During the neutrality debates in 1939, Representative Sol Bloom of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, received this postcard. The author’s words recall George Washington’s cautionary statement that the United States should avoid foreign wars.
Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives and Records Administration
Please do not vote for repeal of the embargo. Also don’t send our boys to war on foreign soil. Remember the words of George Washington and bless his memory. I have a 21 year old son.
Postcard from Mrs. M. Carew to Representative Sol Bloom of New York, November 2, 1939
U.S. Neutrality during World War II
The brutality of World War I, the strength of the pacifist and isolationist movements, and the Nye Committee’s inquiry prompted Congress to approve a series of neutrality acts in the 1930s aimed at preventing U.S. intervention abroad. The laws banned arms sales to all belligerent nations and forbade loans or credits to all nations at war. Declarations of war in Europe in 1939 forced Congress to relax these policies, allowing nations at war to purchase war materiel from the United States on a “cash and carry” basis.
If we repeal it, we are helping England and France. If we fail to repeal it, we will be helping Hitler and his allies. Absolute neutrality is an impossibility.
Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, Constituent Correspondence, 1939
During the neutrality debates in 1939, Representative Sol Bloom of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, received this postcard. The author’s words recall George Washington’s cautionary statement that the United States should avoid foreign wars.
Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives and Records Administration
Please do not vote for repeal of the embargo. Also don’t send our boys to war on foreign soil. Remember the words of George Washington and bless his memory. I have a 21 year old son.
