1943.06.28 “The Great Experiment”
by Burris A. Jenkins, Jr. (1897-1966)
11.5 x 14.5 in, ink and crayon on board

http://www.original-political-cartoon.com/cartoon-gallery/artists/jenkins-jr-burris-1897-1966/

Burris Jenkins Jr. was the son of a prominent Kansas City minister, war correspondent and newspaper editor. Jenkins Jr. was a popular sports cartoonist, whose work appeared in the New York Journal-American from 1931. His humorous published verses were also popular. Although best known for his sports themes, Jenkins was also a skilled courtroom illustrator and editorial cartoonist.

Jenkins was not afraid to provoke, and he has some strong WW2 examples, including one of the rare direct commentaries on concentration (death) camps. Among his best-remembered cartoons are his angry piece on the discovery of the dead Lindbergh baby, and his sentimental image of Babe Ruth’s farewell to Yankee Stadium.

He was fired from his first job at the Kansas City Post for a series of pessimistic Christmas cartoons, a firing that prompted his father’s resignation from the same newspaper.

His father was an interesting guy. Jenkins, Sr (1968-1945) was ordained in 1891 and served as a pastor in Indianapolis. He received advanced degrees from Harvard and went on to serve as a professor and president of the University of Indianapolis and president of Kentucky University. He left Kentucky to return to Kansas City as pastor of the Linwood Boulevard Christian Church. The church burned in 1939, and Jenkins chose Frank Lloyd Wright as the architect for the church’s new home overlooking the Country Club Plaza.

Jenkins served as editor of the Kansas City Post from 1919 to 1921, hoping to fight for the establishment of the League of Nations. The Jenkins, Sr., biography tells the story about his leaving the Post slightly differently that for the son: “After two years, it became necessary for him to choose between the newspaper and his pulpit and, without hesitation, he resigned from the Post.”

“Live dangerously!” Jenkins would thunder from the pulpit, embracing his own philosophy against all adversaries. Unconventional in nearly every aspect of his chosen field, Jenkins often preached from non-Biblical texts, such as the latest book or his travels abroad. The church frequently hosted motion pictures, dances, card games, and fundraising boxing matches. These activities led to opposition to Jenkins and his Community Church from other churches in the city.

The Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) was an Allied offensive of strategic bombing during World War II in Europe. The primary portion of the CBO was against Luftwaffe targets which was the highest priority from June 10, 1943 to April 1, 1944.

The British bombing campaign was chiefly waged by night by large numbers of heavy bombers until the latter stages of the war when German fighter defenses were so reduced that daylight bombing was possible without risking large losses. The US effort was by day – massed formations of bombers with escorting fighters. Together they made up a round-the-clock bombing effort except where weather conditions prevented operations.

The Combined Bomber Offensive began on June 10, 1943 during the British bombing campaign against German industry in the Ruhr area known as the “Battle of the Ruhr.”

1943.06.25 “Bombing of the Ruhr”
by AW Mackenzie (1895-1972)
11 x 14 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Mackenzie was a student of Van Dearing Perrine and attended the Art Students League about 1915. He started as a freelance cartoonist in 1941 and in May 1945, he attended the first United Nations Conference on International Organizations in San Francisco as a political cartoonist for the New York Post newspaper. His cartoons appeared daily on the editorial pages of the New York Post, Newsday and in the New York Daily.

The Battle of the Ruhr (March-July, 1943) was a British campaign of strategic bombing during the Second World War against the Ruhr Area in Nazi Germany, which had coke plants, steelworks, and 10 synthetic oil plants. The Battle of the Ruhr severely disrupted German production of steel and armaments, including aircraft.

The cities noted on the cartoon help to pin down the date: Dortmund May 23-24, Oberhausen June 14-15, Duisburg June 19-20, Huls June 22, Mulheim June 22-23,
and Krefeld June 21-22.

1943.06.25 “Maybe She Doesn’t Love Me Anymore”
by Gordon Smith
11 x 12 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

This cartoon is attributed to the Boston Post, but I cannot track the artist, yet. At least the signature is clear.

By mid-June, 1943, the war was all but lost for the Italians. The Italian population was alienated, and the Grand Council and the king were pressing Mussolini to negotiate a way out of the war.

Mussolini was completely isolated. He was playing both sides. And although years later, Mussolini’s alienation is notably described in Bosworth’s biography of him as Dickens’s Wilkins Micawber who, despite ‘of being utterly devoid of plans’, obstinately hoped – somehow – ‘that something positive would turn up,’ it’s pretty clear that this was a contemporary editorial position.

