Transcription
[Music] Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming to the Hall Land office this morning, uh, for the next edition of our Jiaba with Joe. Thank you to our sponsor Tim Hortons for the coffee and donuts. So glad you are enjoying them.
Me: One.
Joe: Good. You better grab it now.
Me: Yeah.
Uh, so today we have our good friend Richard Bey here, who is going to be talking about—hopefully you figured out from the outfit, maybe not—Dr. Seuss during World War II. So I will let him entertain us.
Mr. Cat: Thanks for coming. Good show. Good number of people. I like that. And if, if anybody has trouble hearing my voice, let me know. I try not to d—the uh—microphone, cuz I'll screw it up.
So, is that everything?
All right. Voice level is good.
Yeah. Don't go whispering.
I will not whisper. It's not in my style.
Again, my name is Richard. I picked this book up probably more than 10 years ago, and it sat on my bookcase, and I open it up and look at the individual drawings that that Seuss had drawn on. Never really read the book. And uh, earlier this year, a committee member—book sandwiched in in Bavia at the Richmond Library—we decided to have a graphic uh arts series. So we did a number of books on, you know, graphic arts, and I said, "Hey, how about Dr. Seuss goes to war?" What's that? So I did that one. I also—there was another great one called Comic Story with Beer. I really wanted to do that one, but actually Ted and Holly did that one.
So, I was all set to do this presentation on the 23rd of April, and I had a somewhat of a manual situation, and I had a cancel—I think the first ever cancellation of the book sandwiched in—40-some years. So, I had any with Dr. Seuss goes to war. Is anybody familiar with—I know you're familiar—you have a book. Anybody else familiar with Seuss? What he did during World War II?
Audience Member: You familiar?
Richard: Oh, okay.
Well, this is the cover of the book. Um, I'll stick to the script as much as I can here. Uh, Seuss Geisel, and it's actually pronounced So, rhymes with Royce. Born in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. German was the spoken language in the household. His family was evangelical Lutheran. Services were conducted in German. During World War I, Theodore—being a Boy Scout—uh, sold US war bonds to—uh—one of them he sold to his grandfather. Uh, and then later on, excuse me, $1,000 worth of war bonds that Dr. Seuss, then Theodore Geisel, sold during that period of time. Uh, he was one of 10 Springfield Boy Scouts to win the award with successful sales. After he went to Springfield uh Springfield public schools, he went on to uh Dartmouth College up in New Hampshire, and he started drawing cartoons probably in high school, and he joined the school newspaper in at Dartmouth. Um, toward the end of his four years there, he uh announced to his father that he was going to go to Oxford. Had intention to go to Oxford. His father mentioned it to a newspaper reporter; newspaper reporter, put it in the paper. He didn't really have a scholarship with the government. So his father, because he wanted to keep the family honor, paid the the dime for Seuss to go to Dartmouth; he spent a year there, and that's where he discovered the life of academia—history for me. Toured Europe for about a year after that. Came back to the United States in 1925.
All right, bear with me. So, Dr. as as Dr. Seuss, you know, as we know him, he sold 700 million copies of his books over the years. I love some of those uh facts there. 20 languages. In 2020, I love this one. In 2020, he—uh—Green Eggs and Ham sold more than 338,000 copies. Wow. And in 2020 alone, he made $33 million more, the second only to Michael Jackson as far as a dead celebrity. The Cat in the Hat took less than three years after publication to reach 1 million copies. So, he's a successful guy. And there's a list of all the books, not all the books. These are all the books that were published under his name. He also published under a alias, a pseudonym I guess you could say, later on.
Um, we're—I love the first one. What we'll be showing you is some graphics from the the first book he ever wrote—1931—which is Pocket Book—Pocket Book of Boners—the old-fashioned way of what a boner is. It's a social gaffe. 500 and covens. All these are pre-World War II—didn't sell well at all. I'll give you some stats on that as we move on through.
Um, the one that we're really going to focus on—is anybody find it anywhere—is 1958—'58—the year—the Turtle and Other Stories. All right, guys. Anybody familiar with the turtle?
Audience Member: Yes.
