World War and the Growth of Global Power 245the united states: neutRality, the open dooR, and
MilitaRy keynesianisM
The United States spent the 1930s trying to avoid foreign conflicts. It was
not, as we have seen, isolationist in the sense that it was removed from the
world—U.S. trade grew in fact. Americans, however, did not want to go
through another experience like the Great War, which was still fresh in their
memories. Toward that end, the U.S. stayed out of the growing crises pro-
voked by Germany and Japan as much as possible, while trying to prevent
fascist success and maintain the Open Door. Given the unpopularity of the
previous war, the priority of finding a solution to the depression, the Nye
Committee’s findings, and many other factors, U.S. politicians wanted to keep
the country out of harm’s way. In 1935, Congress passed the first Neutrality
Act to prohibit the president from selling or shipping any weapons or other
goods for war to any parties involved in a conflict, in this case Italy and
Ethiopia. While the law was intended to keep the U.S. out of war, it did not
promote peace of stability.
In fact, by preventing aid to all parties to a conflict, it meant that the big-
ger and more aggressive powers, in this case the fascists, would not have to
worry about the U.S. helping their intended victims. A year later Congress
extended the Neutrality law and in January 1937 it included a ban on aid to
the government in Spain, even though it was a legitimately-elected Republic
under attack by fascist forces [heavy lobbying by the pro-Franco Catholic
Church was a major factor too]. Another Neutrality Act in 1937 eased up a
bit, and allowed the president to send aid on a “cash and carry” basis to anti-
fascist countries. Trying to avoid the issues that plagued Wilson during the
Great War such as German submarines attacking American ships and Britain
taking out huge loans, the U.S could sell goods, especially to help Britain, if
it paid for them in cash and then sent its own ships to U.S. ports to carry
them back. This way, the U.S. would accrue no debt and its ships would not
be at risk, but American merchants could maintain a prosperous wartime
trade. Still, the Neutrality Act of 1939 banned the arming of merchant ships
[if a merchant ship was armed, it could be attacked much like a naval vessel]
or their entry into war zones. In fact, Congress even came close to passing a
law, the Ludlow Amendment, that would have required a national vote on
whether to go to war, rather than leave the decision up to the president and
his cabinet. Yet, FDR was alarmed by Germany’s growing aggression in