munitions industry, the Nye Committee received encouragement from pacifst groups and the American Legion, church-goers and Marxists, the conservative Fortune magazine and the liberal Nation. The tone of the committee hearings was both anti-war and anti-business. The committee itself was made up of four Democrats and three Republicans, with Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-North Dakota) as chairman. Nye’s biographer Wayne S. Cole notes that the committee “overrepresented the agricultural sections of the country, and underrepresented urban industry.”21 Nye himself had never been east of Chicago until he was elected to the Senate in 1926.22 In the Committee’s introduction to its work, the “infuence of the commercial motive” was identifed as both contributing to the maintenance of a national defense and as “one of the inevitable factors often believed to stimulate and sustain wars.” As a solution, the committee pledged to “inquire into the desirability of creating a Government monopoly” on manufacturing armaments and munitions (Figure 7.1).23

FIGURE 7.1

Senators Gerald P. Nye (L.) and Homer T. Bone. 1935. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-hec-39411.

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There is little doubt that the senators brought a prosecutorial spirit to the proceedings. The infuential businessmen who appeared at the hearings weren’t used to being addressed in this abrupt manner, and sometimes struggled with how to respond. In his questioning of Louis L. Driggs, president of Driggs Ordnance & Engineering Co., Homer T. Bone (D-Washington) referred to those who have “made mass murder the pastime of the world.” When Driggs responded by asking, “But, where do you draw the line between something that is fne for national defense and may win a war for your country, and mass murder?” Chairman Nye interjected with a question of his own: “Does national defense mean that people should go to all corners of the earth to wage war?”24 Sometimes committee members asked ludicrous questions. Chairman Nye asked Samuel M. Stone of Colt’s Arms Co. (Stone had been in Europe selling machine guns in the years previous to the war), “What steps, if any, did you and your organization take to break that tension or to lessen the danger of war being brought to pass?”25 During the testimony of John S. Allard, president of the Curtis-Wright Export Corporation, Senator James P. Pope (D-Idaho) asked if munitions makers were “promoting peace or a peaceful attitude among nations.” It had probably never occurred to Stone, Allard—or anyone else—that the pursuit of world peace was among the duties of munitions makers. Allard answered that it was up to the world powers to establish the basis of peace among nations.26 The hostility toward the witnesses was often breathtaking, such as in the following exchange between Senator Bone and Byron C. Goss, president, Lake Erie Chemical Co. and U.S. Ordnance Engineers, in which Bone all but accused Goss of being a criminal: SENATOR BONE: What would you suggest could be done with men who go

outside of the law without violence who go outside of the law by cleverness, and business acumen; do you think they might be dangerous to society? MR. GOSS: What are you inferring? SENATOR BONE: I am inferring about men who would go outside of the law to circumvent an embargo. MR. GOSS: You are talking about me? SENATOR BONE: I am talking about the munitions business; let us be frank about the whole business.27 The most renowned witnesses before the Nye Committee, and the ones who generated the most interest among the general public, were the du Pont brothers of the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company. The company was one of the largest makers of gun powder in the world, and before Pierre du Pont testifed, statistics on the company’s profts during the war were read into the record. The company had enjoyed an income of a third-of-a-billion dollars, and had declared a 100 percent dividend on common stock in 1915.28 Pierre

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du Pont was resentful that these statistics had been cited without noting that the Allies had come to Du Pont because “nobody else could serve them.” What the Du Pont Company accomplished, said Pierre, “nobody else on earth could have.”29 The senators were especially keen on promoting the idea of government ownership of munitions companies, and the du Ponts responded by taking the senators to task for their naivete. Irénée du Pont asked Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-Michigan), “Senator, do you appreciate the difculty of overcoming the inertia and lack of knowledge and organization, to start any large military afair: that is, during a war when it starts?” He added that when war was declared in April 1917, “the Government had no plans and were perfectly at sea as to what to do in the matter of powder, and did not know how much they should have. They had never had the experience.”30 As to why it was virtually impossible for the Government to acquire the expertise and resources to produce munitions, du Pont noted that both the German and French governments had gone into the powder business during the war, but neither could make enough. The Germans were forced to turn to Austria, and the French came to Du Pont. “If we had not shipped powder to France and England, the possibilities are that Germany would have won the war, and we would have been taken next and been a German colony.”31 In his testimony, Byron Goss added that while nationalization of the munitions industry was possible, the sums of money involved would be immense. In order to keep this business fnancially viable, said Goss, the government would be forced to do what it abhorred in the private munitions business: export arms to other countries. 32 Senator Bone complained that the big business campaign against government ownership of munitions companies was “unpatriotic” and “un-American.” In his response Irénée du Pont articulated what was obvious to everyone: that there was a clear anti-business subtext to the hearings. Du Pont claimed that the advancements made in American life had come from business, “and the thing is to stop interfering with business. You blame the business man for the depression; you blame the banker for the depression. I blame the Government for the depression.”33 Throughout these hearings, the Nye Committee used a moral lens to examine amoral capitalism, accusing munitions makers of corrupting public ofcials, of manipulating export licenses, of nurturing anxiety among rival nations to obtain sales—and of making obscene profts while they did so. “The thicker the blood fows, the bigger the proft,” as Chairman Nye put it.34 But on an emotional level Senator Bone probably best articulated the mood of the committee when he said the committee “desires above all other things to spare the coming generation of boys the horrors of another great war.”35 For their part, the du Ponts were frustrated by the committee’s lack of understanding of the basics of their industry. When Senator Bennett Champ Clark

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(D-Missouri) mischaracterized a technical point, Lammot du Pont corrected him and said, “I have to keep close track on you, to keep you straight.”36 Addressing the committee as a whole, Irénée du Pont observed that “you people here have not the least apprehension of what the chemical industry has in store for humanity, and what it has already accomplished.”37 The Nye Committee hearings would be the impetus for forthcoming neutrality legislation, and would be much praised. Historian Charles A. Beard was among the most prominent, claiming that thanks to the Nye Committee, “the dark velvet curtain of history is raised ….”38 The hearings had disclosed “the starkness of the ignorance that passed for knowledge” during the Great War.39 The Christian Century (a self-described “undenominational journal of religion”), had already warned that “a portion of the business community is so crazy for a return to boom profts that it is quite ready to take a chance on having American boys blown to bits to bring this to pass.”40 Somewhat surprisingly, however, this publication proved to be more nuanced in its analysis of the fndings of the Nye Committee than Beard. Christian Century admitted that the hearings had not proved that the business practices of munitions makers “were any worse than the practices of most private big business.”41 Of the vilifed du Ponts, the Christian Century noted that one expected to encounter “a cordon of rampant jingoists, breathing blood and thunder … ” Instead, these were men “who could pass the plate at any church service without anyone looking at them twice.” In their work they were employing the ethics and techniques of businessmen around the world.42 Reading over the papers of the Nye hearings today, it is hard to argue with Hamilton Fish Armstrong’s assessment in 1937 that this investigation was characterized by “its amateurishness and its surprising dearth of surprises.”43 The grand conclusion of the Nye Committee, that the munitions industry made lots of money during wartime was, to put it mildly, less than revelatory. When he looked back at the Nye hearings from the vantage point of 1940, historian Frederick Lewis Allen observed that among the mitigating circumstances of the big profts made by industry during the Great War was that “there was an overwhelming need for production at whatever cost, and that an extravagant victory was at least better than an economical defeat ….”44

Congress: The Neutrality Acts and the World Court With the Nye Committee attacks against the armaments industry serving as a background, Nye and other isolationists began preparing neutrality legislation in 1935. A ferce debate ensued over what could and could not be accomplished through neutrality. A Washington Post editorial observed that while there was no doubt as to the American people’s desire to stay out of any war in Europe, there was “considerable doubt” that such a thing would be possible in a protracted European confict. As to fxing blame for such a possibility, “Only a

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soap-box mind” would attempt to blame American involvement in another war on “the machinations of munition makers, international bankers, or other similar bogies.”45 Right on cue, when Senator Nye addressed a meeting of Keep America Out of War at Carnegie Hall, he said that it is sales and shipments of munitions and contraband, and the lure of profts in them, that will get us into another war. If Morgans and the other bankers must get into another war, let them do it by enlisting in the Foreign Legion.46 As Congress was making moves to adjourn in August 1935, members of the anti-war faction threatened a flibuster if action was not taken on neutrality legislation. Above all what they were seeking was strict American neutrality applied to any belligerents in a future war. To this end isolationists made the same arguments they had been making for over ffteen years. Senator Arthur Vandenberg insisted that it had been the absence of neutrality legislation that had “sucked in” America to the Great War, while his colleague Homer T. Bone claimed that “international bankers” and commercial interests had been responsible for America’s entry into the war. Bone added that, “If people haven’t sense enough to stay out of war zones, we should keep them out.” But others pointed to complications that would inevitably ensue should the United States try to maintain neutrality during a major confict. Senator Millard Tydings (D-Maryland) observed that submarines now had a cruising range of 5,000 miles, and that the only way America could keep out of the next war would be to have no shipping at all.47 Indeed, said Senator James P. Pope (D-Idaho), if the United States insisted on the maintenance of neutral rights—a staple of foreign policy since Jeferson’s time—she would inevitably be pulled into the war.48 A future war also presented the problem that American sympathies might overwhelmingly favor one belligerent over another, as was the case during the Great War. Charles Warren, who served as assistant attorney general from 1914 to 1918, believed that if this happened even a neutral United States might fnd it difcult to avoid being pulled into the confict.49 The press was not overly enthusiastic about proposed neutrality legislation. The Washington Post and the New York Times both raised the problem of how to defne contraband.50 The Post further savaged backers of the proposal who were “emulating the estimable ostrich,” and likened the proposal itself to sending a doctor to deal with an undiagnosed disease with directions to use only certain medicines.51 President Roosevelt supported the idea of restricting the shipment of munitions to warring nations, but wanted discretionary presidential power to exempt nations that were the victims of aggression. However, there was tremendous public pressure, with virtually every peace group in the country launching a campaign for impartial neutrality.52 All that Roosevelt was able to get was a six-month expiration date.53 He signed the act into law in

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August 1935, but grumbled that “the inflexible provisions might drag us into war ­instead of keeping us out.”54 Nothing the Congress did after the Great War so clearly reflected isolationist anxieties than the passage of the Neutrality Acts between 1935 and 1939. Of them, the most important was the one passed in 1935 as it laid out the basic parameters of American neutrality which the other acts mostly repeated. It included the provision that when the President found that a state of war existed, it shall be unlawful to export arms, ammunition, or implements of war from any place in the United States, or possessions of the United States, to any port of such belligerent states, or to any neutral port for transshipment to, or for the use of, a belligerent country … The act further stipulated that “it shall be unlawful for any American vessel to carry any arms, ammunition, or implements of war to any port of the belligerent countries ….” Finally, “no citizen of the United States shall travel on any vessel of any belligerent nation except at his own risk ….”55 The 1935 Neutrality Act cancelled the traditional right of Americans to trade in arms, something the United States had done during the Great one. If it is true that the military begins a new war by fighting the previous one, the Neutrality Acts, as Allen W. Dulles and Hamilton Fish Armstrong put it in 1938, aimed at “keeping us out of the last war.”56 For some isolationists, the 1935 Neutrality Act did not go far enough. Among Congressional ultraists was Nye Committee veteran Senator Bennett Clark, who wanted the Act to be expanded to halt all American trade with nations at war. He dismissed the idea of maintaining neutral rights, claiming that the only way to defend them “is to fight the whole world.”57 Representative Maury Maverick (D-Texas) insisted that, “I would just as soon close every port in the United States, including Houston and Galveston, if it would save the life of one human being.”58 Also in 1935 the issue of American participation in the World Court (the Permanent Court of International Justice) came before the Senate. The Republican administrations of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover had all recommended U.S. membership, as did Roosevelt.59 But there had been no great senatorial enthusiasm for the court in the previous decade, and Roosevelt was reluctant to imperil his domestic programs over a foreign policy fight, especially after he had been weakened by the failure of the disarmament talks.60 Nevertheless, in January 1935, he asked that the question of American membership in the World Court be put before the Senate. Vice-President John Nance Garner, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and Postmaster General James A. Farley all warned the president that there was widespread public sentiment against it, but Roosevelt could point to endorsements from pacifist groups, the American Legion and a majority of American newspapers.61

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The World Court proposal met with a frosty reception from senatorial isolationists. Hiram Johnson (R-California) referred to “the League of Nations Court,” and Senator William E. Borah (R-Idaho) likewise asserted that the Court served as a political wing of the League (Figure 7.2).62 This meant, said Borah, that the court would frequently “stoop to the low level of a political prostitute … ”63 “I believe in being kind to people who have the smallpox, such as Mussolini and Hitler,” said Senator Homer T. Bone, “but not in going inside their houses.” The less articulate Senator Thomas D. Schall (R-Minnesota) said, “To hell with Europe and the rest of those nations.”64 All of this was predictable enough, but what Roosevelt did not count on was a massive grassroots agitation against the Court. William Randolph Hearst activated his newspapers to oppose the Court, going so far as to establish a headquarters and staf in Washington, D.C., to spearhead the efort.65 Radio priest Charles E. Coughlin had long opposed American involvement in the afairs of Europe, and as early as 1931 had asserted

FIGURE 7.2

Senators William E. Borah (L.) and Hiram Johnson. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62–99921.

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that “international bankers” wanted America to surrender its independence “by becoming a member of ‘The Permanent Court of International Justice of the League of Nations.’”66 Coughlin resumed the fight in 1935, once again condemning the “plutocrats” who were using the Court for their own purposes.67 All of this was bad enough, but it may have been American humorist Will Rogers who fatally poisoned public opinion on this issue. Rogers’ enormous popularity was in part due to his ability to articulate American soreness toward Europe. Rogers noted how Europeans referred to the United States as “Uncle Shylock” and “Uncle Sham.” “They blame us for everything, I don’t care what it is that’s wrong with the world; whether it’s famine or pestilence, acne, or tight underwear.” “If we get linked up with this World Court,” said Rogers, “I guess it won’t be long before they’ll be calling us ‘Uncle Sucker,’ and we’d deserve it ….”68 When the vote was taken in the Senate, the World Court measure failed to attract the necessary two-thirds majority.

Congress and the White House In both his temperament and upbringing, Roosevelt had always been an internationalist. As previously noted, in 1920 he had run as the vice-presidential candidate with James Cox on a ticket that emphasized internationalism and membership in the League of Nations. The public’s resounding rejection of both brought home a painful lesson for Roosevelt. Twelve years later, when he was being considered as the Democratic party’s candidate for president, he was pressured by William Randolph Hearst to state his views on the League. Fully cognizant of the political lay of the land (and wanting the nomination) Roosevelt replied that the League had strayed from Wilson’s vision and that “in present circumstances, I do not favor American participation.”69 Roosevelt clearly understood that the public viewed internationalism as a distraction from domestic affairs.70 Roosevelt won the presidency, and in his first inaugural address his only mention of foreign affairs was a bland reference to the international “good neighbor.” 71 As noted, the disarmament talks in Geneva gave Roosevelt his first opportunity to have an international impact. Instead, he acted like the Republicans who had come before him, urging weapons reductions and a nonaggression pact, but offering no commitment to intervene if a nation was attacked. As historian Robert Dallek put it, Roosevelt had made it clear that “the administration would do nothing to reverse America’s determination to isolate itself from conflicts abroad.” 72 By the mid-1930s Roosevelt had a growing belief that the United States must put more of its weight into addressing international tensions. Unfortunately, isolationism, which had previously been based on indifference, had now assumed a more active form.73 Roosevelt knew this, and signed neutrality legislation, but also asked Congress for $1.1 billion for the military—the

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largest peacetime budget in history.74 He certainly sounded like an isolationist as he geared up for the presidential election of 1936. In August he made a speech that checked of all the isolationist boxes, including a condemnation of war profts, avoiding the politics of the League of Nations, and shunning commitments “which might entangle us in foreign wars ….” He added, however, that no law could cover every contingency because it was “impossible to imagine how every future event may shape itself.” 75 Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, had served eleven terms in the House of Representatives. His intimate knowledge of how Congress worked would be invaluable in the administration’s foreign policy struggles. He would go on to become America’s longest-serving Secretary of State (Figure 7.3). Like Roosevelt, Hull had harbored some isolationist tendencies in the early 1930s (it was Hull who had inserted the nonintervention clause in the Democratic party’s platform in 1932).76 Thereafter, his condemnations of isolationists were bitter and unrelenting.

FIGURE 7.3

Cordell Hull. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-ggbain-33615.

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The Nye Committee especially agitated Hull, who claimed that aside from the Senate committee that had rejected the Treaty of Versailles, “It is doubtful that any Congressional committee has ever had a more unfortunate efect on our foreign relations ….” Nye himself was condemned by Hull as “an isolationist of the deepest dye.” According to Hull, the Nye Committee’s premise that America had been drawn into the Great War by bankers and munitions makers was totally fallacious. Excoriating the Committee (and by implication the historical revisionists), Hull said, By impugning the motives and honesty of President Wilson in the First World War, by etching a sordid caricature of our former associates, Britain and France, and by whitewashing the Kaiser’s Germany, the committee gave the American people a wholly erroneous view as to the reasons why we had gone to war in 1917.77 The Nye Committee, said Hull, aroused an isolationist sentiment that tied the Administration’s hands at the very time when its infuence was most needed.78 In the ongoing battle between isolationists and the Roosevelt Administration, the president gave a remarkable speech on October 5, 1937 at a bridge dedication in Chicago. Hitler and Mussolini were in power in Europe, republican forces were falling back in Spain, and there was a full-fedged war between Japan and China. As Roosevelt’s motorcade made its way through Chicago, he was cheered by three-quarters-of-a-million Chicagoans. The platform where the speech was to be made was directly across from a Chicago Tribune warehouse. There the isolationist publisher of the Tribune Robert R. McCormick had erected a large sign which read: “UNDOMINATED. CHICAGO TRIBUNE. WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER.” 79 Seemingly unfazed, Roosevelt declared that the hopes for peace enshrined in the Kellogg-Briand Pact had “given way to a haunting fear of calamity.” The world was now in “a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality.” The president suggested a “quarantine” of nations that did not honor treaties, or respected the rights of others, or pursued “acts of international aggression.”80 Roosevelt did not name these violators of international norms, but there was little doubt as to whom he was referring. Signifcantly, rather than endorsing a strict neutrality Roosevelt was making a clear distinction between civilized nations and aggressors. Among the aggressors Roosevelt surely had in mind was Japan. While the American navy was not maintaining a signifcant feet in the Far East, it had posted a number of small gunboats to observe the war between Japan and China. The Panay was one such ship, and on December 12, 1937, while peacefully cruising the Yangtze River with a large American fag fying at her stern, she was attacked and sunk by Japanese airplanes.81 In the wake of this incident, pacifst groups feared that the president would take aggressive action. They

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needn’t have worried because there would have been almost no public support for such action. In one poll that asked Americans if the United States should withdraw from China or “compel Japan to respect our rights, even at the cost of war,” just under 54 percent said “withdraw.” Fortune concluded that, “The answer, in which the rich and the poor, the men and the women, the old and the young concur in almost equal proportions, bespeaks not only isolationism but deep-seated pacifsm.”82 Fearful of executive action, many isolationists threw their support behind one of the most bizarre pieces of legislation ever to appear before Congress: the Ludlow Resolution.83 Introduced by Louis Ludlow (D-Indiana) a number of times between 1935 and 1940, it read that “except in case of attack by armed forces,” the people shall have the sole power by a national referendum to declare war or to engage in warfare overseas. Congress, when it deems a national crisis to exist in conformance with this article, shall by concurrent resolution refer the question to the people.84 In efect Ludlow would have taken from Congress the power to declare war and would, in this instance at least, transform the United States from a representative democracy into a direct democracy. A constitutional amendment would have been needed to give the Ludlow Resolution the power of law, and the passage of such an amendment was highly unlikely. But Ludlow had captured the imagination of many in the nation, and in January 1938 it almost succeeded in the House. In contrast to the World Court debate, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars opposed the Ludlow Resolution. Roosevelt, who naturally saw it as an assault on his power to conduct foreign policy, also had the support of most major newspapers. Even for some isolationists, Ludlow was too much. While Robert M. La Follette, Jr., called it a war referendum “vital to democracy,” fellow isolationist Arthur H. Vandenberg characterized the resolution as making as much sense as requiring “a town meeting before permitting the fre department to face a blaze.” Despite the opposition, when the votes were cast to bring Ludlow to the foor of the House it was shockingly close. In a vote of 209 to 188, the Ludlow Resolution fell nine short of the necessary votes.85 Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) called the resolution “the most tremendous blunder since the formation of our government under the Constitution.”86 Blunder or not, peace groups were strongly in favor of it, including Dorothy Detzer, Secretary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She had become an outspoken pacifst after her twin brother died of poison gas during the war.87 When Detzer testifed before the Senate, she endorsed the referendum, but worried that a vote might be infuenced by war propaganda. She encouraged Congress to put up a series of “legislative hurdles” that an administration would

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have to “vault before it can again drag this country into a foreign war.”88 A poll in 1935 found 75 percent of Americans wanted a national referendum before a declaration of war.89

Munich Some mention must be made of the notorious 1938 Munich Conference, which was important not only for its impact in Europe, but for its efect on America as well. Britain’s and France’s decision to force Czechoslovakia to cede to Germany the Sudetenland (home to a large population of ethnic Germans) has acquired the label “appeasement.” There are some undeniable parallels between European appeasement and American isolationism. Historian Richard M. Ketchum argues that the Munich crisis brought the United States to “the high-water mark of isolationism ….”90 Washington columnists Joseph Alsop and Robert Kintner, who in 1940 wrote a contemporaneous account of American foreign afairs, claimed that Munich precipitated “the fading of the do-nothing mood” among policy makers.91 As is the case with so much of the history of the inter-war period, the Great War loomed over attitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. In Tim Bouverie’s recent book on appeasement, the author argues that public opinion was not receptive to war over the Sudetenland issue.92 Both the British and French political leadership had, in Bouverie’s words, been “traumatized by the First World War,” and had become “imbued with the spirit, if not the doctrine, of pacifsm.”93 In one working-class neighborhood, 70 percent supported appeasing Germany and, as Bouverie put it, the British people were not prepared psychologically for war, and Czechoslovakia seemed a long way away.94 This could just as easily describe isolationist feelings in the United States, and among those who harbored such feelings was Joseph P. Kennedy, United States Ambassador to Great Britain. Kennedy had already served as Roosevelt’s frst chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and as director of the Maritime Commission. Described as “a shrewd, ingrained bearish stock trader in the skin of a genial stage Irishman,” Kennedy’s prominence in the Irish-American community was a political asset for the Roosevelt Administration. But even as Roosevelt was appointing Kennedy to the ambassadorship in 1938, the president was seemingly having second thoughts. Roosevelt told Henry Morgenthau, Jr., that, “I have made arrangements to have Joe Kennedy watched hourly—and the frst time he opens his mouth and criticizes me, I will fre him.”95 As per protocol, Kennedy submitted his frst British speech to the U.S. Department of State for scrutiny. During the editing Cordell Hull and others at the State Department worried that Kennedy had “swung far too much towards the isolationist school.”96 They removed the part in his speech in which Kennedy referred to Czechoslovakia and stated, “I cannot see anything involved which would be remotely considered worth shedding blood

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for.” Roosevelt was reportedly livid over Kennedy’s statement and told Morgenthau that, “The young man needs his wrists slapped rather hard.”97 In fact, Kennedy’s views were roughly those of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and during his time in Britain Kennedy would become one of the prime minister’s champions. Chamberlain called himself “a man of peace to the depths of my soul.” But like other pacifsts, the prime minister was aficted with a fatal credulity, believing that “Herr Hitler’s objectives were strictly limited,” and that he was “telling the truth” when he claimed to have no further territorial ambitions.98 The French caved in to Hitler’s demands as well, in part because French military intelligence wildly overestimated the number of German military aircraft. The French Minister for Air, Guy La Chambre, told American Ambassador to France William C. Bullitt that the Germans had “six thousand fve hundred planes of the very latest types.” Bullitt suggested that the French get in touch with Charles Lindbergh.99 The American aviator traumatized French politicians even further by claiming that Germany possessed a feet of 8,000 military aircraft—seven times the real number.100 In fact, as historian Nicholas Wapshott maintains, Goering and Hitler were most likely using Lindbergh to convince the British and French that they were seriously outgunned and that resistance was futile. Lindbergh was “an unwitting agent in a propaganda coup for the Nazis, who in 1938 won the air war over Europe without a shot being fred.”101 Lindbergh imparted the same information to Cordell Hull, and it is more than a little ironic that the German strategy to intimidate using infated production fgures had the long-term efect of spurring aircraft manufacturing in Britain and the United States—to the detriment of Germany.102 During the months when the Sudetenland issue consumed politics in Europe, Chamberlain had been dismissive of any ofers of assistance by Roosevelt. For instance, Chamberlain described Roosevelt’s 1938 proposal of bringing the leading European powers to Washington to discuss the deteriorating situation as a “preposterous efusion.”103 Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles likened Chamberlain’s snub to a “douche of cold water,” while Winston Churchill later counted Chamberlain’s rejection of Roosevelt’s overture a catastrophe: “the loss of the last frail chance to save the world from tyranny otherwise than by war.”104 British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden also lamented Chamberlain’s treatment of Roosevelt, and Eden’s Private Secretary Oliver Harvey called Chamberlain “temperamentally anti-American.” That was putting it mildly, as Chamberlain, in a letter to his sister, referred to the United States as “a nation of cads.”105 During the Sudetenland crisis, British Ambassador to the United States Ronald Lindsay reported that American public opinion favored a “strong stand against German aggression,” and that anything less “may bring a certain let down of American friendliness.”106 The views of William C. Bullitt, Ambassador to France, were not that different from Kennedy’s. Bullitt sent a cable to Roosevelt on September 20, 1938

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stating that “the prospects for Europe are so foul that the further we keep out of the mess the better.”107 Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia, claimed that Bullitt “did not at frst express himself publicly in favor of appeasement like Joseph Kennedy, but he worked for it incessantly. His attitude toward us during the crisis of September 1938 was wholly negative.”108 The British and French abandonment of Czechoslovakia sent shock waves through the United States. For Hamilton Fish Armstrong it portended an enormous shift of power in the world, and raised issues of international law, the sovereignty of nations and sanctity of treaties. What came out of Munich, he said, “does not seem to be so much peace as an armistice.”109 Among infuential American writers who were stupefed by the surrender of the Sudetenland was Dorothy Thompson, who believed that by this action “the last hope of settling anything by negotiation, compromise, treaty and law, or by anything whatsoever except sheer brute force” had gone by the wayside.110 It was, she said, a “Fascist coup d’état.”111 Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr called what happened at Munich a “peace of capitulation,” while Dorothy Parker described Chamberlain as “the frst Prime Minister in history to crawl at 250 miles an hour.”112 In a conversation with Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano in Rome, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop asserted that the lesson of Munich was that it showed the strength of isolationism in the United States. “So there is nothing to fear from America,” said Ribbentrop.113 Shortly after the Munich agreement, Hitler felt sufciently empowered to launch his Nazi thugs on Kristallnacht, an evening of terror against Germany’s Jewish population. Afterward, Nazi ofcials warned the foreign friends of Jews not to exploit the developments for an antiGerman campaign. This could lead only to the result that in the place of the improvised and spontaneous actions much more stringent actions will be taken by the authorities.114 The Lindberghs cancelled their plans to spend the winter in Berlin.115 Joseph Kennedy was disturbed by this event because people in the United States were getting “into such a dither” over “the Jewish question.” He feared that sympathy for Jews might lead to American involvement in a war.116 Kennedy now began to garner for himself a reputation for anti-Semitism that was all too prevalent among isolationists. For instance, in response to criticism he received from Walter Lippmann, Kennedy said, “Of course the fact he is a Jew has something to do with that.”117 Just as Roosevelt could not push for a more active internationalism because of public opinion, it is hard to see what diplomats in Britain and France had to ofer other than appeasement. Czechoslovakia could not be defended, and there was no public support for another confict.118 Reporting from Berlin, William  L. Shirer observed that the German public was also enormously

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relieved that the Sudeten crisis had not led to war, with Der Angrif newspaper praising Chamberlain as “a clever and far-sighted statesman ….”119 Chamberlain famously described the Munich agreement as “peace with honor” and “peace for our time.” For Winston Churchill, it was “a defeat without a war,” but fewer than thirty Tory Members of Parliament refused to support the government.120 As Americans digested what had happened at Munich, CBS radio broadcaster Elmer Davis concluded that “the English who lately consulted what they considered, however mistakenly, their own interests, cannot be surprised if we look out for ours.”121 Among the miscalculations of the appeasers was that there were “moderate” elements in the Nazi party that could be wooed through negotiation, and that Hitler himself was susceptible to reasoned argument. Chamberlain’s thoughts on Hitler—“here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word”—make for painful reading.122 Considerably less naïve was French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier. Shortly after the fnalization of the Munich agreement Daladier told William Bullitt he didn’t believe that German territorial demands were at an end, and that “within 6 months France and England would be face to face with new German demands ….” He claimed that Chamberlain had been “taken in a bit by Hitler,” and described the British prime minister as “an admirable old gentleman, like a high minded Quaker who had fallen among bandits …” Hence forward, said Daladier, France must concentrate on building up her military.123 Indeed, the main justifcation for Munich has been that neither Britain nor France was ready for war in 1938, and that appeasement gave them an extra year to prepare. Joseph Kennedy’s son, John F. Kennedy, made this claim in 1940 in Why England Slept. The policy of appeasement, said Kennedy, was based on a sincere efort to build a permanent peace, but “was also formulated on the realization that Britain’s defense program, due to its tardiness in getting started, would not come to harvest until 1939. Munich was to be the price she had to pay for this year of grace.”124 Churchill disagreed, and later observed that the extra year left Britain “in a much worse position compared to Hitler’s Germany than they had been at the Munich crisis.”125 Among the arguments for a more forceful response from Britain and France in 1938 is that Germany would not have been able to launch airstrikes against Britain because Germany lacked the Channel airfelds she needed. It should also be noted that the Czech fortifcations had been built by the French based on the design of the Maginot Line. Their abandonment provided the Germans complete information on their construction.126 In the extra year Germany made far greater progress in armaments than Britain and France. Despite the protestations of French military chiefs, the defense budget for France was actually reduced in 1938.127 In Britain, Alexander Cadogan, permanent undersecretary of the Foreign Ofce, noted in his diary that, “As far as I can see, we are, after years of leisurely preparation, completely unprepared.”128 As the lesson of Munich began to sink in, however, there was

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an intense buildup of armaments throughout the world. Writing in The Atlantic in July 1939, Graham Hutton observed that, “The arms race of 1904–1914 look positively decorous beside that of Europe today ….”129 Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who was brutally dismissive of isolationists in the United States, was in later years surprisingly sympathetic toward Chamberlain, fnding “something heroic—however misguided—in Prime Minister Chamberlain’s devotion to peace and the feverish eforts and personal sacrifce he was willing to make to secure it ….” Hull added, however, that “to Hitler it was a manifestation of weakness.”130 Chamberlain did have at least one eerie, prophetic moment when he mused in 1934 that, “We ought to know by this time that USA will give us no undertaking to resist by force any action by Japan short of an attack on Hawaii or Honolulu.”131

The War of the Worlds On October 30, 1938 Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre aired the most notorious radio broadcast in history. It was a staging of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, but reconfgured for modern times. Instead of setting this tale of a Martian invasion in Victorian England, Welles and company transferred it to the contemporary New Jersey/New York area, and presented it in the form of news bulletins interrupting a program of dance music. It was certainly clever, but the program had been on the schedule for weeks, the regular number of station breaks were taken during the broadcast, and at both the beginning and the end of the program it was made clear that this was a work of fction. But as the New York Times observed the following day, the program prompted “thousands to believe that an interplanetary confict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York.” Phone lines at police stations were overwhelmed by panicky residents asking what they should do. In one case, a man called the Bronx police department and informed the ofcer that he had gone up on the roof and, “I could see the smoke from the bombs, drifting over toward New York.” In a single block in Newark, over twenty families rushed out into the streets with wet towels and handkerchiefs held to their faces to protect themselves from Martian gas. At local hospitals scores were treated for shock and hysteria. In Caldwell, New Jersey, someone ran into the First Baptist Church during evening services with news of the attack, and the congregation began to pray for deliverance.132 The panic was not restricted to the northeast, and as Marshall Andrews noted in the Washington Post, “No section of the country escaped the hysteria.” In Brevard, N.C., the local college said that “fve boys had fainted and panic seized the campus …” Ofcials in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reported that the broadcast had produced “two heart attacks and a stroke ….”133 Part of the problem was that much of the radio audience tuned in late and didn’t hear the introduction. By then, the Martians were already ravaging the New Jersey countryside.

