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<br /> <br />o <br />" :~) <br />,.,,~ <br />~ <br />....1' <br />~ <br /> <br />feet from the ground when it burst into <br />flames. Built by the Gennan Zeppelin <br />Transport Company witH a range oEB, 000 <br />miles, this giant dirigi_bl~ was the pride of <br />Hitler's Third Reich. Wllen its <br />hydrogen-filled cavity be'gan ro bum, <br />passengers and crew had [9 jump for safety. <br />The fires were so fierce chat the <br />commander and 36 crewmen and <br />passengers died. Along vlith them went <br />Germanyls expectations ~at zeppelins <br />would dominate future intercontinental air <br />travel. Instead, the Hind~nburg disaster <br />speeded the development df trans~ Atlantic <br />clippers developed by Pa~~ American and <br />Imperial Alrwa.ys. ~ <br />Germany remained iQ. the news, <br />however. Having reoccupied the <br />Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the <br />Versailles Treaty. Hitler 5900 recognized <br />the reluctance of the Allies to stand up to <br />his aggressive acts. When peneral <br />Francisco Franco began hi~ assault on the <br />Spanish government, both: German and <br />Italian forces joined the ac,rion. While <br />some American Catholics applauded their <br />efforts as a holy war against Communism, <br />others joined the Abraham! Lincoln <br />Brigade and went to Spain td, fight against <br />Franco in hopes of preservi~g republican' <br />government. ' <br />By and large, however) there was an <br />isolationist mood in the Un;ited States, <br />In an April Gallup Poll, i7l % said that <br />the United States should h~ve stayed out <br />of World War /. Neutrality Acts passed by <br />Congress forbade the exportation or sale of <br />arms to either side in the Sganish Civil <br />War, and another act made travel unlawful <br />on belligerent vessels. On October 5, <br />President Roosevelt tried to lead the <br />country out of this "Fortress ;A.merica" <br />thinking by urging an intem~tional <br />quarantine of aggressor nationS, but he was <br />ahead of the people. , <br />While Hitler made plan~ to enter <br />Austria and Czechoslovakia, Japanese <br />bombs were falling on China,! and <br />American oilmen and missioriaries <br />wondered if they would lose their <br />traditional privileges there. The Japanese <br />apologized after bombing the 0. S. <br />gunboat Panay in December, but most <br />thinking people knew that th~ "epidemic <br />of world lawlessness," to which Roosevelt <br />had referred in October, was steadily <br />eroding the nation's ability to remain <br />isolationist. 1 <br />While Stalin engaged himSelf in a <br />purge of enemies in Russia, anc;l the first <br />steps were taken toward Philip~ine <br />independence, the nation's att~ntion was <br />riveted on one of its own trouble ~pots: the <br />bloody struggles between manage.ment and <br />labor in the automobile industrY. <br />General Motors employed ~earIy <br />250,000 workers and produced t)lore than <br />a third of all the cars and truck~ made in <br /> <br /> <br />the world. Although the company <br />recognized its employees' right to organize, <br />it also expected that the Supreme Court <br />would soon strike down the Wagner Act <br />legalizing collective bargaining, But the <br />Court did not do this, Workers were <br />impatient and began making demands on <br />OM. When the company responded with <br />silence and the hiring of detectives to get <br />the goods on trouble makers, OM <br />employees replied with a sit~down strike, <br />thus beginning one of the most gigantic <br />industrial conflicts in American history. <br /> <br /> <br />Occupying the Fisher Body Plant, No. <br />2 at Flint, Michigan, strikers hoped to force <br />the company to negotiate by effectively <br />shutting down production and keeping out <br />strike breakers. Company officials turned <br />off the heat (January and February) and <br />turned away food. The National Guard was <br />called in. After 44 days, management <br />agreed to recognize the United Auto <br />Workers as the only bargaining agency for <br />GM's 17 plants, <br />Victory had. been achieved by the <br />unions, and the sit~downstrike became so <br />popular that by Mayan estimated 250, 000 <br />workers