On December 7th, the nation observed Pearl Harbor day. It’s an easy observance to miss in the mix of Christmas shopping and work days. As I was preparing to research Christmases past as covered by the Mountaineer, I found myself thinking about how close the surprise attack lands to the Christmas season. This prompted a thorough dive into the Mountaineer archives from 1941. The first issue of the paper to come out after the attack was on December 11th, giving local editors three to four days to react to the news. At the time, newspaper creation and printing was a slower process, which resulted in a somewhat odd acknowledgement of the “day that will live in infamy.”
The front page of the paper that week features a single article about the event. “Japan Makes The War Worldwide” is the headline over a brief (perhaps 250 word article) outlining recent events. The first paragraph announced the attack that had happened the previous Sunday. The second paragraph addresses the nearly unanimous congressional declaration of war, which the paper refers to as a “formality.” The paper notes that Jeanette Rankin was the lone dissenting vote. Rankin was the first, and only, woman elected to congress from Montana. The article concludes with a mention of the Axis powers in Europe declaring war on the United States, which the editor heard on the radio. Reading the paper from that week is a little jarring. The story about the United States entering World War II holds a very small spot in the total coverage. I suspect this had to do with the scarcity of news about what was happening coupled with the printing process being so slow. I sort of wonder if they had to reset the front page to include the story. It’s easy to imagine frenzied newspaper staff working long hours to reformat the entire paper to include that one short piece. The rest of the edition has some war related stories, including the title of a story on the second page “Rome Discloses Plot to Kill Mussolini As Part of Worldwide Revolt Plans.” That particular headline was next to a neat fiction piece, “A Christmas Eve Story.” Most of the rest of the edition is devoted to Christmas stories, including: instructions for proper gift wrapping, the true history of Saint Nicholas, and a history of American Christmas observations.
Two weeks later, the Mountaineer released a Christmas Day edition, complete with “Merry Christmas” over the top of “The Mountaineer” at the top of page one. In the top left column, a space typically reserved for the most important story of the week, Don Mills wrote a long article reflecting on Christmas in light of the recent outbreak of war. “In this time of human travail when all the world seems so filled with hate, thoughts of peace and an acknowledgement of and belief in the Prince of Peace is balm to a wounded world. There is a consolation in the thought that civilized men’s hate is not directed at any class or race of people as such, but is directed at the ideologies of menthe would “rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.” The rest of the paper deals heavily with defense communications, fear of air raids on the Pacific coast, war news, the American Government’s decision to launch a censorship bureau for the purpose of keeping damaging information out of the press, the story of “Mikado, Michigan” changing it’s name so as not to reflect any affection for Japan, and other war related news. There are also Christmas related stories and ads, but the tone is very different from that of the issue 2 weeks previous.
One thing that I love about the Mountaineer jumped out at me yet again in these archived editions. The December 25th, 1941 edition is filled with war news that was certainly poured over by a scared and shocked population hungry for any information on the war that was coming. Still, the most important spot in the paper was devoted to an essay about the birth of Jesus. That article is actually longer than the war announcement article from the 11th. We live in a time when news outlets are treated with a great deal of cynicism. These issues of our paper give us a glimpse of heartfelt love and care for the town. It is a legacy I hope and pray we can live up to as the Mountaineer continues its run long into the future.
