World War II cost America one million casualties and over 300,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were farreaching. It had an immediate impact on the economy by ending the Depression-era unemployment. The war accelerated corporate mergers and the trend toward large-scale agriculture. Labor unions also grew during the war as the government adopted pro-union policies, continuing the New Deal's sympathetic treatment of organized labor.      Presidential power expanded enormously during World War II, anticipating the rise of what postwar critics termed the "imperial presidency."  The Democrats reaped a political windfall from the war.  Roosevelt rode the wartime emergency to unprecedented third and fourth terms.
Sino-Japanese War and American Reaction	Japan enjoyed early and spectacular military success in China.  China's Nationalist military government under Chiang Kai-Shek was forced to retreat from its capital west from Nanking to Chungking.  There, Chiang was forced to bargain with various warlords for support, and he frantically tried to get aid from the League of Nations--unsuccessfully.  He was able to obtain a small amount of outdated scrap equipment from the United States, but the U.S. could not do anything further under the terms of her Neutrality Agreement of 1937, which forbade the sale of arms.  So Chiang was forced by hook and by crook to fight a defensive war against the Japanese, with his main weapons emerging on the diplomatic front.      In the United States, people were alarmed at the stories of atrocities coming out of China, but did not feel compelled to do anything to stop it.  The only people agitating for American aid were (who would have guessed it?...) those American business interests with investments in China.  (Remember that Hoover had worked on several building projects in China, although for British firms; the U.S., however, financed many of these ventures.)  The British were even more concerned--not just with losing their investments, but with the proximity of the fighting to their own colonies at Hong Kong and Shanghai.     As the war dragged on, it became clear that the Japanese had gotten bogged down in the Chinese quagmire (a Chinese "tar baby").  There had been no long-range planning for such a war, so Japan was quickly running through her material reserves of iron, rubber, and petroleum, which were vital to maintaining their military actions.  Their main source of supply for these items was from the United States, but this source was increasingly under threat at the close of the decade.  Why?  The answer to this question lies on the other side of the globe from China and Japan.  The answer lay in the hands of Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime Prime Minister.
War in Europe	By 1940, Western Europe had fallen, and Britain stood alone to face Germany.  Night after night, German bombs rained down on London during the Battle of Britain, as Hitler's Luftwaffe tried to soften up England for a possible springtime invasion.  Britain's resources were stretched thin:  she not only had to protect the home islands, but also her far-flung interests in Africa, India, and Asia, and she was running out of material.  The only source for this material was the United States, but it could only be had on a cash-and-carry basis, and the British were sorely low on cash.  Roosevelt's hands were largely tied in extending further aid.      So who should come into the picture now but those business interests who had investments in China?  They wanted to be able to send aid to Chiang in his war against the Japanese, and were just as hamstrung by the limitations of the Neutrality Act (passed in 1937) as pro-British interests.  But they knew that they could never get the Act repealed on the basis of helping Asians--here again, American racism reared its ugly head.  No, the only way to get that Neutrality Act repealed was to focus on the dilemma of a Western power, the dilemma of poor but gallant Britain.  So, under pressure to aid the Western allies, Congress finally repealed the arms embargo of the Neutrality Act in the fall of 1939.  But there was still the stipulation of cash-and-carry.  So Roosevelt did a famous little maneuver which proposed to honor the spirit of getting a return on American investment, and still allow Britain to gain immediate aid.  This, of course, was the Lend Lease Act of 1941.  Under this act, the U.S. could give Britain material now, in return for a "promissory note" that the goods would be returned in kind at some point in the future.
	Declaration of Defense Emergency      Following Hitler's spring invasions of 1940, President Roosevelt could no longer ignore the reality that America could find itself pulled into a world war--and as it stood, it was ill-prepared to fight any kind of war.  The armed forces remained at their skeletal levels of the Twenties and Thirties, when successive congresses had frozen their budgets and numbers.  Troops had no proper equipment, often practicing with wooden replicas standing in for tanks or guns.  Moreover, with the easing of trade restrictions in 1939 (Neutrality Act of 1939), the U. S. now had responsibility for arming Britain and China.      In April of 1940, Roosevelt issued an executive order declaring a national defense emergency and asked Congress to appropriate tens of billions of dollars for defense--more in one year than had ever been spent during all the years of the New Deal combined.  He also asked Congress to pass a bill activating the draft.  The resulting Burke-Wadsworth Act instituted the first peacetime draft ever.  That November of 1940, with draft boards in place, the Selective Service drafted its first contingent of civilians for martial duty.       Meanwhile, the declaration of a defense emergency worked miracles on the economy.  Seemingly overnight, wartime contracts flowed out of Washington to the states.  New training posts were built, new factories constructed and old ones retooled for defense production.  Unemployment practically disappeared, as there were more jobs than people to fill them.  The Great Depression was over, ended not by the New Deal but by the prospect of war.
