By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
War was coming. Germany had stormed Poland. Japan had attacked China. And Italy had invaded Ethiopia. By the start of 1941, the question was no longer ‘Should the United States enter World War II?’ but rather ‘When would the United States enter World War II?’ However, the American people needed to be convinced that they needed to be involved.
Roosevelt Makes a Case for War
President Franklin Roosevelt understood that the chessboard had changed. He also realized that the American people had no appetite for war. The carnage of World War I lingered in their collective memory, and the devastation of the Depression was still being felt.
On January 6, 1941, Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and made the case for war. He talked about national security, insisting that “at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today”. He stated unequivocally that oceans would not protect the US from attack, deriding what he called the “loose talk of our immunity from immediate and direct invasion from across the seas”.
He dismissed as folly the suggestion that the US should negotiate peace with the Axis powers, saying, “Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” And he identified four ‘essential human freedoms’ that the US military would seek to secure for all: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Military Draft and Production of War Materials
Although Roosevelt did not plan on sending troops overseas without the blessing of the American people, he had already set the wheels of war in motion. The year before, he had persuaded Congress to institute a military draft, requiring men between age 21 and 35 to register for service. This was as clear a sign as any that America would enter the fray. But it was neither the first nor the most significant sign.
In 1938, Roosevelt began guiding the hand of industry, shifting the focus of American manufacturing from the production of consumer goods to the production of war materials. The changes proceeded swiftly and dramatically. In 1941, American automobile companies built about 3 million vehicles. During the next three years, they made only 139. Instead of cars, auto assembly lines produced tanks, guns, and airplane engines.
For many manufacturers, the decision to shift production toward defense was an easy one. The Depression had crushed consumer demand, decimating profits. By comparison, the demands of the American military were insatiable. So, too, was that of US allies such as Britain and Russia, who turned to American manufacturers when the war wreaked havoc with their industrial infrastructure. Defense contracts generated revenue streams that companies hadn’t seen in over a decade.
Unemployment Rates Dip
To meet the demands of the American war machine, manufacturers started hiring. When Roosevelt took office in 1933, the national unemployment rate was a staggering 25%, up from 3% when the stock market crashed. Over the next few years, the New Deal slashed the national unemployment rate nearly in half, cutting it to 14% by 1937. But in 1938, the American economy stalled as the Republican-controlled Congress began rolling back New Deal initiatives. When the economy fell into recession, the unemployment rate jumped back up to 19%.
Industrial defense contracts spurred hiring, jolting the economy back to life. In 1939, the national unemployment rate dipped to 17.2%. The following year, it dropped to 14.6%. By the end of 1941, it had fallen to 9.9%, the lowest it had been in 11 years. By the time the war ended in 1945, the national unemployment rate was below 2%.
Booming Job Market and Racism
One didn’t have to be an economist to understand the importance of defense contracts. By catalyzing private sector job growth, defense spending put the nation back to work. It helped people who had been knocked down by the Depression regain their footing.
But there was a catch. To get a job, you had to be white. Defense contractors, from the East Coast to the West, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, refused to hire African Americans.
No one understood the peril that this kind of racial discrimination put African Americans in better than Black labor activist A. Philip Randolph. He recognized immediately that Black workers were in serious jeopardy of having the recovery pass them by. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.
He threatened a massive civil disobedience campaign, designed to bring the federal government to a grinding halt, if the president didn’t stop defense contractors from discriminating against Black workers.
Common Questions about How President Roosevelt Set the Wheels of War in Motion
In 1938, Roosevelt began shifting the focus of American manufacturing from the production of consumer goods to the production of war materials. While in 1941, American automobile companies built about 3 million vehicles, during the next three years, they made only 139. Instead of cars, auto assembly lines produced tanks, guns, and airplane engines.
For many manufacturers, the decision to shift production toward defense was an easy one. The Depression had crushed consumer demand, decimating profits. By comparison, the demands of the American military were insatiable. So, too, was that of US allies such as Britain and Russia, who turned to American manufacturers when the war wreaked havoc with their industrial infrastructure.
When President Roosevelt took office in 1933, the national unemployment rate was a staggering 25%. By the time World War II ended in 1945, the national unemployment rate was below 2%.
