In a World of Dictatorships

HIS 187

HIS 187
Author

Eric Rauchway

Published

October 23, 2024

Back toward internationalism

  • World Economic Conference (London), 1933

  • Keynes-Roosevelt proposal

  • Exchange Stabilization Fund

    • loans to Mexico, China, France

  • Reciprocal Tariff Act, 1934

  • Three-Party Agreement, 1936

    • US, UK, France

Stimson conference, 1/9/33

Message to France, 1/11/33

security . . . the certainty that a child born at this moment will not see war on French soil before his death . . . [and] do everything possible . . . to diminish the offensive position and strengthen the defensive position

Paul Claudel quoting Roosevelt

Message for Hearst, 1/11/33

The ‘Buy American’ policy is all right today, as is also the high tariff policy [but] in the long run it would work against us. . . . [FDR] disapproves of the ‘Buy American’ campaign as a long-term policy . . . it would stifle all our foreign trade and would promote the erection of insurmountable tariff walls in other countries against us.

Hearst representative quoting Roosevelt

Hitler is chancellor, 1/30/33

the accession of Hitler was a portent of evil for the United States. He would in the end challenge us because his black sorcery appealed to the worst in men; it supported their hates and ridiculed their tolerances; and it could not exist permanently in the same world with a system whose reliance on reason and justice was fundamental

Rexford Tugwell quoting Roosevelt

A new message for France, 2/18/33

The fate of Western civilization, says M. Roosevelt, is at stake if there is not effective cooperation established in the near future between the US, France, and Britain.

Paul Claudel

Hitler’s views of the United States, 1933

All Europe is moving toward a hard fate if American expansionist economic activity is not stopped somewhere and some time.

America has no choice but to wage an imperial policy all over the world. For the moment, Roosevelt hopes only to achieve ‘prosperity.’ But if he cannot make it come into being by peaceful means—and in this he will fail—then it can be coerced only by a war.

The natural process of selection has become an artificial one. The American Union strictly prescribes how a man must be constituted if he is to be admitted. What our bourgeois democracy does not understand is there prescribed by law.…If you want to mobilize Europe against this danger, you will … do it … only under the leadership of a state which acts consciously according to racial laws.

Internationalist outline, 1933

  • nonrecognition of aggressive conquest

  • discretionary embargo (refused)

  • effective cooperation with UK, France

  • rejection of Hearstian isolationism

Incremental action, 1933

  • German ambassador

  • Soviet recognition—with conditions: “to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the United States”

Shifts

  • nationalism -> internationalism

  • Monroe Doctrine -> good neighbor

  • Colonialism -> independence

    • Tydings–McDuffie (Philippine Independence) Act, 1934
    • Organic Act for the Virgin Islands, 1936

Neutrality Acts

  • 1935

    embargo and travel-at-risk provisions

  • 1936

    forbids loans or credits to belligerents

A world of dictatorships, 1936

Neutrality Acts

  • 1935

    embargo and travel-at-risk provisions

  • 1936

    forbids loans or credits to belligerents

  • 1937

    includes civil wars, but allows cash-and-carry

Chicago speech, 1937

The present reign of terror and international lawlessness began a few years ago. It began through unjustified interference in the internal affairs of other nations or the invasion of alien territory in violation of treaties, and has now reached a stage where the very foundations of civilization are seriously threatened. The landmarks and traditions which have marked the progress of civilization toward a condition of law, order and justice are being wiped away. . . .

It ought to be inconceivable that in this modern era . . . any nation could be so foolish and ruthless as to run the risk of plunging the whole world into war by invading and violating, in contravention of solemn treaties, the territory of other nations that have done them no real harm and are too weak to protect themselves adequately. Yet the peace of the world and the welfare and security of every nation, including our own, is today being threatened by that very thing.