Women's Organizations, U.S.

Foreign Policy, and the Far Eastern Crisis, 1937-1941

Author(s): Margaret Paton-Walsh
Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Nov., 2001), pp. 601-626
Published by: University of California Press
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Women's Organizations, U.S. Foreign
Policy, and the Far Eastern Crisis,
1937-1941

MARGARETPATON-WALSH

The author holds a doctoratefrom the Universityof Washing-

ton and is attending Harvard Law School.

In the spring of 1939, as the Japanese Imperial Army

continued its campaign in China and Adolf Hitler's forces swal-
lowed up what had remained of Czechoslovakia after the Mu-
nich Settlement, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
held hearings on the crucial issue of American neutrality policy.
Louise Leonard Wright, the chairman1 of the National League
of Women Voters' Department of Government and Interna-
tional Cooperation, was the sole witness to appear before the
committee. On April 13, 1939, she testified on behalf of six na-
tional women's organizations-the American Association of
University Women, the General Federation of Women's Clubs,
the National Board of the Young Women's Christian Associa-
tion, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the National
Women's Trade Union League, in addition to her own League
of Women Voters. Wright spoke with authority.A writer and lec-

Mythanksto all those friends and colleagues who read different draftsof this
article, especially the referees at the PacificHistoricalReview,whose comments and
suggestions greatlyimproved the final product.
1. Throughout this article, I have used the titles employed by the organiza-
tions and participantsthemselves.Similarly,I have frequentlyused their term "Far
East"to refer to EastAsia.

Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 70, No. 4, pages 601-626. ISSN 0030-8684
?2001 by the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association. All rights reserved.
Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions,
University of California Press, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. 601
602 Pacific Historical Review

turer, she had written several studies of foreign policy, including

a treatise devoted specifically to the subject at hand, titled Amer-
ican Neutrality,published in 1936.2 Her husband, Quincy Wright,
was a professor of political science at the University of Chicago,
an early proponent of studies in international law, and a com-
mitted internationalist in his own right. Confident and com-
posed, Louise Wright made a compelling case for giving the
President discretion in applying the arms embargo that was the
centerpiece of American neutrality policy. "The neutrality act in
the present form," she warned the Senate committee members,

thwartsthe desire of the Americanpeople for peace and security.Un-

der this act we must in a crisiseither retreatbefore aggressionor re-
sort to violence. In between these two extremes is a large no man's
land susceptibleof diplomaticexploration.Achievementsin this field
are onlypossible,however,if the governmentis free to shapeits course
of action according to circumstances.The mandatoryprovisionsof
the presentact make this impossible.3

Wright's testimony summed up the conclusions reached by

the six women's organizations after watching the Neutrality Acts
at work over the previous few years. Their opposition to manda-
tory neutrality was not new; indeed, they had opposed this ele-
ment of the legislation from its inception. Their opposition
derived from the conviction that a lasting peace would come
only through collective security and a commitment to interna-
tional law. Maintaining such a system of international law would
require penalties for those nations that violated their treaty
obligations. Unfortunately, the Neutrality Acts prohibited the
United States from participating in any action against aggressor
nations.
At the start of the Sino-Japanese war, these organizations
had supported the Roosevelt administration's decision not to in-
voke the Neutrality Act in 1937, and they consistently advocated
policies that existed in the diplomatic "no man's land" that
Louise Wright identified. In particular, many of these women's

2. Louise Leonard Wright,AmericanNeutrality(Washington,D.C., 1936).

3. "NeutralityStatement made by Louise Leonard Wright,April 13, 1939,"
folder 1, box 1712, Series IV,Papersof the National League of WomenVoters,Li-
braryof Congress. (hereafter cited as LWVPapers).
 Women's Organi7ations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 603

organizations favored the imposition of boycotts and/or embar-

goes on Japan to exert American economic influence in the
cause of peace in East Asia. Significantly, however, the policies
they embraced in the end led to war between Japan and the
United States, not peace. Even more significantly, women's
organizations had anticipated this consequence. Theirs was not
a short-term peace policy, but rather a long-term one. As the
global situation deteriorated, especially with the outbreak of war
in Europe as well as Asia, American women's organizations re-
linquished their hopes for peace until the aggressors had been
defeated. In the short term, then, these women's organizations
accepted the possibility,even the likelihood, of U.S. involvement
in the war.
This story suggests that historians need to reevaluate the
way they have conceptualized questions about women and war.
Both diplomatic and women's historians have focused largely on
women in the peace movement. Much of this work has accepted
relatively uncritically women peace activists' assumption that
women had a special interest in peace. The platform of the
Woman's Peace Party, founded in 1915, declared: "Aswomen,
we feel a peculiar moral passion of revolt against both the cru-
elty and the waste of war. As women, we are especially the cus-
todians of the life of the ages. We will not [sic] longer consent
to its reckless destruction."4 These assumptions rested on the
nineteenth-century ideology that portrayed women as morally
superior to men and on the conviction that peace was, by defin-
ition, more moral than war.5Recently, more critical historians
have examined the social context in which this view of women
was created and functioned, but they have still generally sought
to explain women's tendency to pacifism in the twentieth cen-
tury in this way,rather than to challenge that basic assumption.6

4. "Women'sPeace PartyPreamble and Platform, adopted at Washington,"

Jan. 10, 1915, folder 18, box 3, Peace Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith
College, Northampton, Mass.
5. Jill Conway,"The Woman'sPeace Partyand the FirstWorldWar,"in J. L.
Granatsteinand Robert D. Cuff, eds., Warand Societyin NorthAmerica[papers pre-
sented at the CanadianAssociationfor American Studies Meeting, Montreal,Fall
1970] (Toronto, 1971), 52-53.
6. The literatureon women and Americanforeign policy is still in its infancy,
due in part to diplomatichistorians'traditionalfocus on policymakers,a group that
has been almostwhollymale, even in the late twentiethcentury.Much of the work
604 Pacific Historical Review

