THE MIDDLE WEST AND THE COMING OF
WORLD WAR II*
by JEANNETTE
P. NICHOLS
Such a topic as "The Middle West
and the Coming of World
War II" admits the premise that
public opinion in a particular
section of a nation can importantly
affect the foreign policy of the
central government, particularly in a
country run on the repre-
sentative principle. This premise has
received endorsement re-
peatedly in the history of the United
States and other countries,
and especially among historians of
foreign policy and of the
Middle West; fairly recent
illustrations include treatment of "The
Significance of the Mississippi Valley
in American Diplomatic
History, 1686-1890" by Richard W.
Van Alstyne; and "The
Mississippi Valley and American Foreign
Policy, 1890-1941: An
Assessment and an Appeal" by
Richard W. Leopold.1
Furthermore, the premise is illumined
by a larger, far more
important trend observable world-wide
in the twentieth century,
namely, the increasing influence of
internal political exigencies
upon selection of external policies. In
Britain and France, for
example, Prime Ministers Lloyd George,
MacDonald, Chamberlain.
Briand, and Laval cultivated the
growing habit of committing
their governments to important foreign
policies without due con
sultation with their ambassadors abroad
or diplomatic corps at
home. They allowed diplomatic reports
to lie unread, or rejected
amply demonstrating how badgered
politicians can grow overeage
to reach decisions in diplomacy.2 While
the factors affecting inter
national relationships have become
excessively complicated, difficult
*This and the preceding article by
Arthur S. Link were originally given as paper
in a joint session on "The Middle
West and the Coming of the Two World Wars
at the forty-fifth annual meeting of the
Mississippi Valley Historical Associatio
held at Chicago, April 17-19, 1952. It
has been revised and notes and documentatio
added.
1 Published, respectively, in the Mississippi
Valley Historical Review, XXXV
(1949-50), 215-238; XXXVII (1950-51),
625-642.
2 A cogent summary of British and French
tendencies was provided by Gordo
Craig in "The Professional Diplomat
and His Problems, 1919-1939," a paper rea
before the American Historical Association
at its 1951 meeting.
122
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 123
to grasp and to control, and requiring
much time for thoughtful
decisions, popular facilities for
immediate intercommunication
have encouraged the public to skim the
surface of events and raise
prompt clamor. Thus, in an era of
extreme international sensitivity,
the need for sober caution and the use
of it have tended to develop
in inverse ratio. Public opinion on
international relations has indeed
become the acid test of democracy in
the atomic age.
The interrelations of politics,
propaganda, pressure groups, and
mass education in foreign affairs have
inspired much serious analysis
in books, Ph.D. dissertations, and
master's essays.3 More influential
and more revealing is the rising bulk
of popular literature, because
of the tendencies it exposes: such
tendencies as (a) popular ac-
ceptance of political pressure as a
proper determinant of diplomatic
policy, (b) wide permeation of propaganda
and other special-
interest processes of opinion-forming,
and (c) overestimation of the
effectiveness of pressure and
propaganda, due to their relentless
employment. It becomes difficult to
keep in mind that pressure
and propaganda do not work in a vacuum;
that much of the "credit"
and "blame" apportioned them
can be unearned, when behavior
and opinion rest on uncomprehended but
powerful long-term
trends.4 Only by trying to
evaluate such factors, can historians
hope to avoid some serious distortions.
The increasing importance of foreign
policy in individual Ameri-
can experience has been indicated by
the fact that the bitterest
debates since 1896 have centered on
diplomatic issues, namely, the
debates just after World War I, just
before World War II, and
3 The better books include: Gabriel A. Almond, The American People and
Foreign
Policy (New York, 1950); Thomas A. Bailey, The Man in the
Street: The Impact
of American Public Opinion on Foreign
Policy (New York, 1948); Edward H.
Carr,
Propaganda in International Politics (Oxford, 1939); Ellis Freeman, Conquering
the Man in the Street: A
Psychological Analysis of Propaganda in War, Fascism and
Politics (New York, 1940); Harold Lavine, War Propaganda and the
United States
(New Haven, 1940); Lester Markel and
others, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy
(New York, 1949); and Quincy Wright, Public
Opinion and World Politics
(Chicago, 1933).
4 Specialists incline to agree that
during the thirties events in Europe and Asia
were having far greater influence upon
America's course than efforts of pressure
groups for and against intervention. See
note 3 above and Harold F. Gosnell, Machine
Politics, Chicago Model (Chicago, 1937); Norman C. Meier and Harold W.
Saunders,
The Polls and Public Opinion (New York, 1949); and two Ph.D. theses referred
to in notes 34 and 44 below.
124 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
following the turn of the half-century.
The middle one of these
periods--the 1930's--when World War II
was in the making
behind the engrossing facade of the
Great Depression--reveals
the Middle West (centering around
Chicago) as becoming the
area nourishing the most sustained
bitterness.5 This is not to claim
that opinions attributed to the Middle
West at a given period
always resided there, or were localized
solely within its borders.6
The state of Middle West opinion on
diplomatic problems dur-
ing the Franklin D. Roosevelt era,
especially the three or four
years just before Pearl Harbor, became
significant for at least two
main reasons: (a) that locale became
the most violent theater of
verbal warfare, warfare over whether
the United States could and
should remain uninvolved in
extra-hemisphere fighting; and (b),
and most importantly, this violence so
enabled the section to
command the attention of the
administration, the rest of the United
States, the Axis, and the Allied
chancellories abroad, that the Middle
West affected policy in the highest
places. The section's opinions,
propaganda, and pressure were measured
and judged repeatedly
during that period;7 they
have concerned historians ever since and
doubtless will continue to do so as
long as American historiography
enjoys the stimulus of recurrent
revisionism.8 It must be remembered,
however, that the Middle West differed only
by a small percentage
from the rest of the country in its
division of counsel; what
5 Pollsters with different slants, the
press, and correspondence of disputants
abound in repeated references to the
pre-war middlewestern influence.
6 Van Alstyne points out that the 1754
"isolationists" were of the seaboard and
that mid-nineteenth century imperialism
got much of its leadership from the Valley,
but that the Valley apparently did not
contribute a distinctive concept to American
foreign policy separable from those
familiar to other parts of the country. "The
Significance of the Mississippi
Valley," 221, 235. The nation-wide scope of isola-
tionism, 1934-37, is documented from the
Congressional Record by William
G.
Carleton in "Isolation and the
Middle West," Mississippi Valley Historical Review,
XXXIII (1946-47), 377-390.
7 This
is not to imply that measurement of such confusion as foreign policy can be
precise or infallible.
8 Some revisionism is no less bitter
than the debates to which it refers; see, for
example, The Court Historians versus
Revisionism: An Examination of Langer and
Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation 1937-1940 (a 16-page
pamphlet by Harry Elmer
Barnes privately printed and circulated by its author early
in 1952). See also Charles S.
