I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
Today’s blog post is about the Lend-Lease Agreement of 1941. Unless you are a history nerd, this topic probably holds little interest; however, as a bit of a history and political science nerd, I thought it worthwhile to mark the 85th anniversary of the passage of that agreement.
I am of the belief that we are bound to repeat history if we do not learn from it. I don’t know how it is in public schools today, but I did not get to study post-American Civil War history until I went to college. Much of 20th century history I’ve learned on my own or learned by living through half of it.
What follows is probably the most simplified description you will ever read of how the United States tried to stay out of World War II.
1920s and 1930s
Throughout the “Roaring Twenties,” the United States was still in debt over World War I. As a result, Neutrality Acts were passed by Congress in 1935, 1936, and 1937. In a nutshell, those acts made it unlawful for Americans to sell or transport arms or materiel to nations at war.
“Cash and Carry”
Then came World War II. Watching the aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan, in 1939, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed amending the Neutrality Acts and following a “cash and carry” policy in which other countries could purchase arms from the United States but the US would not supply military personnel.
When I finally got to study World War II, I was shocked to learn how slow the U.S. was to jump into the fray and come to the aide of Great Britain.
Photo by British Library on Unsplash
During the Battle of Britain, in September of 1940, Britain sent a delegation of researchers to the United States to share secret radar technology. Britain’s energy and money had to focus on the war but, since the United States wasn’t fighting, it could give attention to research and development.
“Arsenal of Democracy” and Isolationism
Three months later, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent Roosevelt a 15-page letter asking for the U.S. to help them. In one of his famous “fireside chats,” Roosevelt responded by announcing that the U.S. would be the “Arsenal of Democracy” and would sell arms to Britain and Canada.
Isolationists in the U.S. maintained that the war was a European problem and that the U.S. should stay out of it. Gradually, more Americans agreed that their country should do more to back Britain but keep our military out of the conflict.
This is a stark example of hindsight being better than foresight. No doubt, if the United States had known what lay ahead over the next five years, it would have acted earlier and more forcefully. Being protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Americans were lulled into a false sense of security.
That false sense of security came back to bite us on December 7, 1941, (and again on September, 11, 2001) but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Lend-Lease Act of 1941
“An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States” was introduced and eventually enacted on March 11, 1941 in the “Lend-Lease Act.” That Act permitted the U.S. to supply the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, the Republic of China, and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel, free of charge, for the duration of the war.
In March of 1941, the U.S. was still trying to stay out of the war militarily, but the Lend-Lease Act made it clear that the United States recognized that it was in its best interest to aide Britain because defending Britain was, in effect, defending the U.S.
Of course, we know now that nine months later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, thrusting the United States into the war in the Pacific. It would be January 26, 1942, before the first American troops would arrive in Great Britain.
The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 was strengthened by the Lend-Lease Act of February 23, 1942.
Lend-Lease officially ended on September 20, 1945. In that five-year period, $51 billion in supplies were shipped from the United States. That would be equivalent to approximately $700 billion in today’s dollars.
Janet
The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.
It is sad that many Americans do not know history. I blame the results of the 2024 US Presidential election on that along with today’s popular mindset that is only concerned with how something affects “me” instead of being concerned with “the common good.”
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
A policy of isolationism has never turned out well for the United States, and I doubt it will as we find ourselves in a true global economy in which no country can thrive in isolation.
Donald Trump campaigned for President on an America First agenda. That apparently sounded good to half the population. The picture he painted of America First did not include alienating the allies we’ve had for our entire 248-year history. It did not include turning our backs on Ukraine and embracing Vladimir Putin. Trump so successfully sold half the voters a bill of goods that they find themselves unable to admit they were hoodwinked. They cannot admit they made a grave mistake in the voting booth.
They interpreted “America First” as an idyllic country in which we would literally build walls instead of bridges, we would have cheap eggs and cheap gasoline, we would not be bothered by having under-paid migrants picking our fruits and vegetables, we would not be bothered with immigrants cleaning our hotel rooms or cutting our grass, and we would not have to compete with highly-qualified foreigners for jobs we have not prepared ourselves to assume.
It is a fact that Americans already have cheap gasoline compared to such places as Great Britain. As the “Bird Flu” continues to spread, we already look back on $4.00-a-dozen eggs as “the good old days.” And how many of us are lining up to make the beds and clean the toilets in hotels for $7.25-an-hour?
Much of America finds itself in an “us versus them” mentality. It is a mindset based in a belief that anyone who doesn’t look and talk like I do doesn’t have the right to live… not a right to live in the United States, at least. When I voiced my political views on social media in January, one commenter told me I should find another country to live in.
I was fortunate to have been born in the United States. I did nothing to deserve that. My immigrant ancestors came here in the 1700s and — fortunately for me — were not deported by the Native Americans who had been living here for thousands of years.
By merely being born in the United States I am the recipient of blessings and opportunities about which the majority of people in the world can only dream.
Photo by Priyanka Puvvada on Unsplash
Don’t get me wrong… illegal immigration into the United States needs to be addressed, but the mistakes of the past have turned Americans into an “us versus them” mentality in which the “us” no longer view “them” as human beings. The dehumanization of people leads to hate and violence.
It is tragic that we now have a President who repeatedly tells us that we are victims, suckers, and losers being taken advantage of by other countries.
