1941.08.25 “One Man Champion”
by Cyrus Cotton “Cy” Hungerford (1889-1983)
15 x 20 in., ink and graphite on paper
Coppola Collection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy_Hungerford
Hungerford worked for the Wheeling (West VA) Register before becoming editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Sun for fifteen years from 1912. He joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1927 and stayed there until his retirement in 1977.
Before the US entered the war, sympathies were still split in the US. FDR had worked out a compromise to purely aid programs with Lend-Lease in March 1941, but the debate over this commitment still pitted isolationist sentiment against interventionist support. He had explicitly criticized isolationism in his July fireside chat.
In June, Roosevelt issued an order for the War Department to seize control of a defense plant after a strike persisted despite mediation. On August 24, FDR ordered the United States navy to operate the strike-bound shipyards of the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Kearny, New Jersey after the strike had halted work on $100?million in naval and merchant shipbuilding orders.
And while the national debate tore at internal stability, Hitler watched and cheered.
