“Moving Day in Washington” (January 2, 1935)
by John Tinney McCutcheon (1870-1949)
14 x 19 in., ink on drawing board
Coppola Collection

On the Purdue campus, where he was a student, McCutcheon (class of 1889) is memorialized in a coeducational dormitory, John T. McCutcheon Hall. The lobby displays an original of one of his drawings, a nearly life-size drawing of a young man.

After college, McCutcheon moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he worked at the Chicago Morning News (later: Chicago Record) and then at the Chicago Tribune from 1903 until his retirement in 1946. McCutcheon received the Pulitzer Prize for Cartoons in 1932.

Democrats’ large congressional majorities grew after the 1934 mid-term elections in a strong endorsement for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

Seated during the third and fourth years of FDR’s first term, the 74th Congress (January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1937) addressed the needs for a social safety net as the Great Depression persisted. The Supreme Court found many of FDR’s programs unconstitutional, but congressional Democrats continued passing reform legislation. Congress encouraged collective bargaining, created Social Security, regulated public utilities, and provided for rural electrification. Congress also passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited arms exportation during wartime, in response to charges that weapons manufacturers were responsible for World War I.

“Wings Over Europe” (March 1, 1933)
by Hugh McMillen Hutton (1897-1976)
14 x 16 in., ink and crayon on heavy board
Coppola Collection

Hugh M. Hutton (1897-1976) was an American editorial cartoonist who worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer for over 30 years.

Hugh Hutton grew up with an artistic mother. After attending the University of Minnesota for two years, Hutton enlisted in the armed forces and served in World War I. Hutton pursued coursework in art through correspondence school, the Minneapolis School of Art and the Art Students League.

He worked at the New York World from 1930 to 1932 and with the United Features Syndicate in 1932 and 1933, drawing illustrations and comic strips. Hutton relocated to Philadelphia and worked as the cartoonist at the Public Ledger in 1933 and 1934. He became the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist in April 1934, where he stayed throughout his career, retiring in 1969.

Early 1933 is filled with pivotal moments.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler begins his first government service as the Germany’s Reichskanzier (chancellor), appointed by President Hindenburg.

Many expect him to start fixing Germany’s problems.

On February 1, the new Chancellor declared “More than fourteen years have passed since the unhappy day when the German people, blinded by promises from foes at home and abroad, lost touch with honor and freedom, thereby losing all… Communism with its method of madness is making a powerful and insidious attack upon our dismayed and shattered nation.”

On February 27-28, the fire in the Reichstag was a first step towards Hitler’s dictatorship.

On 27 February 1933, guards noticed the flames blazing through the roof. They overpowered the suspected arsonist, a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. He was executed after a show trial in 1934. Evidence of any accomplices was never found.

The Nazi leadership was quick to arrive at the scene. An eyewitness said that upon seeing the fire, Goering called out: ‘This is the beginning of the Communist revolt, they will start their attack now! Not a moment must be lost!’

Before he could go on, Hitler shouted: “There will be no mercy now. Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down.”

The next morning, President Von Hindenburg promulgated the Reichstag Fire Decree. It formed the basis for the dictatorship. The civil rights of the German people were curtailed. Freedom of expression was no longer a matter of course and the police could arbitrarily search houses and arrest people. The political opponents of the Nazis were essentially outlawed.

On March 4, 1933:

Hitler associates Marxism with the mass starvation in the Ukraine, and he associates Marxism with both communists and Germany’s Social Democrats, blurring over the differences between these two groups, while communists were avoiding an alliance with the Social Democrats and calling them frauds and “social fascists.”

FDR took office in the midst of the Great Depression.

Many expect him to start fixing America’s problems.

The next day, March 5, 1933:

FDR closes the banks for a few days.

Hitler’s party wins 43.9 percent rather than the more than 50 percent that Hitler was expecting. He is forced to maintain a coalition with the German National People’s Party. The Nazis begin a boycott of Jewish businesses throughout Germany.

On March 20, 1933, Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s SS paramilitary leader, opens the first Nazi concentration camp, at Dachau.

And on March 23, Chancellor Hitler moves for a vote in the Reichstag that allows him to make laws without consulting the Reichstag – the Enabling Act. He describes the German people as having been a victim of fourteen years of treason while under the Social Democrats and his party, the National Socialists as also having been victimized. He claims that the Social Democrats allowed Germany to be dictated to by foreign powers. He ends his speech saying that “the first and foremost task of the Government to bring about inner consensus with his aims… The rights of the Churches will not be curtailed and their position vis-à-vis the State will not be altered.” The previous jailing of Communist delegates allows Hitler the two-thirds majority he needs for passage, and the President signs it into law.

“The Hour is Here!” (January 24, 1945) 11/20
by Milton Rawson Halladay (1874-1961)
14.5 x 16 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Halladay was a native of Vermont and a noted political cartoonist for the Providence Journal (Rhode Island) for nearly fifty years (1900-1947). His cartoons were published in countless other newspapers and magazines. He has been called “one of the deans of American political cartooning.” His cartoon commemorating the death of Thomas A. Edison was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize.

By early 1945, the Red Army advances on the Eastern Front had driven the Germans out of eastern Poland as far as the Vistula River. The Red Army launched the Vistula-Oder Offensive on January 12, 1945, inflicted a huge defeat on the defending German forces, and advanced rapidly into western Poland and eastern Germany.

Certain cities sitting on the path of the Soviet advance were declared by Hitler to be Festungen (strongholds), where the garrisons were ordered to mount last-ditch stands. Posen, which had been taken right at the start of the war, was declared a Festung. The city was defended by 40,000 German troops.

