179 American Isolationism
31.2.4: American Isolationism
As Europe moved closer to war in the late 1930s, the United States Congress continued to demand American neutrality, but President Roosevelt and the American public began to support war with Nazi Germany by 1941.
Learning Objective
Describe why the United States initially stayed out of the war
Key Points
- In the wake of the First World War, non-interventionist tendencies of U.S. foreign policy and resistance to the League of Nations gained ascendancy, led by Republicans in the Senate such as William Borah and Henry Cabot Lodge.
- Although the U.S. was unwilling to commit to the League of Nations, they continued to engage in international negotiations and treaties that sought international peace.
- The economic depression that ensued after the Crash of 1929 further committed the United States to doctrine of isolationism, the nation focusing instead on economic recovery.
- Between 1936 and 1937, much to the dismay of President Roosevelt, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts, which included an act forbidding Americans from sailing on ships flying the flag of a belligerent nation or trading arms with warring nations.
- When the war broke out in Europe after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, the American people split into two camps: non-interventionists and interventionists.
- As 1940 became 1941, the actions of the Roosevelt administration made it more and more clear that the U.S. was on a course to war.
- By late 1941, 72% of Americans agreed that “the biggest job facing this country today is to help defeat the Nazi Government,” and 70% thought that defeating Germany was more important than staying out of the war.
Key Terms
- Lend-Lease Act
- A program under which the United States supplied Free France, the United Kingdom, the Republic of China, and later the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945.
- Kellogg–Briand Pact
- A 1928 international agreement in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve “disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them.”
Interwar Period
In the wake of the First World War, non-interventionist tendencies of U.S. foreign policy gained ascendancy. The Treaty of Versailles and thus U.S. participation in the League of Nations, even with reservations, was rejected by the Republican-dominated Senate in the final months of Wilson’s presidency. A group of senators known as the Irreconcilables, identifying with both William Borah and Henry Cabot Lodge, had great objections regarding the clauses of the treaty which compelled America to come to the defense of other nations. Lodge, echoing Wilson, issued 14 Reservations regarding the treaty; among them, the second argued that America would sign only with the understanding that:
Nothing compels the United States to ensure border contiguity or political independence of any nation, to interfere in foreign domestic disput