Tansill's Back Road to War: The
Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933-1941, printed by
the publishing house of a strong Chicago
isolationist, Mr. Regnery, in 1952; this
volume seems to treat Chicago's
isolationist "America First" with silence.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 125
sensitized the Middle West during the
coming of World War II
to a large extent sensitized the rest
of the nation also.
Shifts in the experience and influence
of the Middle West
during the 1930's may be traced through
three stages: I, from
January 30, 1933, the date of Hitler's
accession to the chancellor-
ship, to February 8, 1934, when Senator
Nye proposed a munitions
investigation; II, from February 8,
1934, to September 3, 1939, when
Britain and France declared war on
Germany; and III, from
September 3, 1939, to December 7, 1941,
when Pearl Harbor de-
stroyed what little remained of
American neutrality, and signaled
the temporary defeat of the
isolationism so hotly pressed from
the Middle West.9
I
During Period I the Middle West
actually differed little from
other sections, or indeed from other
nations, in their devotion to
national apartness. Absorption in
domestic issues, over how to re-
cover from the depression and whether
to reform the economy,
engrossed most attention, with rampant
nationalism vetoing inter-
national cooperation in important
fields at home and abroad.
However, Chicago and environs were
building a big-business coterie
of cordial New-Deal Haters, some of
whom would not prove
averse to locating in the Middle West
the leadership of isolationism,
through the machinery of "America
First"; but that was for the
future to reveal.
From the past the section has inherited
some conditioning
factors likely to encourage hospitality
toward political isolationism.
One was the area's past experience with
the Progressive move-
ment, which it quite largely sponsored
and lead; midwestern pro-
gressivism was "sectional-minded .
. . concerned with immediate
problems solved in local terms."10
To expand the imagination and
9 The adjective "temporary" is used because any death rites for
some aspects of
nationalistic isolationism have thus far
proved premature, as events of 1950-53
indicate.
10 Russel B. Nye, Midwestern
Progressive Politics: A Historical Study of Its
Origins and Development (Lansing, Mich., 1951), 381. The possible correlations
be-
tween progressivism and isolationism
open up a wide field worthy of further ex-
ploration.
126 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
understanding so as to think in
international terms might be diffi-
cult for many denizens. Another
conditioning factor was the accretion
of Republicanism in the area, which had
gone more Republican
than Democratic in national elections
over a long period. Roosevelt's
predecessor in the White House had
thought of isolationism--of
which he much complained--as rather a
Republican than a Middle
West specialty" (a notion
supported by many events of 1918-1932);
Hoover could not himself carry
internationalism into commitments
entailing sanctions and force.12
Worldwise, nationalism was yielding
very reluctantly to inter-
nationalism, especially in the United
States. There isolationism was
one of the fundamental American
tenets--adhered to for more
than one hundred and fifty years, a
record in longevity.13 It cannot
be surprising that the Roosevelt of
March 4, 1933, who entertained
a long-standing suspicion of Great
Britain,l4 joined and led other
heads of states in wrecking the London
Conference of 1933 on
nationalistic shoals.15
II
Period II, beginning February 8, 1934,
started with middle-
westerners assuming foremost leadership
in exposures which served
to fortify isolationism behind the
ramparts of neutrality legislation.
It is not without significance that the Progressive-Republican
senator who on that date proposed to
investigate the past misdeeds
of the munitioneers, was equipped with
a thoroughly middlewestern,
small-town, middle-class background.
Wisconsin villages were the
locale for Gerald P. Nye's birth
(1892), his high school educa-
tion, and his early experience with a
small newspaper. A brief
novitiate with Iowa papers preceded
editorship of a small county-
11 Memoirs of Herbert Hoover:
1920-1933, The Cabinet and the Presidency (New
York, 1952), 35, 337.
12 A typical phrasing of his
isolationism-internationalism reads: "Cooperation with
other nations--in the moral field as
distinguished from the field of force." "My White
House Years," Collier's, CXXIX
(April 19, 1952), 17.
13 Bailey points out that this is a far
longer record of retention of a principle
than many nations can boast. The Man
in the Street, 238.
14 His early presidential correspondence
reflects this feeling in numerous instances.
15 See Jeannette P. Nichols,
"Roosevelt's Monetary Diplomacy in 1933," American
Historical Review, LVI (1950-51), 295-317.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 127
seat weekly in North Dakota, whence he
jumped in 1925 from the
narrow confines of an every-Thursday
deadline to the broad arena
of the world's most powerful
legislative body.
Nye was persuaded to undertake the
munitions investigation by
another vigorous middlewesterner, Miss
Dorothy Detzer, who was
aided by Senator Norris.16 Born
in Fort Wayne (1900), Miss Detzer
had been trained in social service at
Hull House, Chicago, and by
Friends abroad. She had become one of
the most able and inde-
fatigable leaders of the peace movement
on the congressional door-
step,17 and like many others
turned toward isolationist instruments
in disgust over ineffective
internationalism.
In the cooperation of Detzer and Nye
the hopes of sincere peace
idealists were joined with those of
ambitious politicians, working
worldwide consequences in foreign
policy. If these two had not
functioned, doubtless other leaders
would have stepped up, for
not only the Middle West but the whole
nation was in line with
their approach. At that juncture
"the dominant feeling was over-
whelmingly opposed, not only to any
involvement in foreign quarrels
but to participation in any collective
action to prevent or settle
such quarrels."18
The Nye investigation19 convinced
most Americans that private
profit seekers--principally munitions
makers and bankers--had
16 Norris' attitudes toward the First and Second World Wars contrast
sharply;
while keenly alive to the dangers of
another holocaust, he saw in Hitler and Mussolini
serious threats to democracy; although
his mail was heavily isolationist he voted
for every step of American preparedness
and found in lend-lease much of inspired
vision. Norris Manuscripts, Library of
Congress, World War II Boxes; George W.
Norris, Fighting Liberal (New
York, 1945), 188-213, 390-395.
17 She was executive secretary of
the Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom, 1925-46; much of that time
its offices were directly across the street
from the state department, beneath the
windows of whoever was the reigning
secretary. Widely publicized recognition
of her services was accorded by the syndicated
Pearson and Allen
"Merry-Go-Round" listing of 1935; she gave some account of her
anti-munitions lobbying in Appointment
on the Hill (New York, 1948), 151-171.
18 William L. Langer and S. Everett
Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-
1940 (New York, 1952), 15. Faith in neutrality as a vesture
of security overlooked
the penetrable weakness of such armor.
The Langer-Gleason analyses of the shifting
tides of opinion during these years are
based upon exhaustive research in the tre-
mendous body of data bearing on United States policy in
these years; they command
respect in nearly all quarters for their thoroughness
and dispassionateness.
19 The other senators were two Republicans--the then strongly isolationist
Arthur
Vandenberg of Michigan and the
relatively inactive Warren Barbour of New Jersey--
ed four Democrats--Bennett Clark of
Missouri, Walter George of Georgia, James
Pope of Idaho, and Homer Bone of
Washington.
