140 e lusive v ictories
vox populi served as an excuse when he preferred inaction. A case in
point: when the British pressed him to join in an offi cial protest against
Japanese actions in China, he demurred, insisting the American people
would not stand for it.
Congress stood as a more signifi cant obstacle to the president. He
found it hard to persuade lawmakers to give him the latitude he
wanted to steer the national course through treacherous times. In
broad terms, he had been weakened by the defeat of his court-packing
measure and his subsequent failure in the 1938 congressional primaries
to oust anti–New Deal Democrats. Lawmakers came away confi dent
they could oppose the president with impunity on both domestic
aff airs and matters of foreign and military policy. To take one pivotal
example, the administration could not rely on unifi ed Democratic
support to revise the Neutrality Act to permit arms sales to Great
Britain and France. Th e administration tried to work around the law,
but its efforts sometimes resulted in public embarrassment and
provoked congressional anger. When administration allies in
Congress adopted a more direct approach to repeal the arms embargo
in spring 1939, the move proved deeply divisive and stalled. O n l y
after war started in Europe did Congress agree to revise the neutrality
legislation, and even then important restrictions (such as a requirement
that all purchases be paid for in cash and carried by the belligerents’
own ships) remained.
Easy as it seems in retrospect to condemn Roosevelt for his timidity
in dealing with Congress, he and his advisors appreciated that they
could ill aff ord to lose key votes on foreign and military policy. Legis-
lative results were observed closely at home and especially abroad.
Hostile powers delighted in evidence of American division, while allies
found it disheartening. Cordell Hull, often involved in tense negotia-
tions with Japan, worried that the defeat of interventionist measures
would subvert his diplomatic position. Understandably, then, the pres-
ident timed his overtures to Congress to maximize the prospects for
success. He would await some international crisis, then call for legis-
lative action he deemed urgent to meet the emergency. Th us the fall of
France in June 1940 opened an opportunity for a major increase in
defense appropriations, with a focus on expansion of the (suddenly
frontline) U.S. fl eet.