All right. Richard Viner is a a retired professor at the University of Massachusetts in uh Amherst. He was a expert on the relation—post-World War II in Japan. He lived in Japan for a number of years. You can see the uh the books that he wrote during that period. I think probably most famous for the book on the Tokyo War Crime Trial, and that was published in 1971.
All right. Why in the heck is Spiegelman? You may know who Spiegelman, Art Spiegelman, a cartoonist out of New York City. Uh, he's famous for uh doing a series on on his relationship with his father. His father was a prisoner of war in the concentration camp in Germany. And he came back to the US. As Art was growing up, his father would tell these stories of his incarceration and all the things that—terrible things that happened to him. So, uh, he created a series of comics, if you will, on that topic, eventually published as a book called Mouse. Uh, I believe it won the Pulitzer Prize—or the first cartoon book to win the Pulitzer Prize. And he's up here because he does the introduction, a very, I think, poignant introduction. Let's see. Let's go to that.
So, this is in the in the beginning, the introduction. What? Dr. Seuss, beloved purveyor of genial rhyming nonsense for beginning readers. Stuff about cats and hats and foxes and socks. He started as a feisty political cartoonist who exhorted America to do battle with Hitler. Yeah, right. And Ed Reinhardt, the guy who painted Oscar black with black abstractions and used to draw comic strips, explaining modern art to the uninitiated. Actually, both of these things—unlikely phenomena—fact—could occur in the pages of what may well have been America's most remarkable daily newspaper, the New York—New York's PM magazine. The short-lived popular front tabloid—is hued all paid advertising—that did print announcements and department store carnage as news items. And so, happier alternative universe—PM is still being published daily and Dr. Seuss was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his anti-fascist PM cartoons of 1941 and 42. Well, actually Dr. Seuss did receive a Pulitzer in the universe we inhabit. The special citation in 1984 was given for its contribution of over a half a century to the education and enjoyment of America's children and their parents. The PM cartoons made us more aware of the political messages often embedded within the sugar pill of Dr. Seuss's signature ziness. For better or worse, the didactic moralist struggled for supremacy over the iconic classic jokester and much of his mature—mature. Could that be the right? Yes. Urt the Turtle is an anti-fascist tract. The Sneetches is clearly a plea for racial tolerance. What are those stars on our bellies if not Megan Davis? The Lorax is an environmental message that overwhelms any of the nonsense. The Butter Battle Book was a plea for nuclear disarmament that created a blizzard of controversy when it first appeared in 1984. Spiegelman's forward ends with this. And now rescued from the newsprint to where they've been mouldered unseen for over half a century. Their cartoons let us know what happens when appears of high.
All right. I love that style of art. This is some of the things that Seuss did in the uh 1920s and 30s. Anybody remember Flit?
Audience Member: Yes.
Richard: We're all way too young. Even us, we're too young for Flit. So this Dr. Seuss is doing his advertising. All right. So from '27 to '41, Dr. Seuss lived in New York City drawing for humor magazines for an obscure magazine Judge, which billed itself as the world's wittiest weekly. Occasionally, he drew for more prestigious journals, such as the Saturday Evening Post. One of his cartoons incorporated the bug spray Flit, which caught the eye of a white advertising executive for Standard Oil in New Jersey. Soon Seuss was on the payroll of Esso of New Jersey, earning what was then a sizable income of $12,000 a year. This went on for many years. So during the depression when many Americans suffered severe financial hardship, Dr. Seuss did not. In his words, "It wasn't the greatest pay, but it covered my overhead so I could experiment with my drawings." There's a few more. Uh, he he coined the phrase "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" I love this one. Maybe Elon Musk is uh on Mars right now with his Flit. I'm not sure. There's a Earth to Mars, and then he also did that for a motor oil.
Audience Member: What was that first word?
Richard: What's that? What was the first word? Did that say hang?
Audience Member: Hang it all.
Richard: I forgot my Flit. I love this one on the the left of the dinosaur. Dr. Seuss gets a little risqué with some of his artwork. You can see the the woman's in the in whatever that is. I guess it's a cave, completely naked, and the guy's trying to get home, but you know, he's being attacked by the bugs. Quick, Henry, the Flit! And the last one is—I'll read that one to you. That was done for General Electric. And you can see uh Satan and his gang up there on the the podium, and the guys on the on the skillet being roasted. And he says to Satan, "Old stuff, say old stuff. Why? For a few poultry dollars, a General Electric uh wiring system contractor could wire all hell, and you could run this duster by electricity." Bizarre advertising of it. That's what they did.
