Isolationism is deeply rooted in American history. As Selig Adler, the pro-interventionist historian, once pointed out,
quote, quote, the American Revolution was in itself an act of isolation, for it cut the umbilical cord to the mother country, end quote.
Prior to the annexation of Hawaii and the Spanish-American War, it simply did not occur
to anyone that an American empire was either possible or desirable.
There was no anti-interventionist movement in America before the late 1800s for the simple
reason that a marked aversion to foreign adventurism was well nigh universal.
The idea that we ought to keep aloof from the world was not just a political or ideological
The Social Principle upheld by all parties and factions, it was a cultural trait, part of what it meant to be an American.
Isolationism was not the policy of a particular party or movement, the anti-imperialist movement, but the cultural consensus and deeply held conviction of Americans at every social level.
We were different.
For the Europeans, we did not go marauding about in search of trouble, treasure and trade
concessions. Interventionism was the policy of kings and emperors, not of free republican
governments. Seemingly inoculated against the European vice of foreign adventurism,
we were almost, almost never tempted to indulge until February 3rd, 1893. On that day, a curious
The five-man delegation appeared in the city of San Francisco.
Arriving on the steamer Claudine, the five-man delegation represented a conspiracy of white
planters who had seized the island of Hawaii, deposed Queen Liliuokalani, and now sought
to incorporate the islands into the first American outpost of empire.
What one congressional opponent of annexation would later call the vacillus of imperialism
had finally touched U.S. soil.
Now the annexationists pressed their case in terms of the alleged economic and military
benefits to American business.
Hawaii, it was said, is the gateway to the markets of the Orient.
The opponents of annexation, southern democrats and northern mudwumps, saw the conquest of
of the Hawaiian Kingdom as the first breach in the walls of the American Republic and
so it was.
The country in possession for the first time of a colonial empire would be no different
from the imperial powers of Europe.
One such anti-imperialist was the mug lump Carl Schurz, editor of the influential Harper's
Weekly.
He made the same arguments against the annexation of Hawaii as he made against President Grant's
ill-fated attempt to grab Santo Domingo.
Schurz had argued that we could not absorb Santo Domingo and survive as a republic, for
the United States could never rule other peoples by sheer force without doing violence to itself
and fundamentally altering its own nature.
If Santo Domingo were to be annexed, it therefore followed that it must be admitted as a state,
a full-fledged part of a union right up there with Massachusetts and Indiana.
But this, he averred, was impossible, since no republic had ever flourished beneath the
tropical sun.
To annex the American tropics would be to acquire no end of trouble.
Quote, have you thought of what this means, he asked, fancy ten or twelve tropical states
added to the southern states we already possess.
Fancy the senators and representatives of 10 or 12 millions of tropical people. Fancy
them sitting in the halls of Congress, throwing the weight of their intelligence, their morality,
their political notions and habits, their prejudices and passions into the scale of the
destinies of this republic.
He goes on to denounce, quote, a singular delusion that has taken hold of the minds
of Otherwise Clear-Headed Men. It is that our new friendship with England would serve
firmly to secure the world's peace." Now, this suspicion of Britain's baneful influence
is a theme that started in Jefferson's day and resurfaced again during the debate over
what to do with the spoils of the Spanish-American War. Speaking against the annexation bill,
Senator Bland of Georgia declared, quote, the secret reason for this bill, he said,
was to, quote, pressure on the part of Great Britain.
Isolated yet possessed of a vast empire, Great Britain needed allies, really subordinates,
to do her bidding and had settled on the United States to play this role.
Dependent on England to hold our Asiatic territory, the Democratic senator feared we would be
be pulled into the dispute over the division of a Chinese spoils.
In the Senator's opinion, he could not quote, but regard annexation as a deeply laid scheme
to enslave the American people under the present domination of plutocracy.
The power of the Bank of England, the wealth of that country over the banks and money institutions
of this country has brought to bear the combined power of the capitalists of England and America
to control our financial system. The next move is to put our army and navy at the service
of England in the prosecution of Asiatic conquest, the end of which no man can see.
And so, summing up this period, we have three major anti-imperialist themes, three arguments
Against the Rise of Empire 1. The ideological argument. In this view, imperialism
is seen as a direct threat to republican institutions. The idea that we could rule a people without
their consent violated our own anti-colonialist heritage. Furthermore, the decision to set
up a course for empire would inevitably mean a huge standing army, huge public debts and
and the threat to American liberties represented by both of these dire prospects.
In the process of acquiring an empire, we would lose our distinctively American character
and wind up just like the decadent empires of Europe.
Now the second argument is the cultural argument, which condemned imperialism as a threat to
the cultural homogeneity of American society.
We had already fought one civil war over the question of race.
The addition of yet more cultural diversity would add the possibility of yet more racial
strife.
Apart from the ethnic angle, however, there was a more significant point to be made, that
the policy of imperialism would so degrade and contaminate American culture that the very
character of the people would be altered and corrupted almost beyond redemption.
3. The conspiratorial argument, couched in populist rhetoric that imperialism was a policy
of a plutocratic elite of the munitions makers and the bankers with their foreign loans who
made money off the human slaughter. Furthermore, so went the argument, this plutocracy was so
enamored of Great Britain that it was willing to sacrifice our republican heritage and the
and the national interest in playing out the role assigned to us by London.
Now the isolationist reaction to expansionism included elements of both parties.
Both major factions of a democratic party, Brianites and Cleveland Democrats, were generally
opposed to the policy of imperialism.
On the republican side, the Taft Republicans, as in William Howard Taft, excuse me, and
The Roosevelt Bull Moosers were pro-expansionists, while the so-called Mug Wumps, many of whom
were among the founders of the Republican Party, made up an important part of the emerging
anti-imperialist coalition.
The fight over the annexation issue also brought out regional divisions, and these were exacerbated
by the debate.
Revision to imperialism was centered in the South and the Midwest, with important pockets
of organized anti-imperialist activity throughout New England, that bastion of mugwumpery.
In the Midwest, this regionalism was associated with the healthy Jeffersonian hatred of the
Eastern Financial Establishment.
In a broad sense, what made possible the victory of the empire builders and the overthrow of
and the old isolationist mindset, at least among the urban intellectuals and the policymaking
elite, was the political culture of progressivism. This included a wide variety of cultural uplifters,
abolitionists, feminists, prohibitionists, millenarian fundamentalists, militant vegetarians,
And of course, professional intellectuals of every size, shape and description, eager
to try out their endless schemes for the improvement and uplifting of mankind.
It was only natural that these people, having set their sights on saving the nation, would
feel compelled to take on the rest of the world.
This crusading spirit and America's acquisition of overseas colonial empire planted the seeds
that would sprout a crop of myrmidons on the eve of the First World War.
The coming of the Great War gave birth to an anti-interventionist movement colored with
the traditional themes of American anti-imperialism.
As Europe sank into a chaos of blood-drenched darkness, Haiti Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge
and former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson launched a campaign to reunite the Republicans
and the progressives over the preparedness issue.
President Wilson soon came up with his own proposals to increase military appropriations
as he inched closer to a decision to go to war.
The anti-interventionists struck back when the House of Representatives nearly succeeded
in eliminating the ambitious proposal of a Navy to increase the number of battleships.
An amendment to cut the naval appropriation in half failed by a mere 16 votes and the
battle lines were drawn.
Of the 155 votes cast in favor, the majority were southern and midwestern Democrats.
The agrarian Jeffersonian wing of a democratic party abhorred the rise of a professional
military caste, fearing that it would threaten democracy and pressurize the republic.
Midwestern democrats like Representative Clyde Taverner of Illinois denounced the war trust,
which had cornered the market in international strife.
Georgia populist Tom Watson declared that the real enemy was not abroad, but here at
at Home, in the class legislation of quote, overgrown and insolent monopolies.
Now traditional democratic opposition to militarism and big military budgets was muted, however,
by the fact that they were, after all, the party in power and thus reluctant to oppose
President Wilson's armaments program.
While there was a hard core of anti-preparedness democrats in the House and Senate, their numbers
was dwindled as the pressures of party politics were brought to bear.
On the Republican side, 15 voted for the cut in naval appropriations, including 13 Midwesterners,
most of whom were progressives.
This Republican insurgency represented a significant shift.
For years, many of these same people had gone along with imperialism and voted for a greatly
Representative James L. Sladen, a Texas Democrat, declared, but he suspected, quote, a conspiracy
to force our country into war with Germany. He attacked the great and influential lobby
operating about the halls of Congress and the press, whose purpose is not only to feed
the maw of the munitions makers but also to deploy our large forces in Europe. The people,
he contended, must be mobilized against, quote, the majority of the newspapers and great commercial
Here Slayden is expressing the main theme of anti-imperialism, first raised in the battle
against annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines and now amplified and applied to Wilson's
military buildup and his handling of the submarine crisis, a warmongering and profiteering elite
Motivated by greed and a treasonous devotion to Great Britain was conspiring to involve
us in the intrigues of Europe and get us into the war.
This concept, first articulated by the anti-imperialist movement of the 1890s, was a favorite populist
theme that developed and grew stronger with the years, carrying over into the isolationist
resistance to World War I and World War II and permeating the rhetoric of non-interventionist
Now, at about this time, there came into existence the first internationalist organization in
American history with the rather ominous name of the League to Enforce Peace.
