Henry l stimson, p.18
Henry L. Stimson, page 18
Loyal Opposition
As Stimson recalled in his memoirs, he “found Mr. Roosevelt’s basic view of foreign affairs” similar to his own, and for the first two years out of office he was guardedly optimistic about international affairs. He met with the president a number of times to discuss world affairs and supported all of Roosevelt’s initiatives. In particular, Stimson supported Roosevelt’s recognition of the Soviet Union and efforts to build up the navy as “useful complements to the continued firmness of the American stand in the Far East.” In 1934, Stimson threw all his weight behind the administration’s Reciprocal Trade Agreement bill that was designed to lower tariffs and increase international trade. Stimson had always supported lower tariffs, and he believed that the United States, as a creditor nation, had to increase its imports. In addition, the bill called for greater executive authority to make changes in the tariff. This proposition was consistent with Stimson’s philosophy of government with greater executive control over foreign affairs. That April, he gave a national radio speech endorsing the proposal that appeared in many newspapers across the country.2
Stimson had no difficulty supporting this Democratic initiative and considered Republican opposition to it shortsighted and unfounded. He noted that “Republicans on the whole were very angry” at him for making the speech and lending support to Roosevelt, “for it contravened their rather stupid policy of indiscriminate opposition.” Stimson saw the matter as an opportunity “to assist the policy of the conservative advisers of the President and to oppose that of the radicals” who sought more government control over the economy rather than free trade. Roosevelt invited Stimson to the White House in May to congratulate him on his speech. He told Stimson that his support “was the chief influence in securing the probable passage of the bill.” While Stimson knew that Roosevelt was engaging in exaggeration and flattery, he also realized how closely their views coincided and that his action had earned him the further respect of the president.3
As Stimson’s comments make clear, there were parts of Roosevelt’s New Deal program that he supported, but other areas that he opposed. As an old Progressive, Stimson supported many of the reform measures implemented by Roosevelt. He applauded FDR’s banking bill designed to restore confidence and stave off more radical measures. Referring to his days as a United States Attorney, he wrote Roosevelt in 1935 that he was always “on the side of national efficiency.” He considered himself “a Hamiltonian in my belief in a strong central American government” and saw the fundamental economic problem as how to “preserve the essentials of real competition while curbing the evils of cutthroat competition; —to secure the stabilization of modern industry, the prevention of unfair practices, and the prohibition of the exploitation of labor.” He, therefore, had also supported the National Recovery Act (NRA) and its codes and regulations designed to regulate business and stabilize the economy.4
Yet Stimson thought that, in many areas, the New Deal was going too far. He opposed the Tennessee Valley Authority as government ownership of business, feared that the unbalanced budgets necessary to pay for work programs were a danger to the nation’s financial stability, and was alarmed by the campaign rhetoric appealing to class antipathy. He worried that Roosevelt was “building up an irresponsible bureaucracy” in the place of proper government regulation. Although he mainly kept these concerns private, Stimson publicly criticized the 1935 Wagner Act that established the rights of unions to bargain collectively and Roosevelt’s 1937 attempt to pack the Supreme Court. The Colonel saw the Wagner Act as granting too much power to the government and a “wholly unbalanced and unfair piece of legislation.” But his most vehement criticism was reserved for the Supreme Court Bill of 1937, a measure Stimson worked actively to defeat. Stimson saw this as a direct threat to the Constitution and its checks and balances among the three branches of the federal government. Although he was sure Roosevelt had no intention of making himself a dictator, Stimson did comment to Hull that this was exactly the type of course that dictators used in seizing power.5
Despite his growing disapproval of the New Deal, Stimson played no role in the 1936 presidential campaign because of his opposition to the Republican Party’s stance on foreign affairs and its demand for a high tariff. In these areas, he found his views remained closely aligned with Roosevelt’s. His 1934 lectures at Princeton provided him an opportunity to speak publicly about world affairs and to attempt to stave off the pessimism that was so prevalent concerning the events in Central Europe.6 Stimson was uncharacteristically optimistic concerning events in Germany. He had told Roosevelt back in March 1933 that he “did not think the situation was nearly as dangerous” as most newspapers reported and that no nations, including Germany, wanted war.7 He did not believe that the Nazis would last if they attempted to rearm and follow a policy that radically challenged the status quo. Germany needed increased foreign trade and credits for economic prosperity. Thus, policies such as the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act would serve to maintain interdependence, promote economic recovery, and restore stability. This, Stimson believed in 1934, “offers a fairly safe guarantee against unrestrained violence against her neighbors on the part of Germany.” Still, Stimson remained wary enough of events to warn that the United States, as “the world’s most powerful nation,” had to play a central role to help the world “in its vital struggle to protect our common civilization against war.” Should the United States resort to isolationism, the international “peace machinery will be infinitely weakened,” and the world will again be faced with a war that “may be as disastrous to us and to our own civilization as to that of the rest of the world.”8
With the passage of the first Neutrality Act, Germany’s rearmament, and Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, Stimson abandoned his guarded optimism and began to speak out concerning the danger of international developments to the United States and America’s obligation to assist the world in preventing war. “Everything,” Stimson noted in March, “seemed to be going to Hades.” 9 Trying to prevent this descent increasingly commanded Stimson’s time and energy for the remainder of the decade. He identified several interrelated problems that had to be overcome in order to rouse greater U.S. opposition to German and Japanese aggression. All were expressed in the neutrality acts. The rejection of the Versailles Treaty and of American cooperation with any collective security efforts by the other powers had led the United States to deny any responsibility for the problems in Europe. This, coupled with the refusal to link war debts to reparations, led many people to believe that the United States could obtain its goals while remaining independent of any political commitments. The Great Depression and the desire by many to focus only on domestic matters reinforced these positions. Stimson rejected these views, but he fully understood their popularity among many in Congress and the general populace. For many Americans, the dubious legacy of World War I remained highly influential. They could see only revolution, economic crisis, and a Europe seemingly ungrateful for America’s assistance. This, combined with the Nye Committee hearings that concluded that the U.S. entry in the war stemmed from the machinations of bankers and the munitions industry, led to the passage of the 1935 Neutrality Act that barred American loans and trade with belligerents as a means of avoiding future wars.
