History At The L0cal Level
A gentleman, Bob Marcotte writes a column a few times a week in the Rochester [N.Y.] Democrat and Chronicle. His columns deal history as it happened in the Rochester area and/or as it affected this area.
Creativity helped Rochester promote WWII bonds
"Eight miniature 'Pacific Islands' dotted the smooth Main Street 'sea' last night as the stage was set for the ceremonial opening of the Sixth War Loan campaign this evening. The string of Pacific lands, dotted with palm trees, begins with the Philippines just east of the Four Corners and ends with Tokyo, east of Main Street East and Clinton Avenue. Volunteer workers anchored the islands, which straddle the center traffic line, and surrounded them with sand bags and red lights to forestall any premature invasion by streams of cars in traffic."
--Democrat and Chronicle, Nov 20, 1944.
The things Rochester came up with to promote war bonds during World War II! Centerpiece of the Sixth War Loan Campaign was a replica of a U.S. aircraft carrier, nicknamed "Tokyo-bound."
The idea was this: For every $33,644 in war bond sales, the Tokyobound would be moved one foot farther east up Main Street, gradually passing those islands one-by-one. And if all went well--if Monroe County reached its $64.4 million goal-- the carrier would "capture" Tokyo on the last island.
War bonds were a big deal during World War II. Why?
***They helped finance the war effort, raising some $135 billion toward the $330 billion overall cost of the war. They were bought by big businesses and average citizens.
***They helped forestall ruinous inflation "by sopping up excess wages at a time when there were acute shortages of many consumer goods," adds Ronald H. Bailey in The Home Front: U.S.A., part of the Time-Life series on the war.
Indeed, by mid-1943 the home front "was awash in so much money-some $70 billion in cash, checking accounts and savings, compared with $50 billion in 1941-that one U.S. Treasury official referred to it as 'liquid dynamite,' " Bailey explains.
To diffuse the situation, the federal government took several steps, including a requirement that employers begin deducting from each paycheck an apropriate percentage of income ta, which up to then had simply been paid as a lump sum at the end of the year. Thus began the withholding tax that continues to this day.
The Treasury also began selling war bonds, in denominations ranging from $25 to $10,000. A war bond was, in effect, a loan made by a citizen to the government. A $25 bond, for example, sold for $18.75, and could be redeemed for its full value after 10 years.
No expense was spared to promote the sale of bonds. Huge rallies were held, at which movie and radio stars and war heroes back from the front exhorted patriotic Americans to chip in. Ads flooded the airways and filled newspaper columns. Posters proliferated in public and work places.
And Rochester found some truly novel ways to drum up support.
Getting creative
For example, on June 8, 1943, thousands of Rochesterians stood in line to look at a Japanese midget submarine athat had been captured after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was parked on Main Street between Clinton and South avenues. More than 25,000 residents, in fact, bought war bonds or stamps for the privilege of peeking through a series of portholes cut into the sides of the submarine. The goal was to cover the $500,000 price tag of a new Navy sub chaser. More than $700,000 was collected.
"Spectators got a big kick out of seeing the 81-foot pigboat," the Democrat and Chronicle reported. "It's bigger than I thought it would be" was a common reaction. Also: "It looks like a fish."
The followig June, while the world waited expectantly for the Allies to invade western Europe, Rochester braced for an equally important struggle at home. The six-county quota for the fifth national war bond drive was a staggering $83.4 million, far surpassing previous drives.
To help drum up support, a temporary pedestrian bridge, featuring four flags and a replica of the Liberty Bell, was erected across Main Street at Stone Street [A similar tactic was used during a War Bond campaign in Rochester during World War I.]
The Democrat and Chronicle explained the symbolism: War bonds would help build a bridge from the "threat of totalitarian domination" to the "more promising opportunities [that] the victory of decent ideals will bring."
A variety of events were scheduled at the bridge to publicize the campaign. War heroes gave speeches. Free tickets were given away for the movie Going My Way starring Bing Crosby. A Stromberg-Carlson Co. dance orchestra call the "Modulators" performed; so did the 80-voice Bausch&Lomb chorus and the 60-member Teutonia Male Chorus.
Huge success
It worked.
No sooner had Sgt. and Mrs. Samuel Volo exchanged vows than they hurried down to the bridge to buy six war bonds: One for each of the bride's three brothers in the service, and one each for Volo and his two brothers, also in uniform.
