So why didn’t the USA join the League of Nations? Well, 100,000 American soldiers had been killed and wounded during WW1. Many people regretted this, and feared that any further alliances in would lead to involvement in future wars. Also, more than a half of all Americans in 1919 were actually immigrants from Europe (I will go onto this later). They had come to the USA to start a new life, due to poverty and a lack of freedom in Europe. They wanted to have nothing to do with them. Some Americans also feared the dangerous ideas around in Europe, such as Communism, Anarchism and Socialism, and the revolutions in Hungary, Germany and Russia. It’s no surprise really that they thought they were better off on their own, especially when you remember at this point that American industry was ‘booming.’
Finally, while Woodrow Wilson was in Europe trying to get everyone to make friends, he actually became more unpopular back in America as he was gone for so long. He had completely worn himself out trying to persuade people to go with the League of Nations. Furthermore, a majority in congress (80%!) supported membership of the League of Nations, but Wilson did not accept any compromises and eventually lost the vote.
Immigration Policy
It was inevitable that with a policy of Isolation, America would close its ‘open door’ that had existed before 1914. Immigrants were being perceived incorrectly and were being labelled with a variety of defamatory and unfair brandings. They were thought by common Americans to be:
- Dirty and almost all poverty stricken
- Uneducated and focused on crime and corruption
- Mostly communists and spies from Eastern Europe
- Immigrants brought cheap labour and lowered the wages of average Americans
- Anti-democratic and not particularly loyal
- And itching for a revolution like what had happened in Russia in October 1917.
In this sense they alleged to be bringing with them Communism, anarchy and the destruction of existing democracy in the USA. Such feelings could not have been possible without a heightened sense of nationalism and patriotism. Before the 1920s, there were no numerical restrictions on immigration in America. Instead, other "qualitative" criteria set admission tests, in subjects such as literacy. This test would discriminate against the illiterate or came from a nation who had no use of English and the English alphabet. But from that period through to the World War II, the ugly "science" of eugenics was employed to bar certain immigrants from the USA.
This started to happen before 1919. In 1917 Congress passed an Immigration Law which required all foreigners wishing to enter the USA to take a literacy test. They had to prove they could read a short passage in English before they were allowed into the country. Such a test prevented people from the poorer countries of Europe and Asia entering the USA, as they could not afford to learn English in their own country.
In 1921 the Immigration Quota Act was introduced. This limited the maximum number of immigrants allowed into the USA to 357,000 each year. It also stated that the number of people immigrating into the USA from any country should not exceed 3% of the number from that country already living in the USA in 1910. This ‘quota’ system worked in favour of people from western and northern Europe because they had a larger number of immigrant American citizens in 1910. This was almost certainly the idea.
In 1924 the quota limit was further reduced to 2% of the population in 1890. In 1929 the number of immigrants into America each year was reduced to 150,000 – under half of the 1921 figure. In addition, no immigrants from Asia were allowed.
Tariff Policy
The Fordney-McCumber Act (1920) is an example of the Harding Presidency forging a wedge between America and others. It was a tariff policy designed to protect American industry and output. It placed high taxes on all foreign imports in order to promote the purchase of American goods in America by Americas against any foreign goods. Europeans responded with their own high tariffs on American exports. Separating industry reduced America awareness of others as an economic market. The act gave the president power to raise or lower the rate as was thought necessary. Of the thirty-seven times that the rate was varied, President Harding and President Coolidge raised it 32 times.
As a matter of actual practice, most of the Republican presidents of the 1920s predictably ignored recommendations to lower tariff rates, but regularly offered protection to American producers by raising rates when given the opportunity.
The impact of the Fordney-McCumber Act was considerable. Rising tariff barriers in the U.S. made it more difficult for European nations to conduct trade and, resultantly, to pay off their war debts.
Further, the protective shield against foreign competition enabled the growth of monopolies in many American industries. Predictably, other nations resented the American policy, protested without result, and eventually resorted to raising their own tariff rates against American-made goods, thus creating a significant decline in international trade.
