History 4698

Depression Diplomacy

February 15, 2002

I. Crossroads of Empire

1. Anti-imperialism as a progressive cause (NAACP, WILPF, FOR, WPP; Mexico and Article 27; administration response: international law as bludgeon; congressional challenge—Wheeler, Borah, and articulation of anti-imperialism; battle for public opinion; Senate checkmate)

2. Nicaragua and the Anti-Imperialist Moment (background US-Nicaraguan relations; carryover from Mexican fight; Coolidge and breakdown of Tipitapa accords; the emergence of Sandino; Blaine Amendment and legislative tactics; Havana Conference and international pressure; battle for public opinion: The Nation, FOR, WILPF; Nicaragua in 1928 campaign; Dill Amendment and winding down of occupation)

II. Depression Diplomacy

1. Collapse of the International Order (the economic decline and its effects: East Asia—collapse Washington System, Manchuria and challenge to League of Nations, Stimson Doctrine, Hoover response; Europe—timidity of democracies, suffering Central Europe, rise of nationalism; Latin America—Stimson statement, demise of Kemmerer system, tensions with Cuba; domestically—economic nationalism and transformation of American foreign policy)

2. FDR and World Affairs (FDR background: Wilsonian or realist?; domestic pressures—Nye Committee and first Neutrality Act; European events—German rearmament; Italy to Ethiopia; origins of appeasement: German-UK naval pact, German-Poland non-aggression, Hoare-Laval and collapse of League; FDR strategy; Latin America and freedom to maneuver; Good Neighbor Policy and three strands of internationalism)

Time Line

1929 Stock market crash; Dill Amendment

1930 London Naval Treaty; Smoot-Hawley Tariff

1931 Hoover debt moratorium; Manchurian Incident

1932 election FDR

1933 Hitler to power Germany; German rearmament

1934 German agreements with UK and Poland

US exports (in billions of dollars) US GNP (in billions of 1959 dollars)
1928 $5.7 $97
1929 5.4 103.1
1930 4 90
1931 2.9 75.8
1932 2.4 58
1933 2 55.6

Charles Chatfield, For Peace and Justice

Wayne Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists

Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy

Charles Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe

Richard Salisbury, Anti-Imperialism and International Competition in Central America