All right. Book of—you go back. What should he sign that at the very top?
Audience Member: Doc by Dr. Dr. Theophrustus Seuss.
Okay. It's another another name that he went by, I guess, at least for that cartoon. All right. This is his very very first book. He also did a—I guess it spawned a couple of uh collaborations with another artist. I think there were two other books along the same theme. That was in 1931. And then you can see the rest of the books that preceded World War II. All right. This—these are the two of the cartoons that were in uh the Pocketbook of Boners. The one on the left says, "Sirens in the middle of the ocean. Nobody could hear came near them. They made so much noise." So it's sort of a take on the sirens of mythology. The second one is—Henry VII had an abscess on his knee which made walking difficult. He's trying. You can see certainly the Dr. Seuss style starting to evolve.
All right. Ralph Ingersoll. Ralph Ingersoll. There's a name. Anybody—Ralph Ingersoll? Ralph Ingersoll has got a name.
Audience Member: Yes.
You would—you mind going—I think it's too—back to that 1931 book. I couldn't speed read fast enough underneath. Could you read that out loud? My eyesight's not good.
Audience Member: The bottom, right?
Richard: I I can't. It's not—It's a little blurry. It's—It's a little blurry. I can't read what's underneath. Could you read it?
Audience Member: No, I can't. It's too blurry.
Richard: You cannot read it?
Audience Member: No.
Richard: Any other sharpshooters out here could read it to me?
Audience Member: All right, let's move on.
Richard: All right, I guess that's a no. No, I I I can't read it. I—It's—It's very very blurry. Read it to me. If I tried to read it, I would probably screw it up. So, I'll find it online.
All right. So, Ralph Ingersoll—this enforcement did not come immediately to Dr. Seuss. In the first six years, it happened on Mulberry Street. Sold 32,000 copies, which is quite a bit. King Still sold fewer than 5,000 copies the first year and only 400 by the third year. Or Hatches of Egg sold 6,000 in year 1 and 1,600 in year 2. So he was making some money but certainly not enough to propel his career forward. All right. Pocketbook of Boners contained 22 illustrations of Howler's blunders—sus. The rest of the volume—can stick to the short jokes and humorous observations with most being no more than four lines long. Is noticeable being an early example of his distinct illustration style.
All right. Ralph Ingersoll. Ralph Ingersoll was born in 1900, so he's a little bit older than Dr. Seuss. He began his career at a new publication, The New Yorker, in 1925. Then he took on Fortune magazine in 1930 and then was hired by Time uh to be their general manager, and he helped to launch Life magazine in 1936. According to legend, Henry Luce, the the owner of the Big Cheese at Time Life, offered him a million half dollars in stock value to sign a 5-year contract with the company. But instead, he said, "No, I'd rather do something else." He lost PM, a left-wing—left-leaning man—in 1940. Was always ad-free and survived with the financial backing of Marshall Field III. Anybody know who Marshall Field?
Audience Member: Chicago.
Richard: Chicago department store—magazine. Well, the grandson had a lot of disposal later and apparently he caught on to this idea of supporting PM magazine, and he supported it through all his years. That never made money. After initial flurry of public interest, their circulation dropped to about 31,000. So it was a New York City magazine, pale in comparison to the other publications of the era. Ingersoll—after his number of years with PM magazine, he actually joined the army in 1942, but since he had been in World War I as a very young man, uh, he was elevated to an officer. He served in England on the invasion planning staff and was the chief American representative of the deception program designed to keep the Nazis guessing about the location of troop landings and other operations. The unit became known as the Ghost Army. That's a very interesting story. I think I was saying earlier that that would make a really good book to read about—career. He also served with Omar Bradley in the tank division.
