Editing Nye Committee (section)

==Results==
Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America's involvement in the World War. Many Americans felt betrayed and questioned that the war had been an epic battle between the forces of good (democracy) and evil (autocracy), as it had been depicted in pro-war propaganda. This investigation of these "merchants of death" helped to bolster sentiments favoring neutrality, non-interventionism, disarmament, and taking the profits out of weapons procurements.<ref name=Senate>{{cite web|url = https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/merchants_of_death.htm |title=Historical minute essay: Merchants of Death| location =United States | publisher = Senate|accessdate=17 January 2011}}</ref>

The committee reported that between 1915 and January 1917, the United States lent Germany $27 million. In the same period, it lent to Britain and [[Allies of World War I|its allies]] $2.3 billion. These loans were made during wartime: July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918.

Because of these facts Senator Nye, many war critics, and members of the American public concluded that the US entered the war for reasons of profit, not policy — because it was in the interest of American finance banks and investors for the Allies not to lose so that they would be able to pay interest and principal on their loans.<ref name = "Smedley" /> The committee's findings did not achieve the aim of nationalization of the arms industry, but gave momentum to the [[United States non-interventionism|non-interventionist movement]], sparked the passage of the [[Neutrality Acts of the 1930s]] in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939,<ref name=Senate/><ref>John Edward Wiltz, "The Nye Committee Revisited." ''The Historian'' 23.2 (1961): 211–233.</ref> and encouraged [[Charles Lindbergh]] and other [[Antisemitism|anti-Semites]], who believed that the lenders were mostly Jewish and that Jews were one of the principal groups advocating for U.S. intervention in Europe.

In its final report, the Nye Committee also identified the [[Chaco War]] between Bolivia and Paraguay as a key example of complicity between debt financiers, arms makers, and militaries.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gustafson |first=Bret Darin |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1159629686 |title=Bolivia in the age of gas  |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-1478012528 |location=Durham |pages=45 |oclc=1159629686}}</ref> The Committee described the dynamic:

{{Block quote|text=When a limited amount of materiel, such as machine guns, was available, Bolivia could be forced into ordering them on the threat that unless she acted quickly, Paraguay would get them. Killing the back-country Indians of South America with airplanes, bombs, and machine guns, boiled down to an order to get busy because "these opera bouffe revolutions are usually short-lived, and we must make the most of the opportunity."}}<ref> {{cite web|title=Report of the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry (The Nye Report), U.S. Congress, Senate, 74th Congress, 2nd sess., February 24, 1936, pp. 3–13.|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522154755/https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nye.htm}}</ref>