FDR - Jean Edward Smith [274]
In London, Chamberlain spoke feebly to Parliament, a waffling, self-pitying address that gave no indication Britain intended to stand by its commitment to the Poles. When Arthur Greenwood, the acting leader of the Labour opposition, rose to reply, Leo Amery, one of many prominent Conservatives appalled at Chamberlain’s limp response, shouted, “Speak for England, Arthur.” The House erupted with a mighty cheer, and Greenwood gave a brief, stirring speech that reflected the mood of the country: “I wonder how long we are prepared to vacillate … when Britain, and all Britain stands for, and human civilization are in peril.”3 A thunderous, prolonged ovation greeted Greenwood’s remarks. As one member noted, “A puff would have brought the Government down.”4 With Parliament in revolt the cabinet recovered its lost courage. At 8 A.M. Sunday, September 3, the British government informed Berlin that unless it received assurances within three hours that Germany would begin an immediate withdrawal of its forces from Poland, Great Britain would declare war. At 11:15, with no response, a dispirited Chamberlain informed a radio audience and later Parliament, “This country is now at war.” Five hours later France followed suit.*
Roosevelt addressed the nation Sunday night in a fireside chat. “This nation will remain a neutral nation,” said the president, “but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.”5
FDR’s first order of business was repeal of the Neutrality Act. So long as the act remained on the books, the United States was precluded from providing aid to any of the belligerents, even if they paid cash on the barrelhead. Congress had adjourned for its annual recess, and the members were spread across the country. On Wednesday, September 13, after touching base with the leadership of the House and Senate, Roosevelt summoned the legislators into special session the following Thursday.6 “My own personal opinion,” he wrote Judge Walton Moore, counselor of the State Department, “is that we can get the votes in the House and Senate but that the principal difficulty will be to prevent a filibuster in the latter.”7
Isolationist opposition mobilized quickly. The following evening Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate’s longest-serving member, delivered a blistering attack over a national radio hookup. European wars, said the aged Borah, were “wars brought on through the unconscionable schemes of remorseless rulers.” If the United States sold European countries arms, “we would be taking sides, and that would be the first step to active intervention.”8 Borah’s speech resonated strongly among those determined to keep the United States out of war.
Roosevelt recruited the Republican leadership to respond. Alf Landon, Frank Knox, and Henry L. Stimson waded into the fray to support immediate repeal. The academic establishment joined the fight. President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia, James B. Conant of Harvard, and Karl Compton of MIT, together with the presidents of Princeton and Yale, mobilized the nation’s educators to support repeal. The Kansas editor William Allen White organized a wide array of notables through the Non-Partisan Committee for Peace Through Revision of the Neutrality Act.*
The battle escalated on September 15, when Charles A. Lindbergh, one of the country’s sentimental heroes, addressed a national audience at least as large as that which had listened to FDR’s fireside chat twelve days before. “This is not a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion. This is simply one of those age-old struggles