This is striking not least because of the ample evidence of many

American women's involvement in, and support for, earlier
American wars.7

done thus far has looked at the emergence of the women's peace movement in
WorldWarI and/or examined the further efforts of women to secure an end to
war throughout the twentieth century.These workshave not challenged the asso-
ciation of women and peace; indeed, they have often embraced that ideology
wholeheartedly.See, for example, Amy Swerdlow,Women StrikeforPeace:Traditional
Motherhood and RadicalPoliticsin the 1960s (Chicago, 1993) and Harriet Hyman
Alonso, Peaceas a Women's Issue:A Historyof the U.S.Movement for WorldPeaceand
Women's Rights(Syracuse,N.Y, 1993). There have also been a few works looking
more generally at women and foreign policy, notably a collection of essaysedited
by EdwardCrapol, who argues in his introduction that the essays "verify... the
absence of any gender-related pattern in the foreign policy positions taken by
women";Crapol,ed., WomenandAmerican ForeignPolicy:Lobbyists, Critics,and Insid-
ers(Wilmington,Del., 1992), xiv.Joan Hoff-Wilson'sconclusion to the collection,
however,suggeststhat there is such a pattern:Women outside the establishmentfit
"the traditionalgender stereotypeabout women being more pacifisticthan men,"
while those who gain access to "officialdiplomaticjobs" do not. The latter group,
Hoff-Wilson argues, "seem to be insidethe establishment by family connections
and/or ideology;therefore, they act more like men."Ibid.,182. As a result,she con-
cludes, the "gendergap in domestic and foreign policywill remain a myth... until
women in top policy-makingpositions stopthinkinglikemen."Ibid.,186, emphasis
added. Thus, Hoff-Wilsontakes as a central premise the assumption that women
do, or should, have different foreign policy viewsfrom men. The most simplistic
and explicit statement of this sort of view appearsin RhodriJeffrey-Jones,Chang-
ing Differences: Womenand theShapingof AmericanForeignPolicy,1917-1994 (New
Brunswick,N.J., 1995). Jeffrey-Jonesdeclaresthat "oneaspectof gender difference
over foreign policy has remained constant:Women have alwaysbeen especiallyin-
clined to support peace."Jeffrey-Jones,ChangingDifferences, 10. Few scholarshave
attempted to challenge this fundamental assumption,although some recent work
on extreme right-wingisolationistwomen has begun the process of complicating
our understandingof women's foreign policy positions.These women were clearly
not pacifist, although they did oppose U.S. intervention in WorldWarII and did
so explicitlyas mothers. Moreover,LauraMcEnaneyhas noted their similaritiesto
women peace activistsin McEnaney,"He-Menand ChristianMothers:The Amer-
ica FirstMovement and the Gendered Meanings of Patriotismand Isolationism,"
Diplomatic History,18 (1994), 47-57. McEnaneyarguesthat the mothers'movement
advocated policies that "resembledthose of progressivewomen's peace groups:
they critiqueda defense policy based on militaryintervention,emphasizedthe car-
nage and overallhuman costs of war,and suggested that women, as mothers,were
uniquely qualifiedto keep nations at peace."Ibid.,50. Thus, this new workon right-
wing mothers has not opened up the debate very much. See also Glen Jeansonne,
Womenof theFarRight:TheMothers'Movement and WorldWarII (Chicago, 1996).
7. The literature on American women and their role in wars is growing
rapidly.See Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert,eds., Womenin theAgeoftheAmer-
ican Revolution(Charlottesville,Va., 1989); ElizabethEllet, Revolutionary Womenin
theWarforAmerican Independence, edited and annotated by Lincoln Diamant (West-
port, Conn., 1998); ElizabethLeonard, All theDaringof a Soldier:Womenof theCivil
 Women's Organizaztionsand U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 605

In the context of World War II, a conflict emerged between

the image of women as "moral"beings and their image as "paci-
fist" beings. In the face of Axis aggression, peace no longer
seemed the obvious moral position. Indeed, this contradiction
proved nearly devastating to the Woman's Peace Party's succes-
sor organization, the Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom (WILPF), which lost members in droves and
nearly collapsed over the question of intervention in World War
II.8 This contradiction was particularly striking in the Far East-
ern crisis. Many women, and indeed interventionists in general,
rejected the hypocrisy and immorality of supporting the Japan-
ese war effort through trade, even though sanctions might be
perceived as provocative and lead to war, as in fact they did.
This article examines the issue of women's foreign policy
views in the context of the Far Eastern crisis that led up to direct
U.S. military involvement in World War II. It considers the ac-
tivities and policy prescriptions of several national women's or-
ganizations, primarily the National League of Women Voters
(LWV), the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), the
National Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), and the
American Association of University Women (AAUW). These
women's organizations' interest in American foreign policy de-
rived from an interest in peace shared by many, if not most, po-
litically active Americans in the wake of the devastation of the
Great War. Among organizational women, this concern led to
the creation of the National Conference on the Cause and Cure
of War (NCCCW), led by suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt,
who was a vocal interventionist in the late 1930s. The NCCCW
united eleven women's organizations behind an international-
ist agenda developed in the broader context of an emerging
international women's movement and of the continued enthu-

War Armies (New York, 1999); Jeanie Attie, Patriotic Toil: Northern Women and the
American Civil War (Ithaca, N.Y, 1998); Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention:
Womenof the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996);
Nina Silber and Catherine Clinton, eds., Divided Houses: Genderand the Civil War
(New York,1992).
8. The problems experienced by the Women's International League for
Peace and Freedom are discussedmore thoroughlyin chapter3 of my dissertation;
MargaretPaton-Walsh,"BraveWomen and FairMen:WomenAdvocatesof U.S. In-
tervention in WorldWarII, 1939-1941" (Ph.D. dissertation, Universityof Wash-
ington, 1996).
606 Pacific Historical Review

siasm of some Americans for Woodrow Wilson's vision of col-

lective security.9
Many members of these organizations embraced a funda-
mental assumption of many internationalist women-the belief
in maternalist politics and the idea that women had a special
affinity for peace. Yet what is striking is that, while these
women's groups provided a distinctly female context for the de-
velopment of foreign policy ideas, the platforms they developed
did not differ noticeably from those of male-dominated organi-
zations like the League of Nations Association or, later, the Com-
mittee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Why, then, did
women use these separate organizations as a platform for their
foreign policy views? One reason was doubtless that these orga-
nizations provided a forum in which women's opinions were
valued and respected. They represented an already existing net-
work and structure through which women could pursue politi-
cal goals, even if such goals were not defined solely by their
gender.
The assertion that women had (or have) some greater com-
mitment to peace than men was a conceit of the women's peace
movement. The search for a way to maintain international
peace preoccupied many foreign policy experts in the interwar
years, not just women, and the experts usually opted for some
kind of commitment to international law and mechanisms of
collective security. These women's organizations thus fell into
a broader framework of internationalist activity, supporting
the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war in 1928 and U.S. mem-
bership in the World Court.10 In the earliest stages of the Far
Eastern crisis,when the Japanese conquered Manchuriain 1931-
1932, these organizations were greatly concerned by the failure
of the League of Nations to act effectively against Japan, and
they supported the Stimson Doctrine, by which the United
States refused to recognize territories seized through aggression.
The renewal of war in East Asia in 1937 presented a major chal-
lenge to all advocates of peace. Women responded by adhering

