Editing Nye Committee (section)

== Background ==
During the 1920s and 1930s, dozens of books and articles appeared about the high cost of war, and some argued that financiers and arms manufacturers had maneuvered the United States into [[American entry into World War I|entering World War I]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Advocate of Peace Through Justice, Volume 85 |date=1923 |publisher=American Peace Society |page=[https://archive.org/details/advocateofpeace85amerrich/page/156 156] |url=https://archive.org/details/advocateofpeace85amerrich |accessdate=20 November 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=King |first1=William C. |editor1-link=America Bears Largest Cost Of War : Her Net Outlay Nearly One Fourth of the Entire War Expense, ...|title=King's Complete History of the World War ...: 1914–1918. |date=1922 |publisher=History Associates |pages=732–734 |isbn=978-0598443120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0NwLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA732 |accessdate=20 November 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bogart |first1=Ernest Ludlow|authorlink=Ernest L. Bogart |title=Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War |date=1920 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/directandindire00bogagoog/page/n313 301]–330 |url=https://archive.org/details/directandindire00bogagoog |accessdate=20 November 2018}}</ref> One of the best-known was [[Smedley D. Butler]], a retired Marine Corps general who had become a spokesman for left-wing anti-war elements.<ref name = "Smedley">{{cite book |last1=Butler |first1=Smedley |title=War is a racket : the antiwar classic by America's most decorated General, two other anti-interventionist tracts, and photographs from the Horror of it |date=1935 |publisher=Feral House |isbn=978-0922915866 |edition=Reprint 2003 |url=https://archive.org/details/warisracket00smed_0}}</ref>  Historian [[Charles Callan Tansill]]'s ''America Goes To War'' (1938) exploited the Nye Committee's voluminous report of testimony and evidence to develop and confirm the heavy influence exercised by Wall Street finance (notably J.P. Morgan) and the armaments industry (notably Du Pont) in the process that led to American intervention.<ref> Brandes, ''Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America'' (2015) pp. 221–222. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

The push for the appointment of Senator [[Gerald Nye]] (R-ND) to the chairmanship of this committee came from Senator [[George W. Norris|George Norris]] (R-NE). According to peace activist [[Dorothy Detzer]], Norris said, "Nye's young, he has inexhaustible energy, and he has courage.  Those are all important boons. He may be rash in his judgments at times, but it's the rashness of enthusiasm."{{Sfn | Cole | 1962 | p = 68}}  Norris proposed Nye as "...the only one out of the 96 whom he deemed to have the competence, independence and stature for the task."<ref>{{Citation | first = Barbara W. | last = Tuchman | title = The March of Folly | publisher = Random House | place = New York | year = 1984 | page = 382}}.{{ISBN?}}</ref>