Question

What were the Neutrality Acts? What do they tell us about attitudes towards World War I and military intervention in the interwar U.S.?

Answer 1

Events in Europe and Asia indicated by the mid-1930s that a new world war could soon erupt, and the US. Congress took action to push U.S. neutrality through. On August 31, 1935, Congress passed the first Neutrality Act prohibiting the export of "arms, ammunition, and war implements" from the United States to wartime foreign nations and requiring United States arms manufacturers to apply for an export license. US people operating in war zones have also been told to do so at their own risk. Originally, President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed the legislation but relented in the face of heavy Legislative and public opinion. Congress amended the Act unt on 29 February 1936

The 1937 Neutrality Act included one important concession to Roosevelt: belligerent nations were authorized, at the President's discretion, to purchase all items except weapons from the United States, as long as they paid for such items immediately and transported them on non-American ships — the so-called "cash-and-carry" clause. Because essential raw materials such as oil were not considered "implements of war," the provision of "cash-and-carry" would be pretty valuable to whatever nation might use it. Roosevelt conceived its inclusion as a strategic way of helping Britain and France in any fight against the Axis

Eventually, the Neutrality Acts represented a compromise by which the U.S. government accommodated the American public's isolationist sentiment, but still maintained the capacity to communicate with the world. The provisions of the Neutrality Acts gradually became obsolete once the United States joined the Allies in the December 1941 war against Nazi Germany and Japan.