With the United States on the sidelines, German forces marched toward victory. By the spring of 1940, German armies had launched a Blitzkrieg (lightning war) across Europe, defeating and occupying Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. With German victories mounting, committed opponents of American involvement in foreign wars organized the America First Committee. America First tapped into the feeling of isolationism and concern among a diverse group of Americans who did not want to get dragged into another foreign war. The greatest challenge to isolationism occurred in June 1940 when France fell to the German onslaught and Nazi troops marched into Paris. Britain now stood virtually alone, and its position seemed tenuous. The British had barely succeeded in evacuating their forces from France by sea when the German Luftwaffe (air force) began a bombing campaign on London and other targets in the Battle of Britain. The surrender of France and the Battle of Britain drastically changed Americans' attitude toward entering the war. Before Germany invaded France, 82 percent of Americans thought that the United States should not aid the Allies. After France's defeat, in a complete turnaround, some 80 percent of Americans favored assisting Great Britain in some way. However, four out of five Americans polled opposed immediate entry into the war. As a result, the politically astute Roosevelt portrayed all U.S. assistance to Britain as a way to prevent American military intervention by allowing Great Britain to defeat the Germans on its own. Nevertheless, the Roosevelt administration found acceptable ways of helping Britain. On September 2, 1940, the president sent fifty obsolete destroyers to the British in return for leases on British naval bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British West Indies. Two weeks later, on September 16, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Selective Service Act, the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history, which quickly registered more than 16 million men. This political maneuvering came as Roosevelt campaigned for an unprecedented third term in 1940. He defeated the Republican Wendell Willkie, a Wall Street lawyer who shared Roosevelt's anti-isolationist views. However, both candidates accommodated voters' desire to stay out of the European war, and Roosevelt went so far as to promise American parents: "Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war." Roosevelt's campaign promises did not halt the march toward war. Roosevelt succeeded in pushing Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. With Britain running out of The Challenge to Isolationism As Europe drifted toward war, public opinion polls revealed that most Americans wanted to stay out of any European conflict. The president, however, thought it likely that, to protect its own economic and political interests, the United States would eventually need to assist the Western democracies. Still, Roosevelt had to tread lightly in the face of the Neutrality Acts that Congress had passed between 1935 and 1937 and overwhelming public opposition to American involvement in Europe. Germany's aggression in Europe eventually led to full-scale war. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany and Italy. Just before the invasion, the Soviet Union had signed a nonaggression agreement with Germany, which carved up Poland between the two nations and permitted the USSR to occupy the neighboring Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had few illusions about Hitler's ultimate design on his own nation, but he concluded that by signing this pact he could secure his country's western borders and buy additional time. (In June 1941 the Germans broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union.) Roosevelt responded to the outbreak of war by reaffirming U.S. neutrality. Despite his sympathy for the Allies, which most Americans had come to share, the president stated his hope that the United States could stay out of the war: "Let no man or woman thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America sending its armies to European fields." SAVE OUR SONS AVE UR CONVOYS NO WAR DEATH FOR AMERICAN BOYS AMERICA FIRST COMMITTEE HELP US OUR FIGHT JOIN her са се America First Committee Rally, 1941 Organized in 1940, the America First Committee campaigned against U.S. entry into World War II. Led by isolationists such as North Dakota senator Gerald Nye and the popular aviator Charles Lindbergh, the group blamed eastern bankers, British sympathizers, and Jewish leaders for promoting war fever. The committee dissolved soon Explore See Document 23.1 for a Japanese American perspective on the bombing of Pearl Harbor. REVIEW & RELATE How did American public opinion shape Roosevelt's foreign policy in the years preceding U.S. entry into World War II? What events in Europe and the Pacific ultimately brought the United States into World War II? GUIDED ANALYSIS Monica Sone | Memories of Pearl Harbor Few Americans would forget where they were or how they felt when they first learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The following document describes the experience of Monica Sone, a Nisei who was a student at the University of Washington in December 1941. Sone and her family were eventually placed in an internment camp in Idaho. Document 23.1 On a peaceful Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Henry, Sumi, and I were at choir rehearsal singing ourselves hoarse in preparation for the annual Christmas recital of Handel's "Messiah." Suddenly Chuck Mizuno, a young University of Washington student, burst into the chapel, gasping as if he had sprinted all the way up the stairs. "Listen, everybody!" he shouted. "Japan just bombed Pearl Harbor ... in Hawaii. It's war!" The terrible words hit like a blockbuster, paralyzing us. Then we smiled feebly at each other, hoping this was one of Chuck's practical jokes. Miss Hara, our music director, rapped her baton impatiently on the music stand and chided him, "Now Chuck, fun's fun, but we have work to do. Please take your place. You're already half an hour late." But Chuck strode vehemently back to the door. "I mean it, folks, honest! I just But Chuck strode vehemently back to the door. "I mean it, folks, honest! I just heard the news over my car radio. Reporters are talking a blue streak. Come on down and hear it for yourselves." ... I felt as if a fist had smashed my pleasant little existence, breaking it into jigsaw puzzle pieces. An old wound opened up again, and I found myself shrinking inwardly from my Japanese blood, the blood of an enemy. I knew instinctively that the fact that I was an American by birthright was not going to help me escape the consequences of this unhappy war. One girl mumbled over and over again, "It can't be, God, it can't be!" Someone else was saying, "What a spot to be in! Do you think we'll be considered Japanese or Americans?" A boy replied quietly, "We'll be Japs, same as always. But our parents are enemy aliens now, you know." A shocked silence followed. Source: Monica Sone, Nisei Daughter (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 145–46. • What does this tell you about Sone's relationship to the United States? • Why was she worried? Why did Monica and her friends think they would not be treated as Americans? Put It in Context What does the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II indicate about constitutional guarantees of civil liberties during wartime? Swipe to turn pages - T-Mobile 4:38 PM @ 1 32% Back How to Read a pri... How+to+Read+a+primary+source HOW TO READ A PRIMARY SOURCE (with thanks to the major author, Prof. Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College) Good reading is about asking questions of your sources. Keep the following in mind when reading primary sources. Even if you believe you can't arrive at the answers, imagining possible answers will aid your comprehension. *What patterns or ideas are repeated throughout the readings? *What major differences appear in them? *What values and fundamental assumptions underlie their content? *What is the author's place in society? Even if I don't know her or his place in society, what could it be, based on the document? *What is "at stake" for the author of the text? What could have motivate her or him to write it? Describe what you think is the purpose of this document. *Is the author reliable? Is the author credible? Is the author neutral towards the subject? Is the author biased? What evidence supports your contentions? What is the tone of this document: angry? wistful? ironic?... or? *What in the document can I consider historical "fact"? What can I consider the author's "interpretation"? What can I actually know for sure about the past based on this document? *If I were a contemporary of the author, how might I react to the document? Would I be sympathetic? Antagonistic? How might my reaction to the content change, depending on my place in society? *How do the ideas and values in the source differ from the ideas and values of my own age? *What are my own preconceptions and assumptions regarding the subject of the source? How do they influence the way I read and evaluate the document? *How might a scholar use this document to support her or his arguments? What kinds of arguments might this document support? *What problems might a scholar encounter in using this source? Does the source represent a common experience or a unique circumstance? *If a historian used this source, what sorts of criticism might other historians offer? **HOW DOES THIS DOCUMENT RELATE TO WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM THE LECTURES AND THE TEXT? Does it support or contradict what I have read or heard? What can the context I have learned tell me about this document, and vice versa? 1 of 1 2 ||| Dashboard Calendar To Do Notifications Inbox
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