Interwar DBQ
Doc A

Warren G. Harding

Landslide victory: 1) not a Democrat; 2) “looked
like a President” (“front porch campaign”)


Normalcy: tax cuts (“supply-side”),
immigration laws, Veterans Affairs,
emergency tariffs (Webb-Pomerene, Edge
Act 1922: Fordnay-McCumber Act:
protectionist, isolationist; “American selling
price”), reduce size gov’t


Vs. James Cox and FDR (Ass’y Sec’y Navy); pro-TofV
Abolish lynching: didn’t push
Teapot Dome: Wyoming oil sold (Albert Fall);
Harding know? dies suddenly
FDR and Trade



Sec’y Hull: protective tariffs= “king of evils” 1934:
Reciprocal Trade Agreements, Export-Import Bank
1934-1936: Nye Committee—merchants of death,
“rotten commercialism”
Good Neighbor Policy, 1933: Pan-Americanism,
noninterventionism; Mexico 1938

Trujillo (Dominican Republic): “He may be an S.O.B. but he
is our S.O.B.”; Somoza (Nicaragua); Bautista (Cuba)
Sovereignty



“constitutional integrity…independence of
action”
United Nations, World Trade Organization,
NATO
International Criminal Court
Doc B




Washington Naval Conference: Four-Power
Treaty; Five-Power Treaty; Nine-Power Treaty
Limit Japanese expansionism (Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere) and costs of naval arms
race (necessary if cut taxes and reduce debt)
Established naval ratios (US + Britain most,
then Japan, then France and Italy; Germany
covered by TofV)
1925: Locarno Pact; 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact
Doc C




Permanent Court of International Justice (World
Court): court of League of Nations; like US Supreme
Court, resolve conflicts states
Bank for International Settlements (International Bank):
1929; transfer German reparation payments;
coordinates central banks
“Our dollars are powerful”: international currency
1923: Germany defaults reparations occupation
Ruhr Dawes Plan (1924): reduce annual payments
dependence US loans Young Plan (1929): reduce
overall + extend reparation payments
Doc D




(’32) Stimson Doctrine: non-recognition territorial
change from force
October 1937: FDR “Quarantine Speech: economic
pressure (short of violence)
Panay Incident: 12 Dec 1937: Yangtze river patrol:
evacuates Americans from Nanking attacked by
Japanese planes (claimed didn’t see flags) apology +
indemnity
Allison Incident: 26 Jan 1938 consul in Nanking
embassy hit in face
Doc E
America First Committee: 1940; merger right- and leftwing anti-war activists [JFK, Norman Thomas
(Socialist Party), Charles Lindbergh, Sinclair Lewis,
E.E. Cummings, Walt Disney]
 Principles:
1) The United States must build an impregnable defense
for America.
2) No foreign power, nor group of powers, can
successfully attack a prepared America.
3) American democracy can be preserved only by
keeping out of the European war.
4) "Aid short of war" weakens national defense at
home and threatens to involve America in war abroad
1940 Republican Primaries: Robert Taft—oppose war to
stop extension socialism at home; most candidates
isolationist; Wendell Willkie (eventual candidate):
consistently argued need help Britain

Doc F



Executive agreements: “treaties” that do not
require ratification; implied
Constitution/Congressional statute (like
executive orders)
Dunkirk, Blitz, fear German invasion
Destroyers-for-Bases deal (1940): end run
Neutrality Acts (not sold); 99-year rent free
leases (a la Gitmo)
Doc G




Maginot Line
John Maynard Keynes, “Economic Consequences of the Peace,” 1920:
“The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of
degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a
whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable” calls
for loosening Versailles restrictions on Germany
Appeasement: 1931: Japan (League member) invades Manchuria ("Their
inactivity and ineffectualness in the Far East lent every encouragement
to European aggressors who planned similar acts of defiance.”); 1935:
Abyssinia Crisis; 1936: remilitarization Rhineland; 1938: Munich
Agreement (Sudatenland): “peace in our time” encourages Hitler
(would have backed down)
Anschluss: 1938-unification Germany and Austria; Munich


FDR supported: “universal sense of relief”
Spanish Civil War: 1936-1939; Republicans/Loyalists (USSR-backed;
Abraham Lincoln Brigade) vs. Nationalists (Fascists)
Doc H



Neutrality Acts: cash-and-carry
Lend-Lease: March 1941: $31.4 billion to
Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2
billion to France and $1.6 billion to China (1941
dollars; $700 B in 2007)
3rd term “mandate”
USSR out