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1932 › Norman Thomas (Socialist) › European war debts and reparations
Cancel the war debts (against cancellation of reparations) and raze the tariff wall
pledge_forwardspecific_pledgeparty_platformevidence B Diplomacy & International InstitutionsTrade & Tariffs⚡ European war-debt crisis similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Cancel all war debts of foreign governments conditional on cancellation of reparations; 'the razing of the dangerous and preposterous tariff wall.'
Rationale
The debts 'can never be collected from the bankrupt or semibankrupt countries of Europe'; insistence 'prolongs the economic uncertainty which paralyzes Europe.'
Evidence B: the platform text is archived only as contemporary newspaper OCR (Milwaukee Leader, the Socialist daily) and Levinson's New Leader summary, not the official platform document.
Statements (3)
The cancellation of all war debts of foreign governments on condition of a similar cancellation of all reparation payments.
The razing of the dangerous and preposterous tariff wall with which our short-sighted politicians sur round this country.
So- viet recognition, cancellation of war debts, entrance of the United States into the World Court and the League of Nations, abandon- ment of military interventions in Nicaragua and Haiti, and the with- drawal of military and naval forces from China
Follow-through
not_applicable
Thomas received 2.2 percent of the vote; the Socialist program could not be tested in office. The debts were never formally cancelled but were defaulted; tariffs were reduced by negotiation from 1934, not razed.
Enacted by others
| 1934-04-13 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | statute Johnson Act (default acknowledged) | source |
| 1934-06-12 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | statute Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act | source |
Other positions on this issue
- A twenty-year moratorium on the war debts, writing them off in proportion to each nation's purchases of American goods — Alfred E. Smith, 1932 specific_pledge
- No cancellation of the war debts — make payment possible by restoring trade — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 specific_pledge
- The 1931 German moratorium and standstill agreements stemmed European collapse and will be built upon — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
- No cancellation of war debts; apply any annual payment to opening foreign markets for American farm products — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
- Entry into the World Court and cancellation of the war debts (the record that made him 'politically unpopular') — Newton D. Baker, 1932 directional_stance
- Use every effort to collect the war debts due from foreign countries — Alf Landon, 1936 directional_stance
1932-thomas-cancel-war-debts-raze-tariff · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed