Rhetoric of Isolation A Burkeian Analysis of The America First Committee 64 U MN Parson

This dissertation has been
6 5 - 1 5 ,2 3 2
microfilmed exactly as received
PARSON, Donald W a lte r, 1938—

T H E R H E TO R IC O F ISO LATIO N:
A J3URKEIAN ANALYSIS O F T H E A M E R IC A
F IR S T C O M M IT T E E .'
U n ive rsity of Minnesota, P h .D ., 1964

Speech—Theater
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Copyright by
DONALD VALTER PARSON
i1966
TEE RHETORIC 07 ISOLATION:
A BURKEIAN ANALYSIS 07
THE AMERICA 7IRST COMMITTEE
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY 07 MINNESOTA
By
Donald Halter Parson
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

. FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
August, 1964
ACOOWLBDGB1ENTS
This author vlshas to acknowledge with grati
tude the rigorous and penetrating criticism of the

adviser of this study, Professor Robert L. Scott.
During its several versions, criticism from the
following persons has saved the study from a number

of errors: Professor Ernest G. Bormann, Mr. Daniel L.
Jensen, Miss Andrea M. Hanratty, Mr. Charles E. Led
better, Professor Donald K. Smith, and Mrs. Karen 6.

Williamson.
I wish to express Indebtedness to Professor
David Noble for his Ideas concerning the American
Liberal Tradition found In Chapter III; to Mrs. Arline

Paul, librarian at the Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, Califor
nia, for her assistance in the looation of materials;
and to Mr. Charles Ledbetter, for the typing of the
final copy. For those errors which have persisted
in spite of good counsel, the author alone is respon

sible.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I* THE NATURE OP THE S T U D Y ............... 1
The Importance.of America First ... 1
Methodology of Rhetorical Movements . 2
The Methodology of this Study • • • • 5

The Use of Kenneth Burke . . . . . . . 6
The Argument of the S t u d y ..........14-
Hiatorloal Study of America First • « 15
Rhetorical Study of America First . . 16
Rhetorical Applications of Kenneth

B u r k e ..........................17
Materials for this Study . . . . . . . 19

Precis of Each Chapter . . ..........20
II. THE DIVERGENT MANY . . . . . . . . . . . 27
The Problem of Leadership . . • • • • 28
The Divergent National Committee . . . 28

The Divergent Isolationist Speakers . 31
The Effect of Diversity on America

First R h e t o r i c ................34-
The Lack of a P i v o t .......... 37
The Lack of Controls Over Speakers . . 37
ill
iv
The He duction of I s s u e s ......... . , 40
III. THE ISOLATIONIST IMPULSE: AMERICA'S

DESTINY . . ......... . . . .. ............ 43
The Logology of Religion . . . . . . . 43
The "God-term" of Isolation . . . . .46
The Brave Sacrifice • • • • • • • . . 46
The "American Way" . . . . . . . . . . 48
The Search for Historical Support • . 49
The Region of Isolation . . . . . . . 52
The Problem of "Negativism" • • . • • 58

Isolationism and American Defense . . 61
IV. THE RALLY AS R I T E ..................... 66
Sanctifying the Isolationist Cause . • 67

The Political-Religious Ritual . .. . 67
The "Crusade" . . . . ............. 71
Factors Mitigating Against the Rally

As a Rite . . . . . . « . « . « « 76
V. THE PEOPLE AND THE GREAT CONSPIRACY . . . 87
Identification: Goal and Strategies • 87

The Polls and "The People" . . . . . . 88
The Reduction: War or Peace • • • . • 90

The Polls Attaofced . . . . . . . . . . 93
The Polls Substituted . ......... 94
The Referendum • • • • ............ 95
V
Conspiracy: A Change in Strategy . . 102
71. THE FLIRTATION WITH THE JEW AS SCAPEGOAT 106
The Jew as Hitler's Lev;.! . . . . . . 106
The Problem of Anti-Semi s m ...........109
Racism in Amerioa First Speeches . . . 115
Lindbergh's Les Moines Speech • • • • 116
Reaction to the Les Moines Speech . . 118

The Position of the National Committee 121
The Problem of Gaining Jewish Support 126
The Jew as Conspirator Rather than as

Scapegoat • • • • • • • • • • • . 127
The Scapegoat Already Claimed .... 131
VII. THE BRITISH INVASION OF AMERICA . . . . . 133

Lemocraey and E m p i r e ................ 134
British Imperialism • • . • • • • • • 135
The British People vs. the British

Government • • • • • . . • • • • 138
The British Propaganda Invasion ... 140
The "Unnatural Marriage" .............146
VIII. THE WAR PARTY AND THE WAR L O R L ...........152
"The People" and "The Government" . . 152

The "War Party" and the "American
Party" .............. . 153
▼JL
Conspiratorial Control by the "War

Party" • • • • • • • • • • • • . 156
The "Dictatorship-War Bill" • . . . • 157
The Use of Deceitful Propaganda ... 160

Porelgn Allegiances . .......... , , 162
The Masquerade . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

The Blitzkrieg . . ........ .. 166
The War lord ............... . 168
The Isolationist Failure . . . . . . . 169
IX. RHETORICAL FAILURE IN RETROSPECT .... 176
The Debate About Pearl Harbor • • • • 176
European vs. Asiatic Wiles • • • • • • 177
Conspiracy as a Symptom of Failure . . 178

The Constellation of Conspirators . . 179
The Reduction of an Audience . . . . . 180

The Distrust of Language...............182
An "Anti-Propaganda Group" • • • • • • 184

"Word Magicians" .......... 186
The Isolationist Oppositions » . . . . 188
Transcendence to the Sentimental . . . 190
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . ........... 192
CHAPTER I
THE NATURE OF THE STUDY
On December 11, 1941, the major isolationist pres
sure group prior to World War II disbanded. It disbanded
believing that war would have been avoided had its prin
ciples been followed; it disbanded believing that it
still represented the wishes of "the people" concerning
American foreign policy; it disbanded believing that the
United States had been tricked into war by a combina
tion of foreign and domestic interests. That pressure
group was the America First Committee.
America First emerged as an organization in Sep

tember of 1940, the month in which the German Luftwaffe
made its first heavy bombing runs on London. The move
ment was the product of an idea of a Yale law student,
R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., son of the Vice President of
Quaker Oats. It elected General Robert Wood National

Chairman and declared its purpose: to keep America out
of war. Its membership included persons from business
and political life as well as educators, and totalled
almost 800,000 members by conservative estimates. The
most noted supporters were probably Charles Lindbergh,
Burton K. Wheeler, William R. Hearst, Robert McCormick,
Philip LaFollette, Robert LaFollette, Hamilton Fish,

Gerald P. Nye, and Norman Thomas. Charles A. Beard
2
lent reputable academic support.1

That America First began a massive program of
non-intervention is evidenced by the fact that in fif
teen months it was able to secure twenty Senators and
thirty-six Representatives to speak under its auspices;
it was able to schedule two hundred nineteen rallies
in one hundred twenty-six cities in thirty-two states.2
The quantity of discourse produced by the America First

Committee during its short history is staggering. The
study of any single isolationist speaker would be a
sizeable task in itself; but the study of a rhetorical
movement of this size is a task obviously needing lim
itation.
In "The Rhetoric of Historical Movements," Leland
Griffin argues that the critic must isolate the rheto
rical movement "within the matrix of the historical move

ment. "5 He suggests that the critic should choose not
the largest but the briefest meaningful historical
1Speaker’s Bureau and Membership Files, America

First Papers, Hoover Library, Stanford. (Below re
ferred to as America First PHLS). America First esti
mates on membership ran up to 1,200,000, but 800,000
is a conservatively accurate estimate. See also Amer
ica First formation files.
2Speaker*s Bureau Files, America First PHLS.

Names of the Congressmen are contained in Chapter II.
^Leland Griffin, "The Rhetoric of Historical

Movements," Quarterly Journal of Speech. XXXVIII
(April, 1952|, PP. 184-18 5 .
3
movement available.^ Since the critic cannot account
for all rhetorical happenings, Griffin believes that
the student should seek to discover the "rhetorical
patterns inherent in the movement selected for inves
tigation. In his article, "Criticism and Social Con

sequences," Thomas Nilsen states that the critic must
attempt to assess the "climate of opinion" (to borrow
Carl Becker*s phrase) of the rhetorical movement.^
Nilsen*s suggestion has at least two implications for
the critic. First, the critic must, from the available
evidence, try to recapture the nature of that "climate
of opinion"; and second, since speakers in a rhetorical
movement themselves have estimated the "climate of opin
ion," the critic must assess the ability of speakers in
a movement to appraise that "climate." Both tasks are
demanding but necessary for the rhetorical critic.
Albert Croft argues convincingly that "the stand

ard forms of criticism within our field . . . treat
traditional theory as a closed, fixed system."7 He
believes that much rhetorical criticism has been merely
^Griffin, pp. 186-188. Griffin, pp. 187-188.
^Thomas Nilsen, "Criticism and Social Conse

quences," Quarterly Journal of Speech. XLII (April,
1956), pp. 1t3-178.
Âlbert J. Croft, "The Functions of Rhetorical

Criticism," Quarterly Journal of Speech. XLII (October.
1956), pp. 286-287.
4
an attempt to fit a speaker or speakers into a set of

o
"preconceived forms."0 Croft makes four suggestions
for the rhetorical critic: he should attempt to dis
cover (1) the basic values on which the speaker rests
his proposals; (2) the nature of the proposals; (3) the
manner in which the speaker attempts to connect values

with proposals in the minds of his audience; and (4)
the extent to which these connections were appropriate
to the audience being addressed.9

Croft's observations are both helpful and frus
trating for the rhetorical critic. He suggests, per
ceptively, that the critic should evaluate the appro
priateness of the relation of the speaker's values and
proposals to those of his audience; yet Croft tends to

treat the audience as a "given" in a rhetorical move
ment. In part, it can be argued that one function of
a rhetorical movement is the search for an audience.

The link which the speaker attempts to make between
his ideas and his audience is often complicated by the
dual nature of the audience. In the twentieth century,
the public speaker has found it increasingly difficult
to gauge the exact nature of his audience. A public
speaker is often able to assess his immediate audience,
let us say, at a political rally; yet that rally may
8Croft, pp. 286-287. 9Croft, pp. 289-290.
5
be broadcast or telecast to a larger and less homoge
neous audience. Might not some of the "connections"
a speaker attempts with his immediate audience be in
appropriate to the larger audience? With which audi

ence should he seek to relate primarily? Such was the
problem America First speakers faced. Rallies sched
uled by the Committee1s Speaker*s Bureau were usually
filled with enthusiastic isolationists. These rallies
were sometimes broadcast to an audience much less en
thusiastic. While America First speakers could gauge
with some accuracy the values of a specific rally audi
ence and relate their proposals to the values of that
audience, they had more difficulty assessing and re
lating values appropriate to the more heterogeneous
audience. Hence any analysis of the rhetoric of the
America First Committee must be concerned with the ap

propriateness of the relation of the speaker’s values
and proposals to the larger audience; and must be
aware that one function of a rhetorical movement is
the search for identification with an audience.
Three suggestions led to the selection of the
methodology for this study. The first was Griffin’s

belief that since one could not encompass all the
discourse of a movement, one could best discover its
"essence" by'concentrating on the "rhetorical patterns"
6
which dominate the movement.^® The second was Croft*s

warning that fitting a movement into a set of "precon
ceived forms" within a "closed, fixed system" would
cover rather than discover the "essence" of the rhetor
ical movement.^ The third suggestion concerned the
problem of achieving identification with an audience.

Kenneth Burke observes that because men are divided,
rhetoric is used to proclaim unity among them; the use
of rhetoric to achieve identification is possible be

cause of the divisiveness among m e n . ^
The methodology for this study is termed in the
title "Burkeian"; and as Burke observes, the title "sums

1 "*5
up a manifold of particulars under a single head."
The "manifold of particulars" for this study is the
provocative suggestions for the critic which Burke
makes in several of his works, particularly Attitudes
toward History (1937), The Philosophy of Literary Form

(1941), A Grammar of Motives (1945), A Rhetoric of Mo
tives (1950), and The Rhetoric of Religion (1961). This
study is not "Burkeian" in the sense that it attempts

to build on a chronological or topical exposition and
systematization of Burke. In fact, the writings of
10Griffin, pp. 187-188. 11 Croft, pp. 286-287.

^Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A
Rhetoric of Motives (Cleveland;The World Publishing
Company, 1962), p. 546.
^Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion (Boston;

Beacon Press, 19^15, p. 5.
Burke fortunately prevent the critic from systematizing
Burke into either a "closed, fixed system" or into "pre

conceived forms." Rather than providing the "system"
for the study, Burke’s writings provide the "stimulus."
The phrase "A Burkeian Analysis" may be misleading if

it suggests that another critic confronting both Burke
and the America First Committee would select the same .
tools for analysis and apply them in the same way. What
Burke provides is a series of insights by which the crit
ic may discover the "patterns" peculiar to the movement.

As we have observed, part of the function of a rhetor
ical movement may be the search for identification with

an audience. For Burke, identification is a key concept
in the function of rhetoric.

Burke treats identification as both a goal and a
means for achieving that goal. As an end, it is "hardly
other than a name for the functioning of sociality";^

that is, identification is a state of "belonging" in
which the individual "transcends" his distinctness by
becoming a part of a group. As a means to that goal,
identification provides a methodology for becoming "con-
substantial" with a group. One identifies with a group

in a number of ways: through his dress; through his
^^Burke, Attitudes toward History (Boston:

Beacon Press, 1961), pp. 266-267.
choice of names; through his commonality of interests;
through his commonness of language and custom; through
his sharing of common beliefs and p r i n c i p l e s . 15 in
short, one chooses those properties by which he may
gain identification. The act of choosing is a strate
gic one; hence the means for becoming "consubstantial"
may be considered strategies for socializing, strategies
for achieving identification.

Strategies enable the speaker to translate his
ideas into a "system of motivations which will be ac
ceptable to his audience."16 In this sense, all situ- •
ations in which the speakers find themselves pose
questions; the answers to these questions Burke would

term "strategic answers."
One can note in Burke’s analysis of Hitler's dis
course the way in which strategy relates to motivation.
Strategy springs from motivation, which in turn defines
and limits specific strategies. Motivations are not
seen by Burke as simply needs or deprivations; rather
they are seen in terms of situations, of strategic mo

ments .
1^l. Virginia Holland, Counterpoint: Kenneth

Burke and Aristotle's Theories of Rhetoric (New York;
Philosophical Library, 1959),p. W . Holland cites
numerous ways in which identification may serve as
strategies.
^Holland, Counterpoint, p. 67.
9
In analyzing the "essence" of Burke*s motivational
theory, we' may find its ultimate ground in mystery—

the mystery from which religion springs. Burke speaks
of the monotheistic motive which "has become embodied

in the structure of world e m p i r e . " ^ In the first act
of God there was both novelty and magic, from which

Christian motivation was derived.
Indeed, the Creation as an act of God was total

novelty; and it was magic because, just as the
magician would make it seem that he pulls a
live rabbit out of an empty hat, so God made
everything out of nothing."°
The prototype for mystery was the creation, which "en
ables us to equate magic with novelty— and leads us
to look for a modicum of magic in every act to the ex

tent that the act possesses a modicum of n o v e l t y . 9
Mystery, then, surrounds the universal motive.
Yet one can transfer the mystery in the "substantial
all-inclusive act" to "other loci."^ In a discussion

of Machiavelli, Burke shows how
the universal, sacrificial motives are adapted

to a competitive end. The Christian vision
17
Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric
of Motives, p. E y ,
1 ft
of Motives, p. E 5.
19]3urke, £ Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric

of Motives, p. E6,
po
of Motives, pp. 688-690.
10
of mankind's oneness in the suffering of Christ

becomes the vision of Italians1 oneness in the
suffering of Italy.21
Thus Burke develops the "religiofication" of
motives with its concommitants: the mystery, the sac

rifice, the conspiracy, the scapegoat, the rebirth.
In most mystic rites, as Burke points out, the scape
goat is a concommitant of the mystery:
Mystifications / a r e / broadly reducible either

to Unitary* devices whereby a special group
.gains unjust advantage from the services of
other groups, or to Tscapegoat* devices where
by an 'enemy abroad' is wholly blamed for un
toward conditions due mainly to domestic
faults.22
The concept of religiofication of motives gives
an extremely productive insight in the study of dis
course. Burke applied his theory of the mystification
of motives in an insightful essay, "The Rhetoric of
Hitler's Battle."^ Referring to Hitler as a "medi-
cine-man," one who relied on mystery and ritual, he

seeks to analyze the "medicine" in the Nazi's dis
course. ^ To Burke, a movement has a scapegoat as
well as a goal; in Hitler’s rhetoric we have the Jew
21Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric

of Motives, p. £90. “
PP
^^Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric
of Motives, p. 702.
^ S e e Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form

(New York: Vintage Books, 19 5 7 ; , pp. 164-190.
2 ^Burke, The Philosophy, p. 164.
11
as "the international devil materialized."25 Consid
ering Germany as a "dehorned Siegfried," seduced into
weakness by the male villainous Jew, Hitler was able
to differentiate "good" capitalism from "bad" capital

ism.2^ Both had at their roots self-preservation, but
they must necessarily be distinguished:

The Aryan self-preservation is based upon sac
rifice. the sacrifice of the individual to' the
group, hence militarism, army discipline, and
one big company union. But Jewish self-preser
vation is based upon individualism, which at
tains its cunning ends by the exploitation of
peace.2?
Thus Aryan capitalism had as its keynotes "heroism"
and "sacrifice"; Jewish capitalism, "cunning" and
"arrogance."2® The use of the Jew as a "unifying dev
il function" became a chief characteristic of Hitler’s
rhetoric.
Burke’s treatment of "Hitler's corrupt use of
religious patterns" gives insight into the ritual of

his rhetoric.29 He suggests the theme of "inborn dig
nity" and "symbolic rebirth" as cues to the "sinister
25]3urke, The Philosophy, p. 167.

2®Burke, The Philosophy, p. 168.
2?Burke, The Philosophy, p. 179.
2®Burke, The Philosophy, p. 178.

2^Burke, The Philosophy, p. 188.
12
secularized revision of Christian theology."^0 Burke

accents the ritual in Hitler*s rhetoric which became
part of his "trick"; the "curative unification" rely
ing upon a "bastardization of fundamentally religious

patterns of thought.
Virginia Holland argues that the critic must dif

ferentiate the overall rhetorical strategy from indi
vidual strategies.^2 in Hitler's rhetoric, the over
all strategy is unification brought about by the mys
tification of motives. The individual strategies— the
use of conspiracy, the sacrifice, the scapegoat, the
rebirth— are governed by the lines of argument for
given discourse. The critic of rhetorical movements
may be able to supplement or perhaps supplant the tra
ditional categories of analysis with such questions as,
"What were the speaker*s strategies?"-^ In what moti

vation were they grounded? For the student of the
rhetoric of historical movements, the concept of strat

egies, the concept of the mystification of motives,
^°Burke, The Philosophy, p. 173.

.-^Holland, "Rhetorical Criticism: A Burkeian
Method," Quarterly Journal of Speech. XXXIX (Decem
ber, 1953), PP. 444-451.
32
Holland, "Rhetorical Criticism: A Burkeian
Method," p. 444.
33
Holland, "Rhetorical Criticism: A Burkeian
Method," pp. 445-446.
13
opens an exciting avenue of inquiry.

This study attempts to apply some of the rhetor
ical insights of Kenneth Burke to a specific movement.
Perhaps this analysis, like others, will fall short
of "using all there is to use."-^ But the advantage

of using the tools provided by Burke is that they
enable the critic to uncover the "essence" of the
rhetorical movement— those "rhetorical patterns" pe

culiar to that movement.35 & movement such as the
America First Committee with over seventy speakers

giving hundreds of speeches presents an unusual prob
lem for the critic. He must attempt to reduce the dis
course of America First to a meaningful, workable set

of patterns which hopefully will illuminate the move
ment. He will try to estimate the strategic potential
in the situation for a movement, to gauge the way in
which this potential was used, and to evaluate the suc
cess or failure of a movement in developing its own
potential. Hopefully, the critic will be able to "il
luminate the fragments left to us with the light of
/his7 imagination.
•^Holland, "Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Approach

in Speech Criticism," Quarterly Journal of Speech. XLI
(December, 1955), p. 352.
^ -’Griffin, pp. 187-188.
^Frederick Marcham, "History and Speech: Col

laborative Studies, Present and Future." Quarterly
Journal of Speech. XXXV (October, 194-9), pp. £87-288.
14
The critic must necessarily take a stand. The
position he takes will depend upon his materials and
the standards he brings to bear upon those materials,
as well as upon the product of his own insight. Crit
icism is by its very nature argumentative. The rhetor
ical critic makes an argument for viewing a movement in
a certain way; other critics may disagree. The Dutch
historian, Pieter Geiyl, is supposed to have defined

history as argument without end. If history is argu-
*
ment, surely criticism is even more argumentative.
This study of the America First Committee will
develop the argument that the rhetoric of isolation
largely failed to accomplish its purpose. It will at
tempt to assess the Committee's strategic potential,
how that potential was employed, and its results. The
reader must weigh the evidence and interpretation
brought to bear here to see if the conclusion that the
rhetoric of the America First Committee failed is jus
tified. This study is a commentary on argument; it
might appropriately be considered an argument about the

uses of argument. If the argument about argument is
sustained, the reader will agree that America First
failed to take advantage of the potential available to
it; that the isolationists failed to turn consistent

defeats into victories.
15
The America First Committee as a movement has
received the Interest of one historian, Wayne Cole.
However, Ruth Sarles, the America First research worker,
had written an earlier two volume history of the Com

mittee which was never published.57 Cole analyzed the
Committee for both his master's thesis and doctoral
dissertation at the University of Wisconsin.58 in 1953
he published a short history of the Committee, America

First.59 Cole later concentrated on the life of a sin
gle isolationist in Gerald P. Wye and American Foreign

Relations. ^ Cole examined the America First papers
shortly after they were deposited at the Hoover Library,

Stanford University. Since his investigation, the mas
sive set of materials has been catalogued, and General
Robert Wood's personal correspondence has been added.
57see Ruth Sarles, "The Story of America First,"

2 vols., unpublished manuscript, America First PHLS, 1942.
58cole's doctoral dissertation is an expansion

of his master's thesis. The dissertation, entitled
"The Battle Against Intervention: A History of the
America First Committee," 1950, is available as an
unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin Li
brary, Madison, Wisconsin.
59wayne s. Cole, America First (Madison: The
University of Wisconsin Press, T95TT.
40cole, Gerald P. Wye and American Foreign

Relations (Minneapolis’: The University of Minnesota
Press, L962). Chapter 11 contains a summary of
Wye's relationship with the America First Committee,
pp. 176-202.
16
There has been until recently little interest
in the rhetoric of the America First Committee. Cole*s
investigation gives slight attention to isolationist
speeches, partly because, as he comments, he "knows
almost nothing about rhetoric."^1 In February of 1964,
James R. Johnson finished a dissertation at Cornell
University, "The Rhetoric of the America First Commit
tee."^2 Johnson, perhaps a former debater, analyzes
the Committee*s rhetoric as if it were a debate case
with America First taking the negative. The question
presumably concerns American participation in the war.
Johnson divided the "case" of the isolationists into
"no-need arguments," impracticability arguments, and
undesirability arguments. He concludes that
America First orators gave particular emphasis

to the impracticability and undesirability of
U. S. intervention. In addition to using a
denial case to refute needs raised by their in
terventionist opponents, speakers defended the
status quo by a repairs case based on the For
tress America concept and the counterplan of a
negotiated p e a c e . ^3
In addition, Johnson made three generalizations from

his study of America First:
^letter Cole to this writer, August 3, 1963.

42
James R. Johnson, "The Rhetoric of the America
First Committee" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Dept,
of Speech, Cornell University, 1964).
^James Johnson, p. 262.
17
(1) A movement occurs in a temporal sequence;

(2) The outcome of a movement hinges upon the
presentation of a case which the audience ac
cepts as rational; and (3) A movement should
be designed to persuade neutrals as well as
to stimulate those already fully c o n v i n c e d , 44
In the last two chapters of his study, Johnson dis
cussed Wheeler and Lindbergh separately, dividing each
chapter into (1) career, (2) major lines of argument,
(3) organizational structure, (4) forms of support,
and (5) style. This study contends in Chapter V that
what Johnson has termed a ”counterplan" never material

ized as a plan of action. Implicitly this study ar
gues that one difficulty America First faced, if it
must be put in debate terms, was that the status quo
was continually shifting and that isolationists often
were not able to adapt quickly to the daily changes.
Chapters V, VI, VII, and VIII of this study take issue
with Johnson1s assumption that there was a unified
case for the negative.
Previous studies using the methods of criticism
provided by Kenneth Burke have been primarily in the

field of literary c r i t i c i s m . 4-5 Rhetorical interest in
Kenneth Burke has come primarily from the pens of
44-See summary pages numbered 1 and 2 of John

so n s dissertation.
^ S e e for example William Rueckert, Kenneth Burke

and the Drama of Human Relations (Minneapolis: The
University of Minnesota Press, f963).
18
h > fi
Virginia Holland, and Marie Hochmuth Nichols. Holland’s
do.ctoral dissertation was a Burkeian analysis of a sin

gle speech, Phillip's "Murder of Lovejoy."^ A 1959
study hy Jack Armold considered the Compromise of 1850
from a Burkeian point of view.2^ Armold organized his
chapters around the Burkeian pentad (Act— Chapter I;

Scene— II; Agents and counter-agents— III; Purpose—
IV; and Agency— V). He began each chapter with a
short essay about Burke's concept of one term in the
pentad and then applied each term to the Compromise of
1850. For example, in Armold*s chapter on "Scene,"^9

he discussed five synonyms for "scene" and then described
the "scene" in traditional terms, citing the historical
impact of sectionalism, the advance of tension over
slavery, etc. In his chapter on "Agents and
Besides Holland's book and articles already

cited, see Marie Hochmuth, "Burkeian Criticism,"
Western Speech. XXI (Spring, 1957), PP. 89-95, and
flKenneth Burke and the 'New Rhetoric, " Quarterly
Journal of Speech. XXXVIII (April, 1952), pp. 133-
144. See also Marie Hochmuth Nichols, Rhetoric and
Criticism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1963), especially Chapter VI, "Kenneth Burke:
Rhetorical and Critical Theory," pp. 79-92.
^ S e e Holland, "Rhetorical Criticism: A Burkeian

Method," pp. 444-450.
^ J a c k Armold, "The Compromise of 1850: A

Burkeian Analysis," (unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Dept, of Speech, University of Illinois, 1959).
Ârmold, pp. 19-54.
19
Counter-Agents,"5° he tried to uncover the "motivation"
for each participant through a short biographical
sketch, complete with a picture of each participant.
It is Armold*s chapter on "Agency" ^ in which he made
the greatest use of Burke. Here he considered the var
ious strategies, such as courtship, mystification, ma
terializing a spiritual consideration, by which the
agents and counter-agents attempted to gain identifi
cation with their audience. Although there has been
both historical and recent critical interest in the
America First Committee, no one has yet attempted to
analyze the rhetoric of the Committee using the pro
ductive ideas of Kenneth Burke.
The materials for investigating the rhetoric of

the America First Committee are scattered and incomplete.
The largest single collection is housed in the Hoover
Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford
University, California, comprising one hundred thirty-
two cartons each containing about one and one-half feet
of files. The Hoover collection contains the personal
correspondence of General Robert Wood, Rational Direc

tor, to various speakers, as well as the correspondence
of other heads of the organization, Robert Bliss, Page

Hufty, and R. Douglas Stuart. The collection also
SOArmold, pp. 55-138. 51irmold, pp. 185-253.
20
contains several hand-written, typed, and dictated,
speeches, along with most of the mimeographed copies

of speeches scheduled by the Speaker1s Bureau. Sev
eral recordings of speeches were available at the
Hoover Library, and this writer had several taped

speeches in his possession. Whenever possible, the
taped speeches were compared to the mimeographed copies,
and mimeographed copies were compared to versions pub
lished in the Hew York Times and Vital Speeches for ac
curacy. Not all speeches delivered at America First
rallies are extant. This writer, to make his task more
manageable, concentrated on the rhetoric of those
speakers who spoke more than once under auspices of
the National Committee. The following precis of each

chapter will outline the way in which this study de
veloped.
Chapter II discusses both the composition of
America First and the way in which isolationist member
ship affected its rhetoric, America First looked for
support to persons whose political, economic, and re
ligious views differed widely; hence it faced the task
of unifying the divergent many, a task which it never
succeeded in accomplishing. If the discourse of a Com
mittee were to be fashioned into the rhetoric of a move
ment, it demanded unity so that arguments chosen by
speakers did not conflict with one another or with the
21
Committee's central policies. America First lacked a
pivot by which desirable unity might have been achieved;

it also lacked controls over the statements of its
speakers. Rhetorically, the heterogeneity of member
ship and lack of agreement among Committee members and
speakers accented the isolationist divisiveness and
complicated the task of presenting a rhetorically uni
fied position.
Chapter III discusses the historical and geo
graphical impact of isolationism, the way in which the
"isolationist impulse" suggested a mystique surrounding
the American destiny upon which America First speakers
could draw. The isolationists chose as one "god-term"
of their movement "Rationalism," or "Americanism,"
which implied separation, sacrifice, and.purity.
"Americanism" separated the "American way" from the

"European way" and attempted to show that only involve
ment would end the "American way." Isolationists con
ceived of their movement as a "crusade," but it became
a crusade of opposition rather than of affirmation.

America First put itself in the disadvantageous position
of continually opposing rather than proposing; in Chap
ter III we shall see how the America First stand for a
strong defense was neither rhetorically unified nor
consistent.
In Chapter IV, the study considers the role of
the rally and the creation of a secular prayer, a "bas-

tardization of fundamentally religious patterns of
thought. " 5 2 The rally became one of the most important
activities of America First. We shall see in Chapter

IV how the isolationists attempted to fuse political
and religious elements to make the rally into a rite.
In this rite, isolationists demanded "sacrifice” of
their audiences, a sacrifice that would purify isolation
ist motives and sanctify their cause. In this chapter
we will analyze those elements which mitigated against
the rally becoming a rite and how, ultimately, the
rally failed to function as a rite for isolationists.
In Chapter V, the study analyzes the way in which

America First sought to identify with an audience.
America First claimed to represent "the people," and
armed with public .opinion polls, argued that "the peo

ple" did not want war. When subsequent polls indicated
support for those policies isolationists opposed, Amer
ica First found it necessary to discredit the polls, to
substitute its own polls, and to attempt to sponsor a
referendum. When the campaign for the referendum

failed to materialize and isolationists continued to
lose ground, they shifted their attack. The major
52]3urke, The Philosophy, p. 188.
23
strategy in the last six months of America First was
to claim that "the people" (and the Committee) were

victims of a "great conspiracy" composed largely of
three elements: the Jews, the British government, and
the Roosevelt Administration.

