“The Boys in His Corner” (September 15, 1939)
by Paul Albert Plaschke (1880 – 1954)
24 x 36 in., ink and charcoal on paper
Coppola Collection

Plaschke (1880-1954) studied art with George B Luks (“The Yellow Kid”) and spent most of his early professional life as a cartoonist in Louisville, KY, and then moving to Chicago in 1937. After about 1905, he began a significant period of oil painting, for which he became more generally known. He moved back to KY in 1948.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact was signed on August 23, 1939 (Moscow) between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It is named for the two foreign ministers, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, who were involved with the negotiation. Germany was already aligned with Mussolini’s Italy, and by the late 1930s its intent toward expansionism was clear.

Stalin was playing both sides: the Soviets were negotiating with Germany at the same time they were in talks with Britain and France. What would not be known for years was that the German-Soviet agreement also included secret provisions for dividing up the Euro-Soviet borderlands (Finland, the Baltics, Poland, and Romania), setting up the nearly immediate German invasion on September 1.

Germany (in the form of Hitler) is portrayed as relying on some unreliable buffoons, the swigging Soviet water-boy (Stalin) and the assistant who is sniffing his own smelling salts (Mussolini). These are “the boys in his corner,” and the artist intends to communicate to the readership that he thinks Germany is placing its bet on support from some unreliable characters.

“News Headline” (September 15, 1939)
by Gerald Aloysius (Jerry) Doyle, Jr. (1898-1986)
15 x 18 in., ink on board

Jerry Doyle spent most of his career at The Philadelphia Record, The Philadelphia Daily News (1951) and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He retired in 1973. Doyle’s support for the New Deal meant that his cartoons generally expressed support for President Roosevelt, whom he depicted as tall, imposing, powerful, and larger-than-life. Doyle’s early and continual criticism towards Hitler and Mussolini made him the only American cartoonist to be put on the Nazi hit list. He wrote the book “According to Doyle – A Cartoon History of World War II” (1943). His son, who carried his name, was also a part-time cartoonist (1926-2009).

During 1933–1945, Wehrmacht courts issued, conservatively estimated, 25000 death warrants, of which 18000 to 20000 were executed. Declared forms of treason included speaking against the state. The war of words with UK PM Chamberlain was severe, and included calling out Hitler on breaking his earlier promises about what he would and would not do. On September 13-14, 1939, two weeks after the invasion of Poland that started WW2, Hitler broke his often-made promise not to bomb civilian populations in “open towns.”

“Above all else, Hitler was a media figure who gained popularity and controlled his country through speeches and publicity. Far from being a consistent and undeviatingly purposeful politician, he was temperamental, changeable, insecure, allergic to criticism, and often indecisive and uncertain in a crisis.” – RJ Evans, in The Nation, February 28, 2017.

To quote Hitler, “after ten years of hard prison, a man is lost to the people’s community anyway. Thus what to do with such a guy is either put him into a concentration camp, or kill him. In latest times the latter is more important, for the sake of deterrence.”

Imagine that: jailing people for going against the story of the state. That could never happen in today’s world with the open access afforded by the internet (note the news of COVID in China, or Russia in the Ukraine, or a President’s tacit agreement to hang a Vice President in the US, all ca. 2022). If someone reads this and does not like it, there will be far too many suspects once I disappear.

“The Kick-Off” (September 2, 1939)
by Jack Patton (1900-1962)
12 x 18 in., ink and crayon on board

Jack Patton was originally from Louisiana. He worked as an editorial cartoonist from the 1910s through the 1930s. In the 1930s, he was a widely read editorial cartoonist for The Dallas Morning News. His last editorial cartoons appeared at the end 1939 and perhaps through the start of 1940. During the 1930s, he also began the newspaper strip ‘Restless Age,’ which was followed by ‘Spence Easley’.

As a child, Patton read a magazine advertisement offering easy lessons in drawing. He signed up for a brief course, and it was enough to whet his appetite for a lifetime of cartooning. Scraping together enough money to get to Chicago, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts. While at the school, he received word that the old Dallas Journal, then the evening publication of The Dallas News, needed an assistant in the art department. Hurrying back to his hometown, Mr. Patton found to his delight that he would work with veteran News cartoonist John Knott. The year was 1918 and two years later his editorial cartoons won a place on page 1 of the Journal. In the early part of his career, Mr. Patton was one of the first men in the business to put out both an editorial cartoon and a comic strip daily. The editorial cartoons had a stinging wit, and the originals were frequently requested by the subjects, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and John Nance Garner.