The Battle of Posen was a massive assault by the Soviet Union’s Red Army that had as its objective the elimination of the Nazi German garrison in the stronghold city of Posen, in occupied Poland.

On January 21, 1945 the Soviets forced a crossing of the Warta River north of the city, and by January 24, these positions had been abandoned in favor of better bridgeheads south of the city. Meanwhile, Red Army tank units had swept north and south of the city, capturing hundreds of German aircraft in the process.

The defeat of the German garrison required almost an entire month of painstaking reduction of fortified positions, intense urban combat, and a final assault on the city’s citadel by the Red Army, complete with medieval touches.

“Lights Out” (February 26, 1945) 11/18
by Milton Rawson Halladay (1874-1961)
14.5 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Halladay was a native of Vermont and a noted political cartoonist for the Providence Journal (Rhode Island) for nearly fifty years (1900-1947). His cartoons were published in countless other newspapers and magazines. He has been called “one of the deans of American political cartooning.” His cartoon commemorating the death of Thomas A. Edison was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize.

The War Manpower Commission (WMC), in Washington, instituted a midnight curfew on all entertainment venues around the United States on February 26, 1945.

The main purpose of the curfew was to conserve coal for power, and to help alleviate the manpower shortage and the burdens on transportation.

All public and private establishments were affected: night clubs, sports arenas, theaters, dance halls, roadhouses, saloons, bars, shooting galleries, bowling and billiards, amusement parks, carnivals, circuses, gambling establishments, coin-operated amusements (juke boxes, pinball), skating rinks. All-night restaurants were excluded.

“What a Target” (March 12, 1945)
by Silvey Jackson (SJ) Ray (1891-1970)
12 x 16 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

S.J. Ray was a student at the Art Students League of New York and was a World War I veteran. He joined the Kansas City Star in 1915 as an advertising illustrator and became the Star’s editorial cartoonist in 1931. He served in that post until retirement in 1963, drawing an estimated 10,000 cartoons. He received honors from the U.S. Treasury Dept. for his cartoons during World War II in behalf of the National War Savings Program.

The Bombing of Tokyo was a series of firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Forces during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. Operation Meetinghouse, which was conducted on the night of March 9-10, 1945, is regarded as the single most destructive bombing raid in human history: 16 square miles of central Tokyo were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over 1 million homeless.

Over 50% of Tokyo’s industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city’s output in half.  Some post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.

Emperor Hirohito’s tour of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in late March was the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan’s surrender six months later.

“Still the Fulcrum” (February 28, 1944)
by William (Bill) Crawford (1913-1982)
19 x 22 in., ink and crayon on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

Crawford worked as a sports cartoonist and for the Washington Daily News and the Washington Post from 1936-38. He joined the Newark News as an editorial cartoonist and his cartoons were distributed to more than 700 daily newspapers by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. He was an active member of the National Cartoonists Society, serving as its president and vice-president. In 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1963 he was awarded “Best Editorial Cartoon” by the National Cartoonist Society, and in 1973 he received their Silver T-Square Award. Crawford retired in 1977.

“Strategic effectiveness on the modern battlefield in the twenty-first century is centered on the reality that airpower needs landpower to be strategically relevant. Landpower, by contrast, merely desires airpower because it makes both offensive and defensive maneuvers less risky by degrading and disrupting adversarial ground forces. There is a codependence between the two, but it is unequal. That fact is perhaps threatening to some advocates of airpower, but it need not be. Airpower’s decisiveness might be in question— domination in the air domain does not equal domination in the ground domain—but its relevance is unequivocally not.”

Jahara Matisek and Jon McPhilamy (Modern War Institute, November 5, 2018)

The Army’s major commands were given to infantrymen Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Neither had paid much attention to aviation before the war. However, in July 1942, the air power advocate Jimmy Doolittle instituted a critical change in strategic fighter tactics and the 8^th Air Force bomber raids faced less and less Luftwaffe defensive fighter opposition for the rest of the war.

MacArthur had been badly defeated in the Philippines in 1941–42 primarily because the Japanese controlled the sky. His planes were outnumbered and outclassed, his airfields shot up, his radar destroyed, his supply lines cut. His infantry never had a chance. MacArthur vowed never again.

In the highly visible “Big Week” campaign (February 20-25, 1944) American bombers flew 3,800 sorties, dropping 10,000 tons of high explosives on the main German aircraft and ball-bearing factories. Ball bearing production was unaffected, as Nazi munitions boss Albert Speer repaired the damage in a few weeks. Sensing the danger, however, Speer began dispersing production into numerous small, hidden factories.

The need for coordination between ground and air coverage was clear.

“And it was such good reading” (June 17, 1944)
by Jack Lincoln Lambert (1892-1967)
12 x 15.5 in, ink on board
Coppola Collection

Jack Lincoln Lambert was a sculptor and a cartoonist. He received four awards for newspaper cartooning and had served with Medical Corps, United States Army, 1917-1919. His editorial work was for the Baltimore Evening Sun (1938-42), the Chicago Sun (1942-48), the Baltimore News Post (1948-64), and then the New-American, Baltimore.

The Bombing of Yawata on the night of June 15, 1944 was the first air raid on the Japanese home islands conducted by the US Army Air Forces B-29 strategic bombers during World War II.

The raid was carried out by 75 of the Superfortress bombers that were staged from bases in China. Only 47 of the aircraft bombed the raid’s primary target, the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata, and little damage was caused.

While the raid did not achieve its aims, it had other effects. It raised Japanese civilians’ awareness that their country was being defeated and received unduly positive media coverage in the United States. Intelligence gathered by the B-29s also revealed weaknesses in Japan’s air defenses and the raid was the first of many on Japan.

According to the notation on the back, this was gifted to a fan on July 3.