On June 24, Mussolini gave his last important speech as prime minister, known as the “boot topping” (Italian: bagnasciuga) speech. The Duce promised that the only part of Italy that the Anglo-Americans would be able to occupy was the shoreline. He was misspoken in his effort to say they would only occupy Italy as corpses, and he used incorrect vocabulary. For many Italians, his confused and incoherent speech was the final proof that something was wrong with Mussolini.

In late June, Mussolini was continuing his psychological contest with Hitler. On July 1, 1943, against the Hitler’s wishes, Mussolini met with the Romanian deputy premier, Antonescu, with whom he agreed to promote the long-debated inter-Axis conference (and a Nazi-Soviet settlement, which was of no interest to Hitler).

The Allies were knocking on the door, and the first invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe would begin on July 10, 1943, when Patton’s army landed in Sicily.  In his last speech before the invasion, Mussolini was still declaring his confidence in being able to repulse the Allies and demonstrate the futility of taking on the Axis. ‘Maybe then’, he said, ‘whoever until now has let himself be slaughtered all to the good of the Anglo-Saxon plutocracy will realize that the game is not worth the candle.’

This is a great saying that we have lost. It refers to playing a game of cards for stakes that are so low that it is not worth the price of the candle being used to light the play.

On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8.

On July 25, 1943, following the agreement, Mussolini was voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost.

1943.06.14 “The Triple: Sammie, To Joe, to Winnie”
by Albert Turner Reid (1873-1958)
8 x 11 in., pencil on paper
Coppola Collection

Albert Reid sold his first political cartoon to the Topeka Mail and Breeze in 1896. After this first cartoon, his work began to appear regularly in the Kansas City Journal, Kansas City Star, Chicago Record, the New York Herald, and the Saturday Evening Post.

Reid was a successful businessman, a staunch supporter of the American farmer, a composer, a painter of murals and a teacher of art. The art school which he started with George Stone in Topeka was the beginning of Washburn’s Art Department. If he had been active in larger political centers, he probably would have received even more recognition. A large collection of his work is in the collections of the Kansas Historical Society.

Drawn on the back of some stationary from the Hotel Carteret in NYC (still there, in Chelsea, with $3K/month studio apartments for rent), a lovely sketch of a nice analogy using a baseball diamond to record a triple play. Uncle Sam takes out Tojo, who was on a Sneak Run (Pearl Harbor); Joe Stalin takes out Hitler; and Churchill takes out Mussolini. A cheer to Buy Bonds shows in the stands, with Chinese Nationalist Premiere Chiang Kai-Shek, just before his installation as Nationalist President, yelling out “Belly Good” from home plate. The cartoon from Thurston Gentry right about this time (June 1) is a variation on this exact theme, celebrating the combined Allied efforts of the US (in the Pacific), Russia (in Germany), and the UK (in Africa).

1943.06.01 “By the Scruff of the Neck”
By Thurston Gentry (1905-X)
6.5 x 7.5, ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

Born in Dallas, Texas. After five years as a musician on a ship, he worked in the art departments of several western and midwestern newspapers. In 1930 he was working as a  newspaper artist in Chicago while attending the Art Institute of  Chicago. Gentry submitted drawings to Collier’s, Life , Judge , Saturday  Evening Post , and other publications. While living in Hollywood from

1932-1945, he contributed drawings to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times . He may have moved to New York, as his drawings appeared there until the early 1950s.

Two years into the war, in September 1941, the Wehrmacht was strong and getting stronger. Western Europe had been decisively conquered, and there were few signs of any serious resistance to German rule. The failure of the Italians to establish Mussolini’s much-vaunted new Roman empire in the Mediterranean had been made good by German intervention. German forces had overrun Greece, and subjugated Yugoslavia. In north Africa, Rommel’s brilliant generalship was pushing the British and allied forces eastwards towards Egypt and threatening the Suez Canal. And the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, while not a cakewalk, had reaped rewards, with Leningrad, Smolensk and Kiev taken, and an encircling operation that brought the German armed forces within reach of Moscow.

Dividing the war into multiple fronts and the entry of the US into the war via its conflict in the Pacific changed the complexion of things within another two years. The early advantage that the Japanese had was effectively lost with the battle of Midway in mid-1942. By mid-1943, Rommel was retreating from Africa and the US was invading Sicily.

The Allies had the Axis by the scruff of the neck. Like a classic superhero battle, the Soviets were holding of the Germans, the US was holding off the Japanese, and the British were victorious in Africa.

1943.05.28 “Shoot if you must this old grey head!”
by Charles (Chuck) Werner (1909-1997)
12 x 15 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Werner

Charles (Chuck) Werner won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1939 for a cartoon he did for the Daily Oklahoman titled “Nomination for 1938” which allowed for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Hitler’s Germany (October 6, 1938). At age 29, Werner was the youngest person to win the Pulitzer. Werner left the Daily Oklahoman to be the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Chicago Sun in 1941 before leaving for the Indianapolis Star in 1947. Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, many U.S. Presidents expressed interest in Werner’s cartoons, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry Truman requesting cartoons for their presidential libraries.

