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

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