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All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.

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And welcome to Veterans Radio.

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I am Jim Fossone with veteransradio.net.

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We are recording today from the Legal Help for Veterans Studio in Northville, Michigan.

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Legal Help for Veterans is a Veterans Disability Law Firm.

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You can reach us at 800-693-4800.

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We want to welcome to Veterans Radio Jeffrey S. Copeland, a prolific author and a professor

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at the University of Northern Iowa.

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Jeff, welcome back to Veterans Radio.

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Hey, Jim, thank you for having me back.

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It's always an honor.

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Well, it's always great to talk to somebody who loves storytelling as you do, and you've

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really sort of had a career here.

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You've authored or edited over 30 books, Plague and Paradise, we're going to talk about, The

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Black Death in Los Angeles in 1924.

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We've previously talked a little bit about Inman's War, a soldier's story of life in

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a colored battalion of World War II.

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We've talked before about Lieutenant LC Otz's top secret mission, the pioneer World War

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II flight nurse behind Medevac.

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So we're glad to have you on today, and it's kind of a weird time.

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We're sitting here talking remotely with our social distance, our appropriate social distance.

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Yes, we are.

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Because everybody in the country is worried about COVID-19 or the coronavirus or Wuhan

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virus, depending on what you'd like to call it, here in 2020.

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And I think it's making the entire country think about exposures and pandemics.

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And sometimes we forget these things have happened before.

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Now, COVID-19 is causing the military to adjust a number of its operating premises.

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And I think this is things that get learned over time.

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They look back and say, well, what we do during the last big outbreak, and let's not do that

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again, things like not moving guys around from base to base, thereby spreading a particular

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virus or flu.

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Not having folks go from one country to another country on typical rotations or training assignments

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again to try to stop the spread.

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And we certainly see that here in Italy, which is a central point of COVID-19 at the moment,

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would normally have a lot of troops moving in and out of it.

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And the US military, these kind of clamped all that down.

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And we're going to tell a couple of stories today.

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We're going to tell a couple of stories today as to why some of the practices that the military

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is using today with COVID-19 in 2020, where they learned some of these earlier lessons.

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And it's too early in this particular outbreak, Jeff, to know what the numbers will be and

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how many deaths there might be.

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But one of the ones that folks are comparing this to hope that it should never get to this

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level is during World War I, what became known, probably improperly, but became known

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as the Spanish flu in 1918.

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Can you tell us a little bit about that?

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Yes.

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Really, it's one of the things that we have to learn from the past on all of this.

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And actually, travel restrictions and quarantine through the years have really been the ways

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to go.

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Going back to the Middle Ages with the Black Death, the Spanish flu during World War I,

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the Black Death, again in California in 1924.

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But let's focus just for a little bit here on the Spanish flu outbreak.

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You know, recently here, many experts have decided that the Spanish flu actually started

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in China in 1917, spread to Europe, and then made its way over here to the United States

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after that.

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It ran its course in about two years, but in that amount of time, roughly 30 million

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people worldwide died of it.

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In some estimates, say 50 million, some say 100 million, that may be a little bit high.

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But basically, we have a very strong lesson.

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We can learn about what happened in the United States at that time.

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The first true known case of this happened around Fort Riley, Kansas, Camp Funston.

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And once one person was infected with this, it literally did spread just like wildfire.

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You know, the Spanish flu, we know as basically H1N1 virus, which is similar to what the bird

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flew is today.

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But at that time, there were no major drugs or vaccines that could be used.

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So basically what they eventually tried to do is they tried to close schools, sounds

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familiar, my university is closed down now.

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Theaters, I just read today, the same thing is happening nationally.

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Businesses were closed up, same thing happening right now, and a major quarantine.

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But the problem with this was we were in a shooting war at that time.

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So we were still sending troops overseas.

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There was some talk at the time of maybe halting the progression of troops.

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But at the time, it was thought that if we stalled too much on this, it would allow the

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Germans to get themselves reorganized and go on another major offensive.

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So troops kept getting sent over.

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Now remember, they had to be sent over by troopship, which gave plenty of time for plenty of folks

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aboard ship to get sick if anybody had caught it in the United States and taken it with

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them.

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So a lot of these poor soldiers in the trenches during World War I became so weak, they couldn't

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fight.

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So they were taken back to hospitals where they proceeded to infect everybody else.

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Well, they didn't, the word today is social distancing, and anybody who's been on a troopship

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or has been on a Navy ship of any sort just knows how close the quarters are.

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And we were taking maybe unbeknownst to the military leadership, we're taking guys from

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various camps, army camps all around the United States, putting them on these troopships where

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they're cheek to jaw.

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And by the time they get to Europe, they've just, you know, infected the whole ship, haven't

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they?

