by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Today marks the 83rd anniversary of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II and this post looks back to the First World War period, with the Homestead fortunate to have in its collection four issues of The Arcadian Observer, which was the “Official Paper of the United States Army Balloon School” in Arcadia during the latter stages of World War I and its immediate aftermath. The institution was located on Ross Field, situated at the southwest corner of Santa Anita Avenue and Huntington Drive, where the Arcadia County Park and Santa Anita Golf Course are now.
We have featured the three other editions of the publication in prior post on this blog with the others dating from 24 August 1918, 16 November 1918 and 23 November 1918 and another post concerns a letter sent to one the medical corps staff at the school on 18 July 1918. The Museum’s holdings also features a dramatic framed panoramic photograph of a half-dozen tethered balloons with cadets and staff, buildings in the background and the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance, so we’ll definitely feature that in the future.
The 7 December 1918 edition of the Observer has a great deal of interesting content, of which will focus on several major features. One is an editorial piece titled “Revenge and Justice” and which asked “what is all this blatter [blather] we hear about the iniquity of reprisals and the wickedness of revenge?” when it came to imposing retribution upon Germany for fomenting war against the western European allies in the conflict that ended less than a month prior.
Asserting that such talk “outrages the ear and offends the sense of smell,” it was added that it also “is nothing more than plain German propaganda” and “a desperate effort to win or keep in peace what they could not win in war.” The writer posited that “it is not revenge to put a murderer to death” while “it is not vengeance to require the return of stolen money, o the making of full recompense for ruined cities and ravaged lands.”
Rather “reprisals in kind” would, in fairness, require the defeated empire to “replace from our her own factories the machinery she has stolen or wantonly ruined in Belgium and France” as well as to “surrender railroad equipment in return for that which she stole or destroyed” during the four-year conflict.” Such demands “are nothing but elementary justice, not only permissible, but necessary.”
It was remarked that the call for restraint under the guise of propaganda “is one of the most dangerous inventions of the Hun, and it is a thing against which every lover of justice and peace must be on guard against.” Acknowledging the revenge would lead to instability, it was countered that peace leading to injustice, intentional or not, would equally be a problem. Revenge and oppression against Germany were not to be sought, but justice was required for Belgium, England and France.
The piece concluded,
It strikes us that it would be well to shut up about this babble of the solicitude for Germany, lest she be made to suffer the penalty for her crimes, and to hear a little more about making just reparation to those who have been made the victims of Germany’s wickedness. It is not revenge that Germany fears, for she knows that she is not threatened with it. It is justice she dears, for she knows how richly she merits it.
The reparations demanded at the Versailles peace conference of 1919 included huge amounts of money from Germany to the victorious allies and, while the Weimar Republic restored democracy to that nation, there was an undercurrent of resentment fomented by right-wing forces that, with the onset of the Great Depression and desperation rising among Germans led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime that led to the horrors of the Second World War.
Under the heading of “Fair Play,” the first article in the publication concerned what was then called the Tournament East-West Football Game and now simply the Rose Bowl Game, held as part of Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses. The New Year’s Day game began in 1902, but, after a lopsided victory with Michigan shellacking Stanford 49-0, the contest was discontinued, though revived in 1916.
After two college matchups with Washington State upending Brown 14-0, followed by Oregon blanking the University of Pennsylvania by the same score, the nation’s entry in the war with many college students joining the American Expeditionary Force led to Tournament officials organizing a contest between military teams, with approval from President Woodrow Wilson and Armed Forces officials.
In 1918, the Mare Island Marines, from the installation at Vallejo, northeast of San Francisco, took on the Army squad of Camp Lewis at Tacoma, Washington, with the Marines prevailing, 19-7, as players from both teams were readying to head to Europe. The sole touchdown by the Army team was by recent University of Utah gridiron star Dick Romney, a second cousin of politician Mitt Romney.
