The Neutrality Acts were a series of laws passed by CoN-CRESS in 1935, 1936, and 1937, and then revised in 1939 and 1941, for the purpose of preventing American involvement in wars outside the Western Hemisphere. Sentiment for such legislation had been building since the 1920s because of an adverse reaction to U. S. participation in World War I and the subsequent rise of isolationist thinking in public opinion and EOREIGN POLICY. In response to pressure from peace groups seeking investigations into munitions makers and bankers, Congress established the Nye COMMITTEE in 1934 to probe corporate collusion in war.
In April 1935, Senator Gerald P Nye, Republican of North Dakota and chairman of the Munitions Investigating Committee, introduced neutrality resolutions to restrict travel, loans, and export of arms by American citizens, businesses, and government. President Franklin D. ROOSEVELT had encouraged neutrality legislation despite the opposition of Secretary of State CORDELL Hull, who was wary of bills being prepared by ISOLATIONISTS. After several months of debate, the Senate in August passed the Neutrality Act of 1935, which was signed by Roosevelt despite his strong preference for a discretionary arms embargo that would enable the president to help nations that had been attacked. The law imposed a mandatory arms embargo against any nation involved in armed conflict, prohibited the export of munitions without the government’s permission, authorized the president to declare that Americans traveling on belligerents’ ships did so at their own risk, restricted the use of U. S. ports by belligerent submarines, and established a munitions control board to license arms dealers.
Roosevelt invoked Neutrality Act provisions less than two months after passage when Italy invaded ETHIOPIA and urged a “moral embargo” against each side, a request ignored as oil and other shipments to the Italians increased. In February 1936, Congress extended the act until May 1, 1937, keeping the arms embargo and now also prohibiting loans to belligerents. Roosevelt chose not to challenge the mandatory provisions of neutrality, fearing he might alienate the public, something he was unwilling to risk during an election year. When the SPANISH CIVIL WAR broke out in July 1936, Roosevelt urged a nondiscriminatory arms embargo against each side, which Congress enacted in January 1937.
With the 1936 Neutrality Act set to expire on May 1, 1937, congressional isolationists were determined to enact permanent legislation. Bills extending neutrality were introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives, but were in disagreement over whether the president’s authority to invoke CASH-AND-CARRY—permitting shipments of raw materials and nonmilitary items if paid for and carried in belligerents’ ships—should be mandatory or discretionary. After a compromise was reached agreeing to the discretionary version, the Neutrality Act of 1937 was passed and signed by Roosevelt on May 1, 1937. The 1937 law made most of the 1935 act provisions ostensibly permanent, except for cash-and-carry, which would expire in 1939.
On January 4, 1939, Roosevelt told Congress that neutrality legislation “may actually give aid to an aggressor and deny it to a victim.” Isolationists in Congress, however, wanted stricter legislation. When a compromise bill was introduced in March to revoke the arms embargo, noninterventionist senators in both parties killed the legislation. When Germany seized Czechoslovakia the same month, Roosevelt asked Congress to amend the 1937 law to eliminate the compulsory arms embargo. Attempts to eliminate the arms embargo in the House failed, and the Senate put off action until October, the month after WORLD War II began in Europe. Finally, on October 27, the Senate passed a revised neutrality bill as isolationists failed to keep the arms embargo provision in the legislation, and the House passed the bill in early November. Interventionist southern Democrats, though at odds with Roosevelt over New Deal measures, helped secure passage of the bill. The Neutrality
Act of 1939 lifted the arms embargo, but it retained cash-and-carry (which now applied to arms and munitions), continued the ban on loans to belligerents, and prohibited American vessels from transiting a broad “danger zone” that embraced most sea lanes to western European ports.
By the fall of 1941, with most of Europe in Axis hands and Japan advancing on its neighbors in Asia, Roosevelt desired further changes in the neutrality laws, specifically to permit the arming of American merchant ships and allow them to transport goods to belligerent ports—and thus repeal the “carry” of cash-and-carry. (The “cash” part had been bypassed with congressional passage of the Lend-Lease Act enabling aid to Great Britain.) Despite opposition from the isolationist bloc, especially the America First Committee, Congress passed a revised neutrality bill in November. The Neutrality Act of 1941 permitted the arming of American merchant vessels and allowed transportation of cargo to belligerent ports. Despite the alterations of 1939 and 1941, the Neutrality Act of 1937 remained in force until Pearl Harbor, just three weeks after the last revisions, when the United States itself became a belligerent in World War II.
Further reading: Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-1945 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983); Robert A. Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
—William J. Thompson
World History