were on strike in other industries. <br />Steel and coal also won union recognition, <br />and by the end of the decade, John L. Lewis <br />had become a champIon to many laborers <br />who mentioned his name frequently as a <br />candidate for President. <br />On the lighter side, Americans found <br />ways of forgetting the difficult foreign and <br />domestic issues by taking in the national <br />past time: baseball, <br />On July 7 at a packed Griffith Stadium <br />in Washington, the all~stars of the <br />American League defeated their <br />counterparts in the National League 8~3 <br />with Lefty Gomez beating Dizzy Dean and <br />Lou Gehrig hitting the only home run. <br />Stellar performances were contributed by <br />Gabby Hartnert, Billy Herman, Lee <br />Grisson, Ernie Lombardi, Carl Hubbell, <br />Gus Mancuso, MelOtt, Bucky Walters and <br />Pepper Martin of the National League; Joe <br />Cronin, Jimmy Foxx, Lefty Grove, Luke <br />Sewell, Hank Greenberg, Bill Dickey, Joe <br />DiMaggio and Buddy Myer of the <br />American League. <br />At Cooperstown, N. Y., Cy Young <br />and T ris Speaker were elected to the hall <br />of Fame which had been founded the <br />previous year, In other sports, Joe Louis <br /> <br />became the titular heavyweight champion. <br />Bobby Jones, Henry Cotton, and Byron <br />Nelson were the big names in golf, <br />although Bobby Locke, Sam Snead, Ben <br />Hogan, and Jimmy Demaret were to be <br />contended with in any tournament. <br />In tennis it was the year of Don Budge <br />who swept Wimbledon and Forest Hills <br />and sailed through all Davis Cup <br />competition. Ironically, the showdown <br />match for the United States was with <br />Germany (as it was 50 years later)! and <br />although the German team felt pressure <br />from Hitler to show its superiority, Budge <br />ruled the day and gave the United States <br />a victory in one of the most celebrated <br />matches in tennis history. The U.S. went <br />on to defeat the British and win the Davis <br />Cup trophy for the first time since 1926. <br />On the female side, Alice Marble <br />developed a tennis game that gave her a <br />Number 1 ranking in the world for three <br />years, No woman in the game had a <br />stronger serve, which she delivered with <br />the difficult American twist and then <br />followed to the net for a put~away with <br />strong volleys; <br />If sports were unappealing, one could <br />always lose oneself in a good book, <br />Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the <br />Windll was the top fiction seller of 1937 <br />followed closely by Ken Roberts' <br />{'Northwest Passage," A. J. Ccot;lin's "The <br />Citadel," Walter Edmonds' "Drums Along <br />the Mohawk," John Dos Passos' trilogy <br />published in one volume as U. S. A., and <br />John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." In <br />the nonfiction field, Dale Carnegie made <br />his big splash with '<How to Win Friends <br />and Influence-People" and Clarence pay <br />tried to capitalize on his earlier success by <br />publishing 'iLife With Mother." James 'T. <br />Farrell. Erskine Caldwell. John Sreinbeck, <br />and William Faulkner were writing about <br />the Depression, but their big hits would <br />not appear for a few years. <br />The Saturday Evening Post, Literary <br />Digest, CoUiers, McCal~, Cosmopolitan, <br />Good HousekeePing, Saturday Review, and <br />New Republic were all available to those <br />who preferred their reading in smalIer <br />segments. Life had made its debut one year <br />earlier. <br />In the meantime, one could always <br />get lost reading the funny papers with Flash <br />Gordon, Little Orphan Annie and Dick <br />Tracy defending American capitalism and <br />extolling the virtue of virtue. <br />Shirley Temple was the top box office <br />attraction in Hollywood where the movies <br />continued to be the opiate of the masses. <br />The silver screen lit up with Henry Fonda, <br />Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr" <br />Humphrey Bogart, Jean Harlow, Mae <br />West, and the incomparable Fred Astaire <br />and Ginger Rogers. Perhaps the biggest <br />splash of 1937 was Walt Disney's "Snow <br />White and the Seven Dwarfs," which took <br /> <br /> <br />6 <br /> <br />I <br />