The Neutrality Acts, therefore, defined the terms of American neutrality to the world. Longstanding diplomatic practice held that countries unwilling to become involved in a conflict had to maintain strict neutrality even economic sanctions, or selling arms to one belligerent but not the other, could be considered acts of war.
#THE WORLD AFTER US SERIES#
In response to these conflicts, the US Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts, designed to prevent American involvement in these conflicts. International unrest in the 1930s, including Japan’s occupation of Manchuria, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Nazi Germany’s remilitarization and territorial seizures, and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, threatened US isolationism. The number of arrivals immediately fell to less than 20% of the pre-World War I totals. This marked the end of a period of mass immigration to the United States.
These laws privileged immigrants from northern and western Europe, and discriminated against those from southern and eastern Europe where there were large Jewish and Catholic populations. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 limited overall immigration and set country-specific quotas. The United States also sought to lessen foreign influence by reducing immigration. The US signed treaties limiting naval construction, and signed the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact, outlawing aggressive war. In the 1920s, the US government took measures to reduce the threat of foreign conflict. The United States never joined the League of Nations, nor ratified the Treaty of Versailles. The US Senate, however, refused to approve participation in the League. But the war and the influenza epidemic that immediately followed resulted in the deaths of more than 116,000 American soldiers.Īfter the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson lobbied extensively for US support for the League of Nations, believing that an international representative body would prevent future wars. The United States had only been involved in the final nineteen months of the bloody conflict, between April 1917 and November 1918. In 1938, twenty years after World War I had ended, 70% of Americans polled believed that the United States' participation in that war had been a mistake.
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