All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fossone with veteransradio.net.
We are recording today from the Legal Help for Veterans Studio in Northville, Michigan.
Legal Help for Veterans is a Veterans Disability Law Firm.
You can reach us at 800-693-4800.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio Jeffrey S. Copeland, a prolific author and a professor
at the University of Northern Iowa.
Jeff, welcome back to Veterans Radio.
Hey, Jim, thank you for having me back.
It's always an honor.
Well, it's always great to talk to somebody who loves storytelling as you do, and you've
really sort of had a career here.
You've authored or edited over 30 books, Plague and Paradise, we're going to talk about, The
Black Death in Los Angeles in 1924.
We've previously talked a little bit about Inman's War, a soldier's story of life in
a colored battalion of World War II.
We've talked before about Lieutenant LC Otz's top secret mission, the pioneer World War
II flight nurse behind Medevac.
So we're glad to have you on today, and it's kind of a weird time.
We're sitting here talking remotely with our social distance, our appropriate social distance.
Yes, we are.
Because everybody in the country is worried about COVID-19 or the coronavirus or Wuhan
virus, depending on what you'd like to call it, here in 2020.
And I think it's making the entire country think about exposures and pandemics.
And sometimes we forget these things have happened before.
Now, COVID-19 is causing the military to adjust a number of its operating premises.
And I think this is things that get learned over time.
They look back and say, well, what we do during the last big outbreak, and let's not do that
again, things like not moving guys around from base to base, thereby spreading a particular
virus or flu.
Not having folks go from one country to another country on typical rotations or training assignments
again to try to stop the spread.
And we certainly see that here in Italy, which is a central point of COVID-19 at the moment,
would normally have a lot of troops moving in and out of it.
And the US military, these kind of clamped all that down.
And we're going to tell a couple of stories today.
We're going to tell a couple of stories today as to why some of the practices that the military
is using today with COVID-19 in 2020, where they learned some of these earlier lessons.
And it's too early in this particular outbreak, Jeff, to know what the numbers will be and
how many deaths there might be.
But one of the ones that folks are comparing this to hope that it should never get to this
level is during World War I, what became known, probably improperly, but became known
as the Spanish flu in 1918.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yes.
Really, it's one of the things that we have to learn from the past on all of this.
And actually, travel restrictions and quarantine through the years have really been the ways
to go.
Going back to the Middle Ages with the Black Death, the Spanish flu during World War I,
the Black Death, again in California in 1924.
But let's focus just for a little bit here on the Spanish flu outbreak.
You know, recently here, many experts have decided that the Spanish flu actually started
in China in 1917, spread to Europe, and then made its way over here to the United States
after that.
It ran its course in about two years, but in that amount of time, roughly 30 million
people worldwide died of it.
In some estimates, say 50 million, some say 100 million, that may be a little bit high.
But basically, we have a very strong lesson.
We can learn about what happened in the United States at that time.
The first true known case of this happened around Fort Riley, Kansas, Camp Funston.
And once one person was infected with this, it literally did spread just like wildfire.
You know, the Spanish flu, we know as basically H1N1 virus, which is similar to what the bird
flew is today.
But at that time, there were no major drugs or vaccines that could be used.
So basically what they eventually tried to do is they tried to close schools, sounds
familiar, my university is closed down now.
Theaters, I just read today, the same thing is happening nationally.
Businesses were closed up, same thing happening right now, and a major quarantine.
But the problem with this was we were in a shooting war at that time.
So we were still sending troops overseas.
There was some talk at the time of maybe halting the progression of troops.
But at the time, it was thought that if we stalled too much on this, it would allow the
Germans to get themselves reorganized and go on another major offensive.
So troops kept getting sent over.
Now remember, they had to be sent over by troopship, which gave plenty of time for plenty of folks
aboard ship to get sick if anybody had caught it in the United States and taken it with
them.
So a lot of these poor soldiers in the trenches during World War I became so weak, they couldn't
fight.
So they were taken back to hospitals where they proceeded to infect everybody else.
Well, they didn't, the word today is social distancing, and anybody who's been on a troopship
or has been on a Navy ship of any sort just knows how close the quarters are.
And we were taking maybe unbeknownst to the military leadership, we're taking guys from
various camps, army camps all around the United States, putting them on these troopships where
they're cheek to jaw.
And by the time they get to Europe, they've just, you know, infected the whole ship, haven't
they?