Chapter VI discusses the America First Committee's
flirtation with the Jew as scapegoat. Burke describes
Hitler's scapegoating of Jews, a strategy by whiGh
Nazis would purge themselves of guilt by ascribing their
failures to the cunningly selfish Jewish individualism.

Nazis were "reborn" by burdening "their iniquities"^
to the "international devil materialized."5^ Unlike the
Nazis, America First never developed a consistent strat

egy for burdening its iniquities on the Jews.
This chapter treats the way in which the theme
of anti-Semitism developed in America First rhetoric.
Many isolationists were anti-Semitic, although this was
not the dominant attitude of the Committee. The speech
of Lindbergh in Des Moines, Iowa, labelling the Jews as
conspirators, became a cause celebre of the Committee;
it focused the greatest national attention on Committee

efforts, but created a fissure in the Committee from
which it never recovered. To become an isolationist

of Motives, p. ~
54-Burke, The Philosophy, p. 166.
24
sqapegoat, the Jews would have had to assume the guilt

of isolationist sins. This, of course, would have en
tailed recognition of isolationist guilt which could
have been found in a failure to keep the American i!deal
pure; that is, isolated from European corruption. The

sin would have been a sin of omission. But guilt was
not systematically recognized. Thus the Jew could not
be made the vessel of expiation. In America First rhe
toric, the Jews were only conspirators. They never be

came more than conspirators; but even this strategy did
not gain unified support from isolationists, was not ap
propriate to the audience with which America First
sought to identify, and had already been usurped in

the rhetoric of a foreign ideology. America First was
forced to look for another "conspirator" on which to

blame its failures.
Chapter VII treats the isolationist attitude to
ward the second "conspirator," Great Britain. Many of
the America First Committee were ardent Anglophobes
convinced that the defense of Britain was not vital to
that of the United States. Isolationist speakers em
phasized distrust of Britain by linking that country
to the corrupt nations of Europe, and especially to
Russia when both countries came under German guns.
America First speakers voiced sympathy for the British

people, who, they claimed, were being deceived by their
25
autocratic leaders. Isolationists feared that British
propaganda would gain a commitment of our funds which

would inevitably necessitate a commitment of our blood.
Hence they suggested an alienation between the British
way of life and "Americanism." If this alienation
could be established, America First would gain support
in its fight against aid to Britain. We shall see in
Chapter VII how isolationists failed to establish their
claim of a "British Invasion of America."
Chapter VIII concerns the last "conspirator,"

Roosevelt and the "War Party." Isolationists labelled
those they opposed as members of the "War Party," jux
taposed to the "American Party," which they represented.

America First suggested that Administration leaders
were in league with foreign ideologies to commit us to
war. In order to force American commitment, isolation
ists believed that a dictatorship was being formed.

This dictatorship, obviously "un-American," would de
prive "the peopl.e" of information necessary to deci
sion-making and curtail their freedom. Here again,
America First attempted to create alienation, this time

between "the people" and "the government." The attack
on Roosevelt, which became more vituperative in late
194-1, failed to weaken his popularity. The lack of a
program to deal with a claim as strong as that of dic

tatorship weakened the attack on the third of the
26
triumvirate of conspirators.
The summary, Chapter IX, challenges the widely
held assumption that the failure of America First was
due to Pearl Harbor rather than to the strategic rhe

torical choices isolationists made and the way in which
these strategies led to failure rather than to success.

It reconsiders, briefly, the problem of unity, of iden
tification, of futureness, of scapegoating. Perhaps
inevitably a movement confronting almost continual
failure seeks to explain that failure in terms of forces
it cannot control, of conspirators which were, for the
America First Committee, the Jews, the British govern

ment, and the Roosevelt Administration. None of
these strategies succeeded in gaining for America First

*
the identification it sought to turn temporary defeats
to success. Besides a review of America First strat
egies, the summary considers an isolationist attitude
which may have led to the choice of these strategies;
specifically, an isolationist distrust of language.- For

a Committee which sought to unify and gain members,
which sought to attack Administration proposals, which
sought to fuse its organization into a movement, lin

guistically, the isolationist attitude of distrust of
language mitigated against its possible success. Iso
lationist defeat was never turned to success: this is

the focus of the following chapters.
CHAPTER II
THE DIVERGENT MANY
The organizational problem which America First
faced was the task of welding a unified whole out of
the divergent many. Most rhetorical movements have a
central focus or a person around whom the movement
will build— a person in whom identification with the
movement can be made. The America First Committee was
essentially a movement without a center; its difficulty

was implicit in its title: America First rhetoric was
the rhetoric of a committee.

The small group of college students which founded
America First, led by R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., chose as
its first leader General Robert Wood, a veteran of the
Philippine insurrection and Director of Purchases of
Army Supplies in World War I who was then Vice Presi

dent of Sears, Roebuck and Company.^ Wood took the job
reluctantly; at several times during the short history

of America First he indicated that he would step down.
The committee searched for replacements;- Eddie
^Speaker's Bureau File entitled "Robert Wood,"

America.First Papers, Hoover Library, Stanford. (Below
referred.to as America. First PHLS.)
27
28
Rickenbacker and Joseph P. Kennedy were considered, but
both declined.2 Charles A. Lindbergh was also consider
ed but never chosen, largely because of his fear that
he would not be acceptable to all members of the Nation

al Committee.^ The problem of leadership, then, was
the task of finding a pivot which was not always slip
ping out of place. America First faced the persistent
task of persuading Wood to remain its leader. In Sep
tember of 19^1 Wood indicated for the last time his
plans to resign. Stuart wrote to Wood:

I appeal to you not to discuss with anyone who
cannot be trusted what is in your mind. . . .
I emphasize this because nothing would encourage
the opposition more than knowing this; nothing
would put more pressure on the Committee than
if it were known there was a possibility of
this.4
Wood continued as chairman, where he served to
reduce the friction caused by the diversity of views
and personalities on the Committee. "The composition
of the National Committee was so heterogeneous that
any positive course of action taken by America First
Telegram Wood to Stuart, August 28, 1940, and

Kennedy to Mrs. M. P. Weedy, December 31, 1940,
America First PHLS.
•^Minutes of America First Board of Directors

Meeting, March 28, 1941, America First PHIS.
^Stuart to Wood, September 20, 1941, America

First PHLS.
29
was almost certain to alienate some of them."5 The

frictions on the Executive and National Committees
were not always easily reduced.
National Committeewoman Mrs. Janet Ayer Fairbank

was especially critical of National Director R. Douglas
Stuart, Jr., which caused some tension on the Committee.^
Stuart was a mem'ber of both the National and Executive
Committees. In response to criticism of Stuart— es

pecially of his youth— Wood appointed three "senior"
representatives, Hanford MacNider, Philip LaFollette,
and Samuel Pettengill, to represent Wood at National
Headquarters when Wood was absent from Chicago.? In
March of 1941, the Executive Committee, on Wood's rec
ommendation, elected Mrs. Fairbank and MacNider Vice
Chairmen of America First.® One month later the same
committee changed Stuart’s title from National Director

to Executive Secretary.^
5
Cole, America First, p. 42.
6
Wood to I. A. Pennypacker, July 15, 1941,
America First PHLS.
7
‘Stuart to Chester Bowles, December 20, 1940,
Wood to Stuart, July 16, 1941, Wood to Stuart, July
17, 1941, and Minutes of the America First Board of
Directors Meeting, April 10, 1941, America First PHLS.
^Minutes of the America First Board of Directors

Meeting, March 28, 1941, America First PHLS. See also
Cole, America First, pp. 17-35.
^Minutes of the America First Board of Directors

Meeting, April 10, 1941, America First PHLS. The two
30
The divergent many were not to be welded by a
changing of titles, nor even by changing the compo

sition of the National Committee.1*^ The substance of
the Committee was fluid, always changing; in fact one
might argue that in substance the Committee became more
conservative during each month of its fifteen month
history. "This shift ^toward the right^ was evidenced

by the loss of some liberal followers and the addition
of other conservatives or reactionaries."11 Henry Ford,
governing bodies for America First were the Executive

Board of Directors and the National Committee. Members
of the Executive Board were also members of the Nation
al Committee. Members of the Executive Board at the
instigation of America First were: General Robert Wood,
General Thomas Hammond, Jay Hormel, Clay Judson,
Hanford MacNider, William H. Regnery, and R. Douglas
Stuart, Jr. Mrs. Janet Ayer Fairbank replaced Hormel.
Stuart to Judson, September 11, 1940, and Minutes of
the America First Board of Directors Meeting, May 28,
1941, America First PHLS.
In
,uIn addition to the members of the Executive
Committee, the' National Committee included at one
time or another the following members: Samuel Hopkins
Adams, Bishop Wilbur E. Hammaker, Louis Taber, Dr.
George H. Whipple, Irvin S. Cobb, Henry Ford, Dr.
Albert W. Palmer, Frank 0. Lowden, Mrs. Florence P.
Kahn, Edward Rickenbacker, Mrs. Bennett Champ Clark,
John T. Flynn, Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, Edward
L. Ryerson, Jr., William R. Castle, George N. Peek,
Edwin S. Webster, Jr., Chester Bowles, and Isaac A.
Pennypacker. America First Speaker*s Files, America
FirstPHLS; All official America First stationery
contained the names of the National Committee in the
left margin. See also Cole, America ftirst. pp. 21-23.
II
Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," p.
132 . * *
31
whose attacks on the Jews in the Dearborn Independent

were still remembered, was dropped from the Committee,
probably to make the Committee ’’less vulnerable to
criticism."^2 Avery Brundage was excluded from the
National Committee after he had been accused of having

pro-Nazi s y m p a t h i e s . tw o liberals and pacifists, Os
wald Garrison Villard and Albert W. Palmer, resigned
from the Committee shortly after they joined.^ Jay
Hormel, the president of the meat packing firm, was in
constant friction with most members of the Committee.

He attended f ew meetings, but usually criticized the
results of those meetings in a series of independent
statements which hurt America First. "*5
If the National Committee was made up of widely

differing backgrounds and political beliefs, the speak
ers representing America First were even more diver

gent: such distant cousins as Norman Thomas and Burt
on Wheeler, Chester Bowles and Gerald Nye, Robert
Hutchins, and Hamilton Fish, William Randolph Hearst
^2Stuart to Brewster, October 7, 1940 and

Stuart to Morton, February 8, 1941, America First PHLS.
See also Cole Thesis, p. 204.
^Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," p. 159.
^Stuart to MacNider, January 8, 1941, America

First PHLS.
^Hormel to Stuart, October 30, 1941, America

First PHLS.
32
and Charles Lindbergh. Committee speakers included
twenty Senators— twelve Republicans, seven Democrats,

and a Progressive; and thirty-six Representatives—
twenty-six Republicans, eight Democrats and a Progres
sive.^ Speakers came from a variety of occupations:
^Senators who spoke for America First included:

Wayland C. Brooks (R. Illinois), Arthur Capper (R. Kan
sas), Bennett C. Clark (D. Missouri), D. Worth Clark
(D. Idaho), John A. Danaher (R. Connecticut), Rufus D.
Holman (R. Oregon), Edwin C..Johnson (D. Colorado),
Hiram W. Johnson (R. California), Robert M. LaFollette
(P. Wisconsin), Henry Cabot Lodge (R. Massachusetts),
Pat McCarran (D. Nevada), Gerald P. Nye (R. North Da
kota), Robert R. Reynolds (D. North Carolina), Henrik
Shipstead (R. Minnesota), Robert Taft (R. Ohio), Charles
W. Tobey (R. New Hampshire), Arthur H. Vandenburg (R.
Michigan), David I. Walsh (D. Massachusetts), Burton K.
Wheeler (D. Montana), and Raymond E. Willis (R. Indiana).
Representatives who spoke for America First in

cluded: William Barry (D. New York). C. W. Bishop (R.
Illinois), Fred Bradley (R. Michigan), J. Edgar Chen-
oweth (R. Colorado), John M. Coffee (D. Washington),
sCarl T. Curtis (R. Nebraska), Stephen A.' Day (R. Illi
nois), Hamilton Fish (R. New York), Fred A. Hartley,
Jr. (R. New Jersey), Knute Hill (D. Washington), Clare
E. Hoffman (R. Michigan), Joshua L. Johns (R. Wiscon
sin), Robert F. Jones (R. Ohio), Frank Keefe (P. Wiscon
sin), Harold Knutson (R. Illinois), William P. Lambert-
son.(R. Kansas), Gerald W. Landis.(R. Indiana), Louis
Ludlow (D. Indiana), Karl Mundt (R. South Dakota),
George O'Brien (D. .Michigan), James F. O'Connor {D.
Montana), Jeanette Rankin (R. Montana), Harry Saut-
hoff (P. Wisconsin), Paul. Shafer (R. Michigan), Dewey
Short.(R. Missouri), Raymond S. Springer (R. Indiana),
William Stratton (R. Illinois), Jessie Sumner.(R. Illi
nois), Lewis Thill (R. Wisconsin), Jakob Thorkelson
(D. Montana),.James.Van Zandt (R. Pennsylvania), John
M. Vorys (R. Ohio), Albert L. Yreeland (R. New.Jersey),
and Roy Woodrull (R..Michigan). See Speaker's Files,.
America First PHLS. See also.Ruth Sarles "The Story
of America First," p. 86.
33
two were flyers, one of whom was convicted and sen
tenced as an agent of the German government early in

1 9 4 2 ; a stage and screen actress, a former dancer,
two attorneys, two college presidents, a governor and
two former governors, a Methodist Bishop and a Method

ist preacher, a Catholic philosopher and the dean of
1 ft
a reputable Catholic law school.1 At least ten aca
demicians joined or spoke for America First.^ Support
^Laura Ingalls was one of America First's most

popular speakers, especially in the latter half of 1941.
The Committee heard reports that she tended to be ex
treme in her statements, but the speaker's reports sent
to the Speaker's Bureau after each speech revealed that
she was enthusiastically received, and she was kept on
the speaker's rolls. She was convicted after Pearl Har
bor for her failure to register as a German agent. See.
Foulis to V. Anderson, December 5, 1941, America First
PHLS. See also Nation. 154 (February 21, 1942), p. 206
and Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," pp. 216-217.
1®Charles Lindbergh, Ingalls, Lillian Gish, Irene
Castle (Mrs. Irene Castle McLaughlin), Samuel Petten-
gill, Charles W. Vail, Dr. Henry Noble McCracken, Robert
M. Hutchins, Hjalmar Peterson, Philip LaFollette, Wil
liam H. ("Alfalfa Bill") Murray, Bishop Raymond T. Wade,
Rev. Arman Guerrero, Fr. John A. O'Brien, and Dr.
Clarence Manion. See Speaker's Files, America First
PHLS. See also Sarles, pp. 87-88.
^The following academicians either joined or

supported America First: Professors Anton J. Carlson
(University of Chicago), George H. Whipple (University
of Rochester), Gregory-Mason (New York University),
Albert W. “
Palmer (Chicago Theological Seminary), Manion
and O'Brien (Notre Dame), Maynard Krueger (University
of Chicago),_Edwin Borchard (Yale), Phillip C. Jessup
(Columbia University), Alan Valentine (University of
Rochester), McCracken (Vassar), and Hutchins (Univer
sity of Chicago). See-America First. Speaker's Files,
America First PHLS, and Cole, "The Battle Against In
tervention," p.. 156.
34
ran the political gamut from extreme conservatism to

socialism— including a Socialist candidate for Presi
dent and a Socialist candidate for Vice President^—
and the religious gamut from orthodox Jewry to liberal

protestantism. Speakers differed widely in political,
economic, social, and religious views; at times these
views clashed in speeches under Committee auspices.
Although there was heavy opposition to Admini

stration foreign policy, there were persons on the
Committee who had been strong supporters of Roosevelt.
General Wood had supported Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936,
and this was well publicized by the Committee.^
Wheeler backed F.D.R. until the Supreme Court contro
versy in 1937. Among America First speakers were Con
gressmen who continued to support Roosevelt’s domestic
program of legislation while attacking his foreign pol

icy measures. Feelings toward Roosevelt ran from sym
pathetic opposition to unmitigated hatred.

These widely differing speakers were booked by
the Speaker's Bureau to address rallies without the
Rational Committee knowing what they planned to say.
Similarly, not all of the speakers for America First
were in agreement with all of its stands on issues.
^Maynard Krueger. See Cole, "The Battle Against

Intervention," p. 136.
P1
Wood Brochure, Speaker's Files, America First
PHLS. See also Sarles, p. 253.
35
For example, Hamilton Pish, who had given many success

ful speeches for the Committee, announced that he was
going to vote for arming merchant ships.22 Colonel
Lindbergh supported, but Senator Wheeler opposed, the

Selective Service Bill in 1940.23 Everett Dirksen, who
had become known as a staunch non-interventionist, ex
ploded a bombshell when he advocated a "moderationist
program of endorsement of Administration foreign pol-

i.24
icy." Even General Wood was not always in concur
rence with America First policy statements:
I do not think it worthwhile to fight the

Lend-Lease Bill as such. What we can do is
advocate an amendment providing that none of
the money will be used for supplies to Rus
sia.
As far as the Neutrality Act is concerned,
I doubt whether it is worthwhile to fight arm
ing of merchant ships but we can fight any
provision for repealing that portion of the
bill prescribing the zones in which the mer
chant ships may not enter.25
Later Wood telegraphed to Stuart that "If sinking of

destroyers breaks up the fight on the revision of the
22New York limes. June 16, 1940, and B. K.

Wheeler, "Marching Down the Road to War," Vital
Speeches of the Day. VI (1940), p. 689. •
23wew York Times. June 16, 1940, and B. K.
Wheeler, ^Marching Down the Road to War," Vital
Speeches of the Day. VI (1940), p. 689. .See also
Sarles, p. 242. .
24Wo od to Stuart, October 6, 1941, America

First PHLS.
2^Telegram Wood to Stuart, n.d., America

First PHLS.
36
act, suggest to our Congressional friends that next
week would "be the proper time for a resolution cover

ing declaration of war."2^ Thus there was considerable
disagreement on specific issues among America First

Committee members and speakers.
We are concerned here with how the diversity of

membership affected the rhetoric of the America First
Committee. Each movement confronts the rhetorical

necessity of unity. Without such unity a movement
loses its focus of purpose, and finds statements of its
members conflicting with one another. One method of
gaining unity is to provide a strong leader who will
fashion the rhetoric of the movement, with a membership.
to support the statements of that leader. Such move
ments as the Nazi Movement in Germany, the Fascist
Movement in Italy, and the Peronist Movement in Argen
tina had gained unity in this manner. . Each had a pivot

strong enough to shape rhetorical unity for that move
ment. In. these movements, members did not concern
themselves with being consistent with other members of
equal status, but of making their statements consistent
with those of the leader. Each of these movements ex
ercised extensive Control over the rhetoric of its mem
bers. If a member deviated•from the arguments chosen
2^Wood to Mrs. A. G. Simms, May 21, 1941, and

Bowles-to Stuart, July 30, 1941, America First PHLS.
37
for the movement, he was either brought quickly into
line or dismissed with varying forms of punishment.
But the presence of a pivot- and strong controls over
its membership enables a movement to gain more effect
ively the rhetorical unity it needs.

The America First Committee, as we have seen,
lacked a pivot which would help the Committee achieve
rhetorical unity. It chose a leader who was reluctant
to serve, who resigned several times, who refused to

impose his position on the other Committee members, and
who at times found his positions opposed by the major
ity of the Committee. Bor could the Committee find a
leader strong enough to unify the Committee who also
could gain sufficient support to be elected. Lind
bergh was the most likely leader, but he could not gain
the confidence of enough Committee members. The fact
that a leader was chosen after the Committee had been
formed mitigated against the possibility of finding a

leader strong enough to fashion the statements of the
Committee into a rhetorically unified position.
Secondly, the Committee failed to gain rhetori

cal unity because of its inability to control the
statements of its speakers. This was due in part to
the fact that most isolationist speakers did not need
the America First platform to disseminate their views.
Many had gained a national reputation prior to their
38
association with the Committee, For example, Hiram
Johnson, Gerald Nye, Arthur Vandenburg, and Burton
"Wheeler had served in the Senate for a period as
long as twenty years prior to the formation of the
Committee, To each a public platform was readily
available; few were dependent upon America First to
provide a platform. In gaining their national repu
tations, however, several had made statements and
would make statements which were not consistent with
America First policy. When Fish, for example, an
nounced that as a Representative he was going to vote
for arming merchant ships, he was in conflict with

America First p o l i c y . yet the Committee had no pow
er with which to force any speaker to conform to Com

mittee policy. Isolationist speeches were never
cleared with members of the America First National
Committee before they were delivered. Consequently
America First found itself in the embarrassing posi

tion of having speakers under its auspices make state
ments which were inconsistent with Committee policy.
Moreover, each inconsistency highlighted the Commit

tee ^ lack of rhetorical unity.
When such a situation occurred, America First
leaders had to rule after the act. Their course of
2^New York Times. June 16, 194-0, and B. K.

Wheeler, address, entitled "Marching Down the Road to
War," Vital Speeches. VI (1940), p. 689.
39
action was usually to deny that such a statementswas
the official position of America First, and then either

to defend the speaker or take him from the rolls.
.America First endorsed Jakob Thorkelson, Representative

from Montana, and then found his speeches to be filled
with hatred for Jews. They removed him from the
speaking roster.2® Edward J. Smythe had spoken for
America First but his speech for a rally in Philadel
phia was cancelled because "the Committee cannot back

up such anti-Semitic attacks."29 The speech delivered
by Lindbergh, the most prominent isolationist spokes
man, in Des Moines (See Chapter VI for a more detailed
analysis) was a bombshell from which America First
never recovered. Several National Committee members
favored taking Lindbergh from the speaking rolls and
repudiating the speech. The action of the National

Committee after heated debate to keep Lindbergh and de
fend his speech caused the resignation of four Nation
al Committee members and resulted in several speakers
2®Louis Fife to Moore, June 23, 194-1, Hufty to

Fife, August 4, 1941, Jeffrey.to Moore, July 4, 1941,
America First PHLS.
2Ê. J. Smythe to Mrs. Barbara McDonald, Dec

ember 14, 1940, Stuart to Smythe, December 18, 1940,
and Stuart to McDonald, December 18, 1940, America
First PHLS.
40
refusing to speak again for the Committee.3®

Thirdly, the diversity of views among Committee
members reduced the number of issues on which they
could provide a rhetorically unified position. In
fact, there were few issues on which there was not dis
agreement among America First speakers. Isolationists
were split on the issues of arming merchant ships, on
draft extension measures, and even on aid to Britain.
Acknowledging the widespread disagreement, General Wood
commented, "Virtually the only point on which there
was complete agreement was that the United States
should not enter the European war."-^ Thus America

First attempted, as we shall see in Chapter V, the
strategy of reducing all issues to that of war or peace
in an effort to gain rhetorical unity. "Conducting
the campaign on the issue of war or peace would enable

the America First Committee to utilize its strength
with a minimum of disaffection."-^ Unfortunately for
the Committee, isolationists were never able to reduce
•^°Kathryn Lewis to Wood, September 29, 1941,

and New York Times. October 23, 1941 and October 29,
1941.
^W o o d to Mrs. A. G. Simms, May 21, 1941, and

Bowles to Stuart, July 30, 1941, America First PHLS.
^2Wood to Mrs. A. G. Simms, May 21, 1941, and

Bowles to Stuart, July 30, 1941, America First PHLS.
41
the issue to the "simple1* one of war or peace, and
with each additional issue raised, disaffection among
the Committee did result. The increasing disaffection

of members on specific issues which confronted the Com
mittee during its history hindered isolationist efforts
to achieve rhetorical unity.

The America First Committee as a movement, then,
suffered from the heterogeneity of its membership
without adequate controls over that membership. It
suffered from its support from Father Coughlin and his

followers. 53 it suffered from its support from the
Silver Shirts and the German American B u n d . It suf
fered from "having Nazis, Communists, and anti-Semites
venting similar foreign policy views. It suffered

because Committee members and speakers kept changing,
and because many changed their views during this per

iod. New members came in, old members chose to resign
or were asked to leave.

Perhaps the heterogeneity of membership and
diversity of views prevented America First from achiev
ing the rhetorical unity it sought. It sought a
unified, consistent rhetoric. This unification failed
53Moore to J. A. Gwyer, August 20, 1941, America

First PHLS.
-^Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," pp.

239-242.
•^Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," p. 186.
42
due to the lack of a central leader around whom mem

bers could focus their rhetoric; it failed because
of the lack of controls over statements of its speakers,
statements which not only contradicted each other, but
which were inconsistent with the policy of the Commit
tee; it failed because it was una'ble to focus on a
single issue on which it could gain united isolation
ist support. Rhetorically, the discourse of the
America First Committee failed to reflect the unifica
tion of a movement; it remained what its name implies:
the rhetoric of a committee.
CHAPTER III
THE ISOLATIONIST IMPULSE: AMERICA'S DESTINY
In The Rhetoric of Religion, Kenneth Burke de
scribes the relationship between theology and logo-
logy> between "words about God" and "words about

w o r d s . D e f i n i n g man as a "symbol-using animal,"
Burke demonstrates that theological principles "can
be shown to have usable secular analogues that throw
light on the nature of language."2 For example, the

linguistic analogue for a unitary concept of God
is to be found in the nature of any name or
title which sums up a manifold of particulars
under a single head (as with the title of a
book, or the name of some person or political
movement). Any such summarizing word is
functionally a 'god t e r m . ' 3
Burke is concerned with the analogy "between 'words'
(lower case) and The Word (Logos, Verbum)"; in oth
er words, logology is a study of the way in which

words "transcend" the "details subsumed under that
head, somewhat as 'spirit' is said to 'transcend
^Kenneth Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion

(Boston.: Beacon Press, 1961 ), p. 1.
2Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion, p. 2.
■^Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion, p. 3.
43
44
matter.* Burke illust r a t e s this p o i n t w i t h the
word "grace" (originally m e a n i n g f a v o r and esteem)
w h i c h was "translated from the r e a l m of social r e l a
tionships into the s u p e r n a t u r a l l y tinged r ealm of
relationships b e t w e e n ‘God* and m a n . S u c h a pro
cess c o u l d also be reversed; in this example "grace"
could "de-transcend" f r o m the spir i t u a l to the s e c
u l a r as i n the '"grace" of a l i t e r a r y st y l e . ^
The transcendence of words is the c entral c o n
cern of The Rhetoric of R e l i g i o n . Burke explains
transcendence analogically:
The quickest and simplest w a y to r e a l i z e that

words ' t r a n s c e n d ’ n o n - v e r b a l nature is to
think of the nota b l e d ifference b e t w e e n the
leind of oper a t i o n we m i g h t p e r f o r m w i t h a
tree and the k i n d of operations we m i g h t p e r
f o r m w i t h the w o r d 'tree.' . . . T h e r e is
a sense i n w h i c h the w o r d f o r tree ’.tran
s c e n d s ’ the t h i n g as t h o r o u g h l y as does the
P l a tonic idea of-the tree's p erfect 'arche
type' i n heaven. It is the sense i n w h i c h
the name f o r a class of objects ’t r a n s c e n d s ’
any p a r t i c u l a r m e m b e r of that c l a s s . 7
U n d e r s t a n d i n g the "transcendence" of language
gives insight into the w a y i n w h i c h l a n g u a g e f u n c
tions as "motive." U s i n g the f i r s t three chapters
^Burke, The R h e t o r i c of R e l i g i o n , pp. 7, 3.
^Burke, The Rh e t o r i c of R e l i g i o n , p. 7.
Burke, The Rhe t o r i c of R e l i g i o n , p. 8.
^Burke, The R h e t o r i c of R e l i g i o n ,pp. 9-10.
45
of G e n e s i s , ,Burke illus t r a t e s t h e - f u n c t i o n of l a n
guage as ’’motive" t h r o u g h ’’t r a n s c endence." B u r k e ’s
analysis is l o g o l o g i c a l r a t h e r t h a n theological;
he demonstrates that "The Word" t r a n s c e n d e d "the
word." In the S h etoric of M o t i v e s B u r k e speaks of
"ultimate terms" instead of "god t e r m s " - - t e r m s w h i c h
have transcended t h e i r natural, e m p i r i c a l reference
to the super n a t u r a l (whether or not, as Burke 'com-
ments, there is a r e a l m of the supernatural).
In t r e ating the m e t h o d by w h i c h r e l i g i o n has
gained its rhetoric, Burke argues that all movements,
w h e t h e r p r i m a r i l y sacred or secular, seek to e s t a b l i s h
"god-terms" p e c u l i a r to that movement. Burke i l l u s
trates w i t h p e n e t r a t i o n h o w the- "Rhetoric of H i t l e r ’s
Battle" sought its " g o d - t e r m s . "9 Some m o v e m e n t s e s
t a b l i s h "god-terms" in the s e c u l a r realm w h i c h are c o
ordinate w i t h their analogues i n the sa c r e d realm. A
mo v e m e n t m a y d e s i g n its "god-terms" to s u p p l a n t those
of religion; i n a sense, m a n y m o v e m e n t s h a v e had a
"sacred-secular" goal. In m o s t cases, the crea t i o n
of "god-terms" is an act of m o v i n g f r o m the secular
to the sacred, of "transcendence" to the "supernat
ural." In the process of transcendence, a movement
seeks "sanctification" f o r its cause. The v e r y
®Burlce, The Rhetoric of Religion, p. 7.
^See Burke, "The Rhetoric of H i t l e r ’s Battle,"

in The P h i l o s o p h y . pp.... 164-190.
46
creation of ’’god-terms" by the A m e r i c a F i r s t C o m m i t
tee was s uch an act; it enabled A m e r i c a First to es
t a b l i s h the "purity" of its motives.
A m e r i c a First c onceived of its f u n c t i o n as
that of a c r u sade— a crusade not to change A m e r i c a ’s
destiny but to preserve it. As speakers at r ally
collections w o u l d phrase it, "You are not g o i n g to
p a y f o r an h o u r of ente r t a i n m e n t and i n s t r u c t i o n — y o u
10
are g o i n g to p a y f o r a crusade." Isolationists
claimed support f o r their crusade f r o m n e a r l y every
A m e r i c a n President since Washington; i n short, they
claimed to repr e s e n t the A m e r i c a n t r a d i t i o n of n o n
i n t e r v e n t i o n w h i c h they fe a r e d was b e i n g violated.
A m e r i c a ’s destiny was un i q u e because its mo t i v e s were
unselfish; w h e n it had re m o v e d i t s e l f f r o m the entan
glements of Europe it had "cleansed" itself. "Nat
i o n a l i s m " — the p r o d u c t of A m e r i c a ’s c l e a n s i n g itself
of E u r o p e a n c o r r u p t i o n — had become a "god-term": it
implied -separation, n o n - c o m m i t m e n t i n order to p r e
serve A m e r i c a n "virtue." S e p a r a t i o n was not only
justified but sanctifi e d because it i n v o l v e d "s a c r i
fice." This "sacrifice" of r e m a i n i n g aloof assured
Americans that their c o n t r i b u t i o n s hould be the
b u ilding of a m o d e l w h i c h the E u r o p e a n s could emulate
1o
'^Mimeographed A p p e a l f o r Funds, n. d . , S p e a k e r ’s
Bureau Files, A m e r i c a First PHLS.
47
when they finished their bloody commitment.
When, across the sea, the warring countrie-s

have finally bombed each other*s cities, when
they have destroyed their churches, when they
have crushed to ashes their great works of art,
when they have destroyed their institutions
of learning, when their factories have been
leveled to the ground, finally out of the an
guish of it all surely there will come a time
when the starving people of the conquered lands
and the distressed, weary, war-torn, and bur
dened people of the victors as well will cry
out: ’Isn’t there a land somewhere on earth
where there is a government truly of the people,
where the people’s wishes will be respected
and observed?
*Isn*t there a land somewhere where all the
nationalities and all creeds and all the colors
can live in harmony with each other, and build
and enjoy a real civilization?
*Isn’t there a land somewhere where by
living example men can preach, where men can
live and can produce the foods and necessities
of life— necessities for the body and for the
spirit as well?
fIsn*t there a land where there is freedom
of speech and expression, freedom of worship,
freedom from want, and freedom from fear?*
And if America is still solvent,•still
strong, still free, we can send the word back
across the ocean that we are ready to feed and
to clothe and to rebuild the homes of the dis
tressed people of the world.
That is America’s destiny.'^
America’s destiny was separation; in fact the with

drawal from the world to set up a model society has
been a consistent theme in the American liberal tra
dition. Our purity will save the world, the isola
tionist argued, but our purity can be maintained

only by non-commitment; thus America First created a
^Wilbur Helm, radio address, n. d., entitled

