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The Era -- Day By Day

LizzieMaine

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Snazzy matchbooks, too.

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LizzieMaine

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The next move on the peace front is up to President Roosevelt, says Adolf Hitler in so many words. While the President keeps his own counsel, noting there has been no formal request for his services as mediator in the European War, the German Chancellor insists that if the United States wants a role in negotiating an end to the conflct, it will have to take the initiative to begin such talks.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union is reported to be easing up in its demands on Finland, following a plea from the United States, and is now reopening talks with Turkey.

A former member of the US Communist Party told the Dies Committee today that there is an active spy operation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard which has been supplying information to the Soviet Union "for years." Maurice L. Malkin claims that this ring is headed by an OGPU agent named "Dirbs," who is now living and working in New York City, "unless he has skipped out since yesterday."

Responding to Malkin's remarks, the Navy Yard's commandant, Rear Admiral Clark H. Woodward, tells the Eagle "I don't doubt there are Communists here n the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or even in every church, or even among your associates. We don't know who they are, and if they are here, they are above suspicion. Our yard is perfectly policed, and no one man or group is even under suspicion."

Meanwhile, Manhattan DA Thomas E. Dewey believes that German-American Bund leader Fritz Kuhn may be involved in further crimes beyond the forgery and grand larceny charges he now faces. A Dewey assistant told General Sessions Judge Saul S. Streit today that there is reason to believe that Kuhn is implicated in incidents of perjury, intimidation, and coercion of witnesses.

The new Brooklyn Public Library building may be occupied only by pigeons unless City Budget Director Kenneth Dayton steps up efforts to fund maintenance and staffing before the scheduled opening date of February 1940. Library Board Chairman Edward L. Garvin contends that there are no funds to cover these expenses because the city has provided no funds -- and unless it does so before December 1st, the deadline for receipt of the money, the building would not open on schedule, and there could be rapid and expensive deterioration of the interior of the structure.

US Housing Authority director Nathan Straus today advised Mayor LaGuardia that the contracts have been sent out for the construction of a low-rent housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The statement comes in reply to assertions by former New York City Housing Authority head Alfred Rheinstein claiming that Straus was withdrawing Federal funding for the project out of pique after Rheinstein published a magazine article criticizing Straus's policies.

Officials of the Sterling Die Casting Company of 743 39th Street warn the public that 32 of its blank payroll checks drawn on the Brooklyn Trust Company were stolen this week and may be in local circulation.

You Must REGISTER Today or Tomorrow to Vote in November Elections!

Former Prime Minister David Lloyd George has slapped down current Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for his statement repudiating Hitler's call for peace talks as a "quite inadequate response" to the war situation. Lloyd George argues that Chamberlain's speech should have been more specific in outlining Britain's aims and in considering the position of the Soviet Union.

German civilians will be drinking a lot of substitute-coffee and eating a lot of oats, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and "some kind of fat" under a ration menu broadcast today by the Berlin radio.

Save 30 to 60 percent on 1939 model radios of all popular makes at all 30 Davega City Radio stores! No money down, $1 a week with trade-in of your old radio!

The factional conflict in the American Labor Party is spreading across Brooklyn, with the party's Brownsville unit rejecting a movement to purge Communist sympathizers from its ranks. That action comes as opponents of the anti-Red campaign have claimed that the current party executive committee was illegally elected under party rules.

A 39-year-old Manhattan elevator operator accused of mercy-killing his blind and crippled 13 year old son could be released on bail if his co-workers at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center succeed in a drive to raise the required $5000, and will be represented in court by a Brooklyn attorney. Louis Repouille was arrested yesterday following the death of his son Raymond, described as "an incurable imbecile." Repouille, whose family lives in a $14-a-month cold water flat at 2701 Amsterdam Avenue, told police he spent his entire life savings of $500 on an operation to help his son, only to be told by doctors after the operation that there was no hope. Repouille allegedly killed the boy with a chloroform-soaked rag while his wife and other four children were out. Attorney Paul O'Dwyer, brother of Judge William O'Dwyer, was engaged by Repouille's co-workers to represent him in the case, and has entered a plea of "not guilty."