All right. I decided that the word propaganda—nowadays—when you say propaganda, you assume it's it's biased. It's uh it's not factual. It's it's a bunch of some people, and other people—it's the truth. Uh, so I decided to go to my 1951 definition uh excuse me—dictionary of the word propaganda, and you can read it there. Actually started with society in Rome. My friend Paple here could tell me all about that. So, and you can see the the definition of of propaganda is any society or means used to advocate or teach a particular doctrine. So if you go to the modern version, which you'll find on the trusty internet—trusty internet—call it a congregation of the Roman Curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and institutions. That's the original definition. And then we come on—spreading ideas, information or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution. And last but not least, ideas, facts, and allegations spread deliberately to cause one harm or damage or opposing cause. So PM magazine was definitely a propagandist.
Couple of pictures on the opening page here. This is an interesting one on the left. Uh, it's a group of New York City boys playing—instead of cops and robbers, they're playing Americans or Germans—and apparently this young man has been caught as a spy, and it's a quite an amazing photograph—actually shadows of the boys getting ready to execute—which—that's the tenor of the times—and of course the headline on on the—I forget what date this is—that June—June 14th, 1940—headline of Nazi troops uh marching in Paris.
All right. So, how did Dr. Seuss come to be working for Ingersoll—and PM Magazine? Well, he drew this cartoon. And does anybody know Virginia?
Audience Member: Got it?
Richard: No. He was uh the chief propagandist, if you will, for the Italian government. He pounded out the keys of this typewriter. If you can see here, he's Dr. Seuss style. He's he's strapped in, and he's pounding on a steam-powered uh typewriter, and then a little note in the corner—"PM magazine does not hold itself responsible for the opinions of the editor"—at—that is—so that cartoony submitted to Ingersoll. Ingersoll liked it, hired him immediately, and that began about a 16-month—18-month career at PM magazine.
Okay, the book is divided—not so much by chronology—but by uh by subject matter. So the cartoons, excuse me, the comics, whatever you want to call them, go back and forth through that period of time. He took special delight in lampooning uh Mr. Lindbergh. Lindbergh, of course, was the head of of America First, which is the movement to keep us out of the war. We don't want to get involved in anything European. That's their problem, not ours. So Dr. Seuss did these cartoons, and this one—I love—In God We Trust—and how there's Lindbergh as a as a ostrich with his head in the sand. You'll see this in a number of cartoons—I'll have—and if you get the book and you have the book, you can go through and see even more of them. So PM magazine has a typical cover. He's got two cartoons on there. This one, of course—the top—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk—top talk. And over here he's riding—this couple riding on the luxury vehicle. Sometimes I wonder if we would speed things up if we use turtles instead of snails because the effort to get us into the war was not going rapidly enough for PM magazine. So Dr. Seuss came up with these cartoons to propel it forward. On the left, a lucky thing we've got separate beds—and if you see Europe with Nazi fever, blitz spots, dominus itch, fascist seizure—and there's the same cartoon, a little clearer—of Dr. Charles Lindbergh, his head in the sand as a—Okay. And more of these cartoons you'll see. In this case, we've got—Mus—we've got Hitler and we've got Hirohito and uh I don't know where Mussolini is. He's must be hiding out somewhere—riding on the—riding in a car. So, we're back home, and we're out riding around. We're wasting gasoline, you know. Meanwhile, the Axis is getting more powerful. There are more people dying. And—and—and Lindbergh is saying, "Well, we're going to—we're okay." This cartoon says, "Fellow experimenters, we have gathered here today to make the eagle and the jellyfish." And that's Dr. Seuss's typical characterization of of America with the top hat on. Let me get rid of the hat because things get a little ugly. Is that September '41? Yeah, 1941. September. So all these cartoons, all these drawings were done between um January of '41 and early 1942. About—about 18 months, 16 to 18 months before—400. Yeah. And there were about 400 of them. You see this one again—trying to exhort the people to get involved—to press for US involvement in the war. Of course, as you can see, October 5th, 1941, we're just two days—two months away from Pearl Harbor. Then I learned about cuts, and I love this one over here. He starts to introduce the, you know, the racism card. You notice that the guys got a sign that said, "No colored labor needed." There seems to be a white man in the wood pile. These two guys are saying, "Over here." "Over here" is the same thing. This is summer of 1942. So this is after the war starts. So he continues that same theme. We've got a piano—black labor, white labor, black labor—or the black keys and the white labor on the white keys. The war industry—the guy said, "Listen, maestro, if you want to get real harmony, use the black keys as well—the white keys." The last one over here—that's Talmadge, I believe, from Georgia. Uh, what does he say? You can keep your American eagle. I got a bird of my own—and race hatred is the bird on it—on its shoulder. Some things never change.
