“The Butcher’s Helper” (December 29, 1937)
By Stan MacGovern (1903-1975)
12 x 14 in., pen on paper

MacGovern was best known for his comic strip “Silly Milly” which ran in the New York Post from the 1930s into the 1950s. McGovern also drew editorial cartoons for the Post, and he was included in a 2004 exhibit, “Cartoonists Against the Holocaust: Art in the Service of Humanity,” sponsored by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Silly Milly, which had limited syndication, came to an end in 1951. MacGovern left the newspaper field to run a gift shop on Long Island. It was an unsuccessful business, and he later worked at a Long Island furniture store. In 1975, at the age of 72, he committed suicide.

Between 1937 and 1941, escalating conflict between China and Japan influenced US relations with both nations, and ultimately contributed to pushing the United States toward full-scale war with Japan and Germany.

At the outset, US officials viewed developments in China with ambivalence. On the one hand, they opposed Japanese incursions into northeast China and the rise of Japanese militarism in the area, in part because of their sense of a longstanding friendship with China. On the other hand, most US officials believed that it had no vital interests in China worth going to war over with Japan. Moreover, the domestic conflict between Chinese Nationalists and Communists left US policymakers uncertain of success in aiding such an internally divided nation. As a result, few US officials recommended taking a strong stance prior to 1937, and so the United States did little to help China for fear of provoking Japan.

US likelihood of providing aid to China increased after July 7, 1937, when Chinese and Japanese forces clashed on the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, throwing the two nations into a full-scale war. As the United States watched Japanese forces sweep down the coast and then into the capital of Nanjing, popular opinion swung firmly in favor of the Chinese. American outrage with Japan rose when the Japanese Army bombed the USS Panay on December 12, 1937, as it evacuated American citizens from Nanjing, killing three, and for the reports of the atrocities of the Nanjing Massacre. The US Government, however, continued to avoid conflict and accepted an apology and indemnity from the Japanese on Christmas eve.

There is nothing too subtle about the message, here. It’s unusual to see political editorials in this era that are so openly critical of the US in this way. The common criticism around this time was from the anti-isolationists who depicted the US with indifference to outright defiance for not getting involved with the affairs in Europe.

“As Japan Considers International Complications” (August 30, 1937)
by John Tinney McCutcheon (1870-1949)
14 x 18 in., ink on drawing board

On the Purdue campus, where he was a student, McCutcheon (class of 1889) is memorialized in a coeducational dormitory, John T. McCutcheon Hall. The lobby displays an original of one of his drawings, a nearly life-size drawing of a young man.

After college, McCutcheon moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he worked at the Chicago Morning News (later: Chicago Record) and then at the Chicago Tribune from 1903 until his retirement in 1946. McCutcheon received the Pulitzer Prize for Cartoons in 1932.

On August 26, 1937, the British ambassador to China (Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen) was wounded when a Japanese plane strafed and attacked his limousine. First hospitalised in Shanghai and then invalided home to Britain, he narrowly escaped paralysis. On August 29, Britain sent a sharp note of protest to the Japanese government demanding a formal apology for the wounding of their ambassador.

The lack of any significant reply from Japan is represented here as the Japanese learning from the past few years in Europe, where Hitler and Mussolini defied the terms of many terms of prior treaties and civil agreements.

Without creating an army of thugs as your enforcers, laws and agreements are social contracts that provide deterrence as much as they provide for consequences. The moment you think you can walk out into the middle of a crowd and commit a crime with no consequence, civil systems begin to break down.

All Steamed Up Again (07/13/1937)
By Fred Otto Seibel (1886 – 1968)
12 x 16 in., ink on paper

Frederick Otto Seibel was a prolific editorial artist. With a career spanning 60 years, he produced an estimated 16,000 cartoons.

Trouble plagued China and Japan for a hundred years. In 1931, things sparked up again when Japan invaded Manchuria, in part to relieve burdens back home caused by the Great Depression.

From 1931-1937, China and Japan continued to skirmish, and Japan was winning ground, capturing both Shanghai and the capital, Nanjing, in 1937.

By July 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army had already surrounded Beijing and Tianjin, with thousands of troops stationed along the railways, including one of the main entry points between Beijing and Tianjin, the old walled city of Wanping (located about 9 miles SW of the Beijing city center).

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese were conducting military exercises outside of Wanping. As the story goes, a Japanese soldier failed to return to his post, and the Chinese received a message demanding that the Japanese enter Wanping to look for him. The Chinese refused, and both sides began to mobilize.

Although the soldier actually returned to his unit, by the late evening of July 7 gunfire was exchanged and the Japanese attempted to breach the defenses at Wanping.

The attacks took place at an ancient stone bridge (the Marco Polo Bridge) in the Wanping district, which provided access to the rail station. The 7/7/37 date is considered to be the start of the second Sino-Japanese War, which lasted until 1945.

The tensions did not go down, and the next day, as troops were massing, shots were fired and the Battle of Beijing-Tianjin marks the first major conflict recorded in the 8-year war. The Chinese were outflanked and the Japanese had scored many victories. Between July 11 and 20, hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops were occupying the Beijing-Tianjin area.

This Seibel cartoon, from July 13, 1937, is clearly consistent with a message coming out of Asia that the Japanese were once again steamrolling over the Chinese.

Although the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 generally designates the starting date of WWII, there are those who see this war of Japanese aggression and the 7/7/37 date as an equally legitimate marker, given the alliance that would eventually emerge.