1941.09.05 “Innocent Bystander”
by Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
14.7 x 23.3 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection
Ralph Lee was an editorial cartoonist for the Portland Oregonian. He died suddenly, at 41, in January 1947. His cousin, Art Bimrose, was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. Following Lee’s death, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist.
This is a very precisely targeted September 1941 cartoon, and almost every element points to a specific domestic controversy, not a general pro-war sentiment.
By late August to early September 1941, the Roosevelt administration had moved from encouragement to coercion in mobilization. The Office of Production Management (OPM) was enforcing priority ratings, materials (steel, aluminum, copper, rubber) were being diverted sharply to defense, entire civilian industries were being declared “less essential,” and plants that had just recovered from the Depression were being shut down, converted, or starved of materials.
This was the first moment when rearmament visibly hurt ordinary businesses and workers. The man knocked down earlier by “The Late Depression” represents small manufacturers and marginal industries, the workers who had just regained footing.
The Nazi runner is still fleeing and only partially visible; the threat is real but not yet engaged directly. Roosevelt’s “shoot-on-sight” order (authorizing the Navy to attack German and Italian warships in designated Atlantic defense zones, marking an undeclared naval war) would not come until September 11, 1941, six days later. On Sept 5, the US is still policing, not fighting.
If we chase the Nazi threat blindly, we may trample the very economy we’re trying to defend.