Four alleged "reefer" smokers were picked up in a parked auto at Alabama Avenue and Linden Boulevard, and have been booked on a charge of possession of narcotics. Detective Harry J. Eggolt told the court the four men had six marijuana cigarettes.

Roll Out The Barrell! Eichler's Beer is FOAMING WITH FLAVOR!

A mock air raid will be staged Sunday night at the World's Fair. The World Of Tomorrow will be partially blacked out around 8pm as part of Coast Artillery Day activities.

In 1939, today is Friday the 13th, so watch out for ladders, black cats, broken mirrors, and other such paraphernaila. And here's a photo of Hollywood favorite Helen Parrish sitting on her pumpkins as a Halloween witch.

Bandleader Paul Whiteman says the word "swing" is getting tired and overused, and a new and more dignified word is needed to describe the hotter type of dance music. If you can come up with one he likes better, he'll treat you to an evening of dining and dancing at his expense at the Hotel New Yorker, where he opens at the Terrace Room next Tuesday.

Big new vaudeville show opening at the Queens Terrace features belly-laughs with Jackie Gleason and a musical bill featuring the Andrews Sisters.

A 33-year old Bath Avenue man faces malicious mischief charges after throwing an inkwell thru the window of the Coney Island Avenue home relief office. Rubin Wein told Magistrate Solomon that he had to do something to call attention to the plight of his wife and two children.

"Brooklyn's Little Nightingale," 16-year-old Bensonhurst opera singer Miss Grace Alberti made her debut last night in the role of Gilda in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's production of Verdi's Rigoletto, accompanied by the National Grand Opera Company.

Nearly eight hundred Brooklyn residents receiving mysterious phone calls this week inviting them to hear George Jessel talk to his mother are the targets of a publicity campaign promoting Jessel's engagement this week at the Flatbush Theatre. Jessel is joined on the bill by Jack Teagarden's Orchestra.

Helen Worth tells a desperate young woman to do anything she has to do to break off a clandestine affair, up to and including "scaring" the man. If you know what I mean.

200 people attended the funeral of the late New York State Executioner. Robert G. Elliot was praised as a kind, humane and gentle man as he was laid to rest in Queens. Among the floral tributes was a wreath from the employees of Sing Sing Prison.

20,000 fans turned out at Ebbets Field to see high-school football phenom Allie Goldberg pace Erasmus Hall to its ninth straight win since 1937. Goldlberg quarterbacked Erasmus to a 20-0 victory over James Madison.

Aunt Jean reminds the Junior Eagles that superstitions are silly, and Friday the 13th is a day like any other. So there.

Driven to distraction by the mysterious talking ghost mouse, George Bungle makes his way thru a driving rain to the lair of a swami -- a fat, potato-faced fellow with his head wrapped in a hotel towel, who says he'll take the job for two bucks plus carfare. PUNCH HIM NOW GEORGE AND SAVE THE $2!

Murdock the Butler schemes away, promising to get the eagle-eyed old lady out of the way, even as she's STANDING RIGHT THERE. Mary of course pretends not to hear, because Murdock says it'll take a few weeks to get rid of her, and if she confronts him now, there goes the plot.

After a few cheap laughs at Irwin's expense -- ha ha, he spilled Kay's underwear all over the sidewalk -- Dan and company arrive at the airport where he points out the new plane the Department has *given* him, complete with a fully equipped crime lab. Wanna see? Kay, forgetting she's there for a vacation, thinks it's Just Marvelous!
 
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...Big new vaudeville show opening at the Queens Terrace features belly-laughs with Jackie Gleason and a musical bill featuring the Andrews Sisters....

Funny to think about a pre-Honeymooners Gleason

...Nearly eight hundred Brooklyn residents receiving mysterious phone calls this week inviting them to hear George Jessel talk to his mother are the targets of a publicity campaign promoting Jessel's engagement this week at the Flatbush Theatre. Jessel is joined on the bill by Jack Teagarden's Orchestra....

