17. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the violation of the Neutrality Acts
During the early days of the Second World War FDR worked often secretively in finding the means to help Great Britain and the British Empire against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. He openly criticized the invasion of France by the Italians in 1940 in a speech in which he compared the act as akin to stabbing a neighbor in the back. FDR attempted to repeal the Neutrality Acts and when that failed he created ways to circumvent them, including the sales of arms and supplies to the British on a cash basis. Technically the Germans could have purchased materials under the act as well, though they never attempted to. Isolationists continued to warn the President was determined to enter the European war and that he was violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the Neutrality Acts in his efforts to aid Great Britain. Still, he achieved approval to sell surplus American military equipment to the British.
Although the law stipulated that equipment had to be paid for in cash, Roosevelt declared fifty World War One era destroyers as military surplus and transferred them to the British in exchange for the right to acquire advanced bases in the Atlantic and in Newfoundland. Many of the transferred ships were in need of extensive maintenance and when FDR learned of the delays being caused in getting them into service, he augmented the agreement with the transfer of ten newer Coast Guard cutters. Roosevelt’s actions were a violation of the Neutrality Acts, and he made the transfer under executive order as Commander in Chief, thus responsible for the disposal of surplus military equipment, but for his opposition, it was an abuse of the powers of the Presidency.
