Senator George Norris Opposes U.S. Entry into the War

Mr. President, while I am most emphatically and sincerely opposed to taking any step that will force our country into the useless and senseless war now being waged in Europe, yet if this resolution passes I shall not permit my feeling of opposition to its passage to interfere in any way with my duty either as a Senator or as a citizen in bringing success and victory to American arms. I am bitterly opposed to my country entering the war, but if, notwithstanding my opposition, we do enter it, all of my energy and all of my power will be behind our flag in carrying it on to victory.

The resolution now before the Senate is a declaration of war. Before taking this momentous step, and while standing on the brink of this terrible vortex, we ought to pause and calmly and judiciously consider the terrible consequences of the step we are about to take. We ought to consider likewise the route we have recently traveled and ascertain whether we have reached our present position in a way that is compatible with the neutral position which we claimed to occupy at beginning and through the various stages of this unholy and unrighteous war.

No close student of recent history will deny that both Great Britain and Germany have, on numerous occasions since the beginning of the war, flagrantly violated in the most serious manner the rights of neutral vessels and neutral nations under existing international law as recognized up to the beginning of this war by the civilized world.

The reason given by the President in asking Congress to declare war against Germany is that the German Government has declared certain war zones, within which, by the use of submarines, she sinks, without notice, American ships and destroys American lives....

The first war zone was declared by Great Britain. She gave us and the world notice of it on the 4th day of November, 1914....

Both of these orders declaring military zones were illegal and contrary to international law. It is sufficient to say that our Government has officially declared both of them to be illegal and has officially protested against both of them....

There are a great many American citizens who feel that we owe it as a duty to humanity to take part in the war. Many instances of cruelty and inhumanity can be found on both sides. Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and the ir interests To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this, I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time. We had a right as a nation, if we desired, to cease at any time to be neutral. We had a technical right to respect the English war zone and to disregard the German war zone, but we could not do that and be neutral. I have no quarrel to find with the man who does not desire our country to remain neutral. While many such people are moved by selfish motives and hopes of gain, I have no doubt that in a great many instances, through what I believe to be a misunderstanding of the real condition, there are many honest, patriotic citizens who think we ought to engage in this war and who are behind the President in his demand that we should declare war against Germany....

It is now demanded that the American citizens shall be used as insurance policies to guarantee the safe delivery of munitions of war to belligerent nations. The enormous profits of munition manufacturers, stockbrokers, and bond dealers must be still further increased by our entrance into the war. This has bro ught us to the present moment, when Congress urged by the President and backed by the artificial sentiment, is about to declare war and engulf our country in the greatest holocaust that the world has ever known.

George Norris, a Republican from Nebraska, first came to national attention in 1910 as a young Representative. He introduced a reform resolution that would strip Speaker Joe Cannon of much of his power by taking away his authority to appoint committee members and their chairmen and by removing the Speaker from the Rules Committee. To everyone’s surprise, Norris was able to get enough votes to pass his resolution for a rule change, and the power of “Czar” Cannon began to wane. This move made him extremely unpopular with Cannon, as well as with some other members of the Nebraska delegation, and showed early on that Norris was not afraid to stand up to powerful individuals. In January 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to authorize him to arm American merchant ships, many of which had been searched and sunk although the United States was still officially neutral in the war at that time. Although Wilson’s request was immediately popular with the American public, Norris and Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette fought against the measure. Norris was an isolationist and a pacifist who felt that Wilson’s bill was a ruse by big business to get the United States into the war in Europe, and believed Wilson was trying to stampede the public into pressuring the Senate to pass his bill and enter the war. La Follette and Norris filibustered the bill and kept it from passing, but their victory was short-lived: Wilson stated that executive power already included the right to arm ships without congressional approval. Norris was the only member of the Nebraska delegation to vote against passage of the bill and he was excoriated on every side. He wrote the governor of Nebraska and offered to resign from the Senate, saying that if the people of Nebraska no longer felt that he was representing them adequately, he should step down. Norris traveled throughout Nebraska to explain his views to his constituents, and in the end, the governor declared that he would not ask for a special election. Norris touched off a firestorm of criticism in 1928, when he, a “dry” Republican, backed Al Smith, a Catholic Democrat who was anti-Prohibition, for president rather than Herbert Hoover, the Republican candidate. Smith’s liberal views touched a chord in Norris, who felt that the only place for progressive Republicans like him was in the Smith camp, rather than with Hoover, whom Norris felt was owned by monopolistic power companies. Norris went on to serve in the Senate until his defeat for re-election in 1942.