An Isolationist Commentator in an Internationalist Era:
Laval University
Journalist and educator Felix Morley, a recipient of a Pulitzer Prize during the 1930s who died in 1981, was born in Haverford (a small town west of Philadelphia), Pennsylvania, in 1894. His father, an English Quaker and renowned mathematician, had emmigrated to the United States to teach at Haverford College, a pre-eminent Quaker institution where the young Felix was later educated. His Anglican mother, incidentally, was an excellent violinist with literary skill that she passed on to her three sons. The Rhodes Scholarship that Felix obtained allowed him to study at Oxford University from 1919 to 1921, where he developed an interest in political science.[1] Despite this interest, it was in the field of literature that he obtained a PhD from George Washington University in 1940. In the years leading up to this moment, Felix Morley, who had favored Herbert Hoover for president in 1928 and 1932,[2] held several jobs, including member of the Baltimore Sun’s editorial staff (1922-1929)─where he acted as a correspondent in the Far East (1925-1926) and in Switzerland (1928-1929)─and editor of the Washington Post (1933-1940). During the Second World War, he was president of Haverford College, his alma mater. Still passionate about writing, he founded in early 1944, with journalist Frank Hanighen, the Washington newsletter Human Events, going on to serve as president and editor from 1945 to 1950. The purpose of this publication was to provide an analysis, in an unusually candid way, of the problems of the day.[3] During the postwar years, he also wrote extensively for Barron’s, Nation’s Business and Pathfinder.[4]
Morley, author of many books during his career (including a pro-League history entitled The Society of Nations published in 1932 and The Foreign Policy of the United States appearing in 1951), was a strong critic of the internationalist foreign policy of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. For instance, during the early Cold War period, he frequently denigrated the United Nations, the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan) and the North Atlantic Treaty. In the early 1950s, Morley, a resident of Gibson Island, Maryland, also endorsed the Republican candidacy of isolationist Senator Robert Taft (Ohio).
This paper, based primarily on an examination of Morley’s personal archives at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (West Branch, Iowa), aims to present the isolationist stance of this colorful commentator who has received scant attention from scholars. Another objective of this paper is to analyze his attitude and assess his impact in the field of foreign policy during the years 1945-1960.
“Our foreign policy has been stupid”
During his long career, Felix Morley, in reference to his particular views on US foreign policy, rejected the “isolationist” label occasionally given to him. In early 1941, for example, he was unequivocal in a letter concerning this label: “I am not an isolationist … I was a very staunch supporter of the League of Nations and did what I could to secure American membership therein. As Editor of the [Washington Post], I strongly opposed passage of the Neutrality Act, believing that this refusal to distinguish between the aggressor and his victim could only result in encouraging aggression. I think the United States should cooperate to the utmost in world organization for peace.”[5] The language was not really different some thirty years later: “I regard myself as a true classical Liberal… The bastard term ‘libertarian’ does not fill the bill and I feel the same about ‘non-interventionist’ as distinguished from the nationalistic and often xenophobic ‘isolationist’. Non-interventionist is utterly negative whereas my position has always had some strongly positive, internationally cooperative aspects. For instance, I worked hard …for a better understanding of other governments and peoples (I speak both French and German well) and for the greatest possible measure of Free Trade.”[6] However, an examination of his attitude during the Truman-Eisenhower era shows that he emerged as a ‘moderate’ supporter of an isolationist US foreign policy. But what is meant by the notion of ‘isolationism’ during these years? Although the term has never been easy to define,[7] much like the concept of ‘internationalism,’[8] it is generally used “to indicate a policy of abstaining from an active role in international affairs.”[9]
Having said that, many foreign policy issues of the Truman years confirm the isolationist bent of Felix Morley. These issues include: the United Nations, the Greek-Turkish Aid Program and the European Recovery Program of the 80th Congress, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of 1949, and the Korean War (1950-1953).