"A Study of the Words America and First,” Speaker’s
Files, America First PHLS.
48
justification for isolationism. We are not selfish,

but give of ourselves by withdrawing. Separation,
then, was not a selfish, negative reaction, but a self
less, positive action.
America was the "actor" rather than the "acted-
upon." In choosing the act of separation, we had real
ized the necessity of preserving a "virtue," a system
of institutions superior to those of Europe. "Amer
icanism" and "Europeanism" to isolationists were not

only separate, they were incompatible; and no one
could doubt which was superior. Martin Dies pinpointed
our superiority:
Americans have evolved an economic and political

system far superior to the best that Europe/has
to offer. Under our system we have grown and
prospered beyond the dreams of our founders.
The American way, not the European way, promises
steady advancement toward the more abundant life.
The moment we abandon the principles of American
ism in favor of the totalitarian ideologies of
Europe, that moment we begin the downward course
toward the kind of dictatorships which have
plagued Europeans for centuries.12
The "American way" led to the abundant life; the
"European way" led to the plague of dictatorship.
Yet the "American way" was not incorruptible;
it necessitated separation. Ironically, while Amer
ica First believed our system of government to be
^Martin Dies, address, n. d., entitled—"Insid

ious Wiles of Foreign Influence," Vital Speeches. VI
(December 15, 1939), p. 155.
49
strong intrinsically, it feared that America could

maintain its strength only by separation; to be linked
to Europe was to be destroyed by Europe. Underlying
America First rhetoric is a fear that our government

lacked the strength to stand the test of a l l i a n c e . ^
America First found support for its position
in historical tradition. ’’The isolationist impulse,’’
stated Adler, ’’has been woven into the warp and woof
14
of the American epic." The early warnings of Wash
ington against "permanent alliances" and Jefferson
against "entangling alliances" formed until 1941 a
persistent, perhaps dominant, core of the American
tradition. The America First Committee interpreta

tion of tradition and destiny called for reputable
historical credentials. Charles Beard, for isolation
ists, provided those credentials. Beardfs argument
was consistent with,the position of the Committee:

"Europe has a set of 'primary interests' which have
little or no relation to us, and which is constantly
vexed by ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or
^Chapter VIII discusses the basis for the fear

isolationists projected of the government.
1^Selig Adler, The Isolationist Impulse

(New York: Collier Books, 1961), p. 15.
50
caprice.^
America First tried doggedly to enlist the

support of Beard, hut he repeatedly refused to speak
on behalf of the Committee. Beard finally consented
to provide the following statement for the Committee,
to be used as it wished, provided it was not changed:
Amid the confusion of opinion which rages

in the United States today, there is one rather
clear-cut division. This division is between
those who advocate sending armed forces of some
kind to participate directly in the war in Eur
ope and those who oppose such intervention.
Attached to the party of intervention are
many American citizens who shrink from an open
declaration of war by the government of the
United States but propose actions 'short of war1
which will in effect commit us to full war if
such actions fail in their objective. In short,
the party of intervention includes active advo
cates of war and well-wishers who are ready to
start down the road to war, without calculating
the highly probable outcome of measures 'short
of war.' Many, if not a majority, of this par
ty belong to the school of collective security
which,.to use the formula of President Roose
velt, holds that it is the moral duty of the
United States to participate actively in estab
lishing peace throughout the world. On this
side also are many American citizens and resi
dents of the United States whose primary con
cern. is with the fate of certain European na
tionalities rather than that of this country.
Among the opponents of intervention in the
European war are to be found various interested
persons and factions which are also more con
cerned, with the fortunes of Russia, Italy, and
Germany than with the welfare of the.United
States. Included here also are those alleged
'isolationists' who are constantly caricatured
15charles A. Beard, Giddy Minds and Foreign

Quarrels (New York:. The Macmillan Company^ 1939),
p. 65. Here Beard is.paraphrasing Washington. See
also Harpers,. OLXXXIX (September, 1939), p. 34-7.
as maintaining that the European war does not
affect, concern, or disturb the United States,
although I am myself unable to discover any
such living creature anywhere in this country.
Here too are to be found the pacifists, true
and false.
But the party of non-intervention repre-
. sented by the Emergency Committee for the De
fense of America included no 'appeasers,' no
'ostrich isolationists,1 no foreigners of any
nationality in letter or spirit, and no paci
fists. It believes (1) that the foreign poli
cy of the United States should be directed to
the preservation of peace and security of this
nation in its continental zone of interests;
.(2) that using or threatening to use the armed
forces of the United States to chase some rain
bow of world peace is dangerous to the security
of this country; (3) that no declamations against
any other government, no threats against them,
should extend beyond the physical power of the
United States to make such declamations or
threats good in battle on land or sea; (4) that
the United States should not resort to any more
measures verging in the direction of war out
side its continental zone of interests; and (5)
that measures should be adopted for the ade
quate defense of this continental zone of in
terests'— adequate defense in terms of imple
ments of war demonstrated to be effective in
the present war, not the first World War, name
ly, airplanes, tanks, submarines, destroyers,
and weapons of this class, as distinguished
from 45,000 ton battleships and millions of in
fantrymen and horseback riders.
To these principles of foreign policy I
subscribe.'6
In Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels (1939),

Beard cited fifty-one "foreign quarrels" between
1776 and 1'900 in which the United States might have
^Charles Beard, Statement Prepared for the

America First Committee, August 21, 1940, Letter
Beard to.Kingman Brewster, America First PHLS. Beard
stated that the text was not to be altered in any
respect. In the copy of his statement in the Amer
ica First files, twelve changes had been made, sev
eral in Beard's own handwriting.
52
become "embroiled." He believed that "the will of

the country to stay out of foreign wars has been too
strong. That will would have to be crushed."^ After
summarizing the twentieth century defeats of the United
States in foreign quarrels, Beard concluded

Beyond this hemisphere the United States should
leave disputes over territory, over the ambi
tions of warriors, over the intrigues of hier
archies, over the forms of government, over
passing myths known as ideologies— all to the
nations and peoples immediately and directly
involved. "*8
Beard's pen supported the America First position, if
h£s tongue would not. His statement was printed by
the Committee in the New York Times of September 7,
1940. The Committee evidently made no other use of

the statement, nor is there evidence of speakers 1
citing Beard. The historian testified against Lend-
lease, but he was neither prompted to testify nor

sponsored by the Committee.^9
America First represented the tradition of iso
lation, a tradition which had been strongest in the
Midwest. While the Committee sought support from

all sections of the country, its main support was
^Beard, Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels. p. 56.

1Q•
Beard, Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels, pp..
69-70. .
^Beard's statement for the Committee is printed
in the New York Times. September 7, 1940. His testi
mony against Lend-Lease is summarized in the New York
Times, February 5, -1941.
53
always midwestern. Investigating midwestern isola

tionism, William Carleton found that thirty-six of
forty-nine votes against entering World War I came
from the M i d w e s t . Concerning the 1939-194-1 period,
he concluded that "the Middle West was somewhat out
of line with the rest of the country and isolation
sentiment was stronger in that section than else-

21
where." Ralph Smuckler attempted to establish a
"region of isolationism" on the basis of analyses of
election returns, public opinion polls, and Congress
ional votes; he concluded that six midwest states—
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, and
Indiana— fell within the "region of isolationism.1,22
It is interesting to note that the greatest organiza
tional strength of America First lay within these six
states; nearly two-thirds of America First membership

was located within a three hundred mile radius of Chi
cago. Page Hufty wrote to Robert Bliss, "It is
20William G. Carleton, "Isolationism and the

Middle West," Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
XXXIII (December", 19^)', v T W U
2 1 Carleton, p. 385.
22Ralph H. Smuckler, "The Region of Isola

tionism," American Political.Science Review. XLIV
(June,: 1953), pp. 3$9-391.
2Âmerica First Membership Files, America
First PHLS. . -
54
certainly safe to say that our greatest strength lies
in the Middle West."2^

With strong Midwest support, the Committee
sought to make inroads into the East. It was impor

tant for America First to he established solidly in
the East. If a strong organization could be set up
in "enemy territory," there would be evidence that
the non-interventionist pressures had more than sec

tional roots.2-^ Isolationists considered the East
"enemy territory" at least in part because Eastern

ers "were closest, geographically and in sympathy to
26
the European conflagration." Secondly, the major
America First speakers were primarily from the Mid
west: Lindbergh came from Minnesota, LaFollette
from Wisconsin, Wye from Worth Dakota, Mundt from
South Dakota, and Wheeler from Montana. The geo

graphical backgrounds of America First speakers may
help to explain why many speakers treated the East

as "enemy territory" and why, for example, Wheeler
felt his speeches in the East were "invasions" on the
"enemy beachhead."2^ The attitude of many midwestern

" ' 1 ■ ■ 1 1 If i«l I i ■ ■ ■■ l | !■!.! 1 I BI ■ I I — I ■ | !■!■■■■!
2^Page Hufty to Robert Bliss, July 29, 1941,

America First. PHLS.
25Sarles, p. 67. 2^Sarles, p. 67.
2^Wheeler, address, delivered at America First

Rally in Lacon, Illinois, August 28, 1941, America
First PHLS.
55
isolationists toward the East might be summed up in
the words of Mundt:

I have said on numerous occasions that if New
York Oity was separated from America— and I
say this with all due apologies to my friend
Webster from the New York City Chapter and
Mr. Leonard from Brooklyn— nobody in Brooklyn
likes New York City any better than they do
out in South Dakota— that if New York City
was separated.from the United States of Amer
ica by 1000 miles of water instead of a thou
sand feet of water comprising the Hudson River,
there wouldn't be any war hysteria in this
country today.28
To some isolationists, the East had become cor

rupted by its ties to Europe. It was less "American"
than "European," and was to be regarded as "enemy ter
ritory" despite the fact that New York City contained

one of the largest chapters and that almost one-
fourth of America First membership was in the East.^
Rather than being concerned with the East, the

isolationists should have been more concerned with
the South, for it contained the greatest interven
tionist support. An analysis of voting records of
the Seventy-seventh Congress rev.eals that the largest

interventionist bloc of votes came from the
PR
°Ka'rl Mundt, address, delivered at the Meeting
of America First Chapter Chairmen, Chicago, July 12,
Âmerica First Membership Files, America

First PHLS. Many of the chapter records were sent
to the Hoover Library at Stanford. The New York
City Chapter has by far the largest file, consist
ing of 12 of 128 cartons.
56
S o u t h . A m e r i c a First was never able to organize

chapters effectively in Tennessee, North and South
Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky,
or Louisiana.31 While America First was able to
schedule sixty-six rallies featuring nationally prom
inent speakers in the Bast, it was able to schedule

only three rallies in the South in fifteen months:
one in Miami, one in Knoxville, and one in Chapel

Hill, North C a r o l i n a . Of the fifty-six Congress
men who spoke for America First, only one— Senator

i
Robert Reynolds of North Carolina— came from the
South.33 No other region was so resistant to isola
tionist organizational efforts. It was the conserva
tive South, rather than the East, which was the most
interventionist region in America.34-
3°My own investigation of the voting by

Southern Congressmen in the 77th Congress leads
to this conclusion. Sarles also comes to this
conclusion, p. 278.
Âmerica First Chapter Organizational Records,
America First PHLS. See also Chapter Dissolution
^Speaker's Bureau Files, America-First PHLS.
^Speaker's Bureau Files, America First PHLS.

While several other Congressmen were asked to speak,
only Senator Reynolds actually spoke for America
First,
•^For a breakdown of voting records by section,

see the Public Opinion Quarterly. -V (194-1), pp. 161 —
162. See also Cole, America First. p. 70.
57
/
Yet Midwestern isolationists remained convinced
that "enemy territory" was the East rather than the

South. In part, this belief reflects the traditional
midwestern distrust of the Atlantic seaboard.35 Adler
argues that a ma;jor factor in the "Isolationist Im

pulse" has been the historical economic reason for
midwest isolation combined with national and intellec
tual factors. Such economic moves as free coinage of

silver and other populist crusades had been thwarted
by the East. Similarly, "the intellectual climate of
the immigrants"— those largely of recent European an
cestry who peopled the Middle West— "was congenial
to an economic interpretation of the war."^
America fought because of bankers who had too

much money to lend, munition-makers who wanted
to vend their lethal wares, and greedy indus
trialists who were looking for new markets to
conquer. This version was to become the
watchword of the isolationist faith. It was
to have a persisting influence on the course
of American h i s t o r y . 3 7
The bankers, the munition-makers, and the industri

alists were headquartered in the East or in Europe.
Midwestern distrust of the East, and especially of

the East in collusion with Europe, was hardly a
•^See for example Henry Hash Smith, Virgin

Land (New York: Vintage. Books, 1950) and Richard
Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage
Books, 1955), PP. 3-121.
■Âdler, p. 46. -Âdler, p. 46.
58
product of the twentieth century; with this tradition

of distrust, it is easier to understand why Midwestern
isolationists in 1941 saw the East as ’’enemy territory”
rather than the South, which was the center of inter
ventionist strength.
We have seen how Burke’s comment that a move
ment inevitably selects "god-terms” peculiar to its
nature applied to the America First Committee. Amer

ica First drew upon a tradition of isolation as old
as the nation itself. For isolationists, one "god-
term" chosen was "Nationalism," or its analogue,
"Americanism."-^ Through the use of "Americanism,"
isolationists sought to sanctify the cause of non
involvement. Yet America First failed to capitalize
on the tradition of separation and American purity.
Part of the explanation for this failure rests in the
nature of the isolationist "crusade."
The "crusade" America First attempted implied

an aggre.ssive movement toward a goal. "Americanism,"
the "god-term" of isolationists, was the affirmation
of a separate and superior way of life. The goal of

America First, however, was negative; its goal was
to stay out of war. America First suffered through
out its history from its lack of affirmation.
3®See Chapter VIII for a discussion of the

"War Party", and the "American Party."
59
Speakers for the Committee were called "isolation
ists,” and "isolation" connoted separation by com
munity action, 3ust as quarantine isolated a
smallpox patient to protect the community. On the
other hand, the concept of isolationism supported by
America First was self-imposed. America had not
been isolated by others, but had chosen to separate
itself. And America had not separated itself be
cause it was infected but because it was vulnerable
to contamination. Although Committee members label
led their opponents "interventionists," they almost
never referred to each other as "isolationists."
The Committee evidently sensed the connotation of
"isolation" and avoided the term.
While the "god-term" of the movement connoted
affirmation, the policies pursued by the Committee
suggested negation; and unfortunately for isolation

ists, America First was plagued with "negativism"
throughout its history. It opposed the exchange of
destroyers for bases; it opposed the repeal of the
Neutrality Act; it opposed Lend-Lease. Several Com
mittee members appear to have recognized that the
isolationist "crusade" would be interpreted as sim
ple "negativism." Hormel commented in a letter of
resignation, "To me, it is incongruous to be anti-
anything. Instead, we must be for something. ¥e
60
have fought sham battles to a point where the people
have identified us as anti-Lend-Lease, anti-Neutral

ity, and a n t i - S e m i t i c . B o w l e s supported Hormel
in a letter to Stuart:
I believe, Bob, that one of the weaknesses in
the America First Movement has been our own
lack of a positive program. We have, to a
certain extent at least, been negative. Per
haps that is because the membership of the
America First Committee is distinctly varied
and it will be difficult for us to get any
agreement among the different elements, rang
ing all the way from left wing radicals to
right wing reactionaries, on Just what kind
of a world we should strive f o r . 4°
Bowles may have uncovered a key for explain
ing why the Committee failed to capitalize on the
historical tradition of isolation. America First
members were never in agreement on "Just what kind
of a world we should strive for." Without a clear
and unified vision for the future, the isolationist
program became no more than immediate skirmishes

against interventionist actions. America First
never projected as clear an impression of what the
crusade was for as it conveyed the impression of what
the crusade was against. Part of the explanation for

this impression must lie in the fact that America
First could get more agreement from its members on
■ ^ L e t t e r Hormel to Stuart, October 30, 1941,

America First PHLS.
"^Letter Bowles to Stuart, July 30, 1941,

America First PHLS.
61
what to oppose than it could get on what to favor.

But the lack of a positive program mitigated against
the idea of a crusade. America First found itself in
the position of fighting a series of delaying actions

but never of becoming a serious threat as a movement.
America First did attempt a program of affirma
tion consonant with one "god-term," "Americanism."
America was a bulwark cf democracy, and- that bulwark
must be defended to be preserved. In an effort to
combat the impression of negativism, or simple ob
structionism, America First issued a statement of its
principles, among which were:
1. The United States must build an impreg

nable defense for America.
2. Ho foreign power, nor group of powers,
can successfully attack a -prepared
America.
3. American democracy can be preserved only
by keeping out of the European war.
4. 'Aid short of war' weakens national de

fense at home and threatens to involve
.America in war abroad.4-1
The key, then, to the America First program of affirm

ation was national defense. Bills attacked by isola
tionists were opposed on the ground that they weak
ened national defense. All aid to Britain weakened
national d e f e n s e . S a r l e s , the America First research
^ Chicago Tribune. September 5, 1941.

^Chicago Tribune. September 5, 1941.
62
worker who later wrote its history, explains that
votes against Lend-Lease were votes against foreign

policy rather than against national defense.
Although America First could justify opposition

to Administration programs "because they impaired nation
al defense, it is interesting to note the nature of iso
lationist support for those bills which America First
agreed were "defense" rather than "foreign policy"
bills. Essentially what America First meant by "sup
port" for defense measures was simply the absence of
active opposition to those measures. Almost never was
there active support for "defense measures." Stuart
clarifies Wood's stand on the draft extension:
The General’s decision that the America First

Committee should not take a position opposing
the Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army was
based on the feeling that this is an'issue of
defense rather than foreign p o l i c y . 44
A second, if more practical, reason for Wood's stand

was his belief that the fight on the draft extension
would end quickly and unsuccessfully. ^ Wood also
believed that it would not be worthwhile for the Com
mittee to fight the arming of merchant ships on much
^ S a r l e s , p. 675.
^Letter Stuart to Flynn, July 31, 194-1,

America First PHLS.
Ac
•^Letter Stuart to Flynn, July 31, 1941,
America First PHLS.
63
the same grounds.^ Thus America First took no offi

cial position on the draft extension measure. Stuart
believed that since draft extension would be inter
preted as a defense issue, "we felt it inadvisable
to oppose the measure."^ Similarly, a move to in
crease military salaries ten dollars per month for
each month of service beyond one year did not receive

48
isolationist votes.
For all practical purposes, there was no "posi
tive" program of legislation proposed by America
First. What isolationists meant by "support" was
simply the absence of active opposition. It may have

been this lack of a program that Bowles and Hormel
referred to as "negativism." Stuart wrote, "If we
can tell the people to write their Congressman, urging
him to acquire certain vital military weapons . . .

we give our work a positive rather than a negative
purpose."^9 && America First supporter in Congress
suggested one action to reduce the impression of "nega
tivism" through support of the "no-convoy resolution."
^Letter Wood to Stuart, October 6, 1941,

America First PHLS.
^Stuart, quoted by Sarles, p. 229.

Stuart, quoted by Sarles, p. 227.
4q -
^Stuart memo to an unnamed man with access
to the military, November 6, 1940, America First PHLS.
64
We can now urge our friends to ask their Con

gressmen to vote for these no-convoy resolu
tions in the House and Senate instead of once
again having to urge them to write in to op
pose some legislation. Psychologically, that
places us in a much more advantageous position.5°
America First never gained that "psychologically

advantageous position." It failed to gain this posi
tion because it did not capitalize on the tradition
of purity through separation which could give the iso
lationist crusade a sense of "mission." The choice of
"Americanism" as a "god-term" was a step in this direc
tion, but it was not carried into the isolationist
crusade. America' First lacked this sense of "mission";

the movement failed to capture and project the vision
of the future by which it would participate in "Amer
i c a ^ Destiny." The Committee's program, rather than
.projecting the isolationist crusade, became little

more than a series of delaying skirmishes to halt the
daily progress of interventionists. When the Commit
tee decided on a program of affirmation based on de

fending the bulwark of peace and freedom, isolation
ists could not agree on which measures to defend; when
the time came to vote for measures that even isolation
ists considered matters of "defense," isolationists
voted against them. America First was left with a
"positive" program of support that was little more
5°Sarles, quoting an unnamed Congressman, p. 609.
65
than the absence of a concerted negative opposition.

When the isolationists selected "Americanism” as a
"god-term," they appropriated a tradition of separa
tion, of the brave sacrifice, of purity. The America
First Committee failed to make use of the "mystique"

that was isolation. The rhetoric of isolation re
veals the America First Committee as a movement with
out a sense of the future which became a movement

without a future.
CHAPTER IV
THE RALLY AS RITE
The America First rally was one of the most

important activities toward which the Committee’s
energy was directed. The rally culminated the ac

tivities of local chapters; usually a speaker of
national prominence would he scheduled to highlight
the program. During its short history, the Speaker's
Bureau of America First aided the planning of over

two hundred such rallies in thirty-two states."*
With such a tight schedule of rallies, and with major
speakers often being occupied with personal affairs
or Congressional action, it took skillful planning

by the Committee and the local chapter to make the
rally successful. Ironically, a rally was not suc

cessful unless it was "spontaneous"; a rally was not
"spontaneous" unless it was we11-planned.2
1Speaker’s Bureau Chart, Speaker’s Bureau

Files and Bulletin #255, May 14, 1941, America
First Papers, Hoover Library, Stanford.
2Despite its thorough and meticulous plan

ning, the rally could not appear to be planned.
It must appear to be a spontaneous outpouring of
feelings, a grass roots movement which was not
planned, not selective. Karl Mundt, for example,
consistently used the term "grass roots" to refer
to his rally audience. See.Folder "Rally," n. d.,
Speaker's Bureau Files, America First PHLS.
.66
67
For a mass movement, the rally does more than
simply present a platform for propagating the views

of that movement. The rally is a method of 3usti-
fying the existence of a movement to its members, a
way of sanctifying the cause for which the movement

developed. It may have been this idea that Sarles
had in mind when she commented that the rally was the
second most important activity of America First.3

For isolationists, the rally was to be a way of re
newing faith in their movement; it would give ex
pression to the views of their leaders and engage
members and potential members in its aims. The rally
was ceremonial; both the presentation of speeches and

the participation by the audience were part of an at
tempted religious-patriotic ritual by which isola
tionists might renew or gain faith in their cause.

We can now look at how America First attempted to
fuse religious and patriotic elements of the rally
into a symbolic ritual. We will then consider those
aspects of the rally which mitigated against its be

coming a rite. The strategy for fusing these ele
ments may enable one to gain insight into the way in
which the rally became an end in itself; into the way
■^This generalization is made by Sarles, p. 316.

There is ample evidence in the files of the Speaker's
Bureau to support the statement.
68
in which the rally might provide sanctification for

the movement.
Elements in the immediate scene contributed to
making the rally a religious-patriotic rite. America

First rally halls were heavily decorated with American
flags interspersed with— and often alternated with—

America First buntings and banners which were composed
of the same colors. The simple alternation of flags
was a crude scenic attempt to establish the rally as
patriotic. The halls chosen were expected to give
the appearance of being overcrowded:
If your membership is 500 do not try to fill

a hall to the capacity of 25,000 but find a
hall that holds 1500 to 2000, if there is a
reasonable assurance that you can overflow
it. -Remember the psychology of overflowing
a hall can do a great deal more than rows of
empty seats which can be photographed and
front-paged by opposition newspapers' as being
’typicalr of the attendance.4
An overcrowded hall would put members of the audience

in close proximity to each other, a scenic method of
increasing the "togetherness” of the audience.
Secondly, the ceremony itself highlighted the

fusion of religious and patriotic elements. Prior
to the meeting an organist— for organ was suggested
rather than band music— would favor the audience with
Pamphlet, "Suggestions to Chapters for Spon

soring Meetings during Senators’ Tour," March 29,
69
music distinctly "American" and "patriotic."^ A

song leader ‘would involve the audience in singing
g
"typically American folk songs." The program it
self would be opened by a minister giving the invo

cation, often calling for spiritual sanction for
isolationist efforts. Before the audience could
be seated, members participated in the Star Span
gled Banner and the pledge to the flag. The juxta-
position on the program of American folk music, the
invocation, the national anthem, and the pledge was
an attempt to accent the fusion of religious and pa
triotic elements. At least two ministers would be
used in each rally. A minister of one faith would

give the invocation; a minister from another faith,
the benediction.^ Local leaders were advised to al
ternate "a Protestant or Catholic priest Zsic7";

" O '
presumably a Rabbi was not to be used. America

First made provisions so that both ministers remained
on the speaking platform in full view of the audience
during the entire rally, as if to give church sanc
tion to isolationist discourse.
^"Letter on Program," n. d., from the Director

of the Speaker's Bureau Office, Speaker's Bureau
Piles, America First PHLS.
^"Letter on Program." ^"Letter on Program."
o • ■
"Letter on Program."
70
The attempt to combine elements of scene and

ceremony in a way to give the rally a religious-pa
triotic sanction is in no way unique to America First.
In fact, these elements are commonly found in poli
tical rallies. It may well he that political ral

lies aim to fuse religious and patriotic elements to
gain their effect. In the case of America First ral
lies, aspects of scene and ceremony were combined
with Isolationist rhetoric to complete the ritual.
Although it Is difficult to generalize about all ral
lies, we can suggest common elements in rallies and
common themes in the speeches of major rally speak
ers to support this claim. Isolationists occasion
ally were able to secure the services of clergymen

as main speakers. One of the most popular was Fr.
John A. OfBrien of Notre Dame.^ Fr. O'Brien not on
ly gave several main rally addresses but also ap

peared at rallies to introduce main speakers. While
introducing Lindbergh, Fr. O'Brien referred to the
aviator as a "holy man" and then repeated the word

" h o l y . S u c h a description of an isolationist
speaker by a priest would tend to establish
^Fr. John O'Brien of Notre Dame, South Bend,

Indiana, gave several major rally.addresses for
America First. He was also the person who "wore
out the crowd" introducing Senator B. C. Clark.
10Mllwaukee Journal. October 25, 1941.
71
sanctification of the cause for which Lindbergh

spoke.
One common theme in America First rallies was
that the isolationist effort was a "crusade." "Ours
ZTs7a mission," Lindbergh declared, "to build self-

confidence and strength in America."^ "You are not
going to pay for an hour of entertainment and in
struction," the speaker announcing the rally collec
tion would tell his audience, "you are going to pay

12
for a crusade." Leading isolationist speakers—
especially Wheeler— relied on religious imagery to
establish the idea of a "crusade." During Lent of
1941, Wheeler commented:

We are now in the midst of the lenten season,
but let no one think that the act of betrayal
belongs to the past. The world today is wit
nessing a similar tragedy. It sees the Ameri
can people being betrayed into the arms of
their enemies the war lords; today, the be
trayal; tomorrow the crucifixion.*3
^Lindbergh, quoted by Hew York Times. April

18, 1941.
12
Mimeographed Appeal for Funds, n. d.,
Speaker*s Bureau Files, America First PHLS. A
major source of revenue, primarily for local chap
ters was the collection taken at the rally. Of
funds collected, 75% was to stay with the local
chapter, with 25% to be delegated to National
Headquarters.
^Wheeler, address, n. d., cited in Chicago

Tribune, April 5, 1941.
72
The enemies of America First were then analogous to
Judas betraying Christ for financial gain. The

American people represented the Christ figure and
isolationists became the "disciples" of the.people.
Later ¥heeler remarked, "The American people still

have time to save themselves from the cross.
Through this religious analogy Wheeler sought to
establish the purity of motives of the isolationist
"disciples" and to suggest that with support they
had the power to prevent the "crucifixion." Wot

only were the interventionists preparing to "cru
cify" the people, but they would then destroy the
shrines the people had established. As Wheeler im

plored,
Do these idealists know what they are doing

to democracy in the name of democracy? If
they knew, they would stay their hands and
beg to have them cleansed. If they knew,
they would beg forgiveness at our shrines
of liberty, for they are smashing those
shrines.15
Wheeler visualized for rally audiences the destruc
tion of American political-religious shrines by
those who sought to establish a false political-

religion. '
Âwheeler, address, n. d., cited in Chicago

Tribune. April 5, 1941.
1R
^Wheeler, address, delivered at America First
Rally, Lacon, Illinois, August 28, 1941, America
First PHLS. /italics added/.
73
.America First efforts then were a "crusade"
to maintain the "shrines" erected by those about
to be "crucified." In order to prevent the "cruci
fixion," in order to make the "crusade" successful,
isolationists must make a sacrifice. Rally aud
iences were often told of the sacrifice their speak
ers and workers were malting: -
Men like Senator Wheeler, Rye, Clark, men

like Ilf Landon and Colonel Lindbergh who
are speaking night after night without pay
or emolument of any sort are supporting
America First. Women who toil endless hours
in addressing envelopes and doing the un
accustomed tasks of office detail without
' pay are supporting America First. Men like
General Wood, R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., Theo
dore Roosevelt, Hanford MacWider, Alice
Roosevelt Longworth, Dr. Anton G. Carlson,
and all the noble Americans who are serving
on the Rational Committee of America First
without pay and a constant sacrifice of
time and effort are supporting America First
by their tireless efforts and their large
personal cash contributions to our cause
^£sic7.
If these "noble" Americans had made such a sacri
fice, could any "patriotic" American avoid his
responsibility to sacrifice?
You must sacrifice on this alter /sic7 a

real sacrifice— not the broken body of your
son— -but your sacrificial money in the
amount that hurts. And who can doubt that
if you fail to do this now, you will sacri
fice the youth of your America on the altar
Âmerica First Committee Bulletin # 241, May 7,

