California on the Breadlines: Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and the Making of a New Deal Narrative

1. From Belleau Wood to Berkeley

7 On June 24, 1919, at 4:30 p.m., the University of Wisconsin– Madison conducted a ceremony that set out to do double duty, both a formal tribute to “her Men of the Service and the Dedication of Lincoln Terrace.” Sunny skies gave way to a trace of precipitation , and it remained cloudy afterward, with a gentle wind blowing from the northwest. The university’s program began with the playing of “Semper Fidelis,” followed by assembly of the men of service, the bugle’s clear notes likely sustained solemnly by the breeze. A procession to “Stars and Stripes Forever” wound through the campus’s Column of Honor and halted at the Lincoln Monument, where the band played “On, Wisconsin.” The national anthem preceded an invocation by Bishop Samuel Fallows , class of 1859. Then the university president took the stage, leading the varsity toast and offering a welcome to alumni, soldiers , sailors, and marines. Wisconsin Governor Philipp extended an official welcome, and University Regent Colonel Gilbert Seaman ’s address, “Our Men in Action Overseas,” followed, after cha p t er 1 From Belleau Wood to Berkeley 8 / From Belleau Wood to Berkeley which George Haight, class of 1899, delivered a speech entitled “The Alumni Tribute to our Men of the Service.”1 Finally, the youngest man on the program, Captain Paul S. Taylor, class of 1917, stepped up to the podium. He had arrived home from Europe only two months before. Facing those gathered before him, he gave a short address,2 beginning with thanks on behalf of all servicemen for the “generous tributes” they had received and informing his listeners that he wished to speak not of what he and other men had done in the war, but of what they could do as citizens of the present and future. He declared that in the war, soldiers had come to know one another “as never before.” In such an idea, he transcended decades of regional strife that had in combat been significantly reduced, his words reinforcing the soldiers’ experience of solidarity in the eyes of other nations. “We have seen ourselves in foreign countries, among foreign peoples,” he stated, asserting that when servicemen became aware of how “others see us,” they found “their strengths and weaknesses, and learn[ed] our own.” Ultimately, he claimed, the soldiers came back with “a wider, clearer conception of world problems” and a greater awareness of their “responsibilities for their solution.”3 That solution, which would become a permanent ideology to which he dedicated his life, was collectivity, cooperation, and interdependence: “We have learned how dependent we are upon each other—the man at the front upon the army behind the lines, upon the camps in the States which trained and sent overseas the replacements and reinforcements which staved off defeat and brought final victory, upon the Navy which carried them over, and the dependence of the country upon all of us, and of all of us upon the country.” To emphasize his belief in the important message behind that interdependence, he expanded it from the From Belleau Wood to Berkeley / 9 soldiers to those at home, claiming that morale remained high only because “our fellow countrymen and women were determined to make our efforts victorious.” He widened this vision to the global scale, pointing out that “only when we completely acknowledged the interdependence of the Allies, one upon the other, and placed Marshall Foch in Supreme Command, did the tide of battle turn in our favor.” Such a lesson, he maintained, would take the country and the world forward, leading to a “new world order which is only beginning to be established.” In that new world, he urged that all must remember the crucial lesson of the war: “that man is dependent upon man, group upon group, and nation upon nation.” To conclude, Taylor urged his listeners to think of the returning soldier not as a hero but as something more important—“as a man, broadened in knowledge and viewpoint , deepened by experience, humanized by intimate association with his brother-man, with stronger convictions of right and justice—a man come back with a strong resolution to be a factor in the guidance of this nation, not for what he can get from it, but for what he can contribute to increasing its peace, honor, and well-being.” Taylor’s remarkable speech received a standing ovation from the crowd, and his...