To begin with, the UN and its charter were not seen favorably by the journalist. Describing the UN Charter as “a constitutional monstrosity” and “an imperfect document,”[10] Morley deplored its vagueness and its excessive length. Regarding this last point, he said in 1945: “The Charter of the United Nations … contains 19 chapters, 111 separate articles and upwards of 9000 words of text. The Covenant of the League of Nations, by comparison, is composed of 26 articles and … has less than half the verbiage of the San Francisco document. The original Constitution of the United States, before the adoption of the Bill of Rights, contained only seven articles and just under 4300 words.”[11] Morley further lamented the fact that the UN Charter did not include a right of withdrawal from the new organization: “Unlike the Covenant of the League of Nations, which permitted withdrawal of a member in good standing on two years’ notice, no such right of separation from the organization is allowed in the San Francisco Charter.”[12] As he elaborated: “Public opinion in the United States is notoriously volatile. In spite of present enthusiasm for an alliance with Great Britain and Russia, popular sentiment could very possibly sometime swing back to support of George Washington’s belief that: ‘[It is] our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world’… A reservation to permit the United States to withdraw amicably from the United Nations, on a two-thirds recommendation by both Houses of Congress … is a very modest precaution which would in no wise hamper the successful functioning of the new organization.”[13] Naturally, Morley’s critical stance towards the United Nations did not vanish during the following years. In 1946-47, for instance, he deplored the fact that the world organization, consisting essentially “of a dominating alliance of five great powers,” was “far from being united”[14] and, in a context where the Soviet Union did not miss an opportunity to exercise its veto power in the Security Council, he referred to “the almost complete stalemate in the United Nations.”[15] In the same vein, he believed that establishing the seat of the UN in America was a mistake: “Now we have the Secretariat, well-salted with Communist employees who are all potential if not actual spies, firmly established with diplomatic immunities in our midst.”[16] In his 1951 book entitled The Foreign Policy of the United States, Morley also identified another defect of the UN Charter: “the failure to formulate any definition of aggression,” which, in his viewpoint, “seems a really extraordinary omission in an instrument designed primarily to prevent what is not defined.”[17]
Not surprisingly, Felix Morley, far from being laudatory with regard to bipartisanship,[18] was not the greatest supporter of the two main Cold War initiatives approved by the Republican 80th Congress: the Greek-Turkish Aid Program (also known as the Truman Doctrine) and the European Recovery Program (also known as the Marshall Plan). For the journalist, the Greek-Turkish Aid Program, a program totaling $400 million Dollars and recommended by President Truman in his famous congressional speech of March, 1947 as a means of thwarting pro-Soviet guerrillas in Greece and Turkey, was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823: “The diplomatic record supports the contention that one of the two pillars of the Monroe Doctrine is no political intervention in Europe on the part of the United States … But the course now advocated by the Administration seems to be one which will both ignore the United Nations and destroy the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. In effect we are asserting that we can meddle in what Russia considers its sphere of influence while maintaining that the Russians must not attempt identical tactics toward us.”[19]
Regarding the European Recovery Program, proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in early June, 1947 and aimed at providing massive economic assistance to Western European nations, Morley, a fiery opponent of the Morgenthau Plan,[20] expressed his skepticism at the end of the same year:
There is little doubt that the program of charity for Western Europe is politically advisable. In its absence Communism is practically certain to extend its gains this winter and may well eventually bring the whole European Continent, including Great Britain, under the control of Moscow. The question as to which there is more doubt is whether American assistance, on the scale demanded, will in the long run prove more than a stopgap. It might well weaken the United States and fail to strengthen Western Europe … In short, there is neither security, nor any certainty of efficacious use, behind this sixteen billion dollar touch.[21]
Implementation of the Marshall Plan indeed seemed to confirm some of Morley’s apprehensions, as he stated in 1949: “There are unmistakable signs that the plan, for all its accomplishments, is failing to make western Europe self-supporting. Most of these signs come from Britain … Under the Marshall [P]lan we are now subsidizing Great Britain at the rate of about $2,500,000 a day. But even so there is a growing shortage there of the dollars England needs in order to buy essential raw materials from this country and Canada.”[22]