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When listeners learned that the whole thing was merely a radio drama, they were more than a little embarrassed and extremely angry. Typical was the reaction of Warren Dean of Manhattan: I’ve heard a lot of radio programs but I’ve never heard anything as rotten as that. It was too realistic for comfort. They broke into a dance program with a news fash. Everybody in my house was agitated by the news. The fact that the program was “realistic” still begs the question of why Americans reacted the way they did. Several commentators referred to a public already stressed from the recent Munich crisis. The New York Times noted that when negotiations in Munich were proceeding (and with war a distinct possibility), “the radio frequently had interrupted regularly scheduled programs to report developments in the Czechoslovak situation ….”134 While in later years this broadcast would achieve legendary status as one of Welles’ greatest triumphs (second only to Citizen Kane), on the day following the broadcast a “sleepless and unshaven” Welles submitted to questions from the press. He said he was “bewildered” by the reaction and expressed “deep regret.”135 For Dorothy Thompson, Welles and the Mercury Theatre had delivered up an indictment of the American people: “They have cast a brilliant and cruel light upon the failure of popular education. They have shown up the incredible stupidity, lack of nerve and ignorance of thousands.” For this service, said Thompson, Welles should be given a “Congressional medal.”136 Perhaps the American reaction should not be judged too harshly. This script was later translated into Spanish and performed in Ecuador. But when listeners learned that the broadcast was a hoax, they attacked the radio station and set it on fre, killing ffteen people during the melee.137

Politics: 1939–1941 The year 1938 had seen the German annexation of Austria and the partition of Czechoslovakia, bringing 6.75 million Austrians and 3.5 million Sudetens into the German Reich.138 Franco’s army was advancing in Spain and the war between Japan and China increased in violence. The Japanese army had put to death 260,000 Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking.139 In his annual message to Congress in January 1939, Roosevelt emphasized that the world had grown smaller and that weapons were deadlier and could be deployed faster. No nation was safe from attack. He added that when a nation tried to legislate neutrality, such laws might operate unfairly and provide “aid to an aggressor and deny it to the victim.”140 Roosevelt had come to the conclusion that the arms embargo must be repealed, but constant pressure from isolationists kept him backpedaling to retain public support. This led to the charge that his administration was maintaining a vague foreign policy, which was no doubt

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true. (Historians Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz observe that Roosevelt turned vagueness “into an absolute art.”)141 At a press conference in February 1939 the president was forced to enunciate the basic pillars of his foreign policy, including the maintenance of world trade and the independence of nation states. Roosevelt added that the Administration was in complete sympathy with any efort to reduce armaments and, “We are against any entangling alliances, obviously.”142 The campaign for repealing the arms embargo began with Roosevelt and Hull meeting with senators and representatives at the White House. The president emphasized to these members of Congress that if the British navy were defeated the European dictatorships would gain mastery of the seas and extend their infuence to South America. Hull referred to the embargo as “a wretched little bob-tailed, sawed-of domestic statute” that had “conferred a gratuitous beneft on the probable aggressors ….”143 In one exchange with a group of senators, Roosevelt described how British and French ofcials had told him that war in Europe was a distinct threat. At the same meeting Hull also referred to cables he had received from all over Europe, and predicted that there would be war by next summer. Isolationist Senator William E. Borah was unmoved, expressing confdence that there would be no war. Rejecting the reports to which Hull had referred, Borah proclaimed that he had his own sources of information, “and on several occasions I’ve found them much more reliable than the State Department.” This arrogant dismissal of State Department intelligence left Hull dumbfounded.144 Hitler had broken his word that he would seek no additional territory in Europe by invading the rest of Czechoslovakia in March, but this was not enough to gain Congressional approval for repealing the arms embargo. In July the bill that Roosevelt and Hull had been promoting died in committee. Among Germany’s many grievances over the Versailles settlement was the creation of a Polish state and the “Danzig corridor,” which gave Poland access to the sea but also separated Germany from Eastern Prussia. There was constant friction between Germany and Poland over Danzig.145 Shortly after signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. While the Poles put up a courageous fght, with Chopin blaring from every radio, the defeat of Poland was a foregone conclusion.146 On September 3, 1939 Britain and France declared war. As he recited the gist of Chamberlain’s war declaration to Roosevelt, Joseph Kennedy muttered over and over, “It’s the end of the world, the end of everything.”147 As word of the declaration of war spread in America, a French journalist observed that, “This country is literally drunk with pacifsm.” No one in the United States dared speak of the war except in terms of “pious horror.”148 From Britain, Churchill’s private secretary John Colville characterized the American posture as “aloof, and critical of what everybody in Europe is doing and thinking, without showing the least inclination to step in to redress the balance of the Old World.”149

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In a Fireside Chat designed to acquaint Americans with the situation in Europe, Roosevelt began with a swipe at isolationism. The president stated that while it was easy to believe that what was happening thousands of miles from America’s shores did not afect Americans, “every word that comes through the air, every ship that sails the sea, every battle that is fought, does afect the American future.” Ever the skilled politician, Roosevelt also endorsed a key isolationist talking point by condemning war profteering (“no American has the moral right to profteer ….”). He declared that the United States would remain neutral, but in a clear reference to Woodrow Wilson’s 1914 exhortation that Americans remain “impartial in thought as well as action,” Roosevelt stated that, “I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts.”150 What these facts were was in the eye of the beholder. For Senator Henry Cabot Lodge the facts boiled down to this: “Much as I want peace in Europe, I shall never for this purpose vote to sacrifce the life of one single American soldier.”151 With war in Europe now a grim reality, a strange phenomenon surfaced in America. Writing in The Atlantic, David L. Cohn observed that, “While we protest that the European war is no business of ours, it seems to be our sole business.” Domestic issues that seemed bitterly important just a few month previously now seemed trivial.152 Americans were being pulled between the two poles of keeping out of war through the maintenance of neutrality while trying to assure an Allied victory.153 Many believed that the outcome of the war would depend on how the United States chose to respond. As previously noted, U.S. Ambassador to France William C. Bullitt had advised Roosevelt to exercise restraint during the Munich crisis, but the outbreak of war a year later had converted Bullitt to an internationalist. In a September 8, 1939 communication from Paris, Bullitt declared, “It is, of course, obvious that if the Neutrality Act remains in its present form, France and England will be defeated rapidly.”154 Addressing a Special Session of Congress, Roosevelt referred to the Neutrality Act and said, “I regret that Congress passed that Act. I regret equally that I signed that Act.” The President wanted elimination of the arms embargo, but rather than presenting it as a radical departure, he couched it in pedestrian terms. Removal would simply be a return to “sounder international practice,” and would enhance American prospects for remaining at peace. As Roosevelt outlined what would become his cash-and-carry program, he made it easier for isolationists to swallow. He insisted that all purchases would be made in cash (therefore eliminating the involvement of American credit or loans) and that all purchases would be carried away in the purchasers’ own ships at their own risk (eliminating the possibility of American vessels being caught up in the war).155 (Left unsaid was that only France and Britain—and not Germany—were in a position to get arms from the United States.) Hard-core isolationists were not placated (Hiram Johnson referred to the program as “scuttle and run”), but “lukewarm isolationists” were apparently impressed by the safeguards the president had put

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in this bill.156 Summarizing the isolationist reason for rejecting cash-and-carry, newspaper publisher Robert R. McCormick referred to the time when Britain and France “imposed the beastly treaty of Versailles … welshed on their war debts and postwar debts … bungled everything in the intervening time … and are at war again”157 As in similar debates, isolationist supporters packed the Senate chambers. Herbert Agar, a southern newspaper editor, witnessed opponents of the bill “screaming about ‘merchants of death,’ ‘the House of Morgan,’ ‘British propaganda,’ and similar phrases from long ago ….”158 The debate went on for a month, but in the end the arms embargo was repealed, despite dark warnings from William E. Borah that the United States would be in the war the moment the legislation was passed.159 In April 1940, Germany launched its blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark. Roosevelt responded by freezing Norwegian and Danish funds in the United States, launching what historians William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason called “the initiation of American economic warfare against the Axis powers.”160 The following month Germany invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. France had the largest army on the European continent, but there were ominous signs that France would not be up for the struggle. When he was in Paris in March, Sumner Welles found no “impression of hope or vigor, or even, tragically enough, of the will to courage.”161 The collapse of France in June was shockingly fast and complete, with the Germans capturing more than a million and a half French soldiers.162 In the aftermath of the French capitulation, the Völkische Beobachter reported, “Paris was a city of frivolity and corruption, of democracy and capitalism, where Jews had entry to the court, and Negroes to the salons. That Paris will never rise again.”163 Britain and her navy were now what Washington Post columnist Livingston Hartley called “the last line of defense of European freedom ….”164 German attacks were inficting enormous damage on British shipping, sinking 140 merchant ships in June alone.165 The toll on the British destroyers that were protecting these vessels was also extremely high. When the Wren was sunk by a German bomb in July it marked the twenty-eighth British destroyer lost since the beginning of the war.166 Five days after Winston Churchill became prime minister, he sent Roosevelt a request for ffty or sixty overage destroyers. Columnist Joseph Alsop was tasked with assessing the Royal Navy’s plight. He found that Britain had only sixty-eight functioning destroyers. In contrast, the U.S. Navy had more destroyers than the combined navies of the planet, including some 140 Great War era vessels.167 The Roosevelt Administration had long desired to send American naval assets to Britain, but in previous months the Senate Naval Afairs Committee discovered that twenty torpedo boats had been sold to the British. Roosevelt was forced to rescind the order, and while it was not clear that the president knew anything about the sale, one commentator concluded that this story reignited the feeling in the country that “if we are not at war we should stop acting as if we were, and if we are at war we should

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stop acting as if we were not.”168 In the meantime, Congress authorized the largest naval appropriations order in history, bringing to 150 the number of vessels either under construction or soon to be started.169 In late July 1940, three members of the Century Group, an organization that was pressing for American intervention in the war, visited Roosevelt at the White House. They asked for, and received, approval for a “radio program of education.” Specifically, the broadcast would be a plea for destroyers for Britain. Roosevelt suggested that John J. Pershing, the old commander of the American Expeditionary Force, make the speech. Herbert Agar and Walter Lippmann wrote the speech, and on August 4, 1940 Pershing delivered it.170 The general had always an outspoken advocate of military preparedness. In the 1920s Pershing had urged America to build up its armaments because of the suddenness with which wars confront a nation. He added that “we who have seen wars, we who realize their horrors far more deeply than any so-called pacifist” were endorsing preparedness in the name of safety for the nation.171 ­Sixteen years later, at age 80, Pershing expressed the belief that sending d­ estroyers to Britain represented one of the last chances “to keep the war on the other side of the Atlantic ….”172 This idea had already caught fire. The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies produced a poster that urged Americans to “Stop Hitler Now!” Britain was referred to as “our first line of defence.” (Figure 7.4). The Committee argued that sixty old American destroyers could easily be spared for Britain, a “fortress of freedom” against “international gangsters.”173 Also involving herself in this campaign was Edna St. Vincent Millay. She had written a poem called “Lines Written in Passion and in Deep Concern for England, France and My Own Country,” and had submitted it to several newspapers for publication.174 Fears that ships sent to Britain might fall to the Nazis or be scuttled were addressed by British naval officials, and by Winston Churchill, who insisted that no ships would ever be surrendered.175 The British had more than a little credibility on this point. When France surrendered to Germany in late June, the British asked the French to relocate their fleet from Mers elKébir, Algeria, to the Western Hemisphere. Churchill instructed his personal secretary John Colville to tell the French “that if they let us have their fleet we shall never forget, but that if they surrender without consulting us we shall never forgive.”176 General Charles de Gaulle, in exile in Britain, called upon all French military personnel to join him, and to bring their military assets with them.177 But when the Vichy French government refused to relocate the ships, the British destroyed the French fleet on July 3.178 The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times came out in favor of providing destroyers for Britain.179 In the Washington Post, Mark Sullivan referred to the “self-manacling neutrality legislation” of 1935, and contended that by sending destroyers to Britain the United States would be gaining precious time to build up its own military. “Never was insurance so inexpensive.”180 Among

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FIGURE 7.4

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“Stop Hitler Now!” 1940. Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZC4–13390.

the most passionate voices for the destroyer deal was William C. Bullitt. After the Nazi takeover of France Bullitt returned to the United States and argued that without the British navy, the United States would have no more protection than the Maginot Line gave France … Why are we sleeping, Americans? When are we going to wake up? When are we going to tell our government that we want to defend our homes and our children and our liberties, whatever the cost in money or blood?181 Congressional isolationists called Bullitt a “war-monger.”182 Isolationists lined up to condemn the destroyer deal. Robert La Follette, Jr., said, “It would be absurd to grant England ffty destroyers and not take the next step of declaring war.” Burton K. Wheeler (D-Montana) claimed that sending destroyers would be a “direct step toward war.”183 Making the same claim was

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David I. Walsh (D-Massachusetts), who added that the only group in favor of the destroyer deal “has advocated our entrance into the European war from the beginning.”184 In fact, this was not true. A Gallup Poll showed 60 percent of Americans endorsing the destroyer proposal.185 Summing up the mood of the American public in the summer of 1940, Fortune declared that the U.S. is fearful of the outcome of the European war, is willing, as never before since the frst World War, to throw its resources (but not its men) into the scales to help the Allies win, and meanwhile is grimly determined to prepare for the worst by arming.186 Even the American Legion, which had been strongly isolationist for most of the twenties and thirties, voted overwhelmingly in favor of destroyers for Britain at their 1940 convention.187 The destroyer deal began to coalesce as Britain proposed leasing to the United States British islands from Newfoundland to the Caribbean in exchange for the destroyers.188 Aiding the destroyers-for-bases deal was that isolationists had long advocated that such bases might be secured in return for debt forgiveness.189 In the midst of all this there was a presidential election. After months of refusing to say whether he would run or not, Roosevelt fnally committed to a new presidential campaign. The nomination of Wendell Willkie for the Republicans surprised almost everyone. He had been a registered Democrat in 1939, and had supported many of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. As an internationalist, he was also swimming against the Republican isolationist tide. At the beginning of May 1940 he had the support of just 3 percent of Republicans, and Thomas E. Dewey, Robert A. Taft, and Arthur H. Vandenberg— isolationists all—were the leading contenders for the nomination. But outside forces would have a huge infuence on the upcoming Republican convention. On June 20, Roosevelt left Republicans fat-footed when he appointed two prominent members of their party—Henry Stimson and Frank Knox—to his cabinet. Even more impactful was the deteriorating situation in Europe. France surrendered to German forces on June 22, and two days later the Republican convention convened. It is hard to gauge the shock that France’s downfall had on the American public, but one measure of it was Willkie’s securing of the Republican nomination (Figure 7.5).190 It was a stunning development (Vandenberg referred to it as “the Willkie blitzkrieg”), but the Republican party was due for a shake-up even before the fall of France.191 As Walter Lippmann put it that summer, “For eighteen months the Republican party has been walking in its sleep.”192 There was considerable resentment toward Willkie from the Republican mainstream. Hiram Johnson claimed that Willkie had “swallowed whole the Roosevelt foreign policy ….”193 When he heard that Willkie was to be the Republican Party’s nominee, former Indiana Senator James E. Watson declared

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FIGURE 7.5

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Wendell Willkie. ca. 1940–41. Bachrach. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62–192567.

that, “If a whore repented and wanted to go to the church I’d personally welcome her and lead her up the aisle to a pew. But, by the eternal, I’d not ask her to lead the choir the frst night.”194 Both party platforms in 1940 declared that no American troops would be sent to fght overseas, but Willkie made it clear that there would not be an isolationist in the White House regardless of who won the election.195 In his acceptance speech Willkie said, “the next President will lead us in war, but not into war, because with Britain beaten, Hitler would and will bring the war to us.”196 Roosevelt called the Willkie nomination a “Godsend to the country” because it eliminated the isolationist issue from the election.197 During the campaign, controversy roiled over the destroyer deal. There was also the issue of military conscription. The American army consisted of 14,000 ofcers and 227,000 men, of which only 80,000 could be put in the feld. The War Department wanted an army of 1.2 million, and a military draft was the way to get it.198 Despite nearly united isolationist opposition

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(Senator George Norris thundered that passage of the bill would “slit the throat of the last great democracy still living”), polls showed that anxious Americans supported selective service by a wide margin. To soothe fears that another American Expeditionary Force was being created, the Selective Service Act mandated that draftees would only serve for twelve months, and would not be stationed outside the Western Hemisphere. Willkie continued to defy the isolationist wing of the Republican party by endorsing conscription, and the bill was ratifed easily in both the House and Senate.199 Getting American destroyers to Britain was accomplished through some legal maneuvering by the Roosevelt Administration. Roosevelt authorized a destroyers-for-leases deal under an executive order, citing Attorney General Robert H. Jackson’s opinion that no Congressional authority was needed.200 Within twelve days in September 1940, the Roosevelt administration could claim two huge victories in the destroyer deal and military conscription. One social consequence of the Selective Service Act was that couples rushed to the altar because fathers were exempt from the draft. Nine months later there was an 11 percent spike in the birth rate. One ofcial stated bluntly that “about half the increase in marriages must be traced to bare-faced draft evasion.”201 The 1940 campaign was hard fought—Eleanor Roosevelt pronounced herself “amused” by the campaign buttons that said, “We don’t want Eleanor either”—and while Roosevelt would secure the victory it was the closest contest of his political career.202 With his defeat, Willkie became even more outspoken, urging that the United States give ships to Britain “today and tomorrow and the next day” and see those ships “loaded with the ever-increasing production of American factories and farms … ”203 Wheeler, Walsh and other isolationists charged that sending destroyers to Britain edged the United States closer to the European confict. They were right, as confrmed by Winston Churchill in his post-World War II memoirs. The destroyer deal, said Churchill, “was a decidedly unneutral act” by America that “brought the United States defnitely nearer to us and to the war …. It marked the passage of the United States from being neutral to being non-belligerent.”204 By the end of 1940 it was becoming increasingly clear that sending a few destroyers to Britain was not going to be enough to hold back the Nazi tide. During the evacuation of Dunkirk, the British had been forced to leave behind 90,000 rifes, 7,000 tons of ammunition, and 120,000 vehicles.205 Planes, ships and money were needed, and the only source for these things was the United States. American newspapers began to frame the issue in stark terms. The Los Angeles Times argued that if the United States stinted on aid to Britain, “a Hitler victory may prove an inevitable reality.”206 Britain was burning through money, spending some 10 million pounds per day on the war.207 In November British Ambassador Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) met with a group of reporters and, using less than diplomatic language, said, “Well boys, Britain’s broke; it’s your

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money we want.”208 The New York Times estimated that Britain’s negotiable securities and dollar balances in America would be depleted within six months, then posed the grim dilemma faced by the United States: Should America extend credit to Britain regardless of the risks, “Or would the ­A merican people rather accept, as an alternative, the possibility of a Nazi victory?”209 Roosevelt now stepped in with a proposal—eventually acquiring the name “Lend-Lease”— which would give aid to Britain under a “gentleman’s agreement.” Britain would make repayment in kind after the war, and American manufacturers would have the guarantee of the U.S. government (instead of the British government) that they would be paid. Because Britain would not be incurring a monetary obligation and would be paying off her debt in goods at a later date after the war, the Johnson Act, which provided that no money could be loaned to nations in default on their war debts, could remain undisturbed.210 On December 29, 1940 Roosevelt gave a Fireside Chat that concentrated on the war in Europe. “Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock,” said the president, “has our American civilization been is such danger as now.” The Nazis were bent on a campaign of domination, first in Europe then the rest of the world. For those in America who believed that broad ocean expanses would insulate the United States from attack even if Britain were defeated, Roosevelt observed that “the width of those oceans is not what it was in the days of clipper ships.” Just as Germany was using Belgian bases to attack Britain, so too could she use sites in South America to attack the United States. Speaking specifically to the pessimists who were convinced that Nazi Germany was going to win anyway and that the best plan was a “negotiated peace,” the president asked, “Is it a negotiated peace if a gang of outlaws surrounds your community and on threat of extermination makes you pay tribute to save your own skins?” Britain was fighting America’s battle, and if Americans wanted to stay out of the war the best course for the United States was to send all the resources she could spare across the Atlantic. Roosevelt called for a huge increase in industrial output, both for American security and for nations fighting Nazism. “We must be the great arsenal of democracy.”211 Three months previously, Senator Vandenberg had questioned “whether we can become an arsenal for one belligerent without being the target for the other,” but messages to the White House after the president’s speech were favorable by a hundred to one.212 Roosevelt covered much of the same territory in his State of the Union address in January (which was also broadcast). Addressing the world’s democracies, Roosevelt said, We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge.

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America would not ask these nations to surrender “merely because of present inability to pay …”213 Roosevelt was tiptoeing around the still-contentious European debt issue, which Nazi Germany picked up on. As the Hamburger Fremdenblatt put it, If the people of the United States stop to ponder over the billions which England still owes them from the World War, then they must say to themselves that the worthy intention of harnessing their prosperity for the purposes of a second British war can turn out to be an extremely costly matter.214 Reactions to Roosevelt’s proposal were favorable throughout the country. Britain was undergoing the ordeal of the German aerial blitz, and the public was moved by personal accounts from Britons and by Edward R. Murrow’s radio broadcasts from London.215 Winston Churchill referred to a wave of sympathy in the United States during the German bombardment.216 A Gallup poll found that 60 percent supported more aid for Britain (although the same poll found that 88 percent of Americans would vote to stay out of war if there was a national referendum).217 Members of the administration testifed before Congress and emphasized the urgency of Lend-Lease. Cordell Hull claimed that, “There was a time for neutrality, and now is the time for self-defense.” Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau showed that Britain simply did not have the money for the supplies she needed, and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson claimed that the United States would be in real danger if Britain lost the war. He observed that the U.S. Army was nowhere near as large as the armies that Holland and Belgium felded last May, “and nowhere near as well trained.”218 The administration’s witnesses also took pains to dismiss the isolationist “ocean barriers” argument. Cordell Hull said that the Atlantic would remain a barrier only so long as the ocean was “not in the hands of the aggressor.”219 For William C. Bullitt, the Atlantic without the control of a friendly feet became “a broad highway for invasion,” and Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles called control of the seas by unfriendly hands a “menace to our security.”220 The usual suspects opposed Lend-Lease, with Burton K. Wheeler leading the opposition. The senator claimed that Roosevelt’s speech “was intended to frighten the American people to a point where they would surrender their liberties and establish a wartime dictatorship in this country.”221 In a more savage attack, Wheeler said that Lend-Lease would “plough under every fourth American boy.” Roosevelt called Wheeler’s statement “the rottenest thing that has been said in public life in my generation.”222 Hiram Johnson and Gerald Nye both argued that the act would take the nation straight into war.223 In the meantime, isolationists had seen tantalizing indications that Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy might be enlisted in their cause. In March 1940, according to Harold Ickes, Kennedy had entered William C. Bullitt’s ofce

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unannounced while Bullitt was talking to a couple of journalists. Kennedy cut into the conversation, insisted that Germany would win the war, and sharply criticized Roosevelt. Bullitt told him he was ignorant on foreign policy, and had no right to criticize the President in front of the journalists. “Joe said that he would say what he Goddamned pleased before whom he Goddamned pleased ….”224 The following month, after a conference with Churchill, Kennedy wired home that there was little the United States could do in terms of aid “that would not leave the United States holding the bag for a war in which the Allies expected to be beaten.”225 As Britain was being pounded by the German Blitz in October 1940, Kennedy declared, “England is gone …. I’m for appeasement one thousand per cent.”226 Kennedy would soon resign his post in Britain (he complained that the “Jew infuence in the papers in Washington” was ruining his reputation), but proved to be an equivocal isolationist.227 He endorsed the re-election of Roosevelt and increased aid to Britain, but objected to the Lend-Lease bill because it provided for “Presidential authority unheard of in our history.”228 Fourteen senators, including Wheeler, Bennett Clark, Robert La Follette, Jr., Hamilton Fish and Robert A. Taft joined with ffty-seven Representatives to issue a statement that said that since only Congress could declare war, they were not going to allow the president to “involve the country in war indirectly through convoys or otherwise.” They added that in their home districts over 80 percent opposed any course of action that would take the nation into a European war. This was in line with other polls, but they did not mention public support for Lend-Lease. Also not mentioned was that Roosevelt’s public approval rating had risen to an unprecedented 71 percent.229 Isolationists also took on Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox’s declaration that “the time to use our navy to clear the Atlantic of the German menace is at hand ….” Wheeler declared that Knox “should resign or be thrown out of ofce,” while Hamilton Fish suggested impeachment for Knox if he got the United States involved in a shooting war.230 More efective than any mere member of Congress in opposing the LendLease bill was Charles Lindbergh. As we have seen, the celebrated aviator was arguably the most efective voice for isolationism. When he testifed before the House Foreign Afairs Committee on Lend-Lease, he said that additional aid would “add to bloodshed” in Europe. He urged Britain to pursue a negotiated peace because she could not win against Germany. Lindbergh allowed that while there were many things that he didn’t like about Germany, “I think one (side) is just about as much at fault as the other. I want neither side to win.” As it was at other venues where Lindbergh appeared, “There was applause when Lindbergh entered the room, more when he arose for the luncheon recess and an ovation when his testimony was ended.”231 Life magazine concluded that “when he left the stand it was clear to everyone that Colonel Lindbergh had placed himself at the very farthest end of America’s isolationist bloc.”232 Lindbergh also testifed before the Senate, and reiterated that Britain was in a

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hopeless position and would be better off negotiating a peace.233 Lindbergh’s contention that such a peace was possible with Adolf Hitler was generally met with scorn by the press, and public opinion polls registered the same lack of support. Seventy-nine percent wanted Britain to continue the fight, but 88 percent wanted the United States to stay out of the war.234 By late February isolationist resistance to the Lend-Lease Bill was faltering, and America First held a New York gathering to rally the troops that attracted some 3,500. Not unexpectedly, it was Senator Wheeler who provided the most over-the-top oratory. According to the New York Times, The Senator devoted the last half of his address to painting a word picture of what war would mean—parades, martial music, mothers sobbing, men dying on barbed wire, fatherless children, young women with no hope of marriage and crowded military hospitals.235 The Lend-Lease debate represented a last stand for isolationists. They tried everything that had worked for them before but in the end the oratory, the mass meetings, the political theater—all were futile because Lend-Lease had both the public’s backing and the numbers in the House (260 to 165) and Senate (sixty to thirty-one). In a letter to his son, a bitter Hiram Johnson said, “Last night we did the dirty deed. We assassinated liberty under the pretext of aiding a belligerent in the war.”236 Arthur Vandenberg’s reaction was, “I was witnessing the suicide of the Republic ….We have torn up 150 years of traditional American foreign policy.”237 Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act on March 11, 1941, and immediately asked Congress for $7 billion to fund it.238 Making a huge contribution to the success of Lend-Lease was Wendell Willkie, who linked American security to the fate of Britain: “It makes a vital difference to the United States which side prevails in the present conflict.”239 Through it all Roosevelt continued his attack against isolationism, even to the point of rehabilitating Woodrow Wilson (“He taught—and let’s never forget it—he taught that democracy could not survive in isolation.”)240 Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., the chief administrator of Lend-Lease, emphasized the enormous impact of this program. Lend-Lease money helped build the Ford bomber factory at Willow Run, and the Chrysler Tank Arsenal in Detroit. The Kaiser shipyards at Richmond, California, was constructed, while other shipyards around the country were expanded. The manufacture of guns, bombs, and ammunition received a huge boost. Lend-Lease helped pay for the expansion of the aircraft factories of Boeing, Douglas, Consolidated, Bell and others. American food production also spiked under this program, with supplies of evaporated milk increasing by 779 million pounds and cheese by 150 million pounds.241 Lend-Lease assistance would eventually be extended to other nations, but its first effects were felt in Britain, and especially on the

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British navy. Not only did Lend-Lease spur the building of British warships and merchant ships, but damaged British ships were also being repaired in American shipyards. Historian S. W. Roskill notes that beginning in April 1941, “it was rare for any American Navy yard, and many private yards as well, not to have at least one British ship in its hands for refit or repair of action damage.”242 In all, grants from Lend-Lease to Britain between 1941 and 1945 would amount to 5.4 billion pounds—about 9 percent of Britain’s gross national product.243 German submarines and aircraft continued to inflict heavy losses on British shipping. In a meeting with American special envoy Averell Harriman in the spring of 1941, Churchill said that 10 percent of convoy ships were being sunk, with tonnage losses rising from month to month: 320,000 tons in January, 400,000 in February, 535,000 in March.244 Harriman sent a message to Roosevelt on April 10, declaring that, “England’s strength is bleeding. In our own interest, I trust that our Navy can be directly employed before our partner is too weak.”245 Roosevelt’s response was to declare a “national emergency,” and to greatly extend areas in the Atlantic patrolled by American ships. Hence forward, U.S. vessels would be patrolling as far east as Greenland and Iceland. If the Nazis occupied these places, said the president, they would become “stepping-stones” to Labrador, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, from which Germany could menace the United States itself.246 As Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson put it, “who will rule over Greenland is the business of America.”247 Essentially, Roosevelt was claiming that Iceland and Greenland lay within the Western Hemisphere, and were therefore part of the American land mass. This was less fanciful than many believed, and in a Foreign Affairs article arctic explorer Wilhjalmur Stefansson claimed that using a meridian of longitude to determine such a thing made no logical sense, and that instead a line should be drawn through the middle of the Atlantic that was equidistant between the European and African continents in the east, and the American continents in the west. If this was done, then indeed Iceland and Greenland belonged to the North American continent.248 As a bonus, if Iceland was geographically redefined Roosevelt could send troops there without violating the Selective Service Act’s prohibition against deployment outside the Western Hemisphere. In July, Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Navy and 4,000 marines to Iceland to supplement and eventually replace British forces there. This move enjoyed wide popular support. The President emphasized again that the United States could not permit the occupation by Germany of such outposts in the Atlantic “to be used as air or naval bases for eventual attack against the Western Hemisphere.”249 It should be emphasized, however, that isolationist sentiment among the Amer­ ican public was still strong. When Cordell Hull made a speech in April advocating the repeal of other parts of the Neutrality Act, he received 1,700 telegrams

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and letters, of which 1,100 were in opposition. In the same month, Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary that “the USA is preparing to make the leap to war. If Roosevelt were not so chary of public opinion, he would have declared war on us long ago.”250 Hull delicately suggested to Roosevelt that American patrol lines in the Atlantic might be extended “without publicity,” which the president did.251 In August, Roosevelt and Churchill met of the coast of Newfoundland on the HMS Prince of Wales to sign the “Atlantic Charter” (Figure 7.6). During negotiations it was clear Roosevelt was haunted by the issues of the Great War that had turned Americans into isolationists. In conversations with his British counterpart Alexander Cadogan, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles brought up the damage done in the United States by the revelations of secret British agreements during the Great War, and by the British debt issue. Roosevelt directly told Churchill that any joint statement must “make it impossible for extreme isolationist leaders to allege that every kind of secret agreement had been entered into … ” 252 The fnal

FIGURE 7.6

Franklin D. Roosevelt (L.) and Winston Churchill aboard HMS Prince of Wales. August 1941. Associated Press. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62-123070.

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draft of the agreement did indeed bend over backward to assuage American misgivings about an accord with Britain, with language that was notably Wilsonian. The U.S. hostility toward British colonialism was addressed by the two leaders, who swore to “seek no aggrandizement, territorial, or other,” and to respect “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.” They also committed to freedom of the seas after the destruction of Nazism (Americans had not forgotten the unfreedom of the seas under British naval dominance during the Great War). There would be aid for the Soviet Union, no compromises with the Nazi regime and, for a utopian future, disarmament and “the abandonment of the use of force.” 253 Despite Roosevelt’s precautions, isolationists immediately claimed that more had happened between the two leaders than was revealed, which made the conference, according to Robert E. Sherwood, “seem more interesting than it actually was.”254 Churchill himself was awe-struck by what had transpired. “The fact alone of the United States, still technically neutral, joining with a belligerent Power in making such a declaration was astonishing,” said Churchill later. “The inclusion in it of a reference to ‘the fnal destruction of the Nazi tyranny’ … amounted to a challenge which in ordinary times would have implied warlike action.”255 Roosevelt understood in a very personal way the increased dangers that Americans were now facing in the Atlantic. Serving on one of the destroyers that he sent to escort Churchill back across the ocean was his son, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.256 Trouble between American and German naval forces was not long in coming. On September 4 there was a confrontation between the American destroyer Greer and a German submarine. The Greer had been alerted by a British plane about the presence of the submarine, and both the Greer and the plane began stalking it. Eventually, there was an exchange of depth charges and torpedoes, none of which struck home. U.S. Navy ofcials reported to the president that there was “no positive evidence that [the] submarine knew [the] nationality of [the] ship at which it was fring.”257 In a Fireside Chat, Roosevelt put a diferent spin on it. Failing to mention that the Greer had been tracking the submarine for hours, he insisted that the submarine had fred frst. It was, said Roosevelt, an act of German “piracy,” with the larger goal of gaining control of the Atlantic and “domination of the United States, domination of the Western Hemisphere by force of arms.” Referring to German naval forces as “the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic,” Roosevelt authorized the American military to “shoot on sight.”258 Reaction from Britain was ecstatic. Typical was the Daily Mail, which gushed, “There can be no underrating this event! The United States Atlantic feet has been thrown into the struggle on our side.”259

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In a Washington Post article, Hedley Donovan observed that America had “embarked on two wars—a ‘shooting war’ between here and Iceland,” and “a ‘war of nerves’ on all the high seas.” In April 1941, Germany had announced that she would attack any ship carrying war materiel for Britain, and proclaimed an Atlantic war zone that included Iceland and Greenland. Germany would accept no responsibility for any loss of life, and any attempt on the part of the United States to convoy or carry shipments to Britain would result in “the rapid sinking of American ships ….”260 At the time there had been more than a little bluster in this proclamation, as American naval forces were not a significant presence in these waters. Now they were, and the dilemma for Germany was whether or not to back up her rhetoric and pursue unrestricted submarine warfare, as she had in 1917. The thinking during the Great War had been that even if such an action provoked American entry into the war, Germany could fnish of the Allies before the United States made a signifcant contribution. This had been a woeful miscalculation. Nevertheless, in 1941 German Admiral Erich Raeder was urging ramped up attacks against American shipping in the Atlantic, including “warfare against merchant ships of the U.S.A., according to prize regulations.” But Hitler wanted no actions taken that might precipitate a U.S. declaration of war until German forces had achieved victory over Russia. Hitler was also hoping for more aggressive Japanese moves in the Pacifc, which would draw of American naval forces from the Atlantic. For the same reason, the United States was putting a premium on “avoidance of war with Japan.”261 On the evening of October 16–17, the American destroyer Kearny was ripped open by a Germany torpedo, with eleven killed. In a “Navy Day” address ten days later, Roosevelt insisted that freedom of the seas had been a fundamental policy of the government, and that the purpose of German attacks “was to frighten the American people of the high seas—to force us to make a trembling retreat.” “Very simply and very bluntly,” said the president, “we are pledged to pull our own oar in the destruction of Hitlerism.” He asked Congress for further modifcations of the Neutrality Act to allow for arming of merchant ships and authority to deliver Lend-Lease goods in American ships.262 On October 31, the destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed and sunk west of Iceland—the frst American warship lost in World War II.263 For those in Congress in favor of repealing or modifying the Neutrality Act, such as Senator John Chandler Gurney (R-South Dakota), “This clinches the argument.” As for isolationists, Senator Nye said, “You can’t walk into a barroom brawl and hope to stay out of the fght. That’s what the administration’s policy contemplates.”264 Germany claimed that the sinking of the Reuben James was “justifable under international law” since that ship was part of a British convoy.265 The German Foreign Ofce made full use of the language of isolationism, noting that Roosevelt was causing “American sons and fathers to die in behalf of the secret wire-pullers of Washington and London.” It even directly borrowed from Senator Wheeler’s statement that Lend-Lease would “plough

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under every fourth American boy” when it proclaimed that Roosevelt was “already plowing American boys under.”266 The Congressional debate to modify the Neutrality Act to allow for the arming of American merchant ships, and to permit the sailing of those ships to belligerent ports assumed a well-worn pattern. Senator Theodore F. Green (D-Rhode Island) called the Neutrality Act “an act of appeasement toward Hitler,” but for Senator Bennett Clark repeal would mean “limitless” war.267 In a bitter radio address, Senator Hiram Johnson claimed that Roosevelt had “artfully planned” to lead America into war.268 What was diferent in this debate was that the galleries were virtually empty, which both sides attributed to “public apathy.” Americans had heard the alarms sounded for the arms embargo repeal, the selective service bill, and for lend-lease legislation, and were simply exhausted.269 Isolationists in Congress knew they did not have the votes to oppose repeal, and basically threw in the towel when they indicated that there would be no flibuster.270 The measure was passed in the Senate by a vote of 50 to 37.271 It carried in the House by a vote of 212 to 194.272 Throughout the month of November 1941 Americans were fully focused on the “Battle of the Atlantic.” As hostilities escalated between American and German naval forces, it seemed increasingly likely that a single incident might produce a full-fedged war between the two nations. It would be one of the ironies of history that a diferent nation in a diferent ocean would pull the United States into the maelstrom of the Second World War.

