Capitalism Saved - 1933
Roosevelt Churchill and Stalin prepare for Hitler
The book ROOSEVELT CONFRONTS HITLER by Patrick J. Hearden explains the purpose of why the United States became involved in the Second World War. I agree with Hearden that economic conditions internationally and domestically drove the Untited States into the Second World War. This timeline investigates the economic problems of 1933.
January 4, 1933 - Continued non recognition policy toward Manchukuo
- Roosevelt warned that continuation of the non recognition policy toward Manchukuo might result in a war with Japan
January - President Edward A. O'Neal of the Farm Bureau Federation speaks out
- Unless something is done for the American Farmer we will have revolution in the countryside within less than twelve months.
January 19 - Roosevelt talks to Raymond Moley about Economic Conference
- Roosevelt instructs Moley that only Roosevelt-appointed officials would conduct debt negotiations and that such talks would remain separate from the Economic Conference
January 30 - Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor
- Nazi authorities in Berlin institute a system of bilateral barter designed to induce other countries to buy as much as they sold when trading with Germany
- American exports to Germany declined precipitously, and the United States met with stiff competition in Latin American markets
- Hitler promises that he will provide jobs for the German people and restore their fatherland to its place in the sun
February - Japanese withdraw from Geneva
- Japanese proceeded to consolidate their position in Manchuria and to extend their control into other provinces in northern China
February - Cordell Hull begins to prepare tariff legislation
- Decision is made to draft a bill authorizing the President to enter into accords with other countries to reduce tariffs without having to submit these treaties to the Senate for approval
February 20 - Roosevelt meets with British Ambassador Lindsay
- Roosevelt tells Lindsay that the two governments were in irreconcilable opposition to each other at present over debts
- Roosevelt wants to ignore debt issue and concentrate on economic questions instead
March 4 - Franklin D. Roosevelt enters the White House
- Promises to restore wealth and welfare to the American People
President Roosevelt talking of future capitalistic prosperity
March 5 - President Roosevelt declares national bank holiday
- Roosevelt wants to prevent further financial collapse
March 12 - Roosevelt gives first of Fireside Chats
- Explains banking crisis in language everybody could understand
- Urges Americans to put their savings back in banks
March - Roosevelt's talks about domestic phase of his two-staged strategy
- Roosevelt says he will spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment
March - Japanese officially withdraw from League of Nations
- Japanese intend to abandon the naval limitation agreements they had with Britain and the United States
Republicans (as well as Japanese) try to smash the League of Nations
March - President issues an executive order
- Allocates 238 million dollars for the construction of thirty-two warships
March - Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson reiterates his internationalist view
- He states that the United States policy and action in the Far East are matters of great practical importance to the present and future welfare of the United States
April - Roosevelt asks Congress for reciprocal trade legislation
April - Roosevelt invites foreign representatives to Washington
- Wants representatives to prepare for the Economic Conference
April 12 - Pan American Day
- Roosevelt declares commitment to equality and cooperation among the American Republics, acknowledging the independence of each and the need to abolish all artificial barriers hampering the healthy flow of trade
April 19 - Roosevelt halts all gold exports
- Gives blessing to the Thomas Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, a congressional grant of Executive power to inflate the dollar
European tries to get gold out of Hotel America.
Other FDR cartoons from the OConnor collection at the FDR Library can be seen in the FDR Cartoon Database of the AP History class at Niskayuna HS taught by Paul Bachorz
April 21 - Roosevelt assures the British and French that the United States will not launch a
currency war
- Moley with the help of a group of men propose an improved international gold standard and a three-nation stabilization fund
April - The Standard Oil Company of New York asks Washington for help
- Japanese campaign to establish an exclusive sphere of economic influence in Manchuria gave American businessmen and diplomats concern
- American petroleum firms were the first large enterprises to suffer from the organization of Japanese monopolies in Manchuria
May 7 - Roosevelt gives second Fireside Chat
- Roosevelt wants to restart the flow of exchange of crops and goods between Nations
May - Immediate problems with Roosevelt's domestic plans and diplomatic objectives
- Prices are rising in the United States but not elsewhere
May - Dollar begins a new downward movement with a simultaneous rise in stock, bond, and commodity prices
May 17 - Roosevelt sends National Industrial Recovery Act to Congress
- The Act will have higher tariffs to protect American industrial goods
May - Raymond Moley delivers a public address
- He says each nation must set its own house in order
May - There is further decline in American Exports
May - Secretary of State Hull travels to London
- Hull wants to sponsor a program of international economic disarmament
- Roosevelt informs Hull that he will not submit tariff bill to Congress during the present session
May - Congress passes the Agricultural Adjustment Act
- Provides incentive for farmers to restrict their output
May - Roosevelt speaks to German Representative
- Roosevelt tells German Representative to tell Hitler that the United States will insist that Germany remain in status quo in armament and that we would support every possible effort to have the offensive armament of every other nation brought down to the German level.
