Pointing Their Pens: Herblock and Fellow Cartoonists Confront the Issues
World War II

Although the United States did not officially declare war until December 8, 1941, it increasingly participated in the Allied war effort. Herblock was an early supporter of defense against German aggression. Although the Dutch government had surrendered to the German Army on May 16, 1940, Americans, with the permission of the British and Dutch governments in exile, occupied Dutch Guiana, the South American country, now known as Suriname, beginning on November 23, 1941. The country held rich bauxite mines, coveted by the military for its use in manufacturing aluminum airplanes.

The Lend-Lease Act, signed into law on March 11, 1941, was celebrated by Herblock, as the first ships and airplanes headed toward Europe and factories increased production to meet the needs of what the cartoonist called “the struggle for civilization.” President Roosevelt and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., asked Congress for an additional 3.5 billion dollars (in tax revenue) with which to infuse military supplies into Europe to help the Allies defeat the Axis powers.

The day before Czechoslovakia capitulated to the German Army, Jerry Costello drew the emaciated German people starving as manufacturing overtook agricultural labor. Although German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had admitted on March 5, 1939, his country was barely able to feed its people, his goal had been to goad the German people into working toward self-sufficiency, not to undermine the war effort. Costello spent forty years of his forty-seven-year career as a cartoonist at the Albany Knickerbocker News, from 1922 to 1962.

Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party achieved control of the Reichstag in 1933, where they established their vicious rule by decree and ruthlessly governed the Third Reich. As the Nazi’s began to attack Jews and communists, the press widely characterized then Gestapo head Hermann Goering as the real power and claimed that “Chancellor Hitler is merely the window-dressing.” Edwin Marcus, the New York Times editorial cartoonist for fifty years, between 1908 and 1958, mistakenly suggested that Hitler did not have the personality necessary to lead the German people.

Using a small airplane as a metaphor for national defense, Washington Star cartoonist Clifford Berryman proposed enhancing the national defense program by revising the 1939 Neutrality Act. President Roosevelt argued that arming shipping merchants was crucial to support his Lend-Lease program, which provided U.S. weapons and other goods to European allies. During his fifty-five-year career as a cartoonist in Washington, D.C., Berryman won a Pulitzer Prize for his art.

Uncle Sam authoritatively turns “plans” for war production into “planes” in this patriotic Herblock cartoon that encouraged Americans to increase military supplies for Europe. During the summer of 1941, manufacturing demands for both British and American markets outstripped supplies. Employees facing longer hours and harder work went on strike for higher wages. Herblock encouraged their production efforts in support of the war, suggesting to his readers that it was their patriotic duty.

Supporting President Roosevelt’s call for increased war production, Herblock depicted an American worker next to a British sailor—working together to defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The president pushed Americans to work harder and produce more goods for the war effort. In April 1941, the Axis powers did not fear the Allies. Germany forced Yugoslavia and Greece into surrendering, blitzed several British cities, and began to push toward the Soviet Union, which it attacked in June 1941.

In 1939, feeling that America had been treated like a pariah for its role in financing World War I, Hugh Hutton portrayed Uncle Sam resisting involvement in World War II. Hutton’s use of the character Shylock from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice reflected the opinion, current in both Europe and the United States, that Americans had greatly profited from the First World War. Hutton drew for the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1934 until he retired in 1969.

While Senator Hiram Johnson, Republican from California, and Senator Tom Connally, Democrat from Texas, dress Congress as an angel defending the peace, an irritated Uncle Sam thinks they would be better off working on domestic legislation. This may have been published around the same time as the passage of the Neutrality Act of 1939, which Johnson opposed and Connally supported. James Berryman followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist at the Washington Star.

As Europe plunged into war, isolationists decried President Roosevelt’s attempt to alter neutrality legislation. In 1939, Roosevelt, wanting to better arm the Allies against German aggression, asked Congress to eliminate the arms embargo in the “cash-and-carry” provision of the Neutrality Act of 1937. Jerry Costello showed Uncle Sam pulling Roosevelt back from the brink of war and using the law as his anchor. Costello spent forty years of his forty-seven-year career as a cartoonist at the Albany Knickerbocker News, from 1922 to 1962.