Notes 1 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 75th Congress, 3rd. Sess., v. 1, August 12, 1938, 1. 2 Quoted in Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 1938–1941: America on the Way to War (New York: Random House, 1989), 633. 3 Kenneth G. Crawford, “The Real Dies Report,” The Nation 150, no. 2 ( January 13, 1940), 36. Roosevelt quoted in Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Volume III: The Lowering Clouds, 1939–1941 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 49. 4 Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992), 209–10. 5 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 75th Congress, 3rd. Sess., v. 2, September 15, 16, and 17, 1938, 982, 1014. 6 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 75th Cong., 3rd. Sess., v. 3, October 24 and 25, 1938, 1717, 1988. 7 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v. 7, September 5, 1939, 4283–84. 8 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v.9, September 29, 1939, 5360.

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9 “Congress: Dimes & Millions,” Time 34, no. 13 (September 25, 1939), 11–12. 10 Telegram of Arthur Garfeld Hays to Martin Dies, August 30, 1938, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 75th Cong., 3rd. Sess, v. 4, 3083–84. In a statement sent to the Committee, the ACLU declared, We realize that any organization which actively protests the infringement of the rights of unpopular persons (and these are the ones who most need the protection) will be criticized … We shall not let it defect us from continuing our activities to safeguard constitutional liberties. Statement of John Haynes Holmes, B. W. Huebsch, and Roger N. Baldwin, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 75th Cong. 3rd. Sess., v. 4, 31 December 1938, 3085. 11 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v. 10, October. 24, 1939, 6400–01. 12 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v. 8, September 25, 1939, 5176. 13 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v. 8, September 25, 1939, 5176. 14 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 76th Cong., 1st sess., v. 8, September 25, 1939, 5203. 15 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 75th Cong., 3rd. Sess., v. 4, December 5, 1938, 2844. 16 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 75th Cong., 3rd. Sess., v. 4, December 5, 1938, 2850. 17 “WPA Writers’ Head Hits Communists,” New York Times, December 7, 1938. 18 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 75th Cong., 3rd. Sess., v. 4, December 5, 1938, 2857–58. 19 Special Committee on Un-American Activities, On H. Res. 282 Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, 78th Cong., 2nd sess., v.17, September 27, 1944, 10212: 20 “Wants ‘Aggression’ Clearly Defned,” New York Times, August 5, 1928. 21 See Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 66–71. 22 See David Reynolds, The Long Shadow: The legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), 232. 23 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, Pt. 1, 73rd-74th Cong., September 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10, 1934 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Offce, 1934), 1, 2. 24 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, Pt. 2, 73rd-74th Cong., September 7, 1934, 517. 25 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, Pt. 9, December 4 and 5, 1934. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1935), 2111. 26 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 9, 2188–89.

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27 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, 73rd-74th Cong., Pt. 8, September 20, 21, 1934 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1935), 1955. 28 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, 73rd-74th Cong., Pt. 5, September 12, 13, 14, 1934, 1029–40. 29 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 5, 1054. 30 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 5, 1139. 31 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 5, 1141. 32 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 8, 2011. 33 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 5, 1258. 34 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 2, 518. 35 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, Pt. 7, 73rd. Cong., September 18, 19, and 20, 1934 (Washington: Government Printing Ofce, 1934), 1690–91. 36 Nye Committee Hearings, Pt. 5, 1219. 37 U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. Persuant to S. Res. 206 A Resolution to Make Certain Investigations Concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Arms and Other War Munitions, 73rd-74th Cong., Pt. 12, December 11 and 12, 1934 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1935), 2761. 38 Charles A. Beard, The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibility of Keeping Out of War (New York: Vanguard Press, 1936), 32. 39 Beard, 12–13, 11. 40 “Stop the Next War Now!” Christian Century 51, no. 11 ( March 14,1934), 352. 41 “The Arms Inquiry Opens,” Christian Century 51, no. 38 (September 19, 1934), 1167. 42 Russell J. Clinchy, “The Plight of the Du Ponts,” Christian Century 51, no. 40 (October 3, 1934), 1234, 1235. 43 Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “We Or They”: Two Worlds in Confict (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 76. 44 Frederick Lewis Allen, “The Lesson of 1917,” Harper’s Magazine 181, September 1940, 351. 45 “A Policy of Neutrality,” Washington Post, March 27, 1935. 46 “Nye and Clark Urge Peace Laws Here,” New York Times, May 28, 1935. 47 “Filibuster Threat Made,” New York Times, August 21, 1935. 48 “Nation is Warned on Danger of War,” New York Times, April 23, 1935. 49 Charles Warren, “Troubles of a Neutral,” Foreign Afairs, April 1934, 394. 50 “Problems of a Neutral,” Washington Post, March 29, 1935; “Neutrality and Sanctions,” New York Times, August 22, 1935. 51 “Rhetorical Declaration,” Washington Post, August 23, 1935. 52 Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 104. 53 Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life (New York: Penguin, 2018), 228–29. 54 Quoted in Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932–45 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 178. 55 “Full Text of Senate War Neutrality Resolution,” Washington Post, August 21, 1935.

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56 Allen W. Dulles and Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “Legislating Peace,” Foreign Afairs 17, no. 1 (October 1938), 3. 57 Bennett Clark, “Congress Should Legislate a Mandatory Arms Embargo against All Belligerents,” Isolationism: Opposing Viewpoints, ed. William Dudley (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1995), 100. 58 Quoted in Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979), 29. 59 Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 119–20. 60 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 70–71. 61 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 204; Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 71. 62 Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 122. 63 Quoted in Thomas N. Guinsburg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States Senate From Versailles to Pearl Harbor (New York: Garland, 1982), 160. 64 Quoted in Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 95. 65 Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 123. 66 Charles E. Coughlin, “Internationalism,” in Charles E. Coughlin, Charles Coughlin’s Radio Sermons: October, 1930–April, 1931, Complete (Baltimore, MD: Knox and O’Leary, 1931), 106–07. 67 Dallek, Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 95. 68 Ketchum, 126–27. 69 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 114–15. 70 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 114. 71 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1933, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932–1945, ed. B. D. Zevin (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1946), 16. 72 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 161. The London Economic Conference, also held in 1933, likewise failed. In a letter to Roosevelt William C. Bullitt, who served as assistant to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, concluded that, “I am more than ever convinced that we can do little in Europe and should keep out of European squabbles …” William C. Bullitt, For the President, Personal & Secret: Correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and William C. Bullitt, ed. Orville H. Bullitt (Boston: Houghton Mifin, 1972), 37. 73 David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 393. 74 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 228. 75 Quoted in Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 201–02. 76 Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, v. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 477. 77 Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, v. 1, 398–99. 78 Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, v.1, 404. 79 Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880–1955 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1997), 362–63. 80 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Speech Recommending a ‘Quarantine’ of Aggressor Nations,” Chicago, IL, October 5, 1937, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear, 111, 112, 114. 81 Ketchum, 128. 82 “The Fortune Quarterly Survey: XII,” Fortune 17, no. 4 (April 1938), 109. Sumner Welles argued that had there been public support, a total Anglo-American trade embargo against Japan in 1937 “could have compelled the Japanese Army to abandon its plans for aggressive expansion.” Sumner Welles, Seven Decisions That Shaped History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), 92. 83 Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 154. 84 Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate, 76th. Cong., 1st. Sess., on S. J. Res. 84, “A Joint Resolution Proposing an

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85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

100 101 102

103 104 105 106 107 108 109

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Amendment to the Constitution of the United States for a Referendum on War,” May 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 24, and 31, 1939, 1. See “Should the People Vote on War?” Current History, November 1939, 38; Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 253–61. Charles Chatfeld, For Peace and Justice: Pacifsm in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971), 285. See Reynolds, 232. U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, Persuant to S. Res. 84 A Joint Resolution Proposing an Amendment of the Constitution of the United States for a Referendum on War, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 24 May 1939, 155–56. Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933–1983 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984, 29. Ketchum, xvi. Joseph Alsop and Robert Kintner, American White Paper: The Story of American Diplomacy and the Second World War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940), 6. Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019), 233. Bouverie, 414. Bouverie, 246, 248. Alsop and Kintner, 13; Roosevelt quoted in Ted Schwarz, Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth (Hoboken, NJ: Jon Wiley and Sons, 2003), 233. Quoted in David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (New York: Penguin, 2012), 292. Kennedy quoted in Schwarz, 267. Roosevelt quoted in John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Crisis, 1928–1938 (Cambridge, MA: Riverside, 1959), 518. Bouverie, 273, 253. Bullitt, 297, 300. After his split with Wilson, Bullitt had wandered in the political wilderness for some thirteen years, spending much of his time in Europe. He reintegrated himself into Democratic politics, serving as ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1933 to 1936, and ambassador to France from 1936 to 1940. Bouverie, 294. Douglas Wapshott, The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), 89. By 1940, Britain was producing twice the number of fghters as Germany. Total British aircraft production for 1940 was 9,924 compared to 8,070 for Germany. Wapshott, 192. Between 1940 and 1944, American aircraft production increased from 2,142 per year to 96,318. Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2008), 104. Bouverie, 152–53. Welles quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 408; Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm [1948] (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1985), 229. Bouverie, 156–58, 130. Bouverie, 247. Bullitt, 287. Quoted in Bullitt, 300–01. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “Armistice at Munich,” Foreign Afairs 17, no. 2 ( January 1939), 198, 290. Arnold Toynbee called the Munich Conference “a turning point in history.” Arnold Toynbee, “A Turning Point in History,” Foreign Afairs 17, no. 2 ( January 1939), 305–20. Dorothy Thompson, “Obituary for Europe,” in Dorothy Thompson, Let the Record Speak (Cambridge, MA: Riverside, 1939), 209.

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111 Dorothy Thompson, “‘Peace’—And the Crisis Begins,” in Thompson, Let the Record Speak, 223. 112 Reinhold Niebuhr, “Ten Years That Shook My World,” The Christian Century, April 26, 1939, 543; Parker quoted in Bouverie, 309. 113 Quoted in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 436. Ribbentrop typifed the historical inability of Germany to come up with a competent foreign secretary, with the Great War’s Arthur Zimmermann serving as Exhibit A. In an interview with Sumner Welles, Ciano expressed his “contempt and hatred” for Ribbentrop, and when Welles was himself subjected to a two-hour harangue by Ribbentrop, he was struck by Ribbentrop’s “amazing conglomeration of misinformation and deliberate lies,” and by “the pomposity and absurdity of his manner ….” Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 82, 91. 114 Quoted in Sigrid Schultz, “Hitler Seizes 20,000 Jews,” Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 18. 115 Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—The Election amid the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 51. 116 Nasaw, 366. 117 Quoted in Nasaw, 434. 118 Bouverie, 233. Bouverie dismisses the argument that appeasement gave Britain and France precious time to prepare for war. Germany was in no position to launch the Battle of Britain in 1938, says Bouverie, and Germany made even more progress in the intervening year building up her armaments. Ibid., 293, 295. 119 William L. Shirer, “This Is Berlin”: Radio Broadcasts from Nazi Germany (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1999), 15, 25. 120 Bouverie, 287, 288, 280, 281. 121 Elmer Davis, “The Road from Munich,” Harper’s Magazine 178, December 1938, 48. 122 Quoted in Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Confict and the Descent of the West (New York: Penguin, 2006), 355. 123 “The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State,” October 3, 1938, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1938, General, Volume I, Document 693 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1955). 124 John F. Kennedy, Why England Slept [1940] (New York: Wilfred Funk, 1961), 184, 191. 125 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm, 304. 126 Bouverie, 293–95. The information on the Czech fortifcations was provided by a member of the Czech legation in France. See “The Chargé in France (Wilson) to the Secretary of State,” October 6, 1938, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1938, General, Volume I, Document 698. 127 Historian Niall Ferguson has referred to “the relatively leisurely pace of British rearmament” after Munich. Ferguson, 372; Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: Penguin, 2016), 321. 128 Quoted in Lynne Olson, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour (New York: Random House, 2017), 321. 129 Graham Hutton, “The Next War,” Atlantic Monthly 164, no. 1 ( July 1939), 1. 130 Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, v. 1, 595. 131 Quoted in Bouverie, 130. 132 “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact,” New York Times, October 31, 1938. 133 Marshall Andrews, “Monsters of Mars on a Meteor Stamped Radiotic America,” Washington Post, October 31, 1938. 134 “Radio Listeners in Panic.”

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135 FCC to Scan Script of ‘War’ Broadcast,” New York Times, November 1, 1938. 136 Dorothy Thompson, “On the Record: Mr. Welles and Mass Delusion,” Washington Post, November 2, 1938. 137 Athan Marculis, “The Sound of Sirens: the Story of War of the Worlds,” The Very Best of Orson Welles, Featuring the Mercury Theatre’s Radio Productions of The War of the Worlds and Dracula, Stardust Records, ca. 2000. For further reading on the subject see Hadley Cantrel, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic [1940] (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016) and The Complete War of the Worlds, ed. Brian Holmsten and Alex Lubertozzi (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2001). 138 Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I, 339. 139 Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 101–02. 140 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Annual Message to Congress—A Warning to Dictator Nations,” January 4, 1939, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear, 164, 165. 141 Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Chichester UK: Wiley, 2012), 48. 142 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Five Hundred and Twenty-third Press Conference,” February 3, 1939, in Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, v. 8, 1939 (New York Macmillan, 1941), 111. 143 Alsop and Kintner, 40–42. 144 Alsop and Kintner, 44–46; Before the outbreak of the war, Borah had said, “God, what a chance Hitler has! If he only moderates his religious and racial intolerance, he would take his place beside Charlemagne. He has taken Europe without fring a shot.” Quoted in Wapshott, 123. After war broke out, Newsweek observed that Roosevelt “had proved himself a better guesser than the isolationists on the imminence of war ….” “U.S. Is Made Rigidly Neutral Pending Congress Study of Act,” Newsweek, September 18, 1939, 28. 145 In late February 1939, local Danzig Nazis picketing the Technical College, beat up Polish students and told the rest not to return. At a local restaurant they posted a sign that read, “Poles and Dogs Not Admitted.” “Polish Students Beaten in Danzig,” New York Times, February 25, 1939. Poles retaliated by attacking the German Embassy. “German Embassy Attacked by Poles,” New York Times, February 26, 1939. Late in March, Poland posted 10,000 troops at the western border. “Poland Masses Border Troops,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1939. 146 “Polish Theatre,” Time 34, no. 13 (September 1939), 25. 147 Alsop and Kintner, 68. 148 Quoted in Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), 54. 149 John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 62. 150 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Reaction to War in Europe: Preparing for Cash-andCarry,” September 3, 1939, in Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDR’s Fireside Chats, ed. Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 149–51. See also “President Pledges Eforts to Keep Nation Out of War,” Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1939. 151 Quoted in “Demand for Strong Neutrality Policy Cheered by V.F.W.,” Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1939. 152 David L. Cohn, “The Road Not Taken,” Atlantic Monthly 165, no. 3 (March 1940), 301. 153 Raymond Clapper, “A Month of War: VI. America and Neutrality,” Current History, October 1939, 39.

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154 Bullitt, 369. Harold L. Ickes reported that “According to [Oswald Garrison] Villard, Bullitt practically sleeps with the French cabinet and there is no doubt that in many respects he is more French than the French themselves.” Ickes, 124. 155 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Message to Congress Urging the Extraordinary Session to Repeal the Embargo Provision of the Neutrality Law,” September 21, 1939, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear, 187, 189, 190. 156 Hiram W. Johnson to Hiram W. Johnson, Jr., Letter of 24 September 1939. Hiram Johnson Papers, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Box 8, Online Archive of California, BANC C-B 528; “Senate’s Guns Unlimbered as Neutrality Test Begins,” Newsweek, October 9, 1939, 27. 157 Smith, 389. 158 Quoted in Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), 92 159 “Congress: Phantoms,” Time 34, no. 15 (October 9, 1939), 15. 160 William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation: The World Crisis of 1937–1949 and American Foreign Policy, v. II (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1952), 428. 161 Welles, The Time for Decision, 121. 162 Kershaw, 349. 163 Quoted in William L. Shirer, “With the German Armies: A War Diary,” Atlantic Monthly 167, no. 3 (March 1941), 277. 164 Livingston Hartley, “Atlantic Defense: A Deal with Britain,” Washington Post, July 28, 1940. 165 Olson, 150. 166 “Destroyer Sunk by Bomb,” New York Times, July 30, 1940. 167 Ketchum, 474–78. 168 “Let’s Make Up Our Minds,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1940. 169 The order provided for the construction of eleven cruisers, twenty destroyers, thirteen submarines, and one large seaplane tender. “Navy Orders 45 New Warships,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1940. 170 See Mark Lincoln Chadwin, The Warhawks: American Interventionists Before Pearl Harbor (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), 86; Ketchum, 476. 171 “Pershing Retiring, Speaks to the Nation,” New York Times, September 7, 1924. 172 “‘Tomorrow May Be Too Late’ to Keep War Away from Our Shores, Says General,” Washington Post, August 5, 1940. 173 “Sale of Destroyers to Britain is Urged,” New York Times, July 30, 1940. 174 Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Lines Written in Passion and in Deep Concern for England, France and My Own Country,” Current History, July 1940, 57. Perhaps because her topic was the supply of military materiel, it was not Millay’s best efort. In part it read: Oh, build, assemble, transport, give That England, France and we may live, Before tonight, before too late, To those who hold our country’s fate In desperate fngers, reaching out For weapons we confer about, All that we can, and more, and now! 175 “British Expert Asks for U.S. Destroyers,” New York Times, August 9, 1940; In his August 15, 1940 telegram to Roosevelt, Churchill said, “We intend to fght this out here to the end, and none of us would ever buy peace by surrendering or scuttling the Fleet.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War: Their Finest Hour (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1949), 406. According to one of

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176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184

185 186

187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195

196 197 198

267

Churchill’s typists, Churchill himself never intended to surrender. He had a cyanide capsule embedded in the cap of a fountain pen. Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defance During the Blitz (New York: Crown, 2020), 45. Colville, 158. Langer and Gleason, 570. See Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “The Downfall of France,” Foreign Afairs 19, no. 1 (October 1940), 142–43. Nearly 1,300 French sailors were killed in this action. See Larson, 117–25. See “The British Fleet,” New York Times, August 6, 1940; Frank R. Kent, “The Great Game of Politics,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1940. Mark Sullivan, “Helping Britain,” Washington Post, August 6, 1940. “Bullitt Asks Haste in Destroyer Sale,” New York Times, August 19, 1940. “Bullitt Called ‘War-Monger’ in Congress,” Washington Post, August 20, 1940. “Senators Rap Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1940. “Walsh Opposes Destroyers’ Transfer as ‘Act of War,’” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1940. Senators David I. Walsh (D-Massachusetts) and Rush Holt Sr. (D-West Virginia) also declared that sending destroyers to Britain would be an act of war. Quoted in “Pepper Denounces Plea by Lindbergh,” New York Times, August 6, 1940. George Gallup, “The Gallup Poll,” Washington Post, August 18, 1940. “The Fortune Survey: XXXII—The War” (insert), Fortune 22, no. 1 ( July 1940), n.p. Historian Steven Casey claims that Roosevelt was both “suspicious and skeptical” about Gallup polls because George Gallup was a Republican supporter. Fortune’s polls, on the other hand, were viewed by the president as a “more nearly accurate than the Gallup poll.” Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 18. “Legion Urges Military Help for Britain,” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1940. Robert P. Post, “Isle Leases Urged,” New York Times, August 21, 1940. See Langer and Gleason, 746, 764, 771–72. See Olson, Those Angry Days, 170–83. Arthur H. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. (New York: Houghton Mifin, 1952), 7. Quoted in Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, Vol. I: September 1939–January 1942 [1948] (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950), 174. Hiram W. Johnson to Howard W. Johnson, Jr., Letter of September 1, 1940. Hiram Johnson Papers, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Box 8, Online Archive of California, BANC C-B 581. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 456. The 1940 Democratic Party platform said, “We will not participate in foreign wars, and we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fght in foreign lands outside of the Americas, except in case of attack.” The Republican Party platform read, “The Republican Party is frmly opposed to involving this Nation in foreign war.” Quoted in Ruth Sarles, A Story of America First: The Men and Women Who Opposed U.S. Intervention in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 128. Quoted in Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough,” Washington Post, August 21, 1940. Quoted in Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry Hopkins, 175. Ronald E. Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901–1950 (New York: Greenwood, 1991), 90. After approval of the destroyer deal and passage of the Selective Service Act, Eleanor Roosevelt noted that, “I began to feel that war was very close.” Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), 219.

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199 Norris quoted in Langer and Gleason, 682. Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 248–49; Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 376–79; When the administration tried to extend the draft by another eighteen months, it succeeded by the slimmest margin. The vote in the House was 203–202. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear, 495–96. 200 “Destroyer Trade Stirs Row,” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1940. Jackson had no doubt been infuenced by a letter published in the New York Times by Dean Acheson and three others that argued for the legality of the destroyer transfer. Letter of Charles C. Burlingham, Thomas D. Thacher, George Rublee, and Dean Acheson to New York Times, “No Legal Bar Seen to Transfer of Destroyers,” New York Times, August 11, 1940. 201 Rose, 110. 202 Eleanor Roosevelt, 219. 203 “Willkie Urges More Ships,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1941. 204 Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 404. 205 Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 439. 206 Polyzoides, “Hitler Victory Seen as Probable Reality Now Unless America ‘Goes Limit’ to Aid Britain,” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1940. 207 James Reston, “Britain Faces Rising Cost of War: Financial Expert,” New York Times, December 1, 1940. 208 Quoted in Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Policy, 252. Britain had grabbed French gold reserves and had sent them to Canada after the collapse of the French government. The British could not spend them, however, because they feared the reaction of the French Québécois. See Wapshott, 242. 209 “Credit for Britain,” New York Times, December 5, 1940. 210 George Bookman, “President Says Program Would Eliminate ‘Silly, Foolish Dollar,’ Call for No Johnson Act Change,” Washington Post, December 18, 1940. 211 Franklin Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat on National Security,” December 29, 1940, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear, 247–58. 212 Vandenberg quoted in “Half Out,” Time 3, no. 12 (September 18, 1939), 10; Dallek, Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 257. 213 Frank L. Kluckhohns, “Will Lend Arms,” New York Times, January 7, 1941. 214 “Reich Says U.S. Pays for ‘Britain’s War,’” New York Times, January 10, 1941. George Sylvester Viereck, a naturalized American citizen, used Nazi money to establish the Make Europe Pay Its War Debts Committee in 1939. Early in 1941 he was sent to prison for not providing sufcient information to the State Department when he registered as a foreign agent. Olson, Those Angry Days, 330, 333. 215 See Edward R, Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967). 216 Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 359. 217 George Gallup, “60% Favor Greater Aid to England,” Washington Post, December 29, 1940. 218 “Life on the Newsfronts of the World,” Life, January 27, 1941, 24. 219 “Mr. Hull Explains,” Washington Post, January 16, 1941. 220 “Bullitt’s Text Advocating Lend-Lease Bill,” Washington Post, January 26, 1941; “Peace Now Held Futile,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1941. 221 “President Declares Lending of Arms is Not Act of War,” Washington Post, January 7, 1941. Wheeler frst suggested that before any more aid be given to Britain, “The president should make a determined efort to bring the warring nations of Europe together.” “Wheeler Urges Forced Peace,” Los Angeles Times, December 26, 1940. 222 Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 415. 223 “Nation Headed Straight for War, Says Johnson,” Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1940; “Lease-Lend Plan is Assailed by Nye,” New York Times, January 20, 1941. 224 Ickes, 146–47. 225 Quoted in Langer and Gleason, 481.

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226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246

247 248 249

250

269

Quoted in Olson, Citizens of London, 4. Dunn, 224. Joseph P. Kennedy, “‘Stay Out Of War,’” Life, January 27, 1941, 27. George Gallup, “Roosevelt’s Popularity Skyrockets to All-time Height of 71 Per Cent,” Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1941. See Sarles, 128–33. “Lindbergh Raps War Aid Bill,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1941. “Colonel Lindbergh Tells House Committee He Hopes Neither Side Will Win War,” Life, February 3, 1941, 18. John B. Oakes, “Flier Fears Aid Plan Will Lead to War on Losing Side,” Washington Post, February 7, 1941. See “Peace When There is No Peace,” New York Times, January 24, 1941; Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough,” Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1941; George Gallup, “Few Support Lindbergh View,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1941. “Wheeler and Nye Carry Fight Here,” New York Times, February 21, 1941. Hiram W. Johnson to Hiram W. Johnson, Jr. Letter of March 9, 1941. Hiram Johnson Papers, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Box 8, Online Archive of California, BANC C-B 581. Vandenberg, 10. Ketchum, 581–82. “Text of Willkie’s Statement on Lend-Lease Aid to Britain,” Washington Post, January 13, 1941. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Remarks at Staunton, Virginia, on the Dedication of Woodrow Wilson’s Birthplace,” May 4, 1941, in Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses, 152. Edward R. Stettinius, Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory (New York: Macmillan, 1944), 99–100. S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945: v. 1: The Defensive (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Ofce, 1954), 455. See Ferguson, 529. W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), 22. Harriman, 31. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Proclaiming National Emergency,” May 27, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDR’s Fireside Chats, ed. Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 181–84. Roosevelt had foated this idea to Winston Churchill on April 11, and was uncertain about the public response. He told Churchill, “I may issue the necessary naval operative orders and let time bring out the existence of the new patrol area.” Quoted in Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: The Grand Alliance (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1950), 140. Henry Breckinridge also argued that Greenland and Iceland under the control of the Nazis was “an intolerable threat to the security of the United States.” Henry Breckinridge, “Nazis in Greenland,” Current History, May 1940, 13. Louis Johnson, “Hemisphere Defense,” Atlantic Monthly 166, no. 1 ( July 1940), 1. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, “What Is the Western Hemisphere?” Foreign Afairs 19, no. 2 ( January 1941), 344–46. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The President Informs the Congress of the Landing of American Troops in Iceland, Trinidad, and British Guiana and Transmits an Exchange of Messages with the Prime Minister of Iceland,” July 7, 1941, in Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses, 255–56. “U.S. Marines Occupy Iceland,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1941; “Report Given to Congress,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1941. Quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 234.

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251 Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, v. 2 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1948), 943, 946. 252 “Memorandum by Under Secretary of State (Welles) of a Conversation with the British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Afairs (Cadogan),” August 9, 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, the Soviet Union, Volume I, Document 368 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1959); “Memorandum of Conversation by the Under Secretary of State (Welles),” August 11, 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, the Soviet Union, Volume I, Document 370 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1959). 253 “Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill,” August 14, 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, the Soviet Union, Volume I, Document 372. See also Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Message to Congress on ‘The Atlantic Charter,’” August 21, 1941, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear, 285–86. 254 Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry Hopkins, 363. 255 Churchill, The Grand Alliance, 444. 256 See Churchill, The Grand Alliance, 447. 257 Quoted in Dallek, Franklin Roosevelt and Foreign Policy, 287. 258 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Greer Incident: Quasi-War in the Atlantic,” September 11, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDR’s Fireside Chats, ed. Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 189–96. 259 Quoted in Craig Thompson, “British Applaud Roosevelt Stand,” New York Times, September 13, 1941. 260 “Germans Renew War Zone Threat,” New York Times, April 16, 1941; “Berlin Threatens to Sink Convoys,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1941. 261 During the Atlantic Conference deliberations, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles had emphasized “protracting the conversations between the Governments of Japan and the United States in order to put of a show-down ….” “Memorandum by Under Secretary of State (Welles) of a Conversation with the British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Afairs (Cadogan),” August 9, 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, the Soviet Union, Volume I, Document 368 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1959). See also Hedley Donovan, “U.S. Navy Ready for ‘Shooting War’ in the Atlantic,” Washington Post, September 14, 1941; See Roskill, 490. 262 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Navy Day Address on World Afairs,” Washington, DC, October 27, 1941, in Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear, 296–99. 263 “44 Saved in U.S. Warship Sinking,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1941. The  American freighter Robin Moor had been sunk by a submarine near Brazil on May 21. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 494–95. 264 “Capital Hears Revenge Cries,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1941. 265 “Nazis Call Sinking Justifed by Law,” New York Times, November 1, 1941. 266 “Sees Roosevelt ‘Before Tribunal,’” New York Times, November 2, 1941. 267 “Senator Asks End of Neutrality Act,” New York Times, November 2, 1941. 268 “Johnson Says Roosevelt ‘Artfully’ Plans War,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1941. 269 Robert C. Albright, “Neutrality Act Debate Stirs Little Interest,” Washington Post, November 2, 1941. 270 “Ship Ban Ballot Is Sought Today,” New York Times, November 7, 1941. 271 “Neutrality Revision Voted,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1941. 272 “U.S. Sea Battle Reported as Neutrality Act Revised,” Los Angeles Times, November 14, 1941.

