A Return to Normalcy Working for Peace War Debts Dawes Plan Limiting Immigration Teapot Dome Scandal

Working for Peace Post war issues: war debts, arms controls, reconstruction of war torn countries In the wake of World War I, U.S. officials and private citizens made significant efforts to guarantee that the nation would not be drawn into another war. Some focused on disarmament and some focused on cooperation with the League of Nations Others initiated a movement to try to outlaw war outright. Kellogg-Briand Pact 1929 ◦ 64 nations agreed to renounce war as a means of solving international problems ◦ Unable to enforce: no military or economic plan against a country that violated this

War Debts Britain and France borrowed $10 billion from American banks in WWI They could only pay back debt in two ways: 1.Exporting more than they imported 2.Collecting reparations from Germany Fordney-McCumber Tariff ◦ Raised taxes on imports to highest level ◦ Result: No foreign competition = Britain and France not being able to sell their goods (#1) ◦ They then demanded Germany to pay back their debt, but Germany has no $ to give

Dawes Plan U.S. banks loaned Germany $2.5 billion so Germany could pay reparations to Britain and France Britain and France used that $ to pay their debt owed to U.S. banks Result: U.S. Paid themselves with their own money (revolving door)

Discuss with a partner… How did the U.S either follow or depart from an isolationist policy after WWI?

Answer in notes: How did the U.S. experience an era called the “Roaring 20s” so quickly after WWI? What is “roar” in reference to? What has to happen in order for it to succeed?

Summary The United States ultimately did not resort to isolationism as the necessities of commercial growth dictated continued government support for overseas private investment that drove both American engagement with Latin America and the rebuilding of Europe in the 1920s. U.S. played an important role in international negotiations to set arms limitations and create pacts that aimed at securing a lasting peace. By the mid-1920s, however, a general feeling of economic uncertainty reinforced isolationist tendencies and encouraged new legislation that placed severe limits on immigration to the United States, particularly from Asia. During the 1930s, the rise of fascism as a threat to international peace sparked concern in the United States, but the severe economic depression curtailed American willingness to act. In this environment, keeping the nation out of the brewing tension in Europe and Asia became an important foreign policy goal.

Limiting Immigration Nativist attitudes Demand for unskilled labor decreased after WWI ◦ Immigrants were this labor Emergency Quota Act 1921 ◦ Set a max # of people who could enter the country ◦ Limited immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe (Catholics and Jews) ◦ Japanese immigration was excluded ◦ Did not apply to the western hemisphere (Canada and Mexico had open immigration)

limited the number of immigrants who would be admitted from any country annually to 3% of the number of residents from that same country who lived in the United States, based on the U.S. Census figures from 1910.

Teapot Dome Scandal President Harding’s Secretary of Interior: Albert Fall Fall secretly leased oil-rich public land in Wyoming and California to private companies in return for money and land Fall claimed these contracts were in government interest, but he also had $325,000 in bonuses and cash