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Oh, absolutely.

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And the problem during World War I, as I said, is we really didn't have any kind of drugs

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to deal with this.

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So pretty much it was try to keep people as comfortable as possible, try to get their

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fevers down if possible.

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But the reality was, the mortality rate was incredible once a person was infected.

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You know, my grandfather lived to a ripe old age of 94 years old.

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He was born in 1911.

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He was a little kid when the Spanish flu outbreak came out.

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He lived in the Ozarks, and he could remember and always told us stories of whole train

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cars of bodies coming through the town where he lived.

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You know, people who had died from the Spanish flu.

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And the same thing happened all over the world at that time.

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And that was actually called the Spanish flu sort of erroneously.

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Spain was a neutral country at that time.

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The king of Spain caught it.

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So the media started talking about him and his illness and other people who were catching

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it.

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So people wrongly thought that it was a Spanish disease, but the reality was the other countries

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did pretty much a media blackout and didn't allow word to get out so morale wouldn't get

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low.

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So the one thing today with the internet and instant news around every corner, I don't

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think we're going to have the wool pulled over our eyes too much.

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But it's something we have to be concerned about.

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There was an outbreak of the black death in San Francisco from 1900 to 1904.

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And then there was the outbreak in 1924 in Los Angeles of the black death.

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That was the last major outbreak in the United States.

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And in both instances, there was a total media blackout by design.

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And I'm telling you what, in San Francisco, it cost the mayor of San Francisco his job,

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eventually the governor his job.

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And the US Surgeon General found out that people were keeping their mouth shut about

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this.

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And when the black plague took place in Los Angeles and they did the same thing, finally

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somebody stepped in and said, now wait a minute here, we can't have this happen.

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People have to know what's going on.

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So do you know that because of the outbreak in 1924 of the black plague, that's why the

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was founded.

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So that there would be an oversight to keep local people from hiding what was going on

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to help stem the spread.

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Well, and it's really interesting.

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It's really yet is interesting.

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And it's important to understand the history because it ripples through time as we deal

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with COVID-19 and the information or the lack of information and everybody giving different

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types of advice.

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You kind of contract this back to the disinformation that this is the Spanish flu in 1919 or 1918.

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And in that instance, it not only was jumping around between American soldiers and the rest

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of the country, they get over to Europe and now everybody in Europe's got it as well,

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the French, the Germans.

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Something like looking at some of the research here, 11 percent of the 1.2 million soldiers

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in the United States in 1918 were hospitalized with the Spanish flu.

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The death totals in World War I, combat deaths were roughly 53,000.

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The number that died as a result of the flu in pneumonia was 45,000.

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I know.

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Can you imagine?

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I mean, this is, and again, there wasn't the transmission of information, right?

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The way it is today to flatten the curve as all of everybody on cable news is telling

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us to do with our social distancing and closing theaters and closing universities and in many

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places closing K through 12.

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So it's a good time to look back at some of these historical events and carry them forward

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and see are there some lessons we should learn.

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And you bring up the plague, the Black Death that occurred out in California kind of in

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two runs.

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You've written in particular about the 1924 experience out there.

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First off, tell us what a little bit of what the Black Death is and then tell us that story.

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Oh, sure.

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I'd be glad to.

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The book is called Plague in Paradise, the Black Death in Los Angeles in 1924.

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And what happened was a ship came from China to the port of Los Angeles and rats got off

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of the ship with fleas carrying the plague.

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So the rats got off, the fleas got off with them, and the plague manifested itself first

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in the Mexican community in Los Angeles, the Macy Street District.

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So basically it started with one family, the Lujan family, and then it started spreading

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like wildfire from that.

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But here's the thing.

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All right, the first doctors called in, looked at the patients and they said, oh, looks like

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the Spanish flu has come back.

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And that was how it was initially misdiagnosed.

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But the plague, there are three forms, bubonic plague that people usually get first.

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And that's where they get these large boobos.

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They're like large lumps full of pus and blood.

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And it starts out bubonic, high fever, aches, pains, incredible headache, dehydration, that

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kind of a thing.

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Then if they live, it goes to the mnemonic stage, which goes to the lungs, it can be

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spread through droplets, airborne transmission that way.

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And if they live through that, it goes septicemic, which means it goes to the bloodstream.

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Well, it took a very skilled doctor at Los Angeles County General Hospital, Dr. Matthew

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Thompson, who went into the Mexican community.

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He had remembered studying the symptoms in medical school and said, now, wait a minute

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here, I think we've got something else going on.

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So he brought in a couple of doctors who had worked during the outbreak in San Francisco

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about 20 years before.

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And they said, yeah, you've got the black death here.

