Chapter 23
The War Against Fascism, 1931-1945
I. Depression and World Affairs
A. Roosevelt administration worked
to stimulate U.S. exports.
1.
Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934 ended high protective tariffs.
-saw reductions as much as 50 percent.
2.
Secretary of State Cordell Hull proceeded to negotiate mutual tariff reductions
with 14 countries by 1936.
3.
Recognized Soviet Union in 1933 in effort to increase trade.
B. Also worked to improve relations
with Latin America and protect the Open Door.
Roosevelt continued Hoover’s
policy of repudiating intervention in Latin American politics.
1.
Secretary Hull’s tariff reductions doubled trade
with Latin America.
2.
Administration renounced military intervention in 1936--"Good
Neighbor" policy.
3.
The priority on Foreign trade increased tensions abroad – Efforts to protect Open Door in China clashed with
Japanese plans for expansion.
4.
Japan had created puppet state of Manchukuo in 1931; U.S. had condemned.
5.
Yet nation unwilling to fight for Open Door in China.
C. Global economic crisis
exacerbated political tensions in Europe.
1.
Benito Mussolini's fascists in power in Italy a decade before Roosevelt’s election.
-fascists rejected democratic principles, emphasized
militarism and the state
2.
Adolf Hitler's Nazis in control of Germany as of 1933.
-severe social unrest in early 30s, economic
dislocation stimulated rise of National Socialism.
-program of rearmament to affirm stature as first
class power and to alleviate mass unemployment.
3.
U.S. feared commercial rivalry from fascist states, which subsidized industry.
-between 34-36 German exports to Latin America
doubled, while US sales to Germany fell by over 50 percent.
4.
U.S. raised no protest against Nazi racial policy.
5.
U.S. slow to recognize Nazi threat to Jews.
-similar story in Canada I. Abella None is Too Many
etc./ Avery Dangerous, Reluctant Host
-Nuremberg Laws of 35 –
stripped German Jews of their citizenship.
-not until November 1938 on Kristallnacht, the night
the Nazis attacked Jewish synagogues, businesses and private homes did US “powerbrokers” begin to see the menace of racial
programs
II. Creating a Policy of Neutrality
A. Numerous threats to the peace in Europe and Asia in 1934 and
1935.
1. Germany repudiated Treaty of
Versailles and invaded Rhineland.
2. Mussolini threatened attack on
Ethiopia.
3. In 1935 Japan abrogated
Washington naval treaties and began naval buildup.
B. U.S. response was to pass Neutrality Act of 1935.
1.
Hope was to eliminate business incentives to go to war.
-North Dakota’s Gerald
P. Nye opened a sensational Senate investigation of the munitions industry in
1934 – spoke of “merchants of death”,
corporate arms manufacturers who made millions while millions died.
2.
Neutrality Act: imposed mandatory embargo on arms sales to warring nations.
3.
Neutrality Act: demanded federal licensing of munitions dealers.
4.
Neutrality Act: restricted private travel on ships of belligerents.
C. Events would subsequently force changes in American
neutrality policy.
1.
Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 merited U.S. response.
2.
Moral embargo on oil sales to Italy; U.S. companies largely ignored.
-Mussolini promptly signed a treaty of alliance with Hitler
in 1936
3.
Second US Neutrality Act in 1936
imposed further restrictions.
a. Outlawed loans and credits to
warring nations.
b. Tightened embargo on arms
shipments.
c. Allowed president to decide when
state of war existed.
4. Neutrality issued in Spanish
Civil War, which began in 1936.
-most of the country supported embattled Spanish Republic,
but the president instead listened to business leaders who argued that US
interests were threatened by the socialists.
5. Commercial pressure led to new
Neutrality Act of 1937 (3rd) which sought to allow trade but with
protections.
a. Sale of non-military
products to warring countries.
b. Purchasers had to pay
cash and transport goods on own ships.
6. Japanese invasion of China in
1937 threatened Open Door and neutrality.
-Japan offered a “Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” which
would consist of an Asian only marketplace for Chinese resources and Japanese
industrial products.
7. FDR refused to recognize state of
war so exports to China could continue.
8. FDR proposed
"quarantine" of aggressor nations in 1937 speech.
9. Not ready to back words up with
action, though, and neither were Europeans.
10. Munich Conference and subsequent
actions allowed aggression to proceed.
-Hitler had demanded portions of Czechoslovakia inhabited by
ethnic Germans and US like GB and France had capitulated.
-Germany seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and
threatened Poland.
11. Line for Europeans came with
German invasion of Poland; start of World War II.
III. The Failure of Neutrality
A.
U.S. sympathies with Allies in European war.
1.
Call for repeal of arm embargo sparked nationwide debate about neutrality.
2.
Cash and carry provision extended to military supplies in 1939.
3.
Effectively placed U.S. in Allied camp.
4.