All right. I love this one. Tax-exempt securities loophole for the rich. Pay your poll tax over here. Come on, small fry. You pay it. The turnstile. And who's he standing on the back of—the House Ways and Means Committee? He wasn't afraid to get into the politics. And over here we have another one. Poll tax. All the people trying to get in—10 million people who don't have—who haven't got the price to go through the polls. Vote here if you can afford it.
All right. So, he goes into Hitler and Nazi Germany. I love this particular cartoon. You've got all the countries of Europe—starting with France, Czechs, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, you name them all. And there's Hitler, you know, commanding the cows—who, you know, commanding them all to be milked dry. Does anyone know why he didn't go to Switzerland other than what? Why—you never went to—like—
Switzerland, through the mountains or down to Ital? I don't. Switzerland was. It's. It's a tough geographically. It's always been tough to get through Switzerland. So that's that's why they're prepared to fight. They were prepared to fight, too. Wouldn't take any gun. All right. This this is the reason I took the hat off. Look at this cartoon on the left. Uh, the gentleman's name is Laval, who was singing with Hitler. Only God can make a tree to furnish for you and me. And those are all Jews hanging by their necks in trees. So Seuss was not averse to, you know, being very graphic and very shocking in his art.
Who was Laval? Laval was the Vichy government's uh, leader at that time. He ends up the time. We'll get to him in just a moment. The other one says, "Crawl out and round me up. I'm another 400,000 Frenchmen." And there's Laval down crawling here on the ground. He looks very sinister. I love this early mind. Here's Hitler being delivered by the stork. I gave the hot foot to the stork that brings me. It was April 20th, 1889, when Hitler was born. And the last one is uh, on on the Hitler series is rather striking as well. You've got all the individuals doing how Hitler to their creator, and a creator is molding them in the Nazi mold. All right. Good news, France. We signed you to find Kid Britain. And here's France all beat to hell. And here comes uh, Hitler in his in his suit. And I love the cat. Always got cats in it. And this one is is quite interesting.
On the other side, on the other panel is Pétain. Pétain was a a World War I hero in France. He was uh, well respected. He became part of the government in in France. But he was on the dishi spot now on the French resistance. So here you can see Hitler with the uh, you know, one arm up, another arm is picking the pocket of Pétain. Pétain is going put up your arm like this and your trumpers all over. So it's really pushing the French to capitulate to the Nazis who are overrunning France.
Now this brings me to a personal story, and this is actually, if you want to just pass that around, you can feel the age of it. Um, my father was a finance officer in World War II, came ashore at Normandy in 1944, um, I think the 13th day after the initial assault on the continent. Uh, went across Europe, you know, feeding, excuse me, paying the troops and sending home letter after letter after letter, and I just buried underneath all these letters. Well, the other day I was actually about two months ago, I was cleaning out the drive and I came across this piece of paper, and you can see it written in French over here. On the back side of that, my father said, "Save this." So, apparently my mother saved it, and I've saved it for 25 years and just discovered it. A friend of mine knows French. So she translated it. Basically, this is uh, written from Pétain, who is the head of the Vichy government in France, appealing to the French population to don't make waves, basically don't you know, don't don't don't mess up France, don't try to you know, fight the German army. They're there are going to be our friends. So obviously the French resistance took great umbrage to this particular piece of uh uh, this poster that went out, and my father coming across Europe, you know, fighting, basically he wasn't you know, combat officer, but he was following the combat officer, come across something like this, you know, what here we are fighting and you've got some of the French people trying to capitulate. Nice fight. And here's another cartoon he took took particular delight in skewering both Laval and Pétain. Here's Marianne. Look what the cat brought back in Miss Laval. The Nazis actually installed him as uh, president of the of the country, of the Vichy government. And last but not least, we have a nice collection of of heads on the wall. And now Hitler is trying to capture Russia. And Russia's maybe they're not going to be quite as easy as the rest of Europe. And this one I love the little tobacco juice where it counts. And this is of course the doodle raid on Tokyo in 19, was that 40, early 42? I don't know the exact date. The cartoon is from April 20th, 1942, and American forces dropped bombs on Tokyo and then of course crashlanded in in China, except for our group that ended up crash landing in in Russia and then spending about 18 months in captivity. Over here on the on the right we have the stylized image of Hirohito, the fat face, squinty eyes, the glasses, and then oh me, I'm the climax of the act. The complete and utter destruction. They're jumping and they're they're winning the war. And so we entered the war, and obviously we know what the rest of history brought us.
