Civil Defense system gave them in their thousands a serious role to play and a
sense that the war was not simply oceans and continents away, but that it could at
any time find them in their very homes and everywhere they lived and worked. 29
All these preparations had not happened overnight, or indeed in the weeks
since the Pearl Harbor attack. La Guardia had two years before considered the
threat of aerial attack serious. He had appointed a fifty-two-year-old city architect,
Harry M. Prince, to study the problem and the lessons of the war in Europe. All
this had proceeded in absolute secrecy, lest the effort become the object of derision
by those who couldn’t conceive of the possibility of a transoceanic attack. So the
plans were ready when La Guardia was officially assigned to head Civil Defense.
Perhaps it was on the Pacific coast that proximity to the war and exposure
to danger were most keenly felt. San Francisco proclaimed itself ready with an
evacuation plan extending over an area of one hundred miles to the northwest and
fifty miles to the south. The plan, said Max D. Lillienthal of the Civilian Defense
Council, provided for pre- and postdisaster evacuations. The city itself was orga-
nized into a hundred precincts, each with an evacuation leader. They would in
turn be supervised by sixty-three company leaders and eleven battalion chiefs.
Priorities were set: first, family units providing their own shelter and transporta-
tion; then family units with children of school age and without predetermined
shelter; and then family groups with children under school age.
The authorities said that the earlier blackouts had compared favorably with those
in London and Berlin. There would be, they announced, no false alarms. They
reminded the citizens that sand for use against incendiary bombs would be avail-
able at 200 vacant lots throughout the city. But the assurance was given: there was
no need for panic and no need for any individual action for the time being. To
this was added: “We want every citizen to know that a workable, complete plan
is ready to function should the necessity arise and in that respect San Francisco is
ready.” 30
Yet there was more to be done. During earlier blackouts, two safecrackers had
been hard at work in East Bay. Public sensitivity to crime is often reflected in the
severity of the sanctions applied. The state of mind of the California population
may be gauged by the request by Judge George J. Steiger of the Superior Court
to the Legislature to enact the death penalty for persons convicted of armed rob-
bery during a blackout.
240 First Sunday at War: December 14, 1941
Bermuda was closer to the war zone than the coastal United States. Air-raid
precautions were simpler there. Carriage drivers were advised, in the event of an
air-raid, “to unhitch their horses and tie them up.” 31
Information, advice, and opportunities to participate were widely disseminated.
Typical was The Washington Post ’s full-page spread listing the preparatory steps: Know your air-raid warden and your duties; prepare your home with a perfect
blackout; set up a refuge room, a blacked-out room with a cot, blankets, radio,
reading and recreation materials, food and refreshments, first-aid kits, flashlights
and matches; stock up on implements of defense such as a hose, a bucket of water,
and again, sand for incendiaries.
There were a myriad of services to be performed, all needing energetic volun-
teers. At the top of the list were air-raid wardens, then auxiliary police, and for
serious business, bomb squads and auxiliary firemen who would be supported by
fire wardens. The good citizens of the capital were invited to join rescue squads for
which one had to be “absolutely fearless.” Then there were the Medical Corps, the
Nurse’s Aide Corps, the Driver Corps, the Emergency Food and Housing Corps,
the Decontamination Corps, messengers, and road repair crews.
What to do in a raid? Readers were advised to cut off the gas, go to the refuge
room and, if an air-raid warden, report for duty. What to do about children? Talk
as little as possible about the war, especially with the radio on at meal times; make
them as self-sufficient as possible and give them useful tasks to perform. What about
air-raid shelters? Here, curiously, readers were told that they had proved of little use
in Britain. Was this because none were readily available? How long would they have
to get ready for a raid? Theoretically, twenty minutes but . . . it all depended.
Why didn’t the District have air-raid sirens and other defense equipment? The
classic answer: “Lack of money as usual.” 32
In addition to her duties as Deputy Director of the Office of Civil Defense, the First
Lady, who regularly expressed her views on a wide variety of topics and issues, spoke as
a mother and grandmother. She told the Tacoma Defense Council that parents should
help their children avoid the onset of fright psychosis by making a game of bombings.
She did not say what games, or how to play them. But she was proud to tell an
anecdote about her youngest son, an ensign in San Diego, who was teaching his
two-year-old son to say “Boom, boom” every time he heard the explosions from
practice firing at the Navy base.