For Stimson, this was pure folly. In April 1935, he addressed the subject of neutrality in a speech before the American Society of International Law. He asserted that there was much confusion over the term “neutrality.” What most people desired, Stimson maintained, was that the United States keep out of war. Neutrality was, however, inconsistent with that goal. War was the central evil that had to be avoided. Once war began, the United States, as a result of the interconnectedness of the world economy and the increasingly destructive power of weapons, would suffer heavily whether it was a belligerent or not. “War,” Stimson declared, “is no longer a contest between two nations which the rest of the world can stand by and look at. . . . People who think they can stand aside and can look at war from a distance without ultimately becoming involved . . . are not realists but dreamers.” The belief that the United States could save itself “by isolation is today an economic fantasy—worthy of the ostrich who thinks that he is hidden when he buries his head in the sand.” Thus, for the United States the “real problem is to prevent war from arising—not how to act after it has arisen.” Stimson believed that war could be avoided only by international cooperation and collective security. If the “world knew beforehand that in case of an emergency the United States could be counted upon to act,” it would prove to be a powerful deterrent to aggression. Stimson concluded that neutrality offered no road to peace. “The only certain way to keep out of a great war is to prevent that war from taking place, and the only hope of preventing war . . . is by the earnest, intelligent, and unselfish cooperation of the nations of the world towards that end. Until America is willing . . . to do her part . . . the life of our whole modern civilization may be at the mercy of the next war.”10
Following the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Stimson further criticized neutrality legislation and called for greater executive action. Speaking on national radio in October, Stimson noted that, on the one hand, the law concerning the list of goods the president could restrict was too narrow, allowing for no discretion among various belligerents and types of goods. This legislation would prevent any effective cooperation with other nations should they seek to impose economic sanctions or an embargo. On the other hand, as the events on the Horn of Africa were demonstrating, neutrality was a failure that could not prevent war and was “likely to do more harm than good.” Roosevelt needed to move out from behind the congressional action and speak out concerning the issues at stake. He had to take the lead in arousing and marshaling public opinion against aggression, making it clear that there was a moral issue at stake in opposing Italy’s actions. Moreover, the president should also make clear that the United States supported collective security over international anarchy. “Such an announcement from America would by its encouragement of the earnest efforts of the nations of the world in their struggle for peace go a long distance toward insuring the eventual success of that struggle.”11
Stimson returned to these arguments and his efforts to change public opinion while prodding the administration to greater and more positive action two years later, when Japan began its full-scale war against China. On October 5, 1937, Roosevelt delivered his famous “Quarantine Speech” in response to Japan’s actions. His remarks went well beyond any of his previous statements on foreign affairs, but lacked specific recommendations. He declared that “a reign of terror” now confronted the world. Those nations that desired peace would have to “make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of human instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy.” Without naming any nations, Roosevelt called for a “quarantine” against those countries trying to spread unrest.12
Writing to the New York Times the next day, Stimson recounted American efforts to support Chinese independence, Japan’s violations of the Open Door and the Nine-Power Treaty, and its conquest of Manchuria. Yet Japan’s aggression in 1931–1932, Stimson argued, was finally halted as it realized world opinion was against its actions. The current crisis emerged because Japan was encouraged by developments in Europe and the policy of appeasement. “The Fascist dictators of Italy and Germany have boldly and successfully carried through coups invoking in Ethiopia, the Rhineland, and Spain acts of treaty violation and indefensible aggression.” Meanwhile, the West has yielded to all of these actions, and appeased the aggressors, in the vain hope of avoiding war. Stimson was most critical of his own nation. While others had reason to fear immediate war, “In America, occupying the most safe and defensible position in the world, there has been no excuse except faulty reasoning for the wave of ostrich-like isolationism which has swept over us and by its erroneous form of neutrality legislation has threatened to bring upon us in the future the very dangers of war which we now are seeking to avoid.”13