9. The development of an internationalwomen's movement is discussedin

Leila Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of the International Women'sMovement
(Princeton, NJ., 1997).
10. See Warren F. Kuehl and Lynne K. Dunn, Keepingthe Covenant:American
Internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920-1939 (Kent, Ohio, 1997).
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 607

to the principles that they had embraced over the previous two
decades, even as those principles increasingly threatened to pro-
pel the nation into war.
Women's organizations presented their foreign policies as
"peace" policies, apparently embracing prevailing ideas about
women and war, yet the content of these policies belied this.
While they cloaked themselves in a gendered rhetoric of peace,
many women's organizations pursued policies based instead on
ideals of international law and justice. Although the purpose of
these policies was the creation of a meaningful long-term peace,
it is necessary to distinguish between this approach and that
taken by other, isolationist, peace advocates. In the course of the
debate over the U.S. role in World War II, both in Europe and
Asia, there were few who did not claim to be working for peace.
To accept their statements uncritically obscures the great diver-
sity of opinion not only about how best to secure peace but also
about whosepeace was most important. The U.S. section of the
WILPF decided in the end to fight to preserve Americanpeace
rather than European or Asian freedom from aggression and
oppression. That choice put the WILPFin the isolationist camp.
The women's groups discussed here, by contrast, chose to pur-
sue long-term internationalpeace through collective security,
advocating resistance to aggression. That put them in the inter-
ventionist camp. Theirs was not a simplistic commitment to
peace at any price. Rather, they believed fervently in collective
security and international law as the best means to maintain
peace. In the context of the wars in Asia and Europe, they also
believed that aggressor nations had first to be defeated before
long-term hopes for peace could be realized. A closer examina-
tion of the activities of these organizations shows that these
women worked within a gendered framework only superficially:
They were not constrained by assumptions about women's paci-
fism and knowingly advocated policies that risked war.
Their activities and attitudes also illustrate the complex
terms of the debate over foreign policy that went on in the
United States in the years before Pearl Harbor. Although Amer-
ican public opinion was deeply divided over foreign policy,
analysis of the attitudes of these leading women's organizations
demonstrates that they advocated interventionist policies in full
recognition of the risks involved. Well-informed about the is-
608 Pacific Historical Review

sues, theyjudged that isolationism served neither the interests

of the United States nor the goal of a lasting peace. Therefore,
these women's organizations supported the Roosevelt adminis-
tration's interventionism, often endorsing an even more inter-
ventionist approach than Franklin D. Roosevelt himself was
ready to take.
* **

In the 1930s Congress attempted to legislate against the

possibility of the United States being drawn into another inter-
national conflict by means of the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936,
and 1937. These acts provided that, in the event of a war, the
United States would attempt to keep out of the conflict by pro-
hibiting arms sales and loans to all belligerents and by requiring
that any other trade must be conducted on a cash-and-carry
basis. This legislation, based on an analysis of the reasons for
American entry into the Great War,attempted to prevent any re-
currence of those events. Thus, Congress legislated an isola-
tionist and impartial foreign policy for the United States.
In contrast, many American women's organizations had
come to the conclusion in the wake of the Great War that peace
could be achieved only through international cooperation,
based on respect for international law. When looking for
women's organizations to include in this study, I focused on na-
tional groups that had public platforms relating to foreign pol-
icy questions and reasonably complete and available archival
records. Among the hundreds of U.S. women's organizations of
all political persuasions and interests, the groups I focus on were
not representative of American women generally. Rather, they
were typical of interwar liberal internationalist women-a group
most often studied through the WILPF,which was in fact the ex-
ception, not the rule, in vigorously opposing Roosevelt's policies.
These organizations had diverse origins and purposes,
none of which had much to do with U.S. foreign policy. The
League of Women Voters was formed in 1920 at the National
American Woman Suffrage Association's victory convention. Its
primary objective was "to promote the political education of
newly enfranchised women citizens."11As such, it directly ad-
11. Louise M. Young, In the Public Interest: The League of Women Voters,
1920-1970 (New York, 1989), 2.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 609

dressed foreign policy more than any of the other organizations

considered here. The National Council of Jewish Women,
founded in 1893, was initially intended to increase immigrant
Jewish women's understanding of Judaism, in order to prevent
the erosion of their religious traditions in the New World. Al-
though the character of local chapters varied from place to
place, in the early twentieth century the NCJWincreasingly took
on the role of a social welfare agency for the immigrant Jewish
community; its interest in peace arose from concerns about the
role of war in creating refugees.12 Both the National Women's
Trade Union League, an alliance between progressive, middle-
class women reformers and working-class women formed in
1903, and the American Association of University Women, cre-
ated in 1921 by the merger of several women's alumnae associ-
ations, had more issue-oriented origins. Nevertheless, the latter
two organizations had foreign policy committees that sought to
educate their members and promote a liberal internationalist
agenda.
The members of these organizations were predominantly
white, educated, middle-class Americans, although there were
some working-class women in the national WTUL. The NCJW
might have been expected to take a more interventionist line
on the European war than on the Far East, but, like many Jew-
ish intellectuals and organizations, they did not take a more
aggressive stand than other women's groups.13 They did, how-
ever, focus more on the refugee issue than other women's orga-
nizations did, although, fearing anti-Semitic attacks on Jews as a
special interest group hostile to Germany (a stand that some saw
as contrary to American interests), they were surprisingly cau-
tious in their interventionism compared to the other women's
organizations considered here.
What all these women's organizations shared, however, was

12. Faith Rogow, Gone to AnotherMeeting: The National Council ofJewish Women,
1893-1993 (Tuscaloosa,Ala., 1993), 178.
13. See, for example, John M. Muresianu's comments about Walter Lipp-
mann's silence on the subjectof Nazi anti-Semitism:"Lippman'ssilence is to be at-
tributedto fear that condemnation of Hitler'santi-Semitismwouldweaken the case
for interventionismby opening Lippmann to the charge that the 'real' reason for
his anti-isolationismwas that he was a Jew."John M. Muresianu,WarofIdeas:Amer-
ican Intellectualsand the WorldCrisis, 1938-1945 (New York, 1988), 180.
610 Pacific Historical Review

the conviction that world peace could be secured only through

a system of international cooperation and law. They believed
that U.S. participation in such an international system was vital
for its success. These assumptions served as the foundation for
all their foreign policy positions in the interwar period. For ex-
ample, when the Far Eastern crisis began in July 1937, the na-
tional LWVissued a statement congratulating Secretary of State
Cordell Hull for accepting a nonvoting position on the League
of Nations commission to investigate the situation. Its statement
declared: "Since the League of Women Voters' inception, it has
worked for international cooperation for the prevention of war.
It has thus maintained that war anywhere concerns the United
States, and that the pursuance of 'the ostrich policy of isolation'
would prove disastrous to the cause of peace."14U.S. involve-
ment in the League of Nations Commission seemed to promise
American participation in international efforts for collective
security.
The national LWVand many other women's organizations
believed that, for U.S. cooperation in the international system
to be effective, American policymakers must be able to discrim-
inate between the aggressor and the victim in any conflict. As
Margaret Stone, chairman of the national WTUL's Peace and
International Relations Committee, explained:

If we do not want the world reduced to complete anarchywe shall

have to restorerespectfor internationallawand the keepingof inter-
national pledges. How can we do that except by distinguishingbe-
tweennationsthatkeep theirpledgesand nationsthatdo not;in other
wordsby bringingmoral and economic pressureon the nations that
defy internationallaw?There is no securityin an internationalsystem
where breakinginternationallaw goes unpunished, any more than
there is securityin a stateor communitywherecrimeis unpunished.l5

Without the ability to discriminate between belligerents, the

United Stateswould be powerless to promote international peace.

