Interwar DBQ

Interwar DBQ

Doc A 

Warren G. Harding 

Landslide victory: 1) not a Democrat; 2) “looked like a President” (“front porch campaign”) 

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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 

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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 

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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 

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“constitutional integrity…independence of action” United Nations, World Trade Organization, NATO International Criminal Court

Doc B  

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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 

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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   

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(’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 

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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  

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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 

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FDR supported: “universal sense of relief”

Spanish Civil War: 1936-1939; Republicans/Loyalists (USSR-backed; Abraham Lincoln Brigade) vs. Nationalists (Fascists)

Doc H  

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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