American history tv continues now with a look at american cartoons during world war ii and how they supported and influenced the war effort by encouraging children to recycle paper and buy savings bonds and stamps. This is about 90 minutes. Were going to look at today the place where the socalled real world comes together with the cartoon and comic world. Thats why the title of todays class is bonds and taxes, american cartoons and comics during world war ii. I can remember from my days in parochial Chapel School where our pastor gave us a sermon that has stuck with me ever since, and the lesson of it draws from two parts, two separate biblical texts, one is from second kings, if youre interested, chapter 4, where the profit elisha, not elijah, but elisha has somebody bring him 20 loaves of barley and hes got to feed 100 men and his servant asks him, how are we going to do that, 100 men . Weve only got 20 loaves of barley. And the prophet says give them to the men for they shall eat, for thus says the lord, they shall eat and have some left. So he set it before them and they ate and they had some left, just as the lord told him. And theres an incident from the new testament where jesus is confronted with a crowd of people, 5,000 people, how are we going to feed all these people . And one of his disciples says, well, here is a young boy with five barley loaves and two fish. Not a lot. It could take like six months of six months worth of pay to feed the crowd of 5,000. All weve got is five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus said, bring it up. He gave thanks to it and the whole crowd was fed and there was more than enough. And i remember my pastor saying it doesnt matter how little you are, you can be a little guy, and i was a little guy. You can be a child, you can be a boy, you can be a girl. It doesnt matter. When there is a need if you bring your little bit, however little bit you might have, god will use that to meet the need. And he was trying to tell us that it doesnt matter how little we had, if we use it faithfully to a righteous cause, it will help a big need to be met. And ive been thinking about that lesson for a long time as ive been contemplating what are we going to talk about in terms of world war ii and paying for world war ii. And in the days of world war ii the need was indeed great. Franklin roosevelt as president made a number of speeches to the American People in the weeks right after the attack on pearl harbor and one of the things he impressed upon the American People was that everybody, rich, poor, old, young, didnt matter, had a role to play, a very Important Role, in getting this monumental job done of paying for the war and winning the war. Im going to give you an excerpt of his state of the Union Address from 1942, just a few sentences that are going to encapsulate what he was talking about here and how he was urging all americans to do their little bit. Fdr came before congress and before the American People on that occasion and he said, war costs money. So far we have hardly even begun to pay for it. We have devoted only 15 of our National Income to National Defense. As will appear in my budget message tomorrow, our war program for the coming fiscal year will cost 56 billion, or, in other words, more than half of the estimated annual National Income. That means taxes and bonds, and bonds and taxes. It means cutting luxuries and other nonessentials. In a word, it means an all out war, by individual effort and family effort in a united country. Now, when he was talking about individual effort and family effort, he was talking about kids, too. And family effort meant that even if you were over here on the home front and your loved ones were fighting over seas over there as the popular song went, there was still work that you could do to help defeat the ene enemy. Everybody, both young and old, and no matter how much you had or how much you didnt have, had a very Important Role to play in this United States war effort. And roosevelt wanted to make very, very sure that everybody was clear about that. Early in that new year of 1942 the United States treasury is already going to work trying to figure out how to get americans to help pay for the war. Now, roosevelt talked about taxes and bonds and bonds and taxes. We know what taxes are, right . Its when the government compels you to pay a certain part of your income to meet the costs of government doing what it has to do. But what are bonds . A bond is an iou. Write that down. An iou. Its a statement that the United States government owes you money for so much. See, basically what uncle sam was doing was saying were going to have people pay us taxes to pay for this thing, but we also are going to have to go into debt to pay for this thing. Now, show of hands. How many people have some sort of United States savings bond . Okay. Weve got a few hands. How many people have been given Something Like that for a birthday or a graduation or something of that kind . Right . Its a very, very importantlooking piece of paper thats not a toy. You open the card, its not a toy, but its a very officiallooking piece of paper with some very official historical looking people on it, and what your parents may have to explain to you is that it is a u. S. Savings bond, which means you keep it, dont do anything with it for a while, but in a few years you will be able to cash it and get money so that, what, you can pay for your education, you can pay for this, you can pay for that, for important things. Its an investment in the future by having uncle sam go into debt to you. Okay . Thats a savings bond. What the United States treasury decided to do was to initiate a savings bond program specifically for the purposes of collecting money for the war effort. Okay. How much . Well, you can get a United States savings bond at that time for as low in the amount for as low as 18. 75. If you gave the United States government 18. 75 and said, hey, i want to buy a bond and you wait several years for that bond to mature it would give you back 25. Thats not a bad deal, huh . You put out 18. 75, you get 25 back, years later, but this is all in lending uncle sam money to help win the war. I dont know about you, but what if you are a little kid in 1942, a little kid with his hands in his pockets and one thing he does not have in his pockets is 18. 