America During the 2 World War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2JvarEfX0g When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Second World War II began. In America the economy was just starting to improve after the great depression. President Roosevelt did not want America to get involved in another war. Doing so would certainly mean the loss of more American lives. Roosevelt’s desire was for America to be isolated from the rest of the world. In an interview, Roosevelt was asked if America would be able to stay out of the war and his response was "... I believe we can, and every effort will be made by the Administration to do so." The age old question is, had America entered the war in 1939 would the overall length of the war been shorter? If America had been involved earlier would the large loss of life from the Holocaust been minimized? I believe that if the United States had entered the war when Germany first invaded Poland, the war would have been shorter and the overall loss of human lives would have been less.

As the war continued in Europe some of the leaders in America were arguing that America need to get involved in the war in Europe. America’s leaders recommend fighting in the war however, the American people did not want to get involved and sacrifice more American lives. During this era, America espoused the philosophy of isolationism. There were two instances when America could have entered the war before it did. When Japan was fighting against China and Germany was at war with much of Europe. During this time America continued to sit on the sidelines and remain neutral while other nations were experiencing great losses. America did however assist in the war effort when it broke the Japanese war-time code in August of 1940. This gave the United States the ability to understand Japan’s and Germany’s plans war time plans. America shared these plans with the entire world and yet didn’t realize that an attack might come to American soil. In August of 1940 Roosevelt made an initial effort in preparation for war when he asked Congress to enlist the National Guard into Federal service for a period of one year.

In September of 1940 America started to take steps that were precursors to entering the war. Japan, Germany and Italy singed the Tripartite Treaty. This treaty called for an alliance that if one of these nations attacked or was attacked by another nation, the other two countries would in turn declare war on the other nation. Roosevelt did not want to proactively enter the war. He believed that if either Japan or Germany were to attack America we would have no choice but to join in the war time cause. This was an important fact to Roosevelt’s leadership as if America was attacked the American people support entry into the war. On December 1941 Japan attacked at Pearl Harbor. This event marked the end of America’s isolationism and forced the United States into the war where it fought the final three year of the war.

After staying neutral and espousing isolationism for nearly a decade, America was finally pulled into the Second World War. America should have entered the war sooner so as to prevent the significant loss of life to the people in Europe. Not only would the US have assisted the European nation’s safety but we would also have averted the embarrassing attack on Pearl Harbor. Looking back at history America entered both the First and Second World War’s late. America has always wanted to be a peaceful nation but when attacked or provoked will defend our freedom, our citizens and our borders. (609)

Roosevelt and the Supreme Court

“During the past half-century the balance of power between the three great branches of the federal government has been tipped out of balance by the courts in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution. It is my purpose to restore that balance. You who know me will accept my solemn assurance that in a world in which democracy is under attack, I seek to make American democracy succeed. You and I will do our part.” http://www.hpol.org/fdr/chat/

With these words President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended his fireside chat to the people of the United States on March 9, 1937 and thus threw down the gauntlet to both the Congress and the citizens of the United States. He revealed a plan which had been years in the making to overcome the opposition of the Supreme Court to his New Deal.

On Jan. 30, 1937, the president disclosed to his closest aides a draft bill to reorganize the federal judiciary. The measure -- mischievously linked to a long-ago proposal by 75-year-old Justice James C. McReynolds -- called for all federal judges to retire by age 70. If they failed to do so, the president could appoint another judge to serve in tandem with each one older than 70.
The practical effect of the proposal: Roosevelt could have appointed six more Supreme Court justices immediately, increasing the size of the court to 15 members. A Congress dominated by Democrats undoubtedly would have appointed judges friendly to Roosevelt and his New Deal agenda.

Roosevelt's animosity toward the Supreme Court emerged in his first presidential term. Overwhelmingly elected in 1932, he promised a New Deal of social and economic involvement by the government in an America ravaged by the Great Depression. But the court, most of whose justices were appointed by Republicans, soon began to undo his work by ruling his New Deal laws unconstitutional on 5-4 votes.

In May 1935, the court attacked two laws. First, it invalidated the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, a law that had established pensions for railway workers. Then in a blow to the cornerstone of the New Deal, the court gutted the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. Roosevelt lambasted the justices for those rulings. "We have been relegated to the horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce," he complained. But his contempt for the conservative-minded courts of “Nine Old Men” -- six justices were age 70 or older, and the youngest was 61 -- did not deter them. In January 1936, the court ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 unconstitutional.

Re-elected to a second term by an even larger majority than in 1932, and given an even larger Democratic edge in Congress, Roosevelt, then the only 20th-century president not to have appointed a Supreme Court justice in four years, began to ponder "the court problem" openly. He even took a subtle jab at the court in his second inaugural address, saying that Americans "will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will."http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/franklindroosevelt

In his 1993 book FDR: Into the Storm, Roosevelt biographer Kenneth S. Davis said commentators of the 1930s described the battle between Roosevelt and the Supreme Court as "the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War." A confrontation of some sort seemed inevitable, but few people, even among those closest to Roosevelt, expected what came next.
Top aides suggested alternative judicial reforms -- a constitutional amendment allowing a two-thirds vote of Congress to overrule Supreme Court rulings, for example -- but Roosevelt would not budge. He also downplayed worries about the disingenuousness of his message, which said his bill was the best solution to an alleged judicial backlog rather than a justified attack on an unruly Supreme Court.

Roosevelt pitched his plan to Congress and the public Feb. 5, and the futility of his quest quickly became apparent. Republicans like Herbert Hoover, whom FDR ousted in the 1932 presidential election, accused Roosevelt of attempting "to pack the court." But the president's political enemies did far less damage to his cause than his friends.

The Senate hearings produced a chorus of opposition to the bill from distinguished leaders in many walks of life. Such an outpouring of public opinion stiffened the spines of many legislators who had been worried but silent. The Republicans wisely kept in the background and let opponents of the bill in the President’s own party lead the fight. The White House was increasingly alarmed by the disaffection of loyal New Dealers, but the President continued to scoff at any suggestion of compromise. To anxious members of his official family his stock answer was: “The people are with me; I know it.”

Still confident that he could win the public's backing despite opinion polls that indicated otherwise, Roosevelt ignored much of the criticism. In a March 9 "fireside chat," he acknowledged his true intentions -- to create a Supreme Court that could "understand these modern conditions" -- but it had no measurable influence on public opinion.
Support began to slip after Senate Judiciary Committee hearings later in March, and by June, Roosevelt reluctantly agreed to a compromise that would have allowed him to name just two new justices. But it was too late. On June 14, the committee issued a scathing report that called FDR's plan "a needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle … without precedent or justification."

Can this strange chapter in our history be regarded as an essential part of the process by which the Constitution has been modernized? Was President Roosevelt right in asserting, long after the fight was over, that he had lost a battle and won a war?

Roosevelt's biographers generally agree that his court-packing scheme robbed him of much of the political capital he had won in two landslide elections. It also hindered his all-out war on poverty. But to some extent, the president won his war with the Supreme Court.

First, the court's philosophy began to change even as Congress debated the merits of judicial reform. Owen J. Roberts, the youngest jurist, began to vote Roosevelt's way in close decisions; giving FDR 5-4 wins rather than losses by the same margin. Then before long, the "Nine Old Men" began to retire of their own volition, enabling the president to appoint a "Roosevelt court."
Everyone claimed some measure of victory. But in the end, the American people won the most because the Senate did exactly what its Judiciary Committee had recommended. The Senate "so emphatically rejected" FDR's court-packing scheme that no similar plan ever has been, or likely ever will be, "presented to the free representatives of the free people of America."http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/showdown.html (1,107)