128 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
dragged the United States into an
imperialistic World War I.
Anyone venturing to inquire whether
other powerful factors also
pulled in that direction was likely to
be called a simpleton. The
fact is, that in the past investments
actuated solely by private profit
motives had been less often directly
productive of international
friction than investments which were
pressed into the service of
naval and political strategy which the
investments themselves did
not originate. In other words,
legislation establishing government
control over private international
investments, as a reliance for
avoiding war, is unsound in theory and
ill-suited to its object.20
Nevertheless, overly simple notions as
to the direct interplay
of private investment and foreign
policy took a firm grip upon
public thinking, leading congress to
construct the neutrality legis-
lation of 1935, 1936, and 1937 as their
Maginot Line against
involvement in another European
conflict. Neither the physical
nor the ideational Maginot Line, when
put to the test, effectively
blocked the attack of aggression upon
world peace. The false
sense of security inspired by the
Maginot Lines had discouraged
study of other war-causing factors, and
fatally postponed work
upon more fitting safeguards against
would-be destroyers of the
peace.21 Thus, the
neutrality legislation of 1935-37 now appears
to have hindered the pursuit of peace.
The active isolationists of
the Middle West share the
responsibility with those of other
sections.
The confused and frantic search for
security in other important
countries besides the United States,
clouded the vision of would-be
20 Such is the considered conclusion of
Eugene Staley, who explored all the im-
portant cases, 1880-1935, in which
anyone alleged that private investment had been
a factor in international political
disputes, to ascertain what direct relationships
existed. He produced an outstanding
analysis of the political aspects of international
investments in War and the Private
Investor: A Study in the Relations of Inter-
national Politics and International
Private Investment (New York, 1935).
Apparently
private "foreign investments have
been considerably more useful as an aid and
protection of navies than navies have
been as an aid and protection to foreign in-
vestments." 100. While
international investments have been the immediate source
of some serious international
controversies, in the majority of these cases capitalists
have been reluctantly persuaded to
invest by a government seeking to implement
political objectives. "Private
investments seeking purely business advantage . . . have
rarely of themselves brought great
powers into serious political clashes." 360.
21 Atom and hydrogen bombs and anti-Red
legislation became the post-1945 Maginot
Line of many Americans, broadly
scattered, while McCormick and some other
Middle West publicists loudly denounced
the United Nations as a futile instrument
for peace.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 129
architects of peace, whether
internationalists or isolationists. The
American administration dared not stand
up against the isolationism
of 1935, could not set controls over
it, and actually--through two
serious mistakes by Hull and one by
Roosevelt--unwittingly ex-
pedited the action of congress in the
general field besides making
congressional action more drastic.
The administration undertook to show
cooperation in the popular
Nye investigation, and Hull, eager to
bring a munitions control
board into existence, suggested that
Roosevelt invite Nye's group
to call at the White House. There
Roosevelt gave them the im-
pression that he desired them to
sponsor neutrality legislation, a
job which they had not planned to
undertake but shouldered with
alacrity. Their bill-drafting was
terminated by Senator Pittman,
who had been before the electorate the
year before and insisted that
his foreign relations committee take
over. At this moment the
luckless Hull, who did not want general
neutrality legislation, was
insisting that congress should not
adjourn without passing an arms
embargo resolution (aimed at Mussolini)
which should place
action at the discretion of the
president.
But Pittman had his own brand of
isolationism, which included
opposition to trade agreements and to
entrance into the World
Court, and he was sensitive to charges
that his committee was an
appendage of the state department. He
proceeded to make the
embargo clause mandatory; the best the
administration could do
was to get an expiration date of
February 29, 1936, for that clause;
and Hull advised Roosevelt not to try a
veto of the 1935 neutrality
act forbidding export of armament to
belligerents. This episode
testified to the naive faith of a
confused, disgusted nation in the
protective powers of neutrality
legislation, and to the ease with
which an unwary executive department
may contribute to the
hurried placing of restrictions on its
own functioning.22
22 The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 vols., New York, 1948), I, 397-417. Hull
analyzes the mainsprings of
administration tactics. The state department did not
actually want neutrality legislation,
for they had been exploring the field since
June 1934, and knew that it was full of
pitfalls. However, the numerous neutrality
bills in the hopper that summer of 1935
indicated ultimate legislation in the field.
Spurred by the White House mishap and by
Hull's pressure for embargo action,
Pittman introduced his joint resolution
August 20 and by August 31 Roosevelt was
signing it. This first neutrality act
also prohibited carrying of munitions to
belligerents in United States owned
ships and established a munitions control board.
130 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
The confused state of thinking on the
neutrality measures was
reflected in the widely diverse
reasoning of their proponents as to
why they would be effective. By the
time of the second (1936)
neutrality act (which extended the
embargo to May 1, 1937, and
strengthened the 1934 Johnson act
denying loans to war debt de-
faulters, by forbidding loans and
credits to any belligerent), Hull
judged that isolationism was stronger
than in 1935, due to the failure
of the League of Nations to prevent
such developments as German
rearmament and the wars in China and
Ethiopia.23
As the European and Asiatic trends of
1936-37 moved the
administration toward a wish to counter
isolationism, it developed
that neither Roosevelt nor Hull was
well equipped to fight it.
The memory of Wilson's defeat exercised
considerable restraining
influence upon the president until late
in the thirties, and upon his
secretary of state somewhat longer.
Roosevelt signed the May 1937
third neutrality act, which reiterated
the main munitions and credit
prohibitions and added a "cash and
carry" requirement that any
belligerent purchaser of raw materials
must pay on delivery and
carry in its own ships.
To Hull, "trying to win over the
isolationists was . . . a nerve-
wracking and back-breaking
experience," aggravated by his per-
sonal friendship with Borah, Clark,
Fish, Pittman, and Wheeler.
He felt that isolationists of the
thirties were not like the "purely
selfish" ones of 1919-20. He deplored
their position and believed
it was preventing peace-loving nations
from averting World War II,
but he feared, until 1941, that they
might throw out the adminis-
tration and install a regime like that
of the twenties, if provoked
too far. This was the secretary of
state from the Great Valley
upon whom Roosevelt placed much
reliance as a taker of con-
gressional temperature, one whose
thermometer was affected by
his nerves and congressional
background.24 Also, the regime in-
cluded enthusiastic New Dealers who,
like some New Dealers
23 Ibid., 465. For this state of
feeling the Nye disclosures were in large part
responsible.
24 Hull
continually waxes eloquent on his quandary, citing numerous instances
where his apprehensions affected
executive decisions. See, for example, Memoirs, I,
215-218, 279, 405, 409-415, 417, 588-589, 666, 803; II,
943, 959-960, 1734. Langer
and Gleason repeatedly cite this influence.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 131
outside, feared that foreign
involvements might jeopardize domestic
reform. All these apprehensions within
the official family ad-
vantaged the isolationists without.