As for the North Atlantic Treaty, ratified in Spring, 1949 by twelve European and North American signatories who pledged that an attack on any member would trigger an unanimous counterattack by all, Felix Morley was quite bitter: “[The proposed alliance] is at best an undesirable, unsatisfactory, and uninspiring stopgap … One basic trouble with this alliance is that by its terms the American people abandon all control of their own destiny. If Russia and Norway go to war, we also go to war, regardless of whether or not Norwegian mistakes helped to provoke the conflict.”[23] The journalist’s resentment of NATO was still perceptible in early 1951 when he wrote, among other things, that “there is no question that defense of the remaining colonial possessions of the European empires─in Africa and Asia as well as America─is an essential strategic concept of NATO.”[24] Incidentally, a few months later, he declared: “Now … we seem to have put all our eggs in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization basket. Let us remember that no military alliance has ever saved a nation.”[25]
Furthermore, the journalist, exasperated by the Point Four Program of 1949 which was intended to provide technical and capital assistance to the underdeveloped areas of the world,[26] portrayed the Korean conflict as “a costly and demoralizing war”[27] and deplored the fact that the American military participation was decided “by Presidential edict.”[28] It must be noted that Morley, with the presidential campaign of 1952 approaching, also supported the candidacy of the Republican Senator Robert Taft whose isolationist stance in foreign policy was well-known.[29] As he told the City Club forum of Cleveland at the end of 1951: “[Robert Taft is] not merely the only announced candidate for president but also the only possible candidate of either party having a clear understanding of today’s problems and the courage to confront them.”[30] Incidentally, a few months later, Morley still noted that “foreign policy … is enormously costly, meaning that it drains the resources of the people.”[31]
Lastly, it should be emphasized that the isolationist sentiment of Felix Morley remained alive during the Eisenhower era, although nothing is known about his positions on issues such as the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) of 1954, the Formosa Resolution of 1955 or the Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957.
On the one hand, the journalist, who had left Human Events in early 1950 following some disagreements with the newsletter’s stockholders,[32] believed in the legitimacy of the Bricker Amendment. Introduced in January, 1953 by Republican Senator John Bricker (Ohio), who feared that UN treaties might include provisions that could infringe on US sovereignty or compromise the free-market economic system, this constitutional amendment aimed to prevent any treaty from taking effect as American law unless authorized by special congressional legislation. As Morley asserted in a speech delivered at the Air War College in Alabama: “The strength of American opposition to any flirtation with dictatorship is shown, very clearly, in the sentiment for the Bricker Amendment … The fundamental thought of the Bricker Amendment, and of the opposition to [bipartisan] [f]oreign [p]olicy, is much the same. In both cases there is the conviction that the executive arm of government gains steadily in power, and that to prevent this trend growing into a dictatorial torrent, Congress must assert its prerogative.”[33] Unfortunately for the journalist, the Bricker Amendment, opposed by President Eisenhower, was defeated by a narrow margin in early 1954.
On the other hand, Morley’s isolationist attitude was clearly perceptible in a November, 1954 address delivered to the Conservative Society of Yale Law School: after referring to the soundness of Washington’s Farewell Address and railing against the fact that the American nation continued “to pour billions of public money into the far corners of the earth,” he concluded that “our foreign policy has been stupid.”[34]
Having completed this brief portrait of Felix Morley’s attitude regarding postwar US foreign policy, some questions immediately come to mind: what were the bases of his isolationism? Should one rely exclusively on the arguments the colorful journalist raised in his writings and speeches for a full understanding of his conservative attitude concerning foreign affairs? Did he turn out to be an influential member of the isolationist community during the postwar period?
First of all, the isolationism of Morley in the Truman-Eisenhower years is not so surprising if one simply considers his religious beliefs. In fact, one might note that pacifism, a dogma hardly compatible with an interventionist foreign policy in his eyes, is an important component of the Quaker faith and, as historian Justus Doenecke has pointed out, it seems plausible to believe that it was from the Society of Friends that Morley received his distaste for war.[35] His pacifism was also, quite plausibly, stimulated by the fact that, as an ambulance driver on the Western Front during World War I, he witnessed carnage at the towns of Ypres (Belgium) and Loos (France).[36] The fact that Morley also had a wide circle of acquaintances that included isolationist politicians such as William Borah, Robert Taft and Herbert Hoover was undoubtedly another element explaining his conservative position in foreign policy.[37] Morley, in his autobiography, referred for instance to his “close collaboration with Bob Taft,”[38] as well as his cordial and assiduous relationship with the former Republican president[39] (who was incidentally a Quaker as well).