“What’s the history of “America First?” you may ask.
Former Secretary of State, the late Madeleine Korbel Albright, explained it well in her book, Fascism: A Warning, in 2018, so I will quote some of what she wrote:
“America First is a slogan with a past. Founded in 1940, the America First Committee (AFC) brought together pacifists, isolationists, and Nazi sympathizers to fight against the country’s prospective entry into World War II. The AFC opposed creation of the Selective Service and also a Roosevelt initiative known as Lend-Lease, to keep the British in food and arms as they struggled to survive the German onslaught. Within twelve months of its founding, the committee had built a membership of more than 800,000 and attracted support from across the political spectrum – corporate tycoons and Socialists alike.”
Fence at a Nazi concentration camp. (Photo by Darshan Gajara on Unsplash.)
Albright also wrote, “Four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the United States. The AFC soon disbanded and, in the intervening decades, its name has carried a stigma of naivete and moral blindness. Now ‘America First’ is back – but what does it mean?”
Donald Trump stated at an assembly of the United Nations that every country should put its interests first. But Albright maintains, “What the assertion ignores is the stake that all countries have in the fates of others.”
My thoughts
I started Janet’s Writing Blog more than a decade ago. Until recently, I planned to basically blog about my journey as a writer and my journey as a reader. As time passed and I wanted to establish my credibility as a writer of history and historical fiction, I began to blog about historical events and documents, usually on anniversary dates.
I did not plan, intend, or want to turn my blog into a political platform. I still do not want to do that, but I find myself in a situation in which I cannot avoid it. I must live with myself. I cannot have this public platform and pretend that everything in our country and world are going well.
Writers are cautioned against being too political, but aren’t writers, teachers, and scientists the first groups and individuals fascist governments go after? I don’t want to turn my blog into nothing but a political sounding board; however, I will not sit idly by while our government is dismantled.
Until the day that I am silenced, I will continue to voice my opinions and speak out against injustices. I will come down on the side of the United States Constitution, and I will come down on the side of the downtrodden. My Presbyterian faith instructs me to do so.
The growing mindset in the United States is “us” versus “them.” I think the 2024 Presidential Election bears that out. In the words of Secretary Albright, “To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.”
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash
We have just experienced a week of whiplash caused by the policies, pronouncements, Executive Orders, and constantly changing mind of Donald Trump. One day we have tariffs, the next day we don’t, but the next day we do, and no one knows – apparently, not even Trump – whether they’re on or off later today, much less tomorrow.
The words of Trump supporters that “we need a businessman in the White House” echo in my head. Being a student of government and political science, I bristled at that mindset when it was first voiced and I continue to bristle and cringe at it today.
If this is the way businesses operate, I don’t think our democracy (or any democracy) can afford it. I know a democracy cannot afford this in a constitutional way – in a “this is what we stand for” way.
When facing excessive debt, do businesses fire all their employees only to try to locate and rehire the good ones later? Do businesses issue blanket lies in writing about the performance of the employees they fire or layoff in mass reorganizations in order to make it more difficult for them to find new jobs?
Oops! We didn’t mean to fire the air traffic controllers. We didn’t mean to fire the people who safeguard our nuclear stockpiles. We just meant to fire the scientists working on cures for cancer, the people who are trained to fight wildfires, the people who work at the Veterans Administration and the VA hospitals, and the people who make sure we have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and safe food to eat.
We just meant to cancel classes at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the premier fire academy in the US where firefighters from all over the nation come for special training. (Too bad for the firefighters who had already bought their plane tickets, etc. for the new round of classes that were scheduled to begin this week.)
We just meant to traumatize the millions of disabled and elderly citizens who rely on Social Security. After all, we must find the money somewhere to give the millionaires and billionaires more tax breaks.
To me, that’s a sign of insanity, but I did not major in business administration in college. I majored in political science and my graduate degree is in public administration.
The government is not supposed to be a profit-making entity. It is service oriented. The government does not manufacture things. It contracts with private companies (and billionaires like Elon Musk) for those things. If the federal government is “getting ripped off” as Trump says, perhaps someone needs to take a look at federal contracts with private companies and see where the waste is.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
When I worked in government, I was required to recommend to the elected governing body that a contract be given to the lowest bidder unless the lowest bidder was deemed unable to fulfill the contract and accomplish the work as specified. If we think the federal government is paying too much for water faucets or whatever, perhaps the fault likes with the private company selling us those faucets.
If contracts are being issued to the highest bidder because an elected official has a personal relationship or a financial relationship with that bidder, perhaps the elected official needs to be impeached. And the bidder attempting to defraud the government (i.e., the American people) needs to be exposed.
In the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln reminded us that in the United States of America we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is time for we, the people, to remind all three branches of the federal government of that.
Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash
We are the government. We, the people, are not the enemy of the government. A free press is not the enemy of the people.
Until my next blog post
It is tempting during these uncertain and chaotic times to withdraw and stop listening to or reading the news; however, it is more important than ever that we pay attention. We need to stay as informed as possible about what is happening in and to our government. We need to get our information from a wide range of reliable sources.
I deleted my weekly western North Carolina Hurricane Helene Update today due to the length of my blog post. It should return next week.
I hope you have a good book to read. I have several going now, as usual. Regardless of your political leanings, I encourage you to read Fascism: A Warning, by Madeleine Korbel Albright.
Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.
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