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American People In The 1930's Essay

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The American people in the 1930 's were very much isolationist. The United States just concluded World War I, a war that the people never really wanted to enter. With the help of world events, President Roosevelt and the American people, slowly moved from isolationism to intervention.

That neutrality would be tested in December of 1937 when the Japanese gunned down and sank the U.S. ship Panay, which was anchored China. This did not change the American people 's belief in neutrality but, President Roosevelt was uncertain they could continue to be neutral in times of great turmoil in the world. When German troops took over Czechoslovakia, President Roosevelt could no long remain neutral. In 1938 and 1939, "Roosevelt sought to …show more content…

Roosevelt realized the United States could no longer be neutral. The spring of 1940, he assembled the National Defense Research Committee to do military research this included the top-secret development of the atomic bomb after receiving information that the Germans were in the process of making one. Roosevelt negotiated with Churchill an agreement to supply Great Britain with fifty old U.S. destroyers in return the United States was given permission to build a naval airbase in the British Islands. In September of 1940, President Roosevelt authorized the "first peactime conscription in American history, requiring the registration of all 16 million men aged twenty-one to thirty-five" (Tindall and Shi 898). In March of 1941, the lend-lease bill became law and allowed the "president to lend or lease military equipment to 'any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States '" (Tindall and Shi 900). In late 1941, the destroyer 's Kearny and Reuben James were sank loosing 126 seamen. These incidents caused Congress to resend part of the Neutrality Act of 1939 which banned "arming merchant vessels” (Tindall and Shi 901). This also caused the senate to “repealed legislation banning American ships from entering belligerent ports or ‘combat zones’” (The Neutrality Acts). The turning point for the American people was the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor. With the tremendous loss of American lives, the United States could no longer remain

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