1942.09.09 “Difficult Moment”
by Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
14.9 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 cartoon is anchored to a two-day-old presidential threat, delivered publicly, when inflation became framed as a wartime enemy, when congressional delay became intolerable, and when executive power was poised to step into the void.
A snapshot of a constitutional pressure point, frozen at the exact second before Roosevelt pulls the trigger himself. The metaphor works because readers knew the headline deadlock.
By late summer 1942, the US economy was overheating dangerously: war production was surging, wages were rising unevenly, agricultural prices were climbing fast, and shortages were beginning to appear. Roosevelt had been warning Congress all summer that inflation, not the Axis, could become the war’s internal destroyer.
On September 7, 1942, just two days before this cartoon, FDR sent Congress a blunt message demanding comprehensive anti-inflation legislation, including wage stabilization, farm price controls, and broader price ceilings. And he added the key threat: if Congress failed to act promptly, he would use executive authority to impose controls himself.
Congress was resisting. Labor unions opposed wage freezes. Farm blocs opposed price ceilings. And midterm elections were looming (November 1942).
Within weeks, congress passed the Stabilization Act of 1942 (October 2), which gave Roosevelt sweeping authority over wages and prices.
