672 Chapter 25 From “Normalcy” to Economic Collapse: 1921–1933
action. As President Harding assured the Senate, “there
[was] no commitment to armed force, no alliance, no
written or moral obligation to join in defense.”
The naval disarmament treaty said nothing about
the number of other warships that the powers might
build, about the far more important question of land
and air forces, or about the underlying industrial and
financial structures that controlled the ability of the
nations to make war. In addition, the 5:5:3 ratio actu-
ally enabled the Japanese to dominate the western
Pacific. It made the Philippine Islands indefensible
and exposed Hawaii to possible attack. In a sense
these American bases became hostages of Japan. Yet
Congress was so unconcerned about Japanese sensi-
bilities that it refused to grant any immigration quota
to Japan under the National Origins Act of 1924,
even though the formula applied to other nations
would have allowed only 100 Japanese a year to enter
the country. The law, Secretary Hughes warned, pro-
duced in Japan “a sense of injury and antagonism
instead of friendship and cooperation.”
Hughes did not think war a likely result, but
Japanese resentment of “white imperialism” played
into the hands of the military party in that nation.
Many Japanese army and navy officers considered war
with the United States inevitable.
As for the key Nine-Power Treaty, Japan did not
abandon its territorial ambitions in China, and China
remained so riven by conflict among the warlords
and so resentful of the“imperialists”that the eco-
nomic advantages of the Open Door turned out to
be small indeed.
The United States entered into all these agree-
ments without realizing their full implications and not
really prepared to play an active part in East Asian
affairs.“We have no favorites in the present dog fight
in China,” the head of the Far Eastern division of the
State Department wrote of the civil war going on
there in 1924. “They all look alike to us.” The
Japanese soon realized that the United States would
not do much to defend its interests in China.
The Peace Movement
The Americans of the 1920s wanted peace but would
neither surrender their prejudices and dislikes nor
build the defenses necessary to make it safe to indulge
these passions.“The people have had all the war, all
the taxation, and all the military service that they
want,” President Coolidge announced in 1925.
Peace societies flourished, among them the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
designed“to hasten the abolition of war, the foulest
blot upon our civilization,” and the Woodrow Wilson
Foundation, aimed at helping “the liberal forces of
mankind throughout the world... who intend to
promote peace by the means of justice.” In 1923
Edward W. Bok, retired editor of the Ladies’ Home
Journal, offered a prize of $100,000 for the best
workable plan for preserving international peace. He
was flooded with suggestions. Former Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt drafted
one while recovering from an attack of polio. Such
was the temper of the times that he felt constrained to
include in the preamble this statement:We seek not to become involved as a nation in the
purely regional affairs of groups of other nations,
nor to give to the representatives of other peoples
the right to compel us to enter upon undertakings
calling for a leading up to the use of armed force
without our full and free consent, given through
our constitutional procedure.So great was the opposition to international
cooperation that the United States refused to accept
membership on the World Court, although this tri-
bunal could settle disputes only when the nations
involved agreed. Too many peace lovers believed that
their goal could be attained simply by pointing out
the moral and practical disadvantages of war.
The culmination of this illusory faith in prevent-
ing war by criticizing it came with the signing of the
Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928. The treaty was born in
the fertile brain of French Foreign Minister Aristide
Briand, who was eager to collect allies against possible
attack by a resurgent Germany. In 1927 Briand pro-
posed to Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg that their
countries agree never to go to war with each other.
Kellogg found the idea as repugnant as any conven-
tional alliance, but American isolationists and pacifists
found the suggestion fascinating. They plagued
Kellogg with demands that he negotiate such a treaty.
To extricate himself from this situation, Kellogg
suggested that the pact be broadened to include all
nations. Now Briand was angry. Like Kellogg, he saw
how meaningless such a treaty would be, especially
when Kellogg insisted that it be hedged with a pro-
viso that “every nation is free at all times... to
defend its territory from attack and it alone is compe-
tent to decide when circumstances require war in self-
defense.” Nevertheless, Briand too found public
pressures irresistible. In August 1928, at Paris, diplo-
mats from fifteen nations bestowed upon one another
an“international kiss,” condemning “recourse to war
for the solution of international controversies” and
renouncing war “as an instrument of national policy.”
Seldom has so unrealistic a promise been made by so
many intelligent people. Yet most Americans consid-
ered the Kellogg-Briand Pact a milestone in the his-
tory of civilization: The Senate, habitually so