You can see the roots of viral advertising / social-media-style advertising.

...Helen Worth tells a desperate young woman to do anything she has to do to break off a clandestine affair, up to and including "scaring" the man. If you know what I mean....

What?
 

LizzieMaine

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Anything it takes, I guess -- from "My father is going to shoot you" to "I went to the doctor today, and...."

The best thing about those Jessel phone calls is that they were recordings. Who would have imagined him as a pioneer of robo-calling. I could see Jolson doing that, but Jessel?? Although now that I think of it, Jolson would probably go house to house in person performing on doorsteps.

The way that the ad pointedly mentions "belly laughs" suggests that Gleason was already Gleason in at least one notable respect. Meanwhile, Art Carney was over in Manhattan, stooging it up with Horace Heidt at the Biltmore Hotel and doing bit parts on "The March of Time." And Audrey Meadows was just a kid, in her senior year at a swanky girls' school in Massachusetts. Little did they realize what fate held in store.
 
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...

A 39-year-old Manhattan elevator operator accused of mercy-killing his blind and crippled 13 year old son could be released on bail if his co-workers at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center succeed in a drive to raise the required $5000, and will be represented in court by a Brooklyn attorney. Louis Repouille was arrested yesterday following the death of his son Raymond, described as "an incurable imbecile." Repouille, whose family lives in a $14-a-month cold water flat at 2701 Amsterdam Avenue, told police he spent his entire life savings of $500 on an operation to help his son, only to be told by doctors after the operation that there was no hope. Repouille allegedly killed the boy with a chloroform-soaked rag while his wife and other four children were out. Attorney Paul O'Dwyer, brother of Judge William O'Dwyer, was engaged by Repouille's co-workers to represent him in the case, and has entered a plea of "not guilty." ...


200 people attended the funeral of the late New York State Executioner. Robert G. Elliot was praised as a kind, humane and gentle man as he was laid to rest in Queens. Among the floral tributes was a wreath from the employees of Sing Sing Prison.
...

Contrary to my usual take on state-sanctioned killings, the case of Louis Repouille has me kinda hoping for his date with Robert G. Elliot’s successor.
 
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LizzieMaine

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830 are missing and 370 were rescued from the British battleship Royal Oak, sunk today by a German U-Boat. The destrution of the $10,000,000 heavily-armored dreadnought is the second major naval victory won by the Germans in the current war, following on the sinking last month of the British aircraft carrier Courageous. There is as yet no confirmed word as to where the Royal Oak went down, but the sinking is confirmed by British sources.

Britain, for its part, states that three U-Boats were sunk yesterday by British forces. Paris sources say up to 17 German submarines have been destroyed so far in the war.

For the first time, British radio listeners will hear the actual sounds of war, with the British Broadcasting Corporation announcing plans to broadcast via remote hookup from the French-German border.

Although there is no confirmation from any official source, "reliable sources" in Germany claim that there will soon be a conference of German, Italian and Russian representatives concerning the rejection by Britain and France of Chancellor Hitler's proposal for ending the war. The Nazis seem confident that Italy will give military aid to Germany "if asked," but there is no agreement for Russia to provide such aid. Italian officials say they have not been asked to attend any such conference, nor is there any word from Russia confirming the rumors.

Finland and the Soviet Union will resolve their differences peacefully, according to speculation by Finnish foreign minister F. J. Erkko. He expects a mutually-satisfactory agreement on border issues to be announced within a few days.

The Senate holds an unusual Saturday session today in an effort to rush action on President Roosevelt's proposal to repeal the arms embargo. Opponents of the bill insist on the inclusion of a cash-and-carry provision for all goods sold by the United States to any belligerent nation.