Stimson was encouraged by Roosevelt’s remarks. They marked a clear endorsement of the policy he originated in 1932. Still, he sought more concrete proposals that would hinder the Japanese. He rejected military intervention as “impossible” and “abhorrent to our people.” It was up to China to fight for itself, “But that is very far from saying that the only alternative is inaction or a passive and shameful acquiescence in the wrong that is now being done.” Stimson called for a trade embargo against Japan, noting that it was “peculiarly dependent upon the outside world for her ability to attack China,” and, therefore, “extremely vulnerable” to such action. He recalled hearing Theodore Roosevelt comment that “he put peace above everything except righteousness,” but Stimson was afraid that the United States had reversed this principle and was “trying to put peace above righteousness,” and in the process was endangering itself. The recent neutrality laws were the most obvious example of this flawed thinking. Stimson concluded that “such a policy of amoral drift by such a safe and powerful nation as our own will only set back the hands of progress. It will not save us from entanglement. It will even make entanglement more certain.”14
What Stimson was calling for was an extension of the Stimson Doctrine to include an economic embargo. In November he wrote the president a five-page letter outlining his thoughts with the aim of encouraging Roosevelt to back up his words with actions that would enable the United States to take the lead and use its influence short of war in East Asia. For Stimson, the time for action and presidential leadership had arrived. He began by contrasting China, which he characterized as a peaceful people “headed by a government largely influenced by American education and traditions” with a Japan guided by “a feudal military inheritance and . . . wholly guided by military purposes . . . seeking to overthrow that Chinese government and replace it with one more amenable to Japan’s own purposes and interests.” Japan’s goals were “inherently hostile” to the United States and its interests; China was “fighting our battle for freedom and peace” in the region. American national purpose, he continued, must be to “alleviate the disparity under which China is fighting” by imposing sanctions on Japan. Finally, Stimson called upon Roosevelt to provide greater leadership and to use the influence of the United States, both “moral and material,” to aid China and the cause of peace. The Colonel acknowledged that the problems in East Asia were connected to those in Europe. Yet war had broken out only in Asia, and time was running against the United States. “Incalculable harm may be done,” Stimson concluded, “by an American failure of principle, to the ultimate decisions of hundreds of millions of minds now in flux.”15
Roosevelt asked Hull for suggestions on how to reply. He noted that they would both “wholly” agree with Stimson, “but we still have not got the answer.” He wrote Stimson that his letter had stated “considerations which are ever present in my thoughts,” but failed to provide an acceptable course of action. The Europeans were looking for leadership from the United States, but he was not sure that the “people of this country nor Congress” would support any measures of pressure. In the end, Roosevelt did not follow up his quarantine address with any new initiatives, and Stimson, although finding that he and Roosevelt still agreed on the fundamental issues, remained frustrated by the inaction of the administration in the face of the growing crisis and the president’s unwillingness to challenge and direct public opinion. Still, he recognized that his proposed course of action might lead to war and understood the political restraints that Roosevelt operated under.16
Throughout 1938, most of Stimson’s time and energy were taken up by the Blaustein case, a major suit involving Standard Oil that lasted until 1944. While he continued to follow international events with growing concern in 1938, he made no further efforts to influence the administration or public opinion. By early 1939, however, Stimson had concluded that war was inevitable in Europe. The Munich agreement was merely a temporary respite. Germany had been allowed to gain strength at the expense of the West, and along with Italy and Japan posed “an overwhelming threat to Western Civilization.”17 The divide between the democracies and the dictatorships was now impassable, and the aggressors could not be stopped by any means short of armed resistance by other nations. With these thoughts in mind, Stimson could no longer remain silent.
In January 1939, Stimson wrote a letter to the New York Times urging President Roosevelt to lift the trade embargo imposed upon Spain and to resume the shipment of goods to the Republican government, the legal and recognized government of Spain. Nonintervention by the United States and the other Western democracies had denied the Loyalist government arms while Germany and Italy were supplying the Fascist rebels. Stimson argued that the nature of the Spanish government was an internal affair, but what was at stake was the principle of a government being able to purchase arms for its self-defense.18 Roosevelt finally lifted the embargo two months later, but it was too late to reverse the outcome of the Spanish Civil War. Stimson regretted that he had not spoken out sooner on this matter as he saw the Fascist side “was incomparably more dangerous to us; more active in their proselytizing, more outrageous and intolerant of international law and methods” than the Loyalists and their supporters.19
