The townsfolk of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, found the seasonal presence of the Spanish-speaking cherry pickers quite irksome until a sincere effort was made by local clergy to bring the two groups together.
Although the title of this 1934 article pertains to “racial prejudice”, make no mistake: it actually addresses the growth of Jew hatred. Reporter Cedric Fowler examined numerous hate groups throughout the United States, such as the German-American Bund, the Silver Legion of America, the American Fascists, the White Shirts of California, the White People’s Club of West Virginia, and the Patriotic Speakers Bureau. Nasty groups all.
“At the end of last year, our authorities discovered that there were nearly one hundred Japanese leg men in New England reporting to the Boston office. More than five hundred in Washington; something above two hundred in Chicago; twenty-five hundred were in the New York area; twenty-five in Cleveland; thirty-eight in Detroit; eighty-odd in Florida, and so on out to the West Coast where around three thousand Japanese are ‘on duty’ from San Diego to Port Washington.”
This article is one that has reoccurred throughout the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-First. It recalls the good will that has existed between the American soldier and the children in the countries that hosted them or the lands they occupied. The American Doughboys in W.W I France were very sympathetic with the numerous orphans that were created in that war and contributed heavily to their charities. Their comrades serving in Siberia were charmed by the boys and girls of that land and quickly became fast friends. The attached article was written by a former officer posted to the Siberian Expedition, and in this column, he put pen to paper and recounted the happy friendships he witnessed between the Amerikanskies and the children of Siberia.
“From a study that covers practically all the comic sequences, I have roughly estimated that sixty percent deal with the unhappiness of married life, fifteen percent with other problems of the home, such as disagreeable children, and in the other fifteen is grouped a miscellany of tragic subjects – mental or social inferiority, misfortune and poverty. This last group contains a few subjects that carry no definite plan from day-to-day but are based on transient jokes such a Prohibition and the income tax.”
Attached is an interesting article by the noted poet and poetry anthologist, Louis Untermeyer (1885 – 1977). He praised the soldier poets of the First World War and expressed his bafflement concerning the absolute dirth of competent rhyme-slingers in the Second World War:
“Why then, it has been asked again and again, is the poetry of this war so thin, so emotionally anemic, so unrepresentative of the fierce struggle in which the world is engaged? Why has no poet, not even a single poem, emerged to stir the heart and burn into the mind?”
“The Truman Doctrine is the only road to lasting peace. Twice within 30 years the stubbornly-observed practice of ‘minding our business’ has brought war.”
Six months before Japan’s devastating assault on Pear Harbor came this article concerning how remarkable the Navy’s defensive measures were and how unlikely it would be if the installation was ever to be attacked. A large part of the article concerned how overwhelmingly Japanese the Oahu population was, and the many steps taken by the Army and Navy to keep them off-base. How terribly unimaginative of them to think that Japanese Naval Itelligence wouldn’t think to farm-out spying to an Englishman like Frederick Rutland – which they did.
In 1942 a couple of veterans from the first go-round of
The Stars & Stripes (February 8, 1918, through June 13, 1919) visited the New York offices of Yank Magazine, after having read many of their first issues. Although wars had changed, the Army had changed soldier-journalism had changed in 24 years, the old men were impressed with Yank and had to reluctantly admit it.
“[Yank has] profited by all our old mistakes, made some gorgeous ones of their own, and profited by them – and have the guts to admit it! Which means the fighting-writing America of 1942 has actually progressed 24 years over the fighting-writing America of 1918.”
“German prisoners of war are not coddled at the Fort Dix camp. The PWs are not mistreated, but neither is any kindness shown them. The officers supervising them are not cruel or lenient; they adhere strictly to the letter of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners.”
PM reporter Jack Shafer knew all this to have been true, because he went to Fort Dix and saw for himself.
Written during the closing days of the paper’s existence, the reporting journalist could not emphasize enough how lousy the paper was with enlisted men serving in the most important positions. You will come away with a good amount of knowledge concerning the manner in which The Stars and Stripes crew addressed their daily duties and still made it to the presses on time. Surprising is the high number of experienced newspapermen who wrote for the paper during the paper’s short existence.
When Hitler and Mussolini declared that they would no longer import Hollywood films for viewing, they inadvertently gave birth to a new kind of Hollywood – a Hollywood that would now produce movies criticizing European Fascism.
Read about Mission to Moscow (Warner Brothers, 1943) – made when Hollywood wished not to offend Stalin…
Here is a short, well illustrated article about the love shared between Grace Kelly and Prince Rainnier III:
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people who looked more in love. Every time I turned around to change film or grab another camera, they’d start whispering, holding hands… like any just-engaged couple. Pretty romantic.”
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 – 1961) had much to say as to how the German people could come to terms with all the dreadful acts that were committed in their name during the previous 12 years.
“[The German] will try frantically to rehabilitate himself in the face of the world’s accusations and hate – but that is not the right way. The only right way is his unconditional acknowledgement of guilt… German penitence must come from within.”
Click here to read Jung’s thoughts on Hitler.
This is the Pathfinder book review for the first in Winston Churchill’s monumental six-volume account of the struggle between the Allied Powers in Europe against the Axis during the Second World War. Told from the unique vantage point of a British prime minister, it is also the story of one nation’s heroic role in the fight against fascist tyranny. When the other volumes in the series were completed, in 1953, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his effort.