A 39-year-old Brooklyn policeman shot himself to death late last night, just hours after neighbors rescued him from his gas-filled home. Patrolman Harry Klein of the Atlantic Avenue station was pulled from his apartment at 917 Albany Avenue after neighbors found him on the kitchen floor, overcome by fumes from a gas range on which all the jets had been opened. Klein was taken to Kings County Hospital, but refused to stay there overnight, instead returning home, where he shot himself in the head with his service revolver about half an hour later. Kiein's wife confirmed that he was deep in debt and deeply worried about money matters.

The burned and headless body of a young girl found in a "murder swamp" outside New Castle, Pennsylvania today raised the possibility that the Mad Butcher of Cleveland may have claimed another victim.

A 16 year old girl, described as "stage struck" was rescued from a window ledge high up on the Hotel Martini in Manhattan this morning. Helen Kawalek, who wants to be an actress, vowed to jump if her parents tried to force her to return home to Bayonne, New Jersey. Fireman Richard Oliver of Hook and Ladder Company No. 4 swung down from a rope and pulled the girl off the ledge, shrieking and struggling, as her father and brother looked on. The girl was taken to Bellevue Hospital for observation.

Indian Summer is officially over, with cold, raw weather on the way. Temperatures tonight may sink as low as 40 degrees.

Four Communist Party candidates for City Council ruled off the ballot for the coming election are protesting their exclusion and demanding that the Board of Elections reverse its decision. The ousted candidates, including Peter V. Cacchione of Brooklyn and Paul Crosbie of Queens have the support of Elections Commissioner Jacob A. Livingston, who refused to concur with the Board's action striking their names from the ballot on a technicality. The Board ruled that witnesses to the nominating petitons for the candidates had insufficiently proven their own voting status.

LOST -- False teeth, upper set, Tuesday night. Reward. Call PResident 4-2512.

Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh last night in a broadcast over the Mutual network stated that the Western Hemisphere is the sole domain of the United States, and that Britain and other European powers must soon withdraw. Speaking of Canada, Lindbergh questioned "Have they the right to draw the hemisphere into a European war simply because they prefer the British crown to American independence?" In opposing the repeal of the Arms Embargo, the aviator stated that the war is "not a war for democracy, but a war brought about by a desire of strength on the part of Germany and the fear of strength on the part of Britain and France."

Mothers Know Why Three Generations Use This Proven Family Medicine! Father John's Medicine -- It's Different!

Helen Worth advises "Yellow," a young woman with an inferiority complex, to go out and do something startling. Yeah, look how good that worked out for Helen Kawalek of Bayonne.

Amos 'n Andy of radio fame enjoy a good meat loaf. Here's Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll digging into "Ribbon Meat Loaf," made from ground beef and pork, canned tomato soup (wait, isn't Campbell's their sponsor?), and bread crumbs. Served with a delicious mashed potato and pimiento filling! And served with a glass of chilled tomato juice! (I bet it isn't Libby's.)

The Eagle editorial writer is sorry to see Alfred Rheinstein go as New York Housing Authority director,following his dustup with Mr. Straus of the USHA, but is very pleased that the Bedford-Stuyvesant housing project will go forward. Brooklynites should toss their hats in the air and cheer, but it really is too bad about Mr. Rheinstein quitting. Oh, and be sure to register to vote -- today is your last chance before the election!

Ray Tucker believes that Mayor LaGuardia could have any position in the Roosevelt cabinet he wants if circumstances force the US into the European War. Tucker sees the Mayor as an ideal fit for Secretary of War, but suggests he'd also be a good choice for coordinating military-industrial activities.

Letter writer Mrs. Frank Schmidt gives the back of her hand to a recent correspondent who claimed that the world owes Germany a considerable cultural debt. "Lessons from Germany can be taken in suppressing progress, jailing right-thinking people, anti-Semitism, and lately anti-Catholicism," she declares. "Stupid Aryan philosophy is a pure German product."

Old time screen star Ford Sterling, best known as the Chief of the Keystone Kops in the oid Mack Sennett days of the 1910s, has died in Hollywood from a heart attack at the age of 55. Sterling has been retired from the screen since 1933, and last year lost a leg to thrombosis. He was reported to be in difficult financial straits in recent years.

