Nye Committee
The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a United States Senate committee (April 12, 1934 – February 24, 1936), chaired by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND). The committee investigated the financial and banking interests that underlay the United States' involvement in World War I and the operations and profits of the industrial and commercial firms supplying munitions to the Allies and to the United States. It was a significant factor in public and political support for American neutrality during the Great Depression.<ref>Herman, Arthur (2012). Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, pp. 6, 12, 79, New York: Random House. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref>Stuart D. Brandes (2015). Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America, pp. 210–225. Template:ISBN?</ref> The resulting Neutrality Acts are now generally regarded as having aided the rise of Nazi Germany and the laws were repealed in 1941.<ref name="cooling-trotter" />Template:Rp<ref name="cooling-molander" />Template:Rp
Background
Template:Further During the 1920s and 1930s, dozens of books and articles appeared about the high cost of war, and some argued that financiers and arms manufacturers had maneuvered the United States into entering World War I.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> One of the best-known was Smedley D. Butler, a retired Marine Corps general who had become a spokesman for left-wing anti-war elements.<ref name = "Smedley">Template:Cite book</ref> Historian Charles Callan Tansill's America Goes To War (1938) exploited the Nye Committee's voluminous report of testimony and evidence to develop and confirm the heavy influence exercised by Wall Street finance (notably J.P. Morgan) and the armaments industry (notably DuPont) in the process that led to American intervention.<ref> Brandes, Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America (2015) pp. 221–222. Template:ISBN?</ref>
The push for the appointment of Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND) to the chairmanship of this committee came from Senator George Norris (R-NE). According to peace activist Dorothy Detzer, Norris said, "Nye's young, he has inexhaustible energy, and he has courage. Those are all important boons. He may be rash in his judgments at times, but it's the rashness of enthusiasm."Template:Sfn Norris proposed Nye as "...the only one out of the 96 whom he deemed to have the competence, independence and stature for the task."<ref>Template:Citation.Template:ISBN?</ref>
Organization
The committee was established on April 12, 1934. There were seven members: Nye, the committee chair; and Senators Homer T. Bone (D-WA), James P. Pope (D-ID), Bennett Champ Clark (D-MO), Walter F. George (D-GA), W. Warren Barbour (R-NJ), and Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI).
Stephen Rauschenbusch, son of Christian Social Gospel activist Walter Rauschenbusch, was appointed lead counsel for the Committee; his assisting counsel included Robert Wolforth, Josephine Burns and Alger Hiss.<ref>Dorothy Detzer, Appointment On The Hill (New York, Henry Holt, 1948), pp. 166–168; Detzer misspelled the name as "Raushenbush."</ref> John T. Flynn "played a major role in the course of the investigation" as a member of the committee's Advisory Council of experts.<ref>Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 1962 p. 72.</ref> Burns and Rauschenbusch, who met on the committee, married soon after and co-authored a book that recounts salient testimony gathered by the investigation, War Madness (Washington, D.C., National Home Library Association, 1937). Alger Hiss served as a legal assistant (counsel) to the committee from July 1934 to August 1935.<ref> Template:Cite book</ref> Most famously, Hiss "badgered" DuPont officials and questioned and cross-examined Bernard Baruch on March 29, 1935.<ref> Template:Cite web</ref><ref> Template:Cite book</ref><ref> Template:Cite book</ref> About their testimony, Dorothy Detzer (Appointment On The Hill, p. 169) reports: "The four solemn Du Pont brothers," averred that "the corporation's profits of 400% during the First World War seemed only the good fruit of sound business."
Process
Template:Neutrality section The Nye Committee conducted 93 hearings and questioned more than 200 witnesses. The first hearings were in September 1934 and the final hearings in February 1936. The hearings covered four topics:
- The munitions industry
- Bidding on Government contracts in the shipbuilding industry
- War profits
- The background leading up to U.S. entry into World War I.
The committee documented the huge profits that arms factories had made during the war. It found that bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad. Also, the arms industry was at fault for price-fixing and held excessive influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during World War I.<ref name="Smedley" />
According to the United States Senate website: Template:Quote
Results
Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America's involvement in the World War. This investigation of these "merchants of death" helped to bolster sentiments favoring neutrality, non-interventionism, disarmament, and taking the profits out of weapons procurement.<ref name=Senate />
In its final report, the Nye Committee identified the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay as a key example of complicity between debt financiers, arms makers, and militaries.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Committee described the dynamic:
When the hearings were finished and a final report made, the committee members were almost unanimous in their view that the evidence failed to support the merchants of death theory.<ref name="cooling-molander" />Template:Rp However, Nye did uncover rampant conflicts of interest and questionable practices among members of the War Industries Board.<ref name="koistinen" />Template:Rp President Truman later called the Nye Committee “…pure demagoguery in the guise of a Congressional Investigating Committee.”<ref name="cooling-molander" />Template:Rp
Nye failed at his ultimate goal of nationalizing the arms industry. However, the uproar gave momentum to the non-interventionist movement and resulted in a series of isolationist Neutrality Acts that prohibited private loans and sales of war materials whenever a state of war existed anywhere on the globe.<ref name="Senate">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>John Edward Wiltz, "The Nye Committee Revisited." The Historian 23.2 (1961): 211–233.</ref> These laws are now generally regarded as having aided the rise of Nazi Germany and were repealed in 1941.<ref name="cooling-trotter" />Template:Rp<ref name="cooling-molander" />Template:Rp
Charles Lindbergh and other anti-Semites, who believed that the lenders who provided money for WWI were mostly Jewish and that Jews were one of the principal groups advocating for U.S. intervention in Europe were encouraged by the uproar caused by the committee.Template:Citation needed
See also
References
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Further reading
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- Nye Committee hearings (Munitions industry, naval shipbuilding: Preliminary report of the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry):
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- Coulter, Matthew Ware. The Senate Munitions Inquiry of the 1930s: Beyond the Merchants of Death (Praeger, 1997).
- Detzer, Dorothy. Appointment on the Hill (New York, Henry Holt, 1948) online.
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