14. Statement issued Sept. 21, 1937, folder: International Relations: Basic
Documents, 1930-56, box 1882, Series IV,LWVPapers.
15. MargaretStone to MaryNorris Lloyd,Sept. 28, 1938, Head Quarters[sic]
Records, Sept.-Dec. 1938, reel 7, Papers of the Women'sTrade Union League of
America (hereafter referred to as NWTULPapers;microfilm of Libraryof Con-
gress collection).
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 611

As a result, while these organizationssympathizedwith the goal of

the Neutrality Acts-that is, keeping the United States out of
war-they consistentlylobbied against mandatory restrictionsand
called for amendments that would give the President greater dis-
cretion in the application of embargoes against belligerents.16
In the case of the Far Eastern crisis, these women's organi-
zations recognized that the Neutrality Act would actually aid the
aggressor,Japan, at the expense of the victim, China. In August
1937 Stone rejected the National Council for the Prevention of
War's appeal for assistance in persuading the Roosevelt admin-
istration to invoke the Neutrality Act. She declared:

[I]t is myfirm convictionthatif there is to be an ultimatepeace in the

world there must be some sort of punishment for an aggressorna-
tion.... Everyone agrees... that invoking the neutrality law of the
United Stateswould tend to help Japan,the obviousaggressorin the
present conflict. I can not believe, therefore,that it is the right thing
to do in the presentcircumstances.17

Jeanette Cheek, a member of the national board of the

LWV,added the further insight that assisting Japan was scarcely
in U.S. interests.

Althoughit is not either the League'sbusinessnor the concern of the

NeutralityAct to takesidesin a given issue,is it improperto point out
the aggressor... would be the gainer,and more importantfrom the
StateDepartment'slegitimateviewof Americaninterest,we wouldbe
helping to strengthenthe position of the one countryin the FarEast
withwhom our interestscome in commercialand strategicconflict.18

Stone's and Cheek's analyses focused on the heart of their

organizations' critique of mandatory neutrality-that it worked
to the advantage of aggressors, of those who had prepared for

16. Louise Wrightto Membersof the Department of Government and For-

eign Policy, Oct. 28, 1937, folder: CircularLetters, Government and Foreign Pol-
icy, box 38, Series III, LWVPapers. This letter outlines the LWVposition on
neutralitylegislation from its initial introduction into Congress in 1935 through
late 1937.
17. Stone to Frederick Libby, Aug. 27, 1937, Head Quarters Records,
May-Aug.1937, reel 7, NWTULPapers.
18. Jeannette Cheek to MargueriteWells,Aug. 19, 1937, folder: Government
and Foreign Policy:Neutrality,box 368, Series II, LWVPapers.
612 Pacific Historical Review

war.In particular,in the case of the Far East, the Neutrality Act's
arms embargo would hurt China much more than Japan, since
the former lacked the industrial capacity of the latter, and the
cash-and-carryprovisions applying to other trade would not pre-
vent Japan from importing the raw materials it needed to feed
its war industries.
These organizations, therefore, supported the President's
decision not to recognize that a state of war existed between
Japan and China after July 1937.19However, by not invoking the
NeutralityAct, the administration also allowed the continued ex-
port of arms and war materials to Japan. In adherence to the
principle of discriminating against aggressors, the NCCCW
passed a resolution in October 1938, calling on its member or-
ganizations to petition the government to end the sale of arms
to Japan. "Atleast," the resolution declared, "we may refuse to
sell our goods to nations who spurn peaceful settlement but fly
to arms. We want no profits from such trade. We want no part-
nership in such policies."20The wording of the resolution clearly
characterized the trade with Japan in moral terms and de-
manded a cessation of this trade on moral grounds. In Febru-
ary 1939 the NCCCW issued a "Call to Action" to its member
organizations, asking them to work for revision of the Neutral-
ity Act to allow an embargo on "primaryand secondary war ma-
terials to nations waging war in violation of treaties.... Such
revision would make it possible at once to deny to our citizens
the right to sell to Japan such war materials as are now being
used by her in her military campaign in China."21Although the

19. If a state of war did not officiallyexist, the law'sprovisionsdid not apply.
See ibid.
20. "Recommendationadopted by the National Committeeon the Causeand
Cure of War,"Oct. 19, 1938, folder: InternationalRelationsand Peace, 1938-1943,
#5, box 95, Group I, Records of the National Council of Jewish Women, Library
of Congress (hereafter cited as NCJWPapers). The eleven member organizations
of the NationalConference on the Causeand Cure of Warwere the nationalboard
of the YoungWomen'sChristianAssociation;the GeneralFederationof Women's
Clubs;the AmericanAssociationof UniversityWomen;the National Federationof
Business and Professional Women's Clubs; the National Home Demonstration
Council; the National Council of Jewish Women; the National Committee of
Church Women; the National League of Women Voters;the National Women's
TradeUnion League;the NationalWoman'sChristianTemperanceUnion; and the
Women's Conference of the AmericanEthicalUnion.
21. National Conference on the Cause and Cure of War,"ACall to Action,"
Feb. 3, 1939, folder: International Relations and Peace, 1938-1943, #5, box 95,
NCJWPapers.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 613

national group hoped to win its members' support for revising

the mandatory clauses of the Neutrality Act, it recognized that
there would be significant opposition to this and also recom-
mended consideration of a separate legislative measure directed
specifically at Japan and embargoing vital war materials.
The call for an embargo was positively received by many
of the NCCCW's member organizations. In April 1939 the
A.A.U.W Journal noted the hypocrisy of American policy when
it reported the board of directors' support for embargo legisla-
tion. The article commented: "Because of the large amount of
material being shipped to Japan, the United States is placed in
the position of directly aiding Japan to a greater extent than any
other nation, while at the same time protesting the aggression
and acts carried on as a result of it."22Neutrality legislation had
created the paradoxical situation in which invoking the acts
would hurt China far more than Japan, while not invoking them
meant that the United States was supplying the Japanese war
machine that was hammering away at Chinese resistance. Many
women's organizations recoiled from what they saw as the im-
morality of the U.S. role as an economic supporter of Japanqse
aggression.
The NCJW also incorporated support for a Japanese em-
bargo into its program of "peace legislation," but not all the
NCCCW's member organizations felt able to support this pol-
icy.23Notably, the national LWV,whose program emphasized
support for international consultation, believed that a unilateral
embargo was incompatible with a commitment to collective
security.24
In April 1939, in the wake of the German seizure of Czech-
oslovakia, Congress once again considered the neutrality ques-
tion. At the hearings, Louise Wright pointed to the Italian
conquest of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, and the Far East-
ern crisis as examples of the failure of mandatory neutrality and
indicted U.S. policy: "Three times the principles of the neutral-

