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Any Bonds Today?

Uncle Sam exhorted Americans to invest their nickels, dimes and dollars in the fight against fascism. Between 1941 and 1946, 85 million did just that and came up with $185 billion to buy U.S. Bonds.

Passing The Hat In World War II

United States War Bonds

Take a 700-pound pig, paint its toenails bright red and dangle silver bangles from its ears. Put that porker up for auction and what would it fetch? How about $19 million? By some reports that's what "King Neptune," the war bonds hog, made between 1942 and 1946, after the animal was auctioned off again and again as part of what has been called the biggest selling campaign in history. (Once the pig was purchased, patriotic duty required the owner to donate him to the next sale.)

When the "tall man with the high hat" came knocking, as Irving Berlin called Uncle Sam in his 1942 song "Any Bonds Today?" 8 out of every 13 Americans scraped together a total of $185.7 billion to invest in victory.

Today, the government has introduced a new bond — the Patriot — to support the war against terrorism. Though it's just a redesign of the popular Series EE savings bond, it symbolizes the same can-do spirit that helped pay for World War II.

As described in Pledging Allegiance: American Identity and the Bond Drive of World War II by Lawrence R. Samuel (Smithsonian Press, 1997), that spirit translated into a bond bandwagon that knew no bounds. Movie stars such as James Cagney, Lucille Ball and Bing Crosby turned up at rallies to extoll the virtues of investing in the bonds. Many will recall the untimely death of comedienne Carole Lombard — Clark Gable's wife — in a plane crash. Only the day before she had raised $2.5 million at an Indianapolis bond rally.

But not just celebrities were involved: bartenders, milkmen, even icemen, sold Series E bonds, in denominations from $25 to $1,000. Held to ten-year maturity, they earned 2.9 percent. (Armed Forces personnel could buy a $10 denomination.) "Virtually the only profession that had some doubts [about selling bonds]," writes Samuel, "was the clergy."

The poster proved to be the Treasury Department's most important promotional tool. Plastered on buses and trolleys, and in libraries, schools and factories, posters drove the message home with pithy slogans and poignant appeals. So popular were Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" posters that Treasury mounted a traveling exhibition of the original art, at which bonds were sold.

Army illustrator Sgt. Ardis Hughes, now 90 and still painting at his winter home in St. Augustine, Florida, remembers being detailed to Treasury to create bond posters. "If they'd used me as a soldier," he says with a chuckle, "they would have lost the war." In one of the dozens of posters and billboards he did between 1942 and 1946, a weary soldier carries rough-hewn pickets on his shoulder. Hughes' slogan: "War bonds are cheaper than wooden crosses." "I did another, of a mother and a father embracing. Behind them a star hung on the wall; in their hands was a telegram. I remember showing it to a general and he said to me, 'That's a lot of power in a little paint.'" That powerful paint sold a lot of war bonds.

Buried here - King Neptune, famous Navy mascot pig auctioned for $19,000,000.00 in war bonds 1942-1946 to help make a free world.

King Neptune

Over a four-year period during World War II, this remarkable pig traveled thousands of miles within Southern Illinois and raised more than $19 million in defense bonds. There was nothing extraordinary about Neptune when he was born. His first owner was Patty Boner of West Frankfort, who raised the red and white pig on her father's farm as part of a 4-H project. Boner is currently living and teaching in Mexico. At a 4-H auction, Boner's father, Sherman, and another West Frankfort man, Cole Jones, bought Neptune and presented him to Don Lingle, who was a Navy recruiter in Marion. Lingle used Neptune as a mascot for the recruiting station and later decided to auction the pig off at war bond rallies.

Auctioneer L. Oard Sitter of Anna transported the pig and conducted the auctions. "They would sell him around the area," said the late Lloyd Sitter, the auctioneer's son, during a 1996 interview. "It was in war time, so they couldn't get gas. They couldn't get tires," he said. "It was quite a job to get the hog to the auctions. But once they got there, they set up on the courthouse steps and started right in."

King Neptune was sold in towns throughout Southern Illinois. "They went to West Frankfort and Benton and Pinckneyville and Sparta," Sitter said. "They'd go someplace and auction him over and over. They'd end up selling the whole hog to people who would pledge to buy war bonds. They'd even sell his squeal for a $25 war bond." Now weighing in at 700 pounds, Neptune was well dressed for these occasions in a fringed Navy blue blanket, silver earrings and leather boots. "They had a gold crown that they put on his back," Sitter said.

Some bidders wrote checks to cover their bids. "We went out in the hog lot and made a plaster cast of his hoof so he could cash his checks," he said.

Then Gov. Dwight H. Green was authorized by the state legislature to buy Neptune for $1 million. Wherever he appeared, Neptune's auctions were a big event. Because so much money was raised through the auctions, the Secretary of Defense commended the project in letters sent to the participants. "It was the biggest effort by any group to sell bonds during World War II," Sitter said. The money was raised for the USS Illinois, a battleship that was planned but never built. Because of his involvement in the project, Neptune never had to worry about being turned into pork chops.

When Neptune died at the age of 8, he was buried with military honors and a concrete monument was built east of Anna. But construction crews who built Interstate 57 had to tear up the grave, so Lingle erected a second monument at a rest area on the south side of Illinois 146. When Neptune's gravestone was damaged by vandals, the Illinois Department of Transportation proposed moving it again. This time, money was raised for King Neptune - instead of by him - and a new memorial was erected along Interstate 57. Located at the northbound rest area near the Anna exit, the monument is seen annually by thousands of people who travel along the interstate.

Despite increased revenue from taxes, during WWII the federal government relied upon borrowing from the public through the sale of government war bonds and small denomination war stamps to meet most of the war costs. In early 1942, U.S. Treasury officials worked to secure public ownership of the national debt by encouraging voluntary purchase of war savings bonds and stamps. The goal was to enlist ordinary citizens to make them shareholders in the war effort. By July 1945, the government had conducted seven successful war-bond drives, which had raised a total of almost sixty-one billion dollars. Characteristic of these war drives were the great numbers of volunteers from civic organizations who teamed together in door-to-door selling campaigns. It is estimated that over 6 million men, women and children volunteered to sell bonds during 1944. It was during the 1944 campaigns that the introduction of the popular Series E $25 bond was introduced.

by Beth Py-Lieberman. Any Bonds Today? Smithsonian. February 2002.

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