Oh, absolutely.
And the problem during World War I, as I said, is we really didn't have any kind of drugs
to deal with this.
So pretty much it was try to keep people as comfortable as possible, try to get their
fevers down if possible.
But the reality was, the mortality rate was incredible once a person was infected.
You know, my grandfather lived to a ripe old age of 94 years old.
He was born in 1911.
He was a little kid when the Spanish flu outbreak came out.
He lived in the Ozarks, and he could remember and always told us stories of whole train
cars of bodies coming through the town where he lived.
You know, people who had died from the Spanish flu.
And the same thing happened all over the world at that time.
And that was actually called the Spanish flu sort of erroneously.
Spain was a neutral country at that time.
The king of Spain caught it.
So the media started talking about him and his illness and other people who were catching
it.
So people wrongly thought that it was a Spanish disease, but the reality was the other countries
did pretty much a media blackout and didn't allow word to get out so morale wouldn't get
low.
So the one thing today with the internet and instant news around every corner, I don't
think we're going to have the wool pulled over our eyes too much.
But it's something we have to be concerned about.
There was an outbreak of the black death in San Francisco from 1900 to 1904.
And then there was the outbreak in 1924 in Los Angeles of the black death.
That was the last major outbreak in the United States.
And in both instances, there was a total media blackout by design.
And I'm telling you what, in San Francisco, it cost the mayor of San Francisco his job,
eventually the governor his job.
And the US Surgeon General found out that people were keeping their mouth shut about
this.
And when the black plague took place in Los Angeles and they did the same thing, finally
somebody stepped in and said, now wait a minute here, we can't have this happen.
People have to know what's going on.
So do you know that because of the outbreak in 1924 of the black plague, that's why the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was founded.
So that there would be an oversight to keep local people from hiding what was going on
to help stem the spread.
Well, and it's really interesting.
It's really yet is interesting.
And it's important to understand the history because it ripples through time as we deal
with COVID-19 and the information or the lack of information and everybody giving different
types of advice.
You kind of contract this back to the disinformation that this is the Spanish flu in 1919 or 1918.
And in that instance, it not only was jumping around between American soldiers and the rest
of the country, they get over to Europe and now everybody in Europe's got it as well,
the French, the Germans.
Something like looking at some of the research here, 11 percent of the 1.2 million soldiers
in the United States in 1918 were hospitalized with the Spanish flu.
The death totals in World War I, combat deaths were roughly 53,000.
The number that died as a result of the flu in pneumonia was 45,000.
I know.
Can you imagine?
I mean, this is, and again, there wasn't the transmission of information, right?
The way it is today to flatten the curve as all of everybody on cable news is telling
us to do with our social distancing and closing theaters and closing universities and in many
places closing K through 12.
So it's a good time to look back at some of these historical events and carry them forward
and see are there some lessons we should learn.
And you bring up the plague, the Black Death that occurred out in California kind of in
two runs.
You've written in particular about the 1924 experience out there.
First off, tell us what a little bit of what the Black Death is and then tell us that story.
Oh, sure.
I'd be glad to.
The book is called Plague in Paradise, the Black Death in Los Angeles in 1924.
And what happened was a ship came from China to the port of Los Angeles and rats got off
of the ship with fleas carrying the plague.
So the rats got off, the fleas got off with them, and the plague manifested itself first
in the Mexican community in Los Angeles, the Macy Street District.
So basically it started with one family, the Lujan family, and then it started spreading
like wildfire from that.
But here's the thing.
All right, the first doctors called in, looked at the patients and they said, oh, looks like
the Spanish flu has come back.
And that was how it was initially misdiagnosed.
But the plague, there are three forms, bubonic plague that people usually get first.
And that's where they get these large boobos.
They're like large lumps full of pus and blood.
And it starts out bubonic, high fever, aches, pains, incredible headache, dehydration, that
kind of a thing.
Then if they live, it goes to the mnemonic stage, which goes to the lungs, it can be
spread through droplets, airborne transmission that way.
And if they live through that, it goes septicemic, which means it goes to the bloodstream.
Well, it took a very skilled doctor at Los Angeles County General Hospital, Dr. Matthew
Thompson, who went into the Mexican community.
He had remembered studying the symptoms in medical school and said, now, wait a minute
here, I think we've got something else going on.
So he brought in a couple of doctors who had worked during the outbreak in San Francisco
about 20 years before.