The concern of this editorial referred to media reports about “an elimination tournament to be played by the service teams of the Pacific Coast, the winner to meet a team selected by the committee” for the New Year’s Day game. Yet, “the committee in selecting the teams to play this elimination tournament has never even mentioned the Balloon School team as a probable contender” and the publication wanted to know why, wondering if it was a matter of the idea that “our team [is] not up to the calibre they demand, or is it simply a case of discrimination?”
There were also questions about how selection could be determined when “there has [have] been very few games played owing to the epidemic of ‘flu,'” with the horrific influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 starting, according to many sources, in a Midwest Army camp and spreading like wildfire, causing hundreds of thousands of American deaths and tens of millions worldwide. Also questioned was the focus on a star player or two and their conditioning.
It was asserted that, with respect to this latter point, “the committee need have no fear about the Balloon School team, as being a member of the team does not excuse a man from his military training or duty.” Moreover, the squad played its first game on 23 November, with the flu receding enough to allow the contest to take place, and managed a tie game, 7-7, against Pomona College on that team’s home field.
The latter’s touchdown only came because of a blocked punt and fumble “due to nervousness” with the visitors, who managed to get to the Pomona 3-yard line before the end of the second and third quarters and then tied the game in the fourth. If there’d only been five minutes more to play, it was claimed, the Balloon School team would have claimed victory. The competitiveness of the game alone should have provided the squad an opportunity to compete in the tournament.
Beyond this, it was observed that the coaching staff included four former college stars and two All-Americans, while the players included seven men who’d played in college ball and the rest had experience with interscholastic of independent clubs. Therefore, “the committee has not been rightly informed regarding the strength” of the team, though it was acknowledged that the Balloon School did not formally request to participate in the tourney. The editorial offered,
What we would suggest, is to run us in a game, and if we are beaten we will gladly step aside and root for the best team to win. We will leave the selection of the team to play up to the judgment of the committee—be it Marines, Aviators, or Sailors, and will do our best to demonstrate they made a mistake by leaving us out.
All that was asked was “a fair and equal chance” and that “the team representing the Pacific Coast is a real representative one” but “this cannot be done unless they give the Balloon School an opportunity to demonstrate its ability.” It concluded, “give us a trial and trot our your most likely looking champions, and when we get through with them or they with us, there might be a different story. At any rate, let’s look them over, barring NONE.”
On New Year’s Day 1919, the Mare Island squad matched up against the Great Lakes Navy team from the still existing boot camp north of Chicago, with the latter shutting out its adversary, 17-0. The Most Valuable Player of the contest was Great Lakes star George Halas, a University of Illinois standout who later was famed as the head coach of the Chicago Bears for forty seasons and owner for over six decades. Halas scored the second touchdown for his team and also returned an interception 77 yards before being stopped just short of the goal line—leading him to say that he subsequently told his players to dive when that close!
Another feature of interest concerned the statement that “motion pictures helped a lot in winning the war” and “are to play a still greater part in re-establishing peace,” especially through the recently launched Morale Division of the War Department (now the Department of Defense). The idea was that the organization “will rely to a great extent on pictures to enlist the enthusiastic co-operation of citizens and soldiery” in the postwar period, with movie star Douglas Fairbanks about finished with the first of a series of film for the effort.
Fairbanks was a prominent public face for the Liberty Loan program, which raised billions of dollars through bonds for the war effort, and, having completed promotion of the fourth issue, he stated, “they asked me to undertake the making of pictures for use in arousing the men, women and children of the nation to the opportunities and duties this war has brought.” Adding that “playtime for a while is over” and that it was now a matter of “action, action, action, and then more action,” the actor continued,
Presently we will have with us upward of two million men in the prime of life and the pink of condition, in whom war has developed a habit of thinking and an appreciation of the use and beauty of team work. The adventure from which they are returning will incline them to the new adventures opening up everywhere. We’ve got to feed the world, pretty nearly—anyhow for the next two years. We’ve go to supply most of the material and a good deal of the man power for the restoration of ruined France and Belgium. We’ve got to be the leaders, and we can.