Salvatore Lambardo, a 44-year-old florist, bought $5,000 in bonds. It was "the only weapon I can use against the Germans," he explained. Two months earlier he had learned that his brother, his brother's wife and their 2-month-old baby were killed during a German bombin raid in Sicily. Two of his other brothers were missing in action with the Italian army, and this, too, he bleamed on the Germans.
Seven-year-old Carol Mileo, alas, wanted to buy a war bond and ring the Liberty Bell, but was bed-ridden with the measles. Finally, with time running out, Carol's mother called the newspaper and a reporter obligingly bought a bond, rang the bell and brought the certificate to the grateful girl.
By the end of the drive, the Rochester district had raised a "smashing total" of 100.1 million. The bridge came down.
Rough Voyage
And then, that November into December, the Tokyobound began inching its way along that symbolic chain of Pacific Islands stretching up Main Street.
The miracle is that it reached its goal in one piece. Apparently the originators of this nifty idea had not taken into account Rochester's motorists-or the weather. The first night the islands were in place, a young motorist crashed into Tokyo. After a late November snowfall, another motorist flattened the island of Oshima Shoto and sped off, leaving a bumper behind. The replica carrier became progressively harder and harder to move as its hulk became encased in ice.
And yet, even though the bad weather cut down on promotional events, the Rochester district again easily surpassed its quota, raising some $103 million.
Famous visitors
As mentione in a previous column, the camer that captured the lag-raising on Iwo Jima was taken with a Folmer-Graflex Speed Graphic camera made in Rochester.
The three surviving flag-raisers-Pfc. Ira Hayes, Pfc. Rene agnon and Navy Pharmicist's Mage John Bailey-came to Rochester on May 16, 1945. as part of their nationwide tour to promote war bonds during the seventh war loan drive. Their misgivings about being sent stateside to do this while their buddies remained at the front was portrayed in the movie Flags of Our Fathers.
They made no secret of it during their tour.
"They give you the impression that they feel a bit guilty about their jobs as bond salesmen....sleeping in soft beds, eating the best offoods.....and telling people why they should buy War Bonds" while their comrade continue to fight in the Pacific, the Rochester Times-Union noted.
They arrived on one of those cruel May days when the temperature never got above 46 and a cold rain fell.
Long stretches of the parade route were utterly deserted.
But not even the elements could deter one woman, wearing a babushka on her head, who was seen rushing up the platform after master of ceremonies Al Sisson had finished, waving a receipt for $3,000 and shouthing "I buy the bond, I buy."
Mrs. Hosephine Di Maggio explaine4d that her son, a G.I. serving in Europe, had urged her to buy lots of bonds.
"Her eyes beamed complete satisfaction as the chairman [Raymond Ball] took her hand and gave it an enthusiastic shake and congratulated her on her patriotism and loyalty to her adopted country."
[Contact Mr Marcotte on-line: bmarcott@DemocratandChronicle.com ]
Little Secret Exposed
o-bomb-a has a dirty little secret that the mainstream media won't discuss: His radical plan to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits, Medicaid, amnesty and citizenship. By his own count there are twelve million illegal aliens in th U.S. and he wants them all getting government benefits.
o-bomb-a's plan to give illegals driver's licenses-even though everyone knows the 9/11 plot began with 13 of the 19 perpetrators getting driver's licenses.
Definitions Necessary In The Current Political Climate
Socialism:
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organizaton in which the means of producing and distributing goods owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.
3. A political and economic theory or system of social organization based on collective or state ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Like capitalism, it takes many and diverse forms.
Facism
1. An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
2. Extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice. The term fascism was first used describing the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Benito Mussolini in Italy [1922-1943]. The Nazi Regime in Germany was also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader and a strong demogogic approach.
3. The five main components of the facist ideology:
a] Extreme [superior] nationalism.
b] An assertation of national decline.
c] National decline is often linked to a diminution of racial purity of the nation.
d] The blame for national decline is based on a conspiracy of other nations/races seen as competing for dominance.
e] In the struggle for dominance, both capitalism and liberal democracy are seen as divisive devices to ragment the nation and subordinate it in the world order.
4. The philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority and harsh suppression of dissent.
Communism
1. A theorectical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
2. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
3. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.
Til Nex'time.....
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