1941, plus enclosed sheets, America First PHLS.
of our political war lords.17
The juxtaposition of the "sacrifice" of lives, and
the "sacrifice" of money which could prevent the
"sacrifice" of lives, encouraged donations for the
new crusade. Further, the "sacrifice" should "hurt.
The "hurt" of economic loss must he balanced against
the "hurt" of the "broken body of your son." Amer
ica First audiences were told to put away the small
coins they had considered contributing: "Now if
that dime has- not burned your fingers too badly drop
it and reach into the pocket for soft money. It
w o n ’t make a noise when it is dropped into the bas
ket, but it may save someone near and dear to you."^
The "noble" Americans who organized America First
made "large personal cash contributions" to the
cause. In order to gain maximum contributions,
America First developed a strategy for seeding their
audiences:
Experience proves that the most effective

scheme for loosening pocketbooks is to have
several enthusiastic contributors rise from
the audience while the treasurer is still
making his appeal for funds— interrupting
his speech and calling out the amounts they
are subscribing.
^Mimeographed Appeal for Funds, n. d.,

Speaker’s Bureau Files, America First PHLS.
1 ft
Mimeographed Appeal for Funds.
75
You should arrange this so that there will

be several large-money contributors rising
first and— this is important— after a suit
able interval have small-money contributors
rise as -well, calling out the amount of their
contributions. The latter is important for
the psychological effect it will have on the
little fellow.
The spontaneity of such procedure will start

the ball rolling in a big way.^9
Thus the rally planners developed an elaborate sys
tem for creating an impression of "spontaneous sac
rifice." And it was suggested that only by this
sacrifice could American sons be saved from dying.
The planting of "spontaneous" large contributors
and later the "little givers" is central to the
planning of the America First rally. The people
were thus led to the spontaneous outpouring of the
"sacrifice" which "hurt."
The Speaker's Bureau was conscious of a "sense
of the dramatic" in planning rallies. The meetings
were carefully planned to lead to a climax and then
to end quickly. The rally hopefully would commit
members not only to the purpose of the Committee,
but to some specific course of action suggested dur
ing the rally. The rallies were strategically con
structed to highlight the "togetherness" of the
^ A m e r i c a First Committee Bulletin # 179, April 3,

194-1, Speaker's Bureau Files, America First PHLS.
76
audience. Audiences sat, stood, pledged, prayed,
and sang together; each member shared equally in
the ceremony; each person was encouraged to parti
cipate in one additional feature of the ceremony—
the sacrifice.
Unfortunately for America First, some of the
factors by ■which isolationists hoped to make the
rally a rite mitigated against its chances of suc
cess. The rally was planned to build to a climax;
the audience was to sacrifice and renew their dedi
cation by participating in some suggested action.
However, the rally often failed to accomplish this

purpose. Many rallies attracted large crowds be
cause of the "isolationist stars" who were scheduled
to speak. These speakers had gained national repu
tations, as we have seen in Chapter II, prior to
the formation of the Committee; hence audience mem
bers came to hear the "stars" rather than to parti
cipate in the isolationist rite. People would come
to hear Lindbergh, not because he was a member of
America First, or even an isolationist, but because
he was a daring aviator, a celebrity, a prominent
American. These people did not remain to "sacri
fice" or to "renew" their efforts for the isolation
ist cause. In fact, America First rallies were
77
constantly plagued by the loss of audiences after
the main speaker had finished but before the rally
was concluded. "Lindbergh's crowds invariably lost
interest in the meeting after he had finished talk-

20 —
ing." At a.San Francisco rally, for example, more
than half of the audience walked out on the speech
of Idaho Senator D. Worth Clark, who followed Lind-

ol
bergh. Davis commented that this tendency was
common in all rallies at which Lindbergh spoke:
"Significant portions of /his- crowds/ tended to drift
out of the halls when his talks were done, to the
discomfiture of succeeding speakers, causing some
America Firsters to wonder how deeply he had com
mitted his listeners to his cause."22
Lindbergh consistently drew larger crowds
than any other America First speaker. Since he was
in constant demand to speak at rallies but unwilling
to make an address until it was carefully prepared—
which sometimes meant that his speeches were six
2(^Roger Butterfield, "Lindbergh," Life. XI

(August 11, 1941), p. 73.
Butterfield, p. 73.
22
Kenneth S. Davis, The Hero (Garden City,
lew York: Doubleday and Company, 1959), p. 400.
78
weeks a p a r t ^ — America First had to decide which
rally requesting Lindbergh would be awarded the avi
ator. America First decided to have its chapters
conduct a membership drive, offering Lindbergh as
grand prize.2^ Lindbergh’s rally speech of Octo
ber 3, 1941 was the prize the Fort Wayne Chapter
had earned.25 But the idea of offering a speaker
as a "prize" seemed to be isolationist recognition
that certain speakers drew audiences because of
their reputations and not because of their associa
tion with the Committee. The strength of the per
sonalities of individual speakers for America First
thus worked against the rally becoming a rite.
25Lindbergh to Wood, October 27, 1941. In the

letter Lindbergh commented, "I have just finished
an address which it has taken me many days to write.
Frankly, I feel ’written out' on addresses. It takes
a great deal of time for me to write an address that
I feel is worth giving, and I have too much sympathy
for my audience, and respect for myself, to be willing
to speak unless I have something that I think is
worth saying."
2^See letters of Page Hufty to Stuart, April 27,

1941, Stuart to Lindbergh. July 14, 1941, Stuart to
Lindbergh, October 14, 1941, and America First Com
mittee Bulletin § 468, August 5, 1941, America First
PHLS.
25see letters of Page Hufty to Stuart, April 27,

1941, Stuart to Lindbergh, July 14,' 1941, Stuart to
Lindbergh, October 14, 1941, and America First Com
mittee Bulletin # 468, August 5, 1941, America First
PHLS.
79
A second factor 'which mitigated against the
rally becoming a rite was the timing of the rally.
In planning rallies, America First seemed to recog
nize that rallies should lead to a climax without
exhausting the audience; in execution, however,
speakers often ignored this isolationist plan. At
major rallies, America First would often send three
to four prominent speakers, one of whom usually in
troduced the other main speakers. However, since
those speakers making the introductions were prom
inent themselves, they would sometimes give speeches
of some length. The Speaker’s Bureau made recommen
dations that preliminary speakers should not "talk
over fifteen or twenty minutes."2^ Senator Bennett
Champ Clark complained that Fr. John O'Brien, who
gave several-major rally speeches, took one and
one-fourth hours to introduce him and "completely
wore out the crowd before I was introduced."2^ Re
sponding, to this complaint, the Speaker's Bureau
issued orders that "a main speaker should never be
^ A m e r i c a First Committee Bulletin § 457,

August 1, 1941, Speaker's Bureau Files, America
First PHIS.
27B. C. Clark to R. Moore, July 2, 1941,

America First PHLS.
80
kept waiting over one half hour. This is a limit,

pO
not an approximation,"
For the local chapter, a rally was also used
to give recognition to local leaders and workers,
many of whom would give speeches of varying lengths.
Following these speeches, rallies would sometimes
place main speakers back to back. A Mew York City
rally of February 20, 194-1, for example, featured
the major speeches of Nye, Thomas, and Wheeler; a
Chicago rally of April 17, 1941 presented the speeches
of Hammond, Lindbergh, Pettengill, and Wood.29 The
number of speeches scheduled combined with the ten
dency of speakers to speak for periods longer than
recommended— Wye occasionally spoke for over two
hours-^— tended to exhaust the audience before the
rally was concluded.
After the main speakers had finished, the
rally was turned back to the local chairman or treas
urer, who would make an appeal for funds or suggest
2®America First Committee Bulletin # 457,

August 1, 1941, Speakerfs Bureau Files, America
First PHLS.
^Speaker's Bureau Rally Chart, Speaker's

Bureau Files, America First PHLS.
3°Cole, Senator Gerald P. Wye and American

Foreign Relations, p p .""182-183•
81
participation by the audience in the cause of Amer
ica First. Since many of these local leaders were
believed not to be good speakers, the Speaker's
Bureau provided a "standard" appeal for funds which
they could read.31 Along with this appeal for funds,
the Speaker’s Bureau sent along the following cau
tion: "The treasurer, of course, must be an enthu
siastic speaker . . • making the appeal forceful and
dynamic."32 it was suggested that if the treasurer
were not a forceful speaker, some other chapter offi
cial was to assume this function.33
Because members were to "participate" in a
rite, America First felt that "new believers" should
be given a course of action to follow:
Enthusiasm will reach a high pitch during the

meeting and the sense of the dramatic demands
that you leave the audience keyed up to go out
and carry the message. Don’t let a speaker of
lesser importance follow your main speaker and
qualify or detract from the forceful impressions
he has left on your audience. Your chairman
should make his closing remarks brief, pointed,
forceful— urging action, but above all, he
31"Letter on Program," n. d., from the Director

of the Speaker's Bureau Office, Speaker’s Bureau
32jhnerica First Committee Bulletin # 179,

April 3, 1941, America First PHLS.
33America First Committee Bulletin // 179,

April 3, 1941, America First PHLS.
82
should be brief. . . . Do not let the aud

ience trickle out, but be sure that they
go out' inspired and full of vigor for our
work,34
Seldom did main speakers, except at rallies during
the debate over Lend-Lease, suggest specific action
for the audience. At many rallies audiences had
more than "trickled out" before the ceremonies ended.
Such isolationist suggestions as that the President
and members of his Cabinet be i m p e a c h e d ^ and that
Jewish control over propaganda be e n d e d ^ were never
elaborated, nor were courses of action for the aud
iences outlined. The "sense of the dramatic" was
often lost because of poor timing, and the timing
mitigated against the rally becoming a rite.
Finally, a lack of control over those who were
to participate in the rite limited the effectiveness
of the rally. America First adopted a strategy for
securing a specially chosen audience. It was the
Committee's policy to admit to rallies only those
■5A11
^ "Suggestions to Chapters f o r .Sponsoring
Meetings," March 29, 1941, America First PHLS.
35see Chapter VIII of this study for a

discussion of the isolationist treatment of
impeachment.
3^See Chapter VI of this study for a dis

cussion of the isolationist attack on Jewish
control of propaganda.
83
persons -with tickets. These tickets were then dis
tributed to those persons America First wanted to
attend the rally.37 Invitations were sent to church
g r o u p s . 38 Blocks of tickets were distributed to lo
cal organizations, especially those with likelihood
of large a t t e n d a n c e . p y controlling the distribu
tion of tickets, America First sought to gain an
audience favorable to or at least interested in iso
lationist arguments. Hopefully, this action would
'ai)*so prevent opposition agitators, such as announced
fascists or Silver Shirts, from disturbing rallies.
Unfortunately for America First, its system of ticket
distribution lacked the controls necessary to make
this strategy successful.^0 _ In its early history,
the Committee had sponsored street corner speaking,
but this plan was abandoned by September, 194-1 ,
Suggestions to Chapters for Sponsoring

Meetings during Senators' Tour," March 29, 194-1,
America First PHLS.
38]}iiis generalization is supported by various

memos and invitations, most of them undated, which
are found throughout the Speaker's Bureau Files,
America First PHLS.
39speaker's Bureau Files, America First PHLS.
^°Despite precautions, pro-fascists, Silver

Shirts, and Bundists attended America First Meetings.
Coughlin supporters both attended meetings and dis
tributed propaganda during them. See Hew York
Herald Tribune. February 24, 1941.
84
because too many anti-Semitic, pro-fascist indivi
duals participated.^1 Similarly, many "undesirable
elements" did attend America First rallies. For ex
ample, Coughlin supporters distributed propaganda
during America First rallies in Hew York City.^2
Some groups attended isolationist meetings for the
purpose of heckling speakers. Wheeler, who spoke
at more rallies than any other isolationist speaker,
commented, "Sometimes /crowds/ included organized
groups who /sic7 came to heckle. Several times,
eggs were thrown, but m i s s e d . " ^ Yet the presence
of hecklers, Coughlinites, Silver Shirts, and oc
casional Bundists prevented the rally from achiev
ing its goal of becoming a rite.
After the Committee disbanded, America First
attempted to assess the success of its rallies.
Foulis wrote, "The backbone of this movement was,
unquestionably, the great number of rallies which
were carried on continuously throughout every sec
tion of the c o u n t r y . " ^ Although maôr rallies were
41
Sarles, p. 334.
^ S e e Hew York Herald Tribune, February 24, 1941.

43
Wheeler and Paul P. Healy, Yankee from the
West (Garden City, Hew York: Doubleday and Company,
T9£2), p . 28.
^ F o u l i s to Eally Speakers, December 19, 1941,

Speaker1s Bureau Files, America First PHLS.
85
scheduled "continuously" in the sense that America
First planned rallies for every month during 1941,
these rallies were greatly reduced during the summer
after the Lend-Lease Bill passed, and were further
reduced after the repeal of the Neutrality Act.
Nor were rallies carried "throughout every section
of the country." The South, as we have seen in Chap
ter III, was strikingly resistant to isolationist
efforts; only three Southern rallies were scheduled
in fifteen months. The heaviest concentration of
rallies was in the Midwest; over one-half of Ameri
ca First rallies were scheduled in the "region of
isolationism.
That the rallies became the "backbone of the
movement" suggests that they had become ends in
themselves. They were, for Sarles, the activity
next most important to keeping out of w a r . N h e n
isolationlsts began to absorb increasing defeats on
45The heaviest months were April, with 23 rallies,

May, with 19, and September, with 17. The lighter
months were June, with 10, July, with 8, August, 7,
October, 8, and November, 5.
^Smuckler, "The Region of Isolationism,"

pp. 389-391.
47‘Sarles, p. 316.
There of course is a real
question as to whether one can consider keeping out
of war an "activity."
measures they opposed, rallies became "substitute
victories"'; that is, while rallies were unable to
generate the support by which the isolationist opposi
tion to certain measures might prove successful, they
were goals for the local chapters, and national speak
ers were "prizes" for each rally. America First ral
lies evidence little that makes them unique to iso
lationism; they do not appear to differ greatly from
rallies of other movements, or even from the rallies
of political parties which seek to fuse religious
and patriotic elements. If the rally was not "unique
ly" isolationist, neither was it able to capitalize
successfully on the "sense of the dramatic" by
which the America First rally would become an isola
tionist rite.
CHAPTER V
THE PEOPLE AND THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
"Identification"— the process of gaining con-
substantiality— replaces "persuasion" as a key term
in the writings of Kenneth Burke.^ Consubstantiali-

ty, for Burke, means that "in acting together, men
have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, at
titudes that make them consubstantial."2 Although
identification among men may always be imperfect,
without consubstantiality, such identification is im-
po'ssible. "Identification is compensatory to divi
sion. If men were not apart from one another, there
would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim
their u n i t y . P r o c l a i m i n g unity fosters identifi
cation; we might term this action one strategy for

* r.V*V'
achieving identification. "There are as many strat
egies for encompassing a situation as there are ways

of reacting to or responsing to a situation, and
there are as many strategies within an over-all
^Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric

of Motives, p.""545.
of Motives, p. 546.

of Motives, p. 546.
87
88
strategy of encompassment as there are ways of put
ting this over-all strategy across."^ Identifica
tion, then, is the over-all strategy for encompass
ing a linguistic situation. In Chapter V, we shall
"be concerned with the strategies America First chose
for encompassing the linguistic situations it en
countered in its attempt to achieve identification.
America First faced the problem of proclaim
ing unity in the presence of divisiveness. The Com
mittee sought to identify itself with the great bulk
of the American people. In seeking consubstantiali-
ty, the isolationist had to find some token to indi
cate an identity with the American public as a first
step in seeking consubstantiality with "the people."
The most obvious way of determining that the America
First Committee and "the people" were one in essen
tial causes was the use of opinion polls. "The
polls" and "the people" were strategically inter
changed .by America First speakers until "the polls"
began to support those measures isolationists opposed.
From that moment "the polls" no longer represented
"the people." A 194-0 Gallup Poll question supported
the America First argument that 80% of the American
people were against entering the war at that
^Holland, Counterpoint, p. 73.
89
time.5 Despite the results of subsequent polls, iso
lationist speakers never reduced that percentage; oc
casionally they increased it. General Hugh Johnson
in a radio address of February 6 , 1941 asked, "Why
did both candidates . . . say 'short of war* and not
'war' before election? You know why. It was because
the people were at least 85$ against war."^ Fish
used the 80$ figure as late as September 15, 1941;
"I accuse President Roosevelt of trying to get us
into undeclared war of his own choosing, backed by
only 15$ of the American people in defiance of the
Constitution, the Congress, and 80$ of the American
people."7
While America First speakers used the 1940
poll to support their claim, subsequent polls indi
cated popular support for measures America First op
posed. Stuart observed the trend of the polls as
early as September, 1940, in a memo to Avery Brun-
dage; "This week's Gallup Poll says that 52$ favor
^See the Public Opinion Quarterly. V (1941),

p. 323. Fish and others quote the 80$ figure through'
out their speeches.
g
Hugh Johnson, radio address delivered from
Boston, February 6 , 1941, Speaker's Bureau Files,
America First Papers, Hoover Library, Stanford.
^Fish, address, delivered at Constitution Day

Rally in St. Louis, Missouri, September 17, 1941,
America First PHLS.
90
underwriting a British victory hy all aid short of
war— an increase of 16% in three months."® Support
for Lend-Lease rose in the East and Midwest from
39%> on February 11 to 30%> on March 1, 1941.9 Gallup
Polls from May, 1940, to January, 1941, showed that
those favoring aid to Great Britain, even at the
risk of war, had risen from 36% to 6Q%,^® Gallup
Polls on May 23, June 14, July 19, and October 18,
1941, asked if Roosevelt had gone too far or not far
enough in his support of Great Britain. A large ma
jority supported Roosevelt*s policies: May 23, 79%;
June 14, 79%; July 19, 77%; and October 18, 73% , 11
After 1940, isolationist speakers faced the
rhetorical problem of demonstrating their identifi
cation with "the people" in the presence of evi
dence to the contrary. They adopted two major strat
egies. The first strategy was to establish "war or
peace" as the main issue and to subordinate all oth
er issues to it; the second, which was used increas- '
ingly during the last six months of America First,
Q
Letter Stuart to Avery Brundage, September 24,
.^Public Opinion Quarterly. V (1941), p. 323.
10Quoted by Sarles, p. 142.
^ Q u o t e d by Sarles, p. 503, and Public Opinion

Quarterly. Y (1941), pp. 322-323.
91
was to claim that "the people" had been deceived and
made victims of "The Great Conspiracy."
The first strategy adopted by America First
subordinated all issues to that of war or peace.
Isolationists believed that making our entry into
the war the central issue would give them a strong
position from which to attack, for here the polls
gave America First its strongest s u p p o r t . ^ Reduc
ing the issue to one of war or peace did not mean
that isolationists would not attack specific Admin
istration proposals. But it did mean that if they
could then establish these proposals as "iJar Bills"
they would have better chance of defeating them.
Further, the America First tactic of labelling bills
it opposed "bar Bills" or "Dictatorship Bills" (See
Chapter VIII for a more detailed discussion of this
tactic) would gain additional effectiveness. Iso
lationists then had two tasks: first, to establish
war or peace as the issue ne -plus ultra: second, to
^ o i a y Judson stated that the "question is be

tween war and peace, and all other arguments are of
importance only as they relate to that important
issue." This was the one issue on which the heter
ogeneous Committee was in agreement, making it an
issue for which they could gain united support.
See letters of Judson to ¥ood, September 24, 1940,
Wood to Mrs. A. G. Simms, May 21, 194-1, and Regnery
to Stuart, March 17, 194-1, America First PHLS.
92
establish a link between specific measures proposed
and the isolationist superordinate category, "War
or Peace." On that central issue, isolationists,
equipped with national polls and later with their
own polls, claimed identification with "the people."
The issue of war or peace was one in which
America First speakers felt they could gain maximum
support. Nearly every public opinion poll conduct
ed between 1939 and 19-41 indicated a strong unwill
ingness of the American people to enter the European
war; at several times polls listed opposition to war
entry as high as 95#.1^ Although the situation in
Europe changed substantially between April and Sep
tember of 194-0, the percentage of Americans desiring
to stay out of war never dipped below 81^."*^
Isolationist speakers were never interested
in polling on the question of Lend-Lease, or on aid
to Britain at the risk of war. Bather, they argued
that Lend-Lease or other British aid would inevitably
^3see Philip E. Jacob, "Influences of world

Events on U. S. 'Neutrality* Opinion," Public
Opinion Quarterly. IV (March, 1940), pp. 48-65,
and Hadley Cantril, "America Faces the War: A
Study in Public Opinion," Public Opinion Quarterly,
IV (September, 1940), pp. 387-407.
^ S e e Oantril, "America Faces the ¥ar: A

Study in Public Opinion," pp. 387-407.
93
lead to war and employed those polls which had indi
cated American opposition to immediate war entry.
In this way isolationists could continue to cite
those polls favorable to their position and minimize
the results of polls on other questions as simply
subordinate to the single issue of war or peace.
As we have seen, isolationists had ample sup
port from public opinion polling, such as the Gallup
Polls, on the question of entering the war. Yet on
specific issues, these same polls showed that Amer
ica First was losing ground— and isolationist lead
ers recognized this trend. They responded first,
by attempting to discredit those polls they had for
merly used to support their position; and second, by
conducting their own polls.
"America First could not ignore the polls un
favorable to its position if it were to accept the
favorable e v i d e n c e . " ^ jf - the Committee could not
ignore the polls, then it was forced to discredit
them. For example, when Life Magazine conducted a
poll in Neosho, Missouri, which indicated support
for aid to Britain even at the risk of war, America
First financed a poll in the same town which revealed
^ S a r l e s , p. 478.
94
that 70/i opposed entry into the war. ^ Again, Amer
ica First characteristically substituted the question
of entering the war, and then claimed that its poll
invalidated the Life poll.
Stuart had become convinced that the Gallup
Polls— so often quoted by isolationist speakers—
contained '"loaded” questions favoring the interven
tionist position. The America First Committee was
elated when it uncovered a study by a Dartmouth
psychologist, Ross Stagner, who examined fifty-nine
questions in Gallup Polls between 1937 and 1941;
Stagner reported that forty-five were slanted to
ward the interventionists, while only seven favored
the isolationists.^ Armed with this study, America
First speakers could argue that the polls— save
those polls supporting the Committee policy on en
try into the war— were deceptive and therefore could
not be trusted.
Since America First discredited those opin
ion polls which hurt its position, isolationists
decided to conduct their own polls. Hamilton Fish
was the first to take a private poll on the question
^ L i f e , XI (July 7, 1941), p. 2, and Stuart

to Sarles, June 21, 1941, America First PHLS.
17
'Stagner, quoted by Sarles, p. 480.
95
of whether or not the United States should enter
the war at that time. Of the 30,000 ballots cast,

1 ft
90% opposed entering the war immediately. 10 Other
polls by Congressmen Knute Hill of "Washington, Harry
Sauthoff of Wisconsin and Paul Shafer of Michigan

1Q
had similar if not as startling results. y Senator
Robert Reynolds of North Carolina opposed such a
referendum in his state because he thought it might
result in an isolationist defeat.20
The use of the local referendum suggested to
America First leaders the possibility of sponsoring

pi
a national referendum on the issue of war or peace.
Strategically a referendum would reduce the atten
tion on the many polls and help focus the attack on
a single issue. America First believed such a refer
endum would gain additional support for its claims
1 ft
Fish, address, delivered over NBC radio,
June 30, 1941, entitled "National Unity," America
First PHLS.
^ s e e America First Bulletin # 381, July 1,

1941 and the following letters: Stuart to Moore,
June 2, 1941; Stuart to Robert Hutchins, July 2,
1941; Moore to Knute Hill, December 6 , 1941; and
Moore to Paul Shafer, December 6 , 1941, America
First PHLS.
20Sarles to Moore, September 22, 1941, America

First PHLS.
P1
Minutes of America First Board of Directors
Meeting, March 28, 1941, America First PHLS.
96
concerning our entry into the war. If one could
supercede the present "National Polls"— the results
of which increasingly hurt America First--with a
"National Referendum" which would lend support,
such a move would help reduce the issue to one of
peace or war. The publicity involved in such a ref
erendum would enable America First to gain additional
public attention and perhaps support. Isolationists
believed that the Administration would oppose the
referendum, which would then put America First in
the position of supporting a democratic procedure
which was opposed by the Administration. If the Ad
ministration actively opposed the referendum, Amer
ica First speakers might gain support for their
line of argument that democratic procedures were be
ing thwarted by a dictatorial Administration.22
Thus the referendum would enable America First to
reduce the issue to one of peace or war, to gain
public attention and support, and hopefully to put
the Administration in the position of opposing such
a democratic procedure as the referendum.
The 'referendum never materialized in the plans
of America First. In part, it failed to materialize
22See Chapter VIII of this study.
97
because it proved costly. The idea for the refer
endum came' from Congressmen who conducted their own
polls; yet these polls were small but costly to the
America First Committee which financed them.2^ Amer
ica First had recently finished its biggest campaign—
the opposition to Lend-Lease— and its funds were at
the lowest point since the Committee’s founding.
There were fewer rallies scheduled for the months of
June and July, and the "rite" was not successful in
gaining needed funds. The National Committee was
also plagued by the refusal of local chapters to
send back 25$ of the money collected at rallies to
the National Headquarters.^4
America First waged an energetic, expensive
but unsuccessful campaign against Lend-Lease. The
^ A m e r i c a First paid the expenses of printing

the ballot letter, of addressing envelopes, and of
the return postage. In the four districts, it paid
a total of $10,694.10.
The America First Speaker’s Bureau scheduled

23 rallies for the month of April and 19 for May.
It scheduled only 10 for the month of June and
reduced the number to 8 for July. Speaker’s Bureau
_Rally Chart, America First PHLS. ,H. Schnibbe,
National Committee Treasurer reported that several
chapters did not turn over the customary funds to
the National Committee. He wrote to Moore, "I
never know whether to shoot a letter back to
them demanding they fork over 25$ of the net."
Memo H. Schnibbe to Moore, June 17, 1941, America
First PHLS.
98
isolationists staked a great deal of the future of
America First on its success. The National Commit
tee pressed local chapters to sponsor rallies, -wire
Congressmen, and to buy local radio time to oppose
Lend-Lease. Chapters responded a d m i r a b l y . Y e t
with the passage of Lend-Lease some chapters were
disillusioned as well as disembogued of funds.
There was little energy to begin another campaign
even if the funds were available. There was some
fear that America First would collapse during the
early summer months of 1941.2^ Consequently the
referendum was not pushed by the National Committee.
It was viewed merely as a campaign which "helped re
lieve the summer lull in chapter activities.n^7
■When the referendum was again proposed in November,
194-1, it did not receive support from the National
Committee.
25
^The largest single campaign conducted by Amer
ica First chapters concerned Lend-Lease. For example,
the Chicago chapter alone gathered 700,000 signatures
against Lend-Lease and tabulated 328,000 phone calls
of protest. See Chicago Tribune. March 10, 1941.
^^Sarles, who communicated almost daily with

America First leaders, makes the comment that the
Committee considered the advisability of continuing,
p. 244.
2^Cole, America First, p. 59.

oQ
Minutes of the America First National Commit
tee Meeting, November 28, 1941, America First PHLS.
99
While lack of funds and local chapter inertia
were in part responsible for the failure of the ref
erendum, it was perhaps destined to fail as an iso
lationist program. The referendum was, first of
all, ill-timed. Several specific programs, such as
the repeal of the arms embargo and the exchange of
destroyers for bases, had been enacted prior to the
formation of the Committee, which America First ob
viously had no opportunity to oppose. The campaign
against Lend-Lease had collapsed by the time the ref
erendum became an active isolationist idea. Hence
the passage of specific measures prior to the refer
endum mitigated against the possibility of making
"war or peace" the central issue.
Secondly, the polls taken by America First
were not really necessary to gain information. The
existing polls provided ample support for the isola
tionist claim that we should stay out of war. As
America First argued, every poll taken on the ques
tion of entering the war had indicated that at least
80% of the population opposed such an action. Even
if the polls were biased, as America First believed,
it could still cite any number of polls to substan
tiate this argument. Similarly, America First could
have argued that although these polls were biased
100
for the interventionists, they could not conceal the
fact that an overwhelming majority of the nation op
posed entering the war. While the polls may have
provided a way for supporters to participate in the
isolationist cause, there was no real need to dupli
cate, these polls on this central question.
Thirdly, America First planned to use basic
ally one question for the referendum: whether or
not America should enter the war immediately. Iso
lationists were unwilling to add issues to the ref
erendum which might obscure their central concern.
While isolationists were confident of victory on
this question, they were not as sure of being vic
torious on other questions. They hoped that once
the central issue had been established in the minds
of the people, isolationists would be able to link
any subordinate issue to that question; then by la
belling a bill a "War Bill" they would ensure its

defeat.29
America First found its strategy frustrated
by the seeming schizophrenia of the American public.
^ T h e r e j_s ample evidence to show that isola

tionists used this tactic, especially in the cam
paign against Lend-lease. See Chapter VIII of this
study for a discussion of the types of labels used
and their implications.
101
Americans overwhelmingly opposed entry into the war,
yet favored specific bills which isolationists be
lieved were "War Bills." To make matters worse,
while there was no great shift in attitude on war
entry, there was a consistent increase in popularity
for these "War Bills" as the Committee increased its
campaign against them. America First was never able
to establish the link between "war.entry" and "War
Bills" it needed to defeat them. Reducing all is
sues to war or peace was an effort to simplify but
one which faced the danger of becoming simplistic.
Each Administration proposal contained provisions
of differing complexity and differing acceptability
to the American people. That one could not success
fully reduce all issues to war or peace is evidenced
by the widely divergent views on specific proposals
demonstrated by the polls. Similarly, it was diffi
cult to simplify by labelling when some of these
"War Bills" had already been enacted but had not pro
duced war.
Establishing the link between "war entry" and
"War Bills" was crucial if the strategy adopted by
America First were to succeed. And it was by this
strategy that America First hoped to gain identifi
cation with "the people." They first embraced the
102
polls which supported the isolationist position;
when America Pirst began to lose ground, it had
made such a commitment- to the polls that isolation
ists were forced to attack them as biased and sub
stitute their own polls. When the one positive
campaign— that for a referendum— failed, America
Pirst was left with a few of its private polls.
Even in those areas where the private polls had
been taken, isolationists found no evidence to in
dicate that the people had become more hostile to
ward Administration proposals. America Pirst never
adequately demonstrated through the use of the polls
the validity of the identification with "the people"
whose support it claimed. As the "War Bills" grew
in strength and support, America Pirst shifted its
strategy for gaining identification.
The second and more basic strategy in the
later months of America Pirst was to claim that the
Committee represented "the people," but that both
were victims of a "Great Conspiracy." As isolation
ists suffered increasing defeats, their rhetoric
evidenced their belief that "the people" were being
deceived and that this deception was primarily re
sponsible for the support gained by the "War Bills."
In referring to the .poll he conducted, Hamilton
103
Pish commented,
This poll has done what I hoped it would, by-

exposing the hypocrisy and virtual conspiracy
of the war makers, who, representing only ten
percent of the American people, have tried
through the sheer weight of hysterical propa
ganda to bulldoze, frighten, and force ninety
percent of the people into a foreign war against
their will.30
To the isolationist the weapons of this minor
ity conspiracy were deceit and propaganda. The con
spirators, according to John T. Flynn, were inspired
by and working with foreign groups; the conspirators
were in league to form a dictatorship.^ It remain
ed for Charles Lindbergh, the leading spokesman for
America First, to identify specifically the conspir
ators: the Jews, the British, and the Roosevelt Ad
ministration. 32 The strategy chosen by America First
as they began to lose ground in the fight against in
tervention was to search for a scapegoat which would
explain Committee failures. Burke outlines the
function of the scapegoat:
3°Fish, address, delivered over BBC, June 30,

19^1, America First PHLS.
31
Flynn, radio address, July 8, 1941, America
First PHLS.
3 2Lindbergh, address, delivered at America

First Rally, Des Moines, Iowa, September 11, 1941,
America First.PHLS.
104
For the scapegoat is ’charismatic,' a vicar.