Winning the war. Yes. I was just wondering how he had access to the military stuff. Was it through like other newspapers or you know, I'm sure that you know, PM magazine, there was one of the things I read about them. They they were very short on staff and a lot of office people. So I think they probably were getting their information from other papers, from other news sources and then publishing it. I'm sure Seuss is also reading the, you know, the other New York publications at the time to get the information on the war. So yeah, quick Henry the flip comes out once again. Of course, this time we've got the Nazis as as some sort of mosquito or hornet or wasp and then Hirohito and then Mussolini. Poor Mussolini. He doesn't get hardly any credit. You know, he's Seuss treats him with a lot of disrespect. He didn't have a whole lot of respect for Mussolini at all. Of course, neither did the Germans. All right. So, back home now. We we've gone through we, you know, PM Magazine is has launched this campaign to to push for us to join the war. It helped, he'd use the word help for Pearl Harbor to come along. That certainly propelled us in into the war on both fronts. But now it's a matter of winning the war. And that's Dr. Seuss. You know, once 1942 was in full bloom, the effort now was to make sure that we do everything we can to ensure that the the battles are won in Europe. So calling on the American people to to do what they can to support the effort. And he he pokes fun at a lot of different people. We have John F. Hindsight here, master strategist, yesterday's battle, famed for the great words, we could have, we should have, and of course with this, you know, his telescope looking backwards. The one on the right, the veteran calls the battle of Brett, the battle of 1943. There we were, Japs to the left, Germans to the right, closing in. Did I run? I did not. Unyielding, I sat in this chair and groused about the shortage, annoying shortage of fuel oil. M, over here we have erected in the honor of wishful listeners, they spent the war listening for the sudden cracking of German morale, they won't belong now they're saying. Over here we have, you belong to any of these groups, the creepers, the weepers, or the sleepers, do not disturb until after the war. That was written, that was done in 1942, April of 1942. Boss, maybe you better hawk me and buy more US savings slots. And there it's a moose talking to the to the homeowner there. Japs sank US ships. We'll see and talk about this turtle deed. This you can't build a substantial deed or bickery out of the turtles. And you can see all the turtles standing up on top of daddling producers again trying to. Yes, sir. What was that event after? Cuz I did a research paper on Japan and American ships and there was a a significant event. This one? Yeah. December 26th, 1941. Oh, that's all right. It's right after Christmas, but Pearl Harbor was. Yeah. Pearl Harbor the 7th. So 19 days later. Got it. I'm sorry. I cut off a lot of the dates on on the picture. Yeah, it's just cuz there was stuff going on before that um, in the specific warfront. So, I wasn't sure. Yeah, there there was a lot going on. Yeah. And there's the we could have, we should have, would have quartet, the alibi boy with fun and dance team of the democratic nations and the two gentleman's in the audience. It's kind of like those two guys in the in the mother shower and Waldorf. You know, their act is getting to be strike the tri trifle corn. All right. Now, here's the guys inside going up. I'd attack the illusions. I'd attack the French coast. But nobody wants to attack that scrap building up in the backyard. That was August of 1942. I would say the August 1942 was probably one of his last cartoons he did. Excuse me. For the P. The last one over here is, you know, Americans going in traveling. You're wasting gas. Why are you doing that? Instead of going traveling, you should stay at home. Excuse me. Over here we have Hirohito and and Hitler on Mount Rushmore. That's a starting, that's a that's an idea that could have happened I suppose. Don't let them carve these cases on our mountains again, extorting people to buy those war bonds, saving bonds. Again, this was this was just days after Pearl Harbor, December 12th, 1942. And I love this one on the left, on the right. So long as men can do this, they're free, and they're all giving Hitler the.