22. "A.A.U.W.News and Notes: Japanese Embargo,"A.A.U.W.Journal, 32

(1939), 177.
23. Fanny Brin to Peace Chairman,Jan. 3, 1939, folder: International Rela-
tions and Peace, 1938-1943, #5, box 94, Group I, NCJWPapers.
24. See "Minutesof the Board of Directors,Nov. 16, 1938,"PartI: Minutesof
the Board of Directorsand the Executive Committees:Minutes and Related Doc-
uments, 1918-1974, reel 6, Papers of the National League of Women Voters,
1918-1974 (microfilmavailablefrom UniversityPublicationsof America).
614 Pacific Historical Review

ity act have been tried and found wanting. Three times the
United States has unexpectedly found itself a silent partner of
the aggressor."25The Neutrality Acts had won support, she ar-
gued, because Americans wanted to keep out of war.In practice,
however, these measures served to limit American foreign pol-
icy options, forcing the United States into complicity with acts
of aggression. What was necessary to correct this problem,
Wright maintained, was a revision of the Neutrality Act to allow
the President to discriminate against aggressor nations.
Although six women's organizations cooperated in prepar-
ing Wright's testimony, by no means did they completely agree
with each other on the subject of Far Eastern policy. The LWV
remained far more reluctant to recommend a Japanese em-
bargo than other organizations. Its national president, Mar-
guerite Wells, was particularly anxious about the provocative
potential of an embargo. Wells was a former suffrage leader
from Minnesota and a graduate of Smith College. She consis-
tently took a more dovish position than many of her peers on
the LWV'snational board of directors. Early in June 1939 she
expressed her concern to the board:

suppose [an embargo] were to become active-what should we do

aboutit?Has anythingcome to yourattentioncalculatedto showthat
United StatesembargoesagainstJapanat this time would so improve
the worldsituationthatthe United Stateswouldbe enough safertojus-
tifythe risk?On the other hand has anythingcome to your attention
to allayany doubts that such embargoesmight be dangerousand un-
wise at this time?26

Here Wells acknowledged a fundamental concern-that direct

action by the United States to pressure Japan might actuallypro-
voke Japanese aggression rather than forestall it.
Other women's organizations, however, were less con-
cerned with provoking Japan than with the unprincipled na-
ture of U.S. foreign policy in the Far East. In December 1939
the International Relations Committee of the AAUW debated
the issue of an embargo and considered the possible dangers.

25. NeutralityStatementmade by Louise Leonard Wright,April 13, 1939.

26. Marguerite Wells to Board of Directors, June 5, 1939, folder: Interna-
tional Relations:Neutrality,1937-42, box 1893, Series IV,LWVPapers.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 615

Although some members feared that an embargo might pre-

cipitate war between the United States and Japan, others "em-
phasized that the United States by continuing to sell oil, scrap
iron, etc. to Japan was participating in Japan's aggression and
for the sake of our moral position we should stop it."27The
committee concluded by recommending that the AAUW sup-
port legislation permitting the imposition of embargoes on
arms and war materials so long as Japan remained in violation
of the 1922 Nine Power Pact, which required all signatories to
respect and maintain the territorial integrity of China. An em-
bargo might be dangerous, the committee believed, but it
would be worse to continue feeding the Japanese war machine.
Thus, the AAUW consciously supported a potentially provoca-
tive embargo policy in furtherance of its commitment to dis-
criminate against aggressive nations that were in violation of
their treaty obligations.
In mid-1939, however, these women's organizations were
still intent on securing an amendment to the Neutrality Act that
embodied the principle of discrimination against aggressor na-
tions, rather than pursuing a separate measure against Japan.
On this basis, they opposed proposals to end the embargo and
extend cash and carry to cover the munitions of war. They ex-
plicitly rejected this because, while such proposals would help
Britain and France in Europe, they would also benefit Japan at
the expense of China. As Louise Wright noted: "Itwould seem
impossible to adopt the cash and carry provision as the sole cri-
terion of trade during a war and have the provision operate in
both Europe and the Orient with the effect the American public
wants."28 Cash and carry also failed the test of principle.
According to Wright, the "proposal has the further and even
greater disadvantage of omitting, as does the present act, any
possibility of using the economic strength of the United States
to promote the peace of the world by discriminating between
those countries who rule by force and those who rule by law."29

27. Minutes of International Relations Committee, Dec. 15, 1939, Series V:

InternationalRelations Committee, reel 104, frame 193, AmericanAssociationof
UniversityWomenArchives,1881-1976 (hereaftercited as AAUWPapers,available
from MicrofilmCorporationof America).
28. NeutralityStatementmade by Louise Leonard Wright,April 13, 1939.
29. Ibid.
616 Pacific Historical Review

So long as Europe remained at peace, these women's organiza-

tions held firmly to their principles.
When war finally broke out in Europe on September 1,
however, they abandoned these scruples to ensure Allied access
to American arms. Those women's organizations that had op-
posed cash and carry for arms in June embraced it in Septem-
ber. The national LWVcalled for neutrality revision at the end
of September 1939. While it acknowledged that cash and carry
would benefit Japan, the organization nevertheless supported
the proposal, arguing that separate legislation should be passed
to deal specifically with the Far Eastern situation.30 Chinese
interests were, temporarily at least, sacrificed in the cause of
Britain and France.
Having embraced cash and carry to support the European
allies, however, women's organizations increased the pressure
to secure other legislation to deal with Japan and aid China.
Josephine Schain, chairman of the NCCCW,expressed the fear
that the European war might encourage Britain to appease
Japan, creating "a 'Munich settlement' of the Far Eastern situa-
tion. There is a dread that Great Britain will throw her influence
along with Japan for a 'peace' conference in the immediate fu-
ture-which would leave Japan in control of China."31Such a
denouement of the Far Eastern crisis would completely under-
mine the principle that aggression should not pay, which was
central to women's organizations' faith in international law and
collective security.As a result, they pursued a policy of discrimi-
natory measures aimed at persuading the Japanese to withdraw
from China.
In particular, these women's organizations were anxious
that no new trade treaty with Japan be negotiated, so that,
when the 1911 treaty lapsed in January 1940, trade with Japan
would no longer be protected. Indeed, they called for the ab-
rogation of the trade treaty in order to allow the United States
to wield economic weapons against Japan. There was consider-
able optimism that such pressure would force the Japanese to

