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?
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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?
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