In the summer of 1937 isolationism was
rampant even on
Far East issues, where it normally was
less intransigeant, and so
the administration rejected British
proposals of joint action to get
Japan to end hostilities. Yet some
moderating in the hostility to
international cooperation seemed so
imperative that Hull and
Norman Davis suggested that Roosevelt
use the occasion of a
speech in Chicago to counteract
isolationism somewhat. He was
nothing loath, for by now he had
shifted from distrust of Britain
to active dislike of the Nazis. The
Middle West by this time was
recognized as the home of extremely
vocal opposition, and if there
had been any doubt of the fact, the
president was assured of it as
he mounted the platform October 5 in
Chicago. Facing him as he
spoke was a huge sign painted on the
paper warehouse of the
Chicago Tribune; Editor Robert R. McCormick was hurling de-
fiance with the one word
"Undominated."25
Again a Hull suggestion backfired. The
president, facing
McCormick's sign, went far beyond his
advisor's expectations and
called for a "quarantine" of
aggressors,26 which was interpreted
as advocacy of an extreme form of
sanctions, as a venture into
collective security. The resulting
storm of disapproval set back
collective action by six months, Hull
thought. The Chicago episode
was but one in a long series of
isolationist influences which re-
assured or disappointed foreign
chancellories, depending on where
they were located. Roosevelt himself
sought to reassure Americans
a week later by announcing that
sanctions against Japan were not
being considered, and he heeded Hull's
objections to a convocation
of foreign diplomats at the White
House.27
The isolationist excitement in Chicago,
which ramified through-
out the nation, was aggravated by
domestic miscalculations. Roose-
velt since 1936 had been creating
within the Democratic party a
25 Robert R. McCormick to J. P. Nichols, March 25, 1952, in Nichols Manu-
scripts; Hull, Memoirs, I,
544-545.
26 Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes, who favored aid to Britain, has
been assigned
the distinction of suggesting the word
"quarantine" to Roosevelt.
27 Hull, Memoirs, I, 546-549.
132
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Roosevelt party, and further impaired
his own party's unity in
congress by his court-packing proposal
of 1937, which the Re-
publicans fully exploited and many
Democrats resented. The
administration had to exert its full
force to defeat a resolution
introduced by Representative Louis
Ludlow, Indiana Democrat,
requiring a national referendum (except
in case of invasion)
before a United States declaration of
war could become effective.
The closeness of the vote, 209-188,
revealed to Hitler and Chamber-
lain the tremendous strength of
American isolationists as of
January 10, 1938.28
They both realized it anew during the
Munich negotiations of
September over Czechoslovakia when
Roosevelt couched his
arbitral proposals to Hitler in
"minimum terms." The congressional
campaign (waged currently against a
slight economic recession)
was moving Roosevelt to appeasement of
isolationists. He re-
iterated the principle of no political
involvement in Europe's dis-
putes on September 27, and he based an
October 11 call for
increased armament upon the need for
more continental defense.29
The voters in November scotched his
party purge and gave the
Republicans eighty-one more seats in
the house and eight more
in the senate. All the upper Midwest
except Illinois and Missouri
went Republican. Almost all Republicans
and many Democrats
then were isolationist regardless of
locale, with Gallup reporting
about 95% of Americans determined to
stay out of war and two-
thirds opposing sale of munitions to
either side.30 Roosevelt's
domestic disabilities aggravated his
diplomatic vulnerability in every
hotbed of isolationism. It has been
said that his strategy of "never
getting too far ahead of public
opinion, of speeding up and slowing
down, depending upon national and
international exigencies, was
understandable and probably
necessary."31 At any rate, evidence
28 Ibid., 563-564.
29 Evidence that Roosevelt's political influence was lower late in 1938
than since
1933 is marshaled by Langer and Gleason.
The Challenge to Isolation, 32-39.
30 Among the analyses of pre-1940 polls
special note should be taken of Francis S.
Wickware, "What We Think About Foreign Affairs
[1935-1939]," Harper's Maga-
zine, CLXXIX
(1939), 397-406, and Philip E. Jacob, "Influences of World Events
on United States 'Neutrality' Opinion," Public
Opinion Quarterly, IV (1940), 48-65.
31 Daniel Aaron, Men of Good Hope (New
York, 1951), 292.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 133
abounds that congress then was not
sanctioning any move to be
interpreted as another attempt to get
dictatorial powers for the
executive. His opponents continually
shouted that he "was not to
be trusted," and his sometimes
unnecessary lack of candor fed the
charge. Any hint of administrative
leaning toward international
cooperation was instantly pounced upon.32
Roosevelt during 1938 had rather
avoided a major debate on
foreign policy, lest his own political
defeat destroy fulfillment of
his foreign program. However, by
December 1938, Americans had
returned to their former tolerance of a
firmer policy toward the
Far East, a "moral" embargo
was placed on planes to Japan, and
credits were extended to China for
purchases in the United States.
January 4, 1939, he again began asking
congress to modify the
neutrality laws, and the effort to lift
the embargo of arms to
belligerents continued through the
spring and summer. Pittman
again proved overconfident of his
ability to secure administrative
objectives without active White House
aid and Roosevelt was
checkmated. The embargo remained
unlifted until two months
after September 3.33
III
The time between the British and French
declaration of war and
the bombing of Pearl Harbor (September
3, 1939-December 7,
1941) was the period when the Middle
West really came into its
own as the generally-attributed hotbed
of isolationism. But even
then, isolation knew no boundaries and
defied definition. In one
sense the entire nation remained almost
wholly isolationist, because
at the very eve of Pearl Harbor the
polls indicated that over 80%
were unwilling to vote outright for
entrance into war. In another
sense, there were no isolationists, for
everyone was taking sides,
32 Hull frequently refers to suspicion
dogging their every step and to the extreme
care with which they strove to word
every statement. Memoirs, I, 400, 429-432,
575, 588. This suspicion is reanimated
on many pages of the Tansill narrative.
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson felt
Roosevelt could have used more candor.
On Active Service in Peace and War (New York, 1947), 374-375. Langer and
Gleason often suggest the same.
33 Langer and Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 79-81, 136-147;
Joseph Alsop
and Robert Kintner, American White
Paper (New York, 1940), 44-46.
134 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
as the "phony" war advanced
into the blitzkrieg and stretched on
into repeated Axis victories. The
various gradations of isolationism
became too fluid and numerous to make
any label accurate.
Yet the course of events cut a
demarcation line through the
pervasive isolationism, in the Middle
West and elsewhere, ranging
the citizenry on opposite sides of the
question whether a British
defeat would be contrary to American
interests. Gradually the
majority, nation-wise, came to believe
that a Hitler victory was a
threat and they therefore reluctantly
tolerated advancing steps in
aid to Britain, as measures "short
of war" devised to further peace.
They were "sympathetic"; but
few of them were the actual
"interventionists" which
their opponents labeled them. The opposite
group, reasoning that a British victory
would not improve matters,
defined the aid to Britain as a warlike
measure, fought every move,
and mainly were last-ditch
isolationists; some preferred the con-
notations of the term
"non-interventionists." Every section had both
kinds of opinion.
