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Red Scare
Resulted in a nationwide crusade against people whose Americanism was suspect. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer rounded up people who were in question. Some states passed criminal syndicalism laws that made it illegal to advocate the use of violence to obtain social change. It was caused by the communist Bolshevik Revolution that sparked a fear of Russia within the United States. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an organization for internal cooperation established in 1920. It was initiated by the victorious Allied powers at the end of WWI. Woodrow Wilson was the American leader at the League of Nations and insisted that it should first work on ensuring future peace in the world so another catastrophe like WWI does not occur. -
Emergency Quota Act
Isolationist Americans of the 1920s felt they had no use for immigrants. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 placed a quota on the number of European immigrants who could come to America each year. It was set at 3% of people of their nationality who had been living in the United States. -
Washington Disarmament Conference
This event was an international conference called by the United States to limit the naval arms race and to work out security agreements in the Pacific area. The conference resulted in the drafting and signing of several major and minor treaty agreements. -
Four Power Treaty
The treaty between Britain, France, Japan, and the United States replaced the twenty year old Anglo-Japanese Treaty and preserved the status quo of the Pacific. Also, it was partly a follow up on the Lansing-Ishii Treaty signed between the United States and Japan. -
Five Power Naval Treaty
This treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy. It was based off of a proposal to scrap almost 1,900,000 tons of warships belonging to the Great Powers. The bold proposal surprised the delegates at the conference, but it was still enacted to a modified form. -
Immigration Act
The Immigration Act of 1924 replaced the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. It cut quotas for foreigners from 3% to 2%. It also banned the Japanese from coming to America. Canadians and Latin Americans were exempt from the act because they were so close it was easier to send them home when they were not needed. The Act ended the era of unrestricted immigration to the United States. -
Criminal case of Sacco and Vanzetti
Antiredism and antiforeignism were reflected were reflected in this criminal case. The two men were convicted of the murder of a Massachusetts paymaster and his guard. They were given a trial, but the jury and judge were prejudiced against the men because they were Italians, atheists, anarchists, and draft dodgers. There was criticism based on the trial all over the country from liberals and radicals, but the men were still electrocuted. -
Kelogg-Briand Pact
The pact was an international agreement between signatory states that promised not to use war to resolve conflicts. It was one of the many international efforts to prevent another world war, but it had little effect preventing the rising militarism of the 1930s. It had a large exception which was that it still permitted defensive wars. -
Stimson Doctrine
The Stimson Doctrine was created by Henry L. Stimson, who was the Secretary of State at the time. The doctrine declared that the United States would not recognize any territory acquired by force. It was issued during the time Japan was in violation of the League of Nations, and the issues were ignored by the League of Nations. -
London Economic Conference
Sixty six nations sent delegates to the London Economic Conference. The delegates hoped to coordinate an international response to the global depression. They wanted to stabilize currencies and the rates at which they could be exchanged. President Roosevelt opposed the conference because he did not want any interference with his own plans to fix the American economy. Without support from the United States, the conference fell apart. It made international cooperation increasingly difficult. -
Tydings-McDuffie Act
This act provided independence to the Philippines by 1946. It was a federal law that established the process for the Philippines, then an American colony, to become an independent country after a ten year period. The nation did not want to support the Philippines if Japan attacked it. -
Johnson Debt Default Act
This act attempted to prevent debt dodging nations from borrowing further from the United States. The law barred those nations from negotiating any further loans until they had repaid their debts in full. -
Good Neighbor Policy
America would no longer intervene or interfere with Latin America countries. It was the foreign policy by the Franklin Roosevelt administration. It also reinforced the idea that the United States would be a "good neighbor" and engage in reciprocal exchange with Latin American countries. -
Neutrality Acts of 1935-1937
Congress sought to keep America out of war by passing the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937. The acts stated that when the president proclaimed the existence of a foreign war, certain restrictions would automatically go into effect. In regards to countries that were involved in a war, no American could legally sail on one of their ships, sell or transport munitions to them, or give them loans.
America actually helped provoked the aggressors because they were not affected.