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So what the city officials decided to do was both on one side of the ledger, what they

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thought was really positive, but on the other side of the ledger, not so much.

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Because in a nutshell, here's what happened.

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They were shouting Los Angeles at that time as the paradise of the West.

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They wanted everybody to come out and help with all the new industry out there, the brand

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new East Port of Los Angeles and everything else.

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And the last thing they wanted was to be known as Plague City.

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So the city officials immediately put a total and complete news blackout.

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They even stopped people at train stations coming in, took away their newspapers and

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magazines because words started getting out to other cities about the plague.

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So a total news blackout.

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Second thing they did is they managed to get as many World War I veterans as they could

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from the area, deputized them, gave them guns, posted them all around the Macy Street area

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where the black plague was building and said, now look, use any and all means.

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We can't have these individuals get out of there because it's going to spread like wildfire.

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So the veterans of World War I were some of the unsung heroes of this.

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Now they didn't ever have to shoot anybody, but they were there on guard to talk to people

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and help explain, look, we've got to stop this and the best way to stop all of us to

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work together, you need to stay in here and medical care was brought in.

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But it was a very severe quarantine.

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Everything was shut down in that part of Los Angeles and that's the only way they were

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able to contain this.

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Well, and those veterans had seen what happened with the Spanish flu.

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Exactly.

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When they were serving, if you didn't quarantine the sick folks and so I'm sure there was a

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lot of empathy for the situation that they were facing.

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Exactly, you hit it right on the head there.

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They wanted to help out as much as they possibly could.

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And there were actually stories of the veterans sneaking in food and other supplies to the

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individuals in that district.

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Incredible acts of kindness, which does not surprise me in the least.

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Eventually they had to do quote unquote a cleansing of the area in order to get rid

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of the rats.

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They had to call in exterminators.

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That didn't work incredibly well.

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So they had to literally burn down most of the area in order to get rid of it.

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Get the people out after things started, the tide started turning and then burn it.

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At that time that was the best they had because for medicines at that time, you'll love this

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to treat the black death in 1924.

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They gave aspirin, which didn't do a whole heck of a lot, but then they gave them IVs

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of macuracrone.

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Now do you remember when you were a kid, if you got a bump on your knee, your mom would

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come out with a macuracrone and put a little on?

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Well, it has mercury in it.

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And it stings like heck.

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Yeah.

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But what it did do is they figured, well, it's got mercury in it.

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It's going to help cleanse the blood.

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But it killed just as many people as it actually helped.

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There was a plague serum being developed back out east at that time, but unfortunately

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it wasn't developed in time to save a lot of the individuals.

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But today, of course, we're a lot better with the science involved with this.

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So hopefully with what's going on right now, we'll see a lot of progress here pretty quick.

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And it's interesting because we've talked about what's happening here in 2020, but

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we've gone back to 1918 and looked at things now in 1924 and looked at things.

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As you looked at that time frame, do you see the advances that we would all hope happen

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between 1918 and 1924 by health departments and laboratories and that sort of thing?

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Well considering back then, especially with the outbreak in Los Angeles, it was left

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to local control only.

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There wasn't a CDC or a World Health Organization at that time.

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Yeah, we progressed a great deal.

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Now the problem is people travel a lot easier today than they ever had before.

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I mean, think about it.

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One person on an airplane somewhere has it, manages to transmit it to others aboard the

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airline or when they get to their destination, they can spread it as well.

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Back then we basically had trains as the major form of transmission and not a lot of people

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used the train system back then.

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Cars were still relatively young in the 20s.

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Great distances usually weren't done with that.

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But the mobility of society today is a game changer.

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Trying to make sure that we practice some kind of social distancing and quarantine at

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the same time today is something that we know has to take place.

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Hey, during the Middle Ages, half the population of the Europe died of this, the Black Plague.

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All right, then the Spanish flu outbreak, depending on which expert you believe, 30

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million to 100 million.

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And then the Black Plague is still around.

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There's still pockets of it all over the world.

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Madagascar last year had another major outbreak.

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So the outbreaks are nothing new.

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How we handle them has changed dramatically.

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But there's still so much we need to do in terms of informing people what to do.

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I heard one official last night say that she was very upset because the younger people

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are acting like nothing is happening right now.

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They're still out partying in groups and they feel asymptomatic.

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They feel fine.

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Well, the case may be everybody, regardless of age, is going to have to pull together

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with this because the younger people can transmit it.

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They may not get very sick with it, but they can transmit it to others who are just going

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to die.

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Yeah, and clearly that was the younger group in World War I under the Spanish flu.

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Those would have been young soldiers.

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You know, the healthiest of the healthiest who contracted this and lost their lives at

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such a high percentage.