As such, it is profoundly consubstantial with
those who, looking upon it as a chosen vessel,
would ritualistically cleanse themselves by
loading the burden of their own iniquities
upon it. Thus the scapegoat represents the
principle of division in that its persecutors
would alienate from themselves to it their
own uncleanliness. For one must remember
that a scapegoat cannot be curative except
insofar as it represents the iniquities of
those who would be cured by attacking it. In
representing their iniquities it performs the
role of vicarious atonement (that is, unifica
tion, or merger, granted to those who have
alienated their iniquities upon it,_and so may
be purified through its suffering).33
The rhetoric of the America First Committee
is in part a search for that "chosen vessel"; and
part of the failure the Committee experienced was
the inability of burdening their own iniquities up
on a scapegoat. How the scapegoat became "curative"
and aided unification remains to be explored. Burke
argues that scapegoat devices usually involve at
tacking an "enemy abroad" for "untoward conditions
due mainly to domestic f a u l t s . "34 shall seehow
the "enemy abroad" conspired with the "enemy at
home" to deceive "the people." The function of
A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric

of Motives, p. w r .

of Motives, p. 702 .
105
Chapters VI, VII, and VIII is to examine in detail
the strategy of conspiracy and of the scapegoat:
first, the Jew as devil figure; second, the British
Invasion of America; and third, the War Lord and
the War Party.
CHAPTER VI
A FLIRTATION WITH THE JEW AS SCAPEGOAT
Kenneth Burke illustrates the strategy of
scapegoating in a "brilliant, provocative analysis
of Hitler's Mein Kampf.1 In his essay, "The Rhe
toric of Hitler's Battle," Burke describes the Fueh
rer as a "medicine-man" who chose as one method of
unifying the German people the creation of a devil
materialized. This devil was international (catho
lic, universal) rather than wholly national.2 He
was so cunning that all refutation of his presence
was actually proof of his existence. Burke points
out that Hitler had so effectively "essentialized"
the devil that to show the Jewish worker at odds
•with the Jewish banker was merely to demonstrate
the extreme cunning of the plotters.-5
Burke's rhetorical analysis reveals Hitler's
ability to use "corrupt religious patterns" as de
vices of unification.^ The major features of these
^Burke, The Philosophy, pp. 164-190.

2
Burke, The Philosophy, p. 166.
■^Burke, The Philosophy, p. 167.
^Burke, The Philosophy, p. 173.
106
107
patterns included, first, the stress on "inborn dig
nity" in both "religious and humanistic patterns of
t h o u g h t . ,This inborn dignity was, by a strange
turn of Hitler*s mind, true of the Aryan but not of
the inferior Negro or Jew. "This sinister secular
ized revision of Christian theology thus puts the
sense of dignity upon a fighting basis, requiring
the conquest of ’inferior races.'" Secondly, Hitler
stressed symbolic~rebirth as a new goal. "The pro
jective device of the scapegoat coupled with the
Hitlerite doctrine of inborn racial superiority, pro-
vides its followers with a 'positive* view of life."
¥ith this positive view, the new Aryan could re
nounce— as did Hitler— his ancestry (change symbol
ically his lineage) by declaring himself to be from
a different "blood stream."
In some of his most penetrating writing, Burke
relates Hitler's description of economic evils to
his racial theories. For Hitler, the "true" cause
of economic discontent was racial. Burke comments,
"The Aryan is 'constructive'; the Jew is 'destructive';
^Burke, The Philosophy, p. 173*
^Burke, The Philosophy, p. 173.

7
Burke, The Philosophy, p. 174.
108
and the Aryan to continue his construction, must
destroy the Jewish destruction. The Aryan as the
vessel of love, must hate the Jewish hate." (Ital
ics Burke*s) The oppositions, then, are construction
and destruction, or by substituting terms we arrive
at the equation: Aryan "heroism" and "sacrifice"
vs, Jewish "cunning" and "arrogance."
Yet the "major virtue of the Aryan race was its
instinct for self-preservation" which must be differ
entiated from the negative Jewish self-preservation.9
Hitler differentiated these two similar instincts
by claiming that Aryan self-preservation was based
on sacrifice, "the sacrifice of the individual to
the group, hence, militarism, army discipline, and
one big company union. But Jewish self-preservation
is based.upon individualism, which attains its cun
ning ends by the exploitation of the peace.
Thus Jewish self-preservation represented individual
ism; Aryan self-preservation, "super-individualism."
In sum, Hitler combined the "curative" unifi
cation by the use of a fictitious devil-function
^Burlce, The Philosophy, p. 175.
^Burlce, The Philosophy, p. 178.

^°Burke, The Philosophy, p. 179.
109
with the "sloganizing repetitiousness" of standard
advertising.^ Central to Hitler's appeal was a
reliance upon a ""bastardization of fundamentally

1?
religious patterns of thought." It is this ""bas
tardization"— so central to Hitler’s rhetoric—
which we must examine in the America Pirst Commit
tee. Burke comments that "it may well be that peo
ple, in their human frailty, require an enemy as

1"5
well as a goal." It is then time to discuss one
"enemy" of the America Pirst Committee and the way
in which the Jew— this international devil material
ized— functions in the rhetoric of the America Pirst
Committee. In the following chapters we will con
sider two additional enemies, the British govern
ment and the Roosevelt Administration.
The goal of the Committee was to keep America
out of war, •to prevent such actions as they felt
would lead inevitably to conflict. This goal was
being thwarted by both external and internal forces:
external, primarily in the form of the British gov
ernment and its propaganda; and internal, primarily
"*"*Burke, ThePhilosophy, p. 187.
^Burke, ThePhilosophy, p. 187.
^Burke, ThePhilosophy, p. 187.
110
in the function of influential Jews in this country
and of the War Party. A persistent though usually
camouflaged line of argument was that American Jews
were conspiring to involve us in the war. Thus a
persistent attitude in the rhetoric of isolation
was that of anti-Semitism. Whether some members of
America Pirst became anti-Semitic, or, more lilcely,
whether America Pirst was ;joined by anti-Semites,
the isolationists needed to explain their failures;
the Jews had been used for such purposes for centuries.
Burke comments that those balked in their aims "turn-
in their disgruntlement to a hatred of Jews, foreign
ers, Negroes, ’isms,’ as a ritualistic o u t l e t . " ^
The outlet, as we have seen in Hitler's rhetor
ic was ritualistic; the rite was often performed at
a mass rally. Burke observes that in most mystic
rites, "the scapegoat became the essence of evil, the
principle of the discord felt by those who are to be
purified by the sacrifice."^ The scapegoat might
also serve as a unifying device for a movement: its
1A
of Motives, pp. 335-336.

of Motives, p. ¥07. ~
members could be unified "by a foe shared in common."
In the America First movement, to become scapegoats,
the Jews would have had to be burdened with the in
iquities of isolationists. That the Jew did not be
come "the principle of the discord"; that the Jew
was not burdened with isolationist sins; that the
Jew did not become, in effect, a scapegoat is the
focus of this chapter. First, we will analyze the
isolationist attitude toward Jews, and the way in
which Jews functioned in isolationist rhetoric. Sec
ond, we will discuss the isolationist strategy of
using the Jew as conspirator rather than as scape
goat, a strategy which— even as an unplanned flirta
tion— limited isolationist effectiveness. With the
frustration of many reformers, the blame for their
failure and disappointment was placed on the Jews.^7
"*^Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric

of Motives, p.
^ O s c a r Handlin, "How United States Anti-

Semitism Really Began.11.Commentary. XI (June, 1951),
p. 54-2. Professor Handlin, who traced the develop
ment of anti-Semitism in the United States, found
its origin in the twentieth century. He found
philo-Semitism more characteristic of the nineteenth
century, but that in the 1890’s "the conception of
Jewish interest in money deepened into the conviction
that the Jews controlled the great fortunes of the
world." This, plus the reaction to the Great War to
End Wars led to a "xenophobia" of "everything foreign
112
Hatred and distrust of Jews grew in intensity during
the era of the 1920’s and 1930’s. In his study of
anti-Semitism, Donald Strong concluded that during
the 1 9 3 0 ’s over one hundred and twenty groups were
formed for anti-Semitic p u r p o s e s . T h e most infa
mous Nazi Organization in America was the German-Amer
ican Bund, whose racist theories were taken directly
from Dr. Goebbels. Although Bundists were urged to
join and support America Pirst, one must note in
fairness that America Pirst excluded from membership
pro-Nazis, and forced both Silver Shirts and Bund
ists to resign from its r a n k s . ^9
There can be little doubt, however, that "anti-
Semitism was sprinkled widely through non-interven-

*
20
tionist ranks." Although the Committee attempted
to avoid the label of anti-Semitic, it had on its
National Committee Henry Pord, whose anti-Jewish
campaign in the Dearborn Independent ran for almost
^Donald Strong, Organized Anti-Semitism in

America (Washington: American Council on Public
Affairs, 1941), p. 16.
^9cole, America Pirst, p. 119.

20prom study of contributors, their letters
and comments, as well as reactions by the National
Committee, this writer found good reason to agree
with Cole on this point. The generalization is made
by Cole, America Pirst. p. 131.
113
six years.2^ Similarly, America Pirst invited to

address under its auspices persons whose reputations
of racism were well known. Donald Shea of the Nation

al Gentile League addressed the America Pirst rally
22
in Chicago. Jakob Thorkelson, the most outspoken
anti-Semite in the House of Representatives, was
asked to address an America Pirst rally in Salt Lake
C i t y . C r i t i c i s m forced the Speaker’s Bureau to
take his name from the speaking rolls, but not be
fore he had made several addresses.24 In a letter
to General Wood, Thorkelson commented:
It is my opinion that certain facts should

be stated which will point the finger at
those who are actually responsible for the
conditions which prevail today. This none
of your speakers have done. They have not
discussed British Israel or any of the pro-
English groups who are financing much of
the propaganda in circulation today.25
2^Cole, America Pirst, p. 132.
22Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," p. 232.

23
Telegram W. E. Cosgrill to Moore, July 9,
1941, Letter Hufty to Louis Fife, August 4, 1941,
Telegram E. C. Jeffrey to Moore, July 4, 1941,
America Pirst PHLS.
•pi.
^Telegram W. E. Cosgrill to Moore, July 9,
1941, Letter Hufty to Louis Pife, August 4, 1941,
Telegram E. C. Jeffrey.to Moore, July 4, 1941,
America Pirst PHLS.
2^Letter Thorkelson to Wood, June 18, 1941,

America Pirst PHLS.
114
Thorkelson thus joined two of the "conspirators,"
the Jews and the British. Joe McWilliams, of the
Christian Mobilizers, spoke "before an America First
rally in Madison Square Garden; Lindbergh had ap
proved the rally but said to McWilliams, "Don't be
too violent."2^ Edward Smythe made such strong at
tacks on the Jews in his early speeches that a rally
in Philadelphia at which he was scheduled to speak
was cancelled.2^
As Ruth Sarles, the America First Director of
Research admitted,
There is no doubt that there were anti-Semites

among the rank and file members. There is evi
dence that some passionately anti-Semitic indi
viduals sought deliberately to further anti-
Semitism by working through the . . . Commit
tee.28
Some anti-Semites on the America First Committee were
sympathetic to the Silver Shirts, some to the German-
American Bund, some to Father Coughlin, whose Social
Justice urged support for America First.29 The
28Davis, The Hero, p. 410.
2?Letter Stuart to Smythe, December 18, 1940,

America First PHLS.
28Sarles, p. 348.
29see, for example, Social Justice. July 28, 1941.

The observation made here is Coleys. America First, pp.
125-126. America First faced the continual problem of
finding its members sympathetic to groups which the
Committee regarded as an obstacle to its efforts.
115
Committee initially r e j e c t e d support from the fol
lowers of Coughlin, hut chapter chairmen warned that
this move would weaken the Committee's efforts. Soc
ial Justice published a letter from ¥ood which read:
"I have not rejected the Christian Social Justice
Movement. I welcome their support in our common ob
jective— preventing this country from getting into
the war."-^ The conciliatory course followed by .Amer
ica Pirst toward the Social Justice Movement increased
its vulnerability to the charge of anti-Semitism.^1
In her history of America Pirst, Sarles takes
pains to indicate that while there were anti-Semites
among the rank and file, there was no racism among
its National Committee or among its national speakers.
Yet in his early speeches, Charles Lindbergh, the
most popular national spokesman for America Pirst,
evidenced the theme of racism:
These wars in Europe are not wars in which our

civilization is defending itself against some
Asiatic intruder. There is no Genghis Khan or
Xerxes marching against our western nations.32
-^Social Justice. July 28, 194-1.
^ M o o r e to J. A. Gwyer, August 20, 194-1,

America Pirst PHLS.
3 2Lindbergh, radio address, delivered from

radio station WOL in Washington, September 15, 1939.
The speech is quoted by Davis, pp. 389-390.
116
Our bond with Europe is a bond of race and

not of political ideology. . . . It is the
European race we must preserve; political
progress will follow. Racial strength is
vital— politics a luxury. If the white
race is ever seriously threatened, it may
then be time for us to take our part in its
protection, to fight side by side with the
English, French and Germans, but not with
one against the other for mutual destruc
tion.^
In his first speeches sponsored by America First,
Lindbergh attacked "powerful elements in America who
desire us to take part in the war" but he did not
name them."3^ In April, 194-1, he claimed "our real
enemies" to be those groups in this country whose
"prime objective is to get us into the war."35 On
September 11, 194-1, in Des Moines however, he "point
ed up the affinity that existed between the current
variety of isolationism and a dangerous foreign
ideology."36
The three most important groups who have

been pressing this country toward war are the
British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt
3-^Lindbergh, radio address, delivered from

Washington, October 13, 19 39 , entitled "What Our
Decision Should Be," Vital Speeches. V I •(November 1,
1939), P P .'5 8 -5 9 .
3^LIndbergh, radio address, May 19, 194-0, en

titled "Our National Safety," Vital Speeches. VI
(June 1, 194-0), p . 4 8 5 .
35"Lindbergh Calls War Lost by Allies," New

York Times. April 1 8, 194 1.
36A dler, p. 279.
117
Administration.
instead of agitating for war the Jewish

groups in this country should be opposing it
in every possible way, for they will be among
the first to feel its consequences. . . . Their
greatest danger to this country lies in their
large ownership and influence in our motion
pictures, our press, our radios, and our govern
ment. 37
The Jew, then, through his control and influence, had
become a danger. Lindbergh did not suggest a course
of action for direct control of Jewish "influence."
Another speaker, Claire Hoffman of Michigan, suggest
ed we might take back the opportunities given to a
"certain minority group":
There is a state of mind among a certain minor-

ity group in this country that believe they can
criticize anyone themselves, but that they
should be free from criticism. These people
came to this country seeking refuge and we
welcomed them. They took jobs when we had
9,000,000 men of our own out of work, and we
didn't mind. But to these people I say— be
careful how you misuse the opportunity we gave
you. When hungry men are walking our streets
after this war, be careful what you say and
do.38
This flirtation with the idea of a Jewish con
spiracy did not come early in the history of America
- ^ L i n d b e r g h , address, delivered at America Pirst

Rally, Des Moines, Iowa, September 11, 1941, entitled
"Who Are the War Agitators?" America Pirst PHLS. See
also Hew York Times. September 12, '1941.
^ C l a i r e E. Hoffman, address, delivered in

Detroit, Michigan, September 30, 1941, America Pirst
PHLS.
118
First. While ThorheIs on and McWilliams attacked Jews
in their early speeches, neither was a spokesman of
note, nor were their attacks influential in shaping
the public image of America First. The Lindbergh
speech in Des Moines was the first serious overture
in attacking the Jewish conspiracy. By September of
19^1, Lindbergh h a d 'established himself as the lead
ing isolationist spokesman, and of those who knew of
the Committee, his name was the one most identified
with America First. ^ Hence his speech called more
attention to the America First Committee than any
other single event in its history. In calling at
tention to the Committee on this issue, he placed
America First in the position of having to take a
stand on his flirtation. In shaping that stand, the
Committee received more support for Lindbergh than
opposition to him, but some severe attacks shaped
their final policy. The immediate reaction to the
use of the Jew as conspirator may give us some in
sight into its failure.
A storm of protest greeted the speech; typical
of such protest was the telegram by Reinhold Hiebuhr,
-Ân analysis of the Speaker's Bureau Files

indicates that there were more requests for Lind
bergh than for any other speaker.
j
119
Chairman of the Union for Democratic Action:
Despite wide differences of opinion concern

ing American foreign policy we assume your
sincerity and support of American principles,
we therefore ask your repudiation of the at
tempt of your fellow committee-man, Charles
Lindbergh to blame the Jews in advance for
getting this country into war. It is clear
by now that fascist devices are being used
to fight the Administration and we sincerely
hope you will join all decent Americans re
gardless of your stand in denouncing such
tactics and their authors. Will you demand
that the America First Committee divorce it
self from the stand taken by Lindbergh and
clean its ranks of those who would incite to-,
racial and religious strife in this country?^®
Lindbergh's Des Moines speech was, to his biog
rapher, Kenneth Davis, "the end of the hero."^1 The
storm of protest that greeted Lindbergh in the press,
even in the Chicago Tribune which idolized the avia
tor, caused the America First National Committee to
consider censuring Lindbergh. ^ Although Roosevelt
refused to comment, a White House statement compared
the Des Moines speech with the recent "outpourings
of B e r l i n . "^3 Wendell Willkie, former Republican
^ T e l e g r a m Reinhold Niebuhr to Wood, n. d.,

America First PHLS.
Davis, p. 411.
^ S e e Minutes of the America First National

Committee Meeting, September 18, 1941, America First
PHLS.
^ 3 ”president Refused Comment," New York Times,

September 13, 1941.
120
Presidential candidate, then a counsel for the movie
industry, was shocked by the racial prejudice exhib
ited.^ Arthur Krock pointed..out in a Hew York
Times editorial that "no one has yet ventured to de
fend it or its utterer, a most significant symptom
in Congress."^5 ^he Washington Civic Theatre, then
producing The American W a y , deleted all reference to
L i n d b e r g h , ^ and Little Palls, Minnesota, the avia
tor’s home town, took his name from its water tower. ^
"President Refused Comment," Hew York Times,

September 13, 1941. Willkie’s later charge that the
hearings on the motion picture industry were anti-
Semitic probably encouraged their early adjournment.
See also Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention,"
p. 246.
^ A r t h u r Krock, "Anti-War Group Losing Strength

in Congress," Hew York Times, September 21, 1941.
^ " A s s a i l s Anti-Semitic Talks," Hew York Times,

October 11, 1941.
47Davis, p. 409. This writer questioned the

editor of the Little Palls, Minnesota newspaper con
cerning the removal of Lindbergh’s name from the
town water tower. The editor, after consulting a
leading citizen, responded that the Des Moines
speech "had nothing to do with the wording." The
slogan which faced north on U. S. Highway 371 read
"Lindbergh’s Home Town Welcome’s You." As the edi
tor commented, "The bad punctuation was a source
of annoyance b u t .you d o n ’t get someone to climb a
tank to correct an error every day. So when it
was time to repaint, the council decided to make
it just ’Little Palls.' That's the way it is to
day." Letter Guilbert W . .Jarvis to this writer,
June 5,-1964.
121
The speech, as -well as the reaction, struck
General Wood by surprise. In response to the query
of a contributor, Wood telegraphed, "I did not see
Colonel Lindbergh's address before it was delivered
and had no inkling that he was going to introduce
the subject he did."^® R. Douglas Stuart, Jr.,
America First Committee founder and then National
Director, wrote to Wood that he would subscribe to
no Committee statement "unless we say Colonel Lind
bergh did not advise the Committee of his plan of
departure from the party l i n e . "^9
Members of the National Committee as well as
local chapter chairmen began to criticize the speech.
A bulletin was sent from National Headquarters inform'
ing the chapters that because it was important that
.America First chapters adopt a "uniform attitude"
toward the speech they should make no public state
ment prior to the National Committee s t a t e m e n t . 5°
They were asked to relay their views to the National
Committee. The National Committee met one week after
^ L e t t e r Wood to Mrs. Frances Rosenblatt,

September'19, 1941, America First PHLS.
49
Memo Stuart to Wood, September 22, 1941,
America First PHLS.
^ A m e r i c a First Bulletin # 553, September 15,

1 22
the speech to decide a course of action.
Although there is hut a sketchy record of the
National Committee Meeting of September 18, some
conclusions can be drawn. The meeting on this sin
gle issue lasted eight hours. Evidently the Commit
tee made little effort to ’’dump" Lindbergh as it had
done with Thorkelson and Smythe, perhaps in part be
cause he had become the Committee spokesman most in
demand to speak at America First rallies. On the
other hand, there is some reason to believe that
not all committee members supported Lindbergh.
R. Douglas Stuart, Jr. had opposed the choice of
Lindbergh to replace Wood as National Chairman.51
Some members of the Committee thought his comments
to be true but unfortunately timed.52 General Wood
believed Lindbergh to be sincere but politically
blind.53 Committee had little choice but to
-^Minutes of the America First National

Committee Meeting, September 18, 1941. Present at
the meeting were Wood, Carlson, Mrs. Clark, Mrs.
Fairbank, Flynn, Judson, Mrs. Longworth, Peek,
Pinchot, and Stuart. Hufty, Moore, Pennypacker,
Pettengill, and Webster were invited to attend and
were present. See also Cole, "The Battle Against
Intervention," p. 261.
-^See Sessler to H. K. Hyde, September 17,

1941, America First PHLS, and Sarles, pp. 354-361.
53
-'■'Cole interview with General Wood, December
23, 1947.
i
123
defend Lindbergh, even at the cost of several mem
bers. Sarles comments that
loyalty to the purpose for which America First

had been created . . . and to Colonel Lindbergh
demanded that the America First Committee and
the Colonel present a united front, regardless
of any difference of opinion regarding the
wisdom of referring to the Jews as a separate
group.54
The statement drafted by the Committee accused the
interventionists of creating a false issue as a "smoke
screen" to cover its actions which were leading the
people "to war in violation of the Constitution of
the United States."55 But even this statement, in
5^Sarles, p. 361.
^^Sarles, p. 361. The press release of Septem

ber 24, 1941 read as follows:
Ever since the nation-wide effort to keep America
out of war began, the interventionists have sought to
hide the real issue by flinging false charges at the
America First Committee and at every leader who has
spoken out against our entry into the European con
flict, The present attack on Colonel Lindbergh is
merely another case in point.
Colonel Lindbergh and his fellow members of the
America First Committee are not anti-Semitic. We de
plore the infection of the race issue into the dis
cussion of war or peace. It is the interventionists
who have done this. America First, on the other hand,
has invited men and women of every race, religion, and
national origin to join this committee, provided only
that they are patriotic citizens who put the interests
of their Country ahead of those of any other country.
We repeat that invitation.
At least 80 percent of the American people oppose
our entry into the war. The America First Committee
has supplied to these millions of citizens a leader
ship which has thus far helped to avert disaster.
Consequently, the aim of the war makers is to destroy
124
Sarles* -words, was "a statement that had "been diluted

to the point of w e a k n e s s . " ^
As an immediate reaction to the speech and
its support by the National Committee, two chairmen

of large chapters resigned.57 Kathryn Lewis, daugh
ter of John L. Lewis, and secretary of the United

Mine Workers (one of the few America First labor con
nections) quit the National Committee.58 General
Hugh Johnson repudiated the speech,59 as did Presi
dent Ray Lyman Wilbur of Stanford University.60 Dr.
Henry Noble McCracken, the President of Yassar
the America First Committee.

Behind a smokescreen of groundless charges this
nation is being led to war in violation of the Con
stitution of the United States.
There is but one real issue— the issue of war.
From this issue we will not be diverted. We-^will
carry on the fight until it is won. (Press release,
September 24, 1941, America First PHLS.)
56Sarles, p. 361.
^Letters of resignation from members of
local chapters are contained in a "Des Moines Speech"
folder in the Speaker's Bureau Files, America First
PHLS.
5®Kathryn Lewis to Wood, September 29, 1941,

America First PHLS.
59,,Des Moines Speech" Folder, Speaker’s Bureau

Files, America First PHLS..
Moines Speech" Folder, Speaker's Bureau
6 ° " D e s
Files, America First PHLS..
125
College who had spoken several times for the Commit

tee, refused to speak again under its auspices.^1
Jay Hormel, member of the National Executive Com
mittee, wrote in a letter of resignation: "We have
fought sham battles to a point where the people have

identified us as anti-Lend-Lease, anti-neutrality,
and anti-Semitic."^
For the America First Committee, the attack
on the Jewish conspiracy had a potential which was
suggested hut never explored; it was at best a flir-

tation, never an exploitation. Lindbergh argued
that the people were being deceived because their

access to information was being controlled. He was
not the only isolationist to suggest the connection

between the Jews and the government. A leader of a
Florida chapter commented that "under Mr. Roosevelt's

Administration . . . the nine million Jews are di
recting the affairs of the entire one hundred and
thirty million." More isolated were the comments
^Me mo Foulis to Stuart, October 23, 194-1,

America First PHLS.
^H’ormel to Stuart, October 30, 194-1, America

First PHLS.
^Letter Mrs. Zella Bossen-Honska to Mrs. L. R.

Miller, November 11, 194-1, America First PHLS. See
also Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," p. 24-1.
126
which linked-Roosevelt to the Jews directly, as did

the leader of a Kansas chapter. "Roosevelt and his
wife are Jewish and this goes for 90% of his Admin
istration.
If the Jews were combined with the Administra
tion, the isolationists argued, they could control

the spread of information while the Administration
controlled the release of information. During its
short history America First had difficulty gaining

radio time and tried— with little success— to con
vince Congressmen to gain free radio time to oppose
Administration policies. If this argument were sus
tained, America First could then explain why it was

denied "equal time" to answer Administration state
ments, and why it continually had difficulty gain
ing radio time.

