Where in any of these many articles is the President of the United States mentioned, either directly or indirectly? No quotes, no reports on what the US government has said or done.
Must we not conclude that neither the Times nor its readers saw the President as relevant to these issues? Could we even imagine such attitudes today? Curious.
From the editorial:
It is understandable that many of us in the United States, remembering that the plan for a Czcho-Slovak state was put together on American soil, and that the independence of such a state was made one of our own objectives during the World War, should feel that American aloofness from the work of post-war reconstruction was one of the early influences in the long series of events which has now ended in this final act of degradation.
This sounds like implied criticism of Congress for not joining the League of Nations. But you are right. This is the only reference I can find in this post to U.S. foreign policy. Today Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama would be all over the news holding press conferences and explaining how this incident clearly demonstrates the need for the federal government to take over health care in America.
In fairness I should point out that I only posted the lead article. It is possible that at least one of the sidebar articles was written by a Washington correspondent and included U.S. government reaction to developments in Europe. Perhaps it was just understood that at this point it didn't matter what FDR or the State Department thought because there wasn't a hell of a lot the U.S. government can do to influence events over there.
Good observation. I can only surmise that back in 1939, the United States was not seen as the "world superpower" that it is today. To most of Europe at that time, the United States might as well have been Australia - some remote outpost on the other side of the world. In other words, what the United States government thought of European affairs was irrelevant.
Even though war was about to break out all over Europe back in 1939, the United States was still two full years away from being directly involved in the war.
That said, this series of posts by Homer has been fascinating. I look forward to reading these narratives over the next six years as the United States is slowly dragged into the war and is thus transformed from a backwater nation (emerging from the Great Depression) into the world's premier superpower.
Also, March 15, 1939 is probably the pivotal event that would lead to Nazi Germany's eventual downfall. With the shameless rape of Czechoslovakia, Hitler overreached, and while it wasn't evident at the time, events were irrevocably set in motion that would lead to his utter defeat six years later.