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Pittsburgh 1941: War, Race, Biography, and History
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Pearl Harbor in Pittsburgh | |
| It was 3:00 pm on Sunday, December 7, 1941. There was a mass meeting in Pittsburgh's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, located in Oakland Civic Center, three miles from downtown Pittsburgh. The hall had been built by the Grand Army of the Republic (the Union veterans organization) to honor Civil War veterans. Styled after the ancient mausoleum of Halicarnassus, it was officially dedicated on October 11, 1910. Those inside the solemn war memorial on this grey Sunday afternoon had come to attend a large antiwar meeting on the theme of "Christianity and Intervention"—an America First Committee rally against American involvement in the European war.1 The huge hall seated 2,550, and it was filled almost to capacity, decked out in red, white, and blue bunting and "Defend America First" placards. The building had been used before for an America First Committee meeting, in June 1941, over the protests of some patriotic veterans. On that occasion, the speaker had been Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, and he had denounced the project of bringing Roosevelt's four freedoms to the world. He had asked, "Who are we to tell Stalin that he must give his people freedom of speech, religion and press."2 Those who came to the December meeting carried American flags and were even more intent on proclaiming their Americanism this time, even as they opposed the policies of their president. |
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The advertised speakers for this afternoon were Senator Gerald Nye, a Republican from North Dakota who was best known nationally as the chair of the 1934–36 Senate committee that investigated the munitions industry and the causes of war, former Democratic Pe nnsylvania state senator Chester Hale Sipe, and the celebrity dancer and animal-rights activist Irene Castle McLaughlin. Behind the speakers on the platform, in "huge dark letters," were the words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and a placard saying "No War."3 The meeting opened with choral selections from the Bellevue Methodist Church choir and an invocation by the Reverend John McKavney of St. John the Evangelist Church. The Pittsburgh A.F.C. chairman, John B. Gordon, made an appeal for peace and for the right of all people to a voice in the public sphere. "This is America," he declared. "All shades of opinion are entitled to be heard."4 |
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Irene Castle McLaughlin spoke first. She told the story of how her husband, dancer Vernon Castle, had died in the First World War and said that she did not want her son also to die in war.5 Chester Hale Sipe followed, and he attacked the president, saying that Roosevelt was trying to "make everything Russian appealing to the United States" and that he was the "chief war maker in the United States."6 A white-haired man, who had been sitting next to his wife in aisle seats towards the back of the hall, began calling out from the floor of the meeting, apparently trying to disrupt proceedings.7 |
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