President William Howard Taft served as chairman, and the League was the creature of the internationally
It was not some fringe group of fuzzy-minded radical pacifists, but the big business establishment
itself that was sponsoring and propagandizing the most wide-ranging scheme of international
organization yet devised.
The League wanted to set up an International Council of Conciliation, which would hear
were all disputes between nations and force would be used against so-called outlaw nations
who refused to submit.
William Jennings Bryan denounced the League Plan and Randolph Bourne, the young hunchback
radical and literary avenging angel of pre-war liberalism, described it as, quote, an alliance
of all against each that practically ensures that every war within the system would be
a World War.
This debate over the merits of internationalism had no effect on the 1916 election.
As happened so often in U.S. history, it was a bipartisan internationalism that faced the
voters that fateful presidential election year.
The Republican nominee was Charles Evans Hughes, sounding very much like his friends in the
and the need to enforce peace and foreign policy played almost no role in the campaign.
It wasn't until after Wilson's election victory that the controversy started to heat up again.
At a banquet given by the Democratic National Committee in honor of William Jennings Bryan,
the guest of honor denounced any thought of, quote, our being an international policeman,
end quote, and called for a constitutional amendment requiring the submission of every
Declaration of War to a Referendum of the People except in case of actual invasion of
our country.
Now, this is a theme that recurs over and over again.
During the Second World War, there was the Ludlow Amendment, the heroic Ludlow Amendment,
and even today, there is now a movement, though I guess it's mostly on the left, to do the
same thing.
Senator William E. Borah, a Republican of Idaho who had sometimes gone along with the
preparedness campaign, charged that the President's League of Nations represented a scheme that
would drag this country into endless foreign wars.
We were headed, warned the Senator, into the storm center of European politics.
The League of Nations proposal solidified the progressive Republican response to Wilsonian
and Internationalism, and pretended a shift in the alignment of the two parties in the
realm of foreign policy.
From this time until the Cold War, the Republicans moved toward isolationism and the Democrats
moved increasingly toward interventionism, reversing their historic roles.
Now there were, of course, exceptions, Taft and his followers remained internationalists
and Teddy Roosevelt and Lodge also were in favor of maintaining our international alliances,
but these leaders came more and more to be in a minority in their own parties.
As a New Republic editorial put it, what had been the party of jingoism and imperial overstretch
was now proposing, quote, to crouch at its own fireside, build a high tariff wall, arm
Firm against the whole world, cultivate no friendships, take no steps to forestall another
great war, and then let things rip.
The party which was once inspired by the American Union is becoming the party of secession and
states' rights as against world union, quote unquote, and I'm in favor of it.
Among the Democrats, the party regulars were forsaking their traditional fealty to the
and the Foreign Policy of Thomas Jefferson and uniting around President Wilson's internationalist program.
While some Democrats spoke out in defense of the old program, opposition from the Brian wing was muted, as was Brian himself.
The vote in the House of Representatives on the war resolution reflected the politics of the emerging isolationist coalition, which would retain its essential character for the next 40 years.
During that debate, isolationist themes were reiterated with renewed vigor.
In entering the war, we would hand the victory to the money-mad profiteers who trafficked
in arms.
In spreading democracy and peace abroad, we would lose it at home.
In saving the Europeans, we would lose our own souls.
Fifty-four congressmen voted against Wilson's war.
Thirty-five Republicans, eighteen Democrats, and one Socialist.
Although there were a few conservative Republicans who voted no, most were left-wing populists
of the Lafollette variety, mid-westerners who hated bigness, the eastern establishment
and the government-business partnership that was the basis of the state capitalist order.
Virtually all the Democrats who voted no were southern brianites who remembered their party's
Now, in the opposition to the First World War, the three themes of the anti-interventionist
movement were amplified and developed.
The ideological argument was reflected in the progressive critique of war as the policy
of a ruthless elite that profits from the slaughter.
The Republic had been overthrown by such men and the populist progressives meant to take
it back.
After the Great War, the cultural and conspiratorial themes tended to merge into a single argument,
that foreign lobbyists in government and the media exert a decisive influence in the councils
of power.
Universal Revisionism played a key role.
Harry Elmer Barnes' books, The Genesis of the World War and In Quest of Truth and Justice
gave voice to the universal mood of disillusionment.
Barnes' critique of U.S. intervention in the Great War was preceded by, and thematically
Bowsman had retired from the Washington State Supreme Court and devoted himself to writing
the first American book to expose the myth of German war guilt.
