1940.09.24 “Interests Him”
by Lucius Curtis “Lute” Pease, Jr. (1869 -1963)
14 x 19 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection
Pease was a cartoonist for the Newark Evening News from 1914 to 1954 and received the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. He was a miner in Alaska for 5 years before beginning a career in art. He was an illustrator for the Oregonian and famously interviewed Mark Twain. From his retirement in 1954 until his death in 1963, he devoted himself to fostering his skills as a painter of portraits and landscapes.
After the defeat of France and the conclusion of the armistice between France and Nazi
Germany in June 1940, there was considerable confusion as to the allegiance of the various French colonies. Some, like Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa, joined the Free French, but others, including the North African colonies, French West Africa, Syria and Indochina, remained under Vichy control.
De Gaulle believed that he could persuade the French forces in Dakar to join the Allied cause. Much would be gained by this. Another Vichy French colony changing sides would have great political impact; the gold reserves of the Banque de France and the Polish government in exile were stored in the strategic port of Dakar in French West Africa (modern-day Senegal).
The Battle of Dakar, also known as Operation Menace, was the unsuccessful attempt in September 1940 by the British-led Allies to capture Dakar. The Vichy forces did not back down. De Gaulle had believed that he would be able to persuade the Dakar forces to change sides, but this turned out not to be the case, a result that damaged his standing among the Allies.
The US, still primarily isolationist, watches from a distance, with concern about Axis access to the Western hemisphere.