	Election of 1940      Even as Roosevelt geared the economy for war, the two political parties were gearing up for another election.  All expectations prior to April were that Roosevelt would observe the two-term tradition and step aside.  Editorials expressed their appreciation for his achievements during the years of Depression before proceeding to speculate on his probable successor.  The defense emergency changed all that.  Many Democrats now began speaking of a third term for FDR.  They argued that in such a time of world crisis, it would be foolish to abandon such a capable leader.  A few Democrats--and many more Republicans--expressed alarm at the prospect of a third term.  Roosevelt's enemies, ever suspicious of the president's motives, saw the third term "boom" as the latest "proof" of FDR's desire for power.  (Some isolationist Republicans even said that FDR's declaration of a defense emergency had been based solely on politics rather than any realy threat to national security.)  For his own part, FDR played the reluctant debutante, neither encouraging nor discouraging talk of a third term.  When the Democrats met at their convention that summer, however, the third-term "boom" prevailed and the Party nominated Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term.  Gravely, the president accepted.      The Republicans nominated Wendell Willkie as their presidential candidate for 1940.  Willkie was a former Democrat.  He had been president of Tennessee Commonwealth and Southern, one of the largest electrical utility companies in Tennessee, and thus one of the utilities most threatened by the emergence of the Tennessee Valley Authority.  The growth of government and the threat to private enterprise had driven Willkie into the Republican Party.  Now, he seemed the perfect candidate to run against Roosevelt.  His background could hopefully attract "crossover" or "swing" voters.      The nomination of Willkie illustrated the Republican Party's strategy:  running against the New Deal.  It was a strategy that might have been more effective in 1939, but by 1940, the majority of Americans were more concerned with national security and the threat of war.  That November, they re-elected Roosevelt, who became the first president ever to run for and win a third term in office.
The Embargo	Japanese continued presence in China, together with growing U. S. support of Britain in Europe, threatened to draw the U. S. into the global conflict.  Roosevelt reasoned, however, that by giving aid to our friends, America could avoid actually sending troops oversease.  America's role, as he saw it, was to serve as the "arsenal of democracy."*  (*FDR first used this reference in a fireside chat broadcast on 29 December 1940.)      The passage of Lend-Lease in March of 1941 furthered this goal.  Although the purpose of the aid in question was primarily directed to the fight against Hitler, Lend-Lease aid applied equally to China's battle against the Japanese Empire.  Though the vast majority of supplies went to the Western allies, the U. S. did finally allow the shipment of some arms and equipment to Chiang.  Chiang had also worked out a wary working agreement with his Communists enemies in the North, who would harass the Japanese in guerilla warfare there while Chiang handled the Southern front.  This all combined to make the Japanese position in China that much more difficult.  Moreover, the cracking of the Neutrality Act in America was followed by calls for an embargo of supplies of petroleum and iron to aggressor nations--an act aimed squarely at Japan.     Japan now faced a critical dilemma.  It could not risk a war with America--a war she knew couldn't be won.  Nor could they suffer the humiliation of withdrawing from China.  So she attempted to set up negotiations with Chiang to set up terms to end the war, but the terms they asked for were wholly unreasonable, such as allowing Japan to maintain much of her conquered territory and granting her sovereign rights to control Chinese trade.  Chiang would not accept (though several smaller warlords did--to their later regret).  So Japan remained stuck in the Chinese war with no hope of immediate victory, and facing the prospect that supplies vital to their military effort were in danger of being cut off.  America had warned Japan in July 1939 that if Japan did not cease hostilities, then in six months, America would impose economic sanctions.     Rather than cease hostilities and suffer what amounted to a surrender, though, Japan chose instead to expand the war even further.  In September 1940, they invaded Southeast Asia (in the process, violating French sovereignty in Indochina).  What they wanted were French airfields in Northern Indochina (North Vietnam) to be used against Chiang's southern front, and to harass his supply lines through Thailand and Burma.  This in turn brought further sanctions from the United States, further imperilling the ability of Japan to continue their war.  America was gambling on the fact that Japan was already dangerously overextended in Asia and would not want a war with America.  In this, they were correct, but the did not discern the psychology at work behind Japan's imperial policy:  Japan could not honorably give up.     