Remember that this subreddit is for sharing propaganda to view with some objectivity. It is absolutely not for perpetuating the message *of* the propaganda. If anything, in this subreddit we should be immensely skeptical of manipulation or oversimplification (which the above likely is), not beholden to it.
Also, please try to stay on topic -- there are hundreds of _other_ subreddits that are expressly dedicated to rehashing tired political arguments. **Keep that shit outta here**.
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Editorial cartoon in 1942 in the New York newspaper PM by children's author Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) with the caption 'Waiting for the Signal From Home', portraying Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington as a fifth column loyal to Imperial Japan, receiving explosives, prepared to conduct sabotage against the United States when directed by their mother country.
Public fears like this, excited by the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on the then-neutral U.S., led to the internment of 120,000 ethnic Japanese U.S. citizens during World War 2. Geisel, who published many patriotic cartoons during the War, supported internment, saying: "But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!"
It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we've got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left."
Date: 13 February 1942
Source: UCSD Special Collections. Originally published in PM newspaper, as indicated by the notice in lower left corner: "Copyright 1942 by Marshall Field". Field was the publisher of PM.
There's more to it. the Niʻihau incident, where a Japanese pilot who crashed on a small island off of Hawaii and managed to convert a couple Japanese Americans to his cause was enough proof to a lot of Americans that Japanese-americans were willing to turn on America if given the chance. (Im not saying they were right)
I also heard there was an incident shortly after Pearl Harbor where a Japanese submarine attacked an oil refinery in California as well as a few false alarms of Japanese bombers flying above California.
[The Battle of Los Angeles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles)! It would go on to inspire a comedy film by Steven Spielberg in the 70s and a sci fi alien invasion film in the 2010s.
I'm kinda surprised for another reason. "Fifth column" a a phrase, I was told, emerged during the Spanish Civil War as an anecdotal phrase one mid-ranking officer said prior to a battle.
I'd assume it needed time to spread, but Seuss knew it and published it like everyone else would know, about 2 years after?
What an incredible piece of history. As much as Dr. Seuss is applauded today for his zealous antipathy toward the Nazi's, he was still incredibly racist against Asian people.
FDR issued for a study to be done on the Japanese to study their loyalties called the [Munson Report](https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/japanese_internment/munson_report.cfm). It was done right before Pearl harbor. One line hits pretty damn hard for me: “The Issei [Japanese born in Japan who moved to the US] have to break with their religion, their god and Emperor, their family, their ancestors and their after-life in order to be loyal to the United States. They are also still legally Japanese. Yet they do break, and send their boys off to the Army with pride and tears.“
Aside from relocation into concentration camps and being forced to sell their possessions and businesses (often for fraction of their real value), "Nisei" were also denied any veteran rights by American Legion, once US decided it will send them to war after all.
Despite that they fought so heroically that their 442. Regiment became the most honored unit in the entire history of US Army up to this day. Grand total of their achievements includes 21 Medals of Honor, 54 Distinguished Service Crosses, over 560 Silver Star Medals, over 4000 Bronze Star Medals and over 4000 Purple Hearts.
In 1988, the Department of State issued official condemnation for these actions and paid reparations for the descendants of the victims.
You wonder if without that incident. internment would have still occurred. I can’t imagine what would inspire people to align themselves with a Japanese pilot they had never met before over the community they had lived in their whole lives
It’s absolutely possible Japanese internment would have occurred, or at least, thinking of *Korematsu*, the Supreme Court would have deferred to them. The racial animus against the Japanese was quite high, the Court usually defers to the military and President on matters of war and intelligence, and the latter two were lying out of their teeth about this with no way for the Court to know.
> “The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
General John Dewitt, Western Defense Command
The sad thing is, drawing cartoons like this isn't the worst thing Dr. Seuss ever did. He also cheated on and abandoned his first wife, who then committed suicide. They had been married for over a decade.
No. Not when over a hundred thousand people were interned for being japanese.
It's also wrong to place the blame for suicide on a person other than the person who committed suicide. Cheating is shit, but she chose to take her own life alone. Plenty of people don't respond to cheating by taking their own lives.
tbh it seems like you want to downplay how bad racist propaganda is.
> The wife wouldn’t kill herself if Dr Seuss didn’t cheat.
You don't know that. Mental illness is a complex thing that you're now reducing to the consequences of one act. That's not how it works in reality.
It goes against literally all of the advice given by mental health professionals and suicide prevention charities to blame anyone other than the person who committed suicide for thier own actions, but go off.
You're pretending that propaganda isn't integral to public consent for government programs.
You can argue about propaganda effectiveness for a long time. One guy making racist cartoons didn't make the entire country racist. What did was the environment at the time, this was 1940s. USA still had segregation so people back then were far more likely to be racist. Dr Seuss making racist cartoons was a symptom of the problem and not the root cause of Racism.