In this period the label
"isolationist" was fastened to the Middle
West because (a) it was slightly more
isolationist than other
sections and (b) it furnished the most
vigorous leadership in the
fight against aid to the Allies. Some
polls indicated that the Middle
West was not more than 4% more isolationist than the East and
only about 11% more isolationist
than the South--the section
reputedly the most interventionist of
them all.34 But the Midwest
is known to have been more consistently
isolationist (though often
by only 1% or 2%) than the rest of the
country in all the public
opinion polls on neutrality and
intervention, 1935-41.35
Also, middlewestern isolationists were
extremely vocal; they
were unmatched for the earnestness,
skill, and persistence of the
34 Detailed analysis of the polls
reported by Gallup, Fortune Magazine, Public
Opinion Quarterly, and others, with other relevant factors, is presented
in "Isolationist
Propaganda, September 1, 1939-December
7, 1941," a 1943 Ph.D. thesis in inter-
national relations written by William
Cecil Rogers at the University of Chicago,
use of which is acknowledged herewith,
with appreciation. He states that the con-
gressional mail showed the South and large urban areas
less responsive to propaganda
than was the Middle West in general.
35 Bailey, The Man in the Street, 109.
Bailey found that on nine major bills con-
cerning foreign policy and preparedness,
1939-41, Middle West congressmen voted
97% against administration measures,
which he interpreted as reflecting more
partisanship than isolationism.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 135
leadership they provided, whether for
the New-Deal-hating wing
of the isolationists, the Republican
wing, the anti-British wing, the
pro-German wing, the fascist wing, or
the pacifist wing. The
decibels of Middle West leaders
magnified their influence far
beyond the number of their nation-wide
followers. No small reason
for the Middle West's isolationist
label was the long-standing
Republican slant of the area, under
political machines which tended
to be dominated by the since-Wilson
tradition of irreconcilability.
Also the ethnic influence in large
German, Scandinavian, and Irish
elements revealed itself strongly in
isolationist-voting counties.36
Chicago isolationist leadership was
going to be galvanized when
New York interventionist leadership
undertook to help build support
of modifications in the neutrality
statutes. Action on Roosevelt's
January plea for neutrality changes had
been prevented by a coalition
of almost all senate Republicans and
about one-fourth of the senate
Democrats. Through the summer of 1939
the administration had
lagged behind public opinion on
domestic defense outlays (in the
opinion in retrospect of Langer and
Gleason), for fear of stirring
up an isolationist hornets' nest; and
America remained rather
immobilized internationally.37
Then came Hitler's invasion of Poland
and the Franco-British
declaration of war against the Axis,
September 3, forcing Roosevelt
to issue a neutrality proclamation
(September 5), which in the
existing state of the statutes
automatically cut off Britain and
France from the armament they had on
order. Roosevelt called
a special session for September 21 to
handle the issue of neutrality
revision in general and repeal of the
arms embargo in particular.
But the day before congress convened
Senator Charles McNary of
Oregon, who was more interventionist
than most Republican
36 Samuel Lubell, in The Future of
American Politics (New York, 1952), reports
that analysis of election returns of
more than 3,000 counties and all major cities
for the last sixty years shows
pro-German and anti-German ethnic groups "by far
the commonest characteristic of isolation-voting
counties." Cardinal Mundelein of
Chicago and Archbishop Spellman of New
York were enlisted by Roosevelt in the
effort to counter anti-British
opposition to revision. Langer and Gleason, The
Challenge to Isolation, 226.
37 Langer and Gleason, The Challenge
to Isolation, 129-131. The administration
placed its emphasis upon insulation of
the New World from the Old in the
Panama Conference of September
25-October 3, 1939, a reflection of determination to
keep out of war. Ibid., 211-218.
136
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
senators, warned a White House
conference that the embargo clause
could not be repealed without
qualification, because the public
would think that that would be
repealing American neutrality.38
However, a change was coming over the
scene, which moved
ardent Middle West isolationists to
gird their loins for bitter
combat. While congressional mail,
against neutrality revision by
almost five to one, poured in upon
congress, largely from the
Middle West, the nation-wide polls were
reporting a growing
majority for revision. Much effort to
arouse support for revision
was expended by one of the most
influential Republican editors
of the Middle West, William Allen White
of Emporia, Kansas.
Converted to the principle of cash and
carry in 1937, he defied
the unanimous sentiment of Kansas
Republicans in the house by
chairmaning an eastern-sponsored
"Non Partisan Committee for
Peace Through Revision of the
Neutrality Law," proving especially
effective in the Middle West and West.39
After forty-three days and nights of
heavy bombardment of
congress, while Pittman and Sol Bloom
fumbled with the bill's
management in senate and house,
congress in tortuous language
registered retreat from neutrality. The
law of November 4, 1939,
repealed the arms embargo so far as to
open American munitions
trade to such belligerents as could
proceed on a cash and carry
basis. Roosevelt had had to stress a
very limited measure, as the
best way to keep out of war. After this
experience he acted as if
he thought public opinion would advance
no further for a time.40
What Roosevelt, and White, would do
next depended largely on
what Hitler did. Between the onset of
the blitzkrieg and Roosevelt's
proposal of lend-lease (April 9-December 29, 1940)
German
victories destroyed the sense of
security of many Americans, even
in the Great Valley, which had seemed
so safe because it had
no view of the ocean. The polls
indicate that the April-through-
38 Ibid., 218, 235; Hull's treatment is more fragmentary but not
essentially dif-
ferent. Memoirs, I, 692-697.
39 Walter Johnson, William
Allen White's America (New York, 1947), 513, 516-
520; Walter Johnson, The Battle
Against Isolation (Chicago, 1944), 32-54.
40 Langer and Gleason, The Challenge
to Isolation, 269-272; the act also had
highly involved provisions forbidding
American vessels to carry passengers or freight
to belligerent shores.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 137
June days of 1940 blitzkrieg and French
surrender raised American
support for more aid to the Allies,
supposedly from 25% to 78%.
The interest in the polls was
considerable and inspired much
analysis of their trends, but
congressional behavior was the im-
portant question, especially in the
senate, where debate was nearly
unlimited.
Senate isolationists, captained by
Wheeler of Montana, who
felt that Roosevelt had not accorded
him his political due, con-
sisted of both moderate and last-ditch
isolationists, largely from
the Middle West and of the Republican
party.41 They undertook
delaying tactics, hoping that time
would quiet the warring fronts
so that interventionist sentiment could
die of attrition, as pro-
League sentiment had died in the
twenties. Across the land the
public formed a great many small groups
to pressure Washington
for or against aid to the Allies, for
divers reasons, some respectable
and some otherwise.42 These
small fry mostly aligned themselves
with either one or the other of the two
big, powerful organizations
--the Committee to Defend America by
Aiding the Allies, and the
America First Committee.
