In fact, one of the most important issues of this period was the economic aid the United States had provided European nations during World War One. Americans lent the Allied countries seven thousand million dollars during the war. Shortly after the war, they lent another three thousand million dollars. The Allies borrowed most of the money for military equipment and food and other needs of their people. The Allied nations suffered far greater losses of property and population than the United States during the war. And when peace came, they called on the United States to cancel the loans America had made. France, Britain, and the other Allied nations said the United States should not expect them to re-pay the loans.

The United States refused to cancel the debts. President Coolidge spoke for most Americans when he said, simply: "They borrowed the money." He believed the European powers should pay back the war loans, even though their economies had suffered terribly during the fighting