75. Because remember 1942 when just coming out of the Great Depression. So what . Am i out of this . Am i out of this great crew said . And the u. S. Gft said, no, you are not. You can buy something called United States savings stamps. United states savings stamps. Yes. See, here is what you would do, you would get yourself a Little Green Book like this and in that Little Green Book you would place every time you would go and buy u. S. Savings stamps what are you talking about stamps . Im talking about stamps, like this. You could get them you know, they would have these they would sell these offer the counter at banks and at other institutions and its like, okay, all ive got is 10 cents, thats not much. And they would say, thats okay, thats enough, because for 10 cents, watch this, for 10 cents you can go ahead and buy one u. S. Savings defense stamp. Okay. How does that help . How that helps is you get to the Little Green Book here, your stamp book, you put the stamp right in here and maybe youve gotten other stamps in the past, you stick it right there, and these stamps watch this this stamps were in various denominations, some of them are 10 cents, some of them are a dollar, some of them are 50 cents or Something Like that. You get them and you get them and you get them and you fill the book full of them and when it comes out to 18. 75, you walk over to the place and with that 18. 75 you can buy yourself a war bond. Now, those of you who are math experts are going to realize that a 10 cent stamp its going to take you a lot of time to buy enough savings stamps for 18. 75. Thats why the stamps came in various denominations larger than that, 1, 5, things like that. But what if you were strictly a 10 cent kind of person . Thats all right. What it did was as were going to see, the cost of a comic book back then was 10 cents. Right . Action comics number 1 the first appearance of superman, its got that 10 cent price sticker on it. Its worth a whole lot more than that now, but 10 cent price sticker. If youve only got 10 cents here is what you do, you might spend one dime on a comic book, maybe another dime on Something Else like a cookie or some ice cream, but then another dime you would spend on this, but what you did is you had friends. I bought superman for 10 cents, you may have bought batman. You may have bought wonder woman and what we would do is swap and trade. See . Whats happening even on the level of a little kid and his friends or her friends is that it encourages kids not to spend every dime they have, but to put some of them away into u. S. Defense they called it defense savings stamps. And what this did, among the merits of the u. S. Savings bond program was that it curbed inflation because whats happening is that when people arent spending all the money theyve got, it puts a cap on inflation. World war ii was an inflationary time and it reversed the deflationary process of the Great Depression. So its one thing to have a little bit of inflation to get you over the Great Depression but you dont want too much, and the way to do that is to encourage americans to keep some money in their pockets or save it. And this book and other books like it represented you putting money away, lending it to uncle sam to help win the war. You are not spending it on stuff. And that over time curbs inflation among kids and they are asking adults to do the same thing. They would be payroll savings where, you know, you dont get your complete paycheck, you let part of that paycheck go for buying war bonds and things. See . So thats what the war bonds and Stamps Program is about. Thats what its about. So when you say buy defense bonds and stamps, thats what its about. If you are not rich enough to buy a full bond for 18. 75, well, go collect some stamps, 10 cents apiece, 1 apiece, 15 apiec 5 apiece until you buy enough to buy a bond. Everybody clear on what the defense bonds and Stamps Program was about and how whether you were rich or poor, an adult or a little kid, you could participate. And, of course, the government did not hesitate to tell you that youre doing your part, you may have a brother, an uncle, a parent overseas fighting. You can do a little bit for them. Your little bit is able to help in this great endeavor. And thats where the cartoons come in. U. S. Government was very smart. They said, well, weve got to get taxes and bonds and bonds and taxes, and they went to walt disney and they said, walt, we need your help to get americans to pay their taxes. And walt disney was thinking, well, if americans dont pay their taxes you go throw them in jail, right . Whats the problem with incentivizing here . I sure would pay mine. And they said, mr. Disney walt, okay, Walt Walt Disney was very informal we cant arrest and jail the whole country. If were going to just rely on fear and intimidation, its not going to work. We cant jail every last person in the country. We have to get people to want to pay their taxes. And thats going to be tough. Nobody likes paying taxes. And walt disney is nodding. And they say, okay, now, walt, this is what we want you to do, we want you to come up with a character called mr. Taxpayer and we want that character mr. Taxpayer and walt said, no, no, no. Im not creating a new character. Youre not . No. Because weve already got the perfect character for you. Donald duck. Donald duck . Listen, folks, and he said, the Disney Studio is just like any other studio, were giving you one of our star actors right now, just treat it that way. They said, okay. Because if cantankerous donald duck can be persuaded to pay his taxes then anybody can. And remember in previous weeks when we looked at the history of animation we saw some animated cartoons of donald duck and we saw how con tank rouse he can be. We saw how he was based in part on the cantankerous secretary of the interior, harold ickies. If donald can pay his taxes, anybody can pay his taxes. So what were going to do is im going to show you just a bit, just a bit of a clip of a cartoon that walt disney created involving donald duck persuading him and through persuading him, persuading the American People to pay their taxes. I want to show you how its done. How did they do that . How did they work into the argument . There he is, a new spirit in america. The spirit of a free people, united again in a common cause to stamp tyranny from the earth. Thats right. Our very shores have been attacked. That is not right. Your whole country is mobilizing for total war. Your country needs you. Okay. Im ready. Are you a patriotic american . Yes, sir. Eager to do your part . Yes, sir. Then theres something important you can do. Oh, boy, oh, boy. Ill do it. You wont get a medal for doing it. Oh, thats all right. It may mean a sacrifice on your part. I will do it anyway. But it will be a vital help to your country. I will do anything. Anything. Shall i tell you what it is . Yes. What is it . Tell me. Shall i . Tell me. Your income tax. Income tax . Yes, your income tax. Income tax. It may not seem important to you, but it is important. It is . Yes, and its your privilege, not just your duty, but your privilege to help your government by paying your tax and paying it promptly. Oh, whats the big hurry . Whats the big hurry . Your country is at war. Your country needs taxes for guns, taxes for ships, taxes for democracy, taxes to beat the