The US History after 1877 - Assignment Example

US History The majority of the American public believed that America’s involvement in the First World War was a mistake and were fearful that the U.S. would be drawn into the developing conflict in Europe. This sentiment led to Congress passing and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the 1935, 1937, and 1939 Neutrality Acts. The 1935 Act banned shipments of military arms to hostile nations and went further by disallowing government loans to these nations when amended in 1936. At the time Roosevelt proclaimed that he could not foresee the U.S. abandoning its neutral position. The Act was revised in 1937 to include any civil wars within nations. Roosevelt and Congress were again acting on public sentiment which favored U.S. neutrality during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). (1) Though the Neutrality Acts were intended to keep the U.S. from becoming involved either militarily or financially in foreign conflicts, in 1939, the Act was again revised to allow the sale of armaments to nations of the President’s choosing. It also prohibited American ships from entering areas of conflict and its citizens from sailing on the vessels of aggressive nations. Roosevelt had been receiving pressure from France and Great Britain to supply munitions so as to aid their efforts in repelling the German advance through Europe. Roosevelt convinced Congress that allowing these transactions would help keep the war in Europe and warned that if this action were not taken, Nazi Germany would attack the U.S. after conquering Europe. In addition, the sale would provide a much needed boost to the U.S. economy which was still in the midst of the Great Depression. 2. Following World War I, many American’s wanted to forget about the chaos that the war had brought both to the young men who went ‘over there’ and their everyday lives as well. A desire to return to the lifestyle of the ‘good old days’ that existed prior to the war was prevalent, an era that existed predominantly in people’s imagination. Those groups who had pushed for enacting ‘morality laws’ before and during the war could now further their agenda without the existence of a war occupying the public and politicians’ attention. The nation wanted a return to ‘normalcy,’ a phrase used by President Warren G. Harding in 1921 during the inaugural address. This meant a return to the fundamentalist Christian values, the ‘old time religion’ type of environment generally associated with lifestyles of those in small communities. The redefining of what it was to be an American included a fear of foreigners and a desire to strengthen the racial divide. Leftist organizations such as labor unions and socialist political groups were considered threats to the American way of life. Revolutionary ideologies of any kind were not appreciated and seldom tolerated. Membership in the Ku Klux Klan surged during this period as did racial intolerance throughout the country. (2) 3. Historians view the 1920’s as a decade of cultural contradictions and conflict. Both optimism and cynicism were abundant among the people. The decade saw an increase and decrease of religious faith, many experienced prosperity while others remained desperately poor.  The majority of the people wanted to revert back to the America they knew prior to the war but enjoyed new inventions such as talking movies, automobiles, telephones, etc. while at the same time decrying their use. On the frontlines of the cultural battle were topics such as evolution, immigration, sexual morality, prohibition of alcohol, race relations and women’s liberation. The emergence of a consumer-driven, credit-based economy and the entertainment industry were two of the more noticeable indications of the changing society. The role of women was being redefined as were styles of dress and hair. The era also introduced a new sexual openness, a cultural awakening to some but not all. Fundamentalist Christian groups fought against what they interpreted as immoral which included modernist teachings that denied the literal interpretation of the Bible. The 1925 ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ exemplified this struggle. A school teacher was found guilty of breaking the law by teaching the theory of evolution. However, the famous trial turned out to be a tremendous success for modernists even though the teacher was convicted. The defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, put the prosecuting attorney, William Jennings Bryan, on the witness stand and forced him to admit under oath that the Bible could indeed not be taken literally. The modernists battled fundamentalists, prohibitionists battled drinkers and civil rights groups battled the Klan. For many Americans, these cultural changes were viewed as liberating, but for others the movement away from the nation’s Victorian-like morality was a step in the wrong direction. The rising consumer culture is credited with soothing the bitter tensions that had existed in the 1920’s. By decade’s end, the excitement that emanated from the opportunity to purchase time-saving appliances, auto’s and trendy new cloths diminished the overall significance of the cultural wars. (3) 4. The New Deal era in America had its beginnings in the 1920’s and officially spanned from 1933 until well into the 1960’s. Although this period is historically viewed as the beginning of modern liberalism, this period of reforms due to an economic catastrophe had no ideological regularities. The New Deal was successful only in creating a new economic predicament instead of bringing its touted prosperity. Despite extraordinary fundamental changes and reforms brought about by the New Deal, the economy had not accomplished levels of production that were present prior to the stock market