CHAPTER 34

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War,

1933-1941
V. SINGLE-ANSWER MULTIPLE CHOICE.
Mark the one best answer for each of the following questions.
1. Franklin Roosevelt undermined the London Economic Conference because
a. its members insisted on rigid adherence to the gold standard.
b. any agreement to stabilize national currencies might hurt Americas recovery from
depression.
c. such an agreement would involve the United States militarily with the League of Nations.
d. the delegates refused to work on reviving international trade.
e. it was dominated by British and Swiss bankers.
2. As a result of Franklin Roosevelts withdrawal from the London Economic Conference,
a. inflation in the United States was reduced.
b. the United States was voted out of the League of Nations.
c. tensions rose between the United States and Britain.
d. the United States began to pull out of the Depression.
e. the trend toward extreme nationalism was strengthened.
3. One internationalist action by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first term in office was
a. the formal recognition of the Soviet Union.
b. joining the League of Nations.
c. establishing military bases in China.
d. his support of the Tydings-McDuffie Act.
e. his commitment to Philippine independence.
4. Roosevelts recognition of the Soviet Union was undertaken partly
a. in order to win support from American Catholics.
b. because the Soviet leadership seemed to be modifying its harsher communist policies.
c. in hopes of developing a diplomatic counterweight to the rising power of Japan and
Germany.
d. to win favor with American liberals and leftists.
e. to open opportunities for American investment in Siberian oil fields.
5. In promising to grant the Philippines independence, the United States was motivated by
a. treaty obligations.
b. doubts about the islands potential profitability.
c. the view that the islands were militarily indefensible.
d. the realization that the islands were economic liabilities.
e. regrets over their imperialistic takeover in 1898.
6. Franklin Roosevelt embarked on the Good Neighbor policy in part because
a. there was a rising tide of anti-Americanism in Latin America.

b.
c.
d.
e.

Congress had repealed the Monroe Doctrine.

he feared the spread of communism in the region.
the policy was part of the neutrality stance taken by the United States.
he was eager to enlist Latin American allies to defend the Western Hemisphere against
dictators.

7. As part of his Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America, President Roosevelt developed
more generous policies of
a. encouraging Mexican immigration into the United States.
b. removing American controls on Haiti, Cuba, and Panama.
c. Latin American strongmen in Argentina and Brazil.
d. returning the Guantanamo naval base to Cuban control.
e. moving Puerto Rico toward its independence.
8. The 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act
a. raised Americas tariff schedule.
b. inhibited President Roosevelts efforts to implement his Good Neighbor policy.
c. increased Americas foreign trade.
d. was most strongly opposed in the South and West.
e. was aimed at isolating Italy and Germany.
9. President Franklin Roosevelts foreign-trade policy
a. lowered tariffs to increase trade.
b. encouraged trade only with Latin America.
c. continued the policy that had persisted since the Civil War.
d. was reversed only after World War 11.
e. sought protection for key U.S. industries.
10. Throughout most of the 1930s, the American people responded to the aggressive actions of
Germany, Italy, and Japan by
a. assisting their victims with military aid.
b. giving only economic help to the targets of aggression.
c. beginning to build up their military forces.
d. demanding an oil embargo on all warring nations.
e. retreating further into isolationism.
11. Fascist aggression in the 1930s included Mussolinis invasion of __________, Hitlers invasion
of __________, and Francos overthrow of the republican government of __________.
a. Egypt; France; Poland
b. Albania; Italy; Austria
c. Ethiopia; Czechoslovakia; Spain
d. Belgium; the Soviet Union; France
e. Ethiopia; Norway; Portugal
12. By the mid- 1930s, there was strong nationwide agitation for a constitutional amendment to
a. increase the size of the Supreme Court.
b. limit a president to two terms.
c. ban arm sales to foreign nations.

