Roosevelt quietly provided limited military support as well. With pressure from Roosevelt, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941, authorizing the president to lend war supplies to nations whose defense he deemed vital to American security. In a nationwide radio broadcast, he asserted that the best policy for keeping the United States out of war was to become “the arsenal of democracy,” extending full matériel support to the Allies. Roosevelt began sending the imperiled island nation tanks, warplanes, food, and ammunition. Once France fell to Hitler in June 1940, Great Britain was the only remaining unconquered country in the world still at war with Hitler. The president also gave the British 50 surplus US destroyers in return for leases on small patches of British territory in the Western Hemisphere. This allowed the British to buy American goods as long as they paid up front and transported them in their own ships. In November 1939, he convinced lawmakers to allow American manufacturers to sell arms and supplies to belligerent nations on a cash-and-carry basis. As Hitler began his march of conquest, Roosevelt searched for ways to aid the Allies without violating American neutrality. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected in 1933, was convinced, however, that America would eventually have to take a stand against Nazi Germany. An influential bipartisan group of congressmen supported this position. The United States would be fighting an enemy more prepared for war than it was, and Nazi Germany, the anti-interventionists insisted, posed no direct threat. Anti-intervention organizations like the America First Committee featured renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh and popular radio priest Father Charles Coughlin to convince the public that American military involvement in the European war was both unnecessary and dangerous. Hitler’s invasion of Poland shook but did not shatter America’s commitment to isolationism. “Our own troubles are so numerous and so difficult,” said Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, “that we have neither the time or inclination to meddle in the affairs of others.” To prevent the United States from being drawn into future foreign wars, Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts banning American citizens from trading with nations at war, loaning them money, or traveling on their ships. Millions of families were still out of work due to the Great Depression, while the darkening situation abroad reinforced the idea that it would be unwise for America to intervene in international conflicts where vital national interests were not at stake. Most Americans hoped their government would stay focused on domestic problems. None of these developments directly threatened the United States, but they did raise an important question: Under what conditions would the United States respond to world events? In 1935, dictator Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia with the aim of establishing a new Italian empire. Adolf Hitler assumed power in 1933 and began rebuilding the German military in violation of his nation’s post-World War I treaty obligations. In 1931, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria and ignored a League of Nations resolution to withdraw. The country’s isolationist mood did not change markedly through the 1920s and early 1930s, but conflicts in Europe and Asia tested America’s determination to steer clear of foreign troubles. The nation didn’t need heroics, he declared. Harding promised to keep the nation’s foreign policy focused tightly on American interests. Harding in the 1920 presidential election. Voters then registered their disapproval of Wilson’s diplomatic initiative by choosing the isolationist Republican Warren G. President Woodrow Wilson wanted the United States to help keep the peace in Europe, but the US Congress blocked his attempt to have America join the recently created League of Nations. Over 200,000 American soldiers were killed or wounded. When World War I ended in 1918, the American public was eager to reduce the country’s involvement in world affairs. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum, 48-22:3626(56). Primary Image: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet aboard the HMS Prince of Wales during the Atlantic Conference, August 10, 1941.
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