, 1917 President
Theodore Roosevelt's administration is credited with inciting the
Panamanian Revolt against Colombia, completed November 1903, in order to secure construction rights for the Panama Canal (begun in 1904). President
Woodrow Wilson was able to navigate neutrality in
World War I for about three years, and to
win 1916 reelection with the slogan "He kept us out of war." The neutrality policy was supported by the tradition of shunning foreign entanglements, and by the large population of immigrants from Europe with divided loyalties in the conflict.
America did enter the war in April 1917, however. Congress voted to declare war on Germany, 373 to 50 in the House of Representatives and 82 to 6 in the Senate. Technically the US joined the side of the
Triple Entente only as an "associated power" fighting the same enemy, not as officially allied with the Entente. A few months after the declaration of war, Wilson gave a speech to Congress outlining his aims for conclusion of the conflict, labeled the
Fourteen Points. That American proclamation was less triumphalist than the stated aims of some other belligerents, and its final point proposed that a "general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike." After the war, Wilson traveled to Europe and remained there for months to labor on the post-war treaty, longer than any previous Presidential sojourn outside the country. In that
Treaty of Versailles, Wilson's "general association of nations" was formulated as the
League of Nations.
Isolationism between the World Wars In the
wake of the First World War, the non-interventionist tendencies gained ascendancy. The
Treaty of Versailles, and thus, United States' participation in the
League of Nations, even with reservations, was rejected by the Senate in the final months of Wilson's presidency. Republican Senate leader
Henry Cabot Lodge supported the Treaty with reservations to be sure Congress had final authority on sending the U.S. into war. Wilson and his Democratic supporters rejected the
Lodge Reservations. The strongest opposition to American entry into the League of Nations came from the Senate where a tight-knit faction known as the
Irreconcilables, led by
William Borah and
George Norris, had great objections regarding the clauses of the treaty which compelled America to come to the defense of other nations. Senator
William Borah, of Idaho, declared that it would "purchase peace at the cost of any part of our [American] independence." Senator
Hiram Johnson, of California, denounced the League of Nations as a "gigantic war trust." While some of the sentiment was grounded in adherence to Constitutional principles, most of the sentiment bore a reassertion of
nativist and inward-looking policy. American society in the interwar period was characterized by a division in values between urban and rural areas as Americans in urban areas tended to be liberal while those in rural areas tended to be conservative. Adding to the division was that Americans in rural areas tended to be Protestant of British and/or German descent while those in urban areas were often Catholic or Jewish and came from eastern or southern Europe. The rural-urban divide was seen most dramatically in the intense debate about Prohibition as urban Americans tended to be "wets" while rural Americans tended to be "drys". The way that American society was fractured along an urban-rural divide served to distract public attention from foreign affairs. In the 1920s, the State Department had about 600 employees in total with an annual budget of $2 million, which reflected a lack of interest on the part of Congress in foreign affairs. The State Department was very much an elitist body that recruited mostly from graduates of the select "Ivy League" universities, which reflected the idea that foreign policy was the concern of elites. Likewise, the feeling that the United States was taking in far too many immigrants from eastern and southern Europe-who were widely depicted in the American media as criminals and revolutionaries-led to laws restricting immigration from Europe. The anti-immigrant mood increased isolationism as the picture of Europe as a place overflowing with dangerous criminals and equally dangerous Communist revolutionaries led to the corresponding conclusion that the United States should have little as possible to do with nations whose peoples were depicted as disagreeable and unpleasant. The same way that Congress had virtually banned all non-white immigration to the United States likewise led an indifference about the fate of non-white nations such as China and Ethiopia. The debate about Prohibition in the 1920s also encouraged nativist and isolationist feelings as "drys" often engaged in American exceptionalism by arguing that the United States was a uniquely morally pure nation that had banned alcohol, unlike the rest of the world which remained "wet" and was depicted as mired in corruption and decadence. The United States acted independently to become a major player in the 1920s in international negotiations and treaties. The Harding Administration achieved naval disarmament among the major powers through the
Washington Naval Conference in 1921–22. The
Dawes Plan refinanced war debts and helped restore prosperity to Germany. In August 1928, fifteen nations signed the
Kellogg–Briand Pact, brainchild of American secretary of state
Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister
Aristide Briand. This pact that was said to have outlawed war and showed the United States commitment to international peace had its semantic flaws. For example, it did not hold the United States to the conditions of any existing treaties, it still allowed European nations the right to self-defense, and it stated that if one nation broke the Pact, it would be up to the other signatories to enforce it. Briand had sent a message on 6 April 1927 to mark the 10th anniversary of the American declaration of war on Germany in 1917 proposing that France and the United States sign a non-aggression pact. Briand was attempting to create a Franco-American alliance to counter Germany as Briand envisioned turning the negotiations for the non-aggression pact into some sort of alliance. Kellogg had no interest in an alliance with France, and countered with a vague offer for a treaty to ban all war. The Kellogg–Briand Pact was more of a sign of good intentions on the part of the US, rather than a legitimate step towards the sustenance of world peace. Another reason for isolationism was the belief that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh towards Germany and the question of war debts to the United States. American public opinion was especially hostile towards France, which was depicted in the words of the Republican senator