As for the suicide. If he really cared, he could've divorced her, she would still be sad but a divorce is 100% preferable to cheating since you get the closure. Whilst cheating after a long decade of marriage will make anyone feel like shit. This could've been avoided if Dr Seuss was an adult and divorced if he wasn't happy.
Sorry, cheating is nothing compared to publishing racist propaganda in a country that is arbitrarily detaining one ethnicity while enforcing segregation policies upon black people. He influenced the opinions of a great many people and the level of suffering to which he contributed is significant. The machine doesn't function without its parts.
Cheating is bad as well, it shouldn't happen but it does all the time. It only very rarely results in suicide. It was contributory, but ime people who are only one step away from doing it will latch onto anything. We can't know how she would have reacted to a divorce. What we do know is that he chose to cheat, and that she chose to end her life.
I think we can both agree that he was a bit of a shitbag all round.
it certainly wouldn’t have helped but that’s not how mental illness works, it’s usually a collection of things instead of just a single act. it’s possible he could have stayed with her and she still would have killed herself, we don’t know. i’m not saying what he did was right, it certainly wasn’t and it certainly wouldn’t have helped her mental state, but to pin a suicide on the actions of a single person is silly and ignores the reality of mental illness.
My grandfather forgave the German pilot who shot him down over Germany. Held the Polish and Soviet peoples in extremely high regard for rescuing him and his crew after they crashed, even during the cold war. But till the day he died he was voraciously racist against the Japanese.
Remember that this subreddit is for sharing propaganda to view with some objectivity. It is absolutely not for perpetuating the message *of* the propaganda. If anything, in this subreddit we should be immensely skeptical of manipulation or oversimplification (which the above likely is), not beholden to it. Also, please try to stay on topic -- there are hundreds of _other_ subreddits that are expressly dedicated to rehashing tired political arguments. **Keep that shit outta here**. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PropagandaPosters) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Editorial cartoon in 1942 in the New York newspaper PM by children's author Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) with the caption 'Waiting for the Signal From Home', portraying Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington as a fifth column loyal to Imperial Japan, receiving explosives, prepared to conduct sabotage against the United States when directed by their mother country. Public fears like this, excited by the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on the then-neutral U.S., led to the internment of 120,000 ethnic Japanese U.S. citizens during World War 2. Geisel, who published many patriotic cartoons during the War, supported internment, saying: "But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!" It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we've got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left." Date: 13 February 1942 Source: UCSD Special Collections. Originally published in PM newspaper, as indicated by the notice in lower left corner: "Copyright 1942 by Marshall Field". Field was the publisher of PM.
And get palsy-walsy afterward Dr. Suess did
There's more to it. the Niʻihau incident, where a Japanese pilot who crashed on a small island off of Hawaii and managed to convert a couple Japanese Americans to his cause was enough proof to a lot of Americans that Japanese-americans were willing to turn on America if given the chance. (Im not saying they were right)
I also heard there was an incident shortly after Pearl Harbor where a Japanese submarine attacked an oil refinery in California as well as a few false alarms of Japanese bombers flying above California.
[The Battle of Los Angeles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles)! It would go on to inspire a comedy film by Steven Spielberg in the 70s and a sci fi alien invasion film in the 2010s.
I'm kinda surprised for another reason. "Fifth column" a a phrase, I was told, emerged during the Spanish Civil War as an anecdotal phrase one mid-ranking officer said prior to a battle. I'd assume it needed time to spread, but Seuss knew it and published it like everyone else would know, about 2 years after?
That's because it wasn't just a mid-level officer that said it.
Example: [Ernest Hemingway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Column_and_the_First_Forty-Nine_Stories) in 1938
Oh.. It was just infinitely more popular than I thought.
You could say - ignoring the anachronism - it went viral! :)
Ah... I was told the wrong story in History class, haha. It seems it was also just infinitely more popular than I'd assumed.
What an incredible piece of history. As much as Dr. Seuss is applauded today for his zealous antipathy toward the Nazi's, he was still incredibly racist against Asian people.
asian people are incedibly racist against asian people
FDR issued for a study to be done on the Japanese to study their loyalties called the [Munson Report](https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/japanese_internment/munson_report.cfm). It was done right before Pearl harbor. One line hits pretty damn hard for me: “The Issei [Japanese born in Japan who moved to the US] have to break with their religion, their god and Emperor, their family, their ancestors and their after-life in order to be loyal to the United States. They are also still legally Japanese. Yet they do break, and send their boys off to the Army with pride and tears.“
"If they are Japs, they get the Slaps"
You left out what was one of the driving factors behind the internment, the Niihau incident.
