Word: scareheads
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Isolationism, in its old, simple, scarehead sense, was somewhere near being a thing of the past. But unconscious isolationism, far more insidious, was an all-powerful and increasing phenomenon of the present and future. If civilization, or time itself in the provincial, planetary sense, was to last more than another few decades, the responsibility rested chiefly on the American people. But for wholly understandable, nonetheless tragic reasons, the American people were not very responsible toward any major responsibility. If this troubled season was any indication, they would be too busy trying to buy that wholly un-purchasable dream...
...Paramount) is the best melodrama since The Maltese Falcon (TIME, Oct. 20, 1941), also based on a Dashiell Hammett shocker. It also clears up any lingering doubts about the status of 29-year-old Alan Ladd. He is the livest thing to turn up in this sort of scarehead since James Cagney in The Public Enemy...
Since the war's beginning no week has passed without scarehead rumors and wishful guesses as to the state of the world's oil supply. "Experts" proved alternately that Germany's oil reserves could not support a month of Blitzkrieg, that her synthetic production could keep her going indefinitely...
Under the scarehead Has 'Polio' Hit the Yankees?, Editor Powers demanded: "Has the mysterious 'polio' germ which felled Lou Gehrig also struck his former teammates, turning a once great team into a floundering non-contender? According to overwhelming opinion of the medical profession, poliomyelitis, similar to infantile paralysis, is communicable. The Yanks were exposed to it at its most acute stage. They played ball with the afflicted Gehrig, dressed and undressed in the locker room with him, traveled, played cards and ate with him. Isn't it possible some of them also became infected...
These figures looked better than did some of the scarehead arithmetic which Congress batted around last week (most popular scandal: that the Army had only four anti-aircraft guns). How appallingly short of effective preparedness they fell, Franklin Roosevelt soon showed...