“Portrait of the Regard Dictators Have…” (May 25, 1939)


“Portrait of the Regard Dictators Have…” (May 25, 1939)
by L Day
15 x 20 in., grease pencil on board
Coppola Collection

I can find no other evidence for an L Day (or even more than a handful of “Day”s) as artists. This could be a one-off, although the complexity of the composition suggests otherwise. The fires of war stir up the brew of human suffering while the dictators soak in the admiration of others — even as they pour them into the cauldron.

Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete, and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature, and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation

Nazi Germany’s obvious political and military ally in Europe was Italy. The Italians had been governed by a fascist regime under Benito Mussolini since 1925. Italian fascism was very much the elder brother of Nazism, a fact Hitler himself acknowledged. And from the late 1920s, Mussolini had provided some financial support to the rising Nazi Party; he also allowed SA and SS men to train with his own paramilitary brigade, the Blackshirts. Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933 was publicly praised by Mussolini, who hailed it as a victory for his own fascist ideology.

Mussolini, who was prone to egomania, also had a low opinion of Hitler’s elevation to power, which he thought less glorious than his own. The first meeting between the two, held in Venice in June 1934, was disastrous. Mussolini spoke some German and refused to use a translator – but he had great difficulty understanding Hitler’s rough Austrian accent. The Italian was subjected to some of Hitler’s long monologues, which bored him greatly. Both men emerged from the Venice summit thinking much less of each other. But they were two peas in a pod, and the world is a big place to plunder. The Rome-Berlin Axis was formally announced on November 1, 1936, by Mussolini in a speech in Milan.

Hitler’s influence on Mussolini became evident in the Italian leader’s Manifesto of Race (July 1938). This decree, which proved very unpopular in Italy, stripped Italian Jews of their citizenship and removed them from government occupations. In September 1938 Mussolini was part of the four-nation summit on the Czechoslovakian crisis and a signatory of the Munich Agreement.

The Rome-Berlin Axis was formalized in May 1939 with the creation of another pact, in which Mussolini, the great phrasemaker, coined the Pact of Steel.

“Surprise, Surprise!” (May 22, 1939)


“Surprise, Surprise!” (May 22, 1939)
by Paul D. Battenfield (1896 – 1985)
13 x 15.25 in., Crayon in varying densities, with painted white highlights, on pebble-grain Coquille board.
Coppola Collection

Battenfield (1896-1985) was a two-time Pulitzer finalist and a mainstay of the cartoonists’ bullpen at the Chicago Times.

The Pact of Steel, known formally as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was signed by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini on May 22, 1939. The alliance originated in a series of agreements between Germany and Italy, followed by the proclamation of an “axis” binding Rome and Berlin (October 25, 1936), with the two powers claiming that the world would henceforth rotate on the Rome-Berlin axis.

The pact was initially drafted as a tripartite military alliance between Japan, Italy and Germany. While Japan wanted the focus of the pact to be aimed at the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany wanted it aimed at the British Empire and France.

Battenfield’s sarcastic take on the unconditional huggy-bear bromance between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Battenfield equips the dictators with sappy dimwit grins.

I for one would love, love, love to see the version of this with Trump and Kim and the caption of their “love letters” to one another.

The Leon T. Walkowicz’s Chicago-based archive: A patron of the arts and co-founder of the Alliance of Polish-American Veterans and the Polish-American Historical Society, Walkowicz (1898-1959) provided the basis of an influential collection at Loyola University.

“Drawing the Line” (April 14, 1939)


“Drawing the Line” (April 14, 1939)
by Jack Patton (1900-1962)
12 x 14 in., ink and crayon on board
Coppola Collection

Jack Patton was originally from Louisiana. He worked as an editorial cartoonist from the 1910s through the 1930s. In the 1930s, he was a widely read editorial cartoonist for The Dallas Morning News. His last editorial cartoons appeared at the end 1939 and perhaps through the start of 1940. During the 1930s, he also began the newspaper strip ‘Restless Age,’ which was followed by ‘Spence Easley’.

