Huey Long: Radical andor Demagogue 2' From Isolationism to Pearl Harbor

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Huey Long Radical and/or Demagogue2. From
Isolationism to Pearl Harbor

• History 203
• April 18, 2007

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Assignment on Scopes Trial Paper

• Instructions for the Scopes Trial paper are at
  http//www.uoregon.edu/dapope/203scopes.htm.
• The paper is due at class time on Monday, April
  30.

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Some Websites on Huey Long and on the Coming of
World War II

• PBS documentary on Huey Long
• Huey compares the US to a barbecue where the
  super-rich take away all the food. Follow the
  link to an audio clip. Or, listen to Long sing a
  campaign song, Every Man a King.
• Time line with many photos and other information
  on coming of World War II
• FDRs Quarantine the Aggressor speech,1937
• FDRs Four Freedoms Speech, Jan. 1941
• On the eve of the Iraq War in 2003, a dozen
  historians commented Was Saddam Hussein a
  threat like Hitler was in 1939?

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Huey Pierce Long, 1893-1935
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Huey Long The Power of Political Ambition

• Louisiana State Railroad Commissioner, then
  Governor
• Fighting the Oil Companies
• Building roads and schools
• Free textbooks for school children

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Mr. Long Goes to Washington

• Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930, Doesnt leave
  Louisiana until 1932 after hes sure that a
  supporter he can control will succeed him as
  governor. when he can be assured of controlling
  the governors position
• Long on Washington and Louisiana "I'm a small
  fish here in Washington. But I'm the Kingfish to
  the folks down in Louisiana."
• (But Long also said when he entered the Senate,
  "I ain't no fish! I'm gonna pick another name,
  maybe one with a lion or a tiger on it.)

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Share Our Wealth

• The plan We guarantee food and clothing and
  employment for everyone who should work by
  shortening the hours of labor to thirty hours per
  week, maybe less, and to eleven months per year,
  maybe less. We would have the hours shortened
  just so much as would give work to everybody to
  produce enough for everybody. As long as all the
  people working can produce enough of automobiles,
  radios, homes, schools, and theaters for everyone
  to have that kind of comfort and convenience,
  then let us all have work to do and have that
  much of heaven on earth.
• Implementing the plan We can straighten things
  out in two months under our program.
• 27000 Share our Wealth clubs had been organized
  by 1935

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Huey Long The End

• Long as a threat to FDR in 1936 elections
• Assassination in Baton Rouge, LA, by relative of
  a political enemy.

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The U.S. and the WorldThe Perilous 1930s

• Economic disruption and a retreat from economic
  globalization
• Militarism and Fascism in Europe and Asia
• The capitalist democracies vs. the Soviet Union
• Hitlers re-militarization and expansionism
• Wars of the pre-war 1930s Japan in Manchuria
  and China, Italian imperialism in Ethiopia, Civil
  War and fascist intervention in Spain

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Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
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Poster from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)
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Pablo Picassos Guernica
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U.S. Policies and Attitudes to 1930s Crises
Isolationism?

• Disillusionment following the Great War
• Had it been a war for peace and democracy or a
  war for imperialism, bankers and corporate
  profiteers?
• Nye Commission, 1934, investigates armaments
  manufacturers and the war

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U.S. Ideals and Interests in the World of the
1930s

• Advancing liberal capitalism
• Maintaining domination in Latin Americathe Good
  Neighbor Policy
• Opposing growing Japanese power in East and
  Southeast Asia
• Europe What were the U.S. interests in European
  conflicts?
• To hell with Europe and the rest of those
  nations!Minnesota senator, 1935

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FDRs Road to Intervention

• Neutrality Acts
• FDR Speech, Jan. 1936 The United States is
  following a twofold neutrality toward any and all
  Nations which engage in wars that are not of
  immediate concern to the Americas. First, we
  decline to encourage the prosecution of war by
  permitting belligerents to obtain arms,
  ammunition or implements of war from the United
  States. Second, we seek to discourage the use by
  belligerent Nations of any and all American
  products calculated to facilitate the prosecution
  of a war.

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FDRs Road to Intervention

• 1937Japan launches full-scale war against China.
  
• FDRs Quarantine speech When an epidemic of
  physical disease starts to spread, the community
  approves and joins in a quarantine of the
  patients in order to protect the health of the
  community against the spread of the disease.

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Nanjing Massacre 1937
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FDRs Road to Intervention

• Munich 1938England and France accept German
  demand to annex part of Czechoslovakia. Policy
  is called AppeasementBritish Prime Minister
  Chamberlain says agreement will bring peace in
  our time.

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FDRs Road to Intervention

• Shifting Public Opinion
• War Fears and Anti-Nazi Sentiment
• Joe Louis KOs Max Schmeling, 1938. FDR says,
  "Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany"
• The War of the World broadcast 1938 (hear a
  clip from this)
• America Firstanti interventionists organize

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War in Europe, Tensions with Japan, 1939-41
Nazi soldiers march through Warsaw, 1939
British Kids eat vegetables from U.S.
lend-lease aid FDR and Winston Churchill
confer, 1941.
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Toward Pearl Harbor

• Japans turn towards war
• Americas racial and economic fears
• Diplomatic maneuvering
• Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941