crash. The working class was very dissatisfied as their standard of living had steadily declined. The national income per person in 1938 was also much less than it was in 1929. Unemployment was escalating and farmers faced a crisis of their own. The New Deal, while serving to save capitalism primarily by alterations within the government structure, internal alterations, was complemented by programs of domestic reform. From the early beginnings of the New Deal, the inclination to adhere to opposing forces and points of view were present within the Roosevelt administration. The internal contradictions and external pressures during reformations of the New Deal only served to negate the intended experiments regarding social development. After the failures of the New Deal, a predisposition for militarist conquests by industrialists sought to solve the economic troubles facing the American capitalist way of life by external measures thereby extending the capacity of its economic rule over other countries of the world. The militarist wing represented the outlook and interests of the big business, which proved to be the actual leaders of the United States under the guise of social reforms of the New Deal. (4) 5. In the beginning stages of the New Deal, the Supreme Court dealt Roosevelt’s plan to rebuild America several devastating blows. In 1935, it invalidated the Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy and National Industrial Recovery Acts. In 1936, the Court nullified the Municipal Bankruptcy Act, Agricultural Adjustment Act and Guffey Coal Act in addition to a minimum wage law enacted in New York, all of which were important aspects of the New Deal. Infuriated, Roosevelt was determined from that point on to restrain the Court’s powers. Following his landslide victory in 1936, Roosevelt used his political capital in this pursuit almost immediately. Two weeks after the 1937 inauguration, Roosevelt instructed the Democratically-controlled Congress to pass a bill that authorized him to select an additional Justice to the Court for those who passed 70 years of age but had not retired. This law would allow Roosevelt to add six Justices thus enlarging the Court from nine to fifteen. Opponents of this law, including many Democratic congressmen, referred to this tactic as ‘packing the court.’ Because the Court was now at the mercy of a president that could appoint all liberal justices and end the independence of the highest court in the land, it began conceding to his legislative wishes simply as a means of self-preservation. In March of 1937, the Court upheld revised versions of the National Firearms Act, the Frazier-Lemke Act and the Railway Labor Act in addition to a minimum wage law enacted by the State of Washington. Emboldened, Roosevelt introduced the Social Security Act which he knew wouldn’t pass the scrutiny of the Court because of the tremendous expansion of the federal government this would entail that the Constitution clearly opposes. However, the Court did not strike down the Act as it would have if not for Roosevelt’s threat to pack the court. (5) 6. Many hundreds of thousands of German prisoners who were taken by the Americans died by the hundreds of thousands in prison camps. Witnesses told of gaunt bodies wearing clothing smeared with diarrhea huddled in muddy holes with no shelter and perhaps a rotten potato to eat. Many had to eat grass and drink urine to survive. According to the American Red Cross, at least 98 percent of American prisoners in German prison camps survived but the West German government stated that more than one million German prisoners of war ‘disappeared’ which the Allies falsely blamed on the Soviet Union (6). The British bombing of Dresden towards the end of the war is widely acclaimed as a war crime. The cultural capital of Germany was filled with refugees trying to escape Allied bombing and was of no military value. This and the indiscriminant bombings of other German cities were in retaliation for the London bombings by the Germans. Further, the British bombed civilian targets in 1940, well before the London bombings and in 1943, Hamburg was bombed by the British, killing more than 50,000 citizens who were not soldiers (7). During the 1940’s the Soviet Union committed numerous atrocities including confiscating all Polish state and private property, four substantial and other deportations of Polish citizens to prisons and the massive arrests of those opposed to Soviet occupation. Stalin ordered the executions and arrests of tens of thousands of Polish underground members (8). German war crimes are well documented, the most egregious of which was the extermination of six million Jews. The Japanese treatment of prisoners is also well known including the Bataan and Sandakan Death March, the mass murder of Australian soldiers following their surrender and the murder of Americans captured at Midway. (9) 7. The allies were also victorious on several island campaigns including Iwo Jima, the Philippines and Okinawa in 1945. While the battles for the Philippines and Okinawa were taking place, President Truman, who had become president following the death of Roosevelt, was considering an invasion of the Japanese mainland. By now, the U.S. Navy had ships stationed just off the Japanese coast while its submarines were deployed in the Sea of Japan. Because the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa were very fierce, it was estimated that half a million to a million soldiers would be killed if the scheduled November 1, 1945 invasion of Japan occurred (10). In addition, President Truman was contemplating that if the Japanese would quickly surrender prior to the Soviet Union becoming involved in the war, set for August 15, Russia could not demand a part in the post-war settlement. When America unleashed the atomic bomb on Japan, the act infuriated the Soviet Union because it wanted its say just as it had in the carving up of Eastern Europe. This was the beginning of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S. The blast leveled more than half of that city. 70,000 of its citizens were instantaneously killed. On August 9, another bomb destroyed Nagasaki (11). From an American perspective, the atomic bombs were justified because it saved allied lives. However, the event stands out in history as the only time such force was used thus giving the U.S. this infamous distinction and began the proliferation of nuclear weaponry that continues today. 