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We were talking to Professor Jeff Copeland, who's a prolific author.

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In an earlier discussion, Jeff, you told me it takes about a year of research and six

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months to write many of these books.

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How did you get interested on this topic of the Black Death in Los Angeles in 1924?

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Well, you know, the topics for my books sort of seemed to fall out of the sky to me.

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I was actually in an airport killing time after I had done a book event for the book

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before that.

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And I was leafing through a magazine and I was reading an article and it made a reference

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to the outbreak in Los Angeles in 1924.

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And I thought, wait a minute here, I've never heard of this before.

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So I started doing a little research when I got home.

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And the more I dug, the more I saw, wait a minute here, I smell a rat.

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Literally, literally.

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All right.

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So what I found out was they tried to cover it up as best they could at the time.

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And again, all you have to do is tell me you can't get the information and I'm not going

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to take, no, I'm going to dig.

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So the more I dug about this, I had to ferret out records everywhere.

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And to be honest with you, a lot of people did not want me to get the records because

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even though that's almost 100 years ago, people are still not really proud about a lot of

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the things that happened at that time.

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I mean, there were some wonderful people, the veterans who helped out.

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There were some business people at that time that really just said, hey, you know what?

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It's just a small population in the Macy Street area.

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Let's let them die and that'll take care of this.

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Seriously.

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So it wasn't a story that was told a lot because this is why the Centers for Disease

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Control was formed to take away local control where people can decide who will live and

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who will die.

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So once I got involved in the research with this and started digging a little deeper,

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it was tough.

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Jim, I'll be honest.

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It was tough ferreting out this information that I went everywhere.

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I went out to Los Angeles.

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I walked off the area.

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I went to the archives and record centers.

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And believe it or not, the group that had the best information for me was the Catholic

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Church, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, because one of the heroes of that who helped stop

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the plague was Father Emmanuel Bruyah, who was the priest at La Placita, the church that

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was at the hub of that community.

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The Catholic Church kept religious records, and I use that word on purpose, religious

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records about everything that happened.

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It was a total chronicle of everything that happened from the inside out.

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And once I got that, I hit the jackpot.

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La Placita is still there today.

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They still do get this, about 3,000 baptisms a month.

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So it's still the hub of the Mexican community out there, a very rich heritage, just a wonderful

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place I got to visit with the current priest there who helped me find the archives and

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get into the information through that door as well.

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Well, we've often heard on Veterans Radio that, you know, and we're talking to Jeff

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Copeland that great research leads to great stories, and that's certainly what you've

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got here in this particular story.

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And it's just also all too often we find that some event, historical event in the past that

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maybe we've forgotten about is rippling through time and is relevant today.

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And as we look at what to do about COVID-19, whether it's for our Veterans in VA hospitals

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or our military members at different bases or the general public, this kind of story

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has lessons we can all learn from.

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Jeff, where does somebody find this book and some of the other books that you've got out

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there that they may be interested in?

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Well, given the current state of affairs, I would recommend online booksellers.

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Amazon.com has it.

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If you're a prime member, the shipping is free.

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A good dose of reading at this time is going to be good for a lot of folks, I know.

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But all online booksellers, crowds at bookstores are sort of being discouraged right now.

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So I guess I'd say the online way is pretty much the way to go.

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I did want to say also that one of the biggest lessons from the outbreak in 1924 that we

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learned was try to stay calm.

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It's tough.

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It's hard to do.

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But the people who kept level heads, the people who kept focused on getting it eradicated,

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the people who were kind, and the people that were understanding of others, and the people

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that tried to step in and just help, that's what really solved all of these past issues.

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And it's a time for everybody to draw together, to help each other out, and realize, look,

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we can beat this.

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We can get over this, but it's going to take a village.

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It'll take all of us pulling together.

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And that's what we really have to do.

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Well we'd encourage people to go online then and look for just books, the three in particular

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that we're recommending here for our veteran radio listeners is Plagan Paradise, The Black

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Death in Los Angeles in 1924, Inman's War, A Soldier's Story of Life in a Colored Battalion

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in World War II.

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In his news book, Lieutenant Elsie Ott's Top Secret Mission, The Pioneer World War II

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Flight Nurse behind Medevac.

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Jeff, thanks for taking some time with Veterans Radio today.

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Thank you and a big shout out to all those who have served and all of our people serving

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right now.

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God bless you all.

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And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.

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I am Jim Fawcone.

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It's been a pleasure to be your host.

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I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at

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800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.

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You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio

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shows by going to veteransradio.net.

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And until next time, you are dismissed.

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If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help for

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00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:37,080
Veterans at 1-800-6934800.

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There are experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

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The number again, 1-800-6934800.

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