All right. So Dr. Seuss, how you get off track, got a couple of things here. Go back to Dr. Seuss and Ingersoll. They seem to be cut from the same cloth. Um, Ingersoll was a prominent journalist and uh, he did. Here it is. We propose to seek constructively, this is his motto for the paper. We propose to applaud those who seek to constructively to improve the way men live together. We are American and we prefer democracy with any other form of government. The fascist philosophy represents a live threat to everything we believe in, beginning with the democratic way of life. We do not believe either the study of the works of Karl Marx or the membership of the Communist Party is antisocial. He looks a little bit like Mr. Rogers. He does look a lot like. All right. So at the conclusion of the war uh, to talk about both uh, Ingersoll and talk about Ingersoll's role in the war. Uh, Dr. Seuss joined the the army in 1942 and uh, went to work for Frank Capra. You guys know the name Frank Capra, noted filmmaker. Well, he was in charge of uh, promoting or creating films sort of outlining our position in in the war effort. We have they did one on Germany. They did one on Japan, and then of course as the war started to wind down they started to do films about Japan, and Seuss worked for Capra on a couple of those and the author of the book Mr. Miner who spent years in in Japan. And if you're going to check this book out, if you're going to buy this book, I highly advise reading the concluding thoughts first because it really sort of ties the whole thing together. Dr. Seuss is now he's he's finished his his tenure with the army. He's come home and now the books are starting to come, and they of course are going to get more and more famous. in but he's always been looking, he's the initial books that he wrote post World War II definitely had the influence of his of his experience with PM magazine and also went to Japan in 1945 and and made a couple of films, so what what's the time almost 20 to 10. Frank Capra was one of Hollywood's most successful successful directors. During the war, he became the Army's premier propagandist and produced Why We Fight, the series of films that sets out for displaying to the American people, military and civilians, what the war was about. Seuss, about almost 40 years old, spent the next year's making films with him, including two that we should consider shortly. And that is the two that we consider that shortly are of course uh, part of and if I ran the zoo, scrambled eggs supper and how the Grinch stole Christmas and many others. There were movies and three Oscars. You won an Oscar for Hitler Lives in 1946. This is Seuss, Death Design for Death in 1947 and Gerald McBoing in 1951. Campaign for Literacy, of course, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, and all the rest. We focus now on Yertle the Turtle. We're going to get a I'm wrapping this up. We're going to get to watch a little bit of a movie. So, be prepared to cut this off, Paul, in case you know the the evil uh, internet police go, "Oh, no. We can't play that. That's that's copyright impure." I'm not sure if it is. We'll see. All right. So, Dr. Seuss produced Yertle the Turtle and other stories in 1958. It has delighted readers ever since. It is the story of a turtle king, Yertle, who wants to see and rule beyond his pond. He orders his subject turtles to stand on each other's backs with Yertle of course on top. The taller the tower, the more overwhelming, overweening the ambitions of Yertle, and the heavier the weight pressing down on an unfortunate turtle slow down on the tower. At the bottom is a turtle named Mack. At the climax of the tail, Mack burps and the tower and Yertle tumbling down. The story concludes in turtles, of course, all the turtles are free as turtles and maybe all creatures should be. If you've noticed. Oh, yeah. There's the um, Brand France. There's that stack of bees. So, now this is 58. So, this is you know, 12 years after the war is when he created uh, Yertle. Yes, sir. If if you go to the conservatory in Rochester, they have a bunch of turtles and they can stack, I've seen seven to 10 of them at once. Yeah, they do that. Yeah, they stack on each other, but not in the. We got a great picture of turtles on a on a log in and pin. So, yeah, they do they do like to stack up like that. So, Seuss definitely took a a natural act and sort of obviously cons.