30. "APlea for Calm,"Sept. 27, 1939, folder 2, box 1712, Series IV, LWV
Papers.
31. Josephine Schain to Wells,Oct. 26, 1939, folder: Cause and Cure of War,
box 440, Series II, LWVPapers.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 617

reconsider. From the start, Louise Wright had been optimistic

that U.S. economic pressure would force Japan to comply with
international law. In October 1937 Wright had commented to
Marguerite Wells on the subject of possible economic penalties
for Japanese conduct: "If these follow the line of the sanctions
imposed against Italy there would be prohibition of imports
and some exports and no financial assistance. Such a policy if
carried out with vigor ought to have a crippling effect upon
Japan."32
The reaction of Japan to the U.S. decision to abrogate the
1911 treaty was also encouraging. In the LWV'sJanuary 1940
"Foreign Policy Problem" (a monthly educational publication),
Louise Wright discussed "American Far Eastern Policy." She
noted that "[t]he perturbation caused in Japan by this action of
the United States and the resulting, if tardy,attempts to placate
the United States by announcing that they would open the
Yangtze and Pearl rivers to foreign shipping have indicated the
bargaining possibilities of a positive policy."33In early January
1940 the question of trade relations with Japan was also a major
priority for NCJW'sInternational Relations Committee.34
However, abrogating the 1911 trade treatywas not enough,
since trade continued on an ad hoc basis. Even after the U.S. de-
cision was made public in July 1939, leading figures in women's
organizations continued to criticize the irrationality of Ameri-
can policy in the Far East. On November 21, 1939, Schain, of
the NCCCW,argued in a radio address:

We are bound by treaty[the Nine PowerPact] to defend the integrity

of China.NowJapanhas invadedChina.We in the United Statesare
supplyingJapanwith the materialswhich make it possiblefor her to
carryon this devastation.Withoutour help Japanwould be severely
crippled.Japanhas challengedAmericaninterestsin China,bombing

32. Wright to Wells, Oct. 30, 1937, folder: Government and Foreign Policy,
Wright,Mrs.Quincy,box 370, Series II, LWVPapers.
33. "AmericanFarEasternPolicy,"Foreign PolicyProblem,Jan. 1940, folder:
CircularLetters, Government and Foreign Policy,box 37, Series III, LWVPapers.
Foreign Policy Problems was a series of educational materials prepared by LWV
leaders to inform membersabout foreign policyissues;these usuallycame out once
a month.
34. Brin to local Chairmenof InternationalRelationsand Peace,Jan. 7, 1940,
folder: InternationalRelationsand Peace, 1938-1943, #5, box 95, NCJWPapers.
618 PacificHistoricalReview

hospitals and colleges that we have established there. We are supply-

ing her with the means for wrecking the very institutions we have given
our efforts to establish. Does this make sense?35

Here Schain illuminated the central paradox of American pol-

icy. Throughout the twentieth century the United States had
pursued a close relationship with China, hoping to open up Chi-
nese markets to American business. At the vanguard of this pol-
icy were the activities of nongovernmental organizations like the
YWCA, to which Schain belonged, which sought to Christianize
and "civilize" the Chinese. Now the United States was providing
the Japanese with the raw materials necessary to ensure the
failure of those goals, undermining decades of effort.36 Few
women foreign policy experts could accept the inherent con-
tradiction in U.S. policy.
Women's organizations did not simply advocate increased
pressure on Japan; they seem also to have hoped for a compro-
mise settlement in the Far East. Alongside support for embargoes
against Japan, they also discussed possible rewards for Japanese
withdrawal from China. Early in 1940, when the NCCCW's Com-
mission on the Far East recommended that the United States not
renew the 1911 trade treaty, it further recommended an "em-
bargo on oil, scrap-iron, munitions and war materials, loans and
credits" as the "most expedient" policy.37 At the same time, how-
ever, it also outlined concessions that should be made to Japan
in the event of its withdrawal from China, including the repeal
of the Japanese Exclusion Act and the handling of Japanese im-
migration in accordance with the quota system; reciprocal trade
agreements with Japan and China; and a conference of the Nine
Powers plus the Soviet Union "for a consideration of Japan's eco-

35. Speech broadcaston Nov. 21, 1939, folder: Broadcasts,box 7, Speeches

and Writings,Josephine Schain Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College,
Northampton, Mass.
36. The effectivenessof these efforts, of course, was highly questionable,but
Americans often had an exaggerated belief in their success. For a brief surveyof
U.S.-Chinese relations, see Michael Schaller, The United Statesand China in the Twen-
tieth Century (New York, 1979).
37. "Recommendationto the Findings Committee of the National Confer-
ence on the Cause and Cure of Warvoted at the meeting of the Commission on
the Far East,"Jan. 16, 1940, box 13, Papers of the Committee on the Cause and
Cure of War,Schlesinger Library,RadcliffeCollege, Cambridge,Mass.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 619

nomic needs."38None of these women's organizations ever sug-

gested that the United States make similar concessions to Ger-
many or even seem to have conceived of the possibility of
voluntary German retreat. Thus, they had hopes of Japanese
withdrawalthat they never had with Germany.
The national LWV also favored what it called face-saving
concessions to Japan but remained hesitant about embargoes.
In a letter to the LWV'sstate presidents on January 22, 1940,
Marguerite Wells laid out the options. There was little question
that the American people wanted to secure peace in the Far East
and preserve China from Japanese aggression, she declared.
The issue was how best to achieve those ends. One possibility
was an immediate embargo on exports to Japan, although she
saw disadvantages to this approach. It would probably have little
immediate effect; it might create economic problems within the
United States; it would likely be considered a hostile act by the
Japanese; and, if it should fail to have the desired effect, there
would be only two alternatives: to fight or to abandon China to
its fate. Instead, she favored "gradual or progressive pressure."
The administration had already begun to exert such pressure,
she pointed out, by refusing to negotiate a new trade agreement
with Japan. Further pressure might be applied by gradually
increasing tariffs on imports and then by cutting off imports
altogether. The United States could also increase loans to
China and offer concessions similar to those envisaged by the
NCCCW.39Thus, Wells proposed a range of diplomatic options
other than embargoes, shying away from their provocative
nature.
In March 1940 Wells clarified her concerns to state LWV
presidents:

League members favor United States action of some sort to restrain

38. Ibid.The NCCCW'suse of the term 'JapaneseExclusionAct"seems to re-

fer here to the ImmigrationAct of 1924 (the National OriginsAct), which, among
other restrictions, prohibited entry to immigrantswho were not eligible for citi-
zenship-that is, primarilyAsians.
39. Wellsto State League Presidents,Jan. 25, 1940, folder 1, box 1, 83-M110,
Louise LeonardWrightPapers,SchlesingerLibrary,RadcliffeCollege, Cambridge,
Mass. (hereafter cited as Wright Papers); 83-M110 is one of two collections of
Louise Wright'spapers held at the SchlesingerLibrary.
620 Pacific Historical Review

Japan in her depredations upon China in violation of treaty agree-

ments. The League program authorizes us to support such a policy.
Our problem is to find a way to express our position without urging
immediate specific action whose effect the League. is not in a position
to judge.40

