CT - The Catholic Telegraph is witness to anaother World War

The Catholic Telegraph is witness to another World War

By David J. Merkowitz

(fifth in a series)

Most Americans remember World War II as the last "good" war. In the national memory, it was the right kind of war, fought between good and evil, with clear lines between them. Americans remember that during the war the whole nation came together to vanquish Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. The men and women who made many sacrifices for the war - many giving their lives - have come to be known as the "greatest generation."

This is truly an authentic way of remembering World War II. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati sent 33,691 men and women into the armed services: 886 died in action, 938 were wounded and 74 were missing in action. More than 100 religious and diocesan priests served as chaplains. In parishes and schools across the diocese, there are still many memorials to the parishioners who served and died in the war.

The Telegraph promoted war bonds in the 1940s.

As a way of creating a sense of community throughout the archdiocese, The Catholic Telegraph printed the names of soldiers and their parishes as they were being sent off to war in 1942 and 1943. It also carried stories of soldiers who would not be returning. From late 1943 through the end of the war, the paper carried pictures of soldiers from the archdiocese who were serving overseas. Unlike the period of World War I, few letters from soldiers appeared in the paper. Chaplains sometimes shared their experiences in the paper. In terms of news of the war, the paper had a section of "Day-by-Day News Briefs of a War-Engulfed World."

The paper included a regular column describing the success of the archbishop's war bonds drive. There were seven bond drives over the course of the war. At different times, the paper carried highly patriotic advertising for these drives. Some of the most memorable parts of the war for those who lived through it were the rationing of everyday goods, the recycling drives and the strong push for energy conservation. Cincinnati Gas & Electric regularly bought ads that described how Cincinnatians could save energy in their homes. Cincinnati Bell placed similar ads, encouraging customers to minimize unnecessary phone calls and take care of phone equipment. The paper did not carry any of the widespread secular propaganda that portrayed the Japanese and Germans as less than human.

A few domestic issues garnered quite a bit of attention during this period. The paper gave a great deal of coverage to the work of the archdiocese among the growing African-American community in Cincinnati and Dayton. From the 1920s through the 1940s, the archdiocese committed a lot of energy toward creating a respectable ministry among African Americans. While this work included building many institutions specifically for African Americans, it did not include desegregating the diocese. The paper also devoted much attention to a growing ministry to the rural areas of the diocese.

A tortured dialogue with and about the Jews also took place in the pages of the newspaper during this time. The Telegraph uniformly opposed anti-Semitism and any persecution of the Jewish people. However, the attitude of The Telegraph was very much the norm of the time. Many discussions of the Jewish people, while fully supportive in one paragraph, would then discuss Jewish stereotypes in unfortunate ways, or even come close to blaming Jews for their own persecution.

While acknowledging the historical context, one cringes a little when The Telegraph lends its support for the Jews in that dismal age and then ends by noting that of course, in the end, all Jews will convert and this will truly solve the problem. The paper was far more measured in its discussions of Jews in the early 1920s than on the eve of the Holocaust. It is also clear in the pages of the Telegraph that many were aware that millions of Jews were dying in Europe. However, it took much longer for realization of what the Holocaust was to truly sink in.

Did you know?

By 1943, more than eight thousand German and Italian prisoners of war were being held by U.S. military forces in Ohio. Most of the prisoners were located at Bowling Green, Celina and Defiance. Once Italy surrendered in 1943, many of the Italians continued to aid the American war effort by continuing to work in these same positions.

In 1939, a widespread rumor that Archbishop McNicholas was the leading candidate to succeed Cardinal Patrick Hayes in New York appeared on the front pages of Cincinnati's secular newspapers. There are some sources that believe that Archbishop McNicholas was actually appointed to the position, but that Pope Pius XI died before making it official.

The Catholic Telegraph during this era reflected an American Catholic culture that had changed quite a bit since World War I. It was more set apart from the rest of American society. The Catholic Church in Cincinnati seemed to be dominated more by priests than was the case in the period before the mid-1920s. The clergy, and especially the archbishop, dominated the pages of the newspaper in the 1930s and 1940s in a way that it hadn't for nearly a century.

A combination of changes coming from Rome and those arising from within American society helped cause a shift in culture. The Catholic culture that people remember of the late 1930s through the onset of the Vatican II period was not a timeless culture. This culture was in fact quite different than that of the Progressive-era church of World War I. (Another wave of change will sweep through in the 1960s.)