Reed Smoot who in August 1930 called France a greedy "Shylock" intent upon taking the last "pound of flesh" from Germany via reparations while refusing to pay its war debts to the United States. In the early 1930s, French diplomats at the embassy in Washington stated that the image of France was at an all-time low in the United States, with American public opinion being especially incensed by France's decision to default on its war debts on 15 December 1932. French diplomats throughout the interwar period complained that the German embassy and consulates in the United States waged a slick, well funded propaganda campaign designed to persuade the Americans that the Treaty of Versailles was a monstrous, unjust peace treaty while the French embassy and consulates did nothing equivalent to make the case for France. The effect of German propaganda tended to persuade many Americans it had been a huge mistake to have declared war on Germany in 1917 and it would be wrong for the United States to go to war to maintain the international order created by the Treaty of Versailles. The economic depression that ensued after the
Crash of 1929, also continued to abet non-intervention. The attention of the country focused mostly on addressing the problems of the national economy. Isolationism fit the national mood of the 1930s, as the economic crisis led to a lack of willingness to extend the resources to others, this combined with the ongoing issue of the allies failing to pay back their war debts created disillusionment on the benefit of foreign interventions to actually accomplish anything other than profiting imperialists. The rise of aggressive imperialist policies by
Fascist Italy and the
Empire of Japan led to conflicts such as the
Italian conquest of Ethiopia and the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria. These events led to ineffectual condemnations by the League of Nations. Official American response was muted. America also did not take sides in the brutal
Spanish Civil War and
withdrew its troops from Haiti with the inauguration of the
Good Neighbor Policy in 1934. In an attempt to influence American public opinion into taking a more favorable view of France, the Quai d'Orsay founded in 1935 the ''Association our la Constitution aux Etats-Unis d'un Office Français de Renseignements'' based in New York, a cultural propaganda council designed to give Americans a more favorable image of France. Better known as the French Information Center, the group created a French Cinema Center to distribution of French films in the United States and by 1939 had handled out for free about 5, 000 copies of French films to American universities and high schools. The French Information Center provided briefings to American journalists and columnists about the French point of view with the emphasis upon France as a democracy that had potential powerful enemies in the form of totalitarian dictatorships such as Germany and Italy. Such propaganda did not seek to challenge American isolationism directly, but the prevailing theme was that France and the United States as democracies had more in common than what divided them. By 1939,
René Doynel de Saint-Quentin, the French ambassador in Washington reported that image of France was much higher than what it had been in 1932. During this period, a significant proportion of non-interventionist sentiment in the United States was shaped as a result of women's peace organisations. For instance a key organisation was the
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). It was a group of female pacifists who were against the U.S intervention in World War 1. Key African American women activists include
Addie Hunton,
Mary Church Terrel and
Maude White Katz. They were significant as their membership was made up of women from diverse backgrounds such as African American Women. They altered the trajectory of the organisations goals, as they argued that you can challenge U.S Imperialism abroad without solving the domestic issues of race equality at home.
Non-interventionism before entering World War II As Europe moved closer to war in the late 1930s, the
United States Congress continued to demand American neutrality. Between 1936 and 1937, much to the dismay of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress passed the
Neutrality Acts. For example, in the final Neutrality Act, Americans could not sail on ships flying the flag of a belligerent nation or trade arms with warring nations. Such activities had played a role in American entrance into World War I. On 1 September 1939,
Germany invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II, and the
United Kingdom and
France subsequently declared war on Germany. In an address to the American people two days later, Roosevelt assured the nation that he would do all he could to keep them out of war. "When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger," Roosevelt said. In a 1940 speech, Roosevelt argued, "Some, indeed, still hold to the now somewhat obvious delusion that we … can safely permit the United States to become a lone island … in a world dominated by the philosophy of force." A
Life survey published in July found that in the summer of 1940, 67% of Americans believed that a German-Italian victory would endanger the United States, that if such an event occurred 88% supported "arm[ing] to the teeth at any expense to be prepared for any trouble", and that 71% favored "the immediate adoption of compulsory military training for all young men". The magazine wrote that the survey showed "the emergence of a majority attitude very different from that of six or even three months ago". Ultimately, the ideological rift between the ideals of the United States and the goals of the fascist powers empowered the interventionist argument. Writer
