18. Yertle the Turtle and a return to Adolf Hitler
In 1958, Adolf Hitler was long dead (except to conspiracy theorists) and the Cold War with its antagonism between the Soviets and Americans well underway when Dr. Seuss published a book of three separate stories under the title Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. In the main story of the title, Yertle is the king of his pond who orders other turtles of the pond to stack themselves one upon the other, for his use as a throne since the rock he was accustomed to using was not tall enough for his taste. With each additional turtle added to the stack the poor turtle on the bottom feels greater pressure. Yertle continued to expand his kingdom and add turtles to the pile until finally the turtle on the bottom yielded to the pressure and burped, toppling the stack and Yertle into the mud (the word burp than being considered impolite).
Dr. Seuss later explained that Yertle represented Adolf Hitler, and that he had used the images of stacked turtles in a political cartoon when still working for PM early in the war years. The story of Yertle was the story of the futility of autocratic rule and that the enormous weight it placed upon those under it would eventually cause it to collapse. Dr. Seuss frequently protested that he never began a story with the intention of presenting a pre-defined moral to the audience, but that the story would develop a moral of its own as it was told, and that children in particular were more likely to see morals in his work, since, “kids can see a moral coming a mile off”. By the beginning of the 21st century, Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, despite its message and the originally perceived crude use of the word burp, had reached 125 on the all-time list of children’s books sold in the United States.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“The Beginnings of Dr. Seuss”. Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. April, 1976
“PM: A New Deal in Journalism 1940-1948”. Paul Milkman. 1997
“Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel”. Judith Morgan and Neil Morgan. 1996
“The Man Who Was Dr. Seuss”. Thomas Fensch. 2010
“The Political Dr. Seuss”. Springfield Library and Museums Association. March, 2000
“PM: New York’s Highbrow Tabloid”. Roger Starr, City Journal. Summer 1993
“Interview with filmmaker Ron Lamothe about The Political Dr. Seuss”. Hayley Wood, Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.
“Dr. Seuss, the cat in the Army hat”. Brian Schlumbohm, Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Officer. March 10, 2011. Online
“Our Job in Japan: Making Sense of the American Creed”. Jeffrey M. Hornstein. Pdf, online
“Winning the war, one frame at a time”. Patricia Ward Biedeman, The Los Angeles Times. January 26, 2011
“Ignorant Armies: Private Snafu Goes to War”. Mark David Kaufman, Public Domain Review. Online
“Private Snafu Shorts”. Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies. Online
“Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Sort Films 1939-1945”. Michael S. Shull and David E. Wilt. 2004
“Dr. Seuss’s political cartoons re-emerge amid criticism of Donald Trump”. Josh Hafner, USA Today. February 2, 2017
“Technical Fairy First Class? Is This Any Way to Run an Army?” Michael Birdwell, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television. June, 2005
“Hollywood went to war in 1941 – and it wasn’t easy”. Larry Margasak, Smithsonian.com. May 3, 2016
“Dr. Seuss Goes to War”. Richard H. Minear. 1999
“When Dr. Seuss took on Adolf Hitler”. Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, The Atlantic. January 15, 2013