Whatever the source of his pacifist attitude, Felix Morley, as has been implied, did not come across as an ‘extreme’ isolationist; in fact, his isolationism was rather ‘moderate’.[40] Thus, although he criticized the UN Charter, he admitted that “is not to suggest that it is unworkable”[41] and, according to the information available, he never publicly endorsed bills providing for US withdrawal from the UN such as the one in 1951, HR 5081(introduced by North Dakota congressman Usher Burdick).[42] It is important to keep in mind that Morley’s credentials were not necessarily those of a ‘typical’ isolationist if one considers that this journalist, who made several trips abroad during his life (to England, Switzerland, the Far East, etc.) and had given his enthusiastic support to the League of Nations,[43] declined several invitations to join America First before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[44] In the early Truman years, he even contended that a return to isolationism, “as the world is now constituted, would … be disastrous.”[45] In addition, Morley, a native-born Pennsylvanian and a Maryland resident, did not really live in an ‘isolationist environment’. In fact, it was obvious during the postwar years that the isolationist sentiment was mostly perceptible in the Midwest, as historian Wayne Cole has implied: “Among those [in Congress] who wrote, spoke, or voted against Truman’s Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine aid to Greece and Turkey, and the North Atlantic Treaty were Senators Robert A. Taft and John W. Bricker of Ohio, Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado, William Jenner of Indiana, [Kenneth] Wherry [Nebraska], and [William] Langer [North Dakota].”[46]
In the end, it seems tempting to assert that the influence of the journalist with regard to the field of foreign policy, in an age which coincided with the heyday of US internationalism, was rather insignificant. It should not be forgotten, however, that Morley, obviously not an admirer of President Truman,[47] appeared as a respected and distinguished figure in the conservative (and isolationist) circles, as clearly exemplified by the fact that his name was frequently quoted during these years. This situation is not so surprising since Morley, particularly through his newsletter Human Events in which his isolationist rhetoric was eloquently exposed, reached a non-negligible audience, as the journalist acknowledged a few years after its founding: “Human Events made many friends, gaining subscribers in nearly every state and overseas. By 1947 the paid circulation, at $10 a year, had risen to nearly 5,000.”[48] Moreover, it must be noted that members of Congress such as Burton Wheeler (Montana), Clare Boothe Luce (Connecticut), Walter Judd (Minnesota), Lawrence Smith (Wisconsin), Howard Buffett (Nebraska), Henry Talle (Iowa), William Jenner (Indiana), Daniel Reed (New York), James Kem (Missouri), William Langer (North Dakota), Gordon McDonough (California), Everett Dirksen (Illinois) and John Bricker (Ohio) made, on Capitol Hill, allusions to him and his ideas during the postwar years.[49] The same may also be said for the conservative (and isolationist) newspaper Chicago Tribune.[50]
Journalist Felix Morley, in short, was a key member of the US isolationist community during the early Cold War years. His anti-internationalist stance was particularly obvious between 1945 and 1953 when he successively found fault with the UN, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty and the US intervention in Korea. Morley’s isolationist attitude, which stemmed in part from his pacifist beliefs, was not drastic in its tone, however, since this former supporter of the League of Nations apparently refused, among other things, to accept an American withdrawal from the UN. It would be interesting now, in order to determine the uniqueness of Morley’s position on foreign policy, to compare his rhetoric with that of other prominent isolationist commentators of the postwar era such as John O’Donnell, George Sokolsky, Westbrook Pegler and John Flynn. For instance, the colorful journalist Flynn (1882-1964), a fiery supporter of the Bricker Amendment, was far from being enthusiastic regarding the United Nations, the European Recovery Program and NATO …[51]
[1]A few years later, he was a lecturer on current political problems at St. John’s College of Annapolis, Maryland. Who’s Who in America, 1956-1957, 29: (Chicago: Marquis-Who’s Who, 1956), 1829.
[2]In his memoirs, Morley affirmed however that he reluctantly voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. Felix Morley, For the Record (South Bend: Regnery/Gateway, 1979), 297.
