Transcript Earth Day presentation

AP U.S. History
1933-1941
 In what ways did American Foreign and Domestic
policy change as a result of the Great Depression and
World War II?
French delegation to the London
Conference. The dude in the middle
standing like a gangsta was Premier Daladier
66 nations attended the London Economic
Conference in an attempt to coordinate
national efforts to attack the global
depression. The conference collapsed when
Roosevelt declined to attend.
Europe is on its own.
Franklin Roosevelt
torpedoed the London
Economic Conference of
1933 because he wanted to
concentrate primarily on
the recovery of the
American domestic
economy.
Danke!
Roosevelt’s every-man-forhimself attitude
strengthened the global
trend toward extreme
nationalism and played
into the hands of powermad dictators.
Dude, we took the
Philippines to teach
the Filipinos how to
be better people
Sorry man.
Americans need to
protect themselves
I thought America was
concerned about
freedom, democracy,
and God.
William McKinley
Emilio Aguinaldo
Seeking to withdraw from overseas commitments and
colonial expense, the United States in 1934 promised future
independence to the Philippines. That way, Filipinos
wouldn’t be able to compete with American workers,
American sugar growers could impose tariffs on Filipino
sugar, and American taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay to help
the Filipino government.
Domo arigato!
Japanese militarists, like
Hideki Tojo, determined
they had little to fear from
an isolationist America.
Notice that American troops leave Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua by 1934. This
was all part of Roosevelt’s strategy to unite the Western Hemisphere against
the rising dictators of Europe.
Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor
Policy toward Latin America
included a renunciation of
American intervention in
Mexico or elsewhere in the
region – even when Mexico
seized American oil
properties in 1938.
I am no girly-man.
The Treaty of Versailles
sucks!
Under totalitarianism, the individual was nothing; the
state was everything. Adolf Hitler took power of
Germany in 1933; Benito Mussolini rose to power in
Italy in 1922; and Joseph Stalin became dictator of
communist USSR in 1922; Hideki Tojo called the
shots in Japan; and Francisco Franco ruled Spain in
1936.
Americans have their own
worries.
The immediate response of most Americans
to the rise of the Fascist dictators Mussolini
and Hitler was a deeper commitment to
remain isolated from European problems.
Americans felt protected by an ocean, were
disillusioned about World War I, and bitter
about Europe defaulting on their war debts.
Shame on you!
Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan was invading
the Chinese province of Manchuria. Many
American Congressmen were concerned about
going to war, so they passed the
Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937, which
provided that Americans could not sail on
belligerent ships, sell munitions, or make loans
to nations at war.
Woodrow Wilson would have called the
Neutrality Acts immoral because the U.S.
made no distinction between evil dictators
and innocent victims. Thus, indirectly, the
U.S. actually helped the totalitarian leaders
by not coming, with its mighty industrial
strength, to the aid of democracies.
Bros before… never
mind. We stick
together.
Gracias
amigos.
The effect of the strict American arms embargo
during the civil war between the Loyalists
Spanish government and Franco’s Fascist rebels
was to cripple the Loyalist government while
the Italians and Germans armed Franco.
“Guernica” by Pablo Picasso is an interpretation of the
Spanish Civil War. It symbolizes the slaughter of many
civilians by Franco’s forces in Guernica, Spain.
I promise to stop my
aggression when I get
part of Czechoslovakia
Mussolini
Go back to slide 7 to
find the loophole I’m
using.
Pinky promise?
Hitler
British PM
Chamberlain
French Premier
Daladier
Japan was able to buy oil and war
supplies from America because
Roosevelt chose not to label Japan’s
invasion of Manchuria a foreign
war – Why?!
The policy of appeasing the Fascist dictators reached its low point in 1938 when
Britain and France sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the conference at
Munich.
The Hells Angels were American pilots who, in violation
of the Neutrality Acts, secretly helped the Chinese fight
the Japanese in Manchuria. The men came back and
formed a motorcycle club to relive the thrills.
