This year commemorates the intersection of Valley Streams’ centennial and the 80th anniversary of World War II’s Allied victory. Valley Stream’s identity was shaped by World War II, which transitioned it from an urban-sprawled community surrounded by a pump station for a New York City Watershed into a 21st century suburb.
On the eve of World War II, Valley Stream’s Mayor Henry Waldinger was a beloved household name within the village of over 16,000 people. In February 1941, Waldinger announced his retirement following a decade serving as mayor. Waldinger, in a press statement, explained he is “willing and anxious to serve the community in any capacity,” which many interpreted as a potential run for a county office. Nominations under the local Republican Party, for any higher office, came at the price of party loyalty. In the early spring of 1941, his party was having an internal conflict along pro-isolationist and interventionist lines, which a political action group, called The American First Committee, provoked.
Aviator Charles Lindbergh — the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, to Paris, France — was the America First Committee’s charismatic spokesperson who built an 800,000-person membership roll, which swayed local and national influence. Combined with the committee’s influence, New York Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish III attempted to purge opponents within his party who shared views that encouraged intervention against Germany. However, unknown to the general public and members of Congress was that the advertising, propaganda, for antisemitic, pro-German, anti-interventionist movements, individuals, and groups, such as Congressman Fish and the America First Committee, were funded through third-party foreign agents working for Nazi Germany.
In March 1941, Nassau County became a battleground to influence the growing Republican base into an isolationist platform. The American First Committee chapters of Five Towns, Freeport, Hicksville, and Valley Stream hosted anti-interventionist members of Congress in their first Long Island speaking tour. Freeport High School’s auditorium held a 1,600-person rally, with headlining speaker, Republican Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota. Nye called upon the audience to do “all in your power to prevent the proposed assignment of American warships to convoy duty.” He further stated that “this is nothing but madness” and the “British Navy was the only Navy in history that consistently practiced aggression.”
Local committee members encouraged by Nye’s speech boycotted local movie theaters throughout western Nassau County, demanding that they not show any movies or newsreels that promoted America’s entry into the war.
In a rebuttal to the America First activism, Mayors Waldinger, William Ross of Lynbrook, Hamilton Gaddis of Malverne, and Edward Talfor of East Rockaway organized the Four Town Committee to Defend America and Aid the Allies. The mayors in these four communities stood in opposition to the national figures descending on the surrounding towns, while other local officials remained silent. Understanding that the war would be inevitable, the Defend America Committee focused on mobilizing its communities for defense manufacturing and dispelling any false narratives of America First.
In their first annual meeting, Defend America leader, local Judge Norman Lent, warned the crowd of the misinformation of America First and that: “Hitler’s word is worthless, and he plans on destroying America and can do so unless England beats him.” In closing, he stated, “For years, I campaigned against President Roosevelt and his policies, but this is the time to forget about politics and remember only that we are Americans.”
Valley Stream, leading the way for the region, would roll out one of the most significant mobilization efforts by transitioning a near-bankrupt civilian aircraft company, Columbia Corp, to large-scale production of military amphibious planes (J2F-1 Duck).
The underutilized Curtiss Airport had its hangars rezoned for defense manufacturing, and Demco Defense Emergency Manufacturing Company, a subsidiary of Bulova Watch Company, became the first tenant. Demco’s Valley Stream location became one of the few plants throughout the country to produce jewel bearings for planes and precision tools, used by all Allied countries. During America’s entry into the war, lawyers for Demco explained to the village board while requesting additional zoned hangars that, “The jewels used in manufacturing were obtained in Switzerland, but now all the bearings have to be made in this country because Germany controls the Swiss trade.”
Waldinger, during the war, did not hold the office of mayor nor achieve a higher office in the county. However, his creation of the Defend America and Aid the Allies Committee provided the needed structure in creating Valley Stream as one of the industrial hubs on Long Island that defined the region as the “Arsenal for Democracy.”
In a political comeback after the war, Waldinger was elected again as mayor and held the office until months before his death in 1966. America First and its allies in Congress were voted out of office and became little more than a footnote in their own defined trash heap of history.