In other words, Wells feared that an embargo might precipitate

war rather than force Japanese retreat. Moreover, LWVrhetoric
lacked the moral element apparent in the attitude taken by the
AAUW and the leaders of the NCCCW. While these organiza-
tions argued that it was hypocritical for the United States to
supply the means for a Japanese aggression that it simultane-
ously condemned, the LWVdid not. Wells even sought to dis-
avow any League association with the American Committee for
Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression, which by its very
name established this as the central argument for embargoes
on Japan.41In contrast, the AAUW supported legislation to per-
mit an embargo on the sale of war materials to Japan explicitly
to achieve its goal of "halting American economic support of a
war of aggression."42
The reluctance of Wells and the LWVto take a more active
role in promoting embargo legislation was, however, a source of
unhappiness for some of its state foreign policy departments. In
May 1940 six chairs of state foreign policy departments urged the
national board to take a more active role in promoting legislation
that would give the President the authorityto impose an embargo.
"With this power to wield as a club,"they argued, "the Executive
could then apply diplomatic pressure,if desirable, (and with vastly
more force than at present) to whatever extent it should prove to
be effective."43Wells, however,declined to take the initiative.44

40. Ibid.
41. Wells,memo to Wright,March20, 1939, folder: Cause and Cure of War,
box 440, Series II, LWVPapers.
42. "Reportof the Committee on International Relations to the National
Board of Directors,"Feb. 15, 1940, reel 104, frames 563-565, SeriesV: Reportsof
the Chairmanto the Board of Directors,AAUWPapers.
43. Letter from Foreign Policy Chairmen [Mrs.J. H.] Huddilston of Maine,
[first name illegible] Weyl of Pennsylvania, Lesley C. Eaton of Massachusetts,
MiriamJ. W. Andrewsof Maryland,Rosamond R. [Mrs.H. W.] of the Districtof
Columbia, [Mrs.Marshall]Ferguson of Texas, and TressaBurgerof Oklahoma to
the National Board, folder: Governmentand Foreign Policy,May1940-1942, box
451, Series II, LWVPapers.
44. Wellsto Burger,May22, 1940, in ibid.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 621

Shortly after this exchange, the passage of the National

Defense Act in July 1940 resolved the legislative issue. The act
was designed primarily to prevent the United States from ex-
porting materials that would be essential for its own national
defense in the increasingly likely event of war. Indirectly, it
made possible embargoes on exports to Japan by executive or-
der. As Louise Wright noted in a circular letter to LWVforeign
policy chairmen:

While the provisions of this law are general in practice, licenses may
be withheld from any nation for the shipping of a long list of finished
munitions and essential war materials. Actually the embargoes which
have been invoked on all grades of iron and steel and on high grade
aviation gasoline have amounted to embargoes against Japan because
of the specific provision that they do not apply to the Western Hemi-
sphere or Great Britain.45

Wells, however, remained reluctant to promote the imposi-

tion of embargoes made possible by the act. After its passage,
most LWV leaders chose to focus on the growing problem of
supplying aid to Britain, rather than encouraging the President
to exert his authority by imposing embargoes on Japan.46This
reflected the legislative focus of much of the LWV'sactivities.
Anne Johnstone, secretary of the Department of Government
and International Cooperation, noted in a memorandum to
Louise Wright in December 1940 that "no legislation is required
to implement this country's policy of aid to China and discrim-
ination against Japan, while... legislation will undoubtedly be
required to make possible significant financial aid to Britain
when it becomes necessary."47
Of national LWV leaders, only Wright clearly favored a
more vigorous policy toward Japan. In a letter to Wells on De-
cember 16, 1940, Wright welcomed the most recent restrictions
on exports to Japan, commenting that

45. Wright to Government and Foreign Policy Chairmen, Dec. 10, 1940,
folder: CircularLetters, Government and Foreign Policy,box 38, Series III, LWV
Papers. Such circularsserved to inform the chairs of local foreign policy commit-
tees of the statusof the LWVagenda, so that they might interpret and explain the
LWVposition to local members.
46. Anne HartwellJohnstone to Wright,Dec. 2, 1940, folder: Government
and Foreign Policy,May1940-1942, box 452, Series II, LWVPapers.
47. Ibid.
622 Pacific Historical Review

I havea feelillg... thatyou thinkI takean attitudeof vindictivenessto-

wardJapan.... Myattitude... is that of the averagepersonwho can't
help thinkingit is a little sillyto condemn Japanesepolicyas we have
done consistentlysince 1931 and then provide her the means with
whichto carryout thatpolicy,and at the sametime provideher victim
with meansof defense.

Thus, Wright embraced the moral arguments of the AAUW and

the NCCCW. Moreover, while Wright insisted on a close con-
nection between the wars in Europe and Asia, she did not re-
gard Japan as a serious military threat to the United States: "I
have alwaysthought that Japan had more reason to worry about
our use of our power and influence than we have to fear an at-
tack from Japan."48Nevertheless, Wright believed that Japan
threatened U.S. interests in the Far East. In December 1940
Wright noted the significance of the Tripartite Pact between
Germany, Italy,and Japan, which opened up European colonial
possessions in the Far East to Japanese conquest, thereby threat-
ening U.S. security in the Philippines and American trading
interests: "Extension of the Japanese empire to the south con-
fronts the United States with two grave problems-its responsi-
bility for the status quo of the Philippine Islands and a change
in the control of the strategic rubber and tin supplies upon
which the United States relies."49
The NCJWalso noted the economic importance of the Far
East: "Of eighteen strategic materials vitallyneeded for national
defense, we are largely dependent on the Far East for four, to a
lesser degree for seven more. Victory for Japan would mean dis-
location and possible elimination of our trade."50Taking action
against Japan was thus never simply a matter of taking a moral
stand, although that was a central concern. Rather, the foreign
policy experts in these women's organizations believed in the
fundamental interdependence of the world; Japanese expan-
sion imperiled not only their hopes for long-term peace based

48. Wrightto Wells,Dec. 16, 1940, folder 2, carton 1, WrightPapers.

49. Wright to Government and Foreign Policy Chairmen, Dec. 10, 1940,
folder: CircularLetters, Government and Foreign Policy,box 38, Series III, LWV
Papers.
50. "International Relations Digest," Jan. 1941, volume 1, number 4,
folder: International Relations and Peace, 1938-1943, #4, box 94, NCJW
Papers.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 623

on collective security but also more immediate American na-

tional security interests. Their concerns combined idealism with
pragmatism to produce a sophisticated and multifaceted view of
American foreign policy.
Wright understood that U.S. interests in the Far East meant
that provoking Japan was a dangerous business, but she argued
in January 1940 that the dangers of not acting to resist Japan-
ese expansion were greater. In particular, she noted the threat
created by U.S. responsibility for the Philippines:

