"In my judgment, if we had pursued this course, the zones would have been of short duration. England would have been compelled to take her mines out of the North Sea in order to get any supplies from our country"
About this Quote
A senator’s “in my judgment” can sound like modesty; here it functions as a trigger warning. Norris is telegraphing that what follows is not abstract theorizing but a hard-edged counterfactual: policy choices have leverage, and leverage has victims. The cool phrasing - “pursued this course,” “zones,” “short duration” - sterilizes a reality of blockades, shipping lanes, and hunger, letting him argue ruthlessly without sounding bloodthirsty.
The key move is the inversion of moral posture. Britain’s “mines out of the North Sea” were typically justified as defensive necessities in a total war environment. Norris flips the script and treats them as negotiable luxuries, a behavior that could have been disciplined by American economic pressure. “Compelled” is the tell: he’s not appealing to England’s conscience but to her dependence. Food and supplies become the instrument of diplomacy, a kind of coercion dressed up as prudence.
Context matters because this is the American hinge-moment of the First World War era, when “neutrality” wasn’t passive but transactional. Norris, a prominent non-interventionist voice, is arguing that the U.S. had options between impotence and war: use export power to shorten the life of maritime “zones” and the escalatory logic they enabled. Subtext: the path to catastrophe wasn’t inevitable; it was greased by choices made in Washington as much as by belligerents at sea.
The key move is the inversion of moral posture. Britain’s “mines out of the North Sea” were typically justified as defensive necessities in a total war environment. Norris flips the script and treats them as negotiable luxuries, a behavior that could have been disciplined by American economic pressure. “Compelled” is the tell: he’s not appealing to England’s conscience but to her dependence. Food and supplies become the instrument of diplomacy, a kind of coercion dressed up as prudence.
Context matters because this is the American hinge-moment of the First World War era, when “neutrality” wasn’t passive but transactional. Norris, a prominent non-interventionist voice, is arguing that the U.S. had options between impotence and war: use export power to shorten the life of maritime “zones” and the escalatory logic they enabled. Subtext: the path to catastrophe wasn’t inevitable; it was greased by choices made in Washington as much as by belligerents at sea.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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