8 THE COUNTERINSURGENTS, THE PERILS OF NEUTRALITY, AND PEARL HARBOR

In October 1939, Time magazine presented the dilemma faced by Americans as another European war began: For twenty years, with the memories of the futility of World War I still fresh, U.S. citizens have urged one another to a progressively mounting hatred of war. For fve years they have encouraged one another in a growing distaste for the brutalities of Fascism. Today, the two emotions exist side by side in the hearts of most Americans.1 The emotion that would prevail would have an enormous international impact. As Duf Cooper, former First Lord of the British Admiralty, put it in the same year, “American public opinion is one of the biggest stakes in this war. And Germany realizes it as much as we do.”2 Eventually the national soul searching would turn against isolationism, as isolationist arguments died of exhaustion and irrelevancy. It became increasingly difcult for isolationists to argue that what was happening on the European continent was not America’s business. German aggression against the democracies of Europe and the persecution of the Jews demanded a moral response, and the sheer impracticality of American neutrality in the face of a world confict was becoming more evident. In addition, the historical revisionism that had fourished in the 1920s and for much of the 1930s was being reevaluated, and in all the normally reliable enclaves of isolationism there was a questioning and a reassessment. This was dramatically illustrated in the ordeals of the Republican Party, and in American religious organizations, which began to fracture over the issue of isolationism. Many Republican politicians were now joining their colleagues across the aisle to vote for greater American

272 The Counterinsurgents

involvement in the European crisis. In the most spectacular example, Wendell Willkie, Republican Party candidate for president in 1940, endorsed Franklin Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Act. Even before the war began religious groups sensed that fascism posed a threat not just to Europe but to world civilization, and began to waver in their commitment to pacifsm. At a meeting of the Catholic Association for International Peace in April 1939, there was a sharp split between those who believed that war could be prevented by convening an international conference, and those inclined toward “a corrosive cynicism and despair” who felt that such a conference would be worthless. Among the latter was Bishop Robert E. Lucey, who called isolationism “a spiritual, cultural and industrial impossibility. To profess neutrality in the face of international crime is to deny the existence of a moral order.”3 In the same year an article appeared in the American Catholic publication The Commonweal, in which French philosopher Jacques Maritain insisted that France was fghting a “just war” against a monstrous German regime, with Hitler as the Antichrist.4 At the heart of the crime that was being perpetrated in Europe was the Nazi treatment of Jews. Even publisher Robert R. McCormick, who was reliably isolationist in his views, returned from a visit to Germany and commented, “Poor Jews, poor Germany. A bitter road lies ahead for both.”5 As the war began, the crime inficted on German Jews was extended to Poland. The Jewish Joint Distribution Committee reported that in the frst fve months of the war, 250,000 Jews in Poland had been killed by military operations, disease, or starvation.6

The Counterinsurgents When C. Hartley Grattan published The Deadly Parallel in 1939, he claimed that until very recently Americans had overwhelmingly agreed that participation in the Great War had been a “stupendous disaster.” Now he saw signs that Americans were being asked “to forget this lesson, to slur it over with other views ….” 7 Indeed, there were increasing signs that a counterinsurgent narrative was gaining strength, based in large part on the questionable viability of neutrality. Counterinsurgents attacked isolationism from a number of angles, but they often began with a critique of Walter Millis’ Road to War. This is not surprising, as Millis’ isolationist tract arguably had the greatest impact on public opinion. It had sold some 60,000 copies and had been a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.8 In Can We Be Neutral? foreign policy specialists Allen W. Dulles, secretary to the Council on Foreign Relations (and future director of the Central Intelligence Agency) and Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor of Foreign Afairs magazine, began their critique of Millis by arguing that he had ignored the fundamental reasons Americans had gone to war in 1917. Quite aside from

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any impact that propaganda may have had, Americans viewed the Belgians as heroic and the German invaders as close to the opposite. The authors also referred to the public’s irritation at “the hostile and criminal acts of German agents” in the United States.9 (Indeed, revisionists typically neglected to mention the destruction of New York’s Black Tom freight terminal or New Jersey’s Canadian Car and Foundry Company by German saboteurs.)10 As for the moral equivalency of British and German actions on the high seas, Dulles and Armstrong note that “it is the attack on human life, rather than the attack on property interest” which will most likely motivate a country to go to war.11 Acknowledging the collective amnesia that seized upon the American public at the conclusion of the Great War, Dulles and Armstrong observed that somehow Americans had come to the conclusion that they had either been maneuvered into the war or blundered into it, and that future conficts might be avoided if only the United States minded its own business. In this view, peace—and neutrality—was something bestowed on a nation, rather than bought at a price.12 “But no neutrality legislation,” said Dulles and Armstrong, “can give us the advantages of an isolation which does not in fact exist.”13 The problem for isolationists was that as the 1930s wore on, their arguments seemed progressively out-of-date in the face of a Europe dominated by Hitler and Mussolini. Increasingly, only a real dunce would have been unable to identify the malefactors in Europe, but isolationists afected an ignorance of what was obvious to everyone else. For instance, in 1937 Edwin Borchard and William Potter Lage argued that determining who was an aggressor nation was virtually impossible.14 But other isolationists knew exactly where the danger lay, and shied away from the implications. After German forces overran the Low Countries and France, former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium John Cudahy called Adolf Hitler “an international criminal” with a record of “broken promises.” The occupation of Belgium must have been especially painful for Cudahy, but instead of advocating forceful action by the United States, Cudahy made a bland suggestion that some “settlement” be made. The former ambassador added that America was in no danger because “it will take at least a generation for the Germans to consolidate and organize their victory in Europe.”15 Others seemed to think that nothing had changed over the course of twenty years, that there was essentially no diference between the First World War and the Second. Isolationists continued to make snide references to such idealistic sentiments as “making the world safe for democracy” and “a war to end war.” Herbert Herring sarcastically observed that Americans were “in imminent danger of being noble again,” and insisted that despite the sympathies of a nation’s citizens, a neutral government must maintain a “single-minded impartiality which makes no room for moral judgments and imprecations.”16

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By arguing that morality should not play a role in decision making, isolationists put themselves in the untenable position of saying that there was no diference between right and wrong. When he spoke to a conference on the cause and cure of war, Harry Elmer Barnes said that when it came to war, “we must be unconditional abolitionists.”17 Likewise, when Catholic priest Charles E. Coughlin referred to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, he insisted that the United States remain strictly neutral and maintain friendly relations with both countries. “The aggressor nation is none of our business.”18 While loudly proclaiming that judgments of moral behavior be front and center in American domestic afairs, but jettisoned altogether when it came to foreign relations, isolationists were taking a stand that was, at a minimum, inconsistent. Monsignor John A. Ryan of Catholic University observed that the person who made no distinction between Nazi Germany and the Allied nations was repudiating not only the gospel of brotherly love, “but the principles of national morality.”19 Isolationists warned Americans not to get carried away by their emotions over what was happening in Europe. In the midst of the debate to modify the neutrality laws to allow for cash-and-carry, Arthur H. Vandenberg emphasized that, “This is not our war,” and asked Americans to suppress their “outraged emotions” over “broken liberties and broken lives beneath other fags.”20 When cash-and-carry passed anyway, Vandenberg wrote in his diary, “What ‘suckers’ our emotions make of us!”21 But aren’t outraged emotions the appropriate response in the face of naked brutality? Hitler certainly understood the danger of the emotional response, and in the midst of the Munich crisis exhorted his generals to “act brutally! Be hard and remorseless! Be steeled against all signs of compassion!”22 Paul Shipman Andrews, dean of Syracuse University School of Law, asked, “Dare any great nation, for fear of becoming emotionally involved, lapse into an isolationism which insulates against the impact of moral values? Dare we educate ourselves to lose our capacity for moral indignation?”23 According to George Soule, this was exactly what the maintenance of neutrality required. All feelings of sympathy or indignation toward other nations would have to be held at bay, leaving a neutral America “to sit by and watch injustice, fascism, or any other great menace” have its way.24 When he responded to Charles Lindbergh’s plea that the United States not “meddle” in the afairs of Europe, Senator James F. Byrnes (D-South Carolina) surveyed the ravaged nations of Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Belgium and observed that Lindbergh seems not concerned with the fagrant violations of the rights of peaceful little nations, the cruel and bitter persecution of God-fearing men, women and children, because of their religion, race or political opinions; the burning of books, the bombing of helpless women and children feeing in terror from their homes; the parachute spies and the torch troops.25

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Summing it up, Charles G. Fenwick called neutrality “the negation of law and order.”26 In a mordant editorial, Westbrook Pegler laid out the basic facts for isolationists: And thus all of us, even Lindbergh, Wheeler, and Nye, arrive at the fact that Hitler is the one who has made it necessary for hundreds of thousands of young Americans to drop out of civilian life to train as soldiers. Hitler has made it necessary to spend the billions and disrupt industrial, economic and personal life in the United States. But for Hitler the world would still be at peace, the conquered nations would still be free, the French would not be hungry, the beautiful edifces of London would be whole and, probably, Franklin D. Roosevelt would not now be President of the United States for a third term.27 Isolationist hair splitting sometimes bordered on the bizarre. In October 1939, Herbert Hoover and Charles Lindbergh came out in favor of selling Europeans all the “defensive” weapons they wanted, but no “ofensive” weapons. As Lindbergh put it, “I do not want to see American bombers dropping bombs which will kill and mutilate European children … but I am perfectly willing to see American anti-aircraft guns shooting American shells at invading bombers over any European country.”28 For many critics, this distinction owed more to sophistry than principle. Hoover also claimed that, “We cannot slay an idea or an ideology with machine guns,” but they were more likely to do the job than the moral suasion dispensed by pacifst groups.29 There were certain practical consequences that had to be addressed when it came to neutrality. The United States could take the passive approach and refuse to protect the lives of Americans in war zones, or the ships or goods of Americans, and put an embargo on all loans and goods to belligerents. Easy to say, but not so easy to do because, as George Soule observed, if the formidable economic shortfall generated by an embargo was picked up by the U.S. government, Americans would fnd themselves paying a crippling sum in additional taxes.30 If the United States took a diferent approach to neutrality and insisted that the nations of the world respect her rights, a large military establishment would have to be created. But that might not be enough, and ironically the United States might be “obliged to go to war to maintain its right not to go to war.”31 Those who had endorsed isolationism simply because they saw no other viable option began to waver as the threat posed by fascism became more dire. Increasingly, Britain was celebrated as the bulwark against Nazi aggression, and by April 1941 former isolationist Walter Lippmann had become a full-throated Anglophile. Interestingly, Lippmann and other born-again interventionists proved just as willing to distort the historical record as the revisionists who had preceded them. Looking back at the Great War, Lippmann argued that America entered the confict “when the Kaiser looked as if he might conquer Great Britain

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and establish himself as our nearest neighbor on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.” To prevent this from happening, America intervened.32 Over and over Lippmann references the “English-speaking peoples,” and British-American solidarity, leaving the impression that America must have gone to war to preserve British sea power. There is no mention of German attacks on American ships, and in truth the United States entered the war for its own reasons. Indeed, for much of the war Britain was almost as much of an irritant to the United States as Germany. The fact that the United States insisted on fghting as an “associated power” rather than as a full-fedged member of the Allied powers is a clear indication of ambivalence toward amalgamation with Britain and France. Forrest Davis’ The Atlantic System: The Story of Anglo-American Control of the Seas, also written in 1941, had an even more imaginative interpretation of America’s involvement in the Great War. Because American Ambassador to Britain Walter Hines Page was an outspoken British supporter for the duration of the war, Davis judged him, along with Woodrow Wilson and Edward M. House, as among the three who “most intimately shaped policy.”33 In point of fact, as Page’s biographer pointed out, Page had almost no impact on shaping policy, aside from acting as an irritant to Wilson. When Page went back to Washington in August 1916 “neither the President nor the State Department apparently had the slightest interest in his visit.” After fnally obtaining an interview with Wilson, Page was disappointed that Wilson seemed unmoved by his tirades against Germany. Instead, Wilson complained about the highhandedness of the British.34 Davis also describes the cargo that the Lusitania was carrying when she was sunk as “a few cases of shells.”35 In actuality, munitions aboard the Lusitania included ffty barrels and ninety-four cases of aluminum powder, ffty cases of bronze powder, 4,200 cases of rife ammunition, and 1,250 cases of artillery shells.36 In praising the British blockade as “the decisive weapon in that war,” Davis neglected to mention that the British defnition of contraband included food, which resulted in wholesale starvation in Germany. Finally, Davis states that, “In February, 1916, at a time when it frst appeared that Germany’s unrestrained U-boat warfare might impair, if not destroy, Britain’s mastery of the Atlantic, Wilson had unexpectedly called for “incomparably the greatest navy in the world.”37 This claim is especially outrageous, as it was displeasure with Britain rather than Germany that produced this intense ship building program. Wilson pronounced himself “about at the end of my patience with Great Britain and the Allies.”38 He proposed, and Congress authorized, the construction of 137 new vessels. In Wilson’s words, “let us build a navy bigger than hers [Britain’s] and do what we please.”39 It must also be said that some of the programs that interventionists came up with to deal with the emergency were just as poorly rooted in the realm of the possible as the schemes of the isolationists for ending the war. Clarence K. Streit, former New York Times correspondent at Geneva, proposed that the

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democracies on both sides of the North Atlantic, plus the British Commonwealth nations, form a union. They would abandon “the heresy of absolute national sovereignty” in favor of the collective, and achieve world control overnight. He helpfully included a sample constitution.40 Even correspondent Felix Morley, a normally sympathetic internationalist, called Streit’s program “not practical and as outlined will get nowhere.”41 If counterinsurgents were making their own dubious claims, what was clear by 1941 is that the old revisionist history was dead. Historian Herbert Heaton charged that inter-war historians had “simplifed the causes and issues of the last confict,” and had instilled in American youth “a cynicism and skepticism that dismays their elders and teachers.” Now these same scholars were hunting through second-hand book-shops, “furtively buying and burning all the copies they could fnd of their war-time utterances.”42

Pacifsts By 1940, an increasing number who had condemned the last war (and any future wars) were having second thoughts. (Even Walter Millis was expressing regrets that his revisionist The Road to War had made such an impact.43) The religious establishment had been the bedrock of the anti-war movement. Early in the inter-war era, in a poll of 20,000 Protestant clergymen and Jewish rabbis, 14,000 out of 20,000 declared that the church should not support any future war. But now the church establishment was changing its outlook.44 In a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Inter-Faith Committee for Aid to the Democracies (which claimed to have the support of 50,000 clergy) endorsed the Lend-Lease Act.45 Episcopal Bishop Ernest M. Stires claimed that passing Lend-Lease was the only way to preserve “Christian civilization” and the “freedom of humanity.”46 Peace advocates had assumed that everyone wanted peace, and that the way to achieve it was through the machinery of collective international action. What pacifsts didn’t reckon on, as Frank H. Simmons put it in 1934, was “the explosion of a world-wide passion for nationalism.”47 The peace movement believed that it had world opinion behind it, but in fact “it was the dictators who had national opinion behind them ….”48 Merle Curti also argued that peace advocates had not probed deeply enough into the causes of modern war. Unless peaceful means were found to address the inequities of life, said Curti, war would remain part of the human landscape.49 Even Hiram Johnson, who beneftted from pacifst support for his isolationist programs, privately referred to the “half-baked ideas of the peace societies.”50 The peace movement was in tatters by 1941, and when the Anti-War Congress met in June of that year, Complete pacifsts sparred in debate with Socialists, isolationists crossed swords with conscientious objectors and the upshot was that the

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round-table group of more than 200 persons could not agree whether to go on record for or against the principle of defense of the United States by force of arms.51 Among the conficted was Albert Einstein. In 1929, Einstein had addressed a pacifst crowd and pleaded that this was “not the time for temporizing. You are either for war or against war.” By 1933 Einstein was calling disarmament “impracticable,” and was urging pacifsts to work toward “achieving an alliance of the military forces of the countries which have remained democratic.”52 Lewis Mumford contemptuously referred to the pacifsts who were “more afraid of the munitions trust than Hitler and Mussolini,” and warned of “the combination of passivism and pacifsm by which democracies are lulled into inaction.”53 Pacifsts were good at righteous indignation, such as Dorothy Detzer’s characterization of munitions making as “an industry whose profts fowed from the coin of blood.”54 But when pacifsts were tasked with fnding practical solutions more often than not they came up empty. Even Norman Thomas was forced to conclude that pacifsts “had nothing to ofer in the problem of stopping Nazism ….”55 Some continued the struggle to the end. Monsignor Barry O’Toole claimed that because modern war was conducted on such a massive scale, “we may never presume the adequacy of its alleged justifcation. On the contrary, the presumption is decidedly against the possibility of such a war being justifed.”56 George A. Buttrick, president of the Federal Council of Churches, pleaded with Americans to maintain neutrality because “war is futile and because we are eager through reconciliation to build a kindlier world.”57 But both reconciliation and a kindlier world seemed extremely distant and, as Cordell Hull put it, the approach of war seemed to “paralyze” the thinking of pacifsts. “They were like the drowning man who, in a paroxysm of fear, convulsively grapples with his rescuer and seeks to strangle him.”58

Reinhold Niebuhr The agony of the pacifst church establishment, as it moved from opposition to all wars to a conviction that fascism most be opposed—by the force of arms if necessary—is brilliantly illustrated in the philosophical struggles of Reinhold Niebuhr. His views mattered because he was arguably the most infuential American clergyman in the frst half of the twentieth century. Niebuhr’s father was an evangelical pastor who had emigrated from Germany, and Niebuhr followed in his father’s footsteps and became pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit. Perhaps because of his German background, Niebuhr was more of an internationalist than an isolationist in his outlook. Writing in 1925, Niebuhr insisted that “the forces which are so vividly outlined in Germany and other European nations are contending for mastery in our life as well ….”59 He had

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no doubts about war’s inability to right wrongs, and in 1929 insisted that the “worthlessness” of war had been so thoroughly confrmed by history that “it can hardly be justifed on any moral ground.”60 But as early as 1932 Niebuhr began to question the efcacy of moral suasion. In Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr expressed skepticism that individual egoism could be checked by rationality or religious goodwill. The collective behavior of individuals originated in nature and was not subject to reason or conscience. Collective power, said Niebuhr, whether it be expressed in imperialism or class domination, “exploits weakness, it can never be dislodged unless power is raised against it.”61 Moralists, whether religious or secular, lacked an understanding of “the brutal character of the behavior of all human collectives ….”62 In this and other publications Niebuhr was intrigued by how the state was able to take individual unselfshness—as expressed by patriotism—and transform it into a “national egoism” without moral restraint.63 The power of government, said Niebuhr, depended as much upon spirituality as force, with the state cultivating an aura of reverence toward its leaders.64 (As Dorothy Thompson put it, the followers of Hitler “did not believe, they did not have convictions; they had faith.”)65 Niebuhr concluded that the whole premise of anti-war sentiment rested on a false foundation. Jane Addams asked in 1922, “Was not war in the interest of democracy for the salvation of civilization a contradiction in terms, whoever said it or however often it was repeated?”66 Niebuhr’s answer was that it was not, and that sometimes force must be used against force. In a 1939 article in Christian Century entitled “Ten Years That Shook My World,” Niebuhr confessed that somewhere between the Peace of Versailles and the Munich capitulation to Hitler, he had experienced a “conversion” in which he rejected “almost all of the liberal theological ideals and ideas with which I ventured forth in 1915.” According to Niebuhr, the liberal establishment’s assumption that progress and rationality would advance irresistibly had been shaken to its roots by the anarchy of Western civilization as exposed by the Great War, and by “the revelation of vindictive passions” as revealed by the Peace of Versailles.67 Liberal culture drew its last breath when it acceded to the Munich appeasement, which posited that “the horrors of a peace of conquest could be expiated by a peace of capitulation.” Liberal moralism, said Niebuhr, was now incapable of addressing humanity’s immediate political problems or its ultimate religious problems, and had retreated instead to a posture “of perfect moral purity.”68

Republicans As America’s views of isolationism began to change, no organization was more impacted—or more fractured—by this evolution in thinking than the Republican party. The fracturing became obvious to all during the Lend-Lease debate. As the New York Time’s Turner Catledge observed in February 1941,

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the Republicans were “groping for both program and leadership—groping cautiously, haltingly and sometimes almost desperately.” While isolationist views were widely distributed in the United States, the Republican party (especially Great Plains and Great Lakes Republicans) had become the political voice of these sentiments, “the outright agency of ‘isolationism.’” Now the party was “divided by jealousies and suspicions,” and “foundering” from defections in its ranks.69 Chief among those defectors was Wendell Willkie, Republican candidate for president in 1940. Willkie had testifed in favor of Lend-Lease and, as we will see, his account of his experiences during his visit to Britain during the Blitz was an important element in nurturing American sympathy for that nation. As Roosevelt’s political opponent, Willkie’s endorsement of Lend-Lease gave him a special credibility. As Willkie put it, “I, who opposed Franklin Roosevelt, call upon all Americans to give him such power in this most severe crisis, I believe, in the history of America, so that we can debate with him again in another election.” 70 When Senator Bennett Clark reminded Willkie of some of the things he had said about Roosevelt during the election, Willkie said, “He was elected President. He is my President now. I expect to disagree with him whenever I please.” The New York Times reported that this exchange was “followed by applause from the gallery ….” 71 Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, fumed, “Mr. Willkie entered the Republican party as a mysterious stranger. He may take his leave, quite as suddenly, still a stranger to the party’s principles, although no longer mysterious.” 72 Joseph Alsoph and Robert Kintner suggested that this break with the isolationists meant the end of Willkie’s political career, but when he spoke to the Women’s National Republican Club in New York, Willkie went on the ofensive, claiming that the Republican party could never reclaim control of the government if it “allows itself to be presented to the people as an isolation party.” 73 Willkie was the highest profle Republican to desert isolationism, but he was not the only one. Henry L. Stimson had served in the Republican administrations of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Coolidge and Hoover and had established the principle of “non-recognition” under the Kellogg-Briand Pact. With the outbreak of the Second World War he began serving as Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of War. Harboring grave fears that the United States would be vulnerable to attack if the British navy faltered in the Atlantic, Stimson revisited the Kellogg-Briand Pact and argued that signatories to the agreement had the right to proceed against those who violated their pledges not to use armed force.74 Thomas Dewey, a Republican stalwart who had himself nursed hopes for his party’s presidential nomination, addressed a Lincoln Day dinner in Washington in February 1941 and proclaimed, “Our party stands almost unanimously for all-out aid to the heroic people of Great Britain.” 75 Dewey’s “almost unanimously” reference was no doubt directed at hard-core isolationists. Senator

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Homer T. Bone clearly ft the bill, and in a Senate hearing Bone put pressure on Republican Senator Warren Austin (Vermont) when Austin indicated he was in favor of supporting Britain. Bone asked Austin if he could think of anything worse than “bloody war.” Austin replied, “Oh, there are much worse things than war. A world enslaved by Hitler is worse than war, it is worse than death …. If it ever becomes necessary for us to fght, we will fght.” Reportedly, “The galleries broke into an uproar, with applause predominating over an undertone of boos.” 76 It was not only Republican politicians who were deserting the isolationist ship. J. P. Morgan’s vice-chairman Thomas W. Lamont, a life-long Republican who had supported Willkie in the 1940 election, gave a speech in which he urged “national unity in support of the President and of plans for material aide to England and for our defense.” 77 During a meeting of Chase National Bank stockholders, Chairman Winthrop W. Aldrich noted that while the power given to the President under Lend-Lease was unprecedented, “The situation with which we are confronted is also unprecedented …. Aid to the victims of totalitarian assault must be given promptly and without limit.” This declaration apparently took stockholders “completely by surprise.” 78 Meanwhile, at a gathering in Omaha of Republicans who represented sixteen states, delegates refused to discuss either Willkie or Lend-Lease.79 In the wake of the attack on the Greer in September, Willkie condemned “savage and bestial” German operations and insisted American ships had the right to defend themselves.80 In November following the sinking of the Reuben James, Willkie called for the immediate repeal of the Neutrality Act.81 He also issued a statement, endorsed by forty prominent members of his party, declaring that millions of Republicans were determined to “wipe the ugly smudge of obstructive isolationism from the face of their party.” Three Republican senators, Styles Bridges (New Hampshire), Warren Austin (Vermont), and Chan Gurney (South Dakota) pledged themselves to the repeal of the Neutrality Act. This prompted Walter Lippmann to ask whether the party of “Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Root, Hughes, Stimson, and Knox is to continue to follow the leadership of Nye, Wheeler, Fish, and Martin.” Life magazine commented, “Even the frozen isolationism of the Midwest was beginning to melt.”82 It should be emphasized that there was a movement away from isolationism among Democrats as well, and a good example is Democratic Senator Josiah Bailey of North Carolina. Bailey had long maintained a politically conservative orientation and was a reliable critic of Roosevelt’s New Deal. On foreign policy he was an isolationist, and as the confict began in Europe in 1939 Bailey insisted, “This is a European war. It is not our war.” But after seeing Hitler overrun much of Europe, Bailey came out in favor of Lend-Lease. To the argument that such support could be a “provocation,” Bailey replied that it didn’t matter to totalitarian states whether there was a provocation or not. “What provocation has Greece given? What provocation did Holland or Denmark give?”83

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Dorothy Thompson No one better represented the movement from isolationism to internationalism than journalist Dorothy Thompson (Figure 8.1). In 1929, she had expressed the opinion that there would be no winners in another war. By the mid-1930s, however, she had become convinced that Nazism threatened civilization.84 Helping to change her opinion was a trip she took to Europe in 1932. Her overall impression was that the war had never ended. Instead what Europe had was the Age of Versailles. Fascism had become the “drummer boy for the militarists, the Junker and the industrialist” in Germany, which had put all its energies toward the single policy of revision of the treaty. For this Germany was willing to “sacrifce her creditors and herself.” Looking at the newly created nations of Europe, Thompson noted that there had been the expectation among Versailles delegates these nations would treat their own minorities more kindly than they themselves had been treated. This proved to be an illusion, as did the idea that minorities would behave themselves even when they were well treated. (Here Thompson uses the example of the Austrian Poles, who continued to be nationalistic.) The naivete on the part of Versailles negotiators was encapsulated in Wilson’s reply when one of

FIGURE 8.1

Dorothy Thompson appearing before U.S. Senate advocating appeal of Neutrality Act. April 1939. Harris & Ewing. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-hec-26561.

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his technical experts asked him how self-determination was supposed to work when 3 million Germans were included in Czechoslovakia. Wilson supposedly said, “Three million Germans! Masaryk didn’t tell me that!” (In a few years, of course, Hitler’s insistence that the home of these ethnic Germans be ceded to Germany would be one of the crises that led to World War II.)85 Even defning a “minority” proved to be difcult. When Thompson asked Europeans, “What is a minority?” the answers she got were more sardonic than helpful. A German in Geneva told her that a minority was, “‘Anything that’s not French.’” An Englishman defned it as “‘Any group of more than six malcontents.’” Arthur Willert, of the British Foreign Ofce press department, replied that “‘What’s called a minority in Eastern Europe, we call a riot.’” This was all very droll, but if the idea of self-determination had been reduced to a quip, “then the whole moral basis of the treaties comes into serious question.” Thompson’s summation of the situation in Europe as the 1930s began was that fulfllment of the treaties had depended on either “force or good will. The treaties themselves have destroyed the good will, and no country can aford, for an indefnite period, the necessary force.”86 Thompson met Hitler in 1932, and like many others underestimated Hitler’s political skills. Thompson called him “the most golden tongued of demagogues,” but added, When I walked into Adolph Hitler’s room, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany. In something less than ffty seconds I was quite sure that I was not. It took just about that time to measure the startling insignifcance of this man who has set the world agog …87 Hitler became chancellor of Germany the following year. Thompson was not the only American to underestimate Hitler. After William C. Bullitt talked with German leaders in 1932, he concluded that, “Hitler is fnished—not as an agitator or as leader of an aggressive minority, but as a possible dictator … Hitler’s infuence is waning so fast that the Government is no longer afraid of the growth of the Nazi movement.”88While Thompson (and others) would be forced to repent of their views of Hitler’s insignifcance, she retained her contempt for the German leader. In 1934 Thompson was expelled from Germany under Hitler’s explicit orders, making her the frst American reporter to be deported by the Nazis.89 In 1939 Thompson published a collection of her articles from early 1937 to the summer of 1939. At this point her disdain for isolationism was on full display. She rejected the notion that Europe could collapse in ruin “without any catastrophic efect upon us.”90 She referred to the “false comfort” that America was separated from the rest of the world by 3,000 miles of ocean, which had “no reality at all in the realm of economics, fnance and ideas.”91

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Discounting the argument that it was trade that brought the United States into the Great War, Thompson instead emphasized the American cultural affinity with Great Britain. It was nearer the truth, said Thompson, “to blame Shakespeare, Keats, Dickens, Magna Charta and Blackstone for our entrance into the war than it is to blame the credit system.”92 She also ridiculed the flaws in the Neutrality Acts. If American ships were attacked by pirates, would that oblige the owners of these vessels to withdraw from the oceans?93 Thompson advocated repealing the Neutrality Acts because they restricted American actions “in a world where we cannot possibly know what is going to happen from one day to the next.”94 By 1939, she had concluded that the moral force that had driven Germany and Hitler in its opposition to the Versailles Treaty had been spent in its persecution of dissenters and Jews. The victim had become the victimizer.95 Thompson supported the Lend-Lease Bill, and along the way condemned Lindbergh as a “somber cretin” and “pro-Nazi.”96 The aviator was, said Thompson, “a fallen hero who would not be satisfied until the United States bowed to Hitler.”97 She attracted plenty of venom from isolationists. Senator Bennett Clark stated that, “If an investigation of propaganda tending to bring the United States into another European war should be undertaken Miss ­Dorothy Thompson would be counted among the propagandists.”98 Thompson could give as good she got. When one woman wrote to her and said that, “I do not choose to have my son die fighting in Europe,” Thompson immediately banged out a response: “Well, then, just how do you choose to have your son die? From a cerebral hemorrhage? From cancer? In an automobile accident? Just how [orig. emphasis]?”99 As for isolationist senators, Thompson accused them of using the Senate “to agitate the country, [and] confuse and disrupt the foreign policy of the United States ….”100

American Voices from Europe Especially effective in converting Americans from isolationism to internationalism were eyewitness accounts of the war in Europe. In Virginia Cowles’ description of French refugees fleeing the Nazi advance she asked readers to, Try to think of noise and confusion, of the thick smell of petrol, of the scraping of automobile gears, of shouts, wails, curses, tears. Try to think of a hot sun and underneath it an unbroken stream of humanity flowing southwards from Paris …101 Sonia Tomara also covered the French retreat, and made sure that American readers could not comfortably pretend that this had nothing to do with them by quoting a French aviator: “If we had even two-thirds of Germany’s planes, we should have won the war. Why did America not send them in time?”102

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Of all the stories from Europe, none had a bigger impact in the United States than reports on the German aerial Blitz of Britain. It would be one of the greatest trials in the history of that nation. But Britain was fortunate in one respect in that there were some highly-placed Americans who were also enduring the Blitz, and promoting the British cause in America. These included John G. Winant, who arrived in March 1941 to replace Joseph Kennedy as ambassador, Averell W. Harriman, Roosevelt’s special envoy sent to assess conditions in Britain (especially in regards to Lend-Lease), and radio broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. They immersed themselves in the affairs of Britain in more ways than one. As historian Lynne Olson notes, “Harriman, Winant, and Murrow all engaged in wartime love affairs with Churchill family members.”103 None were more influential than Murrow, whose CBS radio broadcasts from London brought an immediacy that could not be matched by anything appearing in print (Figure 8.2). As the conflict began, everyone recognized the importance of radio. Hermann Goering called it the war’s “Third Front” (the military and economic fronts were the other two).104 Murrow himself praised Winston Churchill as the “best broadcaster in this country” and as someone who spoke “the language of Shakespeare with a direct urgency such as I have never before heard ….”105

FIGURE 8.2 

 dward R. Murrow (L.) and William L. Shirer. Columbia BroadcastE ing System. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62–126484.

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But what most impressed Murrow about Britain was not her leadership but her ordinary people. After a mid-August 1940 bombing attack on the outskirts of London, people emerged from their shelters and carried on with their normal activities: There was no bravado, no loud voices, only a quiet acceptance of the situation. To me those people were incredibly brave and calm. They are the unknown heroes of this war … I am more than ever convinced that they are made of stern stuf.106 The bombing intensifed. After a raid in early October Murrow saw a woman “clutching a rather dirty pillow. A frefghter said, ‘You’d be surprised what strange things people pick up when they run out of a burning house.’” Later, Murrow saw a list of frefghters killed in action. There were a hundred names.107 Murrow’s 1940 Christmas broadcast was a somber one. There was little in the way of merriment because Britons “have bought this Christmas with their nerve, their bodies and their old buildings.” Murrow signed of this broadcast with a phrase that was currently being used all over London: “so long and good luck.” For the rest of his career he would end his broadcasts with the same words.108 While Joseph P. Kennedy had been sneered at by Londoners for living safely out in the countryside during the Blitz, Murrow gained their respect not only for taking up their cause, but also for living under the same dangers as them.109 In one example, Edward and Janet Murrow were returning home after an evening with friends when Edward suggested stopping for a drink at their neighborhood pub, the Devonshire Arms. Janet had a sort of premonition and insisted that they go home instead. They had no sooner entered their apartment when they heard the drone of planes overhead and bombs began falling on their neighborhood. A bomb barely missed their building, but totally demolished the Devonshire Arms.110 Murrow’s deep emotional connection to his adopted city was communicated through his broadcasts, and had an undeniable impact on listeners. Archibald MacLeish wrote, “You burned the city of London in our homes, and we felt the fames that burned it. You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew the dead were our dead.”111 Journalist and scholar Howard Lester Rose calls Murrow “America’s greatest radio broadcaster. Murrow revolutionized and practically invented radio news ….”112 Among the most celebrated of American visitors to Britain during the Blitz was Wendell Willkie. The former presidential candidate was supporting Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Bill, and was on a fact-fnding mission. He was shown the ruins of Temple Hall, where Elizabeth I saw the frst performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. This destruction of a cultural site of no military value was described by Willkie as “utterly useless from the point of view of the Germans’ war efort.”113 In air raid shelters he was moved to tears at the pluck of

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the British. “I am a pretty tough fellow,” said Willkie, “but I had to turn my head away from these people to keep from downright bubbling over.” In one shelter a woman showed Willkie her one-week old baby, while a seventy-yearold told him “that he would sleep in a shelter forever if it would help win the war.” Some recognized Willkie and told him to “send us all you have got.” One old woman patted him on the back and said, “Go home and tell them we can take it.”114 When he returned to the United States and testifed in the Senate, Willkie had obviously been inspired by his visit. “The people of Britain are united almost beyond belief,” he said. “They are a free people. Millions of them will die before they give up that island. When the going gets tough they’ll force that bunch of robbers to give up.”115 Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s closest foreign policy adviser, spent four weeks in Britain. He was judged by Churchill’s aide Brendan Bracken as “the most important American visitor to this country we have ever had” because of Hopkins’ enormous infuence on Roosevelt. Hopkins was a former social worker, and when he met with Churchill the Prime Minister tried to put him at his ease by proclaiming, “After the war we must make a good life for the cottagers.” Hopkins’ reply was, “I don’t give a damn about your cottagers. I came here to see how we can beat that fellow Hitler.”116 When Hopkins returned to the United States he said, “I don’t think Hitler can lick these people. They’re as tough a crowd as there is. With our help they’ll win.”117 Print journalism also detailed the impact of the Blitz, with none of the stories fattering to the Nazis. Ernie Pyle described Londoners forced to take shelter under the rubble as poor, opportunityless people lying in weird positions against cold steel, with all their clothes on, hunched up in blankets, lights shining in their eyes, breathing fetid air—lying there far underground like rabbits, not fghting, not even mad, just helpless, scourged, weakly, waiting for the release of another dawn … 118 Considerably more upbeat was Walter Graebner, whose coverage of the Blitz for Life was accompanied by a lavish photo spread. “Londoners are admirably suited to stand up to the blitzkrieg,” said Graebner. “Phlegmatic, they express practically no emotion when death and disaster strike near ….” If Britain wins the war, “it will be due in no small measure to the magnifcent way in which the people of London are standing up to the siege.”119 In September 1940, Tania Long covered the horrendous story of the German sinking of a ship bound for Canada carrying refugees from the Blitz. On board was a large contingent of children, and of the 293 who lost their lives, eighty-three were children. Five were from a single family. Their father said, “This is not war; it’s sheer, cold-blooded murder. I’m going to join up again, and all I ask for is a front-line job.”120

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Often what was most efective in garnering American support and sympathy were not the reports of journalists, who could be expected to maintain a certain objectivity, but the personal accounts of those who were directly impacted. The bombs fell indiscriminately on the famous and on the ordinary. Bombs fell on Virginia Woolf ’s house in Bloomsbury, and on Buckingham Palace (when Harry Hopkins had lunch there with the king and queen, the air raid alarm went of and they had to fnish in a shelter).121 John Gielgud’s acting career momentarily came to a halt when the Globe Theatre was hit with incendiaries. The fre was put out, but Gielgud arrived to fnd “the stage deep in water—a lot of glass lying about and scenery soaked and damaged but no one hurt.” After one night of bombing, Graham Greene observed a “purgatorial throng of men and women in dusty torn pajamas with little blood splashes standing in doorways.” From Berkshire, novelist Rebecca West watched German planes overhead looking for British aerodromes, but expressed fears that their operations would be expanded to include her farm: “If they get Patience, and Primrose, the cows, they won’t have to gun me—I’ll die of fury.”122 The New York Times printed a number of letters describing the experiences of ordinary Britons during the Blitz. A woman living on the outskirts of London heard a bomb screech over her house at night and she “appealed to my Maker because I was quite certain this was it.” It was rare to see a house without broken windows, she said, and, “Some of our lovely buildings have been badly damaged, I am afraid, and of course hospitals make lovely targets for Jerry.” Another woman, who lived in central London and drove an ambulance, praised the defance and spirit of her fellow Londoners, emphasizing that despite the destruction and misery “there is a note of grim exhilaration in every one’s mind and a redoubled feeling of confdence.” These letters had a passion that spoke directly to the reader. Our ambulance driver (the Times included no signatures) declared that “this is, in essence, a religious war.” It was a crusade, with Britons fghting “against what we believe to be evil, and our aim is to make the world a better place.” Another London resident proclaimed, We know that even if this nightly horror goes on for years, even that is better than domination by bullies, that a night in a tube shelter is better than a night in a concentration camp. And if our bodies are in danger at least our souls are free. Our nation has faced many of these great dangers before and we can do it again.123 By November 1940 more than 10,000 London residents had been killed in the Blitz (Figures 8.3 and 8.4).124 One could not help but be moved by such heroism, and these letters and others like them constituted a rousing challenge to Americans sitting on the fence as the war raged in Europe. In mid-November the Germans staged an

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FIGURE 8.3 

 hildren in an English bomb Shelter. ca. 1940–41.  British InformaC tion Service. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USW33–021089-C.