Yet America First faced a dilemma. It had
invited Jews to join its ranks, but kept those who

were known to be anti-Semitic. There__is evidence
to believe that the Committee would not have dropped
Henry Ford from membership had he made a sizeable

contribution, even though his membership 011 the
^Russell Thompson to Page Hufty, August 2,

19^1, America First PHLS.
127
Committee caused Jewish members to resign. ^5 ^ se
vere Jewish storm of criticism resulted from the
Lindbergh statement and America First was hard

pressed to find Jewish support for the aviator’s
speech. They finally enlisted the support of Dr.
Hyman Lischner, the former president of the San
Diego B'nai B ’rith, who stated that he found no

£\fi\
racial’ prejudice in Lindbergh’s talk.
We have suggested that in America First rhetor
ic the Jews functioned as conspirators rather than
as scapegoats. To use the Jew as scapegoat would
have necessitated isolationist admission of guilt

and expiation for their sins. Of what were the iso
lationists guilty? Possibly they were guilty of the
failure to sustain the sacrifice necessary for iso

lation, the failure to maintain the purity of the
American ideal. The isolationists failed to keep
America from foreign corruption; each bill passed
over isolationist opposition further entangled Amer

ica in European wiles. Yet this guilt was never
^^strong, p. 15. Stuart to Rosenwald, December 9,

19^0, America First PHLS. See also Cole, America First,
p. 132.
66
Hyman Lischner to Wood, September 21, 194-1,
and J. L. Wheeler to Stuart, n. d., America First
PHLS.
128
systematically recognized, nor was there an isola
tionist attempt to expiate the guilt by attributing
iniquities to the Jews. In the rhetoric of America
First, there was no attempt to "purge" the "unde
sirable element"; no attempt to "hate" the "Jewish
hate"; no attempt to "destroy" the "Jewish destruc
tion" which Burke had found central to Hitler’s rhe
toric. ^7 In sum, the Jews did not become isolation
ist scapegoats; rather they were treated, when they
were treated, as conspirators and isolationists were
the victims.
Even the use of the Jew as a conspirator was
hardly a strategy; it was probably unplanned, at
least in part accidental, and at best a flirtation.
America First could not effectively employ the Jew
as conspirator and yet expect to gain any isolation
ist Jewish support. To the extent that isolationists
sought Jewish support, this strategy was denied Amer
ica First. In other words, the heterogeneity of iso
lationist membership reduced the number of possible
groups which could be blamed for any failure the
Committee experienced. The Lindbergh move was not
planned by the Committee, or even discussed as a
6?Burke, The Philosophy, p. 175.
129
potentiality, probably; it came as a surprise even
to General Wood. In no sense had it been agreed
upon as a course of action. As we have discussed
in Chapter II, the views of members on the Committee
were so diverse that almost never was a statement
made by one member with which another member would
not disagree. The problem posed by the Lindbergh
speech was the single issue which created the great
est cleavage in America First ranks. In fact, it
was a blow from which the Committee never recovered,
at least "in the eyes of a large segment of the Amer
ican people.
Burke suggests that Hitler had so revised
Christian theology that his racism required the con
quest of "inferior races." Racism for Hitler was
the Aryan vs. the Semite. Although racism was not
a dominant theme in the America First rhetoric, it
was developed in a somewhat different manner. Lind
bergh saw a racial tie (rather than a political or
ideological tie) with the European— with the English
man, the Frenchman, and the German, as opposed to
the "Asiatic intruder."^9 Lindbergh believed
°®Cole, "The Battle Against Intervention," p. 278.
^Lindbergh, radio address, delivered from radio

station WOL in Washington, September 15, 1939, quoted
by Davis, pp. 389-390.
130
aviation to be a "tool shaped for Western m inds. "70
The aviator commented that "it is time for us to
build our White ramparts again . . . It is time to
turn to guard our heritage from Mongol and Persian
and M o o r . T h e Semite did hot figure in this op
position directly, although he might be seen as
lurking dimly in the background.
The devil for Hitler ■was universal, interna
tional, catholic. The devil for the America First
Committee, insofar as it had a devil, was national
rather than universal. I'Tor did America First fol
low through with Hoffman's suggestion that Jewish
freedom might have to be curtailed specifically if
war came. 72 The charges of a propaganda monopoly,
especially in the movie industry, suggested a course
of action as well as an isolationist attitude, but
there was no program to lessen Jewish influence and
control over the mass m e d i a , ^ Probably Lindbergh
^°Lindbergh, "Aviation, Geography, and Race,"

Reader's Digest, XXXY (November, 1939), pp. 64-67.
Lindbergh, "Aviation, Geography, and Race,"

pp. 64-67, and Butterfield, p. 68.
^Hoffman, address, delivered in Detroit, Mich

igan, September 30, 1941, America First.PHLS.
7-3In August of 1941, Senators Clark and Nye

called for an investigation of the movie industry.
Senator Wheeler, the chairman of the Senate Commit
tee on Interstate Commerce, appointed a sub-committee
131
never followed his initial attack largely because
of the controversy it created. But in America First
rhetoric, no program of censure, of control, or of

/
curtailment was ever detailed by isolationist speak
ers, despite the strength of their claims.
In a very real sense, the Jew as scapegoat had
already been claimed. Further it had been claimed
by the "enemy11— the European enemy. Hot only had
the Jew as scapegoat been usurped but its usurpation
limited even the strategy of employing the Jews as
conspirators. Thus those references to the Jews
might be interpreted as "fascist"; that is, the pro
duct of a foreign ideology which opposed American
principles. In his criticism of Lindbergh's speech,
Niebuhr worried that "fascist devices" could hurt
the cause of freedom unless they were denounced.7^
If the isolationists were to argue the unique
ness of the American mission, they had to recognize
to handle the hearings. Willkie, as a counsel for

the industry, charged the committee with anti-Semi
tism. The hearings were abandoned in the fall of
1941. Possibly this is a reason why America First
never advanced another specific course of action in
this area; See Michael Sayers and Albert Kahn,
Sabotage I The Secret War Against America (New York:
Harper a n d .Brothers, 1942 ), P P . 239-242, Letter
Wheeler to Wood, August 25, 1941, America-First PHLS,
and Cole, America First, pp. 140-141.
74
1 Telegram Reinhold Niebuhr to Wood, 11. d.,
America First PHLS.
132
that the Jew h ad b e e n tied to E u r op e an institutions.
Even the s c a pe go at in g of Jews had b ee n the pr od u ct
of c orrupt Europe. As we have seen in Chapter Ili,
the is ol a t i o n i s t attempt "to^sef up "Nationalism"

i
as a "god-term" was used to separate A m e r i c a f r o m the
c orruption of Europe. In order to m a i n t a i n the p u r
i fi c a t i o n of our motives; in order to preserve the
u n iq ue n e s s of the A m e r i c a n mission, Ame ri c a First
could not b o r r o w a v e s s e l of blame w h i c h had been
so c o n s i st en tl y as so c i a t e d w i t h the old world. If
an is ol a t i o n i s t were l a b e l l e d "fascist," his v e r y
purpose had b ee n defeated, for he could no longer
claim the un iq ue ne ss of his v i s i o n of America.
S ca pe go at in g of the J e w had alr ea d y been
claimed by a f o r e i g n ideology: attacks on the Jews
ran the risk of b e i n g i n t e r pr et e d as "foreign," the
antithesis of the i s o l a t i o n i s t purpose. The
strategy to use the Jew as c o n s p i ra to r n e v e r m a t
erialized in the r hetoric of A m e r i c a First, and i s o
lationists w ere fo rc e d to look elsewhere for an
e xplanation of their failures.
CHAPTER VII
THE BRITISH INVASION OP AMERICA
With, the French humiliation at Compiegne, the
Battle of Britain forced the isolationists to decide
whether or not the defense of Britain was vital to
that of the United States. America First rejected
the defense of Britain as vital for several reasons,
not the least of which was that some within the rantes
of America First were Anglophobes who played on the
phrase that "Britain would fight to the last drop
of American blood."1
If one were to discourage aid to Britain, one
must point out the distinct dissimilarity of British
culture to ours. The isolationists needed to find
.divisiveness, a dissimilarity which would link Great
Britain to the misfortunes of the old world but sep
arate her from the democracy of the new world. The
interventionists had sought to establish a consub-
stantiality of cultures, of governments, of peoples.
Our bonds were linguistic, economic, religious, and
political, they argued. The British way of life was
1Kansas City Chapter Pamphlet, "Shield America,

September 27, 1941 and November 11, 1941, America
First Papers, Hoover Library, Stanford.
133
134
essentially our way of life— and their way of life
was being 'threatened. Isolationists seldom chal
lenged the contention that the British way of life
was in jeopardy. They argued the dissimilarity be
tween the British and the American ways of life in
two ways: first, they juxtaposed the American "dem
ocracy" against the British "empire"; second, they
linked Britain to the "imperialists" such as Russia
and, occasionally, Germany and Italy. The strategy
was one of denying consubstantiality and accenting
the divisiveness of the two nations.
"Democracy and empire," stated Vassar’s Pres
ident Henry Noble McCracken, "are incompatible terms."2
Inasmuch as these terms were incompatible, America
First speakers spent considerable energy arguing that
Britain represented "empire." The Committee, of
course, assumed that America represented "democracy,"
although, as we shall see in Chapter VIII, America
First believed that our "democracy" was being under
mined.
Hiram Johnson condemned the undemocratic
2Henry Noble McCracken, address, delivered at

America First Rally, New York City, August 20, 1941,
America First PHLS.
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
135
British possession of I n d i a . ^ Other America First
leaders argued that war with Japan would "only be
to preserve Britain’s imperialistic and undemocratic
domination of Asia."^ Lindbergh commented that "Be
fore we send our youth to die defending the freedom
and democracy of the British empire, let us decide
how freedom and democracy are to be applied to Brit
ish Imperialism in I n d i a . "5 The national chairman,
Robert Wood, echoed these sentiments:
I do not think the American people should

make these sacrifices to interfere in the
quarrels of Europe and Asia, old, sick, and
over-populated continents with ancient rival
ries that cannot be healed. It is up to the
American people to decide whether they want
to make these sacrifices to preserve not Eng
land but the British Empire.°
In making such a sacrifice, Nye argued that we were
^Hiram W. Johnson, radio address, delivered over

NBC, May 30, 194-1, entitled "The Masquerade is Over,"
Vital Speeches. VII (June 15, 1941), p. 517.
4-A summary of speeches of America First speak

ers indicates this to be a dominant line of argument.
The statement, in this case, is by Cole, America
First, p. 190.
^Lindbergh, address, written for America First

Rally, Boston,' December 12, 194-1, but not delivered,
America First PHLS.
Wood, address, delivered before the Chicago

Council on Foreign Relations, October 4, 1940, en
titled "Our Foreign Policy," America First PHLS.
being pushed to act quickly and irrationally. "Until
the outbreak of the war these Americans could look at
the British Empire coolly, calmly, and see it for
what it is. It represented, then, the very acme of
reaction, imperialism, and exploitation of subject
peoples." Senator Nye was the most outspoken critic
of British treatment of its Empire; he argued that
"the persecution by the British Empire was worse

t
O
than the crimes of the llazis."
The strategic distinction by America First was
consonant with the argument that the "purity" of the
American ideal had been effected only by freeing it
self from Europe and exchanging the spurious demo
cracy of the empire for the genuine democracy of the
new world. America possessed the "real" democracy:
a democracy solid and reliable; a democracy unlike
the unstable and undependable empire. America First
argued that British imperialistic actions in the
twentieth century could not inspire trust. The iso
lationists attacked Britain as unreliable. Robert
M. LaFollette, Jr. concluded:
^Nye, quoted by Sarles, p. 721.

O
Nye, quoted by Walter Johnson, The Battle
Against Isolation (Chicago: The University of Chi
cago Press, 1944), p. 52.
137
Great Britain tacked up Japan when she grab

bed the first hunk of China in Manchuria and
left us holding the bag when we tried to stop
it. Great Britain and Prance, despite all of
our efforts to cooperate in checking Musso
l ini’s gobbling up of Ethiopia, finally got
together and agreed to let him have it. Then
came Munich. Then democratic Czecho-Slovakia,
pledged protection by Prance was betrayed by
them into Hitler’s clutches. And now Poland!
Is this record from 1914 to 1939 one to in
spire confidence and trust? My answer is no!9
Lindbergh argued that the deception was caused by
the expediency of war.
We know that in the desperation of war England

promised to all these nations armed assistance
she could not send. We know that she misin
formed them, as she has misinformed us, con
cerning her state of preparation, her mili
tary strength, and the progress of the war.10
If Britain had deceived us concerning her war prepa
rations, as the isolationists believed, we would be
unwise to rally to her support. "To line up with
Great Britain," General Wood argued, "would be just
like a we11-organized money-making business deciding
to take a bankrupt firm in as a partner."11
^Robert M. LaPollette, Jr., radio address, de

livered over NBC, „ October 4, 1939, entitled "The Neu
trality Issue," Vital Speeches. VI (November-1, 1939),
P. 59. .
^Lindbergh, address, delivered at America First

Rally, New York City, April 23, 1941, entitled "We
Cannot Win this War for England," Vital Speeches, VII
(May 1, 1941), pp. 424-426, and America First PELS.
1 1 ' _
Wood, quoted by Sarles, p. p8.
138
Those in America First who declared sympathy
for Great Britain but argued against aid distinguish
ed between the British government and the British
people. The distinction was based on British class
structure; they argued that aid to Britain would only
benefit the ruling classes. Philip LaFollette stated
that he had "nothing but admiration for the superb
courage the British people display as they pay this
awful price for the blunders, stupidity, and selfish-

1?
ness of their ruling class." Robert Hutchins quo
ted Anthony Eden as saying that "England does not
now, nor have they ever had a democracy— but their
reforms have simply broadened the base of their oli
g a r c h y."^ Although peoples of the two nations were
similar, their governments were distinct; the British
government was oligarchic and deceitful. With this
distinction, isolationists sought to link the Brit
ish government with corrupt European governments to
substantiate the argument that we should not enter
entangling European alliances.
12
Philip LaFollette, radio address, delivered
over CBS, February 12, 1941, entitled "With Malice
Toward.Hone," America First PHLS.
1^Robert Hutchins, address, delivered at the

University of Chicago, March 30, 1941, entitled "The
Proposition is Peace," Ameri-ca First PHLS.
139
Isolationist speakers argued that the British
government was like those governments we opposed—
the Russian, the German, and the Italian. John T.
Flynn labelled all European governments as imperial
ists, and branded Britain as the biggest aggressor:
Germany, Prance, Italy, Russia and the Brit

ish Empire— all of them— have been roaming
over Europe and the world holding millions
in subjugation. They have chosen that way
of life for themselves. By it they have
reaped glory, the exhibitions of might, ha
treds, poverty, and war. And all these na
tions— Great Britain as well as others, for
she is the greatest aggressor of all— will go
on reaping the dark harvest of poverty and
war as long as they assert this baleful doc
trine of the right of might to conquer and
rule. 14-
When Germany attacked Russia, the isolation
ists used the forced alliance between Russia and
Britain to discredit aid to Britain. It was felt
'that the association of the two nations would extend
distrust of Russia to Great Britain. "Wheeler used
this association when he said, "So w e ’ll soon be
called upon to authorize more billions and billions
for Imperialistic England and Communistic Russia.
.We have become a self-serving source of supply to
14
John T. Plynn, address, delivered at Amer
ica Pirst Rally,.Indianapolis, Indiana, April 3,
1941, America Pirst PHLS.
140
the British and to the B o l s h e v i k s . "1^ America Pirst
attempted to show that this was hut another shifting
alliance in the corrupt European family of nations.
Robert Bliss, later a trouble-shooter for the
Speaker’s Bureau, suggested a song for America Pirst
entitled "The British Invasion of America.”^ The
song described the British effort to gain American
support for aid to Britain by whatever means necessary.
The basic British invasion, the isolationists argued,
was conducted through deceit and propaganda. As
Lindbergh observed:
England has devoted and will continue to devote

every effort to get us into the war. We know
that she spent huge sums of money in this
country during the last war in order to in
volve us. Englishmen have written books
about the cleverness of its use. We know
that England is spending great sums of mon
ey for propaganda in America during the pres
ent wa r . 17
These huge sums of money were being spent to
produce clever propaganda composed of a "myriad of
^^Wheeler, address, delivered at America Pirst

Rally, Lacon, Illinois, August 28, 1941, America
Pirst PHLS.
^ L e t t e r Page Hufty to Robert Bliss, Septem

ber 5» 194-1, America Pirst PHLS. The song never be
came more than a suggestion.. _
17
'Lindbergh, address, delivered at America
Pirst Rally, Les Moines, Iowa, September 11, 1941,
entitled "Who.Are the War.Agitators?" America
Pirst PHLS.
141
brilliant words and neat phrases" which did not ac
curately represent the British position.1® 5iie iso
lationists feared Churchill, the chief propagandist,
for he was "the greatest master of words in our time."19
Isolationists feared that this propaganda would bring
an alliance which America could not control.
If we get into this war to aid Britain, we

marry the policy of Britain which we cannot
control. I do not want our country to be
come bound in a policy so recently proved
to have been so recklessly destructive. I
don’t want us to support with our blood
and wealth a course we cannot control.20
Johnson phrased it more succinctly when he commented,
"If Hitler'doesn't get us, Churchill will."21
America Pirst speakers claimed that this "mar
riage" had already taken place secretly. It was
part of the collusion between the two conspirators,
Churchill and Roosevelt. Lindbergh believed that
"the prestige of the Roosevelt Administration depends
^ P h i l i p LaFollette, radio address, delivered

Toward lone," America First PHLS.

Toward None," America First PHLS.
^ G e n e r a l Hugh Johnson, radio address, deliv

ered over the Colonial network, February 6, 1941,
America First PHLS.
21 General Hugh Johnson, radio address, deliv

ered over the Colonial Network, February 6, 1941,
America First PHLS.
142
upon the success of Great Britain to whom the Pres
ident attached his political future at a time when
most people thought that England and Prance would
easily win the war."22
Hugh Johnson stated in a radio address that
America Pirst "never had any objection to aiding
the a l l i e s . "25 While this statement may reflect
Johnson’s attitude, it does not represent the gen
eral policy of America Pirst. Compare his state
ment, for example, with the answer Senator Pepper
elicited from Lindbergh during the Senate Hearings:
Senator Pepper: If your policy and your

judgment had been followed, we never would
have sent one machine gun, or one round of
ammunition, or one rifle, or one airplane to
England, would we?
Colonel Lindbergh: I believe that is true.2^
Lindbergh stated, in extreme form, the attitude of
isolationists toward aid to Britain; there is little
evidence in the rhetoric of America Pirst to support
Lindbergh, address, written for America Pirst

Rally, Boston, December 12, 1941, but not delivered,
America Pirst PHLS.
23 -
^General Hugh Johnson, radio address, deliv
ered over' the Colonial network, February 6, 1941,
America Pirst PHLS.
^Hearings before the Committee on Foreign

Relations, United States Senate (77 Congress, 1
Session, Washington, 1941), p. 527.
143
Johnson’s statement.
Of Charles Lindbergh, historian James Truslow
Adams wrote: "It is evident that Lindbergh’s sym
pathies are with Germany and that he is strongly
biased against England."25 In the aviator’s test
imony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee as
to the causes of the war, he indicated that "the
faults and causes of the war are evenly divided in
Europe"; when asked which side he wanted to win the
war, he replied, "I want neither side to w i n . " ^ He
later explained in a speech that he did not believe
England in a position to win the war, and thus he
favored a negotiated peace:
Tfnen I am asked which side I would like to

have win, it would be very easy for me to
say, ’the English.’ But, gentlemen, an
English victory, if it were possible at
all, would necessitate years of war and an
invasion of the Continent of Europe. I
believe this would create prostration,
famine, and disease in Europe— and prob
ably in America— such as the world has
never experienced before. This is why I
say that I prefer a negotiated peace to a
complete victory by either s i d e . 2 ?
2^Quoted by Davis, The Hero, p. 395.
^Lindbergh, Hew York Times. January 24, 1941.
^Lindbergh, address, delivered before the Sen

ate Foreign Relations Committee, February 6, 1941,
entitled "¥e Are Hot Prepared for War," Vital Speeches,
VII (February 15, 1941), pp. 266-26?. .
144
Many America First Committee members favored a peace
negotiated either by President Roosevelt or the Pope.2®
Like the campaign for the referendum, the idea of a
negotiated peace could become a campaign for a pro
gram— a positive rather than a negative campaign.
But like the referendum, the campaign for a negoti
ated peace never materialized in the plans of Amer
ica First. Several isolationist speakers suggested
the possibility of a negotiated peace, but the Com
mittee never initiated the idea into a program. The
isolationists may have felt such a program would be
branded as "appeasement."29 For whatever reasons,
the negotiated peace was at best an abortive isola
tionist attempt.
America First claimed that "the people" were
'unwilling to underwrite a British victory, but were
duped or forced to do so by our g o v e r n m e n t . 30 This
^®See Rye. address, delivered over NBC, May 3,

1941, entitled "No Further Without WTar," America First
PHLS. See also.Chester Bowles to Stuart, April 25,
194-1. and W. R. Castle to Stuart, March 11, 1941, Amer
ica First PHLS.
2^There is some evidence in America First files

to indicate their fear of being branded "appeasers."
Their strategy was to argue for a strong.defense,
and claim that aid to Britain would weaken that de
fense. There was no concerted effort to push the
idea of a negotiated peace.
3^See Chapter VIII for a discussion of the iso

lationist view of "the people" and "the government."
145
claim appeared to ignore those polls showing in
creases in popular support for Lend-Lease or other
programs of British aid. Yet America First leaders
were well aware of the results of the polls on aid
ing Great Britain. 31
They responded to the problem of growing sup
port for British aid in at least two ways. First,
as we have seen in Chapter V, they ignored or dis
credited polls except those which indicated that 80^
of the people were against entering the war at that
time. Isolationists characteristically selected
only the public polls and their private polls which
supported their stand. Second, the most vehement
Anglophobes in isolationist ranks simply increased
their attack on Great Britain. J. A. Mayer, a chap
ter chairman, claimed that all history proved that
we must distrust every British action.-'2 The ini
tial American involvement in the Pacific made it dif
ficult for isolationists to trace our problem to
Great Britain; however, Senator lye argued that even
See Stuart to Brundage, September 24, 1940,

America First PHLS. Sarles quotes the Gallup Polls,
p. 142. .See also the Public Opinion Quarterly. V
(1941), p. 323.
•^J. A. Mayer to Stuart, December 20, 1941,

America First PHLS.
Pearl Harbor was part of British plans. Eye stated
that the Japanese attack on Pearl Barber was "just
what Britain had planned for us"; "Britain has been
getting this ready since 193S.!° " ! The British were
so cunning that our involvement was net planned for
Europe, where isolationists predicted cur involve
ment would begin, but in Asia. Given ohis distrust
of 3ritain, it is understandable that any action
leading to war simply demonstrated tc she isolation
ist mind the duplicity of the British government.
To the hard core isolationist there was nothing that
Britain would not do— or did not do— no spend the
last "drop of American blood."
That the isolationists opposed any American
guarantee of assistance to Britain seems clear. The
motivation for such action may not be as easy to un
cover. The isolationists feared a '''marriage" to
Great Britain. The very idea of "marriage"--a per
manent liaison— while natural between people was "un
natural" between governments, especially when one
government involved was that of the Ynited States.
First, the "marriage" of nations was "unna
tural" because while the courtship had been public,
■^Hye, Hew York Times, December S, 1941.
147
the "marriage" itself had "been secret. Isolationists
did not know what secret pledges Roosevelt made to
Churchill, but feared the worst. Isolationists did
not believe that Roosevelt, the courted, would be
able to withstand the "advances" of Churchill, the
"greatest master of words of our time."-5^ Britain
had already shown throughout the courtship her abil
ity to persuade. To isolationists, even the court
ship by Britain was suspect, for it had been con
ducted through propaganda. These British propagan
dists, although they represented a bankrupt govern
ment, were spending millions to lure us into the
war. Their product was nothing more than "that myr
iad of brilliant words and neat phrases."bn LaFol-
lette surveyed the British promises of the twentieth
century and concluded that not one promise could be
trusted. These promises were made in "desperation"

— r*
and were full of " m i s i n f o r m a t i o n . L i n d b e r g h
-^Philip LaFollette, radio address, delivered

over CBS, February 12, 1941, entitled "kith Lalice
Toward Rone," America First PHLS.

over CBS,•February 12, 1941, entitled "kith Zlalice
Toward. Hone," America First PHLS.
b°Lindbergh, address, delivered at America

First Rally, Hew York City, April 25, 1941, en
titled "He Cannot ¥in this War for England," vital
Speeches, VII (Hay 1, 1941), pp. 424-426, and Amer
ica First PHLS.
148
argued that Britain had broken even her most recent
vow. "One month we hear that England and France
will fight to the death against the gangster tac
tics of Germany. The next month, we hear that the
British navy has turned its guns on the French fleet."^7
The last vow had been broken; there was no guarantee
that the next vow would be kept.
Second, this "marriage" of nations was "unna
tural" because it was permanent. While marriage for
persons was naturally permanent, isolationists believed
that precisely the converse was true of nations; a per
manent alliance among nations was as "unnatural" as a
permanent bond between people was natural. The "mar
riage" of goods must be followed with a pledge of
blood. Isolationists quoted Churchill as saying he
saw no need for American troops in 1941 or 1942.-5®
Yet they believed that a commitment of aid would in
evitably bring about a commitment of troops— that the
"marriage vow" would be binding "until death." Such
^^Lindbergh, address, delivered at America

First Rally, Few York City, April 23, 1941, en
titled "We Cannot Win this War for England," Vital
Speeches. -VII (May 1, 1941), pp. 424-426, and Amer
ica First PHLS.
38See‘Burke's discussion of the rhetoric of

courtship, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of
Motives, pp. 732-736, 745-747, 754“ 791-792.
149
an alliance seen from the isolationist point of view
would necessitate a commitment of blood; which, while
natural in marriage, became "unnatural” in the merger
of nations. This alliance among nations was a "per
manent vow" and in this senise "unnatural."
Third, the marriage was "unnatural" because
the courted would have to deliver the "worldly goods"
without guarantee of reciprocation. The return of
goods under Lend-Lease, as Senator Taft once remark
ed, would be about as useful as returning used chew
ing gum. Since "Lend and Lease" provided but one
sided participation, the fact that we "lent" and
Britain "received" made the phrase a "deceptive slo
gan" to Lindbergh, "a disgrace to the name, of demo
cracy. "39 The strategy of establishing divisiveness
between the courtier and the courted aimed at an
alienation of the courtier. Attacking the one-sided
marriage as "unnatural" was a method of demonstrating
that such a union was, in Burkeian terms, "a politi
cal perversion."
Fourth, and perhaps most important, the "mar
riage" wad "unnatural" because marriage required
-^LfLncLkergh, address, written for America First

Rally, Boston, December 12, 1941, but not delivered,
America First PHLS.
150
commitment. The nature of our society, isolationists
argued, demanded that we refrain from entangling and
permanent alliances. By removing itself from the en
tanglements of Europe, America had "cleansed" itself.
Hence America’s destiny was unique. This "marriage"
would be the union of incompatibles: it would deny
the independence of our destiny. Further, the union
would not only be wTith one nation, however imperial
istic: it would join a set of alliances which history
had proved corrupt. The nature of "democracy" when
combined with "empire" would inevitably destroy
"democracy." This isolationist fear of "marriage,"
as we have seen in Chapter III, was not without
irony, for America First thought that when our strong
system of government was linked to Europe it would
be destroyed by Europe. Our strength lay in the
purity of our motives, but our purity was corrupt
ible.^0 America could maintain its innocence only by
refraining from involvement. To unite— to make a com
mitment— would end "innocence"; it would mark the end
of the "virgin democratic land."^1 The purity, the
^ °S e e C h a p te r I I I f o r a d i s c u s s io n o f th e p u r i t y
o f A m e ric a n m o tiv e s and th e A m e ric a n d e s t i n y .
^ The phrase was taken from Henry Hash Smith.

See S m ith , V i r g i n Land (Hew Y o r k : V i n t a g e Books,
1 9 5 0 ) , e s p e c i a l l y Book I I I , "The G arden o f t h e
W o r l d , " pp. 1 5 8 - 2 9 1 .
151
innocence, the virginity all .would, be ended by union.
The "marriage," then, was "unnatural" because one
partner must refrain from marriage; America was
not, as A1 Capp once said of L'il Abner, "the mar-
ryin' kind."
>
CHAPTER VIII
THE WAR PARTY AIvD THE WAR LORD
Por the isolationists, Great Britain repre
sented "empire" while America represented "democra
cy." America First speakers claimed to be in sym
pathy with the British people, though not with
their government. Yet successive polls of the Amer
ican people indicated growing support for a program
of aid to Great Britain. Isolationists sought to
separate "our people" from "our government" much as
they had done with Britain. They could then claim
the support of "the people" who, they argued, were
being deceived by their government. The task of
suggesting an alienation between the Administration
and the people was a strenuous one: yet only by this
strategy could America First explain its failures.
With the enactment of bills America First opposed,
the isolationists would claim that the people were
deceived and their access to pertinent information
controlled. Although a number of speakers for Amer
ica First were Democrats, none was a supporter of
Roosevelt’s foreign policy and few supported his
152
153
domestic program.^
- Further, there was a redivision of the Ameri
can party system into a "War Party" and an "American
Party," and although all Democrats were not in the
"War Party" and all Republicans were not in the
"American Party," isolationists were in agreement
that Roosevelt led the "War Party." Philip LaFol-
lette made the initial distinction:
It is no longer a question of the Republican

Party and the Democratic Party. Today the
alignment is between the War Party and the
American Party. The War Party maintains that
American freedom is to be won or lost on the
battlefields of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The American Party maintains that the future
welfare and happiness of our people will not
be determined by the defeat or victory of
any nation anywhere on earth, but by what
we— we in America--do to protect and extend
freedom and security of our people here.2
The "War P a r t y " became a r a t h e r common p h ra s e i n
late 1941 isolationist rhetoric. George Aiken came
1
Democratic Senators who spoke for America
First included Bennett C. Clark, Missouri; D. Worth
Clark, Idaho; Edwin C. Johnson, Colorado; Pat Kc-
Carran,.Nevada; Robert R. Reynolds, Worth Carolina;
David I. Walsh, Massachusetts; and Burton K. Wheeler,
Montana. Wheeler had been an active supporter of
Roosevelt until 1937.. While there was some support
for his domestic policies, none was a strong support
er of the1President.
^Philip LaFollette, address, delivered at the

Neutrality Conference of America First Chapter Chair
men and Delegates, Washington, November 1, 1941,
America First Papers, Hoover Library, Stanford.
1 54
as c lo s e as any A m e ric a F i r s t speaker to id e n t if y in g
its members.
A "far P a r t y was fo rm e d i n A m e ric a ; a War P a r t y

t h a t works upon t h e p e o p le ; a War P a r t y t h a t
has i t s members i n C o n g re s s , a group w h ic h
w h i l e a d v o c a t i n g peace i n l i p s e r v i c e a ls o
a d v o c a te s and v o t e s f o r e v e r y s te p w h ic h le a d s
to w a r . I n t h i s War P a r t y we f i n d th o s e r e p
r e s e n t a t i v e s o f i n t e r n a t i o n a l money l e n d e r s . . .
i n an a l l o u t e f f o r t t o f o r c e A m e ric a i n t o a
w a r w h ic h th e y t h i n k w i l l p r e s e r v e t h e i r i n v e s t
ments i n f o r e i g n c o u n t r i e s . ^
The " b a r P a r t y " c o n s is te d o f th o s e Congressmen who
v o t e d f o r m easures opposed by A m e ric a F i r s t , sup
p o r t e d by money l e n d e r s who were " i n t e r n a t i o n a l "
r a t h e r th a n " n a t i o n a l " ; whose in v e s t m e n t s were " f o r
e ig n " r a t h e r t h a n " A m e ric a n " ; whose m o t i v a t i o n was
p e r s o n a l g re e d r a t h e r t h a n p u b l i c s e rv ic e . Even
G e n e r a l hood began u s i n g th e p h ra s e i n an a t t a c k on
L en d -L ease. "The b a r P a r t y can h a r d l y a s k th e peo
p le o f A m e ric a t o t a k e up arms b e h in d th e Red F la g
of S t a l i n . T h e "b ar P a rty " s u p p o rte d L e n d -L e a s e ;
th e " A m e ric a n P a r t y " d id n o t .
The "War P a r t y " was by i t s v e r y name un -A m er
ic a n , and opposed, so th e i s o l a t i o n i s t s a rg u e d , to
-'George A ik e n , a d d r e s s , d e l i v e r e d i n Johnson,
V e rm o n t, November 1 2 , 19 4 1 , e n t i t l e d "O ur P la c e i n
th e W o rld T o d a y ," A m e ric a F i r s t PELS..
^New Y o rk C i t y C h a p te r p a m p h le t, "Wake Up
A m e r i c a , " q u o t i n g Wood, n . d . , A m e ric a F i r s t PELS.
155
the values of the "American Party." Philip LaPollette
stated these values somewhat abstractly:
Today the alignment is between the War Party

and the American Party. We are headed for the
194-2 elections. We have only two planks in
our platform: The Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution. Our motto: I am an
American.5
What LaPollette .was doing in effect was deny
ing to the "War Party" the "essence" of "Americanism."
The juxtaposition of the "American Party" and the
"War Party" suggested that the platform of the "Amer
ican Party" was in opposition to that of the "War
Party." Since the "American Party" planks consisted
of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitu
tion, these planks were unavailable to the "War Party."
Hence the "essence" of the "War Party," denied the
basis of American government, must be "foreign." Not
only was the "War Party" "foreign," but it was never
considered more than a powerful minority. With the
aid of a private poll, Hamilton Pish argued that
the "War Party" represented no more than ten percent
of the American people.^
^Phi-lip LaPollette, address, delivered at the

Neutrality Conference of America Pirst Chapter Chair
men and Delegates, Washington, November 1, 1941, Amer
ica Pirst PHLS.
^Hamilton Pish, radio address, delivered over

the NBC Blue Network, June 30, 1941, entitled "Nation
al Unity," America Pirst PHLS.
156
Although the "War Party" represented no more
than a small minority, it had gained control. Its
power, in Fish's mind, derived from the "virtual
conspiracy" it had formed through "hypocrisy" and
through the "sheer weight of hysterical propaganda."7
America First speakers stated that through the con
trol of propaganda, the minority "War Party" had
created a virtual dictatorship— its form obviously
un-American:
A brazen minority of the people— a handful—

from ten to 24 percent— want to defy the Con
stitution, to defy Congress, to defy the peo
ple and plunge us into the war. In Russia
they have the dictatorship of the proletari
at. In Germany they have the dictatorship
of the Nazi Party. Are we, in America, to
have the dictatorship of the minority— and
a minority leagued with, working with and
inspired by a collection of foreign groups
who want America to entangle herself in the
quarrels which they have been carrying on
in Europe for hundreds of years
The issue of dictatorship became most promi
nent during the debate over Lend-Lease. As we have
seen in Chapter V, America First attempted the strat
egy of reducing all issues to that of war or peace.
^Hamilton Fish, radio address, delivered over

al Unity," America First PHLS.
Q
John T. Flynn, radio address, delivered over
CBS, July 8 , 1941, America First PHLS.
157
The referendum was an abortive attempt to enact this
strategy,'but it did not occur until after the pas
sage of the Lend-Lease Bill. When the debate over
Lend-Lease arose, America Pirst faced the decision
as to the strength and nature of its campaign of op
position. America Pirst decided to make this its
"all-or-nothing” campaign, despite the caution of
General Wood, who stated, "I do not think it worth
while to fight the Lend-Lease Bill as such. What we
can do is to advocate an amendment providing that
none of the money will be used for supplies to Rus
sia. "9 Nevertheless, isolationists chose to stake
their future on the defeat of Lend-Lease.
The technique isolationists began in the cam
paign against Lend-Lease was a forerunner of the
strategy behind the referendum; that is, to defeat
the bill by labelling it with those names America
Pirst felt would alienate the bill from "the people."
Since "the people" wanted both peace and freedom,
they would obviously oppose any bill leading to war
and dictatorship. America Pirst argued basically
that the bill was a "War Bill" which would bring
about a complete dictatorship in this country. Gen
eral Hugh Johnson summarized the isolationist stand.
9wood to Stuart, October 6 , 1941, America

Pirst PHLS.
158
"Pass that bill in its present form and with other
powers already granted you have not only war but war
dictatorship and you can say a long farewell to both
your free economy and your free government. Pas
sage of the bill, Johnson believed, would give F.D.R.
"a greater independent power than was ever enjoyed
by any war lord, anywhere, anytime."^ As an initial
attack on the bill (HR 1776), the Committee requested
all local chapters deluge their Congressmen with tele
grams. They requested that the telegrams take the
following forms, accenting their two-pronged attack
on the bill:
1. I am unalterably, uncompromisingly opposed

to the Barkley-McCormick Bill.
2. Preserve democracy. Reject the dictatorship

bill. Ho compromise .
3. Prove statesmanship by voting against dicta

torship. Don't compromise.
4. To remain my representative you must uncom

promisingly vote against the Barkley-McCor
mick Bill.
5. Democracy must not be compromised. Kill the

dictatorship bill or come home.
^ G e n e r a l Hugh Johnson, radio address, delivered

over the Colonial Network, February 6 , 1941, America
First PHLS.
^ G e n e r a l Hugh Johnson, radio address, delivered

over the Colonial Network, February 6 , 1941, America
First PHLS.
159
6 . Kill House Bill 1776. Don't compromise.

