Kultur in Cartoons: With accompanying notes by well-known English writersRaemaekers, Louis
History
Kultur in Cartoons: With accompanying notes by well-known English writers
Raemaekers, Louis
World War, 1914-1918 -- Caricatures and cartoons
Raemaekers sees in this relatively mild adventure of German
frightfulness, the torpedoing of unarmed ships in the American zone
under cover of American warships which, by saving the jettisoned crews,
were able to keep the pirate within the letter of his pledge--he sees
this as what it is, an act of intolerable brigandage and insolence. The
insolence, indeed, is so colossal as to be almost admirable. Officers of
the fleet do not talk for publication; but it would be illuminating to
hear the comments of the American naval messes on the retriever work to
which they were set by our friend the enemy.
JOSEPH THORP.
[Illustration]
_To the Peace Woman_
The cartoonist has devoted several of his drawings to the work of
exhibiting to the world at large and the pacifist in particular the
egregious folly of “peace talk” and “gentleness toward the Huns” while a
world war is being waged, and as yet all the ideals for which we are
fighting in company with our Allies hang in the balance.
How necessary such cartoons really are is shown by the mere fact that
there can be found men and women who are anxious on every possible
occasion to “mouth wordy platitudes concerning peace,” and even to
sacrifice to the Moloch of Prussianism the ideals and the amenities of
national conduct upon which the basis of happiness and peace in reality
rests.
The old legend of St. George and the Dragon has been skilfully and
effectively adapted by Raemaekers to the purposes of the lesson he would
teach. The peace woman is shown on her knees before the dragon of
Prussianism, not in terror at the fate which is impending for her, but
obsessed by the idea that the dragon is not so bad as it has been
painted and that it may be wicked to kill dragons. I confess that I have
not been able to penetrate the labyrinth of distorted ideas which has
produced the attitude of mind toward the Hun adopted by the pacifist,
male and female. But the most charitable among us may be forgiven,
perhaps, if we assume that this state of mind has been brought about by
a wrong-headed conception of the facts and the Hun himself, rather than
by any original liking for bloody deeds of rapine, the slaughter of
innocents, and wholesale and wanton destruction of beautiful, holy, and
gracious things.
There are many who believe that the peace woman, who will be more and
more evident as the war drags along, is no imagined menace. It is well
therefore that this cartoon should have been drawn and published and
that its message, “to save the peace women despite themselves,” should
be driven home.
The spirit of St. George of England and of the saints of God, who fought
tyrants and died in past ages that the fragrant and essential truths
should live, is not dead, and while this can be said there is hope for
the world, for surely God Who had these in His keeping is yet in His
heaven.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration]
_The Wolf Bleats_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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