Chapter 34: American Pageant

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The London Conference In the summer of 1933, 66 nations sent delegates to the London Economic Conference. The delegates hoped to organize a coordinated international attack on the global depression. They sought to stabilize the values of various nations' currencies and the rates at which they could be exchanged. President Roosevelt, at first, agreed to send delegates to the conference, but had second thoughts after he realized that an international agreement to maintain the value of the dollar in terms of other currencies wouldn't allow him to inflate the value of the dollar. He declared that America wouldn't take place in the negotiations. Without support from the United States, the London Economic Conference fell apart. The collapse strengthened the global trend towards nationalism, while making international cooperation increasingly difficult. Freedom for (from?) the Filipinos and Recognition for the Russians Increasing the nation's isolationism, President Roosevelt withdrew from Asia. Bowing to organized labor's demands of the exclusion of low-wage Filipino workers, Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934, providing for the independence of the Philippines by 1946. The nation did not want to have to support the Philippines if Japan attacked there. In 1933, Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union, opening up trade and bolstering a friendly counter-weight to the possible threat of German power in Europe and Japanese power in Asia. Becoming a Good Neighbor President Roosevelt initiated the Good Neighbor policy, renouncing armed intervention in Latin America. The last marines left Haiti in 1934; Cuba, under the Platt Amendment, was released from American control; and the grip on Panama was relaxed in 1936. When the Mexican government seized American oil properties in 1938, President Roosevelt held to his unarmed intervention
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