Each of these two committees had its
special meaning in the
experience of the Middle West
during the coming of World
War II. They and their respective
followers fought one bitter
engagement after another over
successive developments: over the
destroyer-bases deal, the 1940
presidential campaign, selective
service, military appropriations,
convoys, and above all, over the
?end-lease fight of January 10-March
11, 1941, ending up with the
fight on the neutrality repeal act of
November 17, 1941. Their
great importance lay in their
demonstration that in the heart of
41 Members
of congress notable for isolationist speeches included Ohio's Taft,
Michigan's Vandenberg, Wisconsin's
LaFollette, Missouri's Clark, North Dakota's Nye,
?d New York's Fish, all Republicans.
42 Those
opposing aid, to varying degrees and for varying periods of time, in-
cluded such disparate elements as: the
Women's International League for Peace and
Freedom and about thirty other women's
isolationist groups, the National Council
or Prevention of War, World Peaceways,
Citizen's Keep America Out of War
Congress, No Foreign War Committee,
Anti-War Mobilization Committee, Silver
Shirts, Grey Shirts, KuKluxers, and
Bundists. Some personalities in these groups
?eappear as active supporters of the
Red-Hunt of 1950-53 and as detractors of
the United Nations.
138 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
America unity did not reside. Other
governments must deal with a
hobbled American diplomacy.
The Committee to Defend America by
Aiding the Allies was
set up in May of 1940, largely under
eastern auspices.43 White was
persuaded to chairman it. A
representative list of nation-wide
notables accepted membership as a
starter, and by November there
were 753 local chapters scattered over
all the states, with about
10,000 active workers and a chest of
$230,000. Regional offices
were in Chicago, Boston, Chapel Hill,
and San Francisco; main
headquarters were in New York because
most of the active, executive
leadership came from the Atlantic
seaboard. White, however,
kept scrupulous oversight of projects,
releases, and many of the other
techniques, which were employed under
the supervision of a
continuously resident executive
chairman, Clark Eichelberger, who
worked closely with White.
To negative the so-called "White
Committee," McCormick
suggested a "Save America First
Committee."44 In July a group of
successful, conservative businessmen of
the Chicago environs--at
one in their hatred of the New Deal and
their fear of any ex-
pansion in Roosevelt's powers--began to
set up the "America First
Committee." They chose General
Robert E. Wood, a Kansas-born
Democrat risen to headship of Sears
Roebuck, as chairman and
won their own representative list of
notables as sponsors. The
papers of America First are said to be
sealed in the Hoover Library,
and exact data seem unobtainable, but
they seem to have developed
some 500 semi-autonomous chapters and
affiliates, very loosely
43 For
authentic details on the White committee, see Johnson, William Allen
White's America, 524-554.
44 An early analysis of this group is an
M.A. thesis presented at Emory University
in 1942 by M. Burns Stanley, "The
America First Committee: A Study in Recent
American Non-Interventionism."
Stanley's narrative is based largely on a file of the
bulletins issued by the Chicago
headquarters of America First (loaned to Stanley by
General Wood), on correspondence with
the majority of the national committeement
of America First, and on personal
contacts with people who knew the organization
intimately; more than 750 bulletins were
issued January 15-early December 1941
There is now in press at the University
of Wisconsin a 1951 Ph.D. thesis by Wayne
S. Cole, "The Battle Against
Intervention: A History of the America First Com
mittee"; some of his findings were
embodied in "The America First Committee,
Journal of the Illinois State
Historical Society, XLIV (1951),
305-322. The writer o?
this article is happy to acknowledge the
loan of Mr. Stanley's thesis and the receip
of a helpful letter from Mr. Cole.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 139
held together. Apparently they enjoyed
much bigger financing
than they admitted. Their state
organizations seem to have
functioned best in Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, and
Indiana, with Iowa and Michigan also
important. They had perhaps
1,000,000 members, centering in the
Middle West, on the Pacific
Coast, and in the New York area, with
the South largely un-
represented. The New York chapter was
second only to Chicago
in membership.45
America First was run mainly by a staff
of professional propa-
gandists-working in the Chicago office
and a Washington
"Research Bureau"-whose skill
made the organization largely
responsible for the strength of the
isolationist campaign. They staged
innumerable mass-meetings and emitted a
constant flow of reports,
propaganda, general information, and
exhortations to pressure,
cleverly using name-calling,
card-stacking, and band-wagon tech-
niques. Although no congressmen appear
to have joined officially,
there was very close cooperation with
the most active isolationist
senators and representatives. The
Washington research bureau kept
a nice correlation between the supply
of speech material for legis-
lators and the supply of franked
envelopes and postcards for
America First. Assiduous watchfulness
over the "Hill" and the
White House ensured that the heat would
be turned on at strategic
junctures.
Both committees got into trouble
through their conglomerate
membership. In America First, fascist,
New-Deal-hating, Bundist,
hyphenate, subversive, and anti-Semitic
elements tended to frighten
away the initial contingent of liberal,
neutralist, pacifist, and non-
partisan respectables. Support from Father
Coughlin's anti-British,
fascistic Social Justice group
proved embarrassing; his anti-Semitism
45 The New York chapter of America
First, organized by John T. Flynn, who
was an Irish opponent of international bodies, gave the
New York Times (January
28, 1941), a listing of initial
membership, which included such respectables
as Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Archibald
B. Roosevelt, and Amos Pinchot. The
variety of its clientele is indicated in
Chester Bowles, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh,
and Irvin S. Cobb, members at one time
and another. Very useful to America First
were the activities of President Robert
M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago,
although he refused to consider himself
an associate of the committee, or of the
isolationists. Rogers, "Isolationist
Propaganda," 143; Stanley, "The America First
Committee," 23, 40, 41, 57.
140
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
and a Lindbergh speech interpreted as
anti-Semitic caused many
resignations. Next to war, the leaders
most hated Roosevelt, and
plans for entering the political arena
jeopardized unity.
Within the Committee to Defend America
by Aiding the Allies
there developed a schism most revealing
of the Middle West pre-
dicament in the age-old basic conflict
between interventionism and
isolationism. Under the leadership of
Francis P. Miller a so-called
"Century group" early emerged
in New York, and on June 9, 1941,
issued a call for an American
declaration of war. Six of the thirty
signers of this call were members of
the executive body of the White
committee. They strove to advance the
committee from a position
sympathetic to Britain to one of actual
belligerency.46
This flouted the position of White and
the vast majority of
Americans, who as late as the end of
1940 clung desperately to
the hope that the United States need
not approach nearer to war
in order to save England from defeat.
The schism came to a head
after the national organization issued,
November 26 and December
7, 1940, two obliquely worded policy
statements which implied,
but did not explicitly state,
endorsement of the sending of convoys
and outright repeal of the neutrality
act. Accusations became rife
that the White committee took these
positions and, ergo, admitted
a concealed war objective.