Ho dictatorship.
7. Reject the dictatorship hill. Tolerate no
amendment or compromise.
8 . Keep out of Europe's Wars. I insist the
Barkley-McCormick Bill he defeated. Wo
compromise.
9. Vote against dictatorship. Refuse compro

mise.
10. I don't want to go to war. Kill the dic

tatorship hill. No compromise, / i t a l i c s
added/.i2
The "sin" of the President and the "War Party"
was not only that they advocated war;

the sin is that their only answer to the men
ace of Hitlerism in Europe is step hy step to
create Hitlerism in the United States. Every
step taken in the past two years has heen put
over on us by the same fraudulent methods
practiced by European dictators.13
The methods of gaining support were fraudulent; they
were borrowed from a foreign ideology which was by
definition "un-American." What were some of these

"fraudulent methods" to which the isolationists
pointed?
19
Speaker's Bureau form telegrams sent to all
chapters against HR 1776, n. d., America Pirst PHLS.
^Philip LaPollette, address, delivered at

the Neutrality Conference of America Pirst Chapter
Chairmen and Delegates, Washington, November 1,
160
The first method was the use of deceitful prop
aganda and emotionalism. Pish cautioned that no
American "should underestimate the power and influ
ence of President Roosevelt and his skill in the use
of mass propaganda, emotionalism, and war hysteria."1^
Lindbergh believed Roosevelt to be "glib, hypocritical,
and deceitful."'* ^ Philip LaPollette chastised the
President's use of "cunning" and "deceitful phrases";
one such deceitful phrase to Lindbergh was "Lend and
Lease"— a slogan "used to deceive the American people,"
a "disgrace to the names of democracy and freedom."*^
Thus a fraudulent method was the use of language to
deceive, the creation of propaganda which bore no re
lation to "truth."
A second "fraudulent method" was the use of "mar
tial music, fine language and large appropriations,"
14
Pish, radio address, delivered over CBS, March 2,
1941, entitled "Americanism vs. Internationalism," Amer
ica Pirst PHLS.
^ R o g e r Butterfield, "Lindbergh," Life. XI

(August 11, 1941), p. 70.
*^Philip LaPollette, address, delivered at the

Neutrality Conference of America Pirst Chapter Chairmen
and Delegates, Washington, November 1, 1941, America
Pirst PHLS.
^Lindbergh, address, written for America Pirst

Rally, Boston, December 12, 194-1, but never delivered,
America Pirst PHLS.
161
1fi
to move us into the war. These "large appropria
tions," supposedly earmarked for American defense,
were actually a "guise" to prepare us for a foreign
war.^9 Lindbergh compared Roosevelt to a "quack"
doctor who was actually poisoning his patient. "In
side of these sweetened promises of peace lay the
deadly pills of war and . . . we have been swallow
ing them one after another for many months."2®
Isolationists sought consubstantiality with
"the people." Throughout its history the America
Pirst Committee had difficulty locating the group
with which it sought to identify. The Committee
could claim to represent "the people," as they were
reflected in the polls, only as long as the polls
indicated support for the isolationist position.
When "the people" as reflected in the polls began to
support measures opposed by America Pirst, isolationists
^Hutchins, quoted in New York City Chapter

Pamphlet, "Wake Up America," n. d., America Pirst
PHLS.
^Lindbergh, address, delivered at America

Pirst Rally, Des Moines, Iowa, September 11, 1941,
entitled "Who Are the War Agitators?" America Pirst
PHLS.

Pirst Rally, Cleveland, August 9, 1941, entitled
"Government by Representation or Subterfuge,"
America Pirst PHLS.
162
attempted to create strategic divisiveness between
"the people" and their government. Insofar as they
could demonstrate the alienation of "the people"
from "the government," they could then claim the
existence of a government conspiracy to deceive "the
people." The establishment of this alienation was
the maôr rhetorical concern of the Committee’s last
six months.
The rhetorical device by which they sought to
estrange "the government" was the association of
foreign ideologies with tactics of Administration
leaders. If they could prove that our leaders were
controlled by, were in collusion with, or were ideo
logically "in tune" with foreign governments, they
could suggest that these leaders no longer represent
ed "the people." In short, they were 110 longer "Amer
ican." The very act of naming was an act of divisive
ness. Roosevelt and his cabinet were part of the "War
Party" rather than the "American Party," which rep
resented the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution; therefore Roosevelt must represent
something else. Roosevelt, to isolationists, was
more interested in "power" than in "freedom." "Pow
er and more power for a power-mad Administration is
the watchword of the day. Behind a false cloak of
163
Patriotism, they clip the wings of the American Eagle

21
to feather their own nests."
The very symbol of America was being destroyed.
Yet its destruction was being concealed; it was part
of the grand deception. The "false cloak of patriot
ism" suggested a rather common rhetorical device:
the apparent patriot had no correlate with the "real
American.”22 Lindbergh presented the image of Roose
velt as a crooked card player: "I think we need a
’New Deal,’ but we need one that holds its cards
above the table."2^ Later he substituted the "masque"
for the "false cloak." "It is time to strip the
masque from the leadership we have been following."2^
The "masque" could be that of a quack doctor, or a
"witch doctor," for Lindbergh argued that we have
pi
41 Robert P. Jones, radio address, delivered
over CBS, August 29, 1941, entitled "Should the U. S.
Give Lend-Lease Aid to Russia," America First PHLS.
22
The "real" American was one who supported
the "American Party" rather than the "War Party."
As Castle wrote in a letter to Wood, "It does not
bother me if a man is a pacifist but it bothers
me if he is not a real American." Letter Castle
to Wood, n. d., America Pirst PHLS.
^Lindbergh, address, written for America

Pirst Rally, Boston, December 12, 1941, but never
• delivered, America Pirst PHLS.
oh.
^Lindbergh, address, written for America
delivered, America Pirst PHLS.
164
been forced to swallow the "deadly pills of war."2^
The purpose of the masque was to hide the
dictatorship which was being developed by the Admin
istration. And "dictatorship” was the antithesis of
"democracy." What America Pirst had done in effect
was to set up a constellation of terms— usually op
posites— by which they hoped to gain alienation for
those they opposed. "American Party" represented
the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution,
majority rule, "openness," "freedom," and "peace."
The cluster of terms surrounding the "War Party," in
contrast, represented minority rule by deceit, con
spiracy, dictatorship, and war. All products of the
"War Party" must properly be labelled "War Bills" or
"Dictatorship Bills."2^ The fact that they were
passed was even stronger proof of the conspiracy.

Pirst Rally, Cleveland, August 9, 1941, entitled
"Government by Representation or Subterfuge,"
America Pirst PHLS.
2^See Porm telegrams sent to all chapters by

the Speaker’s Bureau, n. d., America Pirst PHLS,
General Hugh Johnson, radio address, delivered over
the Colonial Network, February 6 , 1941, America
First PHLS, and Philip LaPollette, address, delivered
at the Neutrality Conference of America Pirst Chapter
Chairmen and Delegates, Washington, November 1, 1941,
America Pirst PHLS, and see also House Hearings on
HR 1776 (77 Congress, 1 Session, Washington, 1941),
PP. 350-358.
165
Pish argued that the arms embargo could never have
been effected without the "strong-arm methods"--of
Roosevelt.27 These "strong-arm methods" were used
to gain absolute control over "the people." Where
strong-arm methods could not be used effectively,
they were replaced by subterfuge. "The record of
the Roosevelt Administration has been a record of
subterfuge masquerading as a crusade for freedom."28
By this masquerade, the very meaning of demo
cracy and freedom was being perverted.
I believe in freedom and I believe in demo

cracy, but I do not believe in the form of
freedom and democracy toward which our Pres
ident is leading us today. I say that dem
ocracy is gone from a nation when its people
are no longer informed of the fundamental
policies and intentions of its government.
I say that the word freedom is a travesty
among- men who have been forced into war by
a President they elected because he prom
ised peace, /italics Lindbergh's/\ 29
The isolationists, however, were not content to argue
the evils of the formation of dictatorship; their
■ 27 Pish, radio address, delivered over CBS,

March 2 194-1, entitled "Americanism vs. Interna-
tionalism," America Pirst PHLS.
2 ft
Lindbergh, address, written for America
Pirst Rally, Boston, December 12, 194-1, but never
29
Lindbergh, address, written for America
166
strategy was to label the dictatorship "foreign,"
and its agents products of foreign ideologies. Re
ferring to a bill that isolationists believed had
been "sneaked through," Stuart commented, "That
the Administration attempted to do this tends to sub-
-- stantiate Truman Smith's parallel between the Nazi
ascendance to power in Germany and the ascendancy
of our Administration fascists in Washington."^
Flynn juxtaposed the "Russian dictatorship of the
proletariat and the dictatorship of the Nazi Party"
with the American dictatorship of the minority— "in
league with and inspired by foreign groups.
Rye compared the blitzkrieg techniques of the
Nazis to the Administration. "Read the speeches of
the President's spokesmen as the blitzkrieg contin
ues. . . . Watch the blitzkrieg teams of Wickard,
Wallace, and Knox; Ickes and Hull; Bullitt, Jones
and McMet; Donovan, Winchell, and Thompson."32 Re
ferring to one member of the "blitzkrieg team,"
^ S t u a r t to Wood, November 19, 1941, America

First PHLS.
31
Flynn, radio address, delivered over CBS,
July 7, 1941, America First PHLS.
3 % y e , radio address, delivered over NBC,

May 3, 1941, entitled "No Further Without War,"
America First PHLS.
167
Hamilton Pish asked whether "Pield Marshall Harry
Hopkins and a few war-making members of the Cabinet"
should decide the issue of peace or w a r . 33
Pish, however, not only attributed Nazi tactics
to the Administration but Communist tactics as well.
Referring to the reversal of alliances brought about
by the German invasion of Russia, he commented, "Dic
tator Joseph Stalin has played a dirty trick on Com
rades Stimson, Knox, Wickard, and I c k e s . " 3 ^
To isolationists Roosevelt’s "henchmen" were
influenced by Nazi or Communist doctrines. America
Pirst speakers were careful not to label Roosevelt
directly a Communist, Nazi or Fascist, but in the
debate over Lend-Lease they labelled him "dictator
ial," and therefore, "un-American." For Pish,
Roosevelt was the "Pied Piper of Pennsylvania Ave
nue" leading the "youth to war."35 t0 others, he
was a crooked card player, a quack doctor, or "the
33pish, address, delivered at America Pirst

Constitution Day Rally, St. Louis, September 17,
-z.h
-^Fish, radio address, delivered over the NBC
Blue Netwdrk, June 30, 1941, entitled "National Unity,"
America Pirst PHLS.
35pish, address, delivered before American Forum

of the Air, March 30, 1941, entitled "We Should Not
Convoy Materials to Europe," Vital Speeches, VII
(April 15, 1941), pp. 414-415.
chief war lord" of the "War Party." Leadership in
the "War Party" was never denied Roosevelt by his
opponents. In a standard appeal for funds, America
First speakers commented, "And who can doubt if you
fail to do this now /support America First generous-
iz7 you will sacrifice the youth of your country on
the altar of our political war lords.
Roosevelt was then demanding the "sacrifice"
of lives. Implicit in this demand for sacrifice is
a perversion of values; altars were no longer sacred
blit secular; no longer American but foreign. The
juxtaposition of Christian "sacrifice" with politi
cal "sacrifice" suggested a dictatorship so strong
that the altars of worship had been replaced. The
cluster of terms isolationists chose to surround
‘Roosevelt usually involved his leadership; that is,
America First recognized his position, and clustered
terms to suggest "leader but not true American lead
er." Roosevelt was the "chief war lord"; in a sense,
one who makes war as part of a cult in which he has
assumed total power. Whether isolationists called
him "war lord" or "high priest," they sought to es
tablish Roosevelt as perverting democratic values,
*3 6
Mimeographed Plug for Funds at Rallies sent
by Speaker's Bureau, n. d., America First PHLS.
169
an action which was both "unnatural" and "un-Ameri
can." The formation of the "War Party" to replace
traditional values was both "unnatural" and "un-
American"; it had become a cult, complete with high
priest, witch doctor, destruction of the American
eagle, new altars demanding sacrifice, and a war
lord. This "War Lord" led the "War Party" cult by
deceit, strong-arm methods, martial music, fine phrases
and propaganda. If the image of the "War Lord" could
be sustained, America First might alienate "the peo
ple" from "the government," which would enable isola
tionists to gain consubstantiality with "the people."
The effort failed. It failed partly because
it was overdone, inconsistent, and never sustained.
It failed partly because it claimed that "the people"
'and the Congress were against the program of the "War
Lord" while, in fact, Congress had enacted a program
supported by the polls. For example, America First
often cited the Gallup Poll to argue that Americans
did not want to enter the war. Yet in answer to the
question, "Do you think President Roosevelt has gone
too far in his policies of helping Britain or not
■far enough," on May 23, 194-1, 79$ said Roosevelt had
gone "about right or not far e n o u g h . O n June 14,
•^Gallup Polls quoted by Sarles, p. 503.
170
194-1, the figure remained the same, hut dipped
slightly on July 19, 194-1, to 77$ support. ^ Thus
the isolationists had difficulty gaining identifica
tion with groups supporting the "War Lord."
Second, the isolationists had attacked Congress.
Wheeler compared Congress to "Hitler's Reichstag and
the parliamentary bodies of Stalin and Mussolini. "39
Lindbergh concurred that "they have been treating
our Congress more and more as the German Reichstag
has been treated under the Nazi Regime. "4-0 The "War
Party," to isolationists, was a small minority de
signed "to defy the Constitution, to defy Congress,
to defy the people."^1 But America First had diffi
culty establishing the claim when this "minority"
in Congress voted for— and sustained— Lend-Lease.
’The charge that the President had defied the Cong
ress was not easy to sustain with Congressional ap-_
proval for Administration programs. Similarly, the
3®Gallup Polls quoted by Sarles, p. 503.
39"wheeler is Heckled in Los Angeles," Hew

York Times. October 1, 1941.
4o
Lindbergh, address, delivered at America
- First Rally, Fort Wayne, Indiana, October 3, 1941,
entitled "A Heritage at Stake," America First PHLS.
^ F l y n n , radio address, delivered over CBS,

July 7, 1941, America First PHLS.
171
isolationist argument that "the people" had been de
fied necessitated -ignoring all the polls showing
strong support for Roosevelt and his programs.
Third, the isolationists were not always con
sistent with regard to condemning Presidential powers.
They claimed that he had gained powers so far reach
ing that freedom of speech and criticism were denied.
Lindbergh feared that his October 3 Port Wayne speech
would be his last. "How much longer free speech will
be possible in the United States, I do not know.
Yet Pish at the same time wanted P.D.R. to use these
powers so that "all un-American groups should be
seized and deported if possible, and that their se
ditious propaganda and activities should cease.
Pish also wanted freedom controlled in the Presi-
'dent's Cabinet: "Of course the President should al
so muzzle the fire-eaters in his own Cabinet, who
would destroy America by bringing bankruptcy, poverty,
chaos, and revolution here through involvement in
42
Lindbergh, address, delivered at America
Pirst Rally, Port Wayne, Indiana, October 3, 1941,
entitled "A Heritage at Stake," America Pirst PHLS.
^ P i s h , radio address, delivered over the NBC

Blue Network, June 30, 19^1» entitled "National
Unity," America Pirst PHLS.
172
European and Asiatic w a r s . "44 Thus the isolationists
opposed Roosevelt's power and feared his control
while, at the same time, some wanted him to use
those powers and exercise those controls.
Fourth, the isolationist attack suffered from
the lack of a positive program to deal with so large
a problem. Roosevelt had created a dictatorial War
Party and had made himself its high priest. How
such a dictatorship was to be combatted was never de
tailed. There was no suggestion that revolution was
in order, for it was not in keeping with the Con
stitution— which was one-half of the platform of the
"American Party." Perhaps one answer lay in using
present Constitutional mechanisms to remove the Pres
ident. In Philadelphia, Lindbergh suggested we need
ed a "change of leadership" although Roosevelt had
been recently re-elected. ^ By some members of
America Pirst, this was interpreted to indicate the
possibility of impeachment. Karl Mundt cautioned in
a letter to Stuart:
It would be helpful if another nationwide broad

cast could be arranged for Lindbergh so he could
^ H a m i l t o n Pish, radio address, delivered over

al Unity," America Pirst PHLS.
^Lindbergh, address, delivered at America Pirst

Rally, Philadelphia, May 30, 1941, America Pirst PHLS.
173
emphasize what he really meant by his 'change

of leadership' statements in Philadelphia.
They are beginning to undermine him here by
twisting the meaning of that phrase so per
s istently.^
The closest America First speakers came to impeach
ment was the direct suggestion that certain Cabinet
members, especially Secretary Knox, be impeached.^7
Naming, Burke suggests, is a strategy which not
only sizes up situations, but which conveys an atti
tude toward them. We tend to name "'strategically'
or 'stylistically,' in modes that embody attitudes of
resignation, solace, vengeance, expectancy, e t c . " ^
Similarly, naming may imply a course of action as
well as an attitude toward a particular concept.
Using a term which suggests values opposed to the
values of a society in which the term is used may
become a method of suggesting action toward that con
cept; in other words, naming may be incipient action.
Naming a man "dictator" in America suggested a course
of action: end that dictatorship. For the claim of
dictatorship, however, no remedial action was ever
detailed. Part of the failure to successfully estab
lish the names America First chose to label their
^ M u n d t to Stuart, June 10, 1941, America

First PHLS.
^ F i s h , for example, called for Knox's im

peachment. See Sarles, p. 6 14.
^ B u r k e , The Philosophy, pp. 3-4.
174 -
opponents occurred because the names were so strong
that they suggested courses of action which America
/ Pirst never developed.
It was inevitable that America Pirst find an
explanation for its consistently unsuccessful courses
of action. The Jew as scapegoat had failed; scape
goating of Jews had been preempted by a foreign ideo
logy and was inappropriate to the audience with
which America Pirst sought to identify. Isolation
ists were unsuccessful in gaining support for their
claim of a conspiratorial "British Invasion of Amer
ica." Americans identified strongly with British
war successes; they supported programs of aid to
Britain while desiring to stay out of war. America
First failed to sustain its charge that aid to Brit
ain would inevitably commit us to war. The most
common attack on the "conspiracy" attempted to create
alienation between "the people" and "the War Party
and the War Lord." They chose the tactic of "naming"
as a method of achieving identification with "the
people." Yet this tactic of re-dividing the politi-
— -cal parties to estrange the "War Party" as "foreign"
never succeeded in sustaining the isolationist claim
or of gaining the identification America First sought.
Isolationist speakers were never in full agreement
175
on the method of attacking the Administration; hence
their attack was unbalanced and at times contradic
tory. Ho course of action was ever proposed to deal
with that dictatorship "so un-American." Ho matter
how severe the attacks on Roosevelt became, they
never appear to have lessened his popularity. It
was Lindbergh's hope that "public opinion will bring
the charges" against Roosevelt.^9 Those charges
were never brought. America Pirst had chosen "con
spiracy" as the strategic answer to its failures;
yet each "conspirator" had assets which more than
balanced the isolationist attack for the audience
with which America Pirst chose to identify. America
Pirst could not sustain its program of opposition nor
could it sustain its claim that its failure was the
product of a "conspiracy." The Committee folded the
day following the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the
failure of the rhetoric of the America Pirst Com
mittee began long before those bombs extinguished
its activities.

Pirst Rally, Los Angeles, June 20, 1941, America
Pirst PHLS.
CHAPTER IX
RHETORICAL FAILURE IN RETROSPECT
On December 11, 194-1, when the America First
Committee voted to disband its activities, it is
sued a statement which read in part, "Our princi
ples were right. Had they been followed, war could
have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served
by considering what might have been."1 Nevertheless,
Cole speculates that had America First become an
active "keep-out-of-war” political party, it probab
ly would have amassed the largest third party vote
since 1924.^ The conclusion commonly drawn is that
Pearl Harbor in effect prevented the success of the
Committee, that its failure was a product of forces
beyond its control rather than a product of isola
tionist strategies and their implementation. With
that conclusion this study has taken issue. Cole
takes his cue from diplomatic historian Thomas A.
Bailey who wrote, "The torpedoes that sank the
^"Statement of the National Committee of Amer

ica First," December 11, 1941. America First Papers,
Hoover Library, Stanford. The statement was printed
in the Chicago Tribune. December 12, 1941.
2Cole, America First, p. 187.
176
177
.American battleships in Pearl Harbor also sank 'Amer
ica Firstism.' Oole concurs, "The America Pirst
Committee as an organization was prevented by the
attack on Pearl Harbor from ever testing its strength

4
at the polls."
Even if one were to agree that the statements
of Bailey and Cole are technically correct, they are
misleading when they suggest that the Japanese ended
the isolationist chances of success. While the Japa
nese attack was the immediate cause of dissolution,
failure was not a matter of coincidence over which
the America Pirst Committee had no control. Failure
was the product of the isolationist strategies and
the way they were executed. The Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor appears to have surprised .America Pirst
as much as it did the American people. The rhetoric
of isolation centered on our non-involvement in Eur
ope; one has to search carefully through isolation
ist discourse to find any mention made of the Par
East. Foreign wiles were European, not Asiatic.
There is no evidence to suggest that Lindbergh
■^Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the

American People (4th ed., Hew York:- 'Anpleton-Century-
Crofts, 1950), p. 798.
^Cole, America Pirst, p. 188.
178
considered the possibility of a Japanese attack when
he said that should the "white race" he threatened,
Americans should fight side by side with the "Eng
lish, French, and Germans."^ Lindbergh saw a racial
tie with the- European, as opposed to the "Asiatic

(<
intruder," but he cited as examples of those "in
truders" the "Mongol and Persian and Moor."^ There
was, in short, little isolationist attention direct
ed toward the Par East. Thus the isolationists had
difficulty explaining the attack on Pearl Harbor in
terms of their lines of argument. The "conspirators"
America Pirst had chosen were the Jews, the British,
and the Roosevelt Administration. It was, perhaps,
inevitable that Pearl Harbor would be linked some
how to these "conspirators." Nye believed that Brit
ain had been planning the Japanese attack on America
since 1938.®
That isolationists could explain Pearl Harbor
as the result of British planning suggests the
commitment they had made to viewing any action they
^Lindbergh, radio address, delivered from Wash

ington, October 13, 1941, entitled "What our Decision
Should Be," Vital Speeches. VI (November 1, 1939). p p .
57-59.
/r
°Lindbergh, quoted by Davis, pp. 389-390.
^Lindbergh, "Aviation, Geography, and Race,"

Reader's Digest. XXXV (November, 1939), pp. 64-67.
®Nye, New York Times. December 8 , 1941.
179
opposed as the product of "conspiracy." The in
creasingly numerous defeats America First suffered
called for an explanation; it was, perhaps, inev
itable that America First would argue its efforts
were being thwarted by a "conspiracy." Conspiracy
as an explanation may be symptomatic of failure;
one can see in America First an increase in the
attacks on the "conspirators" as the isolationists
lost ground. And, conversely, one can argue that
when the isolationists began emphasizing the con
spiracy— their support from the people lessened.
The isolationist selection of three "conspirators"
gave them a broader target to attack, yet this selec
tion might alienate more of "the people" than would
the choice of a single "conspirator." However, for
isolationists, the "conspirators" represented a con
stellation of terms which were linked together. In-
fact, Lindbergh argued that all three terms were
needed in the constellation:
If any one of these groups— the British, the

Jewish, or the Administration— stops agita
ting for war, I believe there will be little
danger of our involvement. I do not believe
that any two of them are powerful enough to
carry this country to war without the support
of the third.9
^Lindbergh,'address, delivered at America First

Rally, Des Moines, Iowa, September 11, 194-1, entitled
"Who Are the War Agitators?" America First PHLS.
180
In other words, the isolationists tended to view the
"conspirators" as a triumvirate (the three-in-one)
and to attack the constellation or some linking of
its parts. Thorkelson joined two "conspirators,"
the Jews and the B r i t i s h . S o m e chapter leaders
argued that the President was permitting nine mil-

1 1
lion Jews to run the country because "Roosevelt
and his wife are Jewish and this goes for 90% of
1P
his Administration." Roosevelt had "married"
(unnaturally, as we have seen in Chapter VII) Brit
ish policy, thus joining two conspirators. The
strongest combination possible might have been to
suggest Roosevelt as a British Jew, but this, per
haps, seems incredible. As a matter of fact, the
attempt to combine "conspirators" suffered for that
very reason: it failed most tests of credulity.
Further, it limited the audience with which isola
tionists could identify. The selection and combina
tion of "conspirators" increased the possibility of
alienating America First from parts of its audience.
^ L e t t e r Thorkelson to Wood, June 18, 1941,

America :FIrst PHLS.
^ L e t t e r Mrs. Zella Bossen-Honska to Mrs.

L. R. Miller, November 11, 1941, America First PHLS.
^ L e t t e r Russell Thompson to Page Hufty,

August 2, 1941, America First PHLS.
181
Hot only did the argument from "conspiracy” reduce
its audience, but it attracted to America Pirst
those who were even more extreme in their views
and who needed a platform to vent those views.
Lindbergh, for example, was strongly supported by
Father Coughlin's Social Justice. ^ His speech
in Des Moines was interpreted as an open invitation
for anti-Semites "to use the Committee as a vehicle
for spreading their anti-Semitic views. Simi
larly, the Committee attracted ardent Anglophobes
and Roosevelt-haters. Since the Committee could not
control the statements of its speakers, attacks 011
the "conspirators" became more extreme, and the
more extreme these attacks became, the more they at
tracted elements 011 the "lunatic fringe" to America
First and divided its already heterogeneous member
ship. In other words, both the selection of "con
spirators" and the acquisition of new supporters
limited the isolationist audience. America First
decreased rather than increased the audience with
which it could identify- as a result of this strategy.
The failure America First experienced was not the
1^See Social Justice. July 7, 1941 and July

21, 1941.
14
^Cole, America First, p. 150.
182
result of Pearl Harbor, but of its inability to
select strategies by which it could gain an audience
large enough to effect its program successfully. It
is erroneous to believe that Pearl Harbor was the
failure the Committee experienced.
Conspiracy, then, was a strategy to explain
failure. As a strategy, it both reflected and deter
mined a basic isolationist attitude— that of distrust".
Isolationists distrusted the ’’conspirators." They
distrusted the propaganda which the "conspirators"
controlled. Permeating the rhetoric of isolation
is a deeply rooted distrust of language itself. Iso
lationists conveyed the attitude that language, es
pecially when used by someone they opposed, obscured
rather than clarified; deceived rather than informed.
Wien employed by an opponent of America Pirst, words
were "propaganda" and nothing more; that is, they
were "words without substance." This propaganda was
filled with deceit and hypocrisy. LaPollette be
lieved that "steps short of war" was "the most cun
ning of the deceitful phrases" u s e d . ^5 Lindbergh
saw all phrases used by the interventionists as
^ P h i l i p LaPollette, address, delivered at the

neutrality Conference of America Pirst Chapter Chair
men and Delegates, Washington, November 1, 1941,
America Pirst PHLS.
183
nothing more than'- "slogans to deceive p e o p l e . "16
Propaganda consisted of "catch words designed to “
conceal thought rather than express i t . " ^ Prop
aganda, then, was not simply "words without sub
stance," but rather "words with concealed substance."
As Burke observes, "Hypocrisy would also be a species
of persuasion, but addressed to an audience not con-

1Pi
ceived in terms sufficiently universalized." To
isolationists, propaganda was hypocritical because
only a very few— the members of the cult— could rec
ognize its "true" meaning; for "the people" propa
ganda "concealed thought." Thus isolationists jux
taposed "true meaning" and "concealed meaning."
.. Since propaganda "concealed meaning,", it opposed
"truth." In war, Lindbergh argued, propaganda re
placed truth.^9 Hence America Pirst set up an op
position by which it represented "truth," its oppo
nents, "propaganda." "Tve fight with the blade of
^Lindbergh, address, written for America Pirst

Rally, Boston, December 12, 194-1, but never delivered,
America Pirst PHLS.
^B. C. Clark, quoted by Sarles, p. 695.