With a shortage of viable alternatives (from their own point of view), the Japanese saw one possible solution to their dilemma:  attack British possessions in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, and thereby gain Asian sources for rubber and petroleum.  It was a dangerous proposition, but one that seemed more viable after Japan negotiated the Tripartite Agreement with Germany and Italy.  With this inside ear on the Western front, Japan could readily gauge the moment of maximum weakness on the British side, and then strike.  This Tripartite Pact was an advantage for both Germany and Japan, even though the terms did not force Japan to automatically join in any war declared by Germany, or vice-versa.  What it did was give Hitler the knowledge that Japan could tie up even more British power in Asia, and it gave Japan an ear on the West.  Japan also negotiated a Non-Agression Pact with the Soviet Union in April, 1941, thus freeing them up from a possible two-front war.  (Remember, back in the early days of Manchuria, Japan had feared Russia as an enemy more than China, and Russia had traditionally been Japan's biggest foe in the Far East.  Even until this late date, there were two "schools" in Tokyo arguing the direction of the war:  one side wanted to go north against Russia, now that she was tied up in the West in a shooting war with Germany; the other side wanted to go south, which had better possibilities of raw materials, but also the dangerous prospect of confronting British and possibly American oposition.  The "southern school" won out.)     Japan--knowing that any attack on British possessions would risk a hostile response from the United States--engaged in negotitations with the United States, trying to keep the U.S. out of any Asian war.  As adamant as the Japanese were to keep America out, Winston Churchill was equally adamant to keep America in.  Britain was dangerously vulnerable in Asia, and it was only the threat of possible American involvement, he though, which could keep the Japanese in check.  But Roosevelt could do little more than issue strong rhetoric, because he knew Congress was wary of becoming involved in any entangling alliances.  Secretly, however, he did assure Churchill of American support if Britain were attacked.      This promise may have mollified Churchill, but it was a pretty hollow promise, since Roosevelt could guarantee nothing without Congressional approval.  Nonetheless, Churchill worked away at Roosevelt, both in regards to the Pacific and the Atlantic.  Churchill's goal was to get, piecemeal if need be, American commitments in the Atlantic which would inextricably link British and American fortunes.  Gradually, this is what happened.  Roosevelt used several "incidents" at sea to get Congress to chip away at the Neutrality Act.  Congress finally allowed naval vessels to escort convoys of Lend-Lease supplies to Britain, and it was on one such convoy that Roosevelt got his "incident."  An American destroyer detected a U-boat on patrol off of Iceland and contacted a British search plane to notify them of the U-boat's coordinates (which was technically against the rules); even worse, the destroyer went off in search of the U-boat, trying to maintain sonar contact with it until the British plane could catch up--and then proceeded to drop depth charges!  The U-boat fired a torpedo, and then another, which missed.  The U.S. ship had been clearly out of line in its actions, but Roosevelt used it to convince the American people of Nazi aggression on the high seas, saying the attack on the American destroyer had been "unprovoked."  As if to confirm Roosevelt's claim, another American ship, the U. S. S. Reuben James, was sunk by a German torpedo in a night action where the submarine undoubtedly could not distinguish American from British ships.  But Roosevelt finally got a full repeal of the Neutrality Act in October 1941.  He also got Congress moving on setting up several defense agencies, like the Office of Civilian Defense, and the Office of Price Administration.  All these organizations were supposed to help streamline and speed along the supply of war material to Britain, and also to the Soviet Union.  Chiang and his war were a distant third on the list.  Meanwhile, Roosevelt held back on declaring war.  He felt--rightly so--that with the mood of the country, only a giant provocation would push the Congress to declare a war.      Pearl Harbor provided just such a provocation.  Following the U. S. declartion of war against Japan, war production and mobilization reached a fevered pitch.
	After Pearl Harbor, the Defense program was replaced by the Victory program. Its three top priorities were planes, tanks, and merchant shipping. The 77th Congress gave FDR the power to reorganize government agencies, establish censorship, seize alien-owned property and award contracts without competitive bidding. The federal government grew faster than during the New Deal era, enlarging the Washington D.C. bureaucracy and its links to private industry. The U.S. war production increased, but consumer production continued. The U.S. never fully mobilized the economy and FDR remained the "broker" president. The military-industrial complex became more powerful and civil liberties suffered. Liberal reforms failed to rise above conservative priorities, waste and poor management. War agencies were regarded as strictly temporary and many things returned to pre-war status after 1945.