Game on!
Let them kill each
other. In the end,
neutral Russia will
be left standing!
Britain and France thought Hitler
would be contained by Russia, but
Hitler and Stalin signed a nonaggression pact, which promised the
two would split Poland. Poland fell in
September, 1939.
It was the best I could
do at the time.
The “cash-and-carry” Neutrality Act of 1939, which said
warring nations could buy war materials only on a cash basis
and they had to use their own transport ships, was cleverly
designed to help Britain and France by letting them buy
supplies and munitions in the United States. Germany, on
the other hand, did not control the seas, so they couldn’t get
their ships to America. Japan controlled the seas around
China, so Japan continued to buy American supplies, but
China was hence forth formally abandoned.
Whoa! I didn’t
realize the French
were such wimps.
Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and
Belgium on its way to France. Alas, France surrendered to
Germany in June 1940.
France’s sudden collapse shocked Americans.
If Germany conquered Britain, then Hitler
could use British shipyards to attack the U.S. –
and Britain was on the verge of collapse.
The “destroyers-for-bases” deal of 1940
provided that the United States would give
Britain fifty American destroyers in exchange
for eight British bases from Newfoundland to
South America. It was clearly against the
Neutrality Acts, but Roosevelt got away with it
because the American public was torn on
what to do.
FDR is acting like
a dictator!
The Republican candidate for
president, Wendell Willkie, railed
against Roosevelt’s destroyers-forbases agreement and the New Deal.
The country was badly split between intervention in Europe and
isolationism. Regardless, in the campaign of 1940, the Republican
nominee Willkie essentially agreed with Roosevelt on the issue of
foreign policy. Roosevelt spanked Willkie mainly because
Americans did not want to change presidents during so much
turmoil.
Britain needs
our help!
The Lend-Lease Act clearly marked an end to
the pretense of American neutrality between
Britain and Germany because the U.S. pledged
to “lend” military supplies to Britain and any
other democracy fighting totalitarianism, so
long as Britain promised to return the military
equipment when they were done.
Britain was in such desperate shape it did
not have any money left to buy war
materials under the cash and carry
agreement. Hence, the Lend-Lease Act.
Dude! You guys
totally stole my idea.
Woodrow
Wilson
Roosevelt and the new Prime Minister of Britain,
Winston Churchill, met secretly off the coast of
Newfoundland in 1941. They agreed to an 8 point
Atlantic Charter, which included selfdetermination for oppressed peoples and a new
international peacekeeping organization.
Germany violated the nonaggression pact and invaded Russia
after Stalin and Hitler couldn’t agree
on splitting the Balkans. This
attack, plus the fall of France and
Japans rising power, spurred
America and Britain to make some
agreements.
Baby steps toward
U.S. involvement in
the war.
Roosevelt promised American voters that the U.S. would not
be getting directly involved in the war, but as time passed
Britain did not have the ability to protect British freighters as
they returned from America. So, Roosevelt made the
decision, as Commander-in-Chief, to use U.S. warships to
escort British merchant ships as far as Iceland. By the fall of
1940, American warships were being attacked by German
destroyers near the coast of Iceland. So, Roosevelt ordered
U.S. warships to shoot German U-boats on sight. Eventually,
the U.S. armed its merchant ships and transported supplies
all the way to Britain.
Japan allied itself with Germany and was
brutalizing Manchuria, both of which
spurred the U.S. to stop selling gasoline and
other supplies to Japan. Japan and the U.S.
tried to work it out, but the key issue in the
failed negotiations with Japan just before
Pearl Harbor was the Japanese refusal to
withdraw from China. Roosevelt thought
the Japanese would attack the poorly
protected Philippines or the Dutch East
Indies, but boy was he wrong.
What were the series of small steps that led the U.S.
to war?
2. Would it have been better if the U.S. had gotten
involved in the war much sooner? Why?
3. Why were the totalitarian nations allowed to pursue
their aggression for so long without other nations
intervening?
1.