And they said, yeah, you've got the black death here.
So what the city officials decided to do was both on one side of the ledger, what they
thought was really positive, but on the other side of the ledger, not so much.
Because in a nutshell, here's what happened.
They were shouting Los Angeles at that time as the paradise of the West.
They wanted everybody to come out and help with all the new industry out there, the brand
new East Port of Los Angeles and everything else.
And the last thing they wanted was to be known as Plague City.
So the city officials immediately put a total and complete news blackout.
They even stopped people at train stations coming in, took away their newspapers and
magazines because words started getting out to other cities about the plague.
So a total news blackout.
Second thing they did is they managed to get as many World War I veterans as they could
from the area, deputized them, gave them guns, posted them all around the Macy Street area
where the black plague was building and said, now look, use any and all means.
We can't have these individuals get out of there because it's going to spread like wildfire.
So the veterans of World War I were some of the unsung heroes of this.
Now they didn't ever have to shoot anybody, but they were there on guard to talk to people
and help explain, look, we've got to stop this and the best way to stop all of us to
work together, you need to stay in here and medical care was brought in.
But it was a very severe quarantine.
Everything was shut down in that part of Los Angeles and that's the only way they were
able to contain this.
Well, and those veterans had seen what happened with the Spanish flu.
Exactly.
When they were serving, if you didn't quarantine the sick folks and so I'm sure there was a
lot of empathy for the situation that they were facing.
Exactly, you hit it right on the head there.
They wanted to help out as much as they possibly could.
And there were actually stories of the veterans sneaking in food and other supplies to the
individuals in that district.
Incredible acts of kindness, which does not surprise me in the least.
Eventually they had to do quote unquote a cleansing of the area in order to get rid
of the rats.
They had to call in exterminators.
That didn't work incredibly well.
So they had to literally burn down most of the area in order to get rid of it.
Get the people out after things started, the tide started turning and then burn it.
At that time that was the best they had because for medicines at that time, you'll love this
to treat the black death in 1924.
They gave aspirin, which didn't do a whole heck of a lot, but then they gave them IVs
of macuracrone.
Now do you remember when you were a kid, if you got a bump on your knee, your mom would
come out with a macuracrone and put a little on?
Well, it has mercury in it.
And it stings like heck.
Yeah.
But what it did do is they figured, well, it's got mercury in it.
It's going to help cleanse the blood.
But it killed just as many people as it actually helped.
There was a plague serum being developed back out east at that time, but unfortunately
it wasn't developed in time to save a lot of the individuals.
But today, of course, we're a lot better with the science involved with this.
So hopefully with what's going on right now, we'll see a lot of progress here pretty quick.
And it's interesting because we've talked about what's happening here in 2020, but
we've gone back to 1918 and looked at things now in 1924 and looked at things.
As you looked at that time frame, do you see the advances that we would all hope happen
between 1918 and 1924 by health departments and laboratories and that sort of thing?
Well considering back then, especially with the outbreak in Los Angeles, it was left
to local control only.
There wasn't a CDC or a World Health Organization at that time.
Yeah, we progressed a great deal.
Now the problem is people travel a lot easier today than they ever had before.
I mean, think about it.
One person on an airplane somewhere has it, manages to transmit it to others aboard the
airline or when they get to their destination, they can spread it as well.
Back then we basically had trains as the major form of transmission and not a lot of people
used the train system back then.
Cars were still relatively young in the 20s.
Great distances usually weren't done with that.
But the mobility of society today is a game changer.
Trying to make sure that we practice some kind of social distancing and quarantine at
the same time today is something that we know has to take place.
Hey, during the Middle Ages, half the population of the Europe died of this, the Black Plague.
All right, then the Spanish flu outbreak, depending on which expert you believe, 30
million to 100 million.
And then the Black Plague is still around.
There's still pockets of it all over the world.
Madagascar last year had another major outbreak.
So the outbreaks are nothing new.
How we handle them has changed dramatically.
But there's still so much we need to do in terms of informing people what to do.
I heard one official last night say that she was very upset because the younger people
are acting like nothing is happening right now.
They're still out partying in groups and they feel asymptomatic.
They feel fine.
Well, the case may be everybody, regardless of age, is going to have to pull together
with this because the younger people can transmit it.
They may not get very sick with it, but they can transmit it to others who are just going
to die.
Yeah, and clearly that was the younger group in World War I under the Spanish flu.