"Dr. Win the War"	During World War II, the federal government took an even larger economic role than it did during the first world war.  To gain the support of business leaders, the federal government suspended competitive bidding, offered cost-plus contracts, guaranteed low-cost loans for retooling, and paid huge subsidies for plant construction and equipment.  Lured by huge profits, the American auto industry made the switch to military production. In 1940 6,000 planes rolled off Detroit's assembly lines; production jumped to 47,000 in 1942; and by the end of the war it exceeded 100,000.      To encourage agricultural production, the Roosevelt administration set crop prices at high levels.  Cash income for farmers jumped from $2.3 billion in 1940 to $9.5 billion in 1945.  Meanwhile, many small farmers, saddled with huge debts from the depression, abandoned their farms for jobs in defense plants or the armed services.  Over 5 million farm resident left rural areas during the war.    Top-down management characterized Roosevelt's style of administration during the war, much as it had during the New Deal.  He created a host of overlapping agencies with vaguely defined responsibilities, sometimes under nominal "czars" but always controlled by him.  Many of the agencies operated in ignorance of what other agencies were doing, partially because of the secrecy of the man at the top, who sometimes wouldn't even tell his Joint Chiefs about new developments until after the fact.
War Production Board Donald Nelson	In January of 1942, Roosevelt created the War Production Board (WPB), to direct war production and the procurement of materials in World War II.  The chairman (Donald M. Nelson, 1942-44; Julius A. Krug, 1944-45) had sweeping powers over the nation's economic life. The WPB converted and expanded the peacetime economy to maximum war production; controls included assignment of priorities to deliveries of scarce materials and prohibition of nonessential industrial activities.  Through this control of supplies, only businesses producing for defense could stay operate.  This had the effect of converting even small factories into war production as everyone tried to get in on the federal "gravy train."  During its three-year existence the WPB supervised the production of $185 billion worth of weapons and supplies.
OPA and Rationing	FDR had created the Office of Price Administration in 1941 under Leon Henderson to administer price controls designed to halt rising inflation.  The first price controls went into effect during the summer of 1941.  Soon, the OPA implemented rationing of all vital goods and supplies.  It supervised 8,000 rationing boards with 200,000 volunteers to assist the 60,000 employees of the agency.  Food rationing included restrictions on sugar and meat; clothing rationing restricted silk and nylon. Gasoline rationing began in May 1942 on the East coast, limiting use to five gallons per week. By the end of 1942, half of the nation's automobiles were issued an A sticker, allowing 4 gallons per week. The other half of automobiles had either a B sticker (supplementary allowance for war workers) or a C sticker (vital occupation such as doctor). Truckers had a T sticker for unlimited amounts. A black market developed in stolen or counterfeit stickers that were used in 5-30% of gasoline sales. By 1945, there were 32,500 motorists arrested for using such false stickers, 1300 convictions, 4000 gas stations closed.
OCD and Scrap Drives	The Office of Civilian Defense was established in May 1941 under director Fiorella LaGuardia, former mayor of New York City.  Eleanor Roosevelt became an assistant director in September.  By the summer of 1942, the OCD had enlisted 10 million volunteers in 11,000 local committees to supervise the community's total defense effort, including blackouts, whiteouts, scrap drives, child care, the V-Home campaign. It also included the Civil Air Patrol of 40,000 civilian pilots and the coastal anti-submarine watch of local boatowners. A blackout drill involved three stages of warning: at 9 pm the "yellow" warning signal sounded, allowing 15 minutes to get out spotters, to prepare pumps and ambulances and emergency shelters, and to extinguish all lights. After the 15 minutes had elapsed, the "Blue" signal sounded that officially started the blackout. If enemy aircraft were sighted within 10 miles, the "Red" warning was sounded, all traffic stopped, air-raid sirens sounded and searchlights turned on.      Every scrap drive was successful during the war, starting with the first drive in the summer of 1941 that collected 70,000 tons of aluminum from donated pots and pans (but only virgin aluminum could be used in aircraft, and most of the collected aluminum was re-melted into pots and pans again). Phonograph records were melted for shellac, and five million tons of scrap steel was collected in just three weeks for the war effort. But most scrap was militarily useless or never processed. Newspapers piled up but never used; junk dealers collected scrap and sold the good junk to the government at market prices. The most important result of the scrap drives was raising morale with a sense of participation.      The OCD resurrected the Victory Garden program used in World War I to encourage homes to plant gardens to raise extra food. By 1944, 18 million gardens grew 40% of the fresh vegetables consumed in the U.S. By 1945, the agency had expanded its activities to deal with social problems caused by the war.