Big Ernie Lombardi behind the plate next year for the Dodgers? It could happen, speculates Tommy Holmes, since Reds manager Bill McKechnie is casting a covetous eye toward Brooklyn pitcher Luke Hamlin. The old Hot Potato was the most dependable arm on the Dodger staff in the season just ended, becoming the club's first 20-game winner since 1932, and Deacon Bill thinks he'd fit in fine on the Cincinnati staff. But can the Dodgers afford to lose their best arm at a time when Whit Wyatt, Van Mungo, and Hugh Casey are all question marks for 1940? Lombardi would be a fine addition to the Dodgers -- and what if we could get Paul Derringer as well? Ah, the hot stove is blazing.

The Football Dodgers also have their eyes on the trade marts, with owner Dan Topping trying to convince George Halas of the Chicago Bears to give up Sid Luckman, last year's All-America triple-threat back at Columbia. Topping declines to say what he's offering, but it'd have to be a lot of cash.

The Columbia-Army game is the big one on the grid slate today, kicking off at Baker Field this afternoon.

155 school employees in Brooklyn will lose their jobs to budget cuts, as the Board of Education announces the elimination thru consolidation of two elementary schools in Williamsburg. PS 132 and PS 38 will be annexed to nearby schools effective November 1st, in a move intended to save $200,000 a year.

You have quite a choice on the air tonight at 10pm. On WJZ, you can hear Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, on WEAF it's Benny Goodman with Louise Tobin and MC Bert Parks.

I don't know who Dr. Brady of the Ask Dr. Brady column is, but he comes across as an arrogant, swaggering ass. Here he goes off on a long rant about how stupid women are, and caps it by saying that personally, he likes them fat. Yeah, well, fat or not, Doctor, none of us like you. Stick that in your speculum and smoke it.

George Bungle brings the swami over to see what can be done about McGoinigle the invisible talking mouse, but when McGoinigle does his stuff, the swami runs off in terror. Told ya you should have punched him first.

Everybody's being mouthy to Mary Worth today, with Leona pulling some serious attitude and then Murdock the Butler telling her that several of Leona's previous guardians are recuperating in sanitariums. What, she's got tuberculosis on top of everything else? "Coffee, madam?"

Dan Dunn's plane is a meticulously drawn DC-3 that looks suspiciously like clip art. Which explains why the top of half of Kay's body doesn't match the bottom half. Shape up, Norman Marsh -- if that's your real name. There's a lot of other cartoonists who could use this space.
 
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...For the first time, British radio listeners will hear the actual sounds of war, with the British Broadcasting Corporation announcing plans to broadcast via remote hookup from the French-German border....

Sadly and soon enough, the British would not have to turn on their radios to hear the sound of war as The Blitz was coming.

...Although there is no confirmation from any official source, "reliable sources" in Germany claim that there will soon be a conference of German, Italian and Russian representatives concerning the rejection by Britain and France of Chancellor Hitler's proposal for ending the war. The Nazis seem confident that Italy will give military aid to Germany "if asked," but there is no agreement for Russia to provide such aid. Italian officials say they have not been asked to attend any such conference, nor is there any word from Russia confirming the rumors....

It took a long time, but the Allies finally got wise to Hitler's peace proposals, but Hitler still kept trying to play that game as it had worked so well for so long for him.

...A 16 year old girl, described as "stage struck" was rescued from a window ledge high up on the Hotel Martini in Manhattan this morning. Helen Kawalek, who wants to be an actress, vowed to jump if her parents tried to force her to return home to Bayonne, New Jersey. Fireman Richard Oliver of Hook and Ladder Company No. 4 swung down from a rope and pulled the girl off the ledge, shrieking and struggling, as her father and brother looked on. The girl was taken to Bellevue Hospital for observation.....

Growing up in the '70s, we'd visit my grandfather in his apartment in Bayonne New Jersey - hard to envision a more depressing place. If it was like that in '39, I can almost understand threatening to jump off a ledge versus being forced to live there.

...Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh last night in a broadcast over the Mutual network stated that the Western Hemisphere is the sole domain of the United States, and that Britain and other European powers must soon withdraw. Speaking of Canada, Lindbergh questioned "Have they the right to draw the hemisphere into a European war simply because they prefer the British crown to American independence?" In opposing the repeal of the Arms Embargo, the aviator stated that the war is "not a war for democracy, but a war brought about by a desire of strength on the part of Germany and the fear of strength on the part of Britain and France."....

"Shut up, just shut up -" hopefully someone said it to him.

...Helen Worth advises "Yellow," a young woman with an inferiority complex, to go out and do something startling. Yeah, look how good that worked out for Helen Kawalek of Bayonne....

:)

...The Columbia-Army game is the big one on the grid slate today, kicking off at Baker Field this afternoon....

Purely by inference, from what I've read and seen on the the big screen, but it seems as if the Ivy schools' and military academies' football teams captured the public's attention much more than they do today as the game of college football has moved on from those schools.

...I don't know who Dr. Brady of the Ask Dr. Brady column is, but he comes across as an arrogant, swaggering ass. Here he goes off on a long rant about how stupid women are, and caps it by saying that personally, he likes them fat. Yeah, well, fat or not, Doctor, none of us like you. Stick that in your speculum and smoke it....

The *ssholes and idiot of the world are always with us and seem to always have a microphone.
 

LizzieMaine

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Walter Winchell jumped on Herr Von Lindbergh's case immediately, condemning him as "The Lone Ostrich." I wish the Eagle carried Winchell, but he was exclusive in New York to the Mirror, a paper respectable people only read if they found it on the subway.

The News, on the other hand, was right on the ball on the matter of Miss Helen Kawalek with a pretty spectacular back page:

daily-news-front-page-october-14-headline-fireman-leaps-stops-girls-picture-id97296548


Fireman Richard Oliver is of course better known by his other name, "Batman."

I keep waiting for George Bungle to step across the page and punch Dr. Brady in the face.
 

3fingers

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Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh last night in a broadcast over the Mutual network stated that the Western Hemisphere is the sole domain of the United States, and that Britain and other European powers must soon withdraw. Speaking of Canada, Lindbergh questioned "Have they the right to draw the hemisphere into a European war simply because they prefer the British crown to American independence?" In opposing the repeal of the Arms Embargo, the aviator stated that the war is "not a war for democracy, but a war brought about by a desire of strength on the part of Germany and the fear of strength on the part of Britain and France."
I've listened to several of Lucky Lindy's speeches on this topic and have concluded that he is somewhat of a nut.
He did redeem himself later on after the war got cranked up though. He was flying missions instead of "advising" until the wrong people found out and grounded him.
 

LizzieMaine

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Combining the Eagle with the comprehensive trove of 1939-41 Brooklyn tax photos in the NYC.gov archive is as close as you'll ever get to a Tardis. What's even more fun is to look up the radio broadcasts of the events of this period as we go along, many of which are floating around on line.

I think the deal with Lindbergh is that he sincerely believed in the supremacy of the "Aryan race," so called, and of himself as the perfect specimen thereof -- and it colored everything else he did. He proved in his own mind that he was an ubermensch by flying the Atlantic, and when he was worshipped as a hero by the public it only reinforced his views. THen he got involved with Alexis Carrel, who gave his beliefs a veneer of "rational science," and that sealed it. I don't think he ever really repudiated those beliefs, as witness the zeal with which he secretly spread his seed around postwar Germany.

His 1939 radio talks laid the groundwork for his leading role in the "America First" movement. Wait'll we get to 1941, if you want to hear some really inflammatory stuff.
 

EngProf

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Let me present some (probably) unpopular views on Charles Lindbergh, mostly gained from reading his book "War Diaries", covering the time period mid-1938 - mid-1945. It's just over 1000 pages, but it's an easy read, at least it was for me. I bought it in a used book store for $2, and intended to read just a page or two, but wound up reading the whole thing and wishing there was more.

