Nye, Gerald Prentice (1892-1971), a North Dakota Republican, served in the United States Senate from 1925 to 1945. He was a leading isolationist during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Nye became chairman of the Senate Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry in 1934. His committee found that firms making military equipment had made large profits during World War I (1914-1918). Nye believed that the United States had entered the war because of economic ties to the Allies. He sponsored the Neutrality Act of 1935, prohibiting U.S. firms from sending arms to countries during a war, and he supported neutrality laws passed in 1936, 1937, and 1939. Nye opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policies before World War II (1939-1945) and supported the America First Committee, which urged U.S. neutrality during the war.
Nye was born in Hortonville, Wisconsin, on Dec. 19, 1892. He worked on newspapers in Wisconsin and Iowa before moving to North Dakota in 1919. He was a rural newspaper editor and publisher there when he was appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat in 1925. He died on July 17, 1971.
