1939.09.03 “Suspense”
by Lucius Curtis “Lute” Pease, Jr. (1869 -1963)
14 x 18 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.
“The fuse has been lit” marks a moment of irreversible escalation. In geopolitical terms, that’s a shift from threats or build-up to open warfare.
Germany’s prior moves, in Austria (Anschluss, March 1938) and Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland in Oct 1938, full invasion in March 1939), were aggressive but treated diplomatically in the West. But Poland (Sept 1, 1939) crossed the final line, leading Britain and France to declare war on Sept 3.
That’s the “fuse” moment, from brinkmanship to global conflict.
The focus on “humanity” and “progress” is intentionally universal, not national... everyone is at risk. This is characteristic of pre-interventionist US editorializing: highlighting global stakes without committing US identity to the outcome. Hitler has lit the fuse, and what’s at stake is not just a country, but the very idea of civilization.
