The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a committee of the United States Senate which studied the causes of United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

' involvement in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. It was a significant factor in heightening public and political support for neutrality in the early stages of World War II.

Background

During the 1920s and 1930s, dozens of books and articles appeared which argued that arms manufacturers had tricked the United States into entering World War I.

The push for the appointment of Senator Gerald Nye

Gerald Nye

Gerald Prentice Nye was a United States politician, representing North Dakota in the U.S. Senate from 1925-45...

 (R-ND) to the chairmanship of this committee came from Senator George Norris (R-NE). According to peace activist Dorothy Detzer

Dorothy Detzer

Dorothy Detzer was for twenty-two years the National Executive Secretary of the U.S...

, Norris said, "Nye's young, he has inexhaustible energy, and he has courage. Those are all important assets. He may be rash in his judgments at times, but it's the rashness of enthusiasm." Norris proposed Nye as "...the only one out of the 96 whom he deemed to have the competence, independence and stature for the task."

Organization

The committee was established on April 12, 1934. There were seven members: Nye, the committee chair; and Senators Homer T. Bone (D-WA), James P. Pope

James P. Pope

James Pinckney Pope was a mayor of Boise, Idaho, and a United States Senator from Idaho.Pope graduated from Louisiana Tech University in 1906 and from the law department of the University of Chicago in 1909...

 (D-ID), Bennett Champ Clark

Bennett Champ Clark

Joel Bennett Clark , better known as Bennett Champ Clark, was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1933 until 1945, and was later a United States federal judge.-Biography:...

 (D-MO), Walter F. George

Walter F. George

Walter Franklin George was an American politician from the state of Georgia. He was a long-time United States Senator and was President pro tempore. He was a Democrat.-Early years:...

 (D-GA), W. Warren Barbour (R-NJ), and Arthur H. Vandenberg

Arthur H. Vandenberg

Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg was a Republican Senator from the U.S. state of Michigan who participated in the creation of the United Nations.-Early life and family:...

 (R-MI). Alger Hiss

Alger Hiss

Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...

 served as a temporary legal assistant to the staff of the committee.

Process

The Nye Committee conducted 93 hearings and questioned more than 200 witnesses. The first hearings were in September 1934 and the final hearings in February 1936. The hearings covered four topics:

• The munitions industry
• Bidding on Government contracts in the shipbuilding industry
• War profits
• The background leading up to U.S. entry into World War I.

The committee documented the huge profits that arms factories had made during the war.

According to the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 website:

The investigation came to an abrupt end early in 1936. The Senate cut off committee funding after Chairman Nye blundered into an attack on the late Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 President Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

. Nye suggested that Wilson had withheld essential information from Congress as it considered a declaration of war. Democratic leaders, including Appropriations Committee

United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate....

 Chairman Carter Glass

Carter Glass

Carter Glass was a newspaper publisher and politician from Lynchburg, Virginia. He served many years in Congress as a member of the Democratic Party. As House co-sponsor, he played a central role in the development of the 1913 Glass-Owen Act that created the Federal Reserve System. Glass...

 of Virginia, unleashed a furious response against Nye for 'dirtdaubing the sepulcher of Woodrow Wilson.' Standing before cheering colleagues in a packed Senate Chamber, Glass slammed his fist onto his desk until blood dripped from his knuckles.

Results

Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America's involvement in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Many Americans felt betrayed and questioned that the war had been an epic battle between the forces of good (democracy) and evil (autocracy). This investigation of these "merchants of death" helped to bolster sentiments for isolationism.

The committee reported that between 1915 and January 1917, the United States lent Germany 27 million dollars, and in the same period, it lent to the United Kingdom and its allies 2.3 billion dollars, almost 100 times as much.

From those data, some have concluded that the US entered the war because it was in American commercial interest for the United Kingdom not to lose.

The findings of the committee gave momentum to the non-interventionist movement

United States non-interventionism

Non-interventionism, the diplomatic policy whereby a nation seeks to avoid alliances with other nations in order to avoid being drawn into wars not related to direct territorial self-defense, has had a long history in the United States...

 and sparked the passage of the Neutrality Acts of 1930s, in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939.

External links

• The Nye Report (full text of the report)
• "Maurice Rosenblatt A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress"
• "JSTOR: Military Affairs Vol.40, No.2 (April., 1976), page 59-63"
• "JSTOR: The Pacific Historical Review Vol.45, No.2 (May,1976), page. 209-230"
• "U.S Department of state, Neutrality acts"