H.R. 3314, “to provide for the participation of the United States in the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” better known as the Bretton Woods Agreements Act, passed the 79th House on June 7, 1945, by a vote of 345-18, and the Senate on July 19, by a vote of 61-16, and was signed into law by Harry Truman on July 31, becoming Public Law 171, cited at 59 Stat. 512.
Opposition was slim, and mainly Republican; there were no Democratic “nay” votes in the House and only two in the Senate (Burton K. Wheeler of Montana and Pappy O’Daniel of Texas). And most of it came from the central region of the country.
Here are the states having at least one Senator voting “nay.”
And here are the states having at least one Congressman voting “nay.”
This probably confirms what one might have thought about the geographic basis for (what we’re not supposed to call) isolationism—that it was largely a Republican phenomenon of the West Central region of the country.
The Edge of the American West 
17 comments
May 25, 2010 at 9:30 am
Vance
Once we get our NAFTA superhighway put in, that central Senate axis will no longer be so isolated!
May 25, 2010 at 9:34 am
ari
It’s not cool to beat me to a joke, Vance. Not cool at all.
May 25, 2010 at 9:42 am
kevin
I’ve already converted my life savings into ameros.
May 25, 2010 at 10:15 am
Vance
I hope you got the ones with the reeded edge — the smooth ones aren’t good for much but melting down.
May 25, 2010 at 10:42 am
ben
So close! This could have been a This Day in History post, had you only waited a little bit!
May 25, 2010 at 10:56 am
Anderson
What’s remarkable is to look at the map and see nary one red southern state. (Unless you count Kentucky.)
I seem to recall reading that the world cotton market made Southerners enthusiastic internationalists.
May 25, 2010 at 10:56 am
erubin
When and (to an extent) why did the parties switch positions on the gold standard? Does this mean I can piss off all of my libertarian friends by suggesting we should use a gold standard because the New World Order won’t need dollars and pesos and euros and yens and…
May 25, 2010 at 11:05 am
eric
nary one red southern state
But in 1945, no Democrats voting no means pretty much no Southerners voting no. There are all of two Republicans from the former CSA in the 79th House (both from Tennessee) and none in the Senate.
May 25, 2010 at 12:29 pm
SeanH
I must’ve seen that film two dozen times, and I did not know until just now that Pappy O’Daniel was a real person.
May 25, 2010 at 12:44 pm
eric
Well, the Pappy O’Daniel in O Brother, Where art Thou? isn’t exactly the same as the real one. For starters, the one in OBWAT is named “Menelaus,” whereas the real one was named “Wilbert.”
May 25, 2010 at 1:06 pm
PorJ
I did not know until just now that Pappy O’Daniel was a real person.
“Pass-the-Biscuits” Pappy O’Daniel. For those of you who think media-propelled, substance-free political candidacies are a new thing in American history.
May 25, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Anderson
But in 1945, no Democrats voting no means pretty much no Southerners voting no.
Riiiight, but one reason no Dems voted no is that no Southerners voted no. By and large the Southern Dems supported FDR and I suppose Truman, but I hadn’t thought they marched in lockstep with the White House.
May 25, 2010 at 5:03 pm
kevin
Well, the Pappy O’Daniel in O Brother, Where art Thou? isn’t exactly the same as the real one. For starters, the one in OBWAT is named “Menelaus,” whereas the real one was named “Wilbert.”
Also, they folded in a lot of Jimmie Davis into that character as well. Davis rose to fame as the creator of “You Are My Sunshine” and rode the song to become governor of Louisiana.
May 25, 2010 at 5:20 pm
eric
Oh, absolutely. Louisiana: home to the most interesting governors? Between Jimmie Davis, Huey Long, and Edwin Edwards it seems pretty clear.
May 25, 2010 at 6:00 pm
kevin
Don’t forget Earl Long either, what with all the stripper love.
Bobby “Kenneth the Page” Jindal belongs in there too.
May 26, 2010 at 6:51 am
kid bitzer
suddenly google won’t authenticate my favorite gov. edwards quote:
“all politicians will *say* they’re innocent, but i’ve been acquitted by a jury, sixteen times!”
i must have the attribution wrong, or the phrasing, or something. but searching for it does lead me to a lot of other edwin edwards quotes nearly as good as that one.
May 26, 2010 at 11:06 am
student
this thread reminds me of one of the leading policymakers supporting Bretton Woods and the like, senior State Department official Will Clayton, a Texan who had made tons of money from cotton brokerage-exporting firm, Clayton Anderson (or vice versa). He’d probably be a Republican now, but as suggested above, someone like him would have ample reason to support and advance FDR-Truman foreign policy.