The National War Labor Board	With the need for rapid mobilization for war after 1940, organized labor had set forth to capitalize on the need for workers.  The war created 17 million new jobs at the exact moment when 15 million men and women entered the armed services, unemployment virtually disappeared.  Union membership jumped from 10.5 million to 14.75 million during the war.      In negotiations for war contracts, labor unions offered to guarantee an adquate supply of skilled and trained labor, but insisted this would only be possible if they in turn received guarantees that all new hires were drawn from union ranks.  This not only meant guaranteed jobs for existing union members, but also the prospect of hundreds and thousands of new members, as new employees would be forced, through "closed shop" clauses in wartime contracts, to join a union and pay mandatory initiation fees (often as high as $35 a year--a large sum in 1940-41).  Many businessmen and workers protested this arrangement, but the need for speed forced accomodation to these union demands.  Coming so soon after the labor violence of the late Thirties, the "arrogance" of union "bosses" only further tarnished the image of labor unions in many sections of the country.      With the declaration of war in December 1941, the barely-latent hostility towards labo unions blossomed.  Throughout the early months of 1942, patriotic organizations in communities across America--the American Legion, the Chambers of Commerce, etc.--organized public rallies calling for a rollback of peacetime labor laws.  There should be no right to strike in wartime, they argued, nor should there be any limit on hours.  The 40-hour week would only hinder war production.  Defense plants, the argument continued, should operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and anyone who argued differently was undermining the war effort.      President Roosevelt acted to bring labor into the fold of war operations.  Shortly after America's entry into World War II, he created the National War Labor Board (NWLB) to arbitrate and settle labor disputes before they could damage the war effort.  The twelve-member panel was composed of four representatives of business, four labor men, and four "neutral" members who were to act in the best interests of the public.      Labor leaders also moved swiftly to reassure the public of labor's stake in winning the war. Shortly after Roosevelt's war announcement, both the CIO and the AFL made a patriotic No-Strike Pledge for the duration of the war, abandoning their most potent weapon and essentially throwing themselves on the mercy of the NWLB. For the most part, the public members of the board were sympathetic to labor's plight, but rapid inflation in 1942 necessitated that they keep wage raises to a minimum.
OWI and War Information Click here to read about Hollywood and the war.	FDR created the Office of War Information (OWI) by Executive Order (9182) on  June 13, 1942.  The OWI's  duties included, formulating and carrying out "through the use of press, radio, motion picture, and other facilities, information programs dedsigned to facilitate the development of an informed and intelligent understanding, at home and abroad, of the status and progress of the war effort and of the war policies, activities, and aims of the Government."   The OWI was also charged with the task of coordinating "the war informational activities of all Federal departments and agencies for the purpose of assuring an accurate and consistent flow of war information to the public and the world at large," as well as obtaining, studying, and analyzing "information concerning the war effort" and advising "the agencies concerned with the dissemination of such information as to the most appropriate and effective means of keeping the public adequately and accurately informed." In short, it was the job of the OWI to generate and coordinate wartime propaganda.      President Roosevelt hoped to avoid the crude propaganda campaigns that had stirred ethnic hatred during World War I.  The OWI churned out posters and advertisments enjoing Americans to buy war bonds, particpate in scrap drives, work hard, and in every way support the war effort.       Motion pictures emerged as the most important instrument of propaganda during World War II. After Pearl Harbor, Hollywood quickly enlisted in the war cause. The studios quickly copyrighted movie titles like "Yellow Peril" and "V for Victory." Hollywood's greatest contribution to the war effort was morale. Combat films produced during the war emphasized patriotism, group effort, and the value of sacrifice for a larger cause. They portrayed World War II as a peoples' war, typically featuring a group of men from diverse ethnic backgrounds who are thrown together, tested on the battlefield, and molded into a dedicated fighting unit. Wartime films also featured women serving as combat nurses, riveters, welders, and long-suffering mothers who kept the home fires burning.      Off-screen, leading actors and actresses led recruitment and bond drives and entertained the troops. Leading directors like Frank Capra and John Huston made documentaries to explain "why we fight" and to show civilians what actual combat looked like. (1)
	Proceed to:  Social Change (I)
Sources	Mobilization on the Home Front, http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/mobilization.html, accessed November 13, 2003.      War Production Board, encylopedia.com, http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/W/WarP1rodu.asp.      University of Oregon Library, Boss of the Waterfront:  Wayne Morse and Labor Arbitration, http://libweb.uoregon.edu/speccoll/exhibits/morse/intro.html.      Digital History, Mobilizing for War.