Task
Use details from the sources below to support your ideas.
Please remember:
Despite everything, the United States remained neutral until the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.
What were the reasons Americans had for remaining neutral? Were these good reasons? |
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A. |
The excerpt below is written by Bennett Champ Clark, a Democratic Senator from Missouri from 1932 to 1945. The legislation he refers to is the Neutrality Act of 1935, which banned the sale of arms and munitions to any nation at war. This article appeared in Harper’s Magazine in December 1935.
"At the present the desire to keep the United States from becoming involved in any war between foreign nations seems practically unanimous among the rank and file of American citizens; but it must be remembered there was an almost equally strong demand to keep us out of the last war. In August, 1914, few could have conceived that America would be dragged into a European conflict in which we had no original part and the ramifications of which we did not even understand. Even as late as November, 1916, President Wilson was reelected because he "kept us out of war." Yet five months later we were fighting to "save the world for democracy" in the "war to end war."
In the light of that experience, and in the red glow of war fires burning in the old countries, it is high time we gave some thought to the hard, practical question of just how we propose to stay out of present and future international conflicts. No one who has made an honest attempt to face the issue will assert that there is an easy answer. But if we have learned anything at all, we know the inevitable and tragic end to a policy of drifting and trusting to luck. We know that however strong is the will of the American people to refrain from mixing in other people’s quarrels, that will can be made effective only if we have a sound, definite policy from the beginning.... As a result of these studies, Senator [Gerald P.] Nye [Republican of North Dakota, cosponsor of the resolution] and I introduced the three proposals for neutrality legislation which were debated so vigorously in the last session of the Congress. Senator Nye and I made no claims then, and make none now, that the neutrality proposals will provide an absolute and infallible guarantee against our involvement in war. But we do believe that the United States can stay out of war if it wants to, and if its citizens understand what is necessary to preserve our neutrality…. " |
C. |
The excerpt below is from an address to the Senate by Tom Connally (D-TX), August 24, 1935. Senator Connally was debating the passage of the Neutrality Act of 1935.
"Is it an expression of neutrality to say to two warring nations, one of which has ambitions for territorial conquest, the other unprepared, the other weak, the other trying to pursue its own destiny—is it neutral to say to those nations, "We shall give arms to neither of you," thereby insuring the triumph of the prepared nation, the covetous nation, the ambitious nation, the nation which seeks by force of arms to impose its will on a weaker and defenseless nation?
Mr. President, that is not neutrality; that is a form of unneutrality. That is a form of declaration which announces that the United States will take the side of the strong and powerful against the weak, the unprepared, and the defenseless. Why not leave that determination to the President of the United States when and if, in his conduct of our foreign relations, it becomes a sound American policy for him to take a position in a crisis of that kind? We cannot now put the United States into an international strait jacket and thereby keep out of war. We cannot by an act of Congress put the United States into a concrete cast internationally which will fit all future occasions and solve all future problems." |
D. |
The video below includes excerpts from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fireside chat of December 29, 1940.
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G. |
The song below, the Ballad of October 16th, was published in November 1941, before the Pearl Harbor attack. It was written by Millard Lampell and refers to the peacetime draft of 1940.
Lyrics:
It was on a Saturday night and the moon was shining bright They passed the conscription bill And the people they did say for many miles away 'Twas the President and his boys on Capitol Hill. CHORUS: Oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt We damned near believed what he said He said, "I hate war, and so does Eleanor But we won't be safe 'till everybody's dead." When my poor old mother died I was sitting by her side A-promising to war I'd never go. But now I'm wearing khaki jeans and eating army beans And I'm told that J. P. Morgan loves me so, I have wandered over this land, a roaming working man No clothes to wear and not much food to eat. But now the government foots the bill Gives me clothes and feeds me swill Gets me shot and puts me underground six feet. CHORUS Why nothing can be wrong if it makes our country strong We got to get tough to save democracy. And though it may mean war We must defend Singapore This don't hurt you half as much as it hurts me. CHORUS |