Congress followed with $17 billion for naval construction and defense after
fall of France in June 1940.
B.
Foreign policy became a major issue as election of 1940 approached.
-British PM Churchill requested US Naval assistance
(as German planes bombed British cities and submarines sank allied shipping).
1.
Executive order transferred U.S. destroyers to Britain in exchange for bases in
Western Hemisphere.
2.
First peacetime draft in nation's history instituted in 1940.
3.
America First Committee formed to oppose U.S. aid to the Allies.
-numbered 800,000 and lobbied against US commitment to
allies.
4.
FDR ran against Wendell Willkie (Wall Street lawyer) reelected with 55 percent
of vote.
C.
After reelection, FDR urged more aid for the Allies.
-in 1941 State of the Union address, president endorsed “Four Freedoms” for
which the allies fought: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from
want and freedom from fear.
1.
Unveiled Lend-Lease program in early 1941; ended illusion of U.S. neutrality.
-authorized the president to sell, transfer, exchange, lend
or lease military equipment and other commodities to any country “whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of
the United States.”
2.
Atlantic Charter in private meeting with Churchill in 1941 affirmed
Anglo-American common principles: national self-determination, freedom of the
seas, equal access to raw materials and markets and a system of international
security.
3.
Navy began escorting Lend-Lease material halfway across Atlantic.
4.
Agreement with Denmark gave U.S. bases in Greenland.
5.
U.S. destroyer Greer exchanged gunfire with German submarine in August.
6.
By November, armed merchant ships were entering war zone.
D.
The war in Europe facilitated Japanese expansion in Asia.
1.
Seeking natural resources--rubber, oil, tin. Japan threatened French, Dutch,
British colonies.
2.
U.S. embargo on sales of aviation gasoline and scrap metal to Japan in 1940.
3.
Further limits after invasion of Indochina in July 1941.
4.
Diplomatic negotiations fruitless; Japanese assets in U.S. frozen.
-Japan had two choices: to recoil or to push forward and
militarists saw no choice. However, they expected Roosevelt to pursue a “Europe-first” policy
which would give them more time to build military forces.
5.
Attack on Pearl Harbor brought U.S. declaration of war on Japan.
-days later Axis powers declared war on the US which enabled
Roosevelt to avoid any substantial debates.
IV. The United States Goes to War
A.
Ill-defined word "Victory" was nation's primary military objective.
1.
Administration opted for Europe-first strategy; saw Germany as greater menace.
-Japanese were right, the Pacific war was treated as a “holding action”
2.
Japanese moved through Pacific in late 1941 and early 1942.
-US
troops surrendered at Guam, and Wake Island in the weeks after the commencement
of hostilities.
-Japanese
then took Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and overran the Solomon and Gilbert
Islands.
3.
U.S. abandoned Philippines; Japan on verge of taking Australia and New Zealand.
B.
Island-hopping campaign began as U.S. Navy aimed for Japanese Islands.
1.
Victories at Coral Sea and Midway were morale boosters, turned the tide.
-same
time US and allies (NZ, Aus) took Guadalcanal (six months), then Solomon
islands, Tarawa, the Gilberts, and the Marshalls and the Marianas.
2.
Recaptured Philippines in early 1945.
3.
Victories at Guam, Iwo Jima, Okinawa costly but crucial.
C.
U.S. had to work with Allies in Europe rather than going it alone.
-big
three meetings, conference Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca in 1942;
another in Teheran in 1943 with Stalin. – Teheran
where concession spelled out and assurances – opening
a second front to help Russia Stalin pleaded for, Britain commercial
assurances, US postwar “Open Door”
1.
Invasion of North Africa in 1942 laid basis for Sicily and Italy in 1943.
2.
Delay in opening second front troubled Stalin, but nothing he could do.
3.
D-Day invasion in summer of 1944 created two-front war.
-largest
envasion in history, 2.9 million soldiers; 10,000 aircraft; 53,000 ships, 1.1
million landing craft.
4.
Meant beginning of end for Germany; ensured Allied victory.
5.
Reaching common Allied agreement on postwar settlement was difficult.
- big
three met again at Yalta in February 1945.
a.
Agreed to partition Germany after war.
b.
More difficult to reach agreement on eastern Europe, especially Poland.
c.
Did agree to form postwar United Nations.
-Roosevelt,
unlike Wilson built bi-partisan support.
-president
also endorsed economic agreements such as the creation of the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1944.
V. Mobilizing the Home Front
A. Mobilization had dramatic consequences for the economy.
1.
By end of 1942, US making more war material than all its enemies combined.
2.
Created vast administrative bureaucracy to organize national mobilization.
-War Production Board and Office of War
Mobilization , set production priorities and allocated resources; Manhattan
Project 120,000 workers and 2 billion at 37 facilities around the country.
3.