As a child, Patton read a magazine advertisement offering easy lessons in drawing. He signed up for a brief course, and it was enough to whet his appetite for a lifetime of cartooning. Scraping together enough money to get to Chicago, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts. While at the school, he received word that the old Dallas Journal, then the evening publication of The Dallas News, needed an assistant in the art department. Hurrying back to his hometown, Mr. Patton found to his delight that he would work with veteran News cartoonist John Knott. The year was 1918 and two years later his editorial cartoons won a place on page 1 of the Journal. In the early part of his career, Mr. Patton was one of the first men in the business to put out both an editorial cartoon and a comic strip daily. The editorial cartoons had a stinging wit, and the originals were frequently requested by the subjects, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and John Nance Garner.

On April 14, 1939, FDR issued a letter to German chancellor Adolf Hitler, appealing to him to refrain from further aggression. Many of his speeches focused on the need to support American allies in Europe during the growing crisis. Shortly after Hitler formalized the annexation of Czechoslovakia, Roosevelt looked to build upon his transatlantic policy by directly contacting Hitler in an attempt to end the growing tensions in Europe.

His Excellency Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the German Reich, Berlin, Germany

You realize, I am sure, that throughout the world hundreds of millions of human beings are living today in constant fear of a new war or even a series of wars.

 The existence of this fear–and the possibility of such a conflict–are of definite concern to the people of the United States for whom I speak, as they must also be to the peoples of the other nations of the entire Western Hemisphere.

 But the tide of events seems to have reverted to the threat of arms. If such threats continue, it seems inevitable that much of the world must become involved in common ruin. All the world, victor nations, vanquished nations, and neutral nations, will suffer. I refuse to believe that the world is, of necessity, such a prisoner of destiny.

Because the United States, as one of the Nations of the Western Hemisphere, is not involved in the immediate controversies which have arisen in Europe, I trust that you may be willing to make such a statement of policy to me as head of a Nation far removed from Europe in order that I, acting only with the responsibility and obligation of a friendly intermediary, may communicate such declaration to other nations now apprehensive as to the course which the policy of your Government may take.

Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following independent nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, the Arabias, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iran.

Such an assurance clearly must apply not only to the present day but also to a future sufficiently long to give every opportunity to work by peaceful methods for a more permanent peace. I therefore suggest that you construe the word “future” to apply to a minimum period of assured non-aggression-ten years at the least-a quarter of a century, if we dare look that far ahead.

I think you will not misunderstand the spirit of frankness in which I send you this message. Heads of great Governments in this hour are literally responsible for the fate of humanity in the coming years. They cannot fail to hear the prayers of their peoples to be protected from the foreseeable chaos of war. History will hold them accountable for the lives and the happiness of all—even unto the least.

I hope that your answer will make it possible for humanity to lose fear and regain security for many years to come.

A similar message is being addressed to the Chief of the Italian Government.

“The Amateur” (September 21, 1938)


“The Amateur” (September 21, 1938)
by Jack Patton (1900-1962)
12 x 14 in., ink and crayon on board
Coppola Collection

Jack Patton was originally from Louisiana. He worked as an editorial cartoonist from the 1910s through the 1930s. In the 1930s, he was a widely read editorial cartoonist for The Dallas Morning News. His last editorial cartoons appeared at the end 1939 and perhaps through the start of 1940. During the 1930s, he also began the newspaper strip ‘Restless Age,’ which was followed by ‘Spence Easley’.

As a child, Patton read a magazine advertisement offering easy lessons in drawing. He signed up for a brief course, and it was enough to whet his appetite for a lifetime of cartooning. Scraping together enough money to get to Chicago, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts. While at the school, he received word that the old Dallas Journal, then the evening publication of The Dallas News, needed an assistant in the art department. Hurrying back to his hometown, Mr. Patton found to his delight that he would work with veteran News cartoonist John Knott. The year was 1918 and two years later his editorial cartoons won a place on page 1 of the Journal. In the early part of his career, Mr. Patton was one of the first men in the business to put out both an editorial cartoon and a comic strip daily. The editorial cartoons had a stinging wit, and the originals were frequently requested by the subjects, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and John Nance Garner.

September 12: Hitler made a speech in Nuremberg declaring that the oppression of Sudeten Germans must end. The speech was broadcast live to the United States by CBS Radio and was the first time that many Americans had ever heard Hitler speak.