eleven-hour attack on Coventry. No distinction was made between military and civilian targets and the aim of the raid seemed to be to wipe the city off the face of the map.125 Americans were stunned by the barbarity of the attack. The New York Times editorialized that, “If the destruction at Coventry ­awakens our people to a new sense of Britain’s danger, the victims of the horror will not have died in vain.”126 The New York Herald Tribune argued that, “No means of defense which the United States can place in British hands should be withheld.”127 That the Blitz of Britain was affecting American public opinion could clearly be seen in the “Bundles for Britain” campaign. Described as “American ­women’s answer to the uncivilized warfare visited upon the British people,” this organization was sending thousands of crates of knitted goods, clothing and blankets to the British Isles.128 Even Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who released her isolationist tract The Wave of the Future as the Blitz was in progress, confessed that

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FIGURE 8.4

British girl standing by the ruins of a building after German bombing of London. January 1945. Toni Frissell. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-ds-10164.

in these tales of British fortitude, “one is stung to admiration for such superb gallantry. But at the same time one feels, deep inside, a kind of sickness, near to shame, for the appearance America presents to the rest of the world.”129 Years later, Edward R. Murrow summed up the impact of the Blitz in the United States by observing, “Americans thought they were saving Britain—and they were. But the spirit and example of Britain also were saving America.”130 Americans could also listen to broadcasts from Germany. Before the war began, Edward R. Murrow had hired William L. Shirer to make regular radio broadcasts from Berlin, but Shirer faced a host of difculties with which Murrow never had to deal. Radio broadcasts, like the stories of print journalists, were subject to Nazi censorship, and refusing to knuckle under to the censors carried the very real danger of being expelled from Germany. Beach Conger, Ralph Barnes and Russell Hill, all of the New York Herald Tribune,

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were expelled, as was Otto Tolischus of the New York Times.131 To some extent, Shirer was able to evade such censorship through what he called “careful writing” and the use of American colloquialisms.132 Like most other observers, Shirer could clearly see the legacies of the Great War in the Germany of the 1930s, including the paranoia that Germany was menaced by the “encirclement” of her enemies.133 Germany had made this a self-fulflling prophecy by attacking frst in the Great War, and now seemed intent on following a similar path. (When Germany signed a pact with the hated Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union in August 1939, Shirer reported that Germans were ebullient because the “dreaded nightmare of encirclement has apparently been destroyed.”)134 A couple of weeks later, Germany sent troops into Poland, and the Second World War began. Germany, of course, very much wanted the United States to remain neutral, which was refected in the German newspaper articles of which Shirer took note. In his broadcast of September 5, 1939, Shirer cited a Börsen Zeitung story headlined, “Senator Borah Warns against the War Agitators in USA,” and on the following day quoted another publication which had followed a Lindbergh speech in which Lindbergh “warned against malicious propaganda. The speech of Lindbergh created a strong impression throughout America.”135 The German press described Lindbergh, and Senators Borah and Clark as America’s “Front of Reason.”136 Several times Shirer took note of the pervasive German belief that any aid that might come from America would be too late to help the Allies.137 The anti-Semitic poison that had taken hold of Germany was unrelenting. Rather than resisting the censors, Shirer’s chief strategy was simply to quote Nazis themselves and let listeners made their own judgments. Hitler, for instance, claimed that he did everything possible to avoid war, “But the Jewish and reactionary warmongers waited for this minute to carry out their plans to destroy Germany.”138 In another case, Shirer quoted a Nazi report that claimed that Polish Jews were “dangerous carriers of disease and contagious germs.” Shirer drily observed, “The diseases and germs are not named.”139 On September 29, 1940 Shirer made his last radio broadcast from Berlin because he believed his usefulness was over. The censors had caught on to his employment of American slang, as well as his use of pauses, irony and voice infection.140 Sharing the concerns of Nazis was isolationist Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who denounced American radio broadcasters in Europe as “biased.”141 Shirer’s involvement with the issues of the war was not over, however. In April 1941, his Berlin Diary was published, and here he was able to be much more frank than in his radio broadcasts. In the entry for December 1, 1940, for instance, Shirer said, The Lindberghs and their friends laugh at the idea of Germany ever being able to attack the United States. The Germans welcome their laughter and hope more Americans will laugh, just as they encouraged the British friends of the Lindberghs to laugh of the very idea that Germany would ever turn on Britain.142

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As for the possibility of war between Germany and the United States, Shirer predicted that, “The clash is as inevitable as that of two planets hurtling inexorably through the heavens toward each other.”143 By the summer of 1941, the United States was engaged in the Atlantic in a war with Germany in all but name, and there had been a huge shift in public opinion away from isolationism. Roosevelt had always been careful to avoid personal attacks on isolationists (in part because so much of the American public could be placed in this category), instead preferring to condemn isolationism in general terms. Now the president adopted a more aggressive rhetoric. In July 1941, Roosevelt penned an “Introduction” to his Public Papers for the year 1940, and was remarkably frank in expressing his contempt for isolationists. After summarizing his Administration’s war policy (“arming ourselves to the teeth, and at the same time helping Great Britain and the other democracies”), he condemned those who were in opposition. They were a “minority” of Americans who had large sums of money at their disposal for propaganda purposes, who had the backing of large newspaper chains, and who could call upon the support of senators “who knew the power of flibuster ….” They were “defeatists,” “appeasers,” “bundists,” and “fascists” who supported groups “committed to racial and religious intolerance and bigotry.”144

Other Voices against Isolation: York, Kennedy, and Luce Isolationists could dismiss Roosevelt’s condemnations of them as sheer politics, but it was not so easy to denigrate the views of Alvin York, America’s most decorated soldier. In May 1941 York gave a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He said that when people asked what was gained by American participation in the Great War, his response was “a lease on liberty, not a deed to it.” Now Hitler was saying that the lease had expired. Those who promoted isolationism, said York, “must have already forgotten the awful sight of small European countries dying like so many little children ….” York advocated “all out aid to England” because “if England falls, we are next on Hitler’s list.” York’s contempt for isolationists was made clear when he referred to Senator Burton Wheeler as “Neville,” and declared that Wheeler’s favorite bird must be the ostrich.145 Franklin Roosevelt was reportedly so moved by this speech that he quoted from it in his own speeches.146 In 1919, Hollywood mogul Jesse Lasky had approached York with the idea of making a movie of his life, and had been rebufed with “Uncle Sam’s uniform ain’t for sale.” York fnally agreed in 1940, after Lasky called it York’s “patriotic duty to let your life serve as an example and the greatest lesson to American youth that could be told.”147 Released in July 1941, Sergeant York (with Gary Cooper in the title role) was a smash hit, taking in $4 million by December 1941 and $10 million by March 1942. It would win two Academy Awards, including an acting award for Cooper. Gerald P. Nye, whose Senate

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committee had devoted itself to keeping America isolated, condemned Sergeant York, along with Man Hunt, I Married a Nazi, and The Great Dictator as “war propaganda.”148 Senator Wheeler saw the dark machinations of the White House and State Department at work. They were telling the motion picture industry “to get out war pictures to drum up war sentiment in the United States.”149 At an America First rally, when Nye listed the ffteen Hollywood studio heads, thirteen of whom were Jewish, the crowd booed, “Jews!”150 Wendell Willkie countered that executives of the motion picture industry “have watched with horror the destruction of a free life within Germany and the ruthless invasions of other countries by Nazis …. We abhor everything which Hitler represents.” When flm maker Harry Warner testifed before a Senate subcommittee, he said, “You can correctly charge me with being anti-Nazi. But no one can charge me with being anti-American.”151 In a November 11, 1941 Armistice Day address in Evansville, Indiana, Alvin York charged that, “Charles Lindbergh, Senator Wheeler, Senator Nye, and every other leader in the America First movement is an appeaser of Adolf Hitler.” Referring once again to Hitler, York said that now was the time to “crush the monster until he and his wretched system both are dead. That makes me an interventionist, and I am proud of the label.”152 When America entered the war a month later, York was unable to serve due to health problems. But he spoke to troops around the country, encouraging them to avoid alcohol, and to read their bibles.153 As previously noted, among those who rendered support to the America First Committee was John F. Kennedy. While the AFC was not a pacifst organization—it endorsed an American military buildup—it was defnitely isolationist in its world view. In Why England Slept (a reference to Churchill’s While England Slept) Kennedy produced an indictment of pacifsm as well as a somewhat late-arriving condemnation of isolationism. Kennedy’s chief concern was America’s lagging rearmament, which he attributed to the “strong feeling of isolation which exists in the Middle West.” Feeding this isolationism was the disgust of Americans that Europeans had not paid their Great War debts and the complementary determination to have “no further share in European troubles.”154 Kennedy served up as an object lesson for the United States what he saw as Britain’s failure to rearm adequately before the outbreak of the Second World War. British inaction could be attributed to the strength of pacifsm, the widely held idea that armaments caused wars (and that rearmament would be a blow to the League of Nations) and a feeling of separation from the continent.155 The United States must keep her armaments “equal to our commitments,” argued Kennedy. He also disposed of the ocean barriers thesis, insisting that, “We cannot tell anyone to keep out of our hemisphere unless our armaments and the people behind these armaments are prepared to back up the command, even to the ultimate point of going to war [orig. emphasis].”156 Why England Slept sold 40,000 copies in the United States, aided by the large

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numbers purchased by Kennedy’s father and by the “Introduction” that Henry R. Luce wrote.157 As the America First Committee was being formed in 1940 to promote isolationism, another organization was being created with the exact opposite goal: American intervention in the European conflict. This was the Century Group. Overwhelmingly members came from the Eastern Establishment, especially New York. They were international businessmen or financiers, lawyers, many with ties to Britain and Europe, with a large number involved in the communications media. They included Robert E. Sherwood, Dean G. Acheson, Allen W. Dulles, Joseph Alsop, George Fielding Eliot, and Henry R. Luce. Uniting Century Group members, whether they were liberals or conservatives, was the conviction that fascism threatened the nation, and it was their duty to sound the alarm.158 In the Century Group we have an example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. Various individuals associated with this organization had a definite impact on the isolationism debate, but the accomplishments of the group as a whole (and its successor, the Fight for Freedom) were debatable. Historian Mark Lincoln Chadwin argues that while these organizations were correct in their assumptions that the defeat of Nazi Germany was in the interest of the United States, their direct calls for intervention and their unwillingness to wait for a shifting of public opinion worked against them. As Chadwin put it, “Their stridency provided ammunition for their opponents.” In addition, they frequently embarrassed Roosevelt, the person they most wanted to support and influence. The one success of the Century Group, according to Chadwin, was the role it played in the destroyer transfer to Britain.159 Henry R. Luce was a Century Group alumnus who made an enormous contribution to the dismantling of isolationism. Luce had more or less maintained a hands-off editorial policy for his three publications—Time, Fortune, and Life—until the outbreak of the Second World War. According to his biographer Alan Brinkley, it was the advent of the war that drew Luce “into the world of politics and statesmanship and significantly transformed his sense of his own importance.”160 It is not an exaggeration to say that beginning in 1939 Henry Luce went to war against the Axis powers. For instance, Time’s coverage of the German invasion of Poland included the eyewitness account of photographer Julien Bryan. “There was no question but that Germans slaughtered Polish civilians miles from military objectives,” said Bryan. “It wasn’t a war against soldiers. It was a war against civilians.”161 Life also ran a photograph smuggled out of Poland that showed a gallows with three victims hanging from it. What was unique about this gallows is that it was on wheels, and could be moved around various parts of Warsaw to demonstrate to Poles the consequences of civilian opposition to Nazi rule.162 At the same time that the brutality of the German war machine was being put on display, Luce publications were showering lavish praise on members of

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the Roosevelt administration—and on the plucky British. This was especially true in the pages of Life, America’s most popular magazine with a circulation of more than 1 million by 1940. Life emphasized Cordell Hull’s “steadfast simplicity and honesty of this lifelong champion of international honor and good will,” and asserted that Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” speech “will probably rank as a turning point of American history ….”163 Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was put on Life’s cover and was described as “a charming and lovely lady.”164 The English were characterized as “friendly to each other and fond of their King, who represents a kind of parent …. Members of the government are liked rather than revered and everyone speaks of Winston Churchill as ‘Winston.’”165 As Alan Brinkley put it, this began Luce’s “long love afair with Winston Churchill ….”166 There was an extended period of inactivity in Europe after the German invasion of Poland—the so-called “phony war”—and as the remaining European democracies made preparations for war, an air of unreality dominated. Britain began instituting plans to remove some 3 million children, invalids, women and the elderly from congested areas. In London alone, 1.3 million were on the dispersal list.167 Sandbags were placed everywhere, hundreds of barrage balloons were sent aloft, and the red British letter-boxes were daubed with yellow paint that would change color if touched by poison gas.168 But by mid-December 1939, more Britons had been killed in trafc accidents during blackouts—3,000 in the frst three months—than had been killed in warfare on land, air and sea.169 The lull vanished in April 1940 with the German army’s invasion of Norway and Denmark, followed by attacks on the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and France. With the fall of Paris in mid-June, Life concluded that, “A tidal wave of American feeling burst last week through the dikes of Isolationism and swept the U.S. far down the road of Intervention.” It was, claimed the magazine, “one of the most violent shifts of feeling in American political history …”170 Luce certainly contributed to this shift through his publications. It should also be noted that the March of Time newsreels—aggressively anti-Nazi and ubiquitous in American movie theaters—were produced by the Luce organization.171 In June 1940, Luce penned an editorial in Life, and passed from publisher to proselytizer. In “America and Armageddon,” Luce insisted that the American way of life was threatened by ruthless militarized nations, and that nothing could stop them but superior force. The struggle of Britain and France “is our struggle.” The United States must arm itself, but Americans must also make up their minds “what we are willing to fght for.”172 For the many young men and women who had been nurtured on a “great revulsion against war, this is a very unpleasant truth.” In stirring rhetoric Luce proclaimed that the America he wanted to fght for was “the America of freedom and justice, the America which has stood throughout the world for the hope of progress in the democratic way of life and for faith in the ultimate brotherhood

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of man.” Luce asked readers to trust their national leaders to decide under what conditions “the American people shall take their stand at Armageddon.”173 He put his views into action by producing a flm called The Ramparts We Watch. In July 1940, Roosevelt invited Luce and others to the White House to view Ramparts, which glorifed the coming of the Great War to America and portrayed the Germans as nasty brutes terrifying civilians in Belgium. Luce had been pushing the destroyer deal, and while at the White House Roosevelt asked him to promote it in his magazines.174 Though the flm never found a mass audience, it attracted plenty of criticism, with Otis Ferguson of the New Republic calling it a “stinking little tent show” and members of the GermanAmerican Bund threatening to disrupt viewings of it.175 In February 1941, Luce wrote and published “The American Century,” one of the most famous touchstones in U.S. history. At its basics, it was an indictment of the national mood. Americans had been “false to ourselves, false to each other, false to the facts of history and false to the future.” There was widespread confusion about the war, and feeding this uncertainty was “the moral and practical bankruptcy of any and all forms of isolationism.” Luce especially condemned the “virus of isolationist sterility” that had infected the Republican party, and called upon Americans to accept the destiny of their country as “the most powerful and vital nation in the world.” Americans should “exert upon the world the full impact of our infuence …” While Luce maintained that Roosevelt himself had been an isolationist in his frst two terms in ofce, he insisted that under the president’s leadership “we can make isolationism as dead an issue as slavery …” Here was a call for a new millennium, trumpeting the idea that “the world of the 20th century, if it is to come to life in any nobility of health and vigor, must be to a signifcant degree an American Century.”176 Whether “The American Century” was viewed as an incitement for U.S. imperialism (the view of Freda Kirchwey and Norman Thomas), or a “call to destiny” (Dorothy Thompson), its impact was undeniable. It was republished and circulated widely in the months and years ahead. Historian Alan Brinkley described it as a “powerful work of propaganda” designed to rouse Americans out of their indiference “and inspire them to undertake a great mission on behalf of what he [Luce] considered the nation’s core values.”177 Less impressed by Luce was Hiram Johnson, who called him “a frst-class rogue.”178 Luce had caught lightning in a bottle with his challenge to Americans to assume their international responsibilities, and in the months ahead there would be similar appeals. A Fortune editorial called upon Americans to shoulder the burden for “the existence of freedom on the earth,” while Basil C. Walker saw in the future a confederacy “of freemen the world over in the American Epoch now dawning.”179 For historians, what was happening in 1941 signaled nothing less than a revival of Manifest Destiny. Bernard DeVoto believed that Americans were embracing once again the idea that “their way of life was desirable for other people and would be the more secure if other people adopted it … It has proved to be the destiny of this generation to give Manifest Destiny a deed.”180

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Pearl Harbor Everything changed with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. When he was pleading for American military preparedness in 1924, John J. Pershing said, “Wars don’t wait. They come upon a nation with the suddenness of a thunderstorm in a clear day.”181 This perfectly describes what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7. In a diary entry, isolationist Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg wrote, “That day ended isolationism for any realist.”182 Certainly, isolationists looked bad in the wake of this event, but so did almost everyone else, beginning with the U.S. military.183 Though the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, war with Japan was not. For many decades Japan had chafed under an American immigration policy that barred Japanese from becoming naturalized citizens. There was also a more recent American embargo of scrap iron and aviation fuel, and the freezing of Japanese assets. The American naval expansion was also seen by many in Japan as an existential threat.184 In August, the Japanese Education Ministry released The Way of Subjects, an ethical guide for the Japanese nation. It declared a war against “European and American thought,” the essentials of which were “individualism, liberalism, utilitarianism and materialism.” China had been led astray by such evil infuences, and it was Japan’s mission to rescue it and the rest of East Asia until “the whole universe be placed under one roof.”185 In the same month, Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles met with Japanese diplomatic aide Kanama Wakasugi at the Japanese Embassy in Washington. Welles told Wakasugi that “if Japan pursued her present policy of conquest aimed at military domination of the entire Pacifc area, a confict between Japan and the United States—whether it came sooner or whether it came later—was inevitable.”186 Early in November Japan released a list of demands on the United States, including ceasing all aid to Chungking (Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese capital), the acknowledgment of Japan’s “co-prosperity sphere,” the recognition of Manchukuo (the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria), the unfreezing of Japanese assets, and the restoration of all trade and commerce.187 The State Department responded on November 26 with its own demands, the most important being that, “The Government of Japan will withdraw all military, naval, air and police forces from China and from Indo-China.”188 These diferences were irreconcilable. Isolationists could argue that before Pearl Harbor a huge majority of Americans endorsed their primary goal: keeping the United States out of the Second World War. Public opinion polls showed they were right. In late November 1941, Gallup pollsters asked Americans if Congress should declare war against Germany. Sixty-three percent said no.189 That war might be precipitated by an attack by Japan seemed incredibly remote compared to the dangerous situation in Europe. Contempt for Japan as a possible adversary also played a role. Two months before Pearl Harbor, Collier’s referred to “the fantastic improbability of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. Japanese navy and

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air forces[s] are, at best, second rate.”190 Just a few days before the Pearl Harbor attack Life reported that while Americans were aware of the tense relations that existed between the United States and Japan, they seemed more concerned with the fighting in Libya “and two or three lively murder cases than they did about war in the Orient.”191 Isolationists seemed little concerned with Japanese aggression in China. Burton K. Wheeler pointed out that Japan was one of America’s best customers for cotton and petroleum, “and there is no reason why we should not live in peace with her.” Sterling Morton also emphasized business ties with Japan, and praised the Japanese army for clearing out Chinese warlords and bandits.192 In an issue of America First Bulletin released on December 6, 1941, the AFC characterized the Roosevelt Administration’s rift with Japan as an attempt to protect British and Dutch colonial possessions in southeast Asia. The Bulletin claimed that “all of this has nothing to do with the United States or any attack upon the United States.”193 The following day, Senator Gerald Nye and several others were waiting to give speeches for an America First meeting when a reporter told them that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. The speakers dismissed this as a hoax. While Nye was giving his speech, another reporter put a note before him that said, “The Japanese Imperial Government in Tokyo at 4 p.m. announced a state of war against the United States and Great Britain.” Somewhat flustered, Nye finished his speech and, still unsure if the report was true or not, told the audience about the attack. The next day in the Senate, Nye voted to declare war against Japan.194 Prominent isolationists were struck dumb by the attack. On December 8, 1941 the Los Angeles Times reported that Charles Lindbergh “refused tonight to see newspapermen or accept any messages.”195 Father Coughlin also left word that “he had nothing to say about the United States’ declaration of war against Japan.”196 One of the chief reasons that isolationists lost all credibility after Pearl Harbor was that they had pounded away with the argument that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans acted as barriers to foreign attack. As we have seen, this was a popular talking point for Lindbergh, and others making this argument included Francis Culkin (R-New York). In 1938, Culkin pronounced it “nonsense” that the United States was vulnerable, and blamed “the Jingo propagandists in the State Department,” and “press agents of the international bankers” for promoting this notion. Culkin asked if anyone in the United States was “moronic enough to believe than an attack on this country is possible for generations to come?”197 In the same year, Gerald Nye argued that even if the Japanese navy was twenty times larger, it would not be able to get within a hundred miles of American shores, and in 1939, Stuart Chase confidently asserted that attacking the United States “is the last thing the [ Japanese] General Staff would dream of today, or for years to come.” “We have one of the strongest fortresses on earth on the Hawaiian Islands.”198 When Roosevelt broadcast a Fireside Chat on

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December 9 to inform the American people that the country was now at war, he got in one last dig against the isolationists, stating that “We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack—that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map any more.”199 The Pearl Harbor catastrophe, followed by the declaration of war against the United States by Germany and Italy, left many isolationists wishing that they could write an alternative history. At a small meeting of America First organizers, Charles Lindbergh grudgingly acknowledged that the United States must fght Germany, but he was clearly unhappy about it. “There is only one danger in the world—that is the yellow danger,” said Lindbergh. “China and Japan are really bound together against the white race. There could have only been one efcient weapon against this alliance. Underneath the surface, Germany itself could have been the weapon.”200 The publishing world was also thrown into turmoil. For Henry R. Luce, “the war came as a great relief, like a reverse earthquake, that in one terrible jerk shook everything disjointed, distorted, askew back into place. Japanese bombs had fnally brought national unity to the U.S.”201 The day after the Pearl Harbor attack, William Randolph Hearst wrote that while there may have been a diference among Americans about getting into the war, “there is no diference about how we should come out of it.” In a preview of the antiJapanese racial hatred that would dominate wartime America, Hearst said, Before the war is over we will have burned up all the paper houses in Japan and sunk most of their scrap-iron battleships and put this bunch of Oriental marauders back on the right little, tight little, out-of-sight little island where they belong.202 At last, reconciliation between Hearst and Britain seemed to be at hand. Britain’s Evening Standard noted that Hearst had been “an isolationist in the days of peace but he wants his country to fght no limited war … we thank him for talking the language which all the world should hear.”203 Hearst became a model patriot. He had previously been involved in organizing hundreds of thousands of American mothers to resist involvement in the war. Hearst now transformed the Mothers League into a patriotic organization “to prosecute the war, to aid those fghting … and to hurry the war to a successful and speedy conclusion.”204 The collapse of isolationism was near total. “Our hopes for peace fell forever with the bombs,” said Kathleen Norris.205 On December 11, Norman Thomas wrote, “I feel as if my world has pretty well come to an end, that what I have stood for has been defeated, and my own usefulness made small.”206 On the same day, the America First Committee issued a statement that read, “The period of democratic debate on the issue of entering the war is over; the time for

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military action is here.”207 Senator Burton K. Wheeler said, “The only thing now is to do our best to lick hell out of them.”208 Not surprisingly, the war had a negative impact on the political fortunes of isolationists. Wheeler was voted out of ofce in 1946, while Gerald Nye, Bennett Clark, and Hamilton Fish went down to defeat in 1944.209 Isolationist Senator Arthur Vandenberg survived by refashioning himself as an avid internationalist. He went on to support the Cold War and NATO, and helped create the United Nations.210 Writing three months after American entry into the war, William Henry Chamberlin observed that the manner in which the United States became involved “was something of a grim joke on interventionists and isolationists alike …” Almost everyone had focused on Europe, and underestimating Japan “was another sad and conspicuous example of our national weakness for wishful thinking.”211 It was, as Fortune put it, “shattering to our preconceptions.”212 Still, Chamberlin refused to join the critics who condemned Americans as decadent, weak, and lacking in moral fber. Americans had not wanted to go to war until war came to them, and in this they were merely expressing how others throughout the world felt.213 The Pearl Harbor attack killed of pacifsm, but in truth it had been on its death bed since September 1939. Pacifsts had maintained that peace was always preferable to war, that “force settles nothing” and that “everybody loses a war.” But as Ellsworth Barnard noted, none of these propositions were true. “Force took this country away from the Indians; force made it independent of Great Britain; force made slavery illegal.” Barnard also cites “the national egotism, the contempt for the individual, the eager worship of power” that characterized Germany during the Great War, and asked whether pacifsts were really prepared to argue that life in the present “would have been no worse had Germany proved the victor.”214 French philosopher Julien Benda maintained that pacifsts mistakenly believed that “democracy’s paramount concern is human life, whereas it is human liberty. Human life deprived of liberty is worthless.” Pacifsm, he concluded, “is a parasite on democracy.”215 A Fortune editorial also lambasted the “unsound pacifsm of the twenties.” “[U]nder the spell of the pacifsts the democracies had neglected their military establishments.” One by one, nations paid the price for “this stupendous blunder.”216 Looking back at the twenties and thirties from the vantage point of 1943, Walter Lippmann condemned pacifst thinking because it had led the nation to the very edge of catastrophe with no alliances and insufcient armaments. The disarmament movement, according to Lippmann, only succeeded in “disarming the nations that believed in disarmament.”217 To the question of what was greater than peace, Lippmann answered that it was survival of the nation in its independence and its security … For we can see now that a surrender to Japan and Germany would give us peace, and the more absolute the surrender, the more absolute the peace.218

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In later years others would be able to see what they could not see in the 1930s. Anne Morrow Lindbergh had been frm in her conviction that there was nothing worse than war, and confessed that, “I learned slowly—more slowly than most people that there were worse things. The degradation and horror that was uncovered at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau was worse than war.”219 Those who had sought an end to war, she said, became “the scapegoats for a generation of failed hopes for peace.”220 History is written by the winners. In this case by the internationalists rather than the isolationists. But we must remember that American isolationism—and European appeasement—were both animated by the desire to avoid the tragedy of another world war. All of us can at least sympathize with the desire, if not the strategy, to forestall such an event. The horrors of the Great War were still fresh in the collective consciousness, and among the most difcult of isolationist arguments to counter came from those who had sufered war’s most terrible tragedy. Late in 1940, as Americans were absorbed by the debate on American participation in another European war, Dorothy Dunbar Bromley published an article called “A Mother’s Plea.” In 1917 her only son had lied about his age and joined the army. He was killed in February 1918. Bromley worked for the Red Cross, and had frsthand experience of the wreckage of war. One boy she met in a hospital “had no arms or legs. He begged me not to let his mother know that he was still alive.” Of the American Gold Star mothers she knew, Bromley said, “If only I could honestly tell them their sons did not die in vain! But I cannot. I look at Europe today, sunk again in one of the wars they have been fghting for three hundred years.” Bromley asked the women of America to “turn back the tide of war hysteria which is rapidly sweeping over the country.”221 Others also remembered the agony of the Great War, and when the Second World War began there were no illusions about what this confict would mean. In Britain in 1939, Rear-Admiral Tufton Beamish drew a contrast between the beginning of the First World War and the Second: “Whitehall was then full of cheering crowds, with no thought of the millions to be killed, the conscription to come, the squalor and misery and chaos … Now I see heavy hearts, clear minds and grim determination.”222 The declaration of war left London, “Black and brooding and incredibly calm, Britain put out the lights tonight …”223 In France, mobilization orders were placed on placards and, “Singly and in groups the people read, nodded and passed on quietly and soberly. All day the streets have become emptier …”224 Nevile Henderson (Britain’s last ambassador to Germany) was in Berlin when the war started. The German people, he said, seemed “horror-struck at the whole idea of the war which was being thrust upon them.”225 Also in Berlin that day was William L. Shirer, who observed, “there is no excitement here today, no hurrahs, no wild cheering, no throwing of fowers—no war fever, no war hysteria.”226 Throughout Europe there was a near universal understanding that what was unfolding would revisit the deprivation and horror of the last war, but on an unimaginable scale.

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Notes 1 “Congress: Quotes and Arguments,” Time 34, no. 14 (October 2, 1939), 12. 2 Norman Cousins Interview of Duf Cooper, “The European War, 1939: III. Does England Expect Us to Fight?” Current History, December 1939, 19. 3 Quoted in Emmanuel Chapman, “Catholics Discuss World Peace,” The Commonweal 30, no. 1 (28 April 1939), 5. 4 Jacques Maritain, “Just War,” The Comonweal 31, no. 9 (December 22, 1939), 199–200. When Monsignor John A. Ryan weighed in on this issue he said, That the Allies have a just cause is proved by the ends which they are seeking and the good efects which are bound up with their triumph, and also by the enormous evil efects which would derive from their defeat. John A. Ryan, “Confusions about the War,” The Commonweal 31, no. 22 (22 March 1940), 467. 5 Quoted in Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880–1955 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1997), 326. 6 See “Man’s Inhumanity to Man,” The Commonweal 31, no. 15 (2 February 1940), 314. 7 C. Hartley Grattan, The Deadly Parallel (New York: Stackpole Sons, 1939), 11, 12. 8 In an illustration of the widespread appeal of Road to War, when it became known that R. J. Sontag, a professor at Princeton, was going to be reviewing it, a student told him “it’s a great book; Millis debunks everybody.” Sontag was less impressed, describing Road to War as “a too well disguised pacifst tract,” and “a biased diplomatic history.” (Since Sontag’s piece appeared in the American Historical Review, it’s doubtful that it reached many readers.) R. J. Sontag Review, Walter Millis, “Road to War: America 1914–1917,” American Historical Review 41, no. 2 ( January 1936), 361, 363. 9 Allen W. Dulles and Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Can We Be Neutral? (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936), 23–24. 10 Berlin hatched a further plot, thankfully not executed, to infect American munitions workers with infuenza. See Reinhard R. Doerries, “The Politics of Irresponsibility: Imperial Germany’s Defance of United States Neutrality during World War I,” Germany and America: Essays on Problems of International Relations and Immigration, ed. Hans L. Trefousse (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1980), 10. 11 Dulles and Armstrong, 32. Walter Lippmann also referred to the Walter Millis generation and their “defects as historians.” They were unable to engage the issues of 1914–1918, and “fnding them incomprehensible, they regard them as insane.” Walter Lippmann, “The American Ideals in the Outer World,” in Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–35, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 385. 12 Dulles and Armstrong, 45. 13 Dulles and Armstrong, 120. 14 Edwin Borchard and William Potter Lage, Neutrality for the United States (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937), 261–63, 264. 15 Quoted in Ruth Sarles, A Story of America First: The Men and Women Who Opposed U.S. Intervention in World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 144, 145. 16 Herbert Herring, And So to War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1938), 122, 169. Norman Thomas also feared that the American “tendency to go Sir Galahading around the world may help us into war.” Norman Thomas, “We Needn’t Go to War,” Harper’s Magazine 177, November 1938, 659. 17 “Universal Justice Put before Peace,” New York Times, January 18, 1928. 18 “Coughlin Hits Vinson Plan,” New York Times, January 6, 1936. 19 “Reply to Coughlin on Neutrality Act,” New York Times, October 16, 1939.

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20 Arthur H. Vandenberg, “Roosevelt’s Policies Jeopardize American Neutrality,” World War II: Opposing Viewpoints, ed. William Dudley (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1997), 39–40. 21 Arthur H. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. (New York: Houghton Mifin, 1952), 3. 22 Quoted in Sussan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—The Election amid the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 57. 23 Quoted in “Taft Sees Aid Bill As Santa Claus Act,” New York Times, 26 January 1941. 24 George Soule, “The Price of Neutrality,” American Points of View, 1934–1935, ed. William H. Cordell and Kathryn Coe Cordell (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1936), 320. 25 “Senator Byrnes Takes Issue with Views of Lindbergh,” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1940. Historian James Truslow Adams made a similar observation of Lindbergh. Referring to Lindbergh’s statement that, “If we desire peace, we need only stop asking for war,” Adams asked, “Did Norway, Finland, the Baltic Provinces, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and the others ask for war? And what is their peace?” James Truslow Adams, “What Does Col. Lindbergh Believe?” Current History and Forum, September 1940, 17. 26 Charles G. Fenwick, American Neutrality: Trial and Failure [1940] (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), 30. 27 Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough,” Washington Post, June 19, 1941. 28 “Life on the Newsfronts of the World,” October 23, 1939, 16. Lindbergh also implied that Canada should sever her ties with Britain and look to the United States for leadership. Dorothy Thompson argued that, “Nowhere on this soil has the Nazi concept of imperialism been so clearly stated as in Colonel Lindbergh’s second speech.” Quoted in “U.S. Neutrality,” Newsweek, October 30, 1939, 28. 29 Quoted in Sarles, 149. 30 Soule, 323, 325–26. 31 Fenwick, 148, 147. 32 Walter Lippmann, “The Atlantic … And America: The Why and When of Intervention,” Life, April 7, 1941, 86. 33 Forrest Davis, The Atlantic System: The Story of Anglo-American Control of the Seas [1941] (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973), 206. 34 Burton J. Hendrick, The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, v. 2 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1923), 179, 185. Wilson obviously did not hold Page in very high regard, and when Page ofered his resignation after Wilson’s reelection, Wilson did not reply for two months (the president fnally asked Page to stay on). Ibid., 198–99. 35 Davis, 227. 36 Erik Larson, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (New York: Crown, 2015), 182–83. 37 Davis, 243. 38 Britain had been seizing and censoring American transatlantic mail, denying coal to American ships unless those ships were turned over to the control of the British Admiralty and publishing a “blacklist” of American export houses with whom British subjects were forbidden to trade. Woodrow Wilson to Edward M. House, Letter of 23 July 1916, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, v. 37, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 467. 39 Edward M. House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, ed. Charles Seymour (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1928), 316–17. 40 Clarence K. Streit, Union Now: A Proposal for a General Union of the Democracies of the North Atlantic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939), 4, 6–7, 29, 243–51.