Wartime expenditures exceeded $320 billion; huge jump in gross national
product.
4.
Laid basis for postwar public-private cooperation--military-industrial complex.
B. Immediate impact on employment situation.
-Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) was created to investigate cases of racial
discrimination; Office of War Information organized job campaigns asking
women to replace men; War Manpower Commission presided over labour
dispute; Roosevelt pressured mine owners to meet union demands in 1943 UMW
threatened strike –
Smith-Connally Labor Act – congress
enacted over Roosevelt’s veto
enforced a “cooling off period” of 30 days before strikes, prohibited walkouts in war
industries and banned union contributions to political parties.
1. Unemployed found jobs, as did new
groups of workers, like teenagers and women.
2. Migration from farm areas to
cities, and from other areas of country to west.
3. Working women and African
Americans faced workplace discrimination.
4. Union membership skyrocketed
during war, up to 13 million.
5. Government sought to control
wages and prices and prevent crippling strikes.
C. Consumers were profoundly affected by wartime mobilization.
1. Checks on wages and prices to
prevent inflation were not popular.
-Office of Price Administration (OPA) established and
backed by an Anti-Inflation Act of 1942 -controlled agricultural prices,
wages and rents and limited consumer price increases to 2 percent per year
during last years of war.
2. Rationing of scarce commodities
introduced--rubber, gasoline, sugar, coffee.
3. Tax rates of all kinds increased
to raise revenue.
-Revenue Act of 1942
4. Consumer products such as washing
machines and automobiles not available.
VI. The Politics of Wartime
A.
Growing government bureaucracy became issue as 1944 election approached.
1.
Republicans attacked big government and promised downsizing – made youthful moderate Thomas Dewey their candidate. – Dewey’s running
mate , Ohio’s John Bricker, charged that Communism
was “worming its way into the national life”; Roosevelt didn’t care,
but conservatives within his own party forced him to drop liberal VP Henry
Wallace from the campaign and instead run Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman – who had earned a reputation for investigating waste...
2.
Roosevelt was not deterred; promised "economic bill of rights" for
all citizens.
3.
FDR reelected with 55 percent of vote; Harry S. Truman was vice president.
B.
Government worked throughout war to establish political conformity.
1.
FBI surveillance of fascist and communist organizations – had begun under Roosevelt as early as 1936.
2.
Smith Act (1940) made it a crime to propose overthrow of government.
3.
Limits on conscientious objector status.
C.
Most abused group in country were Japanese Americans.
1.
Branded as potential traitors and spies after Pearl Harbor.
2.
Executive Order 9066 in 1942 authorized internment of 110,000 on west coast.
3.
Supreme Court upheld legality of internment in 1944.
4.
Mandatory compensation to victims ordered by Congress in 1988.
D.
African Americans found themselves in a two-war front, campaigned for Double V.
-Richard Wright’s 1940
novel Native Son depicted an omnipresent rage at racial injustice that
explained why many African Americans supported the Japanese over their own
white oppressors.
-double V campaign seeking immediate victory over racism at
home.
1.
Victory against both fascism and racism/discrimination.
2.
NAACP membership skyrocketed during war.
3.
Cities around the country wracked by race riots.
E.
Some minority cultures tried hard to defend their individuality.
1.
Mexican American youths adopted zoot suits and pompadour haircuts.
2.
In 1944, fifty tribes organized the National Congress of American Indians which
sought to protect treaty rights and federal benefits.
-despite these deficiencies, the war was something of an
opening age of greater toleration for minorities.
3.
Little toleration for sexual differences. –
screening programs instituted (although they had arrived earlier).
VII. The End of the War
A.
FDR's death in April 1945 (died suddenly of a stroke) placed Truman in charge
and raised many questions.
1.
Truman not involved in previous administrations; little foreign affairs
experience.
2.
Adopted rigid stand toward Soviet Union, especially on Poland.
3.
German surrender in May opened way for Potsdam Conference.
a.
Truman remained firm on Poland and eastern Europe.
b.
Buoyed by news of successful test of atomic bomb.
-news arrived while Truman was at the Potsdam, Germany
conference in July 1945.
-pressured Stalin to rethink Poland and East Block bound
countries generally
-left in abeyance yet Stalin saw this as a betrayal of Yalta
– partitioning of Germany still went ahead.
B.
Japan's situation seemed hopeless by summer of 1945.
1.
Invasion of home islands seemed inevitable--and imminent.
2.
Truman warned of new weapon, then authorized use of two bombs.
3.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed.
4.
Surrender came on 14 August; World War II was over.
-the war extended the “limits”, the boundaries of “normalcy”, horrific casualties in civilian populations in Spain and
China were amplified and made ‘commonplace’ by war’s end.
-a new nuclear identity, would push both the forces of security
and even environmentalists onto a new plain.
-by 1945, global power had become an inextricable part of
the national identity.
