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By Root 2093 0

within our own family of nations—a quarrel arising from the errors of the last war—from the failure of the victors to follow a consistent policy either of fairness or force.”9 Lindbergh, who had received Germany’s second highest decoration from Hermann Göring shortly after Munich,† tapped into a vast reservoir of antiwar sentiment. Midwestern progressives, old-line socialists and Communists, Christian pacifists, cryptofascists such as Father Coughlin, and the German-American Bund launched an avalanche of letters, postcards, and telegrams to representatives and senators demanding retention of the arms embargo. Legislators previously disposed in favor of repeal began to waiver. One Republican congressman reported receiving 1,800 messages after Lindbergh’s speech, only 76 of which supported repeal.10

When FDR met with the congressional leadership on September 20, the day before Congress would convene, it was clear that outright repeal of the Neutrality Act was beyond reach. “The trouble is,” said Senate Republican leader Charles McNary of Oregon, “if we repealed the whole Neutrality Act people would think we were repealing our neutrality.”11 Roosevelt reached a bipartisan compromise: repeal the arms embargo, but put the sale of weapons on a “cash-and-carry” basis. No sales on credit; no U.S. funding; no bank loans; no American transport.

To emphasize the urgency of repeal, FDR chose to address Congress directly. Roosevelt always delivered his annual message in person, but not since Warren Harding in 1923 had a president spoken to Congress during the session.12 Recognizing the bad blood that had accumulated during the past two years, the president was at his conciliatory best. “These perilous days demand cooperation among us without a trace of partisanship. Our acts must be guided by one single hard-headed thought—keeping America out of war.” To avoid offending Anglophobic midwesterners and Irish Catholics, Roosevelt downplayed aid to Britain and France while emphasizing that repeal of the embargo would aid the cause of peace. The “cash-and-carry” requirement would avoid economic entanglement and keep American vessels out of the war zone.

“In a period when it is sometimes said that free discussion is no longer compatible with national safety, may you by your deeds show the world that we of the United States are one people, of one mind, one spirit, one clear resolution, walking before God in the light of the living.”13

Public approval was overwhelming. The White House mail room was inundated with messages of support. Even Senator Borah thought it was a good speech and said privately that he favored “cash and carry.”14 A Gallup poll immediately following the president’s speech indicated that 60 percent of Americans now supported repeal and 84 percent favored an Allied victory.15 On September 28 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16–7 to send the bill to the floor. This time Senators George and Gillette voted with the president.16

On the same day the Foreign Relations Committee reported the “cash-and-carry” bill, the beleaguered Polish garrison in Warsaw capitulated. Organized resistance ended. The Soviet Union, pursuant to the deal Stalin had struck with Hitler, intervened on September 17, and from that point on Poland’s fate was sealed. Germany and the USSR proclaimed a Boundary and Friendship Treaty defining Poland’s division. The Soviets acquired nearly half of Poland’s territory and one third its population. Germany gained the remainder. Like Austria and Czechoslovakia, Poland disappeared from the map of Europe. The Poles had fought bravely; their losses in battle totaled 70,000 killed, 133,000 wounded, and 700,000 captured. The Nazi war machine did not go unscathed, however; the final figures from Berlin listed 10,572 killed, 30,322 wounded, and 3,400 missing. The first great battle of World War II had ended in total defeat for the Allied powers.

With Poland’s collapse the momentum to repeal the arms embargo accelerated. Isolationist stalwarts Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and Robert Taft of Ohio endorsed