September 13: French PM Edouard Daladier asked British PM Neville Chamberlain to make the best deal he could with Hitler.

September 15: Chamberlain boarded a plane for the first time in his life and flew to Germany to meet with Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain had already decided not to go to war over Czechoslovakia, so all that was left to negotiate was the means of meeting Hitler’s demands.

September 17: Chamberlain reported to the Cabinet on his meeting with Hitler, informing its members of his belief that a settlement of the Sudeten matter would satisfy Hitler’s aims.

September 18: Daladier came to London for a conference on Czechoslovakia. The German annexation of the Sudetenland was agreed upon.

September 19: The British and French representatives in Prague presented the Anglo-French proposal to allow the Sudetenland to be annexed.

September 20: The Czechoslovak government rejected the Anglo-French proposal; Hitler met with the Polish ambassador and told him that Germany would support Poland in a conflict with Czechoslovakia. Hitler also said he was considering shipping Europe’s Jews to a colony and expressed hope that Poland would cooperate with such a plan. He replied that if Hitler could solve the Jewish question, the Poles would build a monument to him in Warsaw.

September 21: The British and French ambassadors informed the Czechoslovakian President that his country would have to accept their plan or face Germany alone.

September 22: The Czechoslovakian government resigned.

September 25: The new Czechoslovakian President rejected Hitler’s latest demands as “an ultimatum given to a defeated nation, not a sovereign one.”

September 27: The French government announced that France would not enter a war purely over Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain gave a radio address saying, “However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.”

September 29: Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini met in Munich to settle the Sudetenland crisis. Czechoslovakia was not invited, neither was the Soviet Union.

September 30: The Munich Agreement: At 1 AM, the four powers at Munich agreed that Czechoslovakia would cede the Sudetenland to Germany by October 10. The territorial integrity of the rest of Czechoslovakia was guaranteed by all signatories.

Neville Chamberlain flew back to Britain and declared “peace for our time.”

October 1: There is no Munich Agreement: German troops began to occupy the Sudetenland.

October 3: Nazi Germany issued the Decree on the Confiscation of Jewish Property.

October 5: All German passports held by Jews were invalidated.

October 7: The Fascist Grand Council of Italy approved the first Italian Racial Laws, banning interracial marriage and prohibiting Jews from enrolling in the Fascist Party or serving in the military.

October 28: Some 12,000 Polish Jews were deported from Germany in the vicinity of the border town of Zbaszyn. Many of the expelled Jews were denied entry into Poland on the basis of the country’s new denaturalization law. Some went back into Germany and about 5,500 wound up staying in disused stables and other temporary shelters around Zbaszyn with nowhere else to go.

“Star Boarder Stuff” (March 24, 1932)


“Star Boarder Stuff” (March 24, 1932)
by Gaar Campbell Williams (1880-1935)
14 x 18 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Campbell was a prominent American cartoonist who worked for the Indianapolis News and the Chicago Tribune.

You want your war reparations from Germany, Uncle Sam? You best speak up and get in line. The post-WW1 economy did not enable countries to settle up on their debts and obligations.

The Hoover Moratorium was a public statement issued by United States President Herbert Hoover on June 20, 1931, who hoped to ease the coming international economic crisis and provide time for recovery by instituting a one-year moratorium on payments of German and inter-Allied war debt stemming from World War I. The proposal would postpone the repayment of both capital and interest. Many, both in the United States and abroad, were outraged by this idea.

The Hoover moratorium on payment of reparations and intergovernmental debts expired July 1, 1932.

However, neither the moratorium nor the permanent cancellation of the reparations did much to slow the economic downturn in Europe. A committee formed under the terms of Young Plan – a previous reduction in Germany’s war debt schedule – concluded that Germany would not be able to meet its obligations, and recommended that their debt be permanently cancelled. At the Lausanne Conference, later in 1932, the United Kingdom and France relieved Germany of its reparation payments, subject to their being able to reach an agreement with the United States concerning their own outstanding war debts.