Thereupon White wrote a letter to Roy
Howard of the Scripps-
Howard chain, and allowed it to be
broadcast through the press,
explicitly denying these allegations.
He aimed to refute the charges,
to make his own position clear, and to
serve notice on the Century
group and the eastern wing of the
committee that the committee
"should not move too fast for
opinion in the Middle West."47
Lindbergh, Wood, and other America
Firsters capitalized on the
rift in the committee, and to its
national headquarters came protests
from all over the country against
White's position, including some
resignations. The executive committee
could not budge White from
his position. He had "always felt
on the defensive about New
46 The schism in the White group is
detailed in Johnson, Battle Against Isolation,
170-205; it was symptomatic of the
national schism as Americans strove to keep in
their laws a neutrality they no longer
felt in their hearts.
47 Ibid., 183.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 141
York"; he believed that it thought
"it was the whole country"
and that the New York committee people
failed "to realize that
the temper of the people in the Middle
West was different from
that in the East."48 He
withdrew from the committee. His in-
transigeance was fortified by the fact
that he received as many
telegraphic endorsements from the
Middle West as criticisms from
New York City. He had no confusion on
the moral issue. As his
biographer Johnson explained, "It
was only the legal barrier which
he could not hurdle, and which he felt
that the Middle West did
not wish to tear down ... and White was
not ahead of the Middle
West."49
In the battle between America First and
the White committee
the press was a valued weapon. Over the
nation as a whole, press
endorsement went more to White's
committee than to the Chicago
group, because editors tended to become
more sympathetic to inter-
vention than to isolationism. But what
America First lacked in
quantity it made up in virulence, with
the doughty Colonel
McCormick, his cousin Robert Patterson
of the New York Daily
News, Hearst, and (for a time) Roy Howard of the
Scripps-Howard
chain firing the heaviest salvos.
McCormick's Tribune did an out-
standing job with slanted news, smear
cartoons, and all the other
ingenious techniques which a very
highly skilled staff under un-
compromising dictation can devise.
Equally continuous ingenuity
and ruthlessness were not demonstrated
by the other leading
isolationist editors, for various
reasons. It should be noted that
the isolationist organ with the biggest
circulation, Patterson's
New York Daily News, greatly jumped its sales by joining the
isolationist ranks.
It is significant that such widely
circulated magazines as the
Saturday Evening Post and the Reader's Digest were anti-interven-
tionist. Of the two the latter was the
more important because of
48 Ibid., 197. The concept of
White as midwest Lochinvar was still strong eight
years after his death; novelist Kenneth
Davis, writing on "Wit and Wisdom by
Will White" (New York Times Magazine, April
20, 1952), recalled, "He made
us rural Kansans seem respectable in our
own eyes, if not actually superior, when
measured against 'city slickers.'"
49 Ibid., 205. Johnson proffers further explanation that
"White back in the Middle
West by December was no longer as
conscious of the gravity of the situation as
he had been when he was in the East." Ibid., 178.
142 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
its special emphasis upon appeal to
ordinary readers; both the
owner of the Digest and her
husband, the co-editor, had Middle
West backgrounds with missionary
overtones. The most widely read
Protestant paper, the Christian
Century, published in the Middle
West, also supported isolationism
vigorously,50 as did most of the
Catholic periodicals. In the radio
field expert local propaganda
completely overshadowed short wave.51
Such was the nature of the propaganda
and pressures emanating
from America Firsters, captained in
Chicago, and from their allies
and opponents. While the
non-interventionists fought their losing
fight against the course of world
events, America Firsters at every
defeat gloried in postponements and
limitations. Their bulletins,
citing Roosevelt's sensitivity to mail,
continually claimed credit for
moderating his speeches and forcing his
actions into roundabout
channels, and he admitted their
hindrance.52 They kept in question
the weight of public opinion, and this
question restricted the
administration far more than any
limitations written into law. The
chronicle of their achievements was
written between July of 1940
and December 1941, while uncertainties
and mounting dread were
moving a majority of a divided nation
toward a belief that British
defeat spelt American calamity.
The major party platforms of 1940,
written against the back-
ground of Dunkirk and the fall of
Paris, both admitted the need
to extend material aid to victims of
aggression and stressed national
defense; they were more anti-war than
isolationist. But the qualified
endorsement of Democratic diplomacy
expressed by the Republican
standard-bearer--Wendell Willkie of
Indiana influenced by White
50 Most of the Catholic periodicals were
anti-British, isolationist, and strongly
attracted to fascism as a counterweight
to communism. Rogers thinks their influence
small; he considers the liberal,
non-interventionist Christian Century more in-
fluential. "Isolationist
Propaganda," 83-85, 162-163. On the influence of the Reader's
Digest, see Bailey, The Man in the Street, 312-313, and
James P. Wood, Magazines
in the United States (New York, 1949), 203, 304.
51 The high temperature and skill of
printed and radio propaganda in America,
on both sides, made any foreign-based
propaganda seem tepid, inept, and unneeded.
The Middle West did not get good
short-wave reception. See Harwood Child and
J. B. Whitton, Propaganda by Short
Wave (Princeton, N.J., 1942).
52 Stanley, "The America First
Committee," 85-86, 210-259. Roosevelt's intro-
duction to the 1940 volume of his Public
Papers and Addresses, signed October 11,
1941, surveys some hindrances.
Columnists frequently and frankly commented on his
dilemma.
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 143
of Kansas53--was poles apart
from the virulent denunciations by
the Republican rank and file charging
that Roosevelt led down
the path toward war. So, Wheeler
managed to push into the
Democratic platform a pledge not to
send forces outside the
Americas "except in case of
attack,"54 and Roosevelt had to press
his campaign on the plane that the
Republicans hindering re-
armament were "playing politics
with national security." He selected
for vice presidential candidate, Henry
Wallace of Iowa, who under-
stood that he was to counter midwest
German appeasement
clamor.55
By September 2, 1940, during the
desperate "Battle for Britain"
and much activity among the Committee
to Defend America by
Aiding the Allies, public opinion
rather pushed Roosevelt into
consummating and announcing the
destroyer-bases deal;56 it ex-
pressed the popular hope to avoid war
by aiding Britain. After his
reelection (by a tally of approximately
27,000,000 to 22,000,000),
Roosevelt resolved to put this
principle to the test; at year's end
he called upon Americans to rally
behind the "Four Freedoms"
and to endorse lend-lease in
self-defense.
The nation, like the Republicans,
divided, with Willkie endorsing
lend-lease while Taft, Hoover, and
Landon opposed it. Isolationists
attained the peak of their activity,
pouring several million protests
upon Washington, although Gallup polls
reported Roosevelt's
popularity rising to 72%. At any rate,
the coalition of conservative
southern Democrats with the Republicans
did not hold enough to
prevent lend-lease from becoming law
March 11, 1941.57
After a $7,000,000,000 appropriation
bill went through (March
14) to implement lend-lease, America
First devoted itself to fighting
use of convoys; on these a New York
Times editorial of April 26
53 Willkie to Walter Johnson, May 13,
1941, cited in Johnson, Battle Against
Isolation, 249.