The date sticker on the back affirms what you might suspect, this cartoon illustrates a general sense, at the moment it happened, that Hilter was kicking off WWII with the invasion of Poland on September 1 (when this was commissioned).

A reminder here about the events of late August, 1939.

On August 17, Hitler closed the border with Poland.
On August 22, Hitler briefed his commanders about the impending invasion of Poland.
On August 23, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed (a secret agreement between Russia and Germany to divide up Poland).
On August 25, the Louvre was closed, ostensibly for repair, to begin the packaging and relocation of some of the collection.
On August 28, the border between Germany and France was closed.
On August 31, the Soviets ratified the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact… Hitler issued the directive to invade Poland on September 1, and the first-ever Marvel comic (Marvel Comics #1, with an October cover date) was published by the Timely company, featuring the origin of the Human Torch and the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner.

On September 2, this cartoon was published.

Britain and France declared war on Germany the next day.

“Will He Throw It?” (August 31,1939)
by Milton Rawson Halladay (1874-1961)
13.5 x 19 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.

Although World War II “officially” began in September 1939, with the invasion of Poland, following the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia the previous year, another early shot in the upcoming was Danzig.

Danzig was an ethnically German city located northwest of Warsaw on the Baltic Sea coast that had been part of Germany from the early 1800’s until the end of World War I. Hitler’s interest in Danzig was long-standing, arguably central to the Nazi ideology, which called for the unification of all German people.

Danzig had been stripped from German control after World War I and established as the Free City of Danzig by the League of Nations. Germany had also lost portions of Posen and West Prussia to Poland. In the post WW2 maps, Danzig and the so-called Polish Corridor ensured Poland’s access to the Baltic Sea, but they also separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. This outraged many Germans, particularly Hitler, who saw this concession as temporary. Throughout the 1930s, Hitler called for Danzig to be reunited with Germany.

Danzig was the focus of attention throughout all of 1939.

On August 27, Chancellor Hitler wrote to French Premier Daladier that war seemed in evitable: “. . . no nation with a sense of honor can ever give up almost two million people and see them maltreated on its own frontiers. I therefore formulated a clear demand: Danzig and the Corridor must return to Germany. The Macedonian conditions prevailing along our eastern frontier must cease. I see no possibility of persuading Poland, who deems herself safe from attack by virtue of guarantees given to her, to agree to a peaceful solution. . . . I see no possibility open to us of influencing Poland to take a saner attitude and thus to remedy a situation which is unbearable for both the German people and the German Reich.”

And on the early morning of September 1, Germany invaded Poland. . The first shots—fired at Danzig— came not from one of Hitler’s modern weapons of war, but from the SMS Schleswig-Holstein, a three-decades-old German battleship on a “good will” visit to Danzig’s harbor. By shelling a Polish ammunition depot located on Danzig’s Westerplatte peninsula, the Schleswig-Holstein started the 7-day Battle of Westerplatte and, thus, World War II.

From the Fuhrer: “The Polish State has refused the peaceful settlement of relations which I desired, and has appealed to arms. Germans in Poland are persecuted with bloody terror and driven from their houses. A series of violations of the frontier, intolerable to a great Power, prove that Poland is no longer willing to respect the frontier of the Reich.”

“China’s Silver” (August 15, 1939)
by Mischa Richter (1910-2001)
11 x 8 in., ink and wash on paper
Coppola Collection

Mischa Richter (1910-2001) was a well-known New Yorker, King Features, and PM newspaper cartoonist who worked for the Communist Party’s literary journal “New Masses” in the late 1930 and early 1940s, becoming its art editor in the 1940s.

In this piece, from the August 15, 1939 issue of the New Masses, you see a cartoon that was published just a week before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Nazis and the Soviets, which included the secret division of Poland, whose invasion was only two weeks away, on September 1. UK PM Chamberlain, depicted here, was still up to his armpits in appeasement as a policy, and in meaningless negotiations with Hitler that would not prevent the start of WWII.

The Sino-Japanese war, considered the unofficial opening to WWII, had been ongoing since 1937. Britain had backed China, and Japan was now in a strong position of power in China. The cartoon accompanies an article describing how Japan was starving the British investors through the return of silver reserves.