May - Norman Davis formally announced that the United States should not interfere with sanctions imposed by the League of Nations against an aggressor provided the following two conditions were met
- 1. European powers assembled at Geneva concluded a genuine disarmament agreement
- 2. American government concurred with their judgment that the penalized party was guilty of aggression
June 7 - Roosevelt supports Four Power Pact
- A agreement by Britain, France, Germany, and Italy to consult each other about disarmament and peace
June - Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank suggests discrimination
- Schacht discriminating against American financial interests
- Schacht says that United States is only principal creditor nation which sold more merchandise than it bought when trading with the Third Reich
- Secretary Hull immediately instructed the American embassy in Berlin to demand equal treatment for American bondholders
June - J. Pierrepont Moffat advises Roosevelt of foreign disarmament
- J. Pierrepont Moffat is the chief of the Western European Affairs Division
- He saw no disarmament without prior political appeasement
June - The National Industrial Act is passed
- The Act encouraged corporate executives to expand production, increase employment, and maintain wages
June - Roosevelt states that currency stabilization is untimely
- Raising prices of goods is most important contribution American Government can make to international trade
Even cough drops must go up in Price
July 3 - Roosevelt's famous bombshell message
- Sound internal economies were more important than international monetary arrangements
- Long-range goals included stabilization of every nation's currency
Restoration of world trade
July 18 - Farm prices and industrial output start to decline
- Progress which was made during the Hundred Days begins a descent
July - Roosevelt consumed with NRA code agreements
- Extensive problems with his chief recovery agencies, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
August - Roosevelt advises that he does not want France to disarm
August - Raymond Moley quietly resigns from the State Department
- Secretary Hull showed signs of renewed vigor as he savored the sweet taste of revenge because he and Moley did not get along
September - Ambassador Josephus Daniels wrote from Mexico City
- He tells Roosevelt that there can be prosperity in the United States if we can have foreign markets for the surplus products of our farms and factories
September - Americans begin to feel the effects of the Nazi campaign
- German quota on prune imports was altered to favor Yugoslavia at the expense of the United States
October - Hull instructs Ambassador Dodd about German economic policy
- Nazi exchange control policy threatens to curtail drastically the German market for American commodities
October - Hitler withdraws from both the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations.
Hitler demonstrating the power of Germany
October 19 - Roosevelt orders purchasing newly mined gold in the United States
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation to purchase gold because Roosevelt says that the United States must take firmly in its own hands the control of the gold value of our dollar
October - Dr. Schacht grants preferential treatment to Swiss creditors
- Schacht says Swiss creditors get preferential treatment because their country agreed to accept additional imports from Germany
- Schacht negotiates a similar arrangement with Holland
November - President authorizes the establishment of the Executive Committee on Commercial Policy
- Conflicting claims of various federal agencies revealed the need for an interdepartmental organization to coordinate foreign trade activities
November -Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace reports to the President
- Modify are tariff policy so as to permit a larger quantity and value of imports to enter the country
- Expand foreign purchasing power in definite tangible ways
November 15 - Roosevelt has gentleman's agreement with Litvinov
- Committed themselves to a debt settlement at a later date with the Soviets to pay between $75 million and $150 million on a debt the State Department calculated to be more that $600 million
December 2 - Roosevelt directs State Department to draft a bill
- The bill would empower the president to negotiate reciprocal trade treaties which would not have to be submitted to the Senate for ratification
December 5 - President sends George N. Peek to Czechoslovakia
- George N. Peek is president of the Moline Plow Company
- Peek to serve as Adviser to the President on Agricultural Imports and Exports with Europe
December 28 - George Peek reports back to President
- Proposes the establishment of a Foreign Trade Administration
- Foreign Trade Administration to replace the Executive Committee on Commercial Policy
