Illustration for Edna Ferber’s Essay, Cosmopolitan, October 1940.
In the old days, magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping were filled with articles about current events as well as fiction by some of the nation’s best authors. Taking a look at some of these articles reveals what was on people’s minds a long time ago. Emphasis was placed on cultivating character in pre-1950 popular women’s magazines aimed at housewives and single young working girls. The magazines include lots of serious content. And, in October 1940, weighty issues preoccupied most Americans.
That month was just weeks before Franklin D. Roosevelt would defeat Wendell Wilkie and become the only three-term president. And Americans agonized over whether to enter World War II. Germany had taken over France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. October 31st was the deadline for the Jews in Warsaw to move into the Warsaw Ghetto. It was also the day when the Battle of Britain ended between the RAF and the Luftwaffe with a British victory. In America, that September, all men between 21 and 45 had been required to register for the draft. Still, it was Halloween in the U.S.A. and children were free to celebrate with much more enthusiasm than those experiencing real horror in Europe. Their costumes were inspired by movies such as “Snow White” and “The Wizard of Oz.” Popular songs appropriate to the scary holiday included “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” and “The Ghost of Smokey Joe,” both released in 1939.
Against this background, Edna Ferber (1885-1968), the Pulitzer Prize- winning novelist, short story writer and playwright— who, even today, has multiple books on Goodreads—published an essay in Cosmopolitan called “Something to Believe In” (Oct 1940). That something was American freedom. It’s fun to imagine what this former newspaper reporter would say today (though her thoughts might not appear in Cosmopolitan. Not that long ago, I noticed the Cosmo covers were so racy, they were covered in a southern supermarket).
“The world is at sea on a raft in a hurricane,” Ferber wrote. And “the everyday behavior of everyday life doesn’t fit this new precarious situation. One thing we’re agreed on. Anybody’s opinion is as good as anybody’s opinion. We can all speak out.” In fact, she continues, Americans “are the only people in the world –In The World!–who can freely speak our minds and our hearts on the streets, at home, in public halls, over the radio, and in churches, theaters. It is a thing we’ve always taken for granted. Now, suddenly, it takes our breath away.” Her patriotism is evident as she hopes Americans will speak with one voice “except for a handful of weaklings, spies, traitors and paid henchman, the whole land is thinking one thought. ‘Give me a task to do. Let me help to keep this country a free vital land.'”
But Ferber was worried. Dictatorships were flexing their muscles claiming to be full of vitality, but they were “using brute force.” “True vitality builds. It doesn’t destroy. Vitality gives, it doesn’t take. Vitality feeds and make stronger that which it encounters. The one vital form of government in the world today is the American form of government because it’s aim is to build, not tear down.”
She expressed concern that citizens were not doing enough to preserve America’s vitality. Every American “has the right and the voting power to put at the head of this government, as a paid and functioning servant, the man [not man or woman, I note] to be known as President.” Yet not enough people vote. Not enough people care enough to make sure that the people that we place in office are “people of known integrity and ability.” And, she believed, there is far too much cynicism and disillusionment.
Edna Ferber feared for American freedom. “We’ve had it for so long and we’ve held it so lightly that now we take it for granted like air and water and sun.… Liberty is more perishable than life, more transitory and evasive than happiness. It has to be guarded, defended, fought for over and over again.” The United States is “in danger from subversive forces without and within the continent.” Too often, Ferber opines, “we have worshipped material success;” we need to be prepared for some sacrifice and self-denial.
“As surely as I believe that we were born in 1776 and that ours has been a magnificent and unsurpassed achievement in free government by a free people, just so I believe that we should be reborn in 1940. I believe that we shall know pain and sacrifice and self denial and even fear…Out of fear there often springs the flower of heroism.” We all need to “work for the common good, change from the lazy, sneering, contemptuous, soft and careless attitude that has enslaved us for a quarter of a century.” Finally, the author of such Broadway and film classics as Showboat and Giant warns us—then and now: “If we believe that what we have is desirable enough to keep we should keep it. If we’re licked before we start, we deserve to lose it.” The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor about 14 months after Edna Ferber wrote this article. And Americans were finally ready to speak with one voice.
More than 85 million eligible voters neglected to vote in the 2024 presidential election, That’s one reason why—in this era of great international stress and multiple flashpoints that could lead to wars more harrowing than the last world war, Ferber’s advice remains timeless. One of her quotable quotes is: “It’s terrible to realize you don’t learn how to live until you’re ready to die; and, then it’s too late.” But many of the people who did not vote in 2024 may not have realized what the consequences would be of this omission. As we contemplate the 250th anniversary of 1776, the fighting spirit Americans had to muster in 1941 is becoming more and more evident. We have something to believe in. Citizens are gearing up to exercise their power to vote and to push back in multiple ways against forces that sap our vitality. Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. His 217th. Let’s not forget what he stood for.