Last week in class, we discussed American "Neutrality" during the early years of WWII...an estimated 80-90% (still disillusioned by the effects of WWI) of Americans were ardent anti-war isolationists prior to the December 7, 1941 "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor.
We also discussed our rigorous and sometimes clandestine involvement in international affairs...Cash & Carry Program, Lend-Lease Act, "peacetime" military draft, the American Volunteer Group in China, The McCollum Memo (provocation of Japan and "back door" to Germany), Operation Magic, etc.
Jeannette Rankin
1880-1973
On December 8, 1941, American attitudes quickly shifted as the House of Representatives rushed through a declaration of war in less than an hour with a vote of 388-1. The lonely "NO" vote came from Jeannette Rankin...the first woman elected to Congress and a lifelong pacifist. Rankin believed that President Roosevelt had deliberately provoked the Japanese to attack because he wanted to bring us into war against Nazi Germany. After a 40-minute debate, a roll call vote began and when her time to vote approached she said...
"As a woman, I can't go to war...and I refuse to send anyone else."
She was hissed, booed, physically threatened and eventually sought refuge in a telephone booth where she called for police protection. Afterward she commented...
“If you know a certain thing is right, you can’t change it.”
1968 Jeannette Rankin March on Washington
for Civil Rights, Feminism, and Peace
A pacifist who loved to fight...
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