axis. Oh, boy. Taxes to beat the axis. Thats the spirit. Yes, sir. Now, how about your income tax . Oh, boy. Oh, if everybody attacked the process of paying their income tax with that much enthusiasm. And tax payments, early tax payments, went up after the release of that cartoon. It worked. And walt disney made sequels to it with donald duck paying his taxes. And the catch phrase is tax is to beat the axis. The rest that have cartoon is going to show that it pays for planes and tanks and guns and cannons and all those implements of war. The thing that you are not crazy about doing is vital to this great enterprise of fighting and winning the war. So much for taxes. How about bonds . Well, other studios got involved also and i want to show you a bugs bunny cartoon in which he sings a popular song, any bonds today, and i want to caution you about something. Even as we are involved in this grand enterprise to fight the axis powers and the totalitarianism and the racism that they represented, the United States could still not raise itself entirely above its own racism in that time. Im going to show you why because bugs bunny is going to perform a bit in black face, patterned after a popular performer at the time al jolsen who had sang a song called my mammy in the jazz singer. The film that singled the end of the silent era and talking era. When bugs bunny does that black face hes imitating a specific performer and says uncle sammy instead of mammy, but still the racism is inexcusable. Its why you dont see this cartoon too much and one of the few cartoons with bugs bunny that uses this offensive form of humor. The tall man with the high hat and the whiskers on his chin will soon be knocking at your door and you ought to be in. The tall man with the high hat will be coming down your way get your savings out when you hear him shout any bonds today. Come on and get them, folks. Skill right up and get them. Any bonds today bonds of freedom thats what im selling any bonds today scrape up the most you can here comes the freedom man asking you to buy your share of freedom today give today we all invest in the u. S. A. Sammy, my uncle sammy, here comes the freedom man cant make tomorrows man not unless you buy a share of freedom today any stamps any bonds today now, look at that. I want you to freeze your attention on that image here, for defense buy United States savings bonds and stamps. The u. S. Treasury adopted this symbol, this is the minuteman soldier. This is from the revolutionary war days and they said, you know, weve got to impress upon the American People that this world war ii that we are involved in now is just as important a fight for freedom and independence as was the revolutionary war in 1776. So if you want to be in that grand tradition of the patriots of 1776, then youve got to do your part for defense and buying United States savings bonds and stamps. This was a very prevalent symbol around the country, advertising the need to buy savings bonds and stamps. It even made its way into the first issue of wonder womans own magazine. This is a panel from a story, from the end of the story of one of the adventures wonder woman had in wonder woman number 1. And wonder woman says when you see these minuteman posters, boys and girls, remember hes talking to you. So, yes, the superheroes that we have been spending a number of days in this Class Research the origins of and getting into the background of, they, too, are joining in this effort. And i will tell you something, its not as if the comic book company was just, well, lets slap that in there. No. There was cooperation with the u. S. Government because the back cover the back cover of wonder woman number 1 was dedicated to a letter to the boys and girls of america from the secretary of the treasury himself. A special message to the boys and girls of america from henry morganthall, jr. , secretary of the treasury. You see the letter head here, the secretary of the treasury in washington. Boys and girls of america, here is a way for every one of you to help your country. Every time you buy a savings stamp you are helping uncle sam to pay for a part of a gun, plane or ship which your fathers, brothers or uncles are using for the defense of our country. If every one of you 40 million boys and girls would buy at least one 10 cent savings stamp every week, you would be lending your uncle sam 200 million every year. Think of all the guns, planes and ships he could buy with that. Remember, you can help to keep them flying by buying a defense stamp every week. Sincerely, henry morganthall, jr. Then you have the minuteman symbol again. And right down here it says this space is donated by the publishers of this magazine in the interest of National Defense and victory okay. Of course, the company was d. C. Comics. D. C. Comics had some levels to its organization at that time. There was the National Comics wing which gave us superman and batman and aqua man and green arrow. And then there was the all american comics wing which gave us wonder woman, the flash, Green Lantern and a number of other heroes. But the two companies were very interrelated. They were very close. These are the publishers who said, you know, lets donate the back cover of the first issue of wonder womans own magazine, she had appeared, of course, in allstar comics number 8 first and then her first cover appearance was sensation comics number 1 1942 and they said she is such a run away hit that we are going to give her her own magazine. First issue of her own magazine theyre donating space to tell every boy and girl in america to buy defense savings bonds and stamps. This is serious stuff. This is serious stuff. Its serious because beyond enjoying the adventures of wonder woman, theres really something you can do to be a hero. Lets look at a few other covers. Now here weve got worlds finest comics and you will notice a few things. Number 8 winter issue, a superman d. C. Publication. Right . And youve got superman and batman and robin handing out things that kind of look like these books, these Little Green Books, and these pages of stamps. Thats what theyre doing, theyre handing these out. But what, what, what are superman and batman and robin doing this under the sign of . You know, we said that there was racism in that bugs bunny cartoon. They are underneath a big sign here that says sink the japanazis with bonds and stamps. When you start taking the names of peoples nationalities and making puns out of them youre dipping into racism also. You think sometimes how would you feel if you happened to have been an american of japanese dissent and you really wanted to help and you really like superman comics and batman comics and you really wanted to buy defense bonds and stamps, but like one of the people on this cover youre walking up there and thats the sign theyve got. Imagine if you were