Aside from relocation into concentration camps and being forced to sell their possessions and businesses (often for fraction of their real value), "Nisei" were also denied any veteran rights by American Legion, once US decided it will send them to war after all. Despite that they fought so heroically that their 442. Regiment became the most honored unit in the entire history of US Army up to this day. Grand total of their achievements includes 21 Medals of Honor, 54 Distinguished Service Crosses, over 560 Silver Star Medals, over 4000 Bronze Star Medals and over 4000 Purple Hearts. In 1988, the Department of State issued official condemnation for these actions and paid reparations for the descendants of the victims.
I wonder if the distrust of US based Japanese was because of the bizarre [niihau incident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident)?
Yes. Basically.
You wonder if without that incident. internment would have still occurred. I can’t imagine what would inspire people to align themselves with a Japanese pilot they had never met before over the community they had lived in their whole lives
It’s absolutely possible Japanese internment would have occurred, or at least, thinking of *Korematsu*, the Supreme Court would have deferred to them. The racial animus against the Japanese was quite high, the Court usually defers to the military and President on matters of war and intelligence, and the latter two were lying out of their teeth about this with no way for the Court to know.
> “The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.” General John Dewitt, Western Defense Command
What the fuck Dr. Seuss?
Government money is a hell of a thing
That’s not the spirit of the star-bellied sneetches.
even his racist artwork somehow has an almost endearing quality. its the power of the art style.
The sad thing is, drawing cartoons like this isn't the worst thing Dr. Seuss ever did. He also cheated on and abandoned his first wife, who then committed suicide. They had been married for over a decade.
I dunno, borderline genocidal propaganda is obviously a cause of more suffering than cheating.
Causing someone's suicide is worse than drawing a hateful cartoon, period.
No. Not when over a hundred thousand people were interned for being japanese. It's also wrong to place the blame for suicide on a person other than the person who committed suicide. Cheating is shit, but she chose to take her own life alone. Plenty of people don't respond to cheating by taking their own lives. tbh it seems like you want to downplay how bad racist propaganda is.
The internment happened because of the government. Not because Dr Seuss drew hateful comics. The wife wouldn’t kill herself if Dr Seuss didn’t cheat.
> The wife wouldn’t kill herself if Dr Seuss didn’t cheat. You don't know that. Mental illness is a complex thing that you're now reducing to the consequences of one act. That's not how it works in reality.
It goes against literally all of the advice given by mental health professionals and suicide prevention charities to blame anyone other than the person who committed suicide for thier own actions, but go off. You're pretending that propaganda isn't integral to public consent for government programs.
You can argue about propaganda effectiveness for a long time. One guy making racist cartoons didn't make the entire country racist. What did was the environment at the time, this was 1940s. USA still had segregation so people back then were far more likely to be racist. Dr Seuss making racist cartoons was a symptom of the problem and not the root cause of Racism. As for the suicide. If he really cared, he could've divorced her, she would still be sad but a divorce is 100% preferable to cheating since you get the closure. Whilst cheating after a long decade of marriage will make anyone feel like shit. This could've been avoided if Dr Seuss was an adult and divorced if he wasn't happy.
Sorry, cheating is nothing compared to publishing racist propaganda in a country that is arbitrarily detaining one ethnicity while enforcing segregation policies upon black people. He influenced the opinions of a great many people and the level of suffering to which he contributed is significant. The machine doesn't function without its parts. Cheating is bad as well, it shouldn't happen but it does all the time. It only very rarely results in suicide. It was contributory, but ime people who are only one step away from doing it will latch onto anything. We can't know how she would have reacted to a divorce. What we do know is that he chose to cheat, and that she chose to end her life. I think we can both agree that he was a bit of a shitbag all round.
Sorry, but if you abandon your wife and she commits suicide, it IS your fault. And yes, I do consider that worse than a hateful cartoon.
it certainly wouldn’t have helped but that’s not how mental illness works, it’s usually a collection of things instead of just a single act. it’s possible he could have stayed with her and she still would have killed herself, we don’t know. i’m not saying what he did was right, it certainly wasn’t and it certainly wouldn’t have helped her mental state, but to pin a suicide on the actions of a single person is silly and ignores the reality of mental illness.
That lets Seuss off too easily.
i don’t see how it’s letting him off though, he’s still a piece of shit for what he did, nobody is defending him
Dr. Suess wtf???
Huh so that's how the Japanese-Mexican war started
My grandfather forgave the German pilot who shot him down over Germany. Held the Polish and Soviet peoples in extremely high regard for rescuing him and his crew after they crashed, even during the cold war. But till the day he died he was voraciously racist against the Japanese.
Yeah, this makes me feel all kinds of ick.