The period from late 1929 through 1945, and perhaps even as late as 1948, represented one of the longest sustained periods of crisis in American history. The Great Depression/World War II era undoubtedly shaped the lives of those who lived through it. (For those too young to remember, this historian strongly recommends that you make an effort to discuss this period with someone who lived through it. It was a particularly challenging time, and that generation is quickly passing into the history books.)

Cincinnati actually came through the Great Depression better than many other places. In contrast to northern Ohio cities such as Toledo and Youngstown, Cincinnati's diverse economy weathered the storm well. Whereas those cities had unemployment peak at more than 80 percent, in Cincinnati it rarely moved above 30 percent. Cincinnati's economy never shut down, it just slowed down.

In fact, rural areas to the south and east of the archdiocese were hit even harder. And when times got better in the year leading up to the war, whites and blacks from Appalachia poured into Cincinnati, Dayton and many cities across the nation looking for work. They came looking for the same kind of better life that had brought Americans westward and the Irish and the Germans from Europe.

The Catholic Telegraph, during the mid-1930s and even into the early days of the war, shows clearly that Archbishop McNicholas and the paper supported Mussolini and the Fascist regime in Italy at some level. The paper regularly published positive articles about Mussolini and his regime. Whenever some of the more negative aspects of the Fascist regime were brought up after Mussolini allied with Hitler in 1936, The Telegraph blamed these on the corruption of proximity to the Nazis rather than any negative aspect of the Fascist regime. The archbishop and the paper were not alone in this support for Fascist Italy; in fact, most of Catholic hierarchy and newspapers were friendlier to Mussolini and also Franco in Spain than they were to France or Great Britain. It is important to note that Archbishop McNicholas and the Telegraph were strongly and consistently opposed to the Nazi regime in Germany. They saw it as an anti-Christian and even pagan regime.

In 1938, residents gathered to watch a parade marking Cincinnati's centennial.

Cincinnatians were sharply divided over the New Deal and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. To many Americans, FDR was the greatest president in American history - the one who saved the nation. The Catholic Telegraph was not in this camp. Many Cincinnatians sided with Republican Robert A. Taft, who saw little good in Roosevelt or the New Deal.

Even more than domestic politics, many opposed FDR's foreign policy. Cincinnati was a hotbed of isolationist or peace sentiment in the period between the beginning of hostilities in Europe in September of 1941 and the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. While the Telegraph was not necessarily isolationist, it was loudly opposed to any American involvement in the war. Archbishop McNicholas strongly opposed U.S. involvement in another war. In speeches and in the archdiocesan paper, he tried to lay the groundwork for peace before the war started and again toward the end of the war.

Those who opposed American entry into World War II did so for a variety of reasons, but two stand out. First, many were deeply upset by the experience of World War I, both in battle and in the nasty aftereffects it had on American society. Another reason, one which especially animated Archbishop McNicholas, was the fact that moving against Nazi Germany meant moving with the Soviet Union. Before the war began, the Communists were known for their opposition to Nazism and fascism. However, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a secret treaty to divide Poland just before the war started. With that treaty, Communists across the world threw their support behind Hitler and the Nazi regime. This continued until June of 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. At that point, it became clear that any American involvement in World War II would mean supporting the Soviet Union. This opposition to Communism was one of the most important unifying factors in the Catholic world from the 1910s through the 1980s. From the moment of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917, the Catholic was at the vanguard in opposition to Communism.

Among Catholics in the United States, Archbishop McNicholas was the strongest and loudest of opponents of Communism, and The Telegraph never really considered the Soviet Union a viable ally. At various moments, such as after the battle of Stalingrad, the paper did express respect for the Russian people, stating that only because the pre-Communism Russian traditions hadn't been completely squashed could they have survived the Nazi onslaught at Stalingrad and elsewhere.

As soon as the war was over in Europe, The Telegraph began to warn of the dangers of Communism spreading throughout Europe and the world.

Interestingly, The Telegraph never really discussed Japan or the war in the Pacific. The war ended with the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This event, along with the Holocaust, has had a profound effect on our postwar world. In discussing the atomic bomb, one editorial in the Telegraph grouped it with other examples of human depravity and distance from God, rather than a new level of destruction.

The harsh memories of the post-World War I period prevented the Telegraph from enjoying peace too simply. The war was not long over before a new shadow covered the earth. The rise of the Cold War out of the ashes of World War II structured world affairs for nearly 50 years.