[3]Regarding the beginnings of Human Events, Morley confided: “Hanighen was urging partnership in launching an outspoken weekly newsletter, with special appeal for advocates of a reasonable, non-punitive and lasting peace. He would do the reporting for this if I would direct the critical comment. The idea was attractive. Quakers should be interested in such a publication and it might have a beneficial connection with Haverford. It would permit continuation … of the analytical articles which I enjoyed writing but had ceased to produce. A good eighteenth century title for the undertaking, I told Hanighen, would be Human Events, after the resounding opening of the Declaration of Independence: ‘When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary …’” (ibid., 396); see also Felix Morley to Bertrand de Jouvenel, 31 March, 1950, Felix Morley Papers [hereafter cited as FMP], Box 16, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa.
[4]The biographical information about Morley comes mainly from Who’s Who in America (see footnote 1), his memoirs (see footnote 2), Oscar Johannsen’s article “Felix Morley: The Journalist Philosopher” at www.cooperativeindividualism.org/johannsen_morley_bio.html, Joseph Stromberg’s article “Felix Morley: An Old-fashioned Republican” at www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s120799.html, and Justus Doenecke’s books review “American Dissidents” published in the December 1979 issue of Reason (FMP, Box 13).
[5]Felix Morley to Robert E. Wood, 4 January, 1941, FMP, Box 1.
[6]Felix Morley to Justus Doenecke, 24 March, 1973, FMP, Box 13.
[7]Historian Justus Doenecke, for example, has affirmed: “Defining isolationism has long been a problem …Scholars of isolationism … find it a loaded term and one possessing such emotional connotations that dispassionate analysis is indeed difficult. Wayne S. Cole defines isolationists as people who opposed intervention in European wars and who believed in America’s unimpaired freedom of action. They often differed from pacifists ... in being strident nationalists and in endorsing strong military preparations. Some isolationists, Cole noted, welcomed certain forms of imperialism and were not averse to military action in Latin America or Asia. Another historian, Manfred Jonas, finds two strands dominant in American isolationism: ‘unilateralism in foreign affairs and the avoidance of war’. In discussing the former point, Jonas notes that the isolationists ever sought to maximize the options open to the country. At no time did isolationists seek literally to ‘isolate’ the United States from either the world’s culture or its commerce.” Justus D. Doenecke, Not to the Swift: The Old Isolationists in the Cold War Era (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1979), 11-12.
[8]Ibid., 12.
[9]John Findling, Dictionary of American Diplomatic History (NY: Greenwood Press, 1989), 265.
[10]Felix Morley, “The San Francisco Charter,” Human Events, 4 July, 1945, FMP, Box 41; Felix Morley, The Charter of the United Nations: An Analysis, National Economic Problems, No. 416, FMP, Box 36.
[11]Morley, “The San Francisco Charter.”
[12]Ibid.
[13]Ibid. During the Truman years, Morley frequently alluded to George Washington’s famous message of 1796 (which gave a significant impetus to the isolationist doctrine in the US), characterizing it in 1946, for example, as the “profoundly thoughtful Farewell Address.” Felix Morley, “Speech on Foreign Policy, “ 1946, FMP, Box 39. On the same occasion he added: “It is undeniable that all of the Founding Fathers were 100 per cent Isolationists. That was true of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Monroe, Jay, John Marshall … Isolationism and Americanism, in the early days of this Republic, were synonymous, and I think inevitably as well as intelligently so” (ibid.). He spoke no differently in his 1951 book on US foreign policy: “Isolationism from Europe was not a personal foible of the ‘Father of his Country’. It was a well-reasoned policy approved and advanced by all the revolutionary leaders, including even Alexander Hamilton.” Felix Morley, The Foreign Policy of the United States (NY: American Enterprise Association, 1951), 39, FMP, Box 36.
[14] “Assail U.S. World Policy,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 9 April, 1946, FMP, Box 39.
[15]Felix Morley, “The Fiasco of the United Nations,” Human Events, 13 August, 1947, FMP, Box 41. According to Morley, the fact of granting “preeminent authority in the Security Council, where the veto operates, instead of in the Assembly, where action may be decided by a two-thirds vote” constituted a major blunder of the UN Charter. Congressional Record, Appendix, 19 March, 1951, A1546.
[16]Morley, “Fiasco of the United Nations.” See also Congressional Record, Appendix, 26 January, 1953, A285.
