136 e lusive v ictories
1937 that became the pretext for invading China. Despite its swift
defeat of the Nationalist armies under Chiang Kai-shek and the capture
of several major cities, Japan soon bogged down in a frustrating and
costly low-intensity struggle with no apparent end. Th e Sino-Japanese
conflict, though disturbing to other major powers, also appeared
unlikely to spill beyond the immediate region.
Roosevelt, preoccupied with economic calamity at home, did not
focus closely on foreign policy until 1937. Coping with the Great
Depression claimed most of his attention, and he was immersed in the
New Deal and the political confl icts that swirled around it. In the after-
math of his reelection landslide in 1936, he moved boldly to remake the
Supreme Court, which had obstructed his economic reforms by voiding
key New Deal measures. But his attempt to pack the Court with addi-
tional justices who would back his programs alienated conservative
southern Democrats and drove them into a working alliance with
Republicans that would discourage further large-scale reform. Mean-
while, economic recovery stalled and reversed, due in part to the presi-
dent’s ongoing fi xation on balanced budgets. Unemployment increased
again in 1937, and with it came a surge in labor unrest and workplace
violence in places such as Flint, Michigan, where workers and union
organizers clashed with strikebreakers and police. Frustration at home
contributed to Roosevelt’s newfound interest in foreign aff airs.
Domestic and foreign policies were connected, moreover, by the
evolving economic agenda of his administration, which began to
emphasize the revival of international trade as the key to domestic
recovery. Th e president and several key advisors, including Secretary of
State Cordell Hull and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.,
worried that nations such as Germany, Japan, and England aimed to
carve up the world into exclusive trading blocs. If they succeeded,
American businesses would be barred from vital markets. Adminis-
tration concern over international markets had a political dimension,
too: businesses that advocated free trade (including banks, oil, and
tobacco) had become an important component of the Democratic
Party coalition by the late 1930s, among the few friends the president
could claim in business circles.
When Roosevelt turned his attention to developments in Europe in
1937–1938, he fi rst aimed to prevent the outbreak of war. He believed