Full transcript
0:01okay let's talk about why isolationist
0:05sentiment was so strong in the early
0:071930s it has a lot to do with the Great
0:10Depression and Americans who wanted to
0:14believe the
0:15depression didn't reflect a problem with
0:17the American
0:18economy but had more to do with
0:22America's involvement in World Affairs
0:25that negatively impacted the American
0:27economy one of the best ways to get into
0:30this is talking about this guy here
0:32Gerald Pai he's a Republican senator
0:36from the state of North Dakota who's
0:38just come into office uh in
0:411930 now NY is kind of an interesting
0:45figure um he wasn't a career politician
0:49this this position of Senator is
0:50actually his first elected office ever
0:54he was a newspaper guy he had been an
0:56editor and a reporter uh and he was most
0:59famous in the 20s for uncovering The
1:02Teapot Dome scandal which sent president
1:05Warren G Harding's Secretary of the
1:08Interior Albert Fall to jail Fall's the
1:12the first uh Cabinet member to ever do
1:15uh jail for a crime that's committed an
1:19office now what you have to understand
1:22here I don't want to go too far down
1:23this road is that the Teapot Dome
1:26scandal in ny's reporting on it
1:28reflected n's belief Bel that the
1:31wealthy were corrupt influence in
1:34America uh the te Teapot Dome was a
1:38petroleum Reserve that was held by the
1:40federal government for National usage uh
1:43and Albert Fall as Secretary of the
1:45Interior had taken some bribes done some
1:47back room dealing and leased these
1:51petroleum reserves off to uh the shell
1:54petroleum company uh so From ny's
1:58perspective fall
2:00actions
2:02represented uh corrupt corporate
2:05influences in American society here to
2:07his view were um wealthy private
2:11individuals who were stealing in this
2:13case literally stealing petroleum from
2:16the American people this petroleum That
2:17was supposed to be held in the American
2:20people's trusts for for for more
2:22important uses and uh somebody like fall
2:25and his cronies were just exploiting
2:27their power to make as much money as POS
2:30hit so
2:32NY when he reports on this and gets
2:35false sent to jail he turns it into an
2:38opportunity for political clearing the
2:41people of North Dakota in large part
2:43send him to the Senate because he has
2:47made himself into somebody who sticks up
2:50for the little guy he will he will take
2:53down big moneyed influences and protect
2:57the American people's interests his
3:00nickname at the time was Gerald the
3:02Giant Killer right so as a senator NY
3:06continued doing this sort of work um he
3:10established a committee called the N
3:12committee again the representatives and
3:15senators are allowed to hear uh
3:19established committees for uh hearings
3:22to investigate anything they really want
3:24to investigate in the United States this
3:26happens all the time so the I committee
3:29convened because NY believed there were
3:33connections between the wartime profits
3:36that Banks and Munitions Industries had
3:39made in America's involvement in the
3:41first world war um ny's committee was
3:45essentially um responsible for
3:47establishing the idea that the US had
3:50not gotten into the first world war back
3:53in 1917 for Noble causes like saving
3:57democracy and protecting freedom
4:00but instead uh because American Banks
4:03had been lending money to Great Britain
4:06uh and and also to Germany and they've
4:09been selling War Goods on credit to
4:13these countries and uh they wanted to uh
4:16see Great Britain win so that the amount
4:20of money these so-called merchants of
4:23death would make would be protected so
4:26for nigh the first world war had
4:28happened not because of noble reasons
4:31but to make these rich merchants of
4:34death even richer right now first world
4:37war is not particularly Popular by the
4:401930s you know again it's it's something
4:42that people look at as sort of a a
4:44mistake of sorts anyway um so people are
4:48kind of primed to look at it as the
4:51source of of their problems and of
4:54course in early 30s the the thing that
4:56Americans are most concerned with is the
4:59Great Depression
5:01so NY argued that the reason why he
5:05wasn't the only person making this
5:06argument a number of people but he said
5:09that really the the main reason why that
5:10oppression
5:11occurred was because of European banks
5:15that European Banks had collapsed under
5:18the weight of reparation payments that
5:22had been created by the first world war
5:26um so America didn't create the
5:28depression it was
5:30the shortcomings of the American economy
5:31or the weakness of overproduction under
5:34consumption which is really closer to
5:36the truth of why the depression happened
5:39the problem was the American economy
5:42collapsed because American Banks were
5:44Pulled Under by European banks that were
5:48weakened by the first world war which we
5:50should have never been linked to because
5:53of these merchants of death so for a lot
5:56of Americans who are trying to
5:58understand the Great Depression they're
6:00they're looking for a scapegoat and N
6:02gave them it was merchants of death and
6:05European Banks so how do we recover from
6:08the depression well Step One is
6:10protecting ourselves from these corrupt
6:13influences and that meant embracing
6:16isolationist sentiment again n argued as
6:20a republican that the Democratic Party
6:23of the 19 teens had strayed too far from
6:26isolationist traditions and this had led
6:28us down this path to the Great
6:30Depression ny's arguments were popular
6:33with a lot of people in particular he
6:36attracted of course a number of
6:38Republican followers from his own party
6:40but also a number of conservative
6:42Democrats Southern Democrats in
6:44particular who tended to be rural tended
6:47not to see the side of the democratic
6:50party that was tied to Industry in the
6:51Northeast as particularly uh you know
6:54noteworthy or important you a lot of
6:57Americans felt betrayed by the
6:59committee's findings and it gave them a
7:02way to
7:04understand why the depression happened
7:06it gave them a clear-cut bad guy and it
7:09gave them a way to you know make them
7:13make themselves feel better make
7:14themselves feel like we can keep this
7:16from getting worse if we just Embrace
7:18isolationist sentiment so this of course
7:22was something that FDR wasn't a big fan
7:25of but it also was something he couldn't
7:27do a whole lot about at the time more on
7:30that in just a second