All right. Um, continue on with this. This is some thoughts that Dr. Seuss had about the creation of Yertle. In interview 1987, you know, about four years before Dr. Seuss died, he commented, "Yertle was Hitler and Mussolini. Originally, Yertle had a mustache, but I took it off. I thought it was gilding the lily a little bit. Yertle is a dictator, plain and simple. expansionist in his desire to see further and further until he is toppled. Because, in Dr. Seuss's words of 1987, Mack the turtle holding up the throne from the bottom burst. Just to show you how things have changed, my publisher, Random House, had a director's meeting decided I should be allowed to use the word pro. The top good old man at that time was sophisticated Bennett Cerf. And it served as the the top man at at Random House, Burke. Can you imagine? Miner goes on to say that the parallel with Hitler is is far from exact, although he too overextended himself. Hitler was toppled not from below but from outside force. And nowhere in Yertle the Turtle is there any reference to that other aspect of Hitler's legacy, the Nazi Holocaust. To be sure, the current concern with the European Holocaust developed largely after 1958. Still, the question we ask arises once again. Did Dr. Seuss's Hitler ad is Dr. Seuss's Hitler adequate to the task of representing the real Hitler? Many years later, in a 1980 interview, Dr. Seuss had this to say about his general approach. I always want the good guys to win. I don't deal in tragedies. I tell the kids to forget it and go on to the next tragedy. He went on to speak of the fantastic and fantastical and the whimsy. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient to living. It's a way of looking at life through a distorted telescope, and that's what makes you laugh at the terrible reality. Whimsy, which is a deliberate contradiction, is reality pure. In reality, it's pure escapism. And without whimsy, none of us can live. And Miner goes on to say fantasy and women whimsy are not merely necessary for life. They are Dr. Seuss's stock and trade, but there are limits to their reach. We have noted resonances between Seuss's wartimes cartoon of Hitler and Charlie Chaplin's great dictator of 1940, and there's the character Adenoid Hinkle, the dictator of Tomania, is an obvious caricature of Hitler, writing in 1974 in my life picture, Charlie Chaplin states, had I known of the actual horrors of Nazi concentration camps, I could not have made the great dictator. I wanted ridiculed their mystique bills about pure-blooded. And this this film that he made uh, with his wife, the uh, Destiny with Death could not find any clip of it whatsoever. Just sort of disappeared. And I there's this is a great a great book. All right. So in 1947, Dr. Seuss and his wife produced a film on Japan, Design for Death. Uh, and that film won Dr. Seuss the second of its three Oscars for best dramatic or short short drama film. Um, the critic at the time, Bosley Crowther, New York Times, this film received the Academy Award for best feature-length documentary of 1947. Apparently, competition in that category was nailed. In 1998, prints of Design for Death are very hard to find. Fortunately, the Library of Congress holds a copy unless it's been expunged, but that's it's another story. Well, hey, you never know. You never know. So, Design for Death, I could not find anything on. But what I did find, and I'm going to play that in just a short moment. Design for Death really was very very dated as we look at it now. He really treats the Japanese, I think in a derogatory way, and I think many are picked up on that as he wrote this conclusion uh, to the book. So my advice, get the book, check the book out, really gives you another look at how history played out during the in the 1930s and 40s and the role that all people Dr. Z had it. So, am I able to use the YouTube here? [Music] Yeah. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Happy king of all. [Music] If I could sit high, how much greater I'd be. What a king. I be ruler of all that can [Music] see. I'm the turtle of marvelous me, for I am the ruler of all that I see. Yo, King Yertle, my name's Mack. I come from the bottom of the turtle stack. I got pains in my back and knees. How much longer, your majesty? I know you're the king, but I got to complain. The crew down here is in a lot of pain. Up at the top, you're seeing great sights, but down at the bottom, we too have rights. You are so loud. You know, right to talk to the world's highest turtle. I rule over clouds, over land, over sea. And there's nothing, no nothing that's higher than me. Now, now I am nothing. While he was shouting, he saw a surprise. The moon of the evening started to rise over his head in the darkening sky. What's that? Say, "What is that thing that dares to be higher than Yertle the king?" I'll call some more turtles and I'll stack them right on to heaven. I think I'll need about 5,000 67. As a girl, the eternal king lifted his hand and started to order and give the command. [Music] and plain little turtle whose name was just Mack decided he'd take a nap and he had. And that plain little lad got a little bit mad. And that plain little lad did a plain little thing. He burped. [Music] Uh, Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Maybe. [Music] [Music] [Music]