A Memorial Day look at prelude to war via 1938 ‘Life’, lessons for today

On Memorial Day many of us will remember sacrifices made by men and women on behalf of people around the globe in the never-ending quest for freedom. I enjoy collecting old magazines and books, and content in a 1938 issue of Life bears an uncanny resemblance to world issues 71 years later. The cover bears a full-bleed image of two muscular young women who participated as drum majorettes in the American Legion Convention in Los Angeles, 2 of 100 young women, black and white, who Life called “the greatest hit of all.” All the girls are described as “shapely,” built very differently than the emaciated image promoted by Tinseltown and the modeling industry today. The convention was the feature-lite; other content, prophetic in nature,  foreshadowed America’s reluctant entry into World War II.

A photo essay, ‘World Force Replaces World Law,’ called attention to the great hope for the new League of Nations in 1920: “Its idea was that the laws that govern individual men in society could be made to control the behavior of nations.” Of course by 1931 the world had sobered enough to acknowledge things don’t always go according to plan. Japan had marched into China, occupying Manchuria. In 1935, Italy took Ethiopia. Japan sliced off more of China in 1937 and by 1938, Germany was in charge of Austria. These encroachments were far easier to understand if you compare our own war today—then we were fighting countries with official soldiers and governments that could be held accountable. [Continued below photo.]

In 1937 Britain’s prime minister Neville Chamberlain, maestro of appeasement, endorsed accepting what Life called “the internal regimes of…Fascist countries,” subsequently reaching out to Italian socialist turned fascist Benito Mussolini. My 1938 issue of Life has a classic photo showing Mussolini, Hitler, Édouard Daladier of France and Chamberlain at a meeting in Hitler’s study in the “newly built” Fuhrer House. Daladier agreed to the Munich Pact, permitting the Nazis to take over part of Czechoslovakia without opposition from Great Britain or France.

Earlier in 1931, Mussolini had advanced his political ideology, from socialism to fascism. Steven Schoenherr, in a brief biography at the University of San Diego website, said, “In 1931, Mussolini began the 3-year project to drain and reclaim the Pontine Marshes for 3000 new farms. He built 1700 summer camps for city children, gave workers the 8-hour day and universal insurance benefits; the Corporate State of 22 corporations represented workers and owners with government supervision of wages and hiring and firing, no unions or strikes allowed.” If you are an American and you are experiencing a slight chill, consider yourself blessed with common sense.

In the U.S. Roosevelt, having been reelected, met with his cabinet in September, 1938, and a striking photo featured in the magazine shows a statesman-like president with cabinet members turning rapt faces towards their leader. The meeting was called to talk of “war and peace.” The essay in Life said proceedings paused “only to hear, from a small radio on the floor by the President, the moving broadcast of Prime Minister Chamberlain.” Roosevelt permitted one still photographer and one newsreel to record the session.

Prose at the time this magazine was written didn’t cater to lower intellectual levels. Search engines like Google did not have a direct impact on writing as they do today, where headlines are ideally limited to a set number of characters and keywords are arranged like a simpleton’s jigsaw puzzle in order to obtain ranking in results. In 1938 writers were flowery, often dramatic, and a single sentence could comprise a paragraph. The essay accompanying the Roosevelt cabinet photo summed up the mood of the times: “The end of Europe’s tensest week since 1918 left Americans, limp by their radios, with plenty to think about.”

Concurrently there’s a photo of writer Bertrand Russell who was on his way to teach at the University of Chicago. Russell, opting to side with pacifists like Chamberlain, declared a war would “leave the world just as mad as Hitler is.”

American writers and other media were doing their best to mobilize support for stopping Hitler, a reminder of how different media was then compared to today.

The Pulitzer Prize winning Christian Science Monitor, in an excellent essay by Liz Marlantes about the current War on Terror, ‘Casualties could test resolve of US public,” [2003] disclosed, “The current casualty totals pale in comparison to the losses sustained in many past conflicts. In Vietnam, more than 58,000 Americans died. In World War II, the nation lost more than 400,000 troops.” Vietnam became Democratic president John F. Kennedy’s war after he supported a coup and had the ruler of South Vietnam assassinated. Again, contrasting the times, no one mentioned trying the Democratic administration for war crimes. Only 20 days later, Kennedy was assassinated.

On Monday, May 25, Americans will observe Memorial Day, a tribute to those who have given their lives in the service of our country. We normally consider those who serve in our military, but it is also fitting to recognize countless others who have served in agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, whose actions and contributions may never be disclosed but whose sacrifices are significant all the same.

The first American to die in the war in Afghanistan, former US Marine Capt. Johnny Micheal Spann, was serving in the CIA. Spann was killed during a prison uprising; an American, John Walker Lindh was at the prison. Spann had attempted to talk to Lindh before the uprising. PBS said Lindh’s father said his son had joined the Taliban. If you do a cursory search, you’ll find all manner of sympathetic articles for Lindh. In another American age, he would have been executed for treason.

Memorial Day should include those who serve our country in all capacities related to national defense. We should remind the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), that many men and women in the CIA she maligned have died to help preserve our freedom.

A look at history in the raw—not the synopsized versions we find on the Web in come-one-come-all sources like Wikipedia—will reflect that though the United States has often been a reluctant warrior, our men and women who gave their lives are one reason all of Europe does not speak German today and China is not owned by Japan. The world would do well to remember our country’s sacrifices often on behalf of others. And Americans should do the same.

 Meeting at the Fuhrer House in Sept., 1938: Mussolini, Hitler, Daladier, and Chamberlain. The page is part of a feature in a collectible copy of Life Magazine I have, October, 1938.

 A Memorial Day look at prelude to war via 1938 'Life', lessons for today by Kay B. Day

[Photos of pages from personal copy of Life Magazine, October 10, 1938]

Update on Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 12:00AM by Kay B. Day, Editor

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation. To ensure the sacrifices of America’s fallen heroes are never forgotten, in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579.

Details and an interesting history of Memorial Day are featured at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs.