What the People Said

It was Sunday midday, clear and sunny. Many a citizen was idly listening to the radio when the flash came that the Japanese had attacked Hawaii. In Topeka they were listening to The Spirit of '41 and napping on their sofas after dinner. In San Francisco, where it was not quite noon, they were listening to the news, Philharmonic and Strings in Swingtime. In Portland, Maine, where it was cold but still sunny, they were lining up for the movies.

For the first time in its history, the U.S. at war was attacked first. Out on the Pacific and in the islands the great drama of U.S. history was coming to a climax. Over the U.S. and its history there was a great unanswered question: What would the people, the 132,000,000, say in the face of the mightiest event of their time?

What they said--tens of thousands of them--was: "Why, the yellow bastards!"

Hundreds of thousands of others said the same thing in different ways, with varying degrees of expression. In Norfolk, Va., the first man at the recruiting station said, "I want to beat them Japs with my own bare hands." At the docks in San Diego, as the afternoon wore on, a crowd slowly grew. There were a few people, then more, then a throng, looking intently west across the harbor, beyond Point Loma, out to the Pacific where the enemy was. There was no visible excitement, no hysteria, and no release in words for the emotions behind the grim, determined faces.

In Dallas, 2,500 people sat in the Majestic Theater at 1:57 when Sergeant York ended and the news of the Japanese declaration of war was announced. There was a pause, a pinpoint of silence, a prolonged sigh, then thundering applause. A steelworker said: "We'll stamp their front teeth in."

In every part of the U.S. the terse, inadequate words gave outward and visible signs of the unfinished emotions within. Sometimes they just said, "Well, it's here." Sometimes they had nothing at all to say: Louisiana State University students massed, marched to the President, who came out in his dressing gown with no message except "study hard." Sometimes they laughed at something someone else had said, like the remark of the Chinese Vice Consul of New Orleans, who announced: "As far as Japan is concerned, their goose is overheated."

The statesmen, the spokesmen, the politicians, the leaders, could speak for unity. They did so. Herbert Hoover: "American soil has been treacherously attacked by Japan. We must fight with everything we have."

Alfred Landon (to President Roosevelt): "Please command me in any way I can be of service."

John Lewis: "When the nation is attacked every American must rally to its support. . . . All other considerations become insignificant."

Charles Lindbergh: "We have been stepping closer to war for many months. Now it has come and we must meet it as united Americans regardless of our attitude in the past toward the policy our Government has followed. Whether or not that policy has been wise, our country has been attacked by force of arms, and by force of arms we must retaliate. Our own defenses and our own military position have already been neglected too long. We must now turn every effort to building the greatest and most efficient Army, Navy and air force in the world. When American soldiers go to war, it must be with the best equipment that modern skill can design and that modern industry can build."

It was evening. Over the U.S. the soldiers and sailors on leave assembled at the stations. There would be a few men with their wives or their girls standing a little apart. Sometimes there would be a good-natured drunk trying to sing. The women would cry or, more often, walk away stiffly and silently. Slowly, the enormity of what had happened ended the first, quick, cocksure response.

Next morning recruiting stations, open now 24 hours a day, seven days a week, were jammed too. New York had twice as many naval volunteers as its 1917 record.

Thus the U.S. met the first days of war. It met them with incredulity and outrage, with a quick, harsh, nationwide outburst that swelled like the catalogue of some profane Whitman. It met them with a deepening sense of gravity and a slow, mounting anger. But there were still no words to express emotions pent up in silent people listening to radios, reading papers, taking trains. But the U.S. knew that its first words were not enough.

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