Roll Calls in 1942 Campaign

Report Outline
Roll Calls in the 1942 Campaign
Roll Calls on Defense and Foreign Policy
Special Focus

Roll Calls in the 1942 Campaign

Whatever may be the average voter's present degree of interest in prewar records of members of Congress on issues connected with the war, an active campaign is under way to intensify that interest, and to convince the voter that he should cast his ballot for no man who failed to give full adherence to foreign policies of the Roosevelt administration during the period of non-belligerency. Leadership in this effort has been assumed by three recently-formed associations, each having a considerable membership organized on a national basis. They are the Union for Democratic Action, Citizens for Victory, and Vote for Freedom, all with headquarters in New York City.

Organized support for the isolationist members of Congress now under attack had been promised by an announcement of the America First Committee, December 1, 1941, at its national headquarters at Chicago, that it was reorganizing on a political basis and would seek reelection for all senators and representatives who had taken the non-interventionist position. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, however, the America First Committee disbanded its organization, pledging the support of its members to the United States war effort.

Roll Calls in the Battle of the Ballots

The chief weapons forged by national organizations seeking to terminate the political lives of prewar isolationists have been compilations of House and Senate voting records, designed to show who were the “obstructionists and appeasers” before the United States entered the war. Two months after Pearl Harbor—at a time when local organizations “for democracy” were multiplying rapidly—President Roosevelt said that what the United States needed when at war was congressmen who would back up their government and who had records of backing up the country in an emergency, regardless of party.