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Reviews

"For Both Cross and Flag breaks interesting new ground. Issel, a leading specialist on the history of 20th century San Francisco, has done an exhaustive job of researching the life and career of Sylvester Andriano. He fills out the history of conservatism in the United States and the role of religion in local and national politics. Thoroughly researched and clearly written, this excellent historical work fits very nicely at the intersection of urban history, political history, and ethnic history. It also makes important moral points." 
--Carl Abbott, Portland State University

"Sylvester Adriano’s story needs to be told and Issel does a service to American history in writing For Both Cross and Flag. He deals with a neglected aspect of American politics in World War II, and makes a serious contribution to the study of anti-Catholicism in the (Western) United States. In the hysteria of our post-911 world, Issel’s book has a clear immediacy. For Both Cross and Flag fits in perfectly to discussions of religion, anti-Catholicism and secularization"
-- Roy Domenico, University of Scranton

"Issel's work is instructive, compelling, and valuable... For Both Cross and Flag ought to count as the first meaningful and pace-setting step in recounting the history of Catholic Action in the United States. What is praiseworthy about Issel's treatment is that he eschews the proclivity to write functional organizational history. Instead, the author provides contextualization for a regional history of Catholic Action which will set the tone for how future historians will write about the movement.... [A] pathbreaking book for scholars interested in twentieth-century Catholic history in general, and American anti-Catholicism in particular.... In a concise, highly-readable book, Issel underscores the vibrancy of San Francisco Catholic culture."
U.S. Catholic Historian

"Highly engaging and thoroughly researched, this [book] aptly demonstrates how international and national events impinged on domestic security issues on a local level, using Italian-American Sylvester Andriano as a test case. The book makes a significant contribution to the literature as a local history with national implications . . . Issel weaves an extremely engaging story that is told with great passion."
American Catholic Studies

"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 . . . an excellent book that contributes a new and unique perspective to our understanding of the history of twentieth-century urban Catholicism."
H-California (H-Net Humanities and Social Sciences Online)

"The description of the internal battles among San Francisco's Italians provides an interesting case study of how the political and social battles that had raged in Italy for several generations took root on American soil. Issel has added another installment to the sad wartime hysteria that sent thousands of innocent and loyal Californians into exile for what would today be termed 'racial profiling.'"
California History

"Issel, a specialist in the political, social, and cultural history of twentieth-century America, covers new territory in this excellent study.... For Both Cross and Flag is illuminating on several counts.... Well researched and suasively argued, this slim book is also relevant. Although the tragedy of Sylvester Andriano has slipped down the memory hole, its recounting reminds us of the effect of loyalty investigations on civil liberties in wartime. If some measure of the worthiness of a book is that it teaches us things we ought to remember, this is indeed a fine book."
Western Historical Quarterly

"William Issel reveals the complexities of Italian American acculturation, political conflict, and nativism in San Francisco during the 1930s and 1940s [and] effectively portrays divisions in an Italian American community that ranged from nuns to anarchists, underscores the Roosevelt administration's mixed record on civil liberties, and documents J. Edgar Hoover's disposition to ignore exculpatory evidence in his search for subversives."
Pacific Historical Review

"Issel's splendid book... is a sad and tragic tale.... His account of Sylvester Andriano also illustrates the wisdom of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus, who said, 'In war the first casualty is truth.'"
The Institute for Historical Study Newsletter

From the Publisher

In this fascinating, detailed history, William Issel recounts the civil right abuses suffered by Sylvester Andriano, an Italian American Catholic civil leader whose religious and political activism in San Francisco provoked an Anti-Catholic campaign against him. A leading figure in the Catholic Action movement, Andriano was falsely accused in state and federal Un-American Activities Committee hearings of having Fascist sympathies prior to and during World War II. As his ordeal began, Andriano was subjected to a hostile investigation by the FBI, whose confidential informants were his political rivals. Furthermore, the U.S. Army ordered him to be relocated on the grounds that he was a security risk. "For Both Cross and Flag" provides a dramatic illustration of what can happen when parties to urban political rivalries, rooted in religious and ideological differences, seize the opportunity provided by a wartime national security emergency to demonize their enemy as 'a potentially dangerous person.' Issel presents a cast of characters that includes archbishops, radicals, the Kremlin, J. Edgar Hoover, and more to examine the significant role faith-based political activism played in the political culture that violated Andriano's constitutional rights. Exploring the ramifications of this story, "For Both Cross and Flag" presents interesting implications for contemporary events and issues relating to urban politics, ethnic groups, and religion in a time of war.

From the Author

I became interested in Sylvester Andriano while researching the competition between the Communist Party and the Catholic Church in San Francisco during the 1930s and 1940s.  As I read through one after another collection of archival records, including correspondence between Andriano and a Catholic Action colleague, Communist Party records, Catholic Church records, Andriano’s FBI file, Army and Navy documents, and other records in the National Archives, I learned about Andriano’s ordeal and discovered that he was innocent of the claim that he was a Fascist agent.  The evidence I have uncovered demonstrates conclusively that Andriano was innocent of the charges against him, and he suffered a terrible injustice at the hands of government authorities of the time.  But this book is not solely intended to restore Sylvester Andriano’s good name.  Instead, I hope to illustrate in some detail, drawing extensively upon the actual voices of the participants in the events, the unanticipated consequences of religious and ideological zealotry in our communities, no-holds-barred political competition in our big cities, and fallible power-seeking public officials in our national security agencies during wartime.  

The Andriano story demonstrates how both international and national events impinged on local political culture from World War I to World War II, eventually influencing domestic security politics after Pearl Harbor. The book begins with a brief account of Andriano’s background and career and then provides a detailed narrative of his role in Catholic Action and San Francisco politics, including local consequences of the victory of Fascism in Italy, the Lateran Accords between the Italian state and the Vatican (which Mussolini cynically described as providing the Church a sovereignty “neither sovereign nor free”), the labor conflicts of the Great Depression, the Communist Party’s role in local politics, and the outbreak of World War II in Europe and the Pacific.   The final chapters describe the security investigations of Andriano and discuss the implications of his case for our understanding of the impact of loyalty investigations on civil liberties in time of war.