a kid in the real world and youre buying the next issue of worlds finest and its like thats what theyre saying on the cover. It tells you a bit about what was acceptable back then. And you see on the rest of this cover here youve got lots and lots and lots of kids. And batman, robin and superman are handing out these stamps, and theyre handing out these booklets, but unfortunately theyre also handing out morsels of racism. One shot example . I dont think so. Here is an issue of action comics, this is the magazine that introduced superman in the first place. This one is number 58, Worlds Largest selling comic magazine, and the reason its the Worlds Largest selling magazine is because of who is depicted here on the corner, superman. And superman is in the middle of a big printing press, these huge big presses, probably like at the basement of the daily planet building, but more importantly like at the basement of d. C. Comics printing organizations where you would have these huge gigantic presses and theyre printing out pages and pages and pages and pages and pages like a factory. So this here is depicting superman Strong Enough to run the presses all by himself. And what notice is he running out . Superman says you can slap a jap with war bonds and stamps. As you can see on this cover there is a number of copies of that brochure that superman is printing out, its not just a oneshot deal. I want to show you, since we are in action comics, a couple of the threedimensional examples of covers. Ive got a copy here of action comics number 50, the 50th issue of action comics, Worlds Largest selling comic magazine, superman is saving some miners who are trapped by a cave. Why did i put this up here . Because if you look in the lower lefthand corner its got a small picture of superman walking in between two servicemen and it says superman says buy defense stamps. Help National Defense. So even if it wasnt the main part of the cover, the message would still be put someplace on the cover. And you know it hit people, the Young Audiences effectively, because these messages were placed on the cover of the Worlds Largest selling comic magazin magazine. This one here, back the attack with war bonds, was another famous one. Didnt involve comic book characters, but it was a famous phrase, back the attack, because it rhymes. And were going to take a look at captain america here, i want you to buy war bonds now. Were going to get to him in a bit. I wanted to show you tell you a little personal story that sewed the seeds of how i got interested in this stuff. Because of mine years ago when i was a little kid, i think, yeah, it was my tenth birthday. Yeah, my tenth birthday. Gave me a retrospective book of batman and robin stories. Oh, i stand corrected. This is going to show just how much of a geek i am. My cousin got me the batman encyclopedia the christmas before. It was my aunt who got me the retrospective book of batman on my tenth birthday. Im sorry. Im sorry. So by the time im ten years old ive got these two big batman books and im reading them and im studying them and everything and one of the books had a whole gallery of batman covers from the 1940s and hes punching the joker and hes fighting the penguin and hes dealing with the cat woman and you had the first batman cover and then you had the first robin cover and all of those things. Wow. All those characters that i liked reading about. Then in the middle of it was this cover. Batman and robin seem to be interrupting their adventures to sit on top of a giant bird. Whats going on here . Theyre not fighting the penguin, the penguin deals with birds, but, no, its not about the penguin. What is this all about and what are they saying here . Theres a few planes if you look in the back. Batman and robin they both have their fingers up in the v for victory sign and theyre saying keep the American Eagle flying, buy war bonds and stamps. Okay. That sounds good, yeah, keep the American Eagle flying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But whats a war bond and why buy a stamp . I mean, all i knew about stamps was the little thing you put on the top of the envelope when youre writing your thank you notes to your cousin and your aunt for giving you these wonderful batman books. Thats what i knew what a stamp was. But in the context of the war and i knew this was from the wartime period i had to find out what is a war bond . What is a stamp in this context . And why did batman and robin interrupt their adventures . This doesnt have the joker, doesnt have the penguin, doesnt have two face, doesnt have the cat woman to sit on top of a big bird and tell their readers to do that in order to keep the American Eagle flying. And its because of this, its because the need is great. The need is great and even if you are a little kid and you have just got a little bit, you can do something to help. If you dont have enough to buy a bond, you can buy one of those little 10 cent stamps for the cost of a comic book. You know . Instead of buying batman and superman that month, buy batman and then use the other dime to buy a defense savings stamp. Keep the American Eagle flying. I said, wow, that was heavy stuff for batman and robin. Wow. Theyre getting all involved in the war effort. And there were other ways, too. Remember roosevelts speech excerpt that i read for you said that it also means cutting luxuries and other nonessentials. Sacrifice. Doing without in order to further a greater cause. And what the kids of america were asked to do through the cartoons and comics was not just to spare an extra dime for war bonds and stamps, to buy the stamps so that they could buy a war bond, but they were also asked to do without other things, like paper. Lets take a look. Like paper. Here is a cover, worlds finest number 13 where superman, batman and robin are pushing this huge truck filled and filled and filled and filled with paper. Whats the sign that robin is carrying . It says, fight paper waste and hang one on the paperhanger of berlin. What theyre doing there is they are taking a dig at hitlers personal biography. Hitler had been a number of things before he became the dictator of germany. He was a want to be artist, he was a house painter and he would also hang up paper for various places. So anything that the government or cartoonists could use to make a verbal jab at hitler and also promote the war effort, they would do. So thats where youre getting this phrase of hang one on the paperhanger of berlin. But the thing is fight paper waste. Now, now, now american dont waste. How do we waste paper . Well, back then before tv you got your news through the newspaper. Its also where you got a lot of your favorite comic strips from, like dick tracy, like little orphan annie and like supermans adventures in the newspapers. What do you do after the next day . You know, youve heard that phrase yesterdays news. This is where it was derived from. Its yesterdays newspaper, what do you do with yesterdays newspaper . You throw it out. Not to fast. Not so fast. Paper is used for a lot of things and you can use that waste paper to help the war effort and inside this very comic book alfred, batman and robins faithful butler is going to show a young person in gotham city how. This was a oneshot, onepage story that makes the case for saving paper and it starts like this paper, paper, everywhere, with which to sock the foe. Paper, paper everywhere, and none to waste. Must go. That comes from the rhyme of the ancient mariner, right, Samuel Taylor colderidge. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. How many people have heard of that poem . Okay. Read that poem. This is a nice little pun on that poem. All right. Whats happening in gotham city here . It says its a busy day for alfred, butler extraordinary to bruce wayne and dick greyson, alias the batman and robin. And a kid not dick greyson comes up to alfred and says, hey, alfred, where are you going with all that junk . And alfred is there replying junk . These are weapons of war, my boy. Weapons of war, the kid says . Alfred says, this is no jesting matter. If you dont believe me just tagalong and see. And they walk a block or two and they happen to come upon his employers batman and robin who are collecting stacks of paper from kids in the neighborhood and theyre throwing them in a truck. And the kid is saying, batman and robin, what are they collecting all that waste paper for . And alfred replies, because we have a paper shortage due to lack of manpower in cutting the timber used in paper production. Everybody got that . Lack of manpower because probably because theyve been drafted off to fight the war so you dont have people to cut down the trees and when you dont have people to cut down the trees, you have less trees being turned into paper, so youve got less paper and that equals a paper shortage. Okay . And the kid says, paper shortage . You mean we might not be able to read our favorite comic magazines . I mean, hes bringing it home here to where it really hurts. And alfred says, righto. Got to hand it to alfred. He knows just how to say it. Righto. But by salvaging all this waste paper, we provide a substitute and we will have sufficient supplies for both civilian and military purposes. And the kid replies, military . There you go again. Whats paper got to do with war weapons . And alfred says, why, its used to make parachute flares, wing tips, bomb bands and other military objects. Containers for shells, army rations and various other essential supplies are made from paper, too. See, you probably didnt know that. The kid didnt know that. Alfred says everybody can help by using paper sparingly. And by collecting waste paper. You can sell it to a dealer or turn it over to charitable organizations like the red cross or to your school. And the kid says, okay, let me help right now. And he takes the big pile out of alfreds hands and he carries it himself. And alfred is very impressed, he says, i seem to have been very persuasive. And the kid says, dont worry, alfred, i will collect plenty of paper myself from now on and help bop hitler and here heat toe on the nose. You see how this onepage story draws the connection between turning in waste paper and bopping hitler and here heat toe on the nose. Here heat toe was the emperor of japan at this time. We will get into the thing of punching hitler in the nose in a little bit, but i want to show you a few other people getting into the act of salvaging paper. Take a look at comic cavalcade number 6. Here weve got wonder woman again pushing the express wagon and shes accompanied by her friends the golden age 1940s versions of Green Lantern and the flash. How many people have seen the latest live action flash tv show . All right. And that flash with the hat, we used to call him the flash with the hat when we were kids, he was the flash of the golden age, the 1940s, and i always used to wonder how can he run so fast without losing his hat . Especially on a windy day or with the wind generated by him running so fast, but he could do it because hes the flash. See . And with Green Lantern i always wondered with all the different colors in his costume, the purple cape, the red shirt, the red and yellow striped boots, why does he call himself the Green Lantern . He could have picked a whole bunch of other colors. Well, because the ring was green and the lantern was green. Okay. Like superman and batman and robin, wonder woman kept her basic appearance from the golden age to the present so shes still recognizable to people who might not recognize the other two. Now, you notice these three superheroes are leading a crowd of kids. I will zoom in and zoom out at the same time here. Notice there is a crowd of kids and they are all doing what . Theyre all carrying big stacks of paper. And wonder woman is pushing a wagon filled with big stacks of paper. See, shes got this wagon and all this paper is tied up. And this sign over here drives the point home, it says war production. Urgently needs waste paper. Theyre not very subtle about it. And this tells you Something Else, too. Ittoo. It tells you why comics from world war ii period of so rare and scarce. If you have a mint condition of a golden age 1940s comic book, you can sell it for a lot of money. It is not so much the age of the comic book, although thats part of it, but the scarcity. Kids readingsings comics in world war ii were so good and faithful about turning the waste paper in after they finished reading them. So many of the comics were destroyed. See . Thats why the comics are so scar scarce. They finished reading it, sharing it with friends, put it in one of these bundles, turn it into the government to use the spare waste paper. Everybody see that . I remember the 1989 batman movie, all of the hoopla that came out of that. And a lot of people got it into their heads if they started saving those comics from 1989, 1990, 1991, they, too, could make a lot of money in 20 years. And it didnt quite pan out that way. You know why . Because we werent doing this any more. Probably if you buy a comic now and save it and save it and save it, it is probably not the next action number one or the next Detective Comics 27 or next amazing fantasy number 15 which introduced spiderman. We said detective 27 was first appearance of batman. It is probably not that. You can save it if you want, you never know. You really dont. If people count on that, theyre going to be very disappointed. The reason comics from this era are so valuable if you got a good or mint condition copy is so many of them were destroyed in the paper drives. Everybody see that. They were sacrificed to a larger purpose. I sometimes i was born in queens, grew up in