Any Far Eastern policy which precipitatesconflict with Japan may

makenecessarya veryreal defense of the Islands.On the other hand,
if Japan continues unchecked in her aggressivecampaign,she may
move into the Philippines.The safetyof the Islandsmight better be
ensured if the United Stateswould now prove to the Japanesethat a
policyof aggressiondoes not pay.51

In a world already at war, U.S involvement in the conflict

seemed probable whichever path the nation took. Little would
be gained by a policy of timidity.
Even as these women's organizations embraced a policy
likely to lead to war, they argued that there was no alternative if
their dreams of lasting peace were to be fulfilled. At the six-
teenth triennial meeting of the NCJWin November 1940, Fanny
Brin, chair of the Committee on International Relations and
Peace, laid out the background for the organization's foreign
policy. Brin was born in Romania, but her parents had emi-
grated to the United States when she wasjust three months old.
Educated at the University of Minnesota, she played a leading
role in the NCJW and was a member of numerous other
women's organizations, including the LWV and the WILPF.52
Brin noted the NCJW'scommitment to collective security and
its hopes for disarmament and the "renunciation of war as an
instrument of national policy."53However, the current crisis

51. "AmericanFarEasternPolicy,"ForeignPolicyProblem,Jan., 1940,folder:

CircularLetters,Governmentand Foreign Policy,box 37, Series III, LWVPapers.
52. Rogow, GonetoAnotherMeeting,226-227. Rogow'sbiographicalsketch of
Brin notes that she was "[b]est known for her peace work"and gives no sense of
the greater complexityof Brin'sviews.
53. "InternationalRelationsand Peace CommitteeReport,"Nov. 10-14, 1940,
Box 41, 16th Triennial Material,NCJWPapers.
624 Pacific Historical Review

meant that this agenda had to be relegated to the status of long-

term goals. In the short term, the council's priority must be the
defeat of the Axis powers. "Everythingdepends on who emerges
victorious from this conflict. Our existence as a free democratic
nation, and the possibility of a democratically organized world,
depends upon the victory of the nations that support reason."54
On December 7, 1941, Marguerite Wells's fears were real-
ized in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack was a
calculated gamble on the part of the Japanese government, de-
signed to secure access to vital raw materials from the Dutch and
British East Indies that were no longer availablefrom the United
States. Women's organizations responded to the failure of sanc-
tions not by reevaluating their assumptions about the usefulness
of discriminating against aggressor nations but by emphasizing
the importance of a collective security system, which might have
prevented the war in the first place. As Fanny Brin declared:

We must neverforget the lessonswe havelearned, thatisolationdoes

not protectus, thatit breaksdownwhen we need it most;thatwhen it
breaksdown,it ends in intervention;thatwe can only avoidinterven-
tion by settingup agencieswhich make possiblecollectiveaction.We
must learn and teach the lesson of cooperation and search for the
form it must take.55

Thus, these women's organizations responded to the war by

reaffirming their commitment to collective security,by declaing
their determination to ensure that the next postwar settlement
would be a lasting one, and by beginning to plan immediately
for the postwar world.
These organizations also saw the outbreak of war not just
in terms of the Pacific conflict but as part of a larger conflagra-
tion; perhaps for this reason, their horror was muted. In a
telegraphed message that Wells sent to state LWVpresidents on
December 9, 1941, she encouraged them to "ensure [the] con-
tinued unity and wholehearted patriotism of people by keeping
before them fact United States commitment to war is more than
revenge for treacherous attack upon our possessions but also

54. Ibid.
55. "InternationalRelationsDigest,"volume 2, number 4, 12/41-1/42, folder:
InternationalRelationsand Peace, 1938-1943, #3, box 94, NCJWPapers.
 Women's Organizations and U.S. Neutrality, 1930s 625

broader purpose to save freedom and liberate humanity from

forces of evil."56Thus, the war seemed to offer an opportunity
to make good on the internationalist ideals and promises of the
early interwar era.57
Above all, in the context of World War II, these women's
organizations sought to preserve the possibility of a meaningful
and lasting peace once the conflict was over. For such a vision to
be realized, they believed that it was essential that the aggressor
nations, marked by their disregard for international law and
treaty obligations, be defeated. In Europe this meant a policy of
expanding aid to Britain, and, in the Far East, increasing pres-
sure on Japan to withdraw from China. While sanctions on
Japan carried a risk of war, these women nevertheless believed
in the greater importance of adhering to the principle of dis-
criminating against aggressor nations. To characterize their for-
eign policy ideas simply in terms of their peace objectives
distorts the more complicated reality of their views and does lit-
tle credit to the sophisticated level of their debate and under-
standing. Although they functioned in a social and political
context that assumed women's commitment to peace above all
else-and this was indeed their long-term goal-they were not
bound by the expectations of this ideal of womanhood. Rather,
their position was paradoxical, and they knew it. In the end, they
believed that the only way to secure a lasting peace might well
be through war.
Furthermore, the views of these women's organizations il-
luminate broader questions about American public opinion in
the troubled years leading up to U.S. entry into the war. Schol-
ars have long debated the extent to which American public
opinion was isolationist in these years, with assessments ranging
from early revisionist accusations that Roosevelt tricked a reluc-
tant American public into war to more recent debates about
whether the President's actions were constrained by isolationist
public opinion or whether he failed to take on a clear leader-
ship role in explaining the need for interventionist policies to

56. Night letter sent to state League presidents, Dec. 9, 1941, folder: Con-
ventions, 1942, Correspondence, 1941-42, box 32, Series IV,LWVPapers.
57. Mythanks to Ruth Alexander for this characterizationof internationalist
women's perspectiveon the war.
626 Pacific Historical Review

the American people.58 The women's organizations discussed

here were far too well informed about the issues either to re-
quire the administration to educate them about the interna-
tional situation or to be fooled by Roosevelt's rhetoric. Indeed,
they clearly understood all the possible implications of the poli-
cies he pursued, and they demanded, on more than one oc-
casion, that he take a more aggressive stance. Certainly, such
women were not necessarily representative of the American
public as a whole (as if any group could be), but their views sug-
gest that there were segments of American public opinion, as
yet unnoticed by historians, with a sophisticated understanding
of the issues at stake in the war.These Americans were traveling
down the same road to war with Roosevelt, well aware of their
direction and often ahead of the President.59

58. The literatureon FranklinD. Rooseveltand foreign policy is vast,but see

especiallyJustusDoenecke, "U.S.Policyand the EuropeanWar,1939-1941,"Diplo-
maticHistory,19 (1995), 669-698, and MichaelA. Barnhart,"The Originsof World
WarII in Asia and the Pacific,"DiplomaticHistory,20 (1996), 241-260.
59. This argument is more thoroughly examined in a forthcoming book,
which also deals with other women who participatedin the foreign policy debate
in the late 1930s and early 1940s. MargaretPaton-Walsh,"BraveWomenand Fair
Men": WomenAdvocates of U.S. Intervention in WorldWarII, 1939-1941 (Lawrence,
Kans.,2002).