Archibald MacLeish asked, "How could we sit back as spectators of a war against ourselves?" In an address to the American people on December 29, 1940, Roosevelt said, "the Axis not merely admits but proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and our philosophy of government." There were still many who held on to non-interventionism. Although a minority, they were well organized, and had a powerful presence in Congress. Pro-German or anti-British opinion contributed to non-interventionism. Roosevelt's national share of the
1940 presidential vote declined by seven percentage points from 1936. Of the 20 counties in which his share declined by 35 points or more, 19 were largely German-speaking. Of the 35 counties in which his share declined by 25 to 34 points, German was the largest or second-largest original nationality in 31. Non-interventionists rooted a significant portion of their arguments in historical precedent, citing events such as
Washington's farewell address and the failure of World War I. "If we have strong defenses and understand and believe in what we are defending, we need fear nobody in this world,"
Robert Maynard Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago, wrote in a 1940 essay. Isolationists believed that the safety of the nation was more important than any foreign war. drew a caricature of the GOPstrich, the squawking child of the isolationists and the Republican Party, both of whom wanted to stay out of the war. As 1940 became 1941, the actions of the Roosevelt administration made it more and more clear that the United States was on a course to war. This policy shift, driven by the President, came in two phases. The first came in 1939 with the passage of the Fourth Neutrality Act, which permitted the United States to trade arms with belligerent nations, as long as these nations came to America to retrieve the arms, and pay for them in cash. The second phase was the
Lend-Lease Act of early 1941. This act allowed the President "to lend, lease, sell, or barter arms, ammunition, food, or any 'defense article' or any 'defense information' to 'the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.'" American public opinion supported Roosevelt's actions. As United States involvement in the
Battle of the Atlantic grew with incidents such as the sinking of the , 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. After the
attack on Pearl Harbor caused America to enter the war in December 1941, isolationists such as
Charles Lindbergh's
America First Committee and
Herbert Hoover announced their support of the war effort. Isolationist families' sons fought in the war as much as others. Propaganda activities conducted by German embassy staff such as
George Sylvester Viereck, assisted by isolationist politicians such as
Hamilton Fish III, were investigated and dampened by federal prosecutors before and after U.S. joined WWII. In 1941, Fish was implicated in the America First Committee franking controversy, whereby isolationist politicians were found to be using their free mailing privileges to aid the German propaganda campaign. William Power Maloney's grand jury investigated Nazi penetration in the United States and secured convictions of Viereck and George Hill, Fish's chief of staff.
Non-interventionism after World War II Ohio Senator
Robert A. Taft was a leading opponent of interventionism after 1945, although it always played a secondary role to his deep interest in domestic affairs. Historian George Fujii, citing the Taft papers, argues: :Taft fought a mostly losing battle to reduce government expenditures and to curtail or prevent foreign aid measures such as the British loan of 1945 and the Marshall Plan. He feared that these measures would "destroy the freedom of the individual, freedom of States and local communities, freedom of the farmer to run his own farm and the workman to do his own job" (p. 375), thereby threatening the foundations of American prosperity and leading to a "totalitarian state" (p. 377). In 1951, in the midst of bitter partisan debate over the Korean War, Taft increasingly spoke out on foreign policy issues. According to his biographer James T. Patterson: :Two basic beliefs continued to form a fairly consistent core of Taft's thinking on foreign policy. First, he insisted on limiting America's overseas commitments. [Taft said "Nobody today can be an isolationist.... The only question is the degree to which we shall take action throughout the entire world." America had obligations that it had to honor – such as NATO – and it could not turn a blind eye to such countries as
Formosa or Israel. But the United States had limited funds and problems at home and must therefore curb its commitments....This fear of overcommitment was rooted in Taft's even deeper faith in liberty, which made him shrink from a foreign policy that would cost large sums of money, increase the power of the military, and transform American society into what he called a garrison state. Norman A. Graebner argues: :Differences over collective security in the G.O.P. were real in 1952, but Taft tried during his pre-convention campaign to moderate his image as a "go-it-aloner" in foreign policy. His whole effort proved unsuccessful, largely because by spring the internationalist camp had a formidable candidate of its own in
Dwight D. Eisenhower. As the personification of post-1945 American commitment to collective security, particularly in Europe, General Eisenhower had decided to run because he feared, apparently, that Taft's election would lead to repudiation of the whole collective security effort, including NATO. Eisenhower won the nomination and secured Taft's support by promising Taft a dominant voice in domestic policies, while Eisenhower's internationalism would set the foreign-policy agenda. Graebner argues that Eisenhower succeeded in moving the conservative Republicans away from their traditional attacks on
foreign aid and reciprocal trade policies, and collective security arrangements, to support for those policies. By 1964 the Republican conservatives rallied behind
Barry Goldwater who was an aggressive advocate of an anti-communist internationalist foreign policy. Goldwater wanted to
roll back Communism and win the Cold War, asking "Why Not Victory?" ==Non-interventionism in the 21st century==