Musical Offerings, Spring 2018

Musical Offerings ⦁ 2018 ⦁ Volume 9 ⦁ Number 1 15 Musical Offerings 9, no. 1 (2018): 15–30 ISSN 2330-8206 (print); ISSN 2167-3799 (online) © 2018, Brittany Roberts, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ) Boosting the Bugle Boy: The Role of Music in American Patriotism during World War II Brittany Roberts Cedarville University esterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” 1 Such was the sobering introduction to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Declaration of War, announcing America’s entry intoWorld War II. While many European countries had struggled against one another since the thirties, America had remained neutral. She feared global involvement after her recent participation in the Great War, the war that was supposed to end all wars. From the time of World War II’s beginning across the sea, more than seventy percent of Americans supported neutrality. However, when the violence reached her own shores on December 7, 1941, her course of action was set. The devastation of the Hawaiian naval base jarred the sleeping giant awake (Figure 1). She dusted off the drums of war and her angry citizens united with a single resolve. They could stay out of the conflict no longer. The time had come to fight. Clancy Strock, contributing editor of Reminisce magazine, wrote the following in the prologue to a book called ‘ We Pulled Together…and Won!’ : In an instant, the entire nation dropped its differences. Republican or Democrat, Easterner or Westerner, man or woman, Jew, Catholic, or Protestant, rich or poor, a city mouse or a country mouse—we were in it together 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Day of Infamy” Speech, Dec. 8, 1941, National Archives Catalog 595426, http://catalog.archives.gov/id/595426 . “ Y