One the supposed negative side, isolationism was common prior to Pearl Harbor, so he's not that far out of the mainstream in that regard. He was very famous, and on the radio, so he stands out much more than most who had the same or similar beliefs.
(From the "Yale Daily News": "Yale students, including future Yale president Kingman Brewster Jr. ’41, who was then chairman of the Yale Daily News, were among the principle founders of the America First Committee in 1940.")

As for the anti-Semitism issue, he wasn't that far out of the mainstream either for what a LOT of people believed and acted on in those days. As a companion volume to the "War Diaries", you should read "Miss America, 1945: Bess Myerson’s Own Story". As the first and ONLY Jewish Miss America (1945), she was treated terribly by a lot of ordinary "upstanding" citizens who weren't famous and never stated their anti-Semitic beliefs in writing or on the radio.

As for wanting the Nazis to win, my take on his comments about the probable winner in a European war was that he didn't want the Germans to win, he just thought they would win, and said so in public, which to some constituted pro-Nazi-sympathies. (Consider what actually happened in short order to Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, and almost to England when war did break out.)

On the positive side, he was an excellent engineer and did a lot of work with Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company in getting the Willow Run bomber plant up and running. It was a real benefit to the war effort and almost 7000 B-24's were built there. (As a design and manufacturing engineer myself I was impressed with what he did in that regard.)

Later, after going to the Pacific as a "Technical Consultant" he trained US pilots in long-distance over-water flying to increase the range of the Lightnings and Corsairs. By that activity alone he saved the lives of a lot of US pilots who would have gone down in mid-ocean.
Later, when he started flying combat missions, he not only flew them, but led them. What he was doing was 100% unauthorized and probably illegal, but his benefits to the war effort, plus having family/social contacts with Douglas MacArthur, kept him flying for a long time.

The people back in Washington didn't want him flying for various reasons, including political ones, but MacArthur out in the Southwest Pacific had the final say-so.

He put his life on the line many times for the war effort, which should count for something. Buy the book, see what you think...
 

LizzieMaine

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Anyone here gotten around to reading Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America”?

Loved it, right up to the weird ending. Walter Winchell as the Antilindbergh was a brilliant touch.

Lindbergh was very keen to fly missions during the war -- in Asia. Despite the alliance between Japan and Germany, he had very little use for "Asiatics." In a radio speech during September 1939 he had quite a bit to say about how the coming war should be a war for the "preservation of the white race" -- his precise words -- against "Asiatics," a term he used to lump together Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and Jews. The fine details of this worldview he picked up from Alexis Carrell, who claimed the ideas were supported by science -- but these beliefs dovetailed nicely with those of the Nazis.

As to how his view fit in with the prewar American mainstream -- he was quite an outlier even then. There were plenty of American racists and anti-Semites -- but most of them were of the casual "would you want one of those people to marry your sister" variety." And there were plenty of Americans who sympathized with the Nazis -- but most of these were either religious fanatics like the followers of Gerald Winrod and Gerald L. K. Smith, or money cranks like the followers of Father Coughlin, along with a smattering of Midwestern "we can do business with Hitler" industrialists. Lindbergh's views weren't like any of these -- he was a dedicated and devoted Aryan supremacist who claimed to believe as he did purely on the basis of scientific rationality. He didn't care about "racial etiquette", silver as the "Gentile metal," or blut und boden, but he was very very impressed by German technology -- which, to him, proved his beliefs were correct.

The one thing that did shake his views -- at least a bit -- was seeing firsthand how the German penchant for technological efficiency was put to work during the Holocaust. He never took a public political position again.
 
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Such sentiments are still alive and (un)well across this favored land. I wish I could say it baffles me, but it doesn’t. Call it baser instincts, for want of a better name.

If I believed in Hell, I’d hope for an especially miserable place there awaiting those who exploit that unfortunate human impulse. (Which I acknowledge is a baser instinct itself.)
 
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