Writing in H. L. Mencken's American Mercury, Bowsman asked, Was ever a country so bedeviled
Has there ever been one in all history in which the class most powerful in controlling
government and public opinion was determinedly bent on giving away enormous sums of the country's
money to nations already heavily armed and openly expressing contempt for our sacrifice,
which they would accept only as their due?
It is an actual fact that in many circles of wealth and fashion in this country, one
who takes his country's side in these debates is put to shame at dinner tables."
Well, it all depended on whose dinner table you ate at.
In the East, among the Tory-loving would-be aristocrats of American society, this was
no doubt true.
But in the Midwest, a new Americanism was brewing. The general disillusionment that
follows any war, combined with popular resentment against British wartime propaganda and their
attempt to get out of paying their war debts to the United States, reached a boiling point
in the late 20s. A wave of anti-British feeling swept the country, and a coalition of groups
such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Patriotic League for the Preservation of American
History joined forces to get rid of the Anglophilic bias in the nation's school books.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars declared at that time that, quote, the heroic history of a
nation is the drum and pipe music to which it marches.
It makes a mighty difference whether America continues to quick-step to Yankee doodle or
or takes the marking time to God Save the King.
Now this is a mass movement.
Of course today this is almost inconceivable, but perhaps not.
In October 1927, Bausman testified in the celebrated case of William McAndrew, the superintendent of schools in Chicago,
who had been suspended for authorizing blatantly pro-British textbooks with an explicitly internationalist bias.
Initiated by Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson and his advisor, pro-American journalist and author, Charles Grant Miller, the campaign to decolonize and reclaim the history of this country was given voice in Bousman's testimony.
England, he said, had, quote, beguiled us into war, took all the spoils of it and did not want to pay her debts, end quote.
The inculcation of American use with a treasonous reverence for the so-called mother country
was the work of, quote, financiers of England who seek, first, the full cancellation of
England's war debt to the United States and, second, the placing of the Union Jack wherever
now flies the stars and stripes, end quote.
Now the trumpet of this Midwestern isolationism of the right was Colonel Robert Rutherford
McCormick's Chicago Tribune newspaper, the flagship newspaper of the McCormick Medal
Patterson newspaper chain.
McCormick regularly excoriated our deadbeat so-called allies for welching on their war
deaths and castigating the State Department for toting up to the British.
Another editorial voice raised against internationalism was that of George Horace Lorimer, founding
Liberals disillusioned by the Treaty of Versailles, Midwestern progressives wary of a foreign interventionism and economic centralism, and conservative republicans who hated FDR and all his works, this was the broad-based coalition that coalesced into the movement we know today as the old right.
Forge in the battle against the New Deal and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's drive to war,
the old right coalition transformed the Midwestern progressive republicans who had initially
supported the New Deal into the bitterest Roosevelt haters in the country and principled
opponents eventually of big government.
Our evolution is encapsulated in the career of the writer and publicist John T. Flynn,
who started out as a New Republic liberal and opponent of big business monopolism and
became the outstanding organizer and spokesman for the America First Committee and the old
right conservatives.
In Flynn's mind, opposition to centralism and militarism were the main targets, were
He was the main tenet of the liberal creed, and in his campaign against the New Deal and
the war, he was merely being consistent.
But in fact, there was a change in the analysis of the old-fashioned liberals, a clarification
of their previously confused economic views.
They became opponents of big government.
Yesterday's critics of capitalism were transformed, like Flynn, into advocates of free enterprise
and strictly limited government.
In the old right, in the America First Committee, all the main currents of anti-interventionism,
Populism, Progressivism, Nationalism, Libertarianism merged into a single movement in opposition to the New Deal and the war.
Out of this popular front, the modern conservative movement was born.
Now, I've already dealt with this subject in my book,
Reclaiming the American right, the lost legacy of the conservative movement.
And since I hate to repeat myself, I'm not going to go into a big analysis of it here.
And I refer you to that work
for an extensive treatment of the subject.
Suffice to say that the old right is
sort of hovering over this room, watching us.
And they are intellectual ancestors,
Now, those who oppose the transformation of our American Republic into an empire hailed
from both ends of the political spectrum, from far right to far left and virtually all
points in between.
From the free silver populism of William Jennings Bryan to the old right laissez-faireism
of Garrett Gouret. The various strands of non-interventionist thought are made of distinct
and diverse fibers. The history of the anti-interventionist movement is the story of how those disparate
threads have been slowly woven together over time. It is the story of a developing Americanism,
of an American ideology that encompasses not only foreign but domestic policy, of a libertarian
and Nationalism that extols America as the fatherland of liberty.
The evolution of this ideology is an ongoing process of which this historic conference
is a vitally important part.