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41 Felix Morley, “A Plan of ‘More Perfect Union,’” Washington Post, March 5, 1939. 42 Herbert Heaton, “The War Historian’s Dilemma,” Current History, September 1941, 2. 43 Charles Chatfeld, For Peace and Justice: Pacifsm in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971), 312. 44 Merle Curti, Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936 [1936] (Boston, MA: J. S. Canner, 1959), 299. 45 “Urge Quick Action on Aid for Britain,” New York Times, February 9, 1941. 46 “Stires for All Aid to Britain in War,” New York Times, February, 24 1941. 47 Frank H. Simmons, “The Collapse of the Peace Movement,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July-November, 1934, 117–18. 48 Simmons, 120. According to Simmons, the peace movement had not been successful in bringing home the idea that international peace came with the price of modifying national policies and even national rights. Ibid., 117. 49 Curti, 309. 50 Quoted in Thomas N. Guinsburg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States Senate From Versailles to Pearl Harbor (New York: Garland, 1982), 180. 51 “Antiwar Congress Condemns Current Arms Program at Lively Session in Capital,” Washington Post, June 1, 1941. 52 Quoted in Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933–1983 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984), 4, 16. 53 Lewis Mumford, Men Must Act (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 107. 54 Dorothy Detzer, Appointment on the Hill (New York: Henry Holt, 1948), 151. 55 Quoted in Wittner, 30. 56 Quoted in John Kelly, “Reply to Jacques Maritain,” The Commonweal 31, no. 10 (December 29, 1939), 222. 57 Quoted in Wittner, 22. 58 Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, v. 1 (New York Macmillan, 1948), 589. 59 Reinhold Niebuhr, “Germany and Modern Civilization,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1925, 847–48. 60 Quoted in Wittner, 15. 61 Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), xii. 62 Niebuhr, Moral Man, xx. 63 Niebuhr, Moral Man, 91. 64 Reinhold Niebuhr, Refections on the End of an Era (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934), 58. 65 Dorothy Thompson, “The Problem Child of Europe,” Foreign Afairs 18, no. 3 (April 1940), 397. According to historian Ian Kershaw, “Each year more than 12,000 Germans from all walks of life sent Hitler letters of praise and sycophantic veneration approaching adoration.” Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: Penguin, 2016), 289. 66 Quoted in Michael Kazin, War against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914–1918 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 279. 67 Reinhold Niebuhr, “Ten Years That Shook My World,” The Christian Century, April 26, 1939, 542. 68 Niebuhr, “Ten Years,” 543–44. In 1940, Niebuhr referred to the “religious perfectionism” of American churches, and an “attitude of cynicism, prompted by a disappointed idealism …” Reinhold Niebuhr, “Idealists as Cynics,” The Nation 150, no. 3 ( January 20, 1940), 73, 74. 69 Turner Catledge, “Republicans Confused on Course for Future,” New York Times, February 16, 1941. In his analysis, David L. Porter observes that, Besides denying that German activity threatened American security, Great Lakes and Great Plains constituents claimed that greedy eastern bankers,

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munitioners, and industrialists deliberately were conspiring to ally the United States with Great Britain and mobilize the army. In addition, the Great Lakes and Great Plains states relied much less than the New England and Middle Atlantic areas on European trade. David L. Porter, The Seventy-sixth Congress and World War II, 1939–1940 (­Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1979), 183. 70 “Aid Bill Is Vital, Willkie Declares,” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1941. 71 “Verbatim Testimony of Wendell Willkie,” New York Times, February 12,1941. In his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination, Willkie had referred to Roosevelt and said, There have been occasions when many of us have wondered if he was not deliberately inciting us to war … He has secretly meddled in the affairs of Europe, and he has even unscrupulously urged other countries to hope for more help than we are able to give … “Highlights of Wendell L. Willkie’s Acceptance Address at Elwood, Ind.,” Newsweek, 26 August 1941, 12. 72 Quoted in Nicholas Wapshott, The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), 267. 73 Joseph Alsoph and Robert Kintner, “Capital Parade,” Washington Post, 16 January 1941; “Willkie Warns Isolationists,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1941. 74 “Invasion of America Feared by Stimson,” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1941. 75 “Dewey Urges Aid to Britain,” Los Angeles Times, February 13, 1941. 76 “Hitler Defeat Aim,” New York Times, February 18, 1941. 77 “Lamont Hits Appeasement,” Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1941. 78 “Aldrich Approves ‘Lend-Lease’ Plan,” New York Times, January 15, 1941. 79 “Party Parley Bars Talk Over Willkie,” New York Times, February 2, 1941. 80 “Willkie Asks Use of Force On Seas,” New York Times, September 7, 1941. 81 “Willkie Urges Neutral Repeal,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1941. When a group of five Republicans visited Britain in November, a reporter asked about isolationism and interventionism in the United States. Joseph Clark Baldwin explained, “those handles really don’t mean much any more.” “Conditions in ­England Surprise U.S. Group,” New York Times, November 21, 1941. 82 “On the Newsfronts of the World,” Life, November 3, 1941, 34. 83 “A Brave Change of Mind,” New York Times, February 21, 1941. 84 Chatfield, 312. 85 Dorothy Thompson, “Why Call It Post-War?” Saturday Evening Post 205, no. 4 ( July 23, 1932), 6–7. When he looked at the minorities problem in 1931, C. A. Macartney noted that nations long accustomed to live together according to East European conceptions, which permit and even encourage national distinctions, are hurriedly attempting to fit their conditions to the ideas of Western Europe which believes in the sanctity of majority rule and holds that the larger the majority the greater the sanctity. C. A. Macartney, “Minorities: A Problem of Eastern Europe,” Foreign Affairs 9, no. 4 ( July 1931), 680. 86 Thompson, “Why Call It Post-War?” 55–58. 87 Dorothy Thompson, “I Saw Hitler!” (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1932), 29, 3. Everyone was impressed with Hitler’s powers of speech. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Paul Scheffer proclaimed Hitler “the most successful orator that Germany has ever possessed.” Paul Scheffer, “Hitler: Phenomenon and Portent,” Foreign Affairs 10, no. 3 (April 1932), 383. Hitler, of course, continued to fascinate Americans. Sigrid Schultz reported that when she interviewed him he said to her, “You cannot

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89

90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104

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understand the Nazi movement, because you think with your head and not with your heart.” In another interview he yelled at her, “My will shall be done!” In a Chicago Tribune piece, Schultz reported on Hitler’s fascination with astrology. “Hitler is known to regard it as a serious matter,” said Schultz. “For years he has enlisted the cooperation of German astrologers and outstanding men and women of kindred sciences.” See Lilya Wagner, Women War Correspondents of World War II (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 99–100. See William C. Bullitt, For the President, Personal and Secret: Correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and William C. Bullitt, ed. Orville H. Bullitt (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifin, 1972), 23. Chicago Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick’s visit to Germany convinced him that Nazism was “a passing insanity, caused by fear and temporarily powerful fallacies.” Quoted in Smith, 325. Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2014), 78. After visiting Hitler in 1936, David Lloyd George came away impressed, calling him a “great man” with the vision to solve Germany’s problems. Quoted in William L. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 232. Dorothy Thompson, “Introduction,” in Dorothy Thompson, Let the Record Speak (Cambridge, MA: Riverside, 1939), 9. Dorothy Thompson, “America Must Choose,” in Thompson, Let the Record Speak, 103. Dorothy Thompson, “The Unneutrality Bill - II,” in Thompson, Let the Record Speak, 76. Dorothy Thompson, “Gangway for Piracy and Peace,” in Thompson, Let the Record Speak, 98. Dorothy Thompson, “Freedom of Action,” in Thompson, Let the Record Speak, 327. Dorothy Thompson, “The Fateful Decision of Britain,” in Thompson, Let the Record Speak, 345. In early 1941, Thompson identifed “a tidal wave of red-brown counter-revolution,” which aimed “to sweep away all the institutions of civilized man …” Dorothy Thompson, “Pacifsts and Fascists,” Washington Post, February 24, 1941. Quoted in Wapshott, 144. Quoted in Peter Kurth, American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1990), 312. Dorothy Thompson, “Of Propagandists,” Washington Post, 3 March 1941. Quoted in Kurth, 313. Dorothy Thompson, “On the Record: The Race against Freedom,” Washington Post, 7 March 1941. Virginia Cowles, “The Beginning of the End,” Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism, 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 53. Sonia Tomara, “French Conceal Despair; Move as Automatons,” Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism, 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 71. Lynne Olson, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour (New York: Random House, 2017), xv. See H. V. Kaltenborn, “A Month of War: V. Radio,” Current History, October 1939, 35. See also “Communications: The Fourth Front,” Fortune 20, no. 4 (October 1939), 90–96. For an examination of German and British use of radio to broadcast propaganda, see Charles J. Rolo, “The Strategy of War by Radio,” Harpers Magazine 181, November 1940, 640–49. Edward R, Murrow, In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 24, 29. Presidential advisor Harry Hopkins

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106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118

119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128

129 130 131

told Churchill that at cabinet meetings Roosevelt often set up a wireless-set so he could listen to Churchill’s speeches. John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), 333. Murrow, 30–31. Murrow, 40, 41. Murrow, 43, 44. For Kennedy’s tenure in London during the Blitz, see Dunn, 220–24. Olson, Citizens of London, 75–76. Quoted in Wapshott, 199. Howard Lester Rose, “Edward R. Murrow: His Life, Legacy and Ethical Infuence,” Unpublished Master’s Thesis, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska, 2010, 23. James MacDonald, “Willkie Has Game of Darts in a Pub,” New York Times, January 31, 1941. “Willkie Visits Raid Shelters,” Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1941. “Warns Us of Axis,” New York Times, February 12, 1941. Quoted in W. Averell Harriman and Elie Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941–1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), 11. “Hopkins Tells British War Need to President,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1941. Ernie Pyle, “Life Without Redemption,” Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism, 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 152. See also H. M. Tomlinson, “The Battle of London,” Atlantic Monthly 167 no. 1 ( January 1941), 12–19. Walter Graebner, “London Stands Up to the Blitzkrieg,” Life, January 13, 1941, 73, 83. Tania Long, “83 Children Are Among 293 Dead as Nazis Torpedo Refugee Liner,” Reprinted in Lilya Wagner, Women War Correspondents of World War II (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 49–50. Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defance During the Blitz (New York: Crown, 2020), 221, 227; Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry Hopkins, 251. Gielgud and West quoted in Diana Forbes-Robertson, “From the London Front,” Current History and Forum, 10 December 1940, 26. Greene quoted in Larson, The Splendid and the Vile, 213. “Letters from Britain Refect Popular Reaction to Bombs, Politics and Restrictions of Wartime,” New York Times, December 22, 1940. David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 464. See Larson, The Splendid and the Vile, 291–98. “Bombs on Coventry,” New York Times, November 16, 1940. Quoted in Larson, The Splendid and the Vile, 297. See “British Aid Group Sets Weekly Mark,” New York Times, December 1, 1940. Another example of an American group inspired by the Blitz was the BritishAmerican Ambulance Corps, which raised funds in the United States to send ambulances to Britain. See Thurston Macauley, “Ambulances for Britain,” Current History and Forum, January 10, 1940, 15. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 31. Quoted in Olson, Citizens of London, 48. See Ernest R. Pope, “Blitzkrieg Reporting,” Current History and Forum, September 1940, 28. David Darrah, Rome correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was expelled from Italy for writing stories that were not pleasing to Mussolini. Arnaldo Cortesi, “Italy Ousts Writer for Chicago Paper,” New York Times, June 14, 1935.

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132 John Keegan, “Introduction,” Williamn L. Shirer, “This Is Berlin”: Radio Broadcasts from Nazi Germany (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1999), x. 133 William L. Shirer, “This Is Berlin:” Radio Broadcasts from Nazi Germany (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1999), 42. In a 1940 interview with U.S. Under Secretary Sumner Welles, German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop claimed that “the days of encirclement—of British and French political meddling in Central and eastern Europe—had passed, and forever.” Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 95–96. 134 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 57. 135 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 84, 85. 136 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 89. 137 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 321, 351. 138 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 173. 139 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 140. 140 Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 423. 141 Quoted in Dorothy Thompson, “Of Propagandists,” Washington Post, March 3, 1941. 142 William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941), 593. 143 Shirer, Berlin Diary, 592. 144 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Introduction, July 17, 1941,” Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, v. 9, 1940 (New York: Macmillan, 1941), xxvii–xxviii. 145 “Must Fight to Keep Liberty, Says York,” New York Times, May 31, 1941. 146 Douglas V. Mastriano, Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014), 176–77. 147 Mastriano, 177–78. 148 Mastriano, 184–85. See Michael E. Birdwell, Celluloid Soldiers: The Warner Bros. Campaign Against Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 154–55. 149 Turner Catledge, “Wheeler Charges Movies Want War,” New York Times, August 1, 1941. 150 See Wapshott, 324. 151 Mastriano, 186. 152 “Lindbergh Scored by Sergeant York,” New York Times, November 12, 1941. 153 Mastriano, 187. 154 John F. Kennedy, Why England Slept [1940] (New York: Wilfred Funk, 1961), 220. 155 Kennedy, 22. 156 Kennedy, 229–30. 157 See Robert E. Herzstein, Henry R. Luce: A Political Portrait of the Man Who Created the American Century (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), 160. 158 See Mark Lincoln Chadwin, The Warhawks: American Interventionists Before Pearl Harbor (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), 45–71. 159 Chadwin, 269–71. 160 Alan Brinkley, The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 241. 161 “Eastern Theatre: In Fields as They Worked,” Time 34, no. 16 (October 16, 1939), 45. 162 “Epilog of Invasion,” Life, April 29, 1940, 29. 163 “Life’s Cover,” Life, October 2, 1939, 9; “Life on the Newsfronts of the World,” Life, January 13, 1941, 20. 164 “Speaking of Pictures,” Life, January 1, 1940, 7. 165 “England at War,” Life, January 1, 1940, 44. 166 Brinkley, 245. See, for instance, the lavish photo spread in “Winston Churchill: He Inspires an Empire in its Hour of Need,” Life, January 27, 1941, 59–70.

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167 Frederick T, Birchall, “Britain Moves 3,000,000 from Cities in Max Exodus,” Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1939. 168 “Calamity Capitals,” Newsweek, September 25, 1939, 22. 169 “Life on the Newsfronts of the World,” Life, December 18, 1939, 18. 170 “Life on the Newsfronts of the World,” Life, June 17, 1940, 82. 171 See Olson, Those Angry Days, 364–65. 172 Henry R. Luce, “America and Armageddon,” Life, June 3, 1940, 40. 173 Luce, “America and Armageddon,” 100. 174 Herzstein, 14–15. 175 Herzstein, 159. 176 America would be “the powerhouse of the ideals of Freedom and Justice—out of these elements surely can be fashioned a vision of the 20th century to which we can and will devote ourselves in joy and gladness and vigor and enthusiasm.” Henry R. Luce, “The American Century,” Life, February 17, 1941, 61–65. 177 Brinkley, 270–71. 178 Hiram W. Johnson to Hiram W. Johnson, Jr., Letter of June 2, 1940. Hiram Johnson Papers, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Box 8, Online Archive of California, BANC C-B 581. 179 “The Time Is Now,” Fortune 24, no. 3 (September 1941), 42; Basil C. Walker, “America’s Destiny,” Current History and Forum, June 1941, 48. 180 Bernard DeVoto, “Manifest Destiny,” Harpers Magazine 182, April 1941, 560. 181 “Pershing Retiring, Speaks to the Nation,” New York Times, September 7, 1924. 182 Quoted in Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 [1966] (Chicago, IL: Imprint Publications, 1990), 273. 183 Among the few that recognized the navy had a problem in the Pacifc was Cordell Hull. In a conversation with Averell Harriman on March 7, 1941, Hull complained that the navy had resisted his advice to be more active in patrolling the waters of the Far East. He also feared that the navy’s insistence on keeping so many of its ships at Pearl Harbor might lead to an “ignominious result.” Quoted in Harriman and Abel, 17. 184 Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), 5. 185 Quoted in Otto D. Tolischus, “The Way of Subjects,” Reporting World War II, Part One: American Journalism 1938–1944 (New York: Library of America, 1995), 184–85. 186 “Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Welles) of a Conversation with the British Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Afairs (Cadogan),” Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, v. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1958), 347. 187 See G. Nye Steiger, “The Final Japanese-American Negotiations,” Current History ( January 1942), 392. 188 “The Note to Japan of November 26,” Current History, January 1942, 403. 189 George Gallup, “The Gallup Poll,” Washington Post, November 22, 1941. 190 Jim Marshall, “West Coast Japanese,” Collier’s, October 11, 1941, 71. 191 “Life on the Newsfronts of the World,” December 8, 1941. 192 See Justus D. Doenecke, “Power, Markets and Ideology: The Isolationist Response to Roosevelt Policy, 1940–1941,” Watershed of Empire: Essays on New Deal Foreign Policy, ed. Leonard P. Liggio and James J. Martin (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles, 1976), 143. 193 “Blame for Rift With Japan Rests on Administration,” America First Bulletin 1, no. 28 (December 6, 1941), 1–2. 194 Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 198–99.

310 The Counterinsurgents

195 “Lindbergh Keeps Silent,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1941. 196 “Father Coughlin Silent on War,” New York Times, December 9, 1941. 197 Francis Culkin, “America Need Not Be Afraid of Attack from Abroad,” Social Justice, April 18, 1938, 8. 198 Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations, 130; Chase, The New Western Front, 166, 67. 199 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat on the Entrance of the United States into the War,” Washington, DC, December 9, 1941, in Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932–1945, ed. B. D. Zevin (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1946), 310. 200 Quoted in Max Wallace, The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 302. 201 Quoted in Brinkley, 280. 202 William Randolph Hearst, “England and America,” December 8, 1941, in William Randolph Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst (San Francisco, CA: privately published, 1948), 631, 633. 203 “Thank You, Mr. Hearst,” [orig. Evening Standard] quoted in Hearst, Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Randolph Hearst, 635. 204 Procter, 235–36. 205 Quoted in Deanna Paoli Gumina, A Woman of Certain Importance: A Biography of Kathleen Norris (Calistoga, CA: Illuminations Press, 2004), 255. 206 Quoted in Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2000), 328. 207 Quoted in Kaufmann, xlii. 208 “War: Japan Launches Reckless Attack on U.S.,” Life, December 15, 1941, 27. 209 Wayne S. Cole, Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle against American Intervention in World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), 229. 210 See Hendrik Meijer, Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017). Vandenberg was following the Republican party’s lead, whose platform in 1944 endorsed American participation “in a postwar cooperative organization among sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace.” Quoted in Olson, Those Angry Days, 449. 211 William Henry Chamberlin, “America in World War, 1917–1942,” Harper’s Magazine, March 1942, 338. 212 “The Japanese,” Fortune 25, no. 2 (February 1941), 53. 213 Chamberlin, 342. 214 Ellsworth Barnard, “War and the Verities,” Harpers Magazine 180, January 1940, 118–19. 215 Julien Benda, “Pacifsm and Democracy,” Foreign Afairs 19, no. 4 ( July 1941), 694, 701. 216 “War and Peace,” Fortune 20, no. 5 (November 1939), 45. 217 Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1943), 53–54, 50. 218 Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy, 50. 219 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, The Flower and the Nettle: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1936–1939 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), xxvi-xxvii. 220 Lindbergh, xxvii. 221 Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, “A Mother’s Plea,” Current History, August 1940, 48–49. German propagandists were well aware of the agony of American mothers at the prospect of sending their children of to war, and were more than willing to take advantage of it. One week before the Pearl Harbor attack, German Ambassador

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222 223 224 225 226

to the United States Hans Dieckhof produced a memorandum entitled “Principles for Infuencing American Public Opinion.” Among these principles was that, “The slogan for every American mother must be: ‘I didn’t raise my boy to die for Britain!’” Quoted in Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 897. Quoted in Tim Bouverie, Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2019), 3. “London is Likened to Besieged City,” New York Times, September 2, 1939. Jean Bullitt Denny, “Sober View Taken by French, Who Accept War News Without Cheering,” New York Times, September 2, 1939. Nevile Henderson, “Failure of A Mission, Part Three,” Life, April 8, 1940, 72. Shirer, “This Is Berlin,” 75. Shirer’s impression was that right up until the last moment “the German people were convinced that Hitler would get what he wanted—what they wanted—without recourse to war.” Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 300. Even after Germany saw a succession of victories, there was little in the way of enthusiasm. Richard Boyer, who visited Germany in June 1940 after the victorious French campaign said that there was “dreadful listlessness” everywhere. Munich was “unmistakably sad, quiet, and dreary.” Time’s Berlin correspondent Stephen Laird, reported, “Nothing seems to move the German people to spontaneous enthusiasm for the war,” despite banner headlines describing smashing German victories. D. A. Saunders, “The Failure of Propaganda, and What to Do about It,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1941, 649–50.

CONCLUSION

Who were the isolationists and what did they believe in? As we have seen, the latter question is easier to answer than the former because persons from all walks of life—ranging between 70 and 80 percent of the American population— held isolationist views between the wars. Looking at isolationists in 1939, Foreign Afairs magazine referred to them as “strange bedfellows.”1 Isolationism, said historian Richard M. Ketchum, was “a real Mulligan stew of conficting passions, loyalties, and afliations.”2 But we can say with some certainty that the isolationist impulse was fed by a number of sources, beginning with the Great War. Americans in 1917 believed that they were joining the confict to make the world a better place, and that perhaps war itself could be done away with. Judging by Wilson’s international popularity, much of the rest of the world also shared this idealism. In the days leading to the Versailles Conference U.S. publications were full of articles proclaiming the end of American isolationism and the beginning of an enhanced American internationalism. But at Versailles, Wilson had allowed his Fourteen Points to be eviscerated by the likes of Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George, who went on to levy a judgment against Germany that Americans overwhelmingly viewed as vindictive. As one commentator put it “statesmanship has lost touch with the great ideals of mankind, with the great motives of community; that policy has degenerated into the manipulation of low motives ….”3 The Great War had imparted some painful lessons, but the Allies had seemingly learned nothing. They had not taken responsibility for the role they had played in producing this catastrophe, and had reverted back to the spoils system that had characterized European politics for over a thousand years. Disillusioned and bitter, Americans now concluded that they had been rubes, suckers

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manipulated by wily Allied propagandists. And the biggest sucker of all was Woodrow Wilson, who had convinced himself and the American nation that idealism could prevail over greed. To add insult to injury, once the war was over the Allies tried to renege on the debts they owed to the United States. From the American perspective, Europeans seemed to be arguing that because they had slaughtered each other wholesale for two-and-a-half years before a single U.S. soldier showed up in Europe, Americans should pay for this slaughter in the form of debt forgiveness. Quite aside from the issue of whether these debts should be forgiven because the Allies had fought “America’s battle” or whether America had been financing a European civil war, loans from the United States had been much celebrated by the Allies during the war, and not even Georges Clemenceau could argue that these debts had not been legally incurred. The stark truth of the matter is that without these loans, the Allied war effort would have ground to a halt. This was not a point that the Allies were eager to make in the post-war years, and they were blithely dismissive of the practical impact that writing off a $10 billion debt ($150 billion in today’s money) would have on the American taxpayer. According to Samuel Crowther, a journalist who specialized in economic issues, debt forgiveness would have left British taxpayers about where they were, France would be slightly worse off, and Germany would become the least taxed nation on earth. The United States would become the planet’s highest taxed nation.4 Stuart Chase claimed that the billions that the United States had poured into Europe had amounted to a massive public works program for Europeans. Americans, on the other hand, “didn’t even get leaves raked—let alone saving the world for democracy.”5 The Allied argument that Americans were fighting on the same side in the same war was stretching the truth. Indeed, for much of this conflict Americans had wanted nothing to do with it. They were horrified by what was transpiring in Europe, which seemed to signal the total breakdown of civilization. When Americans finally entered the war, they did so for their own reasons, and not to maintain the Franco-British balance of power.6 While it is undeniable that Americans favored the Allied side—the horrible behavior of the German army in Belgium and northern France and the cultural affinity that Americans felt for Britain were important factors here—for much of the war Britain was almost as much of an irritant as Germany. The high handedness of the British in seizing American transatlantic mail, in publishing a “blacklist” of American export houses and denying coal to American ships unless they were turned over to British Admiralty control prompted Wilson to declare in 1916 that he was “about at the end of my patience with Great Britain and the Allies.” 7 American doubts about the system that prevailed in Europe were underscored by the U.S. insistence that it would fight as an “associated power” rather than as a full-fledged ally. Feeding those doubts was European colonialism. There was a strong anti-imperialist streak in the United States, and Americans

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could clearly see that after the war France and Britain were using the cover of the League of Nations mandate system to enhance their colonial possessions. This system, said Robert La Follette, “closes the door in the face of every people striving for freedom.”8 If the United States threw in its lot with British and French colonialism, claimed Gerald Nye, it would be contributing to “the continued subjugations of hundreds of millions of black and brown people.”9 Additionally, the French invasion of the Ruhr confirmed to many in the United States (and Britain) that the charge of “militarism” that had been used to blacken Germany during the war now better described France. Analyzing French anxieties toward Germany in 1925, Lord Balfour observed that they were “dreadfully afraid of being swallowed up by the tiger, but yet they spend all their time poking it.”10 Britain and France had only themselves to blame for transforming eager American internationalists after the war into disillusioned isolationists less than a year later. This disillusionment was expressed in a number of ways, beginning with American accounts that disputed the basic facts about the war. Revisionist historians vilified British, French and Russian actions and rehabilitated the Central Powers. They discounted or ignored the very real reasons the United States had entered the conflict. Instead, revisionists posited that Americans had labored under a woeful ignorance of what was going on during the war, and had been easy prey to British “propaganda.” They also claimed that the United States had declared war not because of German submarine attacks, but to protect the assets of American business interests. None of this was true, but it found a receptive audience in Americans demoralized by Versailles. The pacifist element of isolationism in America—and appeasement in ­Europe—was brought to life by the horrors of the most brutal conflict in human history. The homes and workplaces destroyed, the millions killed and maimed, the outlandish sums of money thrown away convinced multitudes that anything was better than war. And with each new publication, the literature of the Lost Generation brought the suffering of the war to vivid life and kept this issue before the public. Winston Churchill complained that, “If the influence of the United States had been exerted, it might have galvanized the French and British politicians into action.”11 Whether it was America’s responsibility to address French and British lassitude is debatable, but the former Allies did see an expanded American role as essential. If this was the case, their wooing of the United States left something to be desired, with Lloyd George and Clemenceau first undermining Wilson at Versailles, then spending their post-war years belittling the American contribution to the war and trying to cancel what debts their nations owed. It should come as no surprise that Americans weren’t going for it. The prevailing view in the United States was that Europeans, not Americans, had created chaos on their continent—what Herbert Hoover called a “furnace of hate”—and it was up to Europeans to put their house in order.12 What made it impossible for

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them to do so, said American historian William Henry Chamberlin in 1940, was the “unwise and unworkable” Treaty of Versailles. It was “too harsh and unjust to conciliate Germany and not ruthless enough to destroy Germany beyond any possibility of resurrection.” The treaty failed because Britain and France “lacked the heart and the will to defend their own handiwork when it was challenged.”13 While Americans did their best to isolate themselves from European politics between the wars, they did not isolate themselves from Europe in terms of trade or business, and they involved themselves in issues that were common to all. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg noted how “deeply embedded” the avoidance of European political entanglements was in the American psyche, but he said there was a diference between being a party to a political or military alliance and cooperating in the economic betterment of the world. “The United States,” said Kellogg, “has never turned a deaf ear to the call of distress, nor has it ever refused assistance when its aid has been sought in a way which would not involve us in the political controversies and domestic afairs of other countries.”14 The proliferation of armaments was a universal problem after the war, and Americans were active in engaging this issue. The United States convened the Washington Conference to address the size of the world’s navies. Americans also played signifcant roles in the Kellogg-Briand deliberations to outlaw war, and in the efort to stabilize the European economic system. Americans believed that they could lead by example, that the tragedy of the recent war would make Europeans susceptible to reason and moral suasion. At the same time, however, the United States government was unwilling to commit any military resources to enforce international agreements because politicians understood there was no public support for such action. As Allen W. Dulles put it in 1927, “we have little except good will to ofer the European states to induce them to limit their forces.”15 In the midst of discussions about outlawing war in 1928, the Washington Post reminded readers that The United States has no allies. It is not bound to go to war in behalf of any nation. It is not bound by the covenant of the League of Nations to boycott any nation that does not respect the covenant. It is a nation that is normally neutral while other nations are at war. Washington in his Farewell Address emphasized this normal position of neutrality … That advice is as sound now as when it was penned by the Father of His Country.16 The advent of the Great Depression in 1929 pushed American concerns for foreign policy even further into the background as the nation became absorbed almost exclusively in domestic afairs. Even Franklin Roosevelt, a long-time internationalist, was arguably an isolationist for his frst term in ofce beginning in 1933. In Germany that year Adolf Hitler became chancellor, and each

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year  thereafter brought further proof that he represented a dire threat to the world’s democracies. With his rise we can trace both the most virulent expressions of isolationism, and the beginning of the end of the isolationist movement. Isolationists doubled down on the idea that what was happening in Europe in the 1930s was “just like” what had happened in Europe in the years preceding the Great War. As isolationist publisher Robert R. McCormick put it, “it would be difcult today to obtain a declaration of war from Congress, but after months of propaganda the task may be simplifed. It was so in 1917; it may be so again in 1938.”17 Two years later, Hiram Johnson claimed that, “We’re following the line followed by us in 1917, which took us into the European confict,” to which fellow senator Arthur H. Vandenberg added, “The story of 1917–18 is already repeating itself.”18 Americans had been burned before, and they were not going to be burned again by entangling themselves in European controversies. Wedded to what they saw as the historical parallel between the First World War and the Second, isolationists became “prisoners of memory,” as Harold Lavine and James Wechsler phrased it.19 Congress passed the Neutrality Acts to prevent a repeat of the scenario that had drawn America into the First World War, and hammered away at the notion that the United States could survive without Europe. Historian Robert Dallek contends that “the principal culprit in undermining cooperation against Nazi aggression was not the failure of democracies to fght the Depression, but the legacy of World War I.”20 Many Americans, and not just isolationists, believed that in the Punic peace the Allies had imposed on Germany at the end of the Great War they had sown the dragons’ teeth that would produce another terrible confict. “Not since Rome punished Carthage,” said Senator Rush Dew Holt (D-West Virginia), “was there such a treaty placed on any people.”21 Certainly, the German leadership was in no mood to allow bygones to be bygones, as William L. Shirer confrmed in late September 1938 when he covered a speech given by Hitler. At the end of it Joseph Goebbels stood up, swore that the German people would follow Hitler wherever he led, then added, “And never will 1918 come again!” Now everyone stood up, and Herr Hitler raised his right hand high up and brought it down in a gesture of approval and thankfulness, as if Dr. Goebbels had hit upon the right word to sum up the feelings in all of them. No 1918 ever again. No defeat like in ‘18.22 The connection that Hitler—and Germans—made between the First World War and the Second was made concrete when Hitler insisted that the French surrender in 1940 be made in the same railway car where Germany had surrendered in 1918. It was a humiliation for France, and what Germany saw as the righting of an historical wrong.23

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Isolationists actively promoted the idea that with a vast ocean barrier and increased military spending they could create a “fortress America,” secure from the contagion of a European war. This idea, while seductive, also contributed to the fracturing of the isolationist coalition. An enhanced military was not to the liking of pacifist groups, and it was obvious to many that oceans were not quite the barriers that they once were. The undertone of anti-Semitism that could be detected in speeches by Father Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh and other isolationists further threatened the movement. Isolationists had argued that big business in America was working relentlessly to get the United States involved in the war, but the anti-business bias was, in the long run, unsustainable. It was businesses who were supplying the jobs, and those who ran these enterprises also believed that war, because of its unpredictability, was bad for business.24 Then there was the problem of morality that dogged isolationists as the decade of the 1930s wore on. With the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany and the persecution of the Jews, it became increasingly difficult for Americans to maintain that there was “no difference” between these countries and the European democracies. Responding to the question of whether Americans could live with Hitler, General Hugh S. Johnson replied that we “have lived and prospered with tyrants” before.25 As Nazi forces were throttling the Scandinavian nations in 1940, Senator Arthur Capper (R-Kansas) said, “We must not get dragged in. This affair is none of our business.”26 Wasn’t it? Fortune reminded Americans that “isolation, contraction, and selfishness are the denial of the very concept of freedom. If we are not willing to help others to be free, we cannot ourselves be free.”27 In the end Americans did jettison their isolationism and became active in supplying the Allies with the needed materiel of war, as well as dispatching American ships to patrol the Atlantic. Full U.S. involvement did not happen until the Pearl Harbor attack, and it is one of the imponderables of history whether the United States would have become fully engaged if the attack had not happened. Gerald Nye claimed that without the disaster of Pearl Harbor, isolationism “would have accomplished that thing for which we were fighting, namely, freedom from involvement in these wars by the United States.”28 We would all like to think that as the evils of Nazism became increasingly obvious the United States would have fully committed to eradicating this scourge. But that is not a given. As noted, when Americans were polled in late November 1941 and asked if war should be declared against Germany, 63 percent said no.29 (Optimists could see this as an improvement over much of the inter-war period, when American resistance to involvement in foreign conflicts hovered over 70 percent.) By their actions the Japanese gave the United States no choice, and in the context of a dominant American isolationism we must judge the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as the greatest blunder of the war,

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and the German declaration of war against the United States four days later the second greatest.30 The critique of American isolationism that has dominated the thinking of historians for the last eighty years was summarized as early as 1940, in an Atlantic Monthly piece by David L. Cohn: “We did not choose to help other nations keep the peace. We did not choose to use our herculean power to prevent wars. We had no foreign policy that made sense. We have been intoxicated by the sound of our own high-flown words.”31 In fact, American efforts to try to keep the peace could be seen in the Washington Naval Conference, the Kellogg-Briand Pact and participation in numerous disarmament conferences. Thanks to the efforts of two individual Americans, Charles G. Dawes and Owen D. Young, the French and Belgians withdrew from their occupation of the Ruhr and tensions between those nations and Germany were greatly reduced. It is also important to remember that American power in 1919 was considerably less than “herculean.” The United States was a rising power after the war, but was very far from being able to wield a decisive influence on a Europe torn asunder by age-old jealousies and massive new problems. And because of this stark fact, American “isolationist” foreign policy between 1919 and 1933—that is, an unwillingness to project military power to the far corners of the earth—made perfect sense. After the rise of Hitler Americans quite properly began to abandon their isolationist views. Finally, if what Cohn means by “high-flown words” is idealism, Americans must plead guilty as charged. It was idealism, coupled with German submarine attacks, that drove them across the Atlantic and into the Great War, and it was European contempt for their idealism that drove them into isolationism. For Europeans, American idealism was a hopelessly naive luxury in a world of brutal realpolitik. As early as 1916 Clemenceau had suggested that when Wilson put himself forward as an arbiter to the European war, “thoughtful minds” throughout Europe saw this as clear evidence “that the excellent statesman understood nothing.”32 But in the final analysis, wasn’t it European leaders, rather than Wilson, who “understood nothing?” Americans overwhelmingly believed that the road to a lasting peace in Europe began with the Allies levying a mild settlement against Germany, and in taking responsibility for the role they had played in the creation of this terrible war. The Allies did neither, creating a seething resentment in Germany and fertile grounds for the rise of a demagogue. Historian Arthur S. Link has argued that Wilson was convinced that the only peace settlement that had any chance of survival would be “a peace of reconciliation, for disarmament by victors and well as vanquished, against annexations and indemnities,” and for an international organization that included former enemy states from the beginning. By these criteria, Georges Clemenceau, who cared only about the security of France, David Lloyd George, who had hindered his own freedom

