Warren Harding 1921-23

Calvin Coolidge 1923-29

Herbert Hoover 1929-33

League opened Nov. 15, 1920 - pictures

State Dept. ca. 1910

4-Power Treaty 1921

Definition of Isolationism

1. involvement without commitment - "advantages without obligations"
   
2. no permanent, entanglinq alliances
   
3. keep U.S. sovereign, free, at peace
   
4. emphasis on legalism, not force
   
   • a "law-bound" world of Great Powers keeping order
     
5. continue the Open Door concept
   

Assumptions

1. U.S. unique with no interests threatened
   
2. U.S. superior to a corrupt world
   
3. U.S. impregnable to attack
   
4. "devil" theory of war
   

"Keyhole Diplomacy"

• participation but not membership in League at Geneva
• committees: opium, slavery, communications, counterfeiting
  
• but not the World Court sought by Borah 1
  

Washington Conference of 1921

• the "first SALT talks"
  
• C.E. Hughes Nov. 12: "the way to disarm is to disarm" 1
  
• 4-part naval plan of Hughes: 5-5-3-1.67 parity
  
• 9 Power Treaty to guarantee Open Door and indep. of China
  
• 4 Power Treaty to respect Pacific possessions
  
• but treaties and agreements lack enforcement
  

Billy Mitchell

Billy Mitchell

• was promoted to general in 1918 for his leadership in developing U.S. Army Air Service in WWI
• used airplanes to sink battleship Ostfriesland in July 1921 test 1
• wrote 1924 report predicting Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor and Philippines
• but 1925 court-martial for insubordination and his criticism of military policy following loss of Navy airship Shenandoah Sept. 3
• 1926 airships of Admiral William Moffett - 1

Debt Commissions

• original 5% interest on $10 billion war debt to U.S.
  
• 1922 Foreign Debt Commission reduced interest
  

  currency inflation 1923

• inflation grew to 1 dollar=4 trillion marks 1
  
• high U.S. tariff of 1922 prevented Europe debt repayment
• Germany unable to pay $32 billion reparations
  
• but Coolidge demanded payments: "They hired the money, didn't they?"
• 1924 Dawes Plan created payment plan with private U.S. loans
• 1929 Young Plan reduced reparations to $9 billion payable over 59 years 1
  
• but Great Depression began 1929, slowed trade, caused world deflation
• Congress passed 1930 Hawley-Smoot "tariff wall" and Hoover refused veto despite appeal of 38 nations and 1028 American economists

Rogers Act of 1924

• bill by John Jacob Rogers of Mass. merged diplomatic and consular services to create the Foreign Service
  
• exams, merit, rotation, salary increases
  
• but inbred fraternity of elite Ivy-Leaguers continued
  
• imperial legacy of 1898 war

Good Neighborism of 1927

• Coolidge and Hoover sought to end military interventions in hemisphere 1
  
• Marines pulled out of Nicaragua 1925 but sent back 1927
• Coolidge sent Henry Stimson to Nicaragua April 1927 for "American-chaperoned elections" by staining fingers with mercurochrome
• but Marines stayed in Nicaragua until 1933 due to Sandino - map

  Charles Lindbergh & airport

• Juan Trippe pioneered U.S.-Cuba air mail service in 1927
• Coolidge in 1927 had made Amherst classmate and Morgan banker Dwight Morrow ambassador to Mexico
• Morrow brought Lindbergh to Mexico late 1927 as "Ambassador of the Air"
  
• Morrow-Calles agree to allow pre-1917 subsoil ownership, slow land expropriation and anti-clerical measures
• "the first real beginnings of the embryonic Good Neighbor Policy"
• but Cardenas reversed agreements in 1930s and Lindbergh became an isolationist
• Nelson Rockefeller expanded the Good Neighbor policy

Clark Memo of 1928

• State Department's J. Reuben Clark wrote 236-page memo Dec. 17, 1928
• repudiated the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary's "police power" interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine
• but reserved the right of intervention for defense
  

Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928

• after failure of 1927 Geneva Disarmament Conference - lobbyist W.B. Shearer
  

  Kellogg with Prittwitz, Keip

• idea of James T. Shotwell ("statesman without portfolio") and Aristide Briand ("the Locarno prophet")
• bilateral pact offer Apr. 6, 1927
  
• "French Security Psychosis" but suppported by peace groups
  
• Kellogg consulted Borah before negotiating with Briand - made multilateral
  
• to outlaw war as an "instrument of national policy" but more an "international kiss" with no means of enforcement
• signed Aug. 27, 1928, by 14 nations, eventually by 64 nations including Germany and Japan
  

Arbitration and Conciliation treaties

• Frank B. Kellogg approach similar to Bryan, Root
  
• only exception was any case involving domestic issues (big loophole)
  

London Naval Conference of 1930

• met for 3 months but failed to stop arms race
  
• Japan agreed to 5-5-3.5 capital ship ratio but allowed parity in subs and 10-10-7 ratio for destroyers and cruisers; continued to demand full parity
  
• "escalator clause" that allowed signers to break treaty if security threatened

Stimson Doctrine of 1931

• no League sanctions when Japan invaded Manchuria
• U.S. policy of nonrecognition of Manchukuo
• High Tide of Isolationism

Sources:

• The Harding picture (NWDNS-115-P-99) and Coolidge picture (NWDNS-115-P-136) and Hoover picture (NWDNS-115-P-134) are from NA
• League of Nations 1920 picture is from UN Pictorial History
• quotations are from Thomas A. Bailey. A Diplomatic History of the American People. 10th ed. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980.
• Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh. New York : G.P. Putnam's, 1998.
• Cole, Wayne S. Roosevelt & the Isolationists, 1932-45. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
• Jonas, Manfred. Isolationism in America, 1935-1941. Chicago : Imprint Publications, 1990.
• Powaski, Ronald E. Toward an Entangling Alliance: American Isolationism, Internationalism, and Europe, 1901-1950. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Links:

• Final Protocol of the Locarno Conference, signed at Locarno, October 6, 1925; deposited with the Secretariat of the League of Nations, December 14, 1925
• Billy Mitchell exhibit from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; other Mitchell links from Great War page
• Moffett Field
• Kellogg-Briand Pact from Avalon
• Nobel Peace Prize of 1929 awarded to Kellogg, from Nobel Foundation
• Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation
• 1941 map of "US Strategic Pacific Sites" (ILN 1941/03/01) and 1938 map from Life
• Versailles Treaty and World War II Timeline
• Fourth Marines in China 1927-41 by Ron Moss
• 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy
• 1919 First Flight Across the Atlantic

On Reserve:

• Cordell Hull and William Borah and Charles Dawes and Owen Young and Charles Evans Hughes and Frank Kellogg and Andrew Mellon and Henry Stimson and Billy Mitchell
• Oil and the Mideast
• Between the Wars with Eric Sevareid