John T. Flynn - Career - The 1930s

The 1930s

Consistently at all stages of his literary career, Flynn opposed militarism. He was a key advisor to the 1934 Nye Committee, which investigated the role of the so-called "merchants of death" (munitions manufacturers and bankers) in leading to U.S. entry into World War I.

By 1936, Flynn had publicly broken with Roosevelt. He was already drawing comparisons between the centralist features of the New Deal on the one hand, and Benito Mussolini's policies on the other: "We seem to be not a long way off from the kind of Fascism which Mussolini preached in Italy before he assumed power; and we are steadily approaching the conditions which made Fascism possible."

Flynn was one of the founders of the America First Committee which opposed Roosevelt’s foreign policy. Eventually he became head of the New York City chapter, which claimed a membership of 135,000. The Committee charged that Roosevelt was using lies and deception to ensnare the United States into another war. It mounted campaigns against Lend-Lease, the Selective Service, and other initiatives by Roosevelt.

Although Flynn distanced the Committee from the claims of extremist and anti-Semitic groups, such as the National Union for Social Justice, his old pro-war leftist allies cut him off, and The New Republic pulled his regular column, "Other People’s Money." His 1940 book, Country Squire in the White House "placed on the White House enemies list."