FDR - Jean Edward Smith [306]
The isolationists had the headlines, but Roosevelt had the votes. Polls consistently showed three quarters of Americans supported the president and Lend-Lease.36 On February 8 the bill cleared the House 260–165, largely along party lines. The following day Wendell Willkie, back from Britain, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Nearly 1,200 people crammed into the splendorous Caucus Room (more than twice its rated capacity) to hear the former GOP nominee. They were not disappointed. Breaking with his party’s congressional leadership, Willkie endorsed Lend-Lease down the line. The most dramatic segment of Willkie’s testimony came when he was questioned about his remarks during the campaign that Roosevelt would lead the nation into war. Willkie said he saw no constructive purpose in discussing old campaign speeches. “I struggled as hard as I could to beat Franklin Roosevelt and I tried to keep from pulling my punches. He was elected president. He is my president now.”
Thunderous applause shook the Caucus Room. Nevertheless, Senator Gerald Nye persisted. He quoted Willkie’s Baltimore statement that the United States would be at war by April 1941 if Roosevelt was reelected.
“You ask me if I said that.” Willkie grinned. The Caucus Room erupted.
When the laughter died down, Nye continued: “Do you still agree that might be the case?”
“It might be. It was a bit of campaign oratory.” More laughter. “I’m very glad you read my speeches because the president said he did not.”37 Howls of laughter and sustained, foot-stomping applause.
For practical purposes the debate was over. Willkie’s good nature and obvious sincerity carried the day. Just as with selective service, his support for Lend-Lease broke the back of the opposition.
The following day Senator George of Georgia, the new chairman of Foreign Relations, pushed the bill through committee 15–8. On March 8 the full Senate added its approval 60–31, and three days later the House accepted the Senate version by a lopsided 317–71. Roosevelt’s preparedness coalition was in full control. Unrepentant Southern Democrats—men like Carter Glass, Pat Harrison, “Cotton Ed” Smith, and Walter George—joined big-city liberals and Republican internationalists to put the president’s program across. FDR signed the bill into law thirty minutes after its final passage. The next day Congress appropriated $7 billion to fund the first shipments to Great Britain, the largest single appropriation in American history.* “This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement,” said FDR. “The end of urging us to get along with dictators; the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of oppression.”38
Passage of Lend-Lease repealed the “cash” provision of the Neutrality Act. The “carry” requirement remained in effect. Whatever aid America supplied had to be carried in British bottoms. That posed a serious problem. There was little point providing $7 billion for military aid if it ended up on the ocean floor. In the three months leading up to Lend-Lease, 142 vessels, roughly 800,000 tons of shipping, had been sunk. German U-boats were sinking British ships three times faster than shipyards could replace them. In Churchill’s words, the Battle of Britain had become the Battle of the Atlantic.39
Roosevelt responded on April 10 by announcing that the United States had concluded an agreement with the Danish government in exile permitting U.S. forces to occupy Greenland and establish bases there.40 The following day he advised Churchill he was extending the American security zone in the Atlantic to 25 degrees west longitude, roughly midway between the westernmost bulge of Africa and the easternmost bulge of Brazil. The Navy would