Those would have been young soldiers.
You know, the healthiest of the healthiest who contracted this and lost their lives at
such a high percentage.
We were talking to Professor Jeff Copeland, who's a prolific author.
In an earlier discussion, Jeff, you told me it takes about a year of research and six
months to write many of these books.
How did you get interested on this topic of the Black Death in Los Angeles in 1924?
Well, you know, the topics for my books sort of seemed to fall out of the sky to me.
I was actually in an airport killing time after I had done a book event for the book
before that.
And I was leafing through a magazine and I was reading an article and it made a reference
to the outbreak in Los Angeles in 1924.
And I thought, wait a minute here, I've never heard of this before.
So I started doing a little research when I got home.
And the more I dug, the more I saw, wait a minute here, I smell a rat.
Literally, literally.
All right.
So what I found out was they tried to cover it up as best they could at the time.
And again, all you have to do is tell me you can't get the information and I'm not going
to take, no, I'm going to dig.
So the more I dug about this, I had to ferret out records everywhere.
And to be honest with you, a lot of people did not want me to get the records because
even though that's almost 100 years ago, people are still not really proud about a lot of
the things that happened at that time.
I mean, there were some wonderful people, the veterans who helped out.
There were some business people at that time that really just said, hey, you know what?
It's just a small population in the Macy Street area.
Let's let them die and that'll take care of this.
Seriously.
So it wasn't a story that was told a lot because this is why the Centers for Disease
Control was formed to take away local control where people can decide who will live and
who will die.
So once I got involved in the research with this and started digging a little deeper,
it was tough.
Jim, I'll be honest.
It was tough ferreting out this information that I went everywhere.
I went out to Los Angeles.
I walked off the area.
I went to the archives and record centers.
And believe it or not, the group that had the best information for me was the Catholic
Church, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, because one of the heroes of that who helped stop
the plague was Father Emmanuel Bruyah, who was the priest at La Placita, the church that
was at the hub of that community.
The Catholic Church kept religious records, and I use that word on purpose, religious
records about everything that happened.
It was a total chronicle of everything that happened from the inside out.
And once I got that, I hit the jackpot.
La Placita is still there today.
They still do get this, about 3,000 baptisms a month.
So it's still the hub of the Mexican community out there, a very rich heritage, just a wonderful
place I got to visit with the current priest there who helped me find the archives and
get into the information through that door as well.
Well, we've often heard on Veterans Radio that, you know, and we're talking to Jeff
Copeland that great research leads to great stories, and that's certainly what you've
got here in this particular story.
And it's just also all too often we find that some event, historical event in the past that
maybe we've forgotten about is rippling through time and is relevant today.
And as we look at what to do about COVID-19, whether it's for our Veterans in VA hospitals
or our military members at different bases or the general public, this kind of story
has lessons we can all learn from.
Jeff, where does somebody find this book and some of the other books that you've got out
there that they may be interested in?
Well, given the current state of affairs, I would recommend online booksellers.
Amazon.com has it.
If you're a prime member, the shipping is free.
A good dose of reading at this time is going to be good for a lot of folks, I know.
But all online booksellers, crowds at bookstores are sort of being discouraged right now.
So I guess I'd say the online way is pretty much the way to go.
I did want to say also that one of the biggest lessons from the outbreak in 1924 that we
learned was try to stay calm.
It's tough.
It's hard to do.
But the people who kept level heads, the people who kept focused on getting it eradicated,
the people who were kind, and the people that were understanding of others, and the people
that tried to step in and just help, that's what really solved all of these past issues.
And it's a time for everybody to draw together, to help each other out, and realize, look,
we can beat this.
We can get over this, but it's going to take a village.
It'll take all of us pulling together.
And that's what we really have to do.
Well we'd encourage people to go online then and look for just books, the three in particular
that we're recommending here for our veteran radio listeners is Plagan Paradise, The Black
Death in Los Angeles in 1924, Inman's War, A Soldier's Story of Life in a Colored Battalion
in World War II.
In his news book, Lieutenant Elsie Ott's Top Secret Mission, The Pioneer World War II
Flight Nurse behind Medevac.
Jeff, thanks for taking some time with Veterans Radio today.
Thank you and a big shout out to all those who have served and all of our people serving
right now.
God bless you all.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fawcone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans and you can reach us at
800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by going to veteransradio.net.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
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The number again, 1-800-6934800.
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