1941.10.08 “The Voices of the People”
by Silas Melvin Olson (1903-1974)
8.5 x 11 in., pencil on stationary
Coppola Collection
From Mary Jane LaVigne: Olson moved with his mother and sisters to Minneapolis as a child. His sister was my grandmother. He was a graduate of Minneapolis South High School. He began drawing as a young man and produced a number of left leaning cartoons during WWI and into the 1920s, mocking the Minneapolis police and prohibition era social behavior. A few were printed in the Minneapolis Tribune. I have another one, also pencil sketch on the reverse of some stationary, from the WWII era.
He made a living as a cake decorator, according to family lore. He had one child, Thomas “Tommy” Olson, who’s anodyne name has made him impossible to track.
Although unsigned, I have comparable example of Olson’s work. The art is the same, especially stylistic hair swath on Hitler, it is sports themed and also drawn on the back of some stationary.
The play on words and the inversion of who gets yelled at and why pits the World Series against the World Serious.
The commentary on American disorderly freedom versus totalitarian enforced unity, where the people are defined by the leader and there is no dissent at all. What looks messy and unpleasant (democracy) is actually freedom. What looks orderly (Nazi unity) is actually oppression.
Hitler’s declaration of “I am the people” directly reflects the ideology of Führerprinzip, where the leader embodies the will of the people. This framing appears most strongly in American critiques of Nazism before and just after U.S. entry into WWII.
The letter on the other side of the paper is dated May 1, 1941, but I’ve deemed it much more likely that the immediacy of the World Series is a likely motivator here.