[17]Morley, Foreign Policy of the United States, 35.
[18]For instance, he attacked America’s bipartisan foreign policy during these years “as one which discourages criticism.” “City Clubbers Hear Critic of Foreign Policy,” Cleveland News, 20 October, 1951, FMP, Box 39. It must be noted that the bipartisanship was, basically, this agreement among the leaders of the two major parties not to bother the public with foreign policy disputes after World War II.
[19]Felix Morley, “Greece and the Monroe Doctrine,” Human Events, 12 March, 1947, FMP, Box 41.
[20]Congressional Record, Appendix, 6 June, 1946, A3250. Prepared by Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, the Morgenthau Plan, completed in September, 1944, called for the complete demilitarization of Germany, to be accomplished by means of a number of measures, one of which was the dismantling of armaments and heavy industrial plants. It was rejected in 1945 by the Truman administration.
[21]Felix Morley, “Can America Save Europe?” Human Events, 1 October, 1947, FMP, Box 41.
[22]Congressional Record, Appendix, 13 June, 1949, A3643.
[23]Congressional Record, Appendix, 25 March, 1949, A1759.
[24]Morley, Foreign Policy, 74.
[25]“City Clubbers Hear Critic of Foreign Policy,” Cleveland News, 20 October, 1951, FMP, Box 39.
[26]Morley, Foreign, 68-70.
[27]Ibid., 37.
[28]Felix Morley, “The Ethics of Foreign Policy,” 21 November, 1951, FMP, Box 41.
[29]The Ohio politician was one of 13 senators to vote against the Atlantic pact in 1949. Eleanora W. Schoenebaum, ed., Political Profiles: The Truman Years (NY: Facts On File, 1978), 535.
[30]“U.S. Near Decision, Morley Declares,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 21 October, 1951, FMP, Box 39. Morley had already eulogized Taft during the electoral year of 1948, as revealed by this excerpt: “Taft is the only man in the run … who has sounded warnings about Russia without any ‘war-mongering’ … and who is universally respected for his courage and his integrity.” Felix Morley to Robert A. Taft, 18 March, 1948, FMP, Box 2.
[31]Felix Morley, “National Security and Foreign Policy,” 28 April, 1952, FMP, Box 26.
[32]Morley justified his resignation in these terms: “Our enterprise, while it has gained an enviable prestige and reputation, is making no real progress towards financial stability … It was my thought … that our salaries from HUMAN EVENTS should be sharply reduced, so that its budget might be balanced.” Felix Morley to the Stockholders of Human Events, 13 February, 1950, FMP, Box 16; see also Morley, For the Record, 436-437.
[33]Felix Morley, “The Problem of Bi-Partisan (sic.) Foreign Policy,” 12 October, 1954, FMP, Box 26.
[34]Felix Morley, “Conservatism and Foreign Policy,” 10 November, 1954, in Vital Speeches of the Day, 15 January, 1955, FMP, Box 27.
[35]Doenecke, “American Dissidents.” It must be noted, however, that Morley, late in his life, decided to leave the Society of Friends to become an Anglican.Ibid..
[36]Ibid..
[37]Stromberg, "Felix Morley." Borah (1865-1940), a Republican senator from Idaho, was chiefly remembered for his fierce opposition to American membership in the League of Nations while Hoover (1874-1964), during the Great Debate on foreign policy of 1950-1951, advocated a ‘Fortress America’ approach with emphasis on US strategic air and naval power. Wayne S. Cole, “Isolationism,” in Richard S. Kirkendall, ed., The Harry S. Truman Encyclopedia (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1989), 180.
[38]Morley, For the Record, 439.
[39]Ibid., 360, 366, 376, 416, 441, 445.
[40]In an article dealing with isolationist senators during the Truman-Eisenhower years, historian Richard Grimmett has stated that a member of the upper house “was considered an extreme isolationist if he voted for the isolationist position on at least eighty-five percent of the scaled votes in a given year,” Richard F. Grimmett, “Who Were the Senate Isolationists?” Pacific Historical Review, XLII (1973), 488.
[41]Morley, “The San Francisco Charter.”
[42]Congressional Record, 2 August, 1951, 15304.