d. require the president to gain Congressional approval before sending U.S. troops overseas.
e. forbid a declaration of war by Congress unless first approved by a popular referendum.
13. Passage of the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 by the United States resulted in all of
the following except
a. abandonment of the traditional policy of freedom of the seas.
b. a decline in the navy and other armed forces.
c. making no distinction whatever between aggressors and victims.
d. spurring aggressors along their path of conquest.
e. balancing the scales between dictators and U.S. allies by trading with neither.
14. The Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 stipulated that when the president proclaimed
the existence of a foreign war,
a. Americans would be prohibited from sailing on the ships of the warring nations.
b. America would sell arms and war materials only to the victim of aggression.
c. American bankers would be allowed to make loans to only one of the warring nations.
d. the United States intended to uphold the tradition of freedom of the seas.
e. U.S. diplomats and civilians would be withdrawn from both warring nations.
15. From 1925 to 1940 the transition of American policy on arms sales to warring nations
followed this sequence:
a. embargo to lend-lease to cash-and-carry.
b. cash-and-carry to lend-lease to embargo.
c. lend-lease to cash-and-carry to embargo.
d. embargo to cash-and-carry to lend-lease.
e. lend-lease to embargo to cash-and-carry.
16. Americas neutrality during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 allowed
a. Hitler to conquer Spain.
b. the Loyalists to win the war.
c. Roosevelt and Franco to become personal friends.
d. the Soviets to aid the Spanish republic.
e. Spain to become a fascist dictatorship.
17. Franklin Roosevelts sensational Quarantine Speech in 1937 resulted in
a. a belief in Europe that America would stop Fascist aggression.
b. a wave of protest by isolationists.
c. support from both Democratic and Republican leaders.
d. a slowing of Japanese aggression in China.
e. a modification of the Neutrality Acts.
18. In September 1938 in Munich, Germany,
a. Britain and France consented to Germanys taking the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
b. Hitler declared his intention to take Austria.
c. Hitler signed the Axis Alliance Treaty with Japan.
d. Britain and France acquiesced to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland.
e. Britain and France declared that an invasion of Poland would mean war.
19. In 1938 the British and French bought peace with Hitler at the Munich Conference by

effectively handing over the nation of

a. Poland.
b. Danzig.
c. Austria.
d. Belgium.
e. Czechoslovakia.
20. Shortly after Adolf Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union,
a. Britain and France signed a similar agreement.
b. the Soviets attacked China.
c. Germany invaded Poland and started World War II.
d. Italy signed a similar agreement with the Soviets.
e. the Germans invaded Finland.
21. The first casualty of the 1939 Hitler-Stalin nonaggression treaty was
a. Poland.
b. Czechoslovakia.
c. Austria.
d. Belgium.
e. the Jews.
22. Which of the following nations was not conquered by Hitlers Germany between September
1939 and June 1940?
a. Norway
b. the Netherlands
c. France
d. Poland
e. Finland
23. Probably the greatest obstacle to Americas acceptance of more Jewish refugees from Europe
was
a. a failure of moral imagination and belief that the Holocaust could actually be happening.
b. internal tensions between German-Jewish and eastern European Jewish communities in the
United States.
c. the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924.
d. inadequate means for getting refugees from Europe to the United States.
e. the general belief that most Jews wanted to create a new state of Israel.
24. The U.S. military refused to bomb Nazi gas chambers such as those at Auschwitz and Dachau
because of the belief that
a. bombing would kill the Jews kept there.
b. bombing would divert essential military resources.
c. the military was unsure of the gas chambers location.
d. such attacks would not seriously impede the killing of Jews.
e. all of the above.
25. During the 1930s, the United States admitted __________ Jewish refugees from Nazism.
a. about one million
b. almost no
c. nearly six million

