H-Net Reviews

The review you are about to read comes to you courtesy of H-Net -- its reviewers, review editors, and publishing staff. If you appreciate this service, please consider donating to H-Net so we can continue to provide this service free of charge.

Prefer another language? Translate this review into

Please note that this is an automated translation, and the quality will vary.

William Issel. For Both Cross and Flag: Catholic Action, Anti-Catholicism, and National Security Politics in World War II San Francisco. Urban Life, Landscape and Policy Series. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009. 216 pp. $40.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4399-0028-4.

Reviewed by Paul Kahan (Slippery Rock University)
Published on H-California (April, 2011)
Commissioned by Eileen V. Wallis (Cal Poly Pomona)

The Anti-Catholic Left in World War II San Francisco

William Issel’s For Both Cross and Flag is a welcome addition to the growing literature on American Catholicism during World War II. While many scholars have examined the tension between Catholics and Protestants before, Issel’s thoughtful and workmanlike examination of the experiences of Sylvester Andriano, a Catholic attorney in San Francisco, is a much-needed local study that raises many provocative questions. For Both Cross and Flag reminds readers that Asian Americans were not the only victims of government-sanctioned discrimination during World War II. Moreover, the book provides a chilling demonstration that communists and socialists were just as adept at manipulating the hysteria of the 1940s as America’s political right was a decade later. As such, I recommend the book for anyone seriously interested in American Catholicism or California during the twentieth century.

Issel’s goal, according to the introduction, is to “restore our appreciation of the impact of European political and religious rivalries in the political cultures of American cities in the first half of the twentieth century” (p. 2). For Issel, Andriano’s story reflects the degree to which American politics was shaped by European struggles. Andriano was an Italian immigrant and lawyer whose career in San Francisco city politics was cut short after the U.S. government deemed him a security risk and issued an “individual exclusion order,” forcing Andriano to move to a non-coastal state. According to Issel, after Italy’s entry into World War II, San Francisco’s “anti-Catholic zealots” (mostly Masons, socialists, and communists) successfully manipulated anti-Italian hysteria. As Issel notes, “Italian American Catholics such as Andriano, who regarded themselves as nonpolitical, became vulnerable to charges that their attempts to foster ethnic pride in their Italian heritage constituted collaboration with the enemy” (p. 3). Interestingly, many of Andriano’s enemies shared his Italian heritage, which gives Issel a unique opportunity to explore the intra-Italian cultural, religious, and political struggles as they played out in an American setting.

My only critique of Issel’s book is its brevity; at only 172 pages of text, the book feels like a particularly appealing appetizer rather than a fully developed meal. In addition, Issel’s relentless localism, which is undoubtedly one of the book’s strengths, often leaves many unanswered questions. There are numerous fine studies of American Catholics and Catholicism during the war years, including George Q. Flynn’s American Catholics and the Roosevelt Presidency (1968) and David B. Woolner and Richard G. Kurial’s edited collection FDR, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in America, 1933-1945 (2003). I would have liked to see Issel deal more directly with these national studies which present a far rosier vision of Catholicism in America during the Depression and the war. These minor quibbles aside, For Both Cross and Flag is an excellent book that contributes a new and unique perspective to our understanding of the history of twentieth-century urban Catholicism.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-california.

Citation: Paul Kahan. Review of Issel, William, For Both Cross and Flag: Catholic Action, Anti-Catholicism, and National Security Politics in World War II San Francisco. H-California, H-Net Reviews. April, 2011.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32503

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.