[43]For such support on behalf of the League of Nations, historian Justus Doenecke has even described Morley as “a strong internationalist” during the 1920s and 1930s. Doenecke, Not to the Swift, 39. In his 1951 book dealing with US foreign policy, for instance, Morley, praised the League of Nations in these terms: “During the twenty years from 1919 to 1939 the League of Nations achieved many solid accomplishments in the field of inter-governmental organization. It did much to develop international administration in many technical fields.” Morley, Foreign Policy, 31.
[44]Morley, For the Record, 367. Morley confessed, however, in Spring, 1941 that the America First Committee, born in late Spring, 1940 to keep the American nation out of war and which included as prominent members Charles Lindbergh and influential editor William Randolph Hearst, “is doing a tremendous service at this time.” Felix Morley to Isaac A. Pennypacker, 6 May, 1941, FMP, Box 1.
[45] “Assail U.S. World Policy,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 9 April, 1946, FMP, Box 39.
[46]Cole, “Isolationism,” in Kirkendall, 180. Several different explanations of Midwestern isolationism exist. Scholar Ted Carpenter has written: “The region’s geographic insularity coupled with its relative lack of dependence on foreign commerce allegedly created intense support for a noninterventionist foreign policy. Other writers note the presence of large numbers of ethnic groups, especially Germans, who embraced isolationism in order to avoid situations that might provoke war between their adopted country and their former homeland. Another view sees the Midwestern preference for nonentanglement rooted in long-standing agrarian and populist hostility toward Eastern finance capitalists and their European allies. Still other scholars stressed that isolationism has been primarily Republican party dogma and is closely related to ruralism and domestic conservatism” Ted Galen Carpenter, “The Dissenters: American Isolationists and Foreign Policy, 1945-1954” (Dissertation, University of Texas, 1980), 2-3. See also Leroy N. Rieselbach, “The Basis of Isolationist Behavior,” Public Opinion Quarterly 24:4 (Winter, 1960), 645-646.
[47]In 1948, for instance, the journalist lambasted the Chief Executive and his foreign policy in these terms: “It was Truman who signed the Potsdam agreement, which made the Communists hegemony in central Europe certain. It was Truman who led the Republic blindfolded into the snare and delusion of the United Nations. It was Truman who, for political purposes, surrendered to Zionist pressure and thereby assured the humiliating tragedy of Palestine ... Finally it was Truman who personally endorsed the two cold-blooded atrocities by which America destroyed all of its moral supremacy in the last war─the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, after Japan was licked; and the Nuremberg trials, a travesty of justice accomplished in concert with a government which the President himself now indicts as a menace to American institutions.” Congressional Record, Appendix, 30 March, 1948, A2012.
[48]Morley, For the Record, 424. He added in 1950: “As for the success of Human Events[,] it was very real. The actual circulation, under my direction, never got above 4500, and of this number approximately half were gift … But people all over the country got the underlying idea and my correspondence, in regard to the publication, was larger than I received as editor of the Washington Post, with forty times the circulation. A particularly interesting development was the number of intelligent people … who wanted to write for Human Events. We were simply deluged with unsolicited contributions, many of them of quite high quality … I think Human Events demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that there is room in this country for a journal of ideas.” Felix Morley to Bertrand de Jouvenel, 31 March, 1950, FMP, Box 16.
[49]Congressional Record, 3 July, 1945, A3222; 14 December, 1945, A5531; 6 June, 1946, A3250; 30 January, 1948, A545; 30 March, 1948, A2012; 7 February, 1949, A555; 18 March, 1949, A1564; 13 June, 1949, A3643; 11 July, 1949, A4432; 18 January, 1950, A362; 4 December, 1950, A7421; 26 January, 1953, A284; 28 May, 1953, A3028. Lawrence Smith, incidentally, portrayed Morley as “an outstanding journalist and author.” Congressional Record, 2 April, 1951, A1737.
[50]Chicago Tribune, Editorials, 19 August, 1952; 8 December, 1954, FMP, Boxes 32 and 27.
[51]See, for example, Richard C. Frey, Jr., “John T. Flynn and the United States in Crisis, 1928-1950.” (Dissertation, University of Oregon, 1969), 256-257, 304-305.