1P
loBurke, A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric
of Motives, p. 74-7.
19
Pirst Rally, New York City, April 23, 194-1 , Amer
ica Pirst PHLS.
184
truth as our greatest weapon," Lindbergh told a ral-

20
ly audience; "they use the bludgeon of propaganda."
While "truth" could "pierce," propaganda could only
"bludgeon." Thus interventionists needed to repeat
propaganda until it inundated the people, until it
became a "verbal blitzkrieg."2 ^
According to isolationists, America Pirst
produced 110 propaganda; rather its function was to
counter hypocrisy:
The America Pirst Committee is not a propa

ganda group. Our sole function is to pre
vent propaganda from frenzying this nation
into war. We are essentially an anti-prop
aganda group, /italics in original/^2
But isolationists claimed that since the "con
spirators" controlled the dissemination of propa
ganda, the "bludgeon" might defeat the "blade."
'"By reiteration," Hiram Johnson argued, "the invi
dious propaganda has crept upon all of us, and
finally like a rare anaesthetic, it almost overcomes
20Lindbergh, address, delivered at America

Pirst Rally, Los Angeles, June 20, 1941, America
Pirst PHLS.
21
Wye, radio address, delivered from Washing
ton, May 7 i 1941, entitled "This Is Our Critical
Hour," Vital Speeches. VII (May 15, 1941), p. 454.
22
Interdepartment Memo from D. R. to Bliss
concerning a suggested letter to chapters, Jan
uary 31, 1941, America Pirst PHLS.
185
u s . " 23 Possibly propagandists were so "cunning"
that even'"bludgeoning" was not perceived until it
was almost too late. The master propagandist was
Roosevelt; the master-orator, Churchill.
Those who were "masters of words" were to be
feared. " Churchill was most to be feared, for he
was the "greatest master of words of our time";2^
he was "without equal or peer" in his "use of the
spoken word."2^ Yet oratory itself was suspect; it
closely resembled propaganda in that it lacked true
substance. Lindbergh believed that President Roose
velt's promises "turn out to be nothing more than
the ’oratory' of a political campaign."2^ When
Willkie, whom many isolationists supported although
not enthusiastically, seconded the President's for
eign policy, calling his earlier opposition
23
Hiram W. Johnson, radio address, delivered
over NBC, November 15, 194-1, entitled "Peace or War,"
Vital Speeches. VII (December 1, 194-1), p. 123.
24
Philip LaPollette, radio address, delivered
over CBS, February 12, 1941, America Pirst PHLS.
2^Karl Mundt, address, delivered before the

House of Representatives, August 1, 194-1, entitled
"A Strong'Opposition is Needed," Vital Speeches. VII
(September 1, 194-1), p. 696.
ûLindbergh, address, written for America

186
"campaign oratory," lie was reviled by isolationists

27
as an "orator." Oratory, like propaganda, was
composed of deceit and hypocrisy. Both the Pres
ident and the Prime Minister were "word masters"—
by which isolationists meant "word magicians"— men
who could create something out of nothing.2^ They
were so skilled in "magic" that they could conceal
"truth" at will. "Now you don't see it and now,
after election, you d£ see it— and what you see is
death. The "word magician" was able to cast a
"spell" which would envelope "the people." It could
be viewed as a "rare anaesthetic" by which they would
27wheeler and Healy, Yankee from the Nest,

pp. 24, 389. For other attacks 011 Willkie, see
LaPollette, radio address, delivered over CBS, Feb
ruary 12, 1941, America Pirst PHLS, and Nye, radio
address, delivered from Washington, May 7 } 1941, en
titled "This Is Our Critical Hour," Vital Speeches,
VII (May 15, 1941), p. 454.
2^Burke treats the relation of "magic" to

"mystery." For example, in the first act of God
there was both novelty and magic, from which
Christian motivation was derived. "Indeed, the
Creation as an act of God was total novelty; and
it was magic because, ;)ust as the magician would
make it seem that he pulls a live rabbit out of
an empty hat, so God made everything out of no
thing." See Burke, A Grammar of Motives and A
Rhetoric of Motive s .~"p. 65.
29
^General Hugh Johnson, radio address, del
ivered over the Colonial Network, February 6, 1941,
America First PHLS.
187
be lulled to sleep or as a "spell" cast by a magi
cian. through the use of music. "How deftly he tem
pers the tune from soothing lullabies to shrieks of
groundless fear, and we now wake to find the nation
facing death."5° Fish saw Roosevelt as the "Pied
Piper" creating a "spell" to lead his pack to war.51
Under the "spell" of the "word magician" the people
would respond as children, obeying his every wish.

m
Under his "spell" the "word magician" could lead
the people like children down the road to war, feed
ing them "sugared promises and candied pills.
This was the power of the "satanically clever prop
aganda"-^ of the "orator-magician-propagandist,"
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The magician is able to create "something out
30
Hiram ¥. Johnson, radio address, delivered
• over HBC, May 31, 194-1, entitled "The Kaso.uerade is
Over," Vital Speeches, VII (June 15, 1941)“, p. 517.
31
Fish, address, delivered before the American
Forum of the Air, ¥ashington, March 30, 1941, entitled
"¥e Should Hot Convoy Materials tn Europe," Vital
Speeches. VII (April 15, 1941), pp. 414-415.

First Rally, Fort ¥ayne, Indiana, October 3, 1941,
entitled "A Heritage at Stake," America First PHIS.
Ûheeler, radio address, delivered from ¥ash-

ington, December 31, 1940, entitled "America’s Pres
ent Emergency," Vital Speeches. VII (January 15,
1941), p. 205.
188
of nothing" with ease; in fact, the lack of sub
stance increases the ease of production. Similarly,
the isolationist view of the rhetoric the Committee
opposed was that it was composed of "facile phrases"
(phrases that come without effort), of "brilliant
words and neat p h r a s e s . O p p o s e d to these neat,
easy, hypocritical words, the isolationists presented
"that time-tested American trait, Character."^5 in
short, character could be depended upon while words
could not. It is ironic that a movement so depen
dent upon its language to achieve success, evidenced
in its rhetoric a distrust of language. America
First juxtaposed opposites to establish the purity
of its cause: isolationists presented "truth," the
"conspirators," propaganda; isolationists presented
'substance, the "conspirators," oratory; isolationists
represented "character," the "conspirators," merely
"facile words."
These oppositions America First selected may
seem artificial, yet they reflect the isolationist
attitude, which in turn influenced its choice of

over CBS, February 12, 194-1, America First PHLS.
■^Philip LaFollette, radio address, delivered

over CBS, February 12, 194-1, America First PHLS.
189
strategies. The strategy of reducing all issues to
war or peace was an effort to create an alternation
by which America First believed it would be in a
stronger position to attack and, additionally, would
gain cohesion among its diverse membership. Yet the
simplification, as we have seen in Chapter V, failed;
bills described as "liar Bills" had been enacted both
before the Committee had organized its opposition
and later over its organized opposition, yet 110 war
had arrived. Isolationists were not able to sustain
their simplification, and attacks based on this re
duction failed to defeat later proposals. Cole com
ments that the passage of Lend-Lease "did eliminate
one major question from the foreign policy debate.
To that extent its enactment made it easier for the
America First Committee to endeavor to place the
foreign policy debate on the simple issue of war or
peace.Rather than facilitating the isolationist
reduction, the passage of Lend-Lease made it more
difficult to campaign on the issue of war or peace.
The strategy of attack on Lend-Lease had been to re
duce the issue to war or peace and then label Lend-
Lease a "War Bill" to ensure its defeat. That
•^Cole, America First, p. 50.
190
strategy had failed. Lend-Lease, another act Amer
ica Pirst opposed was passed, and rather than sim
plifying the issue, as Cole argues, it actually
made it more difficult for isolationists to make the
simplification.
Characteristically, .America Pirst chose to
handle these issues by "transcending" to the "sen
timental" to consider the "essence" of the issue.
Burke comments upon this type of strategy by observ
ing how one might treat a difficult or complex is
sue :
You cannot grasp it, but there is a salva

tion device ready to hand. You 'transcend'
the confusing issue by a 'sentimental' vote
upon the 'essence' of the difficult 'theory.
That is, if you are in Germany, you call it
democratic or Jewish, in Russia bourgeois or
Fascist, in America Fascist or communist; if
you are a churchman, you locate its essence
in sacrilege, etc. Thereby you don't merely
attack; you symbolically enlist a whole soc
iety on your side; your-selection of 'essence'
is per se the pitting of a whole historic
movement against the doctrine.-5 '
America Pirst "transcended" Lend-Lease by lo
cating its "essence"— its "warness." In fact, iso
lationist selection of oppositions was an attempt to
"symbolically enlist a whole society," a society
which held as its goals peace and freedom. The se
lection of these "essences": "Americanism" against
■^Burke, Attitudes toward Hist or?/-, p. 326.
191
"European!sin," peace against war, "truth" against
propaganda, was an effort to "pit a whole historic
movement" against isolationist enemies. That one
cannot always "transcend" complexity to "senti
mentality"; that one cannot always locate an "es
sence" which is realistic enough to enlist success
fully a whole society in its cause is demonstrated
by the America Pirst Committee, by the failure of
the rhetoric of isolation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AMERICA PIRST PAPERS
The major source of materials for this study was the

America Pirst Papers, housed in the Hoover Institution
011 War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University,
California. Included in this collection is the cor
respondence of the National Committee among themselves,
to isolationist speakers, and to members; and the of
ficial statements of the Committee, including copies
of all bulletins sent to local chapters. This collec
tion also contains many of the speeches of America
Pirst speakers, as well as information about speaking
dates, expenses, and responses to speeches. These
papers were used extensively throughout this study;
however, since all references to the papers are con
tained in the footnotes, it was thought to be unnec
essary to list all letters, memos, and telegrams here.
All speeches in the America Pirst collection are listed
below.
BOOKS
Adler, Selig. The Isolationist Impulse; Hew York:

Collier Books, 19^1.
Bailey, Thomas A. A Diplomatic History of the Amer

ican People. 2Tth edition. Hew York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1950.
Beard, Charles A. The Devil Theory of W a r . Hew York:

Vanguard Press, 1936,
_____ . Giddy Minds and Poreign Quarrels. Hew York:

The Macmillan Company, 1959.
Burke, Kenneth. Attitudes toward History. Boston:"

Beacon Press” 19^1.
. Book of Moments. Los Altos, California:

Hermes Publications, 1955.
192
193
. Oounterstatement. Los Altos, California:

Hermes Publications, 1931.
. A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Mot

ives. Cleveland: The World Publishing House,
T 9S 2 .
. The Philosophy of Literary Form. ITevr York:

Vintage Boohs, 1957.
. The Rhetoric of Religion. Boston: Beacon

Press, 1961.
Carlson, John Ray. The Plotters. ITevr York: E. P.

Button and Company, 19^-0.
Cole, Wayne S. America First. Madison: The univer

sity of Wisconsin Press, 1953.
. Senator Gerald P. Mye and American Foreign

Relations. Minneapolis: The University of Min
nesota Press, 1962.
Davis, Kenneth S. The Hero. Garden City, Key York:

Doubleday and Company, 1959.
Feis, Herbert. The Road to Pearl Harbor. Key York:

Atheneum, 19 6 2.
Goldman, Eric F. Rendezvous vrith Destiny. Men York:

Vintage Books" 19 5 6 .
Kofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. Kev York:

Vintage Books, 1955.
. The American Political Tradition. Men York:

Vintage Books, 1"960".
Holland, L. Virginia. Counterpoint: Kenneth Burke

and Aristotle Ts Theories of Rhetoric. 1Ten York:
Philosophical Library, 1959.
Johnson, Walter. The Battle Against Isolation. Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 'l944'.
Knox, George. Critical Moments: Kenneth Burke *s Cate

gories and Critiques. Seattle: The University of
Washington Press, 1957.
194
Link, Arthur. American Epoch. New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1959.
Nichols, Marie Hochmuth. Rhetoric and Criticism.

Baton Rouge: The Louisiana State University
Press, 1963.
Noble, David W. The Paradox of Progressive Thought.

Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press,
1958.
Rueckert, William H. Kenneth Burke and the Drama of

Foreign Relations. Minneapolis: The University
of Minnesota Press, 1963.
Sayers, Michael, and Kahn, Albert E. Sabotage! The

Secret War Against America. New York: Harper
and Brothers7 1942.
Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land. New York: Vintage

Books, 1957.
Strong, Donald. Organized Anti- Semitism in .America.

Washington: American Council on Public Affairs,
1941.
Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal Imagination. Garden

City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1950.
.Wheeler, Burton K . , and Healy, Paul F. Yankee from

the West. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and
Company, 1962.
ARTICLES
"America First Says Race is Not an Issue," New York

Times. September 24, 1941.
"Assails Anti-Semitic Talks," New York Times, October 11,

1941 .•
"Backsliding to Isolationism?," Catholic World, CLXIII

(July, 1946), 297.
Beard, Charles A. "Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels,"

Harpers, CLXXXIX (September, 1939), 337-351.
195
Bemis, S. P. "Washington's Farewell Address: A For

eign Policy'of Independence," American Historical
Review, XXXIX (January, 1934), 250-268.
Eliven, Bruce, "This is Where I Game In," The Hew

Republic. XCIII (January 5, 1938), 245^246.
Brogan, Dennis W. "The American Enigma," Spectator,

CXCY (August 19, 1955), 257-258.
Butterfield, Roger. "Lindbergh," Life, XI (August 11,

1941), 64-70.
Cantril, Hadley. "America Faces the War: A Study in

Public Opinion," Public Opinion Quarterly, IY
(September, 1940), "3^7-407.
. "Opinion Trends in World War II: Some Guides

to Interpretation," Public Opinion Quarterly, XII
(Spring, 1948), 30-45.
Carleton, William G. "Isolationism and the Middle West,"

Mississippi Yalley Historical Review, XXXIII (Dec-
ember, 1946), 377-390.
Groft, Albert J. "The Function of Rhetorical Criti

cism," Quarterly Journal of Speech, XLII (October,
1956), 286-237.
.Diamond, William. " ’American Sectionalism and World

Organisation' by Frederick Jackson Turner," Amer-
ican Historical Review, XLVII (April, 1942), 545-
551.
"England Has Misinformed Us," Hew York Times, April 24,

1941.
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1948), 104-108. -------
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Really Began," Commentary, XI (June, 1951),
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- “
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American Mercury, LXXX (January, 1955), 39-44.
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Congress," He tv York Times, September 21, 1941.
Lindbergh, Charles A. "Aviation, Geography, and Race,"

Reader’s Digest. XXXV (November, 1939), 64-67.
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April 18, 1941.
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October 31, 1941.
197
"Lindbergh's Formal Statement Before the House Com

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Marcham, Frederick. "History and Speech: Collabor

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2BS1
Millis, Halter. "1939 is Hot 1941," Life, VII
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SPEECHES
Aiken, George D. Address delivered in Johnson, Ver

mont, November 12, 1941, entitled "Our Peace in
the World Today," America First PHLS.
Borah, William E. Address entitled "The Embargo and

European Pouer Politics," Vital Speeches, VI
(October 15, 1939), 21-23.
198
Brooks, 0. Wayland. Address delivered before the

American Forum of the Air, October 12, 1941, en
titled "Revision of the Neutrality Act," Vital
Speeches. VII (November 1, 194-1)* 43-4-5.
Capper, Arthur. Radio address delivered February 7i

1941, entitled "Let Us Keep Out of Foreign War,"
Vital Speeches. VII (March 1, 1941), 293-296.
Day, Stephen A. Address delivered at America First

Rally in Akron., Ohio, July 7, 1941, untitled,
America First PELS.
Dies, Martin. Address entitled "Insidious Wiles of

Foreign Influence," n. d., Vital Speeches. VI
(December 15, 1939), 152-155.
Fish, Hamilton. Radio address delivered over CBS,

March 2, 1941, entitled "Americanism vs. Inter
nationalism," America First PHLS.
. Address delivered before the American Forum

of the Air, March 30, 1941, entitled "We Should
Not Convoy Materials to Europe," Vital Speeches.
VII (April 15, 1941), 414-415.
. Radio address delivered over the NBC Blue Net

work, June 30, 1941, entitled "National Unity,":
America First PHLS.
. Address delivered at America First Constitu

tion Day Rally, St. Louis, Missouri, September 17,
1941, untitled, America First PHLS.
. Radio address delivered over CBS, October 22,

1941, entitled "No Undeclared War," America First
PHLS.
Flynn, John T. Address delivered at America First

Rally, Indianapolis, Indiana, April 3, 1941, un
titled, America First PHLS.
• Address delivered at America First Rally, New

York City, April 2 3, 1941, untitled, New York
Times. April 24, 1941.
• Radio address delivered July 8 , 1941, un

199
Helm, Wilbur, Radio address, n. d., entitled "A

Study of the Words 'America' and 'First,'"
America First PHLS.
Hoffman, Claire E. Address delivered in Detroit,

Michigan, September 30, 1941, untitled, America
First PHLS.
Hormel, Jay. Address delivered before the Southern

Minnesota Editorial Association, September 26,
Hutchins, Robert M. Radio address delivered January

23, 1941, entitled "The Path to War," Vital
Speeches. VII (February 15, 1941), 253-2o1.
* Address delivered at the University of Chi

cago, March 30, 1941, entitled "The Proposition
is Peace," Vital Speeches, VII (April 15, 1941),
389-392, and America First PHLS.
. Address delivered at the University of Chicago,

June 10, 1941, entitled "Bark Hours in Our History,"
Vital Speeches. VII (July 1, 1941), 569-570, and
America First PHLS.
Johnson, Hiram W. Radio address delivered over NBC,

May 31, 1941, entitled "The Masquerade is Over,"
Vital Speeches. VII (June 15, 1941), 514-517, and
America First PHLS.
. Radio address delivered over NEC, November 15,

1941, entitled "Peace or War," Vital Speeches.
VII (December 1, 1941), 120-124.
Johnson, Hugh S. Address entitled "Seeping Out of

War," n. d., Vital Speeches. VI (July 15, 1940),
597-598.
• Radio address delivered ever NBC, September 5,

1940, entitled "Defend America First," Vital
Speeches. VI (October 1, 1940), 763-765.
• Radio address delivered over the Colonial

Network, February 6 , 1941, untitled, America
First PHLS.
Jones, Robert F. Radio address delivered over CBS,

August 29, 1941, entitled "Should the U. S.
Give Lend-Lease Aid to Russia," America First
PHLS.
200
Judson, Olay, Address delivered before the Chicago

Bar Association, November 30, 194-0, entitled
"Is This Our War," America First PHLS,
Kennedy, Joseph P, Badio address, n. d., entitled

"My Views on Foreign Policy," Vital Speeches,
VII (February 1, 194-1 ), 227-231.
LaFollette, Philip M, Radio address delivered over

NBC, ■January 6 , 194-1, entitled "The Doctrine of
Fear," Vital Speeches, VII (February 15, 194-1-),
264— 265, and America First PHLS.
. Radio address delivered over CBS, February 12,

194-1, entitled "With Malice Toward Hone," Amer
ica First PHLS.
. Address delivered at America First Rally,

.Columbus, Ohio, May 22, 194-1, untitled, Ameri
ca First PHLS.

New York City, August 20, 194-1, untitled, New
York Times. August 21, 194-1.
. Address delivered at"""America First Rally,

Denver, Colorado, September 21, 194-1, untitled,
America First PHLS.
. Address delivered at the Neutrality Conference

of America First Chapter Chairmen and Delegates
in Washington, D. C., November 1, 194-1, untitled,
America First PHLS.
LaFollette, Robert M . , Jr. Radio address delivered

over NBC, October 4, 1939, entitled "The Neutral
ity Issue," Vital Speeches. VI (November 1. 1939).
59-61.
Lindbergh, Charles A. Radio address delivered from

Washington, D. C., October 13, 1939, entitled
"What Our Decision Should Be," Vital Speeches,
VI (November 1, 1959), 57-59. “
Radio address delivered May 19, 1940, entitled

"Our National Safety," Vital Speeches. VI (June 1.
1940), 484-485.-------- ---------------
201
Lindbergh, Charles A. Radio address delivered June 15,

1940, entitled "Our Drift Toward War," Vital
Speeches, VI (July 1, 1940), 549-551.
. Address delivered before the Keep-America-Out-

of-War Rally, Chicago. August 4, 1940, entitled
"An Appeal for Peace," Vital Speeches, VI
(August 15, 1940), 644-646.
. Radio address broadcast from Washington, D.C.,

October 13, 1940, entitled, "Strength and Peace,"
Vital Speeches, VII (Hovember 1, 1940), 42-43.
. Address delivered before the House Foreign

Affairs Committee. January 23, 1941, entitled
"Our Air Defense," Vital Speeches, VII (Feb
ruary 1, 1941), 241-242,
;_____ . Address delivered before the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee, February 6 , 1941, entitled
"We Are Hot Prepared for War," Vital Speeches,
Vil (February 15, 1941), 266-267.

Chicago, April 17, 1941, untitled, America First
PHLS.
Address delivered at America First Rally,

Hew York City, April 23, 1941, entitled "We
Cannot Win This War for England," Vital Speeches.
Vil (Kay 1, 1941), 424-426, and Hew York Times,
April 24, 1941. ---------------

St. Louis, Missouri, May 3, 1941, untitled1,
America First PHLS.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 10, 1941, untitled,
America First PHLS, and Hew York Times, May 11.
1941.
• Address delivered at America First Rally, Hew

York City, May 23, 1941, entitled "Election Prom
ises Should Be Kept," Vital Speeches. VII (June 1,
1941), 482-483, and Hew York Times. May 24, 1941.
202
Lindbergh, Charles A. Address delivered at America •

First Rally, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 30,
. Address delivered at America First Rally, Los

Angeles, California, June 20, 1941, untitled,
America First PHLS.

San Francisco, California, July 1, 1941, un

Cleveland, Ohio, August 9, 1941, entitled "Gov
ernment by Representation or Subterfuge," Amer
ica First PHLS.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, August 2 9 , 1941, un

Les Moines, Iona, September 11, 1941, entitled
"Mho Are the Mar Agitators?," Hen York limes.
September 12, 1941, and America First PHLS.

Fort Mayne, Indiana, October 3, 1941, entitled
"A Heritage at St alee," America First PHLS.
. Address delivered at America. First Rally,

Hen York City, October 30, 1941, untitled,
Hen York Times. October 31, 1941, and America
First PHLS.
.. Address nritten for America First Rally,

Boston, Massachusetts, December 12, 1941, un
titled, and never delivered, America First PHLS.
MacCracken, Henry Hoble. Address delivered at Amer

ica First Rally, Hen York City, August 10, 1941,
entitled "An Examination of the Eight Points,"
Vital Speeches. VII (September 1, 1941), 679-
660.
- - - » Address delivered at America First Rally,

Hen York City, August 20, 1941, untitled,
Hen York Times. August 21, 1941.
203
McCormick, Robert. Address entitled "Our Republic

is at. Stake," n. d., Vital Speeches, VI (March 15,
1940), 327-332.
. Radio address delivered over station WGM,

Chicago, July 12, 1941, entitled "The Lesson
of this Mar," Vital Speeches, VII (August 15,
1941), 644-6463
Mundt, Karl. Address delivered before the Meeting

of America First Chapter Chairmen, Chicago,
July 12, 1941, untitled, America First PHLS.
. Address delivered before the House of Rep

resentatives, August 1, 1941, entitled "A Strong
Opposition is Heeded," Vital Speeches, VII
(September 1, 1941), 69^-698.
Mye, Gerald P. Radio address delivered over EEC,

May 3, 1941, entitled "Ho Further Hithout Mar,"
America First PHLS.
. Radio address delivered from Washington, D. C.,

May 7, 1941, entitled "This Is Our Critical Hour,"
Vital Speeches, VII (May 15, 1941), 453-455.
. Radio address delivered over 1TBC Red R e w o r k ,

Washington, B.C., July 19, 1941, entitled "Ho
A. E. F.," Vital Speeches. VII (August 15, 1941),
650-652.
. Radio address delivered from St. Louis, Mis

souri, August 1, 1941, entitled "War Propaganda,"
Vital Speeches. Vil (September 15, 1941)" 720-
723.

Newark, Hew Jersey, September 23, 1941, entitled
"Asking for Trouble," Vital Speeches. VII (Oc
tober 15, 1941), 29-32.
. Address delivered at Lewiston, Maine, Novem

ber 27, 1941, untitled, America First PHLS.
O ’Brien, Father John A. Radio address delivered from

Hew York City, August 18, 1941, entitled "Amer
ica at the Crossroads," Vital Speeches. VII
(September 15, 1941), 715-717.
204
O'Brien, Bather John A. Address delivered at Amer

ica First Rally, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 24,
1941, untitled, America First PELS.
Thomas, Worman. Address delivered before the Ameri

can Forum of the Air, Washington, D. C., May 5,
1941, entitled "The War on Hitler," Vital Speecii-
es, VII (July 1, 1941), 561-562.
Wheeler, Burton K. Address entitled "Marching Do mi

the Road to War," n. d., Vital Speeches, VI
(September 1, 1940), 689-£>9 2^
. Radio address delivered December. 51, 1940,

entitled "America’s Present Emergency," Vital
Speeches, VII (January 15, 1941), 205-205.
. Address delivered in the Senate, March 20,

1941, entitled "Unity for Peace," Vital
Speeches, VII (May 1, 1941), 446-448.

Hew York City, May 25, 1941, entitled "The
American People Want Ho ".far," Vital Speeches,
VII (June 1, 1941), 489-491, and Hew York Times,
May 24, 1941.

Lacon, Illinois, August 28, 1941, untitled,
America. First PELS.

Los Aigeles, California, October 2, 1941, un
titled, Hew York Times, October 5, 1941.
_____ . Address delivered at America First Rally,

Hew York City, October 50, 1941, untitled,
Hew York Times. October 51, 1941.
Wood, Robert. Address delivered before the Chicago

Council on Foreign Relations, Chicago, October 4,
1940,. entitled "Our Foreign Policy," Vital
Speeches. VII (December 15, 1940), 150-155,
and America First PHLS.
. Radio address over CBS, October 16, 1940,

untitled, America First PHLS.
205
OTHER SOURCES
Armold, Jack. "The Compromise of 1850: A Burkeian

Analysis." Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Illinois, 1959.
Cole, Wayne S. "A History of the America First Com

mittee." Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Wisconsin, 1949.
Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs,

House of Representatives (77 Congress. _
1 Session, on HR 1776, Washington, 1941). =
Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs,

United States Senate, (77 Congress, 1 Session,
on S. 275, Washington, 1941).
Johnson," James S. "The Rhetoric of the America

First Committee." Unpublished doctoral disser
tation, Cornell University, 1964.
Sarles, Ruth. "The Story of America First."

Unpublished manuscript, 2 vols., Anerica First
■ PHLS.

Rhetoric of Isolation A Burkeian Analysis of The America First Committee 64 U MN Parson

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This dissertation has been

PARSON, Donald W a lte r, 1938—

U n ive rsity of Minnesota, P h .D ., 1964

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE AMERICA 7IRST COMMITTEE

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

OF THE UNIVERSITY 07 MINNESOTA

Donald Halter Parson

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

This author vlshas to acknowledge with grati­

tude the rigorous and penetrating criticism of the

During its several versions, criticism from the

following persons has saved the study from a number

Jensen, Miss Andrea M. Hanratty, Mr. Charles E. Led­

better, Professor Donald K. Smith, and Mrs. Karen 6.

Liberal Tradition found In Chapter III; to Mrs. Arline

Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, Califor­

nia, for her assistance in the looation of materials;

and to Mr. Charles Ledbetter, for the typing of the

final copy. For those errors which have persisted

in spite of good counsel, the author alone is respon­

Methodology of Rhetorical Movements . 2

The Methodology of this Study • • • • 5

The Argument of the S t u d y ..........14-

Hiatorloal Study of America First • « 15

Rhetorical Study of America First . . 16

Rhetorical Applications of Kenneth

Materials for this Study . . . . . . . 19

II. THE DIVERGENT MANY . . . . . . . . . . . 27

The Problem of Leadership . . • • • • 28

The Divergent National Committee . . . 28

The Effect of Diversity on America

The Lack of a P i v o t .......... 37

The Lack of Controls Over Speakers . . 37

The He duction of I s s u e s ......... . , 40

III. THE ISOLATIONIST IMPULSE: AMERICA'S

The Logology of Religion . . . . . . . 43

The "God-term" of Isolation . . . . .46

The Brave Sacrifice • • • • • • • . . 46

The "American Way" . . . . . . . . . . 48

The Search for Historical Support • . 49

The Region of Isolation . . . . . . . 52

The Problem of "Negativism" • • . • • 58

IV. THE RALLY AS R I T E ..................... 66

Sanctifying the Isolationist Cause . • 67

The "Crusade" . . . . ............. 71

Factors Mitigating Against the Rally

V. THE PEOPLE AND THE GREAT CONSPIRACY . . . 87

Identification: Goal and Strategies • 87

The Reduction: War or Peace • • • . • 90

The Polls Substituted . ......... 94

The Referendum • • • • ............ 95

Conspiracy: A Change in Strategy . . 102

71. THE FLIRTATION WITH THE JEW AS SCAPEGOAT 106

The Jew as Hitler's Lev;.! . . . . . . 106

The Problem of Anti-Semi s m ...........109

Racism in Amerioa First Speeches . . . 115

Lindbergh's Les Moines Speech • • • • 116

Reaction to the Les Moines Speech . . 118

The Problem of Gaining Jewish Support 126

The Jew as Conspirator Rather than as

The Scapegoat Already Claimed .... 131

VII. THE BRITISH INVASION OF AMERICA . . . . . 133

This author vlshas to acknowledge with grati

Jensen, Miss Andrea M. Hanratty, Mr. Charles E. Led

Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, Califor

in spite of good counsel, the author alone is respon

On December 11, 1941, the major isolationist pres

United States had been tricked into war by a combina

America First emerged as an organization in Sep

non-intervention is evidenced by the fact that in fif

movement of this size is a task obviously needing lim

Griffin argues that the critic must isolate the rheto

rical movement "within the matrix of the historical move

patterns inherent in the movement selected for inves

tigation. In his article, "Criticism and Social Con

movement themselves have estimated the "climate of opin