“Now,” Mrs. Roosevelt reported, “the child thinks he is creating the explosion
and is delighted every time he hears one.” By this method, she concluded, “the
child would not be frightened when there is a real bombing.” 33
Nerves remained touchy in many quarters. Off the Atlantic coast there were
reports of naval vessels sighting an unidentified dirigible, causing a blackout across
the giant Norfolk, Virginia, Navy base. 34 No harm was done. But in Chicago, there was tragedy. Harry Dudley, sixty-seven, and his son-in-law Otto Gehrling,
forty-nine, were peacefully hunting ducks when they veered too close to the
Coast Guard cutter Wilmette. A sentry twice ordered the hunters to halt; he then fired warning shots. When the two men failed to heed the orders, a Marine and
two Coast Guardsmen opened fire, killing Dudley and wounded Gehrling, whose
boat was found to have ample duck-hunting gear. 35
All in It Together 241
Blackouts and other civil defense actions might occur from time to time, and
individuals like the duck hunters could be the victims of special circumstances.
But there was one area that involved absolutely everyone. There seemed to be a
reflex action in times of stress and confusion, to stock up, especially on food.
Indeed the Office of Civil Defense had counseled a food supply in the ref-
uge room of American homes. Stocking up was one thing; hoarding was quite
another. Colorado Governor Ralph Carr announced an urgent appeal against food
hoarding. In this he was moved by requests from the Colorado Retail Grocers
Association and the Colorado Chain Stores Association. They told the governor
that food was in ample supply, that there was no reason to fear shortages.
There was no need for excess buying, the Governor said. “Our people,” he
counseled, “should resist the temptation to get unduly excited, especially about
matters that are in as good shape as our food supply.” 36
Notes
1
.
Los Angeles Times , December 14, 1941, 1
2.
Oregonian , December 14, 1941, 1
3.
Washington Post , December 14, 1941, 1
4.
New York Times , December 14, 1941, 11
5.
New York Times , December 14, 1941, 38
6.
New York Times , December 14, 1941, 1
7.
Washington Post , December 14, 1941, 12
8.
Washington Post , December 14, 1941, 1/2
9.
New York Times , December 14, 1941, 1
10. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 1
11. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 58
12. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 57
13. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 57
14. Denver Post , December 14, 1941, 24
15. Houston Chronicle , December 14, 1941, 1D
16. Houston Chronicle , December 14, 1941, 10C
17. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 58
18. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 58
19. Houston Chronicle , December 14, 1941, 2
20. Houston Chronicle , December 14, 1941, 78
21. Houston Chronicle , December 14, 1941, 15
22. Washington Post , December 14, 1941, 3
23. Washington Post , December 14, 1941, 25
24. Chicago Tribune , December 14, 1941, 1/4
25. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 48
26. Denver Post , December 14, 1941, 1
27. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 41
28. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 10A
29. Houston Chronicle , December 14, 1941, 10A
30. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 63
31. New York Times , December 14, 1941, 63
32. Washington Post , December 14, 1941, B2
33. New York Times , December 14, 1941, A/3
34. Oregonian , December 14, 1941, 4
35. Atlanta Constitution , December 14, 1941, 12D
36. Denver Post , December 14, 1941, 24
22
A FIRST CLASS TEMPERAMENT
America at War: The Defense of Liberty
The editorial writer of The New York Times took as his theme on the Sunday after the Pearl Harbor attack the closing words of the President’s address to Congress
“for liberty under God,” words he said were worth remembering and repeating.
To The Times there was no doubt where responsibility for the war lay. For the
history books and for posterity, it asserted: America’s slate was clean. America’s
response was grounded in religion. The Declaration of Independence had named
God as the fount of liberty. The American people, “a queer compound of doubts
and dreams,” were capable of an exaltation inspired by a sense of divine destiny.
“We have still in us,” the writer concluded, “the makings of evangels and cru-
saders”; nor was there any doubt that in the end the crusaders would prevail. 1
The Washington Post counseled flexibility of mind as the prime quality of an
effective response to war, and especially to those sometime isolationists who had
grasped and accepted a new reality, a reality in which there were no longer iso-
lationists and interventionists, only Americans united in defending their liberties
and homes against a formidable and treacherous foe. 2
The Houston Chronicle took as its keynote the celebration of the 150th anniver-
sary of the Bill of Rights, sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and
Jews. It was the liberties proclaimed by the Bill of Rights that were the motivating
factors in the country’s commitment to victory. The enemy would take advan-
tage of the Bill of Rights in their efforts at espionage and subversion; but victory
without the full exercise of the Bill of Rights would mean defeat. A nation of 130
million was united by its dedication to this charter of liberties. 3
Indeed, Bill of Rights Day would be observed throughout the country on the
morrow, Monday. The President was scheduled to speak on all radio networks
between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Meanwhile, Vice President
Henry A. Wallace would place a wreath on the tomb of George Mason, the author
of the Bill of Rights, at his home, Gunston Hall in Fairfax County, some twenty
A First Class Temperament 243
miles south of Washington. Virginia Governor James H. Price would make the
principal address there. In an afternoon ceremony at the Library of Congress,
Attorney General Francis Biddle and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish
would be the speakers. It was the latter at whose insistence the Office of Civil
Defense had become the principal promoter of this celebration. Other obser-
vances of the Bill of Rights were at Faneuil Hall in Boston, at Mount Vernon, and
at the New York grave of Peter Zenger, historic defender of freedom of the press. 4
Liberty and Justice for All: Race and Religion
All of these events were reported in The Atlanta Constitution . In the same edition, in a poignant aside, appeared the Urban League Bulletin whose stated purpose was
“to chronicle the worthwhile things done for, by and with the Negro as a basis
for increasing racial goodwill and understanding.”