To prepare for this, Fairbanks pointed out, industry needed to be vastly increased and transportation significantly improved, including aviation and its advances which were “likely to startle the world when Uncle Sam is ready to make public the work he has now well in hand.” He further remarked that “we’re just beginning to get a glimpse, a vague notion of our destiny” as a nation. Therefore, he continued, the Morale Department’s motion picture initiative was “for educational purposes—a short of short course in the training of citizens, men and women alike, in usefulness.”
These films were “all work for true democracy, and that’s what we’re going to have throughout the world” with the addition that “the United States is the logical leader in the establishment of these principles for which we have been fighting.” The actor commented that, for these high ideals, “pictures will demonstrate all this better than any other agency” with the time being such that “there has never been a time when the outlook for films was as wide and wonderful” and that “the industry has never had the opportunity it has right now.”
In an interesting comparison to what was mentioned above about German propaganda, the star went on to observe that,
My own idea is, as I explained to them [in the morale section], that you can hit home with propaganda better if you present it in the form of a story that grips. People may—my experience has proved that they do, in fact—shy at films that picture vice and its effects. It’s like administering medicine to a man who doesn’t need it.
Fairbanks told the interviewer that the Morale Department “laid down four principles for my guidance and told me to get busy,” with these being: cheerfulness; purity of purpose; steadfastness; and willingness to sacrifice.” He professed that “I felt like a fool, just at first” because of the quandary of “building a fascinating scenario on such a framework” and the challenge of how to make films from these, but he then remarked, “then the idea came to me how we could work it out in allegory” and the first movie was to be completed in under a week.
With respect to aviation, it was reported that Army aircraft, starting on 22 November, were flying across the country to survey routes, develop maps, locate sites for airports and start the process of establishing a coast-to-coast system in an “air link” of all major cities. This technological advance on cavalry work in prior years would help to identify roads, bridges, shelter, battery sites, sources of food and water and more and bring military operations into a modern condition with foresight for the future.
Also of note is a piece headed “The Russian Policy” and from The New Republic in which it was observed that Germany’s defeat meant that America needed to work on its objectives for what was soon called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was noted that “Russian revolutionary influence is penetrating Germany” after what was considered to be cooperation to keep the Germans from taking Russian territory was said to be Russian resistance to working with the Allies, who might “overthrow the Society government . . . and establish in its place a government more to their liking.”
Yet, it was stated, this was not a program in which “the United States can participate without abandoning the whole spirit and method of its past attitude toward revolutionary countries,” presumably because of America’s formation through revolution. This form of intervention would require “an enormous military force, which would be obliged to overcome the most stubborn and embittered resistance on the part of the ruling political faction,” not to mention the lesson left by Napoleon more than a century before (and which Hitler failed to heed nearly a quarter century later.)
The article ended with the warning that “under existing circumstances it would be a dangerous and perhaps disastrous misadventure for any free nation or group of free nations that undertook it.” It is instructive to add that, looking at the Fairbanks interview and the motion picture initiative by the Morale Department, that a “Red Scare” was just around the corner in the United States, as fears of communism and socialism within the country led to dramatic crackdowns and reprisals.
A hint to that near future was noted in “Signs of the Times” and a concern that “the flaunting of red flags” and “cheering for the Bolsheviki” were occurring in New York City, where officials were urged to ban seditious left-wing meetings rather than, purportedly, stating they would “train machine guns upon soldiers and sailors who tear down the insignia of the Bolsheviki of this country, and try their utmost to uphold the honor of their country.”
As for the future of The Observer, it was observed that it “will stay and continue to be published” though there were the expected changes to staff based on how mustering out of service was conducted. Subscriptions were also halted because of the question of cost as well as restrictions on the use of paper due to government mandates, though it was anticipated that rationing would soon end. Also cited were the advertisers, whose funds were obviously critical to the operation of the publication, while it was proudly stated that no charity was accepted.
Much of the content concerned the doings and happenings of the various companies at the School, as well as cadets, medics and quartermasters, the Y.M.C.A. and its programs after seven weeks of flu pandemic quarantine, the anticipated postwar work of the Red Cross, and more. Lastly, a couple of samples of excellent cartoon work by Private Robert Sparks are definitely worth highlighting.