Roosevelt appeared to accept the strength of the isolationist elements in Congress until Even the outbreak of war in Europe in did not suddenly diffuse popular desire to avoid international entanglements. Instead, public opinion shifted from favoring complete neutrality to supporting limited U. The surprise Japanese attack on the U. Navy at Pearl Harbor in December of served to convince the majority of Americans that the United States should enter the war on the side of the Allies.
Menu Menu. Home Milestones American Isolationism in the s. Milestones: — For more information, please see the full notice. American Isolationism in the s During the s, the combination of the Great Depression and the memory of tragic losses in World War I contributed to pushing American public opinion and policy toward isolationism. President Woodrow Wilson. Senator Gerald Nye. Americans reeled from the emotional and financial costs of war and began to feel as though joining the war effort was a mistake.
In , Wilson articulated fourteen points to help end the war and establish a basis for cooperation, which included freedom of the seas, open economic trade, the evacuation of occupied territories, the liberation of non-Turkish peoples in the Ottoman Empire, and a general collection of nation states to offer members territorial integrity and political independence—setting the stage for what would later become the League of Nations.
What ensued was a radical shift in U. Warren Harding won the presidential election on the promise of staying out of global affairs, and by arguing that the United States needed normalcy and a focus on internal problems. Thus, U. Instead, the United States focused on building the domestic economy by supporting business growth, encouraging industrial expansion, imposing tariffs on imported products and limiting immigration.
In , Wilson first articulated his vision for the League of Nations as an international organization designed to facilitate cooperation, and it was backed by many Americans eager to see the end to the devastating war. The League of Nations would also provide mechanisms for promoting negotiation and mediating disputes. As more Americans lamented the consequences of war and voiced their desire to avoid future intervention in foreign affairs at all costs, public opposition to the League of Nations grew.
While Wilson had participated in the creation of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Harding never allowed the United States to become a member. During that time, industry flourished, the stock market rose, technology rapidly evolved, and the commercialization and expansion of aviation and the automobile radically altered the American lifestyle.
The economic boom was facilitated by tariffs that were enacted to restrict the influx of imported goods, thereby increasing domestic production. As European farmers began to recover postwar, U. American farmers, who had gone heavily into debt to finance their expansion during the war, faced difficulty in honoring their repayments and asked the government for assistance, hoping tariffs would lead to an increase in prices; ultimately, this only helped prices for specific products, such as sugar and wool.
Upon taking office, President Harding implemented the Emergency Tariff of , which imposed duties on over two dozen food imports and agricultural products. In , President Harding signed the Fordney-McCumber Act into law, which raised tariffs by about 25 percent and made it easier to enact them without congressional approval.
In , Congress also passed the Smoot-Hawley Act, which raised duties and tariffs significantly on over 20, foreign products in all sectors of the economy.
Many debate whether these tariffs were effective, but in the long term, they may have done more harm than good, as other countries retaliated by increasing their own tariffs. In turn, this created trade barriers that ultimately hurt American producers and jobs by decreasing the presence of U.
It also impeded Europeans from generating enough revenue to pay back their wartime debts to the United States. Many economists argue that the combination of these tariffs and other factors led to the collapse of the U. A key factor driving U. Another key factor in the decision to go to war were the deep ethnic divisions between native-born Americans and more recent immigrants. Millions of Jewish immigrants had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Tsarist Russia and would have supported any nation fighting that authoritarian state.
German Americans saw their nation of origin as a victim of British and Russian aggression and a French desire to settle old scores, whereas emigrants from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were mixed in their sympathies for the old monarchies or ethnic communities that these empires suppressed.
For interventionists, this lack of support for Great Britain and its allies among recent immigrants only strengthened their conviction. After the sinking of the Lusitania , and the subsequent August 30 sinking of another British liner, the Arabic , Germany had promised to restrict their use of submarine warfare.
Specifically, they promised to surface and visually identify any ship before they fired, as well as permit civilians to evacuate targeted ships. The German high command wanted to continue unrestricted warfare on all Atlantic traffic, including unarmed American freighters, in order to cripple the British economy and secure a quick and decisive victory. Their goal: to bring an end to the war before the United States could intervene and tip the balance in this grueling war of attrition.
In February , a German U-boat sank the American merchant ship, the Laconia , killing two passengers, and, in late March, quickly sunk four more American ships.
These attacks increased pressure on Wilson from all sides, as government officials, the general public, and both Democrats and Republicans urged him to declare war. The final element that led to American involvement in World War I was the so-called Zimmermann telegram.
British intelligence intercepted and decoded a top-secret telegram from German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador to Mexico, instructing the latter to invite Mexico to join the war effort on the German side, should the United States declare war on Germany. The prospect of such a move made it all but impossible for Wilson to avoid war. The outbreak of the Russian Revolution in February and abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March raised the prospect of democracy in the Eurasian empire and removed an important moral objection to entering the war on the side of the Allies.
On April 2, , Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. Congress debated for four days, and several senators and congressmen expressed their concerns that the war was being fought over U. When Congress voted on April 6, fifty-six voted against the resolution, including the first woman ever elected to Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin. Senate on January 22, Wilson stated:. Not surprisingly, this speech was not well received by either side fighting the war.
England resisted being put on the same moral ground as Germany, and France, whose country had been battered by years of warfare, had no desire to end the war without victory and its spoils. Unfortunately, the Zimmermann telegram and the sinking of the American merchant ships proved too provocative for Wilson to remain neutral. Little more than two months after this speech, he asked Congress to declare war on Germany. President Wilson had no desire to embroil the United States in the bloody and lengthy war that was devastating Europe.
His foreign policy, through his first term and his campaign for reelection, focused on keeping the United States out of the war and involving the country in international affairs only when there was a moral imperative to do so. Ethnic ties to Europe meant that much of the general public was more than happy to remain neutral. The measure still passed, however, and the United States went to war against the wishes of many of its citizens. Zimmermann telegram the telegram sent from German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador in Mexico, which invited Mexico to fight alongside Germany should the United States enter World War I on the side of the Allies.
Skip to main content. Americans and the Great War, Search for:.
0コメント