From the accompanying article: CHINA’S SILVER
Appeasement in the Far East revolves, in large part, around whether for not the British will hand over the fifty million ounces of Chinese silver, property of the Chungking government, now stored in the Tientsin concession. That is what the Japanese want, for the Chinese silver would bolster their foreign exchange, and upset Chinese relations on the international silver market. The United States would be forced to abandon its silver purchases in order to avoid virtual subsidy to Japan. The world price of silver would fall, thereby embarrassing the treasury of India, and incidentally react against nations such as Mexico for whom silver is vital.

August 1939 is an noteworthy month, no matter how you slice it.

On August 1, Glen Miller recorded the classic standard “In the Mood.”
On August 2, Albert Einstein signed the famous letter warning FDR about the potential for Germany to develop an atomic weapon, which prompted FDR to start the Manhattan Project.
On August 8 and 11, the first air raid defense tests, and blackouts, were carried out in Britain.
On August 14, FDR moved Thanksgiving from the last Thursday of November to the next-to-last Thursday, mainly due to pressure from merchants to extend the holiday shopping season.
On August 15, the day this cartoon was published, the Wizard of Oz premiered in Hollywood.
On August 17, Hitler closed the border with Poland.
On August 22, Hitler briefed his commanders about the impending invasion of Poland.
On August 23, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed.
On August 25, the Louvre was closed, ostensibly for repair, to begin the packaging and relocation of some of the collection.
On August 28, the border between Germany and France was closed.
On August 31, the Soviets ratified the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact… Hitler issued the directive to invade Poland on September 1, and the first-ever Marvel comic (Marvel Comics #1, with an October cover date) was published by the Timely company, featuring the origin of the Human Torch and the first appearance of the Sub-Mariner.

“The Stargazers See an Omen in the Comet” (July 27, 1939)
By Max P. Milians (1907-2005)
11 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Milians signed his cartoons with nine zeros (“millions”) as an underline. His work was syndicated across America from the 1930s up until the 1970s.

The 35P/Herschel–Rigollet is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 155 years. The quasi-mystic and mythic stories of a comet that was easily visible with field glasses, in late July of 1939, is combined here with the emerging trouble in Europe.

A sense of destiny is a clear part of the dictatorial spirit. They are not only sure they are on the right side of history; they are fated to be history, fulfilling a master plan and its duty.

In January 1936, Mussolini told a German envoy of how Nazi Germany and fascist Italy shared “a common destiny.” Mussolini described them as the ‘axis’ around which Europe would revolve.

The Pact of Steel (May 1939, also recorded as the “Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy”) was the formalization of the military and political alliance between Italy and Germany.

There is another full drawing on the back of this (see elsewhere), that comes from the same time period.

“Let’s Raise the Limit” (July 20, 1939)
by Milton Rawson Halladay (1874-1961)
14 x 17 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.

One cool footnote: Halladay’s great-great grandson is carrying on the family’s artistic tradition: halladayart.com/halladay-history

Before 1939, Congress explicitly imposed no limit on the aggregate amount of federal debt outstanding. Instead, it restricted issues of individual securities or sets of securities and gave the Secretary of Treasury little authority to conduct debt management operations.

In March 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt and Secretary Morgenthau asked Congress to eliminate separate limits on bonds and on other types of debt. The House approved the measure (H.R. 5748) on March 23, 1939, and the Senate passed an amended version on June 1. On July 14, the amendment was withdrawn in the Senate after the House had disagreed, thus clearing the way for President Franklin Roosevelt’s signature. When enacted on July 20, the law (P.L. 76-201) created the first aggregate limit ($45 billion) covering nearly all public debt. Combining a $30 billion limit on bonds with a $15 billion limit on shorter-term debt, while retaining the $45 billion total limit in effect, enabled Treasury to roll over maturing notes into longer-term bonds. This measure gave the Treasury freer rein to manage the federal debt as it saw fit. Thus, the Treasury could issue debt instruments with maturities that would reduce interest costs and minimize financial risks stemming from future interest rate changes.

“No Wonder They Hate Dictators” (July 1, 1939)
By Max P. Milians (1907-2005)
11 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Milians signed his cartoons with nine zeros (“millions”) as an underline. His work was syndicated across America from the 1930s up until the 1970s.

A schoolboy’s remorse during the action of land-grabbing, power-mad dictators: you cannot keep up with your geography lessons because these guys keep redrawing the maps.

In the lead-up to WW2, the German-Italian alliance started moving their pieces around on the chessboard. Danzig and Czechoslovakia starting in March, Italian threats against Greece and the invasion and appropriation of Albania in April.

This piece is located on the backside of a July 1939 drawing commemorating the fate and destiny of the alliance between Hitler and Mussolini.