8. Events that occurred during World War II initiated political trepidations between the Soviet Union and the United States. Following the war’s end in 1945 and continuing through the latter part of the 1940’s, widespread fear increased among both politicians and the public in the U.S. that Communism would proliferate throughout the world including the U.S. This period in history was a time of tension and conflicts on not only a global scale but also within the national political scene as well. It was hoped that the alliance formed between the two countries during the war would continue and strengthen afterwards. However, the Soviets expanded their territories in Eastern Europe, attempted to control the affairs in the Far East including China and detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949. The combination of these events on foreign soil acted together and along with prominent national scandals such as the Amerasia and Alger Hiss cases led to the ‘Red Scare’ and ‘McCarthyism’ in the U.S. Alger Hiss and many other State Department members were involved in the infiltration of communism into the highest levels of the federal government. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover notified the White House in 1945 and 1946 of evidence uncovered that proved spies were operating inside the government. Hoover’s evidence was ignored until 1948 when Hiss was accused of espionage (and later convicted of perjury) in a highly public trial. Amerasia, a small pro-Communist publication in the U.S., was found to have highly classified documents printed within its pages. Though no one on the Amerasia staff was sentenced to time in prison, the sensationalistic hysteria that followed was immense. It became the centerpiece of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s case in justifying the now infamous Senate hearings designed to root-out communist sympathizers. (15) The main effect of McCarthyism on American life isn’t what occurred as a result, it’s what didn’t occur. The prevalent political ideology in the U.S. moved to the right during this period which ended the government’s social reform agenda that began with the New Deal. For example, the enactment of a national health insurance plan, which had been adopted by most all other developed countries in the world, never materialized. Foreign diplomatic proposals were not initiated, workers were not unionized, etc. In addition, an untold number of books were never written or movies never produced. (14) 9. In Europe, the German war machine was marching across Western Europe during the late 1930’s but the U.S. was determined to remain neutral. On the other side of the world, what became the countries of the Western alliance stopped trade with the Japanese in July 1941in response to Japan’s conquest of China and its much needed resources which made the Japanese situation desperate. Japan felt it had little choice but to capture the mineral and oil-rich regions of the Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia and the East Indies so as to sustain itself. War was the inevitable outcome of these actions (13). On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked America’s Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. In the wake of the chaos that followed the attack, 2,403 American servicemen were dead, 188 planes were destroyed and eight battleships were either heavily damaged or completely destroyed (12). This action led directly to U.S involvement in the Second World War. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Americans were sharply divided as to whether the U.S. should ally with Britain against Germany following the defeat of France. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. immediately began fighting on both European and Pacific fronts fully supported by the American public. 10. Soon after the 1939 Neutrality Act was signed, France and England declared war on Germany. In that same year the French asked Roosevelt for financial aid but he refused citing the Act. This inaction gave the appearance that the U.S. favored Germany in the conflict because both France and England needed American support but Germany did not. In 1940, the U.S. sent naval destroyers to England thereby openly declaring U.S. support for England and officially marking the termination of U.S. neutrality. In 1940, Japan was in its fourth year of aggressive action against China and was intent on dominating all of Eastern Asia. Roosevelt ordered that the embargo of Japan be stepped-up and the naval fleet to bolster its presence in Hawaii because only the U.S. could stand between Japan and its imperialist goals. The embargo put Japan in a desperate position economically and it viewed the bolstering of the Pacific fleet as a threat to its security. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, Roosevelt was resolved in giving Russia all the support he could, another clear declaration that the U.S. was allying against Germany. (16) Many believed prior to the U.S. involvement in World War II that there was no legitimate cause for the U.S. to engage in military conflict unless it was attacked. Additionally, there was no cause to aid the countries of Europe either financially or militarily because if the U.S. was suitably armed and financially solvent, it would be safe from an assault by Germany. Supporting Europe would weaken America‘s defenses and would draw the nation into a foreign war. Following the invasion and swift defeat of France, England was left to fight Germany on its own. Many believed that England would also be defeated and the U.S. would be next on Germany’s agenda; therefore aiding England was prudent for American interests. The attack on Pearl Harbor brought both sides of the debate together. (17) 11. Truman employed two major policies in the cold war fight. The first was the Truman Doctrine, a policy of containment of the Soviet Union. He did not want to destroy the country but wanted to stop the Soviet territorial expansion. The Truman Doctrine gave military and financial support to countries vulnerable to communist expansion such as in Turkey and Greece. The second major policy, the Marshall Plan, provided economic assistance to the democratic countries in Western Europe. This strategy was intended to bolster these countries’ economies thereby illustrating the positive influence of democracy and undercut the appeal of communism. The policy further turned up the heat between the two super powers. Truman’s 1950 decision to build up armaments as a defense to the imminent Soviet threat gave the U.S. a global military presence for the first time in history. This, along with a similar strategy by the Soviets started what is commonly referred to as ‘The Arms Race.’ The U.S. and Soviets built up arms for decades in a competition for the greatest military might. Because the U.S. lacked intelligence information on the Soviet military, it was compelled to assume that it was always behind in the Arms Race. The proliferation of armaments included conventional weapons but the main focus for both countries was nuclear arms. Truman believed that if the Soviet Union were to acquire more nuclear armaments than did the U.S., it would be more prone to utilize them. Therefore, the U.S. must sustain a nuclear equivalence. (6) 12. It was the Soviet Union’s military atrocities in Poland which was the catalyst for the U.S. dissolving its alliance with its former ally. All economic aid to the Soviets was cut off in May of 1945 by President Truman who, in August of that year declared that Stalin, the Soviet Premier, did not desire peace but to rule the world. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain stood with Truman on February 9, 1946 to give a speech in Missouri, Truman’s home state. He used the term ‘iron curtain’ referring to Stalin’s grip on Eastern Europe and said English speaking peoples were allied against the Soviets to prevent a return to the Dark Ages. This sent shockwaves throughout the Soviet Union. Its official newspaper Pravda compared Churchill and Truman to Hitler. The U.S. policy of aiding Germany in its recovery and suggestions that Russia give back lands seized in the war also irritated the Soviets which still harbored hatred against Germany and thought it should receive reparation funding instead (18). In 1949, the U.S. again flamed the fire when it took the lead in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a multi-nation military organization meant to stop the Soviet military from advancing in Europe. The Soviet Union retaliated by forming the Warsaw Pact in 1955 with its Eastern European allies (19). The responsibility for the Cold War depends on which country’s history book one reads. In other words, both were in some ways responsible and given the events of the time, wholly inevitable. Works Cited 1. “Neutrality Act.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. (6th Ed.). Columbia University, 2005. February 19, 2007 2. Tishler, William P. The Politics of Frustration: The 1920’s. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 1999. February 19, 2007 3. “The 1920’s: An Overview.” Digital History. 2006. February 19, 2007 4. Foster, John Bellamy. “The End of Rational Capitalism.” Monthly Review. Vol. 56, N. 10, 2005. 5. Attarian, John. “Is Social Security Constitutional?” Lew Rockwell. 2003. February 19, 2007 6. Mohr, Lt. Col. Gordon ‘Jack’. “US War Crimes in World War II: Part 2.” US War Crimes. February 19, 2007 7. “American War Crimes in the ‘Good War.’” Socialist Worker. February 11, 2005. February 19, 2007 8. “Soviet Crimes Against Poland During World War II.” Electronic Museum. February 19, 2007 < http://electronicmuseum.ca/Poland-WW2/soviet_crimes/soviet_crimes_eng.html> 9. Edward Drea, Greg Bradsher, Robert Hanyok, James Lide, Michael Petersen, Daqing Yang. Researching Japanese War Crimes Records. Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. Washington, D.C. February 19, 2007 10. “(The) Decision to Drop.” National Atomic Museum. 2003. February 19, 2007. 11. “Atomic Bomb – Truman Press Release: August 6, 1945.” Truman Presidential Museum and Library February 19, 2007 12. “Attack at Pearl Harbor, 1941.” EyeWitness to History. (1997). February 19, 2007 13. “Pearl Harbor Raid: 7 December 1941.” Naval Historical Center. Washington D.C.: Department of the Navy, 2000. 14. Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Marvin’s Press, 1994, pp. 92-94. 15. Evans, M. Stanton. “McCarthyism: Waging the Cold War in America.” Human Events. May 30, 1997. February 19, 2007 16. Brajkovic, Henry J. The Foreign Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Entry into World War II. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. February 19, 2007 17. Gordon, David. “America First: The Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940-1941.” September 26, 2003. February 19, 2007 18. Smith, Frank E. “The Cold War Begins.” Macro History. 2001. February 19, 2007 19. “Cold War.” Global Security. June 6, 2005. February 19, 2007 Read More