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of action by giving way to war passions at home and in the Commonwealth, and the Italians who were “eager only for spoils” were “sublime irrationalists and dreamers.”33 Were the French acting rationally when they insisted that the embargo on food going to Germany be continued during the Versailles negotiations? Did they really believe that this would enhance the prospects for peace with Germany in a post-war world? And in the mid-1920s, when the French and the Belgians launched an invasion of the Ruhr after rejecting suggestions that the issue of reparations be turned over to a commission of fnancial experts, did they consider the consequences? At the end of this afair 2,000 Germans had been wounded and 376 killed, there was world-wide hostility toward the invaders, and France and Belgium still didn’t have the reparations they wanted. Sheldon Whitehouse, American chargé d’afairs at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, noted that on numerous occasions during the Ruhr crisis Raymond Poincaré had been approached by German ofcials seeking discussions to resolve the dispute. Poincaré contemptuously dismissed these overtures, highlighting, said Whitehouse, “the entirely unreasonable policy followed by Poincaré if he actually expects reparation payments from Germany in the future.”34 Charles Dawes, on the other hand, addressed the same issue by frst restoring Germany to fscal health, an idea that had apparently never occurred to the French. Under the Dawes Plan reparations began to fow once again. If we measure policies by results, who was the more naïve, Poincaré or Dawes? Even after the greatest catastrophe in its history, Europe was unable to change. One month after war returned to Europe in 1939, Fortune observed that there were left in Europe the same nationalisms and the same politicaleconomic standards that had been breeding wars for hundreds of years. And among ourselves there were left the memory of a dream—the Wilsonian dream—and a regret and a faint shame that we had only been dreaming.35 In the years since David L. Cohn’s 1940 condemnation of American foreign policy, there have been few challenges to this view of isolationism. In his 2020 volume Do Morals Matter?, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., asserts that in 1919 the United States enjoyed the same position of global dominance as Britain in the nineteenth century. (This doubtful assertion is countered by historian Ian Kershaw, who observes that “American military weakness left the United States in no position to intervene, even had the willingness been there.”) Nye goes on to add, “The United States became strongly isolationist, and there was no American led liberal order in the 1930s. The result was an immoral decade of economic depression, a prelude to genocide, and eventually a second world war.”36

320 Conclusion

A more discerning analysis was provided by Senator Hiram Johnson in 1923, when he called for Europeans to take responsibility for the shambles they had made of their continent: What Europe needs is not rescue but regeneration; and regeneration cannot be imposed by force or bought with money. It must proceed from within. In Europe it must be brought about by European selfexamination, European contrition, European amendment. American intervention only delays that process. The isolation of America is not Europe’s ruin. It is necessary to Europe’s salvation.37 Johnson would be wrong about many things in the future, including his failure to fully appreciate the rising menace of Nazi Germany. But for the decade-anda-half that followed the Great War, his insistence that the redemption of Europe could only come from Europeans, and that American involvement would be worse than useless, showed real insight. This view has been widely dismissed by most scholars, but perhaps the time has come for a reassessment. We must face up to the fact that the postwar European disarray that reached its culmination in the Second World War had nothing to do with American isolationism. The old isolationist critique that has been with us for so many decades is to some degree rooted in the humanist idea that World War II was such a monstrous event that we all must share responsibility. Embracing this idea may be morally warming, but such philosophizing does little to explain this catastrophe. If we boil it down to basics, the problem was Europeans themselves: The unwillingness of the Allies to accept a shared guilt for creating the system that led to the Great War. The levying of a harsh settlement against Germany at Versailles, and the scramble for colonial loot. The inability of the leaders of the Weimar Republic to deal with far-right political groups or to put the country on a sound economic footing. The French obsession to punish Germany rather than reach an accord with her—what historian Bruce Kent has called “the aggressive irrationality of French policy ….”38 The British abandonment of France and the resumption of the old game of divide and conquer on the continent. Then there was the advent of the Great Depression, which made everything worse, as did the Franco-British dismissal of the American contribution to the war and the attempt to evade debts owed to the United States. These self-inficted wounds decided the fate of the European continent, not American foreign policy. In the end, we must come to the dispiriting conclusion that the destruction of European civilization had nothing to do with American isolationism. It was an act of self-immolation. -----

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321

At the end of the Second World War the United States fnally possessed the power that she lacked after the Great War, and immediately began to apply it internationally. In her almost ffty-year opposition to the very real threat that the Soviet Union posed to the world, America achieved some of her greatest moments. But these years also revealed some very real limitations to the American mission. What was achieved in Korea was ambiguous, but it was better than the nightmare of Vietnam, and in the wake of that debacle isolationism resurfaced once again. Still, for the remainder of the Cold War the United States was mostly able to maintain a bipartisan foreign policy and public support for a strong nuclear deterrence.39 The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union beginning in 1989 left America with a victory without quite knowing what to do with it. Frances Fukuyama famously declared the “end of history”—that humanity’s ideological evolution had reached its fnal stage with the triumph of liberal democracy.40 But challenges quickly emerged from China, a resurgent Russia and the Muslim world, and the West’s response, according to John le Carré, has been “mysteriously unfocused, still looking for some kind of identity, really, ever since the end of the Cold War41. The 9/11 attacks excited once again an activist foreign policy, and perhaps George W. Bush’s zeal for “nation building” was not that diferent from Wilson’s “national self-determination.” American power was extended abroad in wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but with little to show for this lavish expenditure of treasure and lives, isolationism has returned with a vengeance in our own era. As in the aftermath of the Great War, Americans are exhausted and skeptical about what international involvement can accomplish. The consequence, as historian Margaret MacMillan puts it, is that “America has withdrawn from moral and material leadership of the world.”42 It is an afiction that afects both conservatives and liberals. Robert Kagan despairs that, We are moving back to an earlier conception of America’s role in the world, looking out for ourselves, hoping the two oceans protect us, and when necessary saying the rest of the world is full of freeloaders who can go to hell if they don’t get on board … It may be an era more destructive of the world order than in the 1930s.43 We have seen that what pulled Americans out of their isolationism between the world wars was the rise of a threat so vile they felt their own moral foundations under attack. It was a slow, agonizing process and it might have been even slower without Pearl Harbor. Perhaps the slowness was related to the basic proposition that isolationism has been part of the national identity since the founding of the republic. Historian Charles A. Kupchan reminds us that, “For much of America’s history, isolationism served the nation well.”44 But it has always been in tension with American idealism and a sense of mission—what

322 Conclusion

some call manifest destiny. Will it take the rise of another Hitler or another 9/11 attack for Americans once again to embrace an enhanced international role? Or is it possible for Americans to slough off their lethargy without a catastrophe? The answer will determine much about the nation’s future.

Notes 1 John Crosby Brown, “American Isolation: Propaganda Pro and Con,” Foreign Affairs 18, no. 1 (October 1939), 31. 2 Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 1938–1941: America on the Way to War (New York: Random House, 1989), 225. 3 L. P. Jacks, “The Degradation of Policy,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1919, 304. 4 Samuel Crowther, America Self-Contained (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1933), 223, 226. 5 Stuart Chase, The New Western Front (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 26–27, 93–94. 6 Historian Charles A. Kupchan contends that Wilson took the nation into the conflict “to vanquish the balance-of-power system that had caused that war—and the many that had come before it.” Charles A. Kupchan, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 217. 7 See Woodrow Wilson to Edward M. House, Letter of 23 July 1916, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, v. 37, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 467. From the State Department, Frank Polk referred to the “harsh and even disastrous effects” of Britain’s black list on American trade and neutral rights, and the “intense feeling” it had produced in the United States. “The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador to Great Britain (Page),” July 26, 1916, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1916, Supplement, The First World War, Document 523 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1929). 8 Quoted in Thomas N. Guinsburg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States ­Senate From Versailles to Pearl Harbor (New York: Garland, 1982), 27. 9 Quoted in Kupchan, 294. 10 Quoted in Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe: The ­Financial Crisis of 1924 and the Adoption of the Dawes Plan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976), 388. 11 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Volume I: The Gathering Storm [1948] (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), 70. 12 Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), 80. 13 William Henry Chamberlin, “Europe’s Revolt against Civilization,” Harpers ­Magazine 182, December 1940, 20. 14 Frank B. Kellogg, “Some Foreign Policies of the United States,” Foreign Affairs ­Special Supplement 4, no. 2 ( January 1926), iii–iv. 15 Allen W. Dulles, “Some Misconceptions about Disarmament,” Foreign Affairs 5, no. 3 (April 1927), 423. 16 “To Renounce War,” Washington Post, January 4, 1928. 17 Quoted in Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880–1955 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 363. 18 Hiram W. Johnson to Hiram W. Johnson, Jr. Letter of 18 May 1940. Hiram J­ohnson Papers, U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Box 8, Online Archive of California, BANC C-B 581; Arthur H. Vandenberg, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), 2–3.

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19 Lavine and Wechsler quoted in Charles Chatfeld, For Peace and Justice: Pacifsm in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971), 252; In historian Charles Chatfeld’s analysis, isolationists “could not anticipate the diference that Hitler and a decade of totalitarianism had made.” Ibid., 322. 20 Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life (New York: Penguin, 2017), 164. 21 Quoted in Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld, 2000), 33. 22 William L. Shirer, “This Is Berlin”: Radio Broadcasts from Nazi Germany (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1999), 30–31. In 1930, Hitler had said that when “the National Socialist movement is victorious in this struggle, then there will be a National Socialist Court of Justice too. Then the November 1918 revolution will be avenged and heads will roll!” Quoted in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 141. 23 General Wilhelm Keitel recited a long list of wrongs sufered by Germany after the last war, then set out the German terms, which included the stipulation that France would pay for the German occupation (similar to Allied terms at the end of the Great War). “Armistice 1940,” Newsweek, July 1, 1940, 12–13. 24 During debate over repeal of the embargo provision of the Neutrality Act in 1939, Raymond Moley in Newsweek referred to “the old, vicious falsehood that business men want war.” He quoted from business interests to demonstrate the opposite, including the National Association of Manufacturers’ statement that, “American industry hates war.” Other sources, including the Wall Street Journal and the Chamber of Commerce. Spokespersons from Monsanto, General Motors and Du Pont also emphasized the disruption to business caused by war. Raymond Moley, “Perspective: Business and War,” Newsweek, October 2, 1939, 56. According to Harold Ickes, in August 1940 Roosevelt had read a piece written by Jim Mooney (the European representative for General Motors) and “expressed apprehension about the growing demand for appeasement among the big businessmen in this country.” Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Volume III: The Lowering Clouds, 1939–1941 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 290. Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones observed that, “In the beginning most of our industrialists were rather cautious about having their companies undertake war work. They didn’t want to invest a lot of their own funds in equipment to manufacture things they believed would not be in demand after the shooting ceased.” Quoted in David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 199), 477. 25 Hugh S. Johnson, Hell-Bent For War (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941), 91. 26 “U.S. Startled by Turn in War and Keeps Its Own Powder Dry,” Newsweek, April 22, 1940, 28. 27 “The Zero Hour,” Fortune 23, no. 4 (April 1941), 59. 28 Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 200. 29 George Gallup, “The Gallup Poll,” Washington Post, November 22, 1941. 30 Under the terms of the Anti-Comintern Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan in 1936, Germany and Italy were not obliged to declare war against the United States. But in the frst week of December 1941 Japan asked if they would do so if Japan became involved in a war with America. Why they agreed is a historical curiosity. Historian Gerhard L. Weinberg argues that Hitler believed that the United States was already doing the maximum to help the Allies in Europe, and also feared that without German support Japan might make a deal with America. There was also the unfortunate tradition in Germany of appointing blockheads to the post of foreign minister. Among the worst had been Arthur Zimmermann, author of

324 Conclusion

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43

44

the notorious Zimmermann Note that had helped push the United States into the Great War. During the Second World War Germany did no better with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. He dismissed American re-armament as “the biggest bluf in the world’s history,” and on the subject of declaring war, Ribbentrop intoned, “A great power does not allow itself to be declared war on; it declares war itself.” Gerhard L. Weinberg, “Hitler’s Image of the United States,” American Historical Review 69, no. 4 ( July 1964), 1014–15, 1017. William L. Shirer observed that “Nazi documents of the period show the Fuehrer too ignorant, Goering too arrogant, and Ribbentrop too stupid to comprehend the potential military strength of the United States.” Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 871. See also Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 478. David L. Cohn, “America to England,” Atlantic Monthly 166, no. 2 (August 1940), 154. Quoted in Stoddard Dewey, “The Opposition in France—Senator Clemenceau and President Wilson,” The Nation 102, no. 2644 (March 1916), 236. Arthur S. Link, “The Higher Realism of Woodrow Wilson,” Ethics and Statecraft: The Moral Dimensions of International Afairs, ed. Cathal J. Nolan (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), 128–29. “The Chargé in France (Whitehouse) to the Secretary of State,” October 24, 1923, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1923, Volume II, Document 52 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Ofce, 1938). “War and Peace,” Fortune 20, no. 5 (November 1939), 44. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump (New York: Oxford, 2020), 7. Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914–1949 (New York: Penguin, 2015), 332. Hiram Johnson, “Why ‘Irreconcilables’ Stay Out of Europe, Told by Hiram Johnson,” New York Times, January 14, 1923. Bruce Kent, The Spoils of War: The Politics, Economics, and Diplomacy of Reparations, 1918–1932 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), 382. There was widespread public support for the “nuclear freeze” movement in the early 1980s, which was fattened by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1984. See Kenneth D. Rose, One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 222–23. Frances Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). Terry Gross Interview, “Remembering John le Carré, British Spy turned Best-selling Novelist,” National Public Radio, December 14, 2020. Margaret MacMillan, “The Pandemic is a Turning Point in History,” The Economist, May 9, 2020, 71. Quoted in David E. Sanger, “President Is Left to Carry Out His Promise of ‘America First,’” New York Times, December 22, 2018. As François Delattre, for twenty years French ambassador to the United States and then to the United Nations, put it, “America’s disengagement started before the current administration. I believe it is here to stay.” François Delattre, “As the U.S. Disengages, Peril Ahead for the World,” New York Times, June 15, 2019. Kupchan, xv.

INDEX

Note: Page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. Abbott, Berenice 164n108 Abbott, Ernest Hamlin 46n19 Abbott, Lyman 30 Abe Lincoln in Illinois 155 Abraham Lincoln Brigade 223 Acheson, Dean G. 294 Ador, Gustave 31 Adams, James Truslow 303n25 Addams, Jane 4, 31, 76, 183, 279 Adler, Selig 10 Aerschot 123 Afghanistan 321 Agar, Herbert 245, 246 Air forces 90, 96, 110n34, 263n102; see also Blitz of Britain Aldington, Richard 175 Aldrich, Winthrop W. 281 Alien and Sedition Acts 170 All Quiet on the Western Front 119, 212 Allard, John S. 227 Alonso, Harriet Hyman 184 Alsop, Joseph 237, 280, 294 “America and Armageddon” 295 America First idea 12, 15 America First Committee 183, 192, 206–12, 254, 293, 298, 299–300 America In Retreat 13 American (New York) 65–66 American Ambulance Service 136 “The American Century” 296

American Civil Liberties Union 223, 224, 260n10 American Committee for the Outlawry of War 101 American Expeditionary Force 23–24 American Historical Review 302n8 American League Against War and Fascism 181 American Legion 88, 131, 177–79, 181, 191, 192, 223, 231, 236, 248 American Legion Weekly 177, 178 American Review of Reviews 60 Anderson, Maxwell 151 Anderson, Sherwood 133 Andover, N.J. 190–191 Andrews, Paul Shipman 274 Anti-Imperialist League 60, 201 Anti-Saloon League 75 Anti-Semitism 7, 16, 31, 190–93, 196–98, 200, 201, 207, 220n187, 239, 253, 271, 272, 291, 293, 317 Anti-War Congress 277–78 Appeasement in Europe 203, 237–41, 264n118 Armaments industry and arms limitations 170–74, 185n32, 202 “Arms and the Men” 170–71 Arms embargo 194, 242–43 Armstrong, Hamilton Fish 9, 116n175, 129, 186n42, 229, 231, 239, 272

326

Index

Atlantic Charter 256–57 Atlantic Monthly 38, 68, 244, 318 Atrocity tales 122–23, 124 Austin, Warren 281 The Backwash of War 140–41 Bagger 132 Bailey, Josiah 281 Baker, Newton D. 45n13, 162n64 Baker, Purley 75 Baker, Ray Stannard 30, 40–41, 71 Baldwin, Elbert F. 28 Baldwin, Roger N. 260n10 Balfour,Arthur 39, 52n138 Banta, Edwin P. 223 Barbusse, Henri 119 Barnard, Ellsworth 300 Barnes, Harry Elmer 120–21, 122, 124, 126, 159n14, 160n20, 161n40, 274 Barnes, Ralph 290 Barton, Bruce 127 Baruch, Bernard 31, 172 Battle of Britain see the Blitz of Britain Battle of the Atlantic (1940–41) 255–56, 257–59, 269n248, 280, 292 Beamish, Tufton 301 Beard, Charles 2, 8, 26, 128, 163n84, 200, 229 Belgium 22, and German invasion in Great War 121–23, 124, 129, 160n20, 313; and German invasion in World War II 273; and Ruhr occupation 91–97 Bell, Nelson B. 168n246 Belleau Wood, Battle of 23–24, 45n17 Benda, Julien 300 Beneš, Edvard 239 Benson, Godfrey Rathbone 46n33 Berlin Diary 291 Bernstorf, Johann von 24, 45n18, 95 The Best Years of Our Lives 151 Bethlehem Steel 171, 172 Beveridge,Albert J. 69 Biddle, Francis 175 Biden, Joe 15–16 The Big Money 139 The Big Parade 153, 154 Bishop, John Peale 137 Bliss,Tasker H. 87, 174 Blitz of Britain 131, 252, 253, 264n118, 285–90 Bochum 97 Boersen Zeitung 98–99 Boetticher, Friedrich von 210

Bolton, John 13 Bone, Homer T. 195–96, 226–28, 230, 280–81 Bonsal, Stephen 29, 34–35, 56, 58, 71 Borah,William E. 4, 34, 39, 56, 57–58, 62, 70, 96, 101, 102, 103, 104, 195, 232, 243, 245, 265n144, 291 Borchard, Edwin 161n39, 162n62, 273 Bőrsen Zeitung 291 Boston 74 Bourgeois, Léon 38 Bouverie,Tim 237, 264n118 Bowman, Isaiah 33 Boyer, Richard 311n226 Brandegee, Frank B. 56 Breckinridge, Henry 210, 269n248 Bremmer, Ian 15 Brewster, Kingman Jr. 175 Briand,Aristide 88, 89, 102–04 Bridges, Styles 281 Briery works 170–71 Brinkley,Alan 294, 295, 296 Britain see Great Britain Brittain,Vera 119 British-American Ambulance Corps 307n128 Bromley, Dorothy Dunbar 301 Brooks,Van Wyck 132 Broun, Heywood 155 Browder, Earl 223 Brown, James Scott 41 Brown, John Crosby 161n43 Brose, Eric Dorn 161–62n53 Brown University 182 Bryce, James 110n27 Buchanan, Pat 12–13 Buckingham Palace 288 Buckley,William F. 206 Buer 95 Bufalo, New York 192 Bullitt,William C. 42–43, 53–54n179, 238–39, 240, 244, 247, 252–53, 263n99, 266n154, 283 Burroughs, Edgar Rice 75 Buttrick, George A. 278 Bush, George W. 321 Bush, Jeb 13 Business and capitalist critique 7, 24, 67, 127–28, 140, 170–74, 194–95, 210, 226–29, 235, 278, 284, 317, 323n24 Butler, Nicholas Murray 101–02, 181 Byrnes, Elinor 184 Byrnes, James F. 274

Index 327

Cabell, William 105 Cadogan,Alexander 240, 256–57 Can We Be Neutral? 272–73 Canby, Henry Seidel 137 Canfeld, Dorothy 24 Cantrel, Edward Allen 123 Cannell, Kathleen 164n108 Caporetto, Italian defeat at 62 Capper,Arthur 13, 104, 225, 317 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 101, 181 Carnegie Steel 172 Carr, Edward Hallett 170 Carter, John F. 76 Carter,William Harding 134 Cash-and-carry program 244–43, 274 Castle,William R. 115n154 Casualties see Great War casualties Catholic Association for International Peace 272 Catledge, Turner 279–80 CBS radio 285–86 Centralia Massacre 177–178 The Century 75 Century Group 246, 294 Chadwin, Mark Lincoln 294 Chamberlain, Neville 181, 196, 238–41 Chamberlin,William Henry 300, 315 Chase, Stuart 9–10, 108, 122, 123, 174, 176, 298, 313 Chatfeld, Ernle M. 90 Chevallier, Gabriel 119 Chicago 75, 206–07, 235 Chicago Daily Times 193 Chicago Tribune 170, 189, 207, 235, 280, 307n105, 307n131 Christian Century 170, 229, 279 Christian socialism 194–95 Churchill,Winston 9, 12, 24, 33, 39, 67, 89, 107–08, 175, 238, 240, 245, 246, 250, 252, 253, 255–57, 266–67n175, 269n248, 285, 295, 308n166, 314 Ciano, Galeazzo 239, 264n113 Citizen Kane 198, 242 Citron,William M. 190–91 Civil liberties infringement see Democracy, threat to Civil War (U.S.) 69 Clapper, Raymond 156 Clark, Bennett 2, 7, 123, 197, 228–29, 253, 259, 280, 300 Clemenceau, Georges 23, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 45n13, 49n84, 51n133, 62–64,

66, 67, 79n44, 80n63, 80n73, 81n103, 83n127, 312, 314, 318 Cleveland 73–74 Clinton, Hillary 13 Clive, Robert 100 Cobb, Irvin S. 123 Cohn, David L. 244, 318 Colcord, Lincoln 39 Cold War 321 Cole,Wayne S. 226 Colt’s Arms Company 227 Columbia University 181, 182 Colville, John 11, 175, 243, 246 Committee for American Defense Through Aid for the Allies 210 Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies 208, 218n128, 246 Commonweal 197, 272 Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies 9, 211 Communism and communist threat 7, 16, 35, 37, 42–43, 73, 74, 105, 178, 183, 196, 200, 222–23, 225 Communist Party of the United States 223 Company K 146–150 Conger, Beach 290 Constitution (Atlanta) 104 Coolidge, Calvin 14, 65, 80n81, 83n125, 86, 103, 104, 105, 106, 116n171, 186n49, 231 Coonley, Howard 224 Cooper, Duf 271 Cooper, Gary 292 Cornell University 182 Costello, John M. 225 Coudert, Frederic R. 29 Coughlin, Charles E. 5, 7, 14, 15, 16, 105, 189, 193–98, 232–33, 274, 298, 317 Council on Foreign Relations 15 Coventry raid 288–89 Covid-19 virus 15 Cowley, Malcolm 96, 133–34, 139–40, 158 Cowles,Virginia 284 Cox, James 86, 233 Crawford, Kenneth G. 223 Croly, Herbert 26 Crowther, Geofrey 175 Crowther, Samuel 176, 313 Crowley, Meredith 1, 15 Cudahy, John 273 Cummings, E. E. 134, 168n266, 206 Current History 95, 120–21 Curti, Merle 106, 181, 277

328

Index

Curtis-Wright Export Corporation 227 Cushing, Harvey 125 Curzon, Nathaniel 89 Czechoslovakia 237–41, 243, 164n126 Daily News (Britain) 41 Daladier, Edouard 240 Dallek, Robert 185n28, 233, 316 Daniels, Josephus 78n17 Danzig Corridor 243 Dariac report 91, 92 Darrah, David 307n131 Davenport, Frederick M. 30 Davis, Elmer 240 Davis, Forrest 70, 276 Davis, John W. 108 Davis, Norman 41, 65 Dawes, Charles G. 8, 98, 318, 319 Dawes Plan 97–101, 114n132, 184, 205 Dawson, Coningsby 27–28, 137 De Gaulle, Charles 63, 246 De Sola, Ralph 223 The Deadly Parallel 9, 272 Debt issue 8, 62, 63–65, 66–67, 80n81, 81n83, 99, 102, 107–08, 117n197, 192, 233, 245, 252, 256–57, 313, 314 Defense buildup 117n190, 233–34, 246, 251, 254–55, 263n102, 266n169, 275 Democracy, threat to 174–77, 186n37, 186n42, 217–18n112 Delattre, François 324n43 Democrats 4, 32–33, 194, and election of 1920, 85–86 Dernburg, Bernhard 162n67 De Moines 211 Destroyer deal 245–48, 250, 267n184, 267n198, 267n198, 268n199, 294, 296 Detzer, Dorothy 236–37, 278 Deutsche Zeitung 93 The Devil Theory of War 128 DeVoto, Bernard 126, 296 Dewey, John 4–5, 25–26, 102, 104, 128, 200 Dewey,Thomas E. 248, 280–81 Dexter, Mary 140 The Dial 30 Dickinson, G. Lowes 68, 86 Dickstein, Samuel 191, 192 Dieckhof, Hans Heinrich 192, 310–11n221 Dies Committee hearings 7, 193, 222–25 Dies, Martin 14, 222 Disarmament 3, 87–91, 169–74, 233

Disarmament conferences 173–74, 233 Dilling, Elizabeth 183–84 Disillusionment 3, 6, 108 Disney, Walt 197 Dissent 126 Divine, Robert A. 10 Do Morals Matter? 319 Doenecke, Justus D. 2–3, 7, 221n204, 243 Dos Passos, John 8, 75, 132, 134–40, 156, 157, 158 Doty, Madeleine Zabriskie 140 Douglas, Paul H. 128 Driggs, Louis L. 227 Driggs Ordnance & Engineering Co. 227 Dulles,Allen 2, 172, 231, 272–73, 294, 315 Du Pont Company 171, 172, 227–29 Du Pont, Irénée 228 Du Pont, Lammot 229 Du Pont, Pierre 228 Dusseldorf 94, 95 Ebert, Friedrich 29, 95, 97 Economic argument see Business and capitalist critique Economic Consequences of the Peace 66–67, 75 An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution 128 Economist 175 Eden, Anthony 238 Edge,Walter Evans 115n159 The Education of Henry Adams 75 Einstein, Albert 278 Election of 1940 209, 248–50, 267n195, 275, 280, 305n71 Eliot, George Fielding 174, 175–76, 186n49, 294 Ellis, Joseph 1 Ellis, L. Ethan 89, 106, 116n177 Emeny, Brooks 176 Empey,Arthur guy 73 Engelbrecht, H. C. 171–73, 173 The Enormous Room 134 Ervine, St. John 132 Essen 95, 96 Ethnic minorities 40, 215n56; see also Racism and race issues and Anti-Semitism Eurasia Group Foundation 15 Europe in the post war and hopes for America 65–69 Everest, Wesley 178 Exile’s Return 133–34

Index 329

A Farewell to Arms 143–45, 153 Fay, Sidney Bradshaw 159–60n15 Federal Council of Churches 87, 278 Federal Theater Project 223 Fensterwald, Bernard, Jr. 10 Fenwick, Charles G. 106, 275 Ferguson, Otis 296 Fergusson, Adam 92 Fergusson, Niall 127, 162n67 Ferrell, Robert H. 64, 87, 103, 174 Field, Louise Maunsell 6 Finland invasion 156 Fish, Hamilton 4, 172, 253, 300 Fiske, Bradley 90 Fitzgerald, F. Scott 75, 133, 134 Flanagan, Hallie 223, 224–25 Foch, Ferdinand 23, 45n13, 80n63 For Whom the Bell Tolls 75 Ford, Gerald 206 Ford, Henry 156, 178, 190, 196–97, 207 Fordney-McCumber Act 107 Foreign Afairs 105, 119, 123, 159n14, 272, 305n87, 312 Fort Wayne 211 Fortress America see Ocean barriers and geographical isolation Fortune 69, 170–71, 198, 248, 296, 300, 317, 319 The 42nd Parallel 138 Forum 157 Fosdick, Raymond B. 91 Foster,William Z. 105, 223 Fourteen Points 30, 37, 38, 39, 70 Fox,Albert W. 102 Fox, Dicon Ryan 191 France, and Allied blockade 35, 128; and armaments industry 170–71; and belittlement of American wartime contribution 8, 16, 62–64; and economy 99; and Dawes Plan 97–101, 114n132, 184, 205; and FrancoAmerican relations 92, 96, 102–05; and feet destroyed by British 246; Franco-British relations 95–96, 246; and Franco-German relations 10–11, 16, 43, 62, 81n103, 88, 89, 91–97, 98–101, 113n102, 314, 320; and Franco-Prussian War 37, 122; French defeat (1940) 245, 284, 295; and German rehabilitation 40, 70; and imperialism 40, 96, 108–09, 204; and the League of Nations 38; and militarism 95, 96; and mutiny 62; and Paris after the Great War

132–33, 164n108; and post-war military expenditures 65, 88–89, 240–41; and post-war perils 29, 82n108, 88; and reparations (see Reparations); and Ruhr crisis 16, 91–97, 101, 113n105, 314; and secret agreements 38, 52n138 France, Anatole 71 Franco-American Committee for the Protection of Children on the Frontier 27 Franco-Prussian War 37 Franc-tireurs 122, 123 Frank, Jerome 176–77 Frazier, Lynn 184 Freeman, Joseph 133 French, John 44n13 Fukuyama, Frances 321 Gannet, Lewis S. 129 Gardiner,A. G. 70–71 Garner, John Nance 231 Gary, Elbert H. 57, 64 Gay, Edwin F. 123 Geddes, Eric 31 The Genesis of the World War 120, 121, 159n14 Geneva Conferences and Conventions (1927) 102, 103, 160n27 Geographical changes 39–40 George V 62 George Washington:The First Nazi 193 Géraud,André 70, 159n3 German-American Alliance 75, 190 German-American Bund 190–93 German-American Conference 190 German-American Congress for Democracy 190 German-Americans 130 Germany, and actions during the Great War 7, 24, 62, 81n103, 93, 122–23, 124, 129, 175; and Allied blockade 35; and anti-Semitism (see Anti-Semitism); and armaments industry 170–71, 173, 179; and Battle of the Atlantic (1940–41) 255–56, 257–59; and Belgium invasion in Great War 121–23, 124, 129, 160n20, 273, 313; and censorship of American journalists 290–92; and Dawes Plan 97–101, 114n132, 184, 205; and Depression 107; and encirclement fears 291, 308n133; and Franco-Prussian War 37; and French defeat (1940) 245, 283, 295, 316; and historical revisionism

330 Index

119–120; and Japan 258; and League of Nations 102; and Locarno Treaty 102; and myth of non-defeat 28–29, 102–05; and Ofensive of 1918, 23–24; and Poland invasion in World War II 243, 272; and postwar conditions 27–28, 34–35, 224; and postwar confict with France, 10–11, 16, 43, 62, 81n103, 91–97, 113n102; and postwar fnancial crisis 91–92, 98–101; and postwar rehabilitation 40; and plan for U.S. invasion 18n30; and pact with the Soviet Union 291; and Poland invasion (1939) 243, 291; and reparations 41, 91–97, 98–101, 111n54, 113n102; and Ruhr crisis 91–97, 113n105, 189; and soldiers’ journals 160n33; and Russian invasion (1941) 258; and stab-in-theback theory 14, 67; and William L. Shirer 290–92; and submarine attacks 6, 7, 22–23, 62, 89, 125–127, 129, 162n62, 162n64, 162n67, 198, 275–76; and war guilt clause 33–34, 60–61, 119–29, 129, 191 Gibbons, Herbert Adams 29, 30, 61, 86, 110n23 Gibson, Hugh 122–23, 160n27 Gielgud, John 288 Gish, Lillian 206 Gladstone, Rick 15 Glasgow, Ellen 132 Glass, Carter 183 Gleason, Arthur 160n33 Globe Theatre 288 Global Research Institute 15 Globe Democrat (St. Louis) 50n99 Goebbels, Joseph 256, 316 Goering, Hermann 285 Goshen, Edward 69 Graebner, Walter 287 Grandeur and Misery of Defeat 63–64 Grattan, C. Hartley 9, 122, 124, 125, 127, 170, 174, 272 Graves, Robert 119 Gray, Zane 75 Grayson, Cary T. 57 Great Britain, and actions during the Great War 7, 61; and air force 96; and Allied blockade 35, 29, 131, 303n38, 313; and appeasement 107; and Battle of the Atlantic (1940–41) 255–56, 257–59; and belittlement of American wartime contribution 8, 16, 62; and British

motivations 26–27; and Dunkirk 250; German rehabilitation 40, 80n63; and destroyer deal 245–48; and FrancoBritish relations 95; and funding for World War II 250–51; and imperialism 40, 108–09, 257; and isolationism in the nineteenth century 69, 70, 82n110; and Lend-Lease Act 8, 19, 183, 207, 251–55; and naval issues 39, 52n141, 52n143, 61, 87–91, 245–48, 303n38; and Passchendaele 62; and postwar diplomacy 69–71, 82n105, 87; and postwar military expenditures 65, 240–41; and preparations for Second World War 240, 293, 295; and secret agreements 38, 52n138, 256 The Great Dictator 293 Great War 3–12, 14, and Allied blockade of Germany 45, 51n107; and American impact on 24, 45n13, 45n14, 45n17, 45n18, 61, 62, 63, 80n62; and argument for invasion of Germany 27–29, 46–47n41, 47n42; and British motivations 26–27; and casualties 22, 23–24, 27, 62, 63, 104, 165n154, 171, 177, 186n35, 187n61, 193, 301; and commemoration of 14; and damage in France and Germany 27–28, 83n119; and geographical changes 39–40; and German actions 6–7, 24, 62, 81n103, 122–23, 160n20; and historical revisionism 6, 17, 119–32; Lost Generation writers and literature 8, 75, 132–159; and pre-war conditions 6, 61; and responsibility for 60–61, 67, 119–29, 312, 314, 320; and secret agreements 38, 52n138 Green,Theodore F. 259 Greene, Graham 288 Greenland 255, 269n248 Greer incident 257, 281 Grew, Joseph C. 11 Grey, Edward 38, 68 Guardian (Manchester) 53n157 Gurney, Chan 281 Gurney, John Chandler 258 Hague Conferences and Conventions 32–33, 125, 161–62n53, 173 Haig, Douglas 23, 44n13 Hall, Norman Shannon 137 Hamilton, J. G. 88–89 Hampton Institute 74–75