d. about 150,000
e. only highly educated
26. Congresss first response to the unexpected fall of France in 1940 was to
a. revoke all the neutrality laws.
b. expand naval patrols in the Atlantic.
c. enact a new neutrality law enabling the Allies to buy American war materials on a cashand-carry basis.
d. call for the quarantining of aggressor nations.
e. pass a conscription law.
27. Americas neutrality effectively ended when
a. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
b. Germany attacked Poland.
c. the conscription law was passed in 1940.
d. France fell to Germany.
e. Italy stabbed France in the back.
28. In 1940, in exchange for American destroyers, the British gave the United States
a. most favored nation status.
b. a role in developing the atomic bomb.
c. eight valuable naval bases in the Western hemisphere.
d. access to German military codes.
e. six air bases in Scotland and Iceland.
29. By 1940 American public opinion had come to favor
a. the America First position.
b. active participation in the war.
c. permitting U.S. volunteers to fight in Britain.
d. shipping Britain everything except military weapons.
e. providing Britain with all aid short of war.
30. The surprise Republican presidential nominee in 1940 was
a. Wendell L. Willkie.
b. Robert A. Taft.
c. Thomas E. Dewey.
d. Alfred E. Landon.
e. Charles A. Lindbergh.
31. Franklin Roosevelt was motivated to run for a third term in 1940 mainly by his
a. personal desire to defeat his old political rival, Wendell Willkie.
b. belief that America needed his experienced leadership during the international crisis.
c. mania for power.
d. opposition to Willkies pledge to restore a strict policy of American neutrality.
e. belief that the two-term tradition limited democratic choice.
32. The 1941 lend-lease program was all of the following except
a. a focus of intense debate between internationalists and isolationists.

b.
c.
d.
e.

a direct challenge to the Axis dictators.

the point when all pretense of American neutrality was abandoned.
the catalyst that caused American factories to prepare for all-out war production.
another privately arranged executive deal, like the destroyers-for-bases trade.

33. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the United States
a. promised aid to the Soviets but did not deliver.
b. refused to provide any help, either military or economic.
c. gave only nonmilitary aid to Russia.
d. made lend-lease aid available to the Soviets.
e. sent U.S. ships to Soviet naval bases.
34. In 1940, Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie avoided deepening the sharp
divisions among the American people when he
a. avoided attacking the New Deal.
b. refused to raise the racial issue.
c. declined to criticize Roosevelt for seeking a third term
d. avoided attacking the draft.
e. avoided attacking Roosevelt for his increasingly interventionist policies.
35. After the Greer was fired upon, the Kearny crippled, and the Reuben James sunk,
a. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act.
b. the United States Navy began escorting merchant vessels carrying lend-lease shipments.
c. Congress allowed the arming of United States merchant vessels.
d. Congress forbade United States ships to enter combat zones.
e. Roosevelt told the public that war was imminent.

36. Japan believed that it was forced into war with the United States because Franklin Roosevelt
insisted that Japan
a. withdraw from the Dutch East Indies.
b. withdraw from China.
c. renew its trade with America.
d. break its treaty of nonaggression with Germany.
e. find alternative sources of oil.
37. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 came as a great surprise because
a. President Roosevelt suspected that if an attack came, it would be in Malaysia or the
Philippines.
b. no American officials suspected that Japan might start a war with the United States.
c. Japanese communications were in a secret code unknown to the United States.
d. the United States was, at the time, Japans main source of oil and steel.
e. it was believed that Japan had insufficient aircraft carriers to reach Hawaii.
38. On the eve of Japans attack on Pearl Harbor, a large majority of Americans
a. were beginning to question the increased aid given to Britain.
b. still wanted to keep the United States out of war.
c. accepted the idea that America would enter the war.

d. did not oppose Japans conquests in East Asia.

e. were ready to fight Germany but not Japan.
39. Arrange these events in chronological order: (A) Munich Conference, (B) German invasion of
Poland, (C) Hitler-Stalin nonaggression treaty.
a. A, C, B
b. B, C, A
c. C, B, A
d. C, A, B
e. A, B, C
40. Arrange the following events in chronological order: (A) fall of France, (B) Atlantic
Conference, (C) Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union.
a. B, A, C
b. A, B, C
c. C, B, A
d. A, C, B
e. C, A, B