54 Wheeler credited this pledge to
efforts of the National Council for Prevention of
War and the Women's International League
for Peace and Freedom. John W. Masland,
"The Peace Groups Join
Battle," Public Opinion Quarterly, IV (1940), 665.
55 Russell Lord, The Wallaces
of Iowa (Boston, 1947), 475-476.
56 Langer and Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 770-776.
57 Rogers, "Isolationist Propaganda," 23, 157-158; Johnson, Battle
Against
Isolation, 209.
The administration decided to let the opposition talk itself out,
to end their role of persecuted martyrs.
144
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
declared that Roosevelt again lagged
behind the nation.58 However,
a late extension of military training
enacted August 12 passed the
house by but one vote, just two days
before Roosevelt and Churchill
proclaimed the Atlantic Charter. Repeal
of remaining neutrality
legislation--so as to permit arming of
United States vessels and
sailing them into belligerent
ports--was not secured until November
17, and the vote (house, 212-194;
senate, 50-37) testified anew to
the longevity of disunity.
* * *
From the foregoing it seems clear that
the Middle West could
not escape sharing with other
Americans, and indeed with the
people of other countries, a condition
of domestic and international
confusion. No people enjoyed a clear
view of their own horizons
or proved able to glimpse more than a
part of others' horizons.
The Roosevelt administration suffered
confusions of its own
which helped to compound obstacles to
consistent pursuit of long-
range planning. Roosevelt's confusion
was aggravated by a tendency
to overestimate isolationist influence
upon senate action. The super-
imposition of nation-wide confusion
upon administration confusion
and upon confusion in other countries,59
perforce throws some doubt
upon the charge of predominant,
personal responsibility for Amer-
ican involvement which some
isolationists and revisionists fain
would attach to Franklin D. Roosevelt
for all time. On this the
president's frequent lack of candor
(itself partly inspired by fear
of "McCormickism") serves him
ill, but the extreme propaganda
techniques proudly owned by those
critics who were inspired by
partisan and (or) fascistic motives,
have had the boomerang effect
of bolstering somewhat his higher
repute in history.
Some of the people who have spent much
time in measuring
these movements report that they think
the influence of one group
tended to cancel out that of the other.
They suggest that the
achievements of either group--in
"converting" members of the
58
The New York Times reported May 6 that the Japan Times Advertiser (Japan's
foreign office organ) was citing
America's "disunity and interior strife"; America
First Bulletin 317 (June 14,
1941) claimed that the organization had prevented
convoys, preserved neutrality, and kept
the United States out of war. Stanley, "The
America First Committee," 175-203.
59 Hull became thoroughly convinced of the debilitating influence of
isolationisn
both within and without governments. Memoirs,
I, 288; II, 943, 1104, 1297, 1734
The Middle West and the Coming of
World War II 145
other--could not well be outstanding;
their conversion effectiveness
probably did not go far beyond (a)
increasing the intensity of
their own adherents and (b) decreasing
the intensity of the weakest
factions in the principal opposition
camp. The overall course of
events, as observed by that majority of
Americans who wished to be
neither outright interventionist nor
outright isolationist, especially
between September 3, 1939, and December
7, 1941, had far more
influence than the propagandists.
The energetic, skillful, unremitting
activities of the isolationist
wing of the American people, centering
around Chicago, con-
tributed to at least three major
achievements of dubious worth.
They retarded certain broad defense
preparations although de-
manding midcontinent defense, thus
making the United States more
vulnerable to the ultimate attack. They
slowed appreciably the pace
of aid to Hitler's opponents and
affected its kind, thus failing to
toughen by this much the obstructions
in his path. Most important,
they encouraged Hitler to base his
plans upon an underestimate of
ultimate American interventionism, a
miscalculation which increased
his momentum. These were not picayune
effects; altogether, they
vastly multiplied the difficulties of
Hitler's defeat.
It must not be forgotten, however, that
these same isolationists
made at least two constructive
contributions, though not quite as
intended. They helped to obstruct
formal entrance into World
War II until enemy bombing of United
States territory gave the
administration a nation united in
support of the war effort. More
important, the fury of their fight with
the interventionists hastened
the death of isolationism in the purest
sense; for the "joint
debate" did much to end public
indifference on diplomatic issues.60
Thenceforward, that American would be
rare indeed who did not
form and vehemently hold opinions as to
the optimum course of
diplomatic policy. Whether such
opinion, often ill-informed and
hasty, makes for wise diplomacy is
debatable. At least as an exercise
in democratic functioning it is in the
American tradition, and the
Middle West has had no small part in
animating it.
60 Stanley ("The America First Committee," 401-403) and some
magazine writers
attribute to America First additional
achievements to which this writer is reluctant
to subscribe.
THE MIDDLE WEST AND THE COMING OF
WORLD WAR II*
by JEANNETTE
P. NICHOLS
Such a topic as "The Middle West
and the Coming of World
War II" admits the premise that
public opinion in a particular
section of a nation can importantly
affect the foreign policy of the
central government, particularly in a
country run on the repre-
sentative principle. This premise has
received endorsement re-
peatedly in the history of the United
States and other countries,
and especially among historians of
foreign policy and of the
Middle West; fairly recent
illustrations include treatment of "The
Significance of the Mississippi Valley
in American Diplomatic
History, 1686-1890" by Richard W.
Van Alstyne; and "The
Mississippi Valley and American Foreign
Policy, 1890-1941: An
Assessment and an Appeal" by
Richard W. Leopold.1
Furthermore, the premise is illumined
by a larger, far more
important trend observable world-wide
in the twentieth century,
namely, the increasing influence of
internal political exigencies
upon selection of external policies. In
Britain and France, for
example, Prime Ministers Lloyd George,
MacDonald, Chamberlain.
Briand, and Laval cultivated the
growing habit of committing
their governments to important foreign
policies without due con
sultation with their ambassadors abroad
or diplomatic corps at
home. They allowed diplomatic reports
to lie unread, or rejected
amply demonstrating how badgered
politicians can grow overeage
to reach decisions in diplomacy.2 While
the factors affecting inter
national relationships have become
excessively complicated, difficult
*This and the preceding article by
Arthur S. Link were originally given as paper
in a joint session on "The Middle
West and the Coming of the Two World Wars
at the forty-fifth annual meeting of the
Mississippi Valley Historical Associatio
held at Chicago, April 17-19, 1952. It
has been revised and notes and documentatio
added.
1 Published, respectively, in the Mississippi
Valley Historical Review, XXXV
(1949-50), 215-238; XXXVII (1950-51),
625-642.
2 A cogent summary of British and French
tendencies was provided by Gordo
Craig in "The Professional Diplomat
and His Problems, 1919-1939," a paper rea
before the American Historical Association
at its 1951 meeting.
122