Index 331

Hanighen, F. C. 171–73, 174 Hannigan, Robert E. 40, 52–53n157, 57, 83n129 Harding,Warren G. 5, 56, 86, 87, 91, 101, 155, 186n49, 231 Harpers 193 Harriman,Averell 255, 285, 309n183 Hart,Albert Bushnell 120–21 Hartley, Livingston 245 Harvard University 5, 182 Harvey, George 87 Hastings, Max 6 Hathaway, Oona A. 106 Hays,Arthur Garfeld 224 Hays,Arthur Garfeld 224 Hearst,William Randolph 7, 40, 64, 82n108, 182, 183, 189, 198–01, 216n85, 217n100, 232, 233, 299 Heaton, Herbert 277 Hemingway, Ernest 4, 75, 92, 132, 134, 142–46, 153, 156–57, 158 Henderson, Arthur 42 Henderson, Nevile 301 Herald (New York) 189 Herring, Hubert 122, 124, 126, 1 86n48, 273 Hill, David Jayne 59, 67–68, 81n101 Hill, Russell 290 Hill, Mrs.William H. 27 Hindenburg, Paul von 45n13 Hinman, George Wheeler 65 Historical revisionism 6, 119–32, 159n3, 230, 271, 272, 277, 314 Hitchcock, Gilbert 29, 96 Hitler,Adolf 10, 16, 34, 93, 112n68, 131, 158, 181, 185n32, 189, 191, 196, 197, 200–01, 202–03, 206, 210, 224, 249, 254, 258, 259, 265n144, 273, 238, 239, 243, 274, 275, 278, 279, 281, 283–84, 287, 293, 304n65, 305–06n97, 315, 316, 323n22 Hobson, J.A. 129 Hochfeld 97 Hogue, S. Fred 96 Hollweg,Theobald Bethmann 6, 122 Holmes, John Haynes 260n10 Holt, Rush 267n184 Hoover, Herbert 4, 12, 26, 27, 31, 35, 41–42, 59, 78n39, 79n44, 79n50, 107–08, 114n144, 169–70, 175, 186n49, 209, 231, 275, 314 Hoover, J. Edgar 191 Hopkins, Harry 9, 287

House, Edward M. 31, 35, 41, 42, 43, 49n84, 52n138, 58, 276 Houston, David 53n158 Howland, Charles P. 103 Huebsch, B.W. 260 Hughes, Billy 40 Hughes, Charles Evans 81n83, 86, 87, 88, 91, 99, 101, 110n25 Hulen, Bertram 105 Hull, Cordell 192, 234–35, 237, 238, 241, 243, 252, 256, 278, 309n183 Hymans, Paul 52n148 I Married a Nazi 293 Ickes, Harold 156, 194, 210, 212, 231, 266n154, 323n24 Iceland 255–56, 269n248 Idealism 3, 5, 7, 8, 24–26, 29–30, 46n19, 46n20, 46n27, 47n55, 71–72, 80n73, 83n125, 86, 131, 132, 134–35, 142–43, 147, 153, 184, 273, 302n16, 312, 313 Idiot’s Delight 154–55 Inter-Faith Committee for Aid to the Democracies 277 Internationalism 10, 12, 29–30, 47n52, 59, 86 Immigration restrictions see Nativism and immigration restrictions Imperialism 8, 30, 40, 46n33, 53n157, 59–60, 108, 109, 314 The International Jew 196–97 International Workers of the World (I,W.W.) 177–78 Internationalism 4, 5, 11, 12, 29, 272–73, 275–76, 292–96; see also Idealism Iraq 321 “The Irresponsibles” 158 Isolationism as historical subject 2–3, 10–11, 59, 70 The Isolationist Impulse 10 Jackson, Robert H. 250 Japan 38, 40, 87, 89, 90, and diplomatic relations with U.S. 258, 262n82, 270n263, 297; and invasion of Manchuria 105, 116n177, 117n186, and Panay incident 235–36; and Pearl Harbor attack 241, 297–300; and Rape of Nanking 242; and war with China 210, 235–36, 242, 297, 298; and The Way of Subjects 297 Jerome, Jerome K. 42 Johnson Act 107, 251

332 Index

Johnson, Hiram 4, 57, 83n125, 107, 197, 232, 244, 248, 252, 254, 259, 277, 296, 316, 320 Johnson, Hugh S. 8, 186n37, 186n42, 317 Johnson, Louis 255 Johnson, Walter 19n48 Johnson-Reed Act 74 Johnstone, Andrew 2 Jonas, Manfred 3, 10 Jones, Jesse 323n24 Journal (Montgomery) 75 Kagan, Robert 321 Kaufmann, Bill 9 Kazin, Michael 18n30, 71, 126 Kearny incident 258 Keep America Out of War Congress 211, 230 Kellogg-Briand Pact 3, 101–107, 225, 235, 280 Kellogg, Frank 65, 315 Kellogg, Paul U. 46n27 Kellogg-Briand Pact 3, 101–107, 225, 235, 280, 315, 318 Kennan, George 106, 124, 161n49 Kennedy, David 4, 70, 151 John F. Kennedy 12, 206, 240 Kennedy, Joseph P. 5, 12, 175, 211, 237–38, 239, 243, 252–53, 285, 286, 294 Kennedy, Joseph P. Jr. 12 Kennedy, Robert Jr. 206 Kent, Bruce 92, 320 Kerr, Philip 250–51 Kerry, John 2 Kershaw, Ian 41, 106, 304n65, 319 Kessler, Harry 100 Ketchum, Richard M. 237, 212 Kettwig 94 Keynes, John Maynard 31, 36, 41–42, 51n114, 66–67, 117–18n201 Keyserling, Hermann 58 Kilbom, Karl 43 Kintner, Robert 237, 280 Kipling, Rudyard 60, 62 Kirchwey, Freda 203–04, 218n128, 296 Klaw, Spencer 175 Knowles, Harper L. 223 Knox, Frank 179, 223, 248, 253 Korea 321 Kristallnacht attacks 197, 239 Krupp ofcials 95, 96 Krutch, Joseph Wood 83n119, 186n35 Kuhn, Fritz 97, 189–93

Kühlmann, Richard von 82n105 Kupchan, Charles A. 16, 321 La Chambre, Guy 238 La Follette, Robert M., Jr. 184, 197, 236, 247, 253, 314 La Guardia, Fiorello 156, 179, 190 Lage,William Potter 161n39, 162n62, 273 Laird, Stephen 311n226 Lake Erie Chemical Company 227 Lamont, Thomas W. 88, 281 La Motte, Ellen N. 140–41 Langsam,Walter Consuelo 173 Lansing, Robert 31, 35, 41, 43, 49n84 Latin American relations 2, 79n42 Lasky, Jesse 292 Lavedan, Henri 32 Lavine, Harold 316 Law, Bonar 92 Lawrence, Massachusetts 74 Le Carré, John 321 Lea, Luke 50n100 League for Independent Political Action 128 League of National German Societies 190 League of Nations 10, 30, 36, 37–38, 51n133, 55–58, 59–60, 70, 78n17, 85–86, 102, 105, 173, 174, 181, 202, 204, 206, 232, 233, 234, 314 League to Enforce Peace 55, 76–77n2 Legion of Mothers of America 183 Lend-Lease Act 8, 19, 183, 207, 251–55, 272, 277, 279, 280, 281, 284, 286 Lenin,Vladimir 43 Levinson, S. O. 101, 102, 202 Lewis, Sinclair 131, 206 Life magazine 154, 178, 211, 253, 281, 295, 296, 298, 308n166 Lincoln, Abraham 155 Lindbergh,Anne Morrow 14, 27, 212–13, 221n204, 290, 301 Lindbergh, Charles 7, 14, 16, 27, 102, 156, 174–75, 189, 206, 207–08, 219n166, 220n181, 220n187, 238, 239, 253–54, 274, 275, 291, 293, 298, 299, 303n25, 303n28, 317 Lindbergh, Charles, Sr. 207 Lindsay, James M. 106 Lindsay, Ronald 238 “Lines for an Interment” 141 Link,Arthur S. 318–19 Lippmann,Walter 39, 84n136, 86, 105, 108, 116n171, 117n186, 130, 198, 204–06, 239, 246, 275–76, 281, 300, 302n11

Index 333

Literary Digest 48n64 Lloyd George, David 22, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45n13, 47n55, 49n84, 49n86, 51n107, 51n133, 62, 67, 68, 71, 79n44, 83n127, 96, 129, 312, 314, 318–19 Locarno Treaty 102, 205 Lodge, Henry Cabot 4, 28, 55–56, 58, 68, 80n62, 82n105, 82n110, 87, 202, 244 Loeb, Jacques 200 Long, Tania 287 Los Angeles 183 Los Angeles Times 63, 93, 96, 97, 153, 246, 298 Lost Generation writers and literature 8, 75, 132–159, 164n107, 177, 314 Loudon, Jonkheer Dr. J. 173 Louvain 122, 123 Lowell,Abbott Lawrence 57 Luce, Clare Boothe 210 Luce, Henry R. 156, 294–96, 299 Lucey, Robert E. 272 Ludendorf, Erich 24 Ludington, Townsend 156 Ludlow Amendment 178, 236–37 Ludlow, Louis 236 Lusitania 126–27, 162n64, 198, 276 Luther, Hans 193 MacArthur, Douglas 44–45n13 Macartney, C.A. 305n85 Macauley, Thurston 307n128 MacDonald, Ramsay 100, 114n144 MacLeish,Archibald 133, 134, 141, 158, 286 MacMillan, Margaret 43, 72, 321 MacNider, Hanford 206 Macron, Emmanuel 14, 20n70 Maginot Line 240, 247 Maier, Charles S. 117–18n201 Make Europe Pay Its War Debts Committee 268n214 Mallory, Walter 105 Man Hunt 293 The Man Nobody Knows 127 Manchester, England 33 Manchester Guardian 91 Manchuria invasion 105, 116n177, 117n186 Mandates 41, 59–60, 78n39 Mann, Thomas 44 Manners, Maurice 76 March of Time newsreels 295 March,William 134, 146–51, 157, 166n179

Maritain, Jacques 272 Marks, Sally 28, 51n107 Marne, Second Battle of 24 Marringer, J.Theodore 103 Marshall, George 45n13 Marx,Wilhelm 100, 119–120 Masefeld, John 42 Mattis, Jim 14 Maverick, Maury 231 Mazower, Mark 40 McAlmond, Robert 164n108 McCain, John 13 McCall, Samuel W. 90 McCarran, Pat 14 McCormick, Joseph M. 37 McCormick, Robert 156, 170, 189, 207, 235, 245, 272, 280, 316 McCumber, Porter J. 77–78n13 McDougall, Walter A. 147 McGovern, George 12 McKinley, William 49n81 McSwain bill 172 Mein Kampf 197 Mellow, James R. 143 Mencken, H. L. 75, 130–31, 132, 134, 151, 199 Merchants of Death 171–73 Mercury Theatre 241–42 Metcalfe, John C. 193 Meuse-Argonne ofensive 45n13, 180 Middleton, Lamar 116n183 Midvale Steel 172 Milan, Italy 32 Millay, Edna St.Vincent 246, 266n174 Millis,Walter 123, 124, 126, 272–73, 277, 302n8, 302n11 Miller, Stephen 14 Moley, Raymond, Jr. 178, 323n24 Monroe Doctrine 1–2, 52n143, 56, 60, 77n9 Monroe, James 2 Mooney, Jim 323n24 Moral Man and Immoral Society 279 Moral suasion 9, 87 Morgan, J. P. Company 88, 99, 100, 171, 281 Morgan, Jack 99, 100 Morgenthau, Henry, Jr. 220n181, 237, 238, 252 Morley, Felix 277 Morrow, Elizabeth 210 Morton, Sterling 298 Moser, John E. 215 Mosier, John 44–45n13

334 Index

Moseley, George Van Horn 197 “A Mother’s Plea” 301 Motion pictures 4, 197, 198, 216n85, 242, 292–93, 295, 296 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 4 Mumford, Lewis 278 Munich crisis 93, 155, 181, 196, 220n184, 237–41, 242, 279 Munitions industry see Business and capitalist critique Munro,William Bennett 86 Murrow, Edward R. 285–86, 290 Murrow, Janet 286 Mussolini, Benito 10, 16, 273, 278 The Nation 30, 31, 34, 37, 42, 47n42, 53n176, 74, 120, 158, 201–04, 223 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 75, 201 National Association of Manufacturers 224 National Gentile League 191 National self-determination 39–40, 60 National Union for Social Justice 194 Nativism and immigration restrictions 7, 14. 20n77, 73–74 NATO 14, 15, 300 Naval issues 39, 52n141, 52n143, 78n17, 87–91, 102, 110n34, 114n144, 125–27, 129, 175–76, 179, 186n48, 186n49, 198, 230–31, 255–56, 257–59, 269n248, 273, 275–76, 280, 281, 284, 287, 297–98, 303n38, 309n183, 322n7 Nelson,William Rockhill 189 Neutrality and Neutrality Acts 11, 128, 178, 229–31, 244, 256, 258, 259, 273, 275, 281, 284, 316 Neutrality for the United States 161n39 New Republic 34, 120, 139–40, 296 New York 73 New York Evening Post 137, 201 New York Herald Tribune 290 New York Times 35, 48n64, 74, 88, 91, 93, 126, 137, 179, 184, 191, 225, 230, 241, 246, 251, 279–80, 288, 291 New York World Telegram 155 Niebuhr, Reinhold 83n125, 278–79 9/11 attack 321, 322 “Nine Prisoners” 146–47 1919 138–39 Niebuhr, Reinhold 239 Nivelle, Robert 44n13 Nock,Albert Jay 129 Norris, George W. 4, 67, 250 Norris, Kathleen 183, 206, 299

North American (Philadelphia) 33 North American Review 49n84, 59 “Notes on the Next War” 15 Nover, Barnet 219n166 Nuclear weapons 106 Nye, Gerald P. 3, 4, 8, 174, 192, 197, 211, 226–29, 230, 235, 252, 258, 275, 292–93, 298, 300, 314, 317 Nye Committee hearings 170, 225–29, 235 Nye, Joseph S., Jr. 319 Obama, Barack 13 Ocean barriers and geographical isolation 82n110, 174–77, 209, 252, 283, 298, 299, 317 Olson, Lynne 212, 285 Olympia 197 One Man’s Initiation—1917 134, 136–37 The Origins of the World War 159–60n15 O’Toole, Barry 278 O’Toole, Patricia 51n133, 72 The Outlook 34, 38, 49n84, 58, 95, 126 Over the Top 73 Oxford Pledge 182 Oxford University 182 Pacifsm and pacifst groups 24–25, 87, 103–04, 106, 115n159, 128, 155, 181–84, 201–04, 212, 237, 277–78, 300–01, 304n48, 314 Page, Kirby 8, 184 Page,Walter Hines 22, 161n40, 209, 276 Panay incident 235–36 Parker, Dorothy 239 Partisan Review 139 Patton, George S. 45 Paul, Rand 13 Pearl Harbor attack 9, 11, 12, 241, 297–300, 317 Pegler, Westbrook 275 Pencak, William 178 Pepper, Claude 210 Pershing, John J. 23, 44–45n13, 63, 87, 246, 297 Peterson, H. C. 124, 126 Petit Journal 91 Philadelphia Public Ledger 161 Philippines 11, 60, 79n42, 90 Philpott, William 161n49 Plumes 72, 151–53 Poincaré, Raymond 91, 92, 97, 99, 120, 129, 319 Poland invasion 243, 272, 294 “Political Equivalent of War” 205

Index 335

Polk, Frank 322n7 Pollen,Arthur Hungerford 89 Pope, James P. 227, 230 Porter, David L. 304–05n69 Potsdam, Germany 34–35 Pound, Ezra 131 Powaski, Ronald 10–11 Powell, E.Alexander 6, 123, 125 Preface to Chaos 127–28 Princeton 88 “The Problem of the Munitions Industry” 171 Procter, Ben 199, 216n85 Production see Wartime production Progressivism 4, 5, 7, 25, 84n133 Prohibition 75 Propaganda 7, 12, 123–25, 127, 131, 161n49, 179, 197, 210, 220n181, 222, 284, 293, 296, 310–11n221, 314 Propaganda for War 124 Public opinion polls 11, 13, 15, 178, 182, 188n95, 193–94, 198, 210, 236, 248, 250, 252, 253, 297, 317 Racism and racial issues 16, 40, 53n158, 58, 74–75, 81n101, 199, 200, 201, 217n100, 217n111, 222, 223 Raeder, Erich 258 The Ramparts We Watch 296 Rankin, Jeannette 184 Rankin, John 198 Rathenau,Walther von 41 Ray, Marcel 91 Rayburn, Sam 236 Recklinghausen 97 The Red Network 183 Redlich, Alexander 68 Remarque, Erich Maria 119 Reparations issue 8, 31, 36, 39, 41, 52n147, 64, 65, 81n83, 91–97, 97–101, 111n54, 113n102, 319 Repington, Charles A Court 89 Republican (Springfeld, Massachusetts) 104 Republican Foreign Policy 1921–1933 106 Republicans 4, 12–13, 25, 49n82; and election of 1920, 85, 86; and election of 1940 248–50, 272; and foreign policy between the wars 107–08, 271–72, 279– 81; and the military 106; and opposition to the Versailles Treaty 37, 55–58 Reuben James sinking 258–59, 281 Revisionist history see Historical revisionism Reynolds, David 46n20, 104

Ribbentrop, Joachim von 239, 164n113, 308n133, 324n30 Rickenbacker, Eddie 179–81, 187n79, 206 Riefenstahl, Leni 197 Ritter, Gerhard 24–25, 45–46n18 The Road to Rome 154 Road to War 272 Robinson, Henry M. 98 Rogers, Will 233 Rome, Italy 32 Rosenberg, Emily S. 87 Roosevelt, Eleanor 12, 183, 223, 250, 267n198 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 2, 9, 11, 16, 64, 86, 90, 105, 128, 131, 155, 174, 175, 179, 183–84, 186n49, 188n95, 212, 220n181, 223, 237–38, 292, 315; and arms embargo 194, 242–43; and Atlantic Charter 256–57; and Battle of the Atlantic (1940–41) 255–56, 257–59, 269n248, 280, 292; and cash-and-carry program 244–43; and Churchill relationship 12, 245, 256–57, 269n248; and defense buildup 117n190, 233–34, 251, 323n24; and Iceland and Greenland 255–56; and destroyer deal 245–48, 296; Election of 1940 209, 248–50, 275, 280, 305n71; and European debt 107; and German attacks in Europe (1939–1940) 243–45; and Greer incident 257; and Kearny incident 258; and Lend-Lease 251–54; and Munich crisis 238; and neutrality and Neutrality Acts 11, 128, 178, 230–31, 233, 244–45; and quarantine speech 235; and Pearl Harbor attack 298–99; and Reuben James sinking 258–59; and Stimson and Knox appointments 248; and World Court 231–33, and Roosevelt, Franklin, Jr. 257 Roosevelt, Franklin, Jr. 257 Roosevelt,Theodore 28, 60, 116n171, 138 Roosevelt,Theodore Jr. 177 Root, Elihu 87, 103 Rose, Howard Lester 286 Roskill, S.W. 255 Rubio, Marco 13 Rue, Larry 93 Ruhl, Arthur 150–51 Ruhr crisis 16, 91–97, 101, 113n105, 189, 318 Russia 42–43, 119–20, 243 Ryan, John A. 274, 302n4

336

Index

Salisbury, Robert 69 Sanders, Bernie 13, 146 Sarles 207, 211 Sarolea, Charles 68–69 Sartre, Jean-Paul 140 Sassoon, Siegfried 119 Saturday Review of Literature 150–51 Sauerwein, Jules 104 Sawyer-Lauçanno, Christopher 168n266 Seger, Gerhart H. 100–01 Schacht, Hjalmar 100 Schaefer, George J. 216n85 Schall,Thomas D. 232 Schefer, Paul 305n87 Schlesinger,Arthur M. 83n125 Schlesinger,Arthur, Jr. 3–4 Schmitt, Bernadotte E. 159n14 Schuker, Stephen A. 65, 92, 113n102 Schulz, Sigrid 305–06n87 Seattle 74 Second Ypres 125 Seger, Gerhart H. 224 Sergeant York 292–93 Selective Service Act 249–50, 255, 267n198, 268n199 Seligman, Herbert J. 75 Shall It Be Again 120 Shapiro, Scott J. 106 Shea, Donald 191 Shepherd,William g. 161n50 Sherman, Lawrence 55 Sherwood, Robert 134, 153–56, 209, 257, 294 Shirer,William L. 29, 239–40, 301, 311n226, 324n30 Shotwell, James T. 101–02, 104–05 Simmonds, Roy S. 146, 157 Simmons, Frank H. 59, 277, 304n48 Sinclair, Upton 131 Smart Set 129 Smith, Alfred A. 21n77 Smoot-Hawley legislation 15, 108 Smuts, Jan Christiaan 41, 48n70, 70 Social Darwinism 130 “Soldier’s Home” 145–46 Somme, Battle of 22 Sontag, R. J. 301n8 Soule, George 274, 275 Southbury, Connecticut 191 Soviet Union 7, 18–19n34, 321 Spanish Civil War 194, 242 Spanish-American War 49n81, 60, 138, 156–57, 201 Spectacle (London) 97

Stalin, Joseph 10, 16 Stallings, Laurence 72, 134, 151–53, 157, 159 Standard Oil Company 92 Starnes, Joe 223 Stearns, Harold 59–60 Stefens, Lincoln 42–43 Stein, Gertrude 132, 164n108 Stettinius, Edward R. 254–55 Stimson doctrine 105 Stimson, Henry L. 105, 174, 223, 248, 252, 280 Stinnes, Hugo 92 Stires, Ernest M. 277 Stoddard, Lothrop 89 Stephens, Bret 13, 15 Stone, Samuel M. 227 Strachan, Hew 164n107 Stratton-Porter, Geneva 75 Streit, Clarence K. 276–77 Stressmann, Gustav 97, 99, 114n132 Strunsky, Manya Gordon 71 Strunsky, Simeon 38 Stuart, Douglas, Jr. 206 Stuart, Henry L. 71 Student activists 5, 181–83, 200 Submarine attacks see Germany and submarine attacks Sullivan, Mark 209, 246 Sun (New York) 33, 151, 189 Symes, Lillian 193 Syracuse Journal 200 Taft, Robert A. 12 Taft,William Howard 32, 33, 50n88, 55, 211, 248, 253 Tansill, Charles Callan 126 Tardieu,André 29, 51n130, 60, 62 Tarifs 107–08 Tarkington, Booth 125 Taylor,Alonzo Englebert 28 Tehran Conference 11 Telegraph (New York) 189 “Ten Years That Shook My World” 279 There Shall Be No Night 156, 168n246 “This Heavy Load” 150 Thomas, Norman 176, 204, 212, 278, 296, 299, 302n16 Thompson, Dorothy 183–84, 212, 239, 242, 279, 282–84, 296, 303n28 Thomsen, Hans 192 Three Soldiers 134, 137 Throntveit, Trygve 37 Thyssen, Fritz 94

Index 337

Time magazine 271, 294 Times (London) 103 Times-Picayune (New Orleans) 33 Tinkham, George H. 215n60 Tolischus, Otto 291 Tomara, Sonia 284 Tooze, Adam 30 Toynbee, Arnold 82n110 Trilling, Lionel 139 Trotsky, Leon x, 39 Truman, Harry 45n13 Trump, Donald 1, 13–14, 15, 20n70, 20n71, 21n84 Tuchman, Barbara 14 Tucker, Robert W. 33 Turner, John Kenneth 120, 122, 123 Tydings, Millard 230 Underwood, Oscar W. 87 Union College 191 United States and America First Committee 183, 192, 206–12, 254, 293, 299–300; and American Legion 88, 131, 191, 192, 236; and anti-Semitism 7, 16, 31, 190–93, 196–98, 200, 201, 207, 210, 211, 220n187, 239, 253, 271, 272, 293, 317; and arms embargo 194, 242–43; Atlantic Charter 256–57; and Battle of the Atlantic (1940–41) 255–56, 257–59, 269n248, 280; and the Blitz of Britain 131, 252, 285–90; and Bundles for Britain 289–90; and business and capitalist critique 24, 67, 87, 127–28, 140, 170–74, 194–95, 210, 225–29, 235, 244, 178, 284, 317, 323n24; and cash-and-carry program 244–43, 274; and Cold War 321; and communism and communist threat 7, 16, 35, 37, 42–43, 53n157, 59–60, 73, 74, 105, 108–09, 178, 183, 195, 200, 222–23, 225; and Coventry raid 288–89; and debt issue 8, 62, 63–65, 66–67, 80n81, 81n83, 99, 102, 107–08, 117n197, 192, 233, 245, 252, 256–57, 313, 314; and defense buildup 117n190, 233–34, 246, 251, 254–55, 263n102, 266n169, 275, 293, 295; and Democracy, threat to 174–77, 186n37, 186n42, 217–18n112; and destroyer deal 245–48, 250, 267n184, 267n198, 268n200, 294, 296; and Dies Committee hearings 7, 193, 222–25; and disarmament 3, 87–91, 169–74, 233; and election of 1940 209, 248–50, 267n195, 275, 280, 305n71;

and Franco-American relations 92, 96, 102–05; and French defeat (1940) 245, 248, 284, 295, 316, 323n23; and German censorship of American journalists 290–92; and German submarine attacks 125–27, 162n62, 179, 314, 318; and German-Americans 130, 215n56; and German-American organizations 190; and Great War parallels with World War II 272–73, 316, 323n19; and Greer incident 257, 281; and historical revisionism 6, 119–132, 230, 271, 272–73, 277, 314; and idealism 3, 5, 7, 8, 24–26, 29–30, 46n19, 46n20, 46n27, 47n55, 71–72, 80n73, 83n125, 86, 131, 132, 134–35, 142–43, 147, 153, 184, 273, 312, 313, 318; and Iceland and Greenland 255–56; and Internationalism 4, 5, 11, 12, 29, 272– 73, 275–76, 292–96; and Iraq 321; and Japan 38, 40, 87, 89, 90, and diplomatic relations with 258, 262n82, 270n263, 297, and invasion of Manchuria 105, 116n177, 117n186, and Panay incident 235–36, and Pearl Harbor attack 9, 11, 12, 241, 297–300, 317, and Rape of Nanking 242, and war with China 210, 235–36, 242, 297, 298, and The Way of Subjects 297; and Kearny incident 258; Kellogg-Briand Pact 3, 101–107, 225, 235; and Lend-Lease Act 8, 19, 183, 207, 209–10, 251–55, 272, 279, 280, 281, 284, 286, 315; and Lost Generation writers and literature 8, 75, 132–159, 314; and Ludlow Amendment 178, 236–37; and military spending increases 201; mission and Manifest Destiny 296, 321; and motion pictures 4, 197, 198, 216n85, 242, 292–93, 295, 296; and Munich crisis 93, 155, 181, 196, 237–41, 279; and naval issues 39, 52n141, 52n143, 78n17, 87–91, 102, 110n34, 114n144, 125–27, 129, 175–76, 179, 186n48, 186n49, 198, 230–31, 245–48, 253, 275–76, 280, 281, 297–98, 303n38, 309n183, 322n7; and Nazi activity in America 189–193; and neutrality and Neutrality Acts 11, 128, 178, 229–31, 233, 244, 256, 258, 259, 273, 275, 281, 284, 316; and 9/11 attack 321, 322; and Nye Committee hearings 225–29, 235; Ocean barriers and geographical isolation 82n110, 174–77, 209, 252, 283, 298, 299, 317; and opposition to League

338

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of Nations and Versailles Treaty 55–58, 66, 195; and pacifsm and pacifst groups 24–25, 103–04, 106, 115n159, 128, 155, 181–84, 201–04, 201–04, 277–78, 293, 300–01, 304n48, 314; and Poland invasion 243, 272, 294; and post-war domestic life 72–76; and propaganda 7, 12, 123–25, 127, 131, 161n43, 179, 197, 210, 215n60, 222, 296, 310–11n221, 314, 316; and public opinion polls 11, 13, 15, 178, 182, 188n95, 193–94, 198, 210, 236, 248, 250, 253, 267n186, 317; Racism and racial issues 16, 40, 53n158, 58, 74–75, 81n101, 199, 200, 201, 217n100, 217n111, 222, 223, 299; and radio broadcasts from Britain and Germany 285–86, 290–91; and Reuben James sinking 258–59, 281; and Ruhr crisis 93, 95, 97, 101, 314, 318, 319; and Selective Service Act 249–50, 255, 267n198, 268n199; and student activists 5, 181–83, 200, 277; and tarifs 107–08; U.S. Senate 5, 29, 32–33, 43, 49n81, 49n84, 49n86, 50n87, 108, 225–29; and Veterans 73–74, 75, 177–181, 236; and Washington Naval Conference treaty 87–91, 101, 102, 110n23, 315, 318; Women’s activism 183–84; and World Court 206, 231–33;World War II, and civil liberties 175; and French defeat 245; German attacks in Europe 245; and Great War parallels 272; and motivation during 12; and responsibility for 11, 209, 210–11, 212; and U.S. leadership after 12, 109 University of California 223 U.S. Steel 171 U.S.A. Trilogy 137–40 Usher, Roland G. 58 Vandenburg,Arthur 14, 17n10, 228, 230, 236, 248, 251, 254, 274, 297, 300, 310n210, 316 Vanity Fair 137, 154 Vasser College 182 Verdun, Battle of 22, 135 Veterans 73–74, 75, 177–181 Veterans of Foreign Wars 178, 236 Veterans of Future Wars 182 Versailles Conference and Treaty 5, 6, 8, 11, 26–54, 52n147, 52n148, 55–58, 66, 70, 71–72, 82n105, 85–86, 139, 174, 193, 202, 204, 224, 235, 279, 282–83, 312, 314, 315, 316, 318–19, 320

Vidal, Fore 206 Viereck, George Sylvester 268n214 Vietnam War 12, 321 Villard, Fanny Garrison 201 Villard, Oswald Garrison 49n86, 58, 120, 201–04, 217n111, 217–18n112, 266n155 Villiers, Frederic 4 Vimy Ridge 153–54 Vinson bill 170 Virginian (Richmond) 50n99 Voorhis, Jerry 224 Wakasugi, Kanama 297 Waldron, Webb 75 Walker, Basil C. 296 Walsh, David I. 96, 247–48, 250, 267n184 Wapshott, Nicholas 238 War guilt clause 33–34, 50n93 The War of the Worlds 241–42 War Resisters’ International 181 Ward, Robert De C. 74 Warner, Milo J. 179 Warren, Charles 230 Wartime production 23 Washington, D.C. 75, 183 Washington, George 1, 2 Washington Naval Conference 3, 87–91, 101, 102, 110n23, 202, 315, 318 Washington Post 62–63, 93, 94, 96, 101, 102, 176, 209, 229–30, 241, 245, 246, 258, 315 Watson, James 34, 248–49 The Wave of the Future 212, 221n204, 290 The Way of Subjects 297 Wechsler, James 316 Wegerer,Alfred von 220n184 Weinberg, Gerhard L. 323–24n30 Welles, Orson 198, 241–42 Wells, H. G. 31, 42, 131, 241 Welles, Sumner 5, 116n183, 238, 245, 252, 256–57, 262n82, 264n113, 297, 308n133 West, Rebecca 288 What Price Glory? 151 Wheeler, Burton K. 4, 96, 195, 211, 212, 215n54, 247, 250, 252, 253, 254, 258–59, 268n221, 275, 291, 292, 293, 298, 300 Whepley, J. D. 96 White, William Allen 9 Whitehouse, Sheldon 319 Whitlock, Brand 22 “Why Do Americans Live in Europe?” 164

Index 339

Why England Slept 240, 293–94 Why We Fought 127 Whyte, Kenneth 108 Wiedfeldt, Otto 101 Wiegand, Karl von 161n50 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 6, 34, 50n99, 50n100, 126, 130, 131, 275–76 Williams, John Sharp 58, 96 Williams, William Appleman 18n32 Williams, Wythe 94 Willkie,Wendell 168n266, 204, 254, 293; and British visit 286–87; and 1940 election 248–50, 272, 280, 305n71 Wilson, Edmund 145 Wilson,Woodrow 7, 16, 22, 24, 53n176, 60, 61, 64, 67, 86, 116n171, 122, 138, 139, 161n40, 162n62, 235, 244, 254, 276, 313; and campaign of 1916, 25; and declaration of war 36, 77–78n13; and election of 1918, 32, 49n81; and European reception 31–32, 48n70; and Fourteen Points 30, 37, 38, 39; and national self-determination 39–40, 60, 282–83; and personality traits 33, 35–36, 50n88, 51n114, 59, 71–72, 79n44, 83n127, 83n129, 202; and racial views 40, 53n158, 84n133, 201; and secret agreements 39; and Versailles

Conference 26–44, 48n64, 49n84, 49n86, 51n133, 70, 77n3, 85, 314, 318; and U.S. Senate fght 55–59 Wilz, John E. 2–3, 242 Winant, John G. 285 Winchell, Walter 198 Wise, Stephen S. 183 Wittner, Lawrence S. 181 Wolf, Theodor 68 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 183, 236 Women’s Peace Party 183 Women’s Peace Union 184 Wood, Robert E. 206, 207 Woolf,Virginia 288 World (New York) 33, 104, 151 World Court 206, 231–33 World Health Organization 15 World War Foreign Debt Commission 65 Wreszin, Michael 120, 202 Wright, Ernest Hunter 30 York,Alvin 179–181, 292–93 Young, Owen D. 8, 98, 100, 318 Young Plan 100, 101 Zimmermann, Arthur 264n113, 323–24n30