queens, manhattan. One of the things i loved was looking at things from the 1939, 1940 worlds fair. Seemed to be so cool. And i wish they kept the trylon and wish they hadnt melted it down so i could see it. You know why they melted it down . For bigger purpose. It was melted down for war materials. The same with the old comic books. They were destroyed for a bigger purpose because this was a generation of kids and their parents who said whatever little bit ive got, even if ive got to sacrifice, im going to give it up for the bigger purpose. We have a war to win. If we dont fight this war, wage this battle, there may not be a future for people to look back on. This is more than just the funny books. This is really serious stuff. We talked a lot about d. C. , lets get to marvel. We talked about it the last couple of classes. Marvels first two big characters sub mariner and human torch. The title sub mariner was borrowed from a poem. Water water everywhere, not a drop to drink. Fire and water. And they would fight. Their first big superstar character, the one that really put them on the map in a way they hadnt been before was captain america. We talked about captain america as a symbol of fighting the actio axis, even before the United States officially entered world war ii. How many people have seen captain america the first avenger . Okay. Which is good because im going to show you an excerpt of it and im not going to feel bad i cant show you more of it. Most of you have seen it. I want to draw your attention to one particular part. Just before he goes out in what he considers a clownish suit. Why am i selling war bonds. He says listen, bonds buy bullets, bullets kill nazis. And he draws that connection. And when he goes out there with the shield and is reading his lines, he is talking about the connection between buying a bond and helping your loved one overseas. This is a representation i would say of the real life struggle that the captain america comic magazine was helping to wave. I will show you an excerpt and then i am going to show you a couple other comics. I dont know if i can do this. If you buy bonds, bonds buy bullets, binge bam boom, american hero. Senators have pull on the hill. Go. Save the american way. Not all of us can storm a beach, drive a tank. Theres a way all of us can fight. Series e defense bonds. Each one you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guys gun. Wait wait wait. What poster are they posing in front of . That one. Thats right. This is a take off of the famous uncle sam poster that says i want you. That was done during world war i, was used again very effectively during world war ii. But here captain america is saying i want you to buy war bonds now. Many of you have seen this movie, and you know as part of his war bond drama, part of the routine i will say, he wasnt dancing in it, but it was the act that theres a guy that portrays hitler, and at the appropriate moment, captain america turns around, punches hitler in the face, right . If you look at it closely, it inspires a cover of a comic book. This comic book. Captain america number one. This is the actual real captain america number one that came out long before the attack on pearl harbor. And we talked about in class that joe simon, jack kirby, the people who produced what would later be called the marvel line of comics, they had a number of names, timely, atlas, et cetera, et cetera, said were trying to make a statement against the isolationism. The isolationists said lets just make our separate American Peace with hitler so hell leave us alone. We dont need to get involved in the war. Lets leave hitler alone, he will leave us alone. There are folks said when did hitler leave anybody alone if he had the chance to invade them. No, we need a hero thats going to express the need to fight hitler. There was a concern because hitler was a dictator that might get killed at any time, that by the time the comic book hit the stands that hitler might already be dead. And they thought well, that might not be the worst outcome. Lets put the comic out anyway, whether he is alive or dead when it hits the stands. If you look at the captain america movie again, and theres a lot of comics sold of him punching hitler in the face, what the movies did is come up with a fictional in plot reason why this image became so popular. Action comics number one, he does lift up a car, smack it against a cliff. In captain america, it is like well, he couldnt have gotten that close to hitler, otherwise the war would already be over with. What they did is say this is a preparational cover and the movie makers came up with a real reason that inspired it. Everybody see that . Lets look a bit at captain america covers which in and of themselves were pieces of propaganda. When you went to the news stand to buy tomorrow imcompetentcomi important, it is the first thing that met your eyes. Captain america comics were masterpieces of propaganda, he loved punching the enemy in the face. Case in point. Captain america number 13. The first captain america that came out after the attack on pearl harbor. Lets read this a bit. He is punching a japanese warlord, saying you started it. Now well finish it. On the top lefthand corner, all out for america issue. Theres a special urgency, now we are at war. Lets open this comic and see what hits us on the first page. Down here it says remember pearl harbor. Hard to forget at the moment when this was published. Lets open the cover, look at the first page. Ill zoom in here. Whos the editor . Stanley. I told you that martin good man was head of marvel comics, and distant relative of his who was just a kid at the time comes to marvel, hes hired to basically be a gopher. Go for this, go for that, sweep the floor, refill ink. The guy had some income coming in, over time as simon and kirby moved to other things and features, other people at marvel were drafted into the army, stan lee becomes the only guy left in the office. Sometimes working for a Small Company can help you out if youre the only guy left in the office. At that young age, guess what, hes the editor. Stan lee would later say it was temporary while everybody was at the war, turned out that temporary job i had like 30 years. Whats at the center of the page in between captain america and bucky . Whats at the center. The minuteman image for defense buy United States savings bonlds and stamps. Bucky is even saluting it. Theres Something Else here too. Way down on page 57, we have a character called the secret stamp. Meet americas newest hero as roddy colt, United States agent, dons the mask of the secret stamp in the first of many thrill a minute true to life adventures. How many people Hurricane Dorian of the secret stamp . I didnt think so. Whose the secret stamp, are they not making a movie about him . The secret stamp is a kid on a bicycle, puts on a mask, has a cape, sells war bonds and stamps. Lets turn to page 57 of the comic book. There he is. The kid, bicycle, and whats that button. Official u. S. Defense agent. Whats interesting about this splash page without the secret stamp is that the last page, in addition to the minuteman image is also dedicated front and center to a letter to stan lee from the United States Treasury Department on december 2nd, 1941. Thats a week before pearl harbor. And let us see what it says. Mr. Stan lee, editor, captain america comics. 