“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.