“Back into Mufti” (November 11, 1923)


“Back into Mufti” (November 11, 1923)
by John Scott Clubb (1875-1934)
14 x 18 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Clubb’s daily cartoons appeared on the editorial pages for 34 years. Clubb began his career in 1900 at The Rochester Herald where he stayed until 1926. From 1926 until his death in 1934, Clubb was a cartoonist at the Rochester Times-Union. His readership extended beyond the local area, and his cartoons were reproduced in magazines and newspapers nationwide.

The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch, was a failed coup by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 8-9, 1923. About 2000 Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city center, but were confronted by a police cordon. Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.

On November 10, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany ended his exile in the Netherlands and crossed back onto German soil. Dutch authorities had informed him that he would not be allowed to return to Holland as a refugee again. After Stresemann became chancellor in August 1923, Wilhelm was allowed to return after giving assurances that he would not engage in politics.

“Mufti” is plain or ordinary clothes, especially when worn by one who normally wears, or has long worn, a military or other uniform.

The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicized and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments to the nation. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison, where he dictated Mein Kampf. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released.

“Touching Up the Old Sign” (August 29, 1921)


“Touching Up the Old Sign” (August 29, 1921)
by William Charles (WC) Morris (1874-1848)
17 x 22 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

WC Morris taught himself to draw at age 28. For nine years, Morris worked was a cartoonist for the Spokane Spokesman-Review in Washington. In 1913, tired of having his work censored by the paper’s managers, he moved to New York City and did freelance work for Life, Judge, Outlook, and Harper’s Weekly, before being hired by the George Matthew Adams Service, a newspaper syndicate with publications all across the country. Morris’s work was also widely reproduced in American and European magazines, including the popular satirical journal Puck. He even ventured into the new art of animated cartoons.

In 1899, Secretary of State John Hay watched China, following the devastation of the Opium Wars and growing rebellion, get its entire periphery sub-divided by the world powers: Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain. These powers laid claim to special privileges in various parts of the country, called spheres of influence, a process that recalled the subjugation of Africa and suggested that China might be similarly partitioned. The United States, still young as a player on the world stage, was shut out of this new scramble created barriers to American trade in China.

Buoyed by the recent US victory over Spain and the possession of both Pacific and Central American assets, Hay dispatched his famous Open Door Notes to the major powers. The policy proposed that each of the powers respect the principle of equal commercial opportunity in the spheres of influence. The notes neither challenged the spheres’ existence nor demanded equal access for American investment. The Open Door policy concerned the transport and selling of American goods. The gist of the policy ended up shifting the US international interests from colonial expansion to economic influence.

The Open Door did not result in the commercial goldmine its creators imagined. And the lack of actual policy led to infighting among China’s occupiers and a growing resentment to all of this foreign meddling. There is a direct line between the Open Door Policy, international squabbling, and the Boxer rebellion in which a purge of foreigners in China, including by assassination, was carried out. The line continues, from the Boxer Rebellion to numerous smaller rebellions and the eventual end of the imperial age with the demise of the Qing in 1911.

Japan took the greatest advantage of the turmoil in China, while the US became the champion of its sovereign rights. Japan pressed ahead with terms that centered on its economic privileges, and China yielded with little delay. The US declared that it would not recognize any agreement that violated Chinese sovereignty or conflicted with the Open Door.

At the 1919 Versailles Conference, Wilson demanded that the Japanese relinquish control over Shandong province and affirm Chinese sovereignty. Japan refused. Wilson backed down, provoking fierce criticism in China.

Warren Harding, following Wilson, opted to deal with rivalries in China by gathering all of the great powers together to work out their differences and establish new principles of conduct in the Far East. The result, the Washington Conference of 1921–1922, was an important diplomatic victory for the United States and a major—if temporary—breath of life for the Open Door policy.

By 1921 warship construction consumed fully one-third of Japan’s budget. Fearing a naval arms race, Secretary of State Charles Hughes invited the foreign ministers of eight maritime nations to Washington to reduce tensions in the Far East. The Japanese government, content to pursue its aims peacefully, entered into all three of the resulting treaties. By far the most important treaty for the future of the Open Door policy was the Nine-Power Treaty that called for noninterference in China’s internal affairs and respect for the Open Door principle.

The treaty was the most promising assertion of the Open Door policy since Hay’s notes. The Hughes agreement bound all of the principal powers and even reflected input from a full-fledged Chinese delegation.