330 west 42nd street, new york new york. Dear mr. Lee. We welcome the opportunity of congratulating you on the patriotic thought behind your new adventure comic strip roddy colt u. S. Defense agent. Remember, thats the civilian identity of the secret stamp. Cant forget that. We like the idea very much and believe such a strip will be effective in connection with the plan promoted by Newspaper Publishers now reaching national proportions to sell defense savings stamps through approximately 500,000 loyal Young American news boys from maine to california. Sincerely yours. Eugene w. Sloan. Director, defense saving staff, Treasury Department, washington, d. C. Wow. This guy got the governments attention. Take the opportunity to buy some of these. These are on kindle, i book, you can get a lot of golden age comics for a dollar just by reading these. Its not bad, the secret stamp. Hes a kid who is mad when bullies knock over a bicycle and take all the defense stamps for themselves. What does he do . He puts on a mask, a cape, gets on his bicycle and goes after them. He even gets the time at some point in the plot to call the police. Im always concerned about this kind of thing. You cant put on a mask and cape, on your bicycle, go after crooks. The message got through, selling u. S. Savings bonds and stamps was an important thing, you were working for and with the government when you did it, and that somebody that tries to rob and steal them really was a crook. Not just against the person he robbed or stole it from, but against the government. And the point got through. Apparently the point got through very, very well because with each passing year, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, americans kept buying bonds. There were different loans. The second war loan, then the third war loan, fourth war loan, fifth war loan, and sixth war loan, and called the mighty seventh war loan. The idea was, and this may shock you, that if you begin to see good news in the newspaper about the war, this is not the time to sit back and say okay, its over. I wont buy so many defense stamps. They didnt want you to do that. They didnt want you to do that at all. They wanted to make sure that people kept it up. Going to play this song, sung by legendary bing crosby about how in latter days of the war americans were still urged to keep it up. To keep it up. Im going to turn this up here. People are very fond of my colorful speakers. Im going to turn it way up. I hope it doesnt blow anyones hearing away, it shouldnt. But this song comes under the title byebye bye bonds which is pretty easy to remember. Here we go. Buy buy buy a bond and by and by the bonds you buy bring victory. Buy buy buy a bond, youll be standing by the victory arches when johnny comes home you should need no request, you know youre investing in the best of the best, buy buy bonds. This is no time to say youve done enough. This is the time to really do your stuff and even if you cant be a soldier in the ranks, you can be the guy that helps supply the guns and flames and tanks this is the time for you to do your best this is no time for you to take a rest the enemy is reeling and his morale is low, now is the time to fall in line and deal the final blow buy buy buy, buy a bond. And by and by the bonds you buy will bring you victory buy buy buy buy a bond. Youll be standing by the victory arch when johnny comes marching home again oh you should need no request for after all you know youre investing in the best til the lads come back again, back the old attack again, and buy buy bonds. Do you think the message got through . Oh yes. Oh yes. Buy buy buy bonds. Keep buying them, and do not think that just because the war seems to be going our way that you can slack off. And actually after the war was won and that hard fought victory was achieved, the United States Treasury Department continued to advertise u. S. Savings bonds and stamps as a way to finance your education, to finance a home, to finance civilian things you wanted as an important way to save money. As of 2012, you cant go to a bank or other over the Counter Institution as they say to buy bonds, but you can buy them at the u. S. Treasury online website, treasurydirect. Gov. People have been asking why arent u. S. Savings bonds and things of that nature as popular now as they were back in the days of world war ii. One of the reasons is that for some of the bonds youre not getting any interest. It is zero or 0. 3 . It doesnt seem like it is going to give you much any more, not like when we talked about you put in 18. 75, you get back 25. Youre not having that so much. Some people are nostalgic where you dont have the physical thing any more. I mean, you can printout, go online, and you can buy the bond and print something out and stick that in your niece or nephews birthday card, but it doesnt seem the same. The government has been saying that by discontinuing the paper bonds were saving a lot of money regarding cost of printing the paper bonds. So thats a thought. But some of the romance is gone. Some of the romance is gone. And some people particularly, i can identify with this too, a generation that grew up before there were computers, before everything was online, they might find the online buying of bonds just a bit cumbersome as one reporter put it. It is not as easy as walking up to a place and maybe some celebrity might be there to give you one of these books and give you a set of stamps. You know, it is not like that any more. It is kind of impersonal. The big reason is that people dont see it is much of an investment. I want to ask you this. And after i do this, im going to open it up for questions, for the qs and as. Dr. Taylor, were more interested in as than qs. I get that. Thats all right. Question is does our government need money today, yes or no . Yes. Right . So why dont we have bond campaigns like we have been talking about over todays class for other purposes . Health care, ah, what else, to lower the deficit . There are places you can contribute money to the government to lower the deficit, sure, you can do that. But where are the celebrities, where are the comic characters, cartoon characters, where are the songs about buying bonds. Where are people saying hey, whatever you can give, it is going to help. Im saying whatever the Economic