'41 and '42: Cartoons by Shoemaker (Chicago: Chicago Daily News. 1942)
On a beautiful Midwest autumn morning, with sparse cotton candy clouds dotting a deep blue sky, I was walking across the parking lot toward my ten-story office building when a co-worker got out of her car and said there was a story on the radio about a plane that might have flown into a building in New York. Thirty-eight years after an assassin created the most unforgettable moment of a previous generation, Where were you when Kennedy was shot?, we had another event indelibly imprinted on our consciousness and would forever after be able to answer the question: Where were you when you heard about the attack on the World Trade Center?
On that day, and the ones that followed, I experienced the gut churning sorrow, anger and determination behind every rallying cry I had learned from my history books. “Remember the Alamo.” “Remember the Maine.” I would never have imagined, having seen nothing but dirty tricks and bickering between the politicians of the two parties for most of my life, that the country could come together so quickly and unanimously, but we did. In a matter of hours, not even days, there was “no daylight between us” in our response to the attack. My generation rallied around and will forever “Remember the twin towers.”
For my parent’s generation, it was “Remember Pearl Harbor.”
PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE. America after Pearl Harbor
My mother was a teenager during World War II. I remember her telling me how bitterly divided the country was about whether or not America should involve itself in that foreign war. There were isolationists that thought we should just mind our own business and let the warring factions sort it out for themselves, and there were those who felt that if we didn’t intervene at the time and place of our own choosing, the war would come to us anyway and find us unprepared, with our potential allies already defeated.
As it turned out, that second group was closer to the mark. In my mother’s recollection, all of the arguments against going to war vanished overnight after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The country was one in its resolve.
The book, ’41 and ’42 A.D.: Cartoons by Shoemaker (Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1942), bridges the time between America’s vacillation and our commitment to join the allies and defeat the Axis powers in World War II. It is a book of editorial cartoons which were published in the Chicago Daily News for the years mentioned, and it provides a fascinating lens through which to view America’s debate on whether or not to go to war, and the sacrifices that would be needed to win it.
- WE MUST WIN. The first draft registration for World War II was held September 16, 1940 for all men between 21 and 36 years of age. This may be a commentary on a new draft round bringing in younger men.
Unfortunately, very few of the cartoons indicate a publication date, and they do not appear to be arranged chronologically, so there is less continuity than might be wished. Still, the subject matter is informative. There are cartoons warning against isolationism, against the treachery of Japan (published months before Pearl Harbor), and against hoarding. There are cartoon commentaries on the need for sacrifice, for a return to the God of our forefathers, and for the income tax. There are exhortations on buying war bonds, collecting scrap, and turning the industrial might of the United States toward producing aid for embattled Europe.
These picture editorials are snapshots of America’s struggles of conscience and debates on the need to, and the best way to, confront the Nazi menace. Though the times were perilous, the cartoons are, throughout, optimistic. Even as Europe is sketched in dark and dreary lines, its people suffering and starving, there is a sense that once America gets into the picture, relief is inevitable. That optimism was so strong that the last printed page of the book, which was published in 1942, consists only of a large “V” painted above a brush and ink pot labeled 1943, though in fact, the war did not end until 1945.
Everything old is new again. Having lived through the 21st century version of an America shocked into war by an unprovoked and immoral attack on our innocent citizens, this book’s commentary, written more than half a century ago, takes on new meaning and poignancy against the backdrop of current history in the making.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, a good day to “Remember to remember.”
