The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
committee (April 12, 1934 – February 24, 1936), chaired by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND). The committee investigated the financial and banking interests that underlay the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
' involvement in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the operations and profits of the industrial and commercial firms supplying munitions to the Allies and to the United States. It was a significant factor in public and political support for American neutrality in the early stages of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
Background
During the 1920s and 1930s, dozens of books and articles appeared about the high cost of war, and some argued that financiers and arms manufacturers had maneuvered the United States into entering World War I. One of the best-known was
Smedley D. Butler
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881June 21, 1940), nicknamed the "Maverick Marine", was a senior United States Marine Corps officer who fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution and W ...
, a retired Marine Corps general who had become a spokesman for left-wing anti-war elements. Historian Charles Callan Tansill's ''America Goes To War'' (1938) exploited the Nye Committee's voluminous report of testimony and evidence to develop and confirm the heavy influence exercised by Wall Street finance (notably J.P. Morgan) and the armaments industry (notably Du Pont) in the process that led to American intervention.
The push for the appointment of Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND) to the chairmanship of this committee came from Senator George Norris (R-NE). According to peace activist Dorothy Detzer, Norris said, "Nye's young, he has inexhaustible energy, and he has courage. Those are all important boons. He may be rash in his judgments at times, but it's the rashness of enthusiasm." Norris proposed Nye as "...the only one out of the 96 whom he deemed to have the competence, independence and stature for the task."
Organization
The committee was established on April 12, 1934. There were seven members: Nye, the committee chair; and Senators Homer T. Bone (D-WA),
James P. Pope
James Pinckney Pope (March 31, 1884January 23, 1966) was a Democratic politician from Idaho. He was mayor of Boise for four years and a one-term United States Senator, serving from 1933 to 1939.
Early life and career
Born in Jonesboro, Louisian ...
(D-ID),
Bennett Champ Clark
Joel Bennett Clark (January 8, 1890 – July 13, 1954), better known as Bennett Champ Clark, was a Democratic United States senator from Missouri from 1933 until 1945, and was later a circuit judge of the District of Columbia Circuit. He was ...
Arthur H. Vandenberg
Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg Sr. (March 22, 1884April 18, 1951) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from Michigan from 1928 to 1951. A member of the Republican Party, he participated in the creation of the United Natio ...
(R-MI).
Stephen Rauschenbusch, son of Christian Social Gospel activist Walter Rauschenbusch, was appointed lead counsel for the Committee; his assisting counsel included Robert Wolforth, Josephine Burns and Alger Hiss. John T. Flynn "played a major role in the course of the investigation" as a member of the committee's Advisory Council of experts. Burns and Rauschenbush, who met on the committee, married soon after and co-authored a book that recounts salient testimony gathered by the investigation, ''War Madness'' (Washington, D.C., National Home Library Association, 1937). Alger Hiss served as a legal assistant (counsel) to the committee from July 1934 to August 1935. Most famously, Hiss "badgered" DuPont officials and questioned and cross-examined Bernard Baruch on March 29, 1935. About their testimony, Dorothy Detzer (Appointment On The Hill, p. 169) reports: "The four solemn Du Pont brothers," averred that "the corporation's profits of 400% during the First World War seemed only the good fruit of sound business."
Process
The Nye Committee conducted 93 hearings and questioned more than 200 witnesses. The first hearings were in September 1934 and the final hearings in February 1936. The hearings covered four topics:
* The
munitions
Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weap ...
industry
* Bidding on Government contracts in the shipbuilding industry
* War profits
* The background leading up to U.S. entry into World War I.
The committee documented the huge profits that arms factories had made during the war. It found that bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad. Also, the arms industry was at fault for price-fixing and held excessive influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during World War I.
According to the United States Senate website:
In her memoir, Appointment On The Hill (p. 169), Dorothy Detzer, an intimate eye-witness to the Committee's processes, summarizes: "The long exhaustive investigation ... produced a sordid report of intrigues and bribery; of collusion and excessive profits; of war scares artificially fostered and isarmamentconferences deliberately wrecked." The "recommendations, accompanying the committee's reports to the Senate, were presented in a series of interlocking legislative measures ... The Neutrality Bill, providing for an embargo on arms and loans to nations at war, was the only legislation even partially enacted into law. But even it was crippled by its 'half-measure' provisions. (p. 171).
Results
Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America's involvement in the World War. Many Americans felt betrayed and questioned that the war had been an epic battle between the forces of good (democracy) and evil (autocracy), as it had been depicted in pro-war propaganda. This investigation of these "merchants of death" helped to bolster sentiments favoring neutrality, non-interventionism, disarmament, and taking the profits out of weapons procurements.
The committee reported that between 1915 and January 1917, the United States lent Germany $27 million. In the same period, it lent to Britain and its allies $2.3 billion. These loans were made during wartime: July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918.
Because of these facts Senator Nye, many war critics, and members of the American public concluded that the US entered the war for reasons of profit, not policy — because it was in the interest of American finance banks and investors for the Allies not to lose so that they would be able to pay interest and principal on their loans. The committee's findings did not achieve the aim of nationalization of the arms industry, but gave momentum to the non-interventionist movement, sparked the passage of the
Neutrality Acts of the 1930s
The Neutrality Acts were a series of acts passed by the US Congress in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 in response to the growing threats and wars that led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in ...
in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939, and encouraged
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
and other
anti-Semites
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
, who believed that the lenders were mostly Jewish. and that Jews were one of the principal groups advocating for U.S. intervention in Europe.
In its final report, the Nye Committee also identified the