Conditions that may or may not make u. S. Savings bonds as attractive to americans on the street as they used to be, what about that idea of connecting a great cause to an individuals purchasing of savings bonds and stamps. What happened to that . Couldnt we do that again, and if so, what caused this . I would like to open it up for questions with the mike if anybody has some ideas, just wait for the mike. Remember we talked about Lamont Cranston and the shadow. You have to wait for that filtered microphone. Anybody like to take a crack, why dont we do this any more . This could be fun. Go for it. Is it possibly because there isnt as much patriotism with it . While we are still fighting in iraq and afghanistan of course, there isnt as much of a greater threat as there was back in world war ii with the nazis and with the japanese . I dont know. I think people would argue that the threat levels are just as high in our post 9 11 world. But youre not the first person to think about whats happening to the patriotism. Whats happening to the patriotism. Would it be something about how paying money towards the government is somehow viewed as this socialist effort that people are now completely turned off from . It has to do with what do americans think about various terms like socialism and capitalism and all of the other isms. Is it not good any more to pay money to the government . I want to throw in a related question on this for you to think about. Are americans more gung ho on paying taxes today than 1943 . What about that . What about getting a cartoon out there to help americans feel better about paying their tax . Wait for the mike. Just going to say society is different. People are more selfish today. People are more selfish today. Yeah, not willing to do those type of things any more i think. It is a different era, different, you know, i think thats why. Thats sad. But its the reality. Why are people more selfish . It is all about me. I mean, arent there plenty of things to get excited about in terms of helping others . What happened to that . Is it because theres lack of trust toward our government now that theyre going to take our money and do the right thing with it . Now this is something youve hit upon. In the wake of vietnam and watergate, theres this idea that the government may not always be as trustworthy, may not tell the entire truth, reporters might not be able to trust everything that the president says. There was an aura around the presidency in world war ii. Thats part of it, theres a mistrust of government, but maybe the mistrust is against the american publics own interest when it comes to not getting to be part of bond drives and savings drives. Is there a way to rebuild that trust . What do you think . Hey, im taking my aquaman break here, or sub mariner break. I should be bipartisan, right . Notice. One character here, one character there. One company here, one company there. One has to be bipartisan. Okay. But one thing d. C. And marvel and other companies had in common is that when Something Like world war ii came up, they all pitched in to help. All joking aside on that, they all pitched in to help. But is there a great cause . When is the last time you picked up a comic book, saw a cartoon that talked about a cause in the real world . Two sillyllables. It was escapism and also irrelevance. Irrelevance that said when you finish reading this comic and your friends finish it, give it to the government to help the war efforts. You want to hit hitler on the nose, help captain america do that. Buy u. S. Savings bonds and stamps. What happened . Think about it. Think about it. Large distrust. Abraham lincoln said something, no one questioned it. I mean somebody has to question it now and again, but like the masses believed in their president. You think there was an understanding . There was an understanding that government is for us like theyre trying to help us. That was the mentality. But as vietnam, time went on, split between the people and government happened. I think that thats why people now, ask any young person that doesnt know about knows decent amount of history, isnt in history courses, so they might not want to be affiliated with politics, the majority of people say that they dont know whats going on. Like they just dont want to hear about it. Pt in the masses eyes, the government doesnt care, theyre out just for personal gain. Whatever happened to the superhero approach that the government was a hero. Whatever happened to that . I feel like nowadays people have a distaste for helping the government, they dont want to help a government they dont agree with. So the government seems to need to get the image of being a hero again. How do we do that . Isnt there an issue now that we would never be able to get away with publishing a superhero punching another leader in the face, that we would view that now as poking the bear rather than as a nationalist or nationalism pushing forward of something . Instead it is dangerous almost. Were more likely to make fun of the crisis than act about it. Thats going to be part of it. When we look at what happens to comics, world war ii and the future, were getting towards the end of our class today. I want you to think about something. How did the image of the government change and watch this, how did the image of the superhero change and the idea of were comic books good for kids in the first place. What happened to that idea as we move out of the 40s and into the 50s. Were going to look at a lot of different issues that we explore today as the calendar moves from one year to another, and one decade to another. But were going to have to pick that up next time. So ill see you then. Weeknights, featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, we spotlight the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote, beginning with rebecca roberts. The 1913 parade and fight for the vote. The tour of National Archives exhibit of the 19th amendment and historians discussing the civil war and reconstruction era. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. All week, featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend. Lectures in history, american artifacts, reel america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency, and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. Live coverage is saturday 9 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Online at cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. Up next on American History tv lectures in history series, discussion on military vehicle innovations, role of american factories during world war ii. We look at the types of amphibious vehicles used in the pacific and process of testing, production, battle application. It is just over an hour. Well, good morning, welcome back to history
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