The
Bulletin reported the rapid organization of a defense bond campaign
among Negroes, reflecting patriotic enthusiasm on the part of the Negro people,
especially in their educational centers. The presidents of colleges and universities
and high school principals were to lead the campaign, which would include a
payroll allotment plan.
There was always a delicate racial balance. Statewide committees were being
organized. The Urban League decried the fact that in some communities mem-
bership was along separate racial lines. This, the Bulletin said, was “an unfortunate procedure at a time when we are proving that democracy has the right because of
a democratic foundation on which it is erected.”
In a day of widespread segregation in the armed forces—the Marine Corps
did not take blacks and in the Navy they were confined to service as officers’
stewards—the Urban League Bulletin had the grace to say:
All people who are interested in preserving and defending the democratic
way of life ought to be able, during these critical days, to work in unison
and as a unit rather than to be divided into racial or geographic segments. 5
There was another group marginalized by the onrush of events—the Japa-
nese Christians. Their plight caused concern to American Protestant churches
who wished “to maintain mutual sympathies behind the barriers of war.” Dr.
James Thayer Addison, Secretary of the Department of Missions of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, offered a prayer endorsed by the Reverend Henry St. George
Tucker, the Presiding Bishop: “. . . that in these days of war, the bonds which unite
us with our fellow Christians in Japan may not be broken.” 6
Life in These United States: Helping the War Effort
The Los Angeles Times took a decidedly less high-minded approach. It urged that nothing be omitted in celebrating the oncoming Christmas in which, in the onset
of a new prosperity, “Santa’s reindeer will have a record load to haul.”
244 First Sunday at War: December 14, 1941
It gloried in the fact that the national income had reached some $100 billion
a year with cash in circulation of some $11
billion and that the year’s retail trade
had increased by a staggering 20 percent. High wages had produced a new level
of cash in consumers’ hands. “Much of this is in the hands of people who for the
first time in a decade have funds in excess of bare living needs.”
So, the editorialist proclaimed, when Americans spent wisely for Christmas
they were helping the war effort in myriad ways. They were providing employ-
ment, reducing the numbers who might otherwise call on public assistance,
and increasing federal tax revenues. In the end, a happy Christmas would be an
immense boost to the country’s morale: “Psychologically, at least, there is not a
better bomb shelter than a Christmas tree.” 7
The Oregonian was in full agreement in the imperative of keeping Christmas.
It represented what the nation and practicing Christians were fighting for. The
enemy, it said, was no Christian, whether in the literal or in the spiritual sense, and
FIGURE 22.1 Christmas, Army-style, 1941.
Courtesy of U.S. Army Center of Military History, holiday photo collection, history.army.mil/
photos/Holiday/SC126784.jpg.
A First Class Temperament 245
he could impose no greater defeat than by erasing Christmas. Not a single gift,
not a single carol, not the smallest Christmas tree ought to be sacrificed to those
who would destroy not only Christmas but Christianity itself. 8
There never had been a thought of not going forward with holiday tradition
in Chicago’s impoverished Back of the Yards district. Local organizations had
amassed three tons of candy, $350 worth, for the stockings of children who might
have little else. The needy would be given $10.00 merchandise gift certificates,
a modest bonanza in an economy where $39.95 could buy two men’s suits. The
offer was extended this year to members of the military who, in addition to the
candy, would also be given a carton of cigarettes.
Santa’s delegate in all of this seasonal work was Isaac O. Goldstine, Secretary
of the sponsoring fund and a leader in both the Lion’s Club and in the local
Businessmen’s Association. He was in his seventh year as chief organizer and fun-
draiser. When his tread was heard at the door, it was said, the targeted businessman
could only grin and throw up his hands in the face of an irresistible appeal. In
Crucible of a Generation Page 38