Taxation concerns took a back seat to the needs for building up the military, in short order, following Pearl Harbor. The highest fraction of the GDP to ever be spent on defense happened in 1943-45 (41%), double the WW1 spike (22%) and well over the norm of 5-10%, which persists to this day.

The sense of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul was a real concern, that the War would cost so much that it would take years to settle the accounts.

Originally known as Hi-Catoctin, Camp David was built as a camp for federal government agents and their families by the WPA. Construction started in 1935 and was completed in 1938. In 1942, FDR converted it to a presidential retreat and renamed it “Shangri-La.”

On May 12-25 1943, Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at “Shangri-La” in the first of many high-profile summits involving the leaders of the Allied powers. As the leaders passed through Frederick, MD, FDR told Churchill the Civil War story of Union patriot, Barbara Freitchie. Then FDR recited a few lines from John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem about her. Churchill responded by reciting the entire Freitchie poem from memory to the astonished American President.

In the poem “Barbara Frietchie”

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

Lincoln and Churchill held a shared magnanimity toward conquered foes, a philosophy Whittier reflected. The wartime budget asks for similar magnanimity from the Congress as it anticipates the move into the future.

1943.05.16 “Bad Weather Forecast from Benito’s Gout”
by Hugh McMillen Hutton (1897-1976)
20 x 22 in., ink and crayon on heavy board
Coppola Collection

https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/h/hutton_hm.htm

Hugh M. Hutton (1897-1976) was an American editorial cartoonist who worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer for over 30 years.

Hugh Hutton grew up with an artistic mother. After attending the University of Minnesota for two years, Hutton enlisted in the armed forces and served in World War I. Hutton pursued coursework in art through correspondence school, the Minneapolis School of Art and the Art Students League.

He worked at the New York World from 1930 to 1932 and with the United Features Syndicate in 1932 and 1933, drawing illustrations and comic strips. Hutton relocated to Philadelphia and worked as the cartoonist at the Public Ledger in 1933 and 1934. He became the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist in April 1934, where he stayed throughout his career, retiring in 1969.

Mussolini, the father of fascism, partnered with Hitler in 1936.

Mussolini’s dreams of waging a short war almost independently from Hitler faded away during 1941 in the snows of Greece. His main concern became how to secure an important place for Italy in a German-dominated Europe. Hitler blamed his need to go rescue the Italians on the Greek front for delaying his invasion of Russia.

As the war turned against Germany, Mussolini wanted to find a political solution to the conflict by negotiating a separate peace agreement with Moscow.

May 10, 1943: On the day that the Enabling Act of 1933 was set to expire by its terms, Adolf Hitler signed an order extending his dictatorship indefinitely. Published in the Reich Law Gazette, the decree stated “The Reich government will continue to exercise the powers bestowed on it by virtue of the law of March 24, 1933. I reserve for myself the obtaining of a confirmation of these powers of the Reich government by the Greater German Reichstag.”

Following the defeat of the Axis Powers in North Africa in May 1943, there was disagreement between the Allies as to what the next step should be. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in particular wanted to invade Italy, which in November 1942 he called “the soft underbelly of the axis.” Popular support in Italy for the war was declining, and he believed an invasion would remove Italy, and thus the influence of Axis forces in the Mediterranean Sea, opening it to Allied traffic.

When it became clear that no cross-channel invasion of occupied France could be undertaken in 1943, the US agreed to invade Sicily, with no commitment made to any follow-up operations. However, both Churchill and FDR accepted the necessity of Allied armies continuing to engage the Axis in the period after a successful campaign in Sicily and before the start of one in northwest Europe.

With an Allied invasion of Italy imminent, Pope Pius XII sent an appeal to FDR, asking that American bombers spare the destruction of Rome, noting that its “many treasured shrines of religion and art” were “the precious heritage not of one people but of all human and Christian civilization”

By mid-June, 1943, the war was all but lost for the Italians. The Italian population was alienated, and the Grand Council and the king were pressing Mussolini to negotiate a way out of the war.

In late June, Mussolini was continuing his psychological contest with Hitler. On July 1, 1943, against the Hitler’s wishes, Mussolini met with the Romanian deputy premier, Antonescu, with whom he agreed to promote the long-debated inter-Axis conference (and a Nazi-Soviet settlement, which was of no interest to Hitler).

Allied forces landed in Sicily starting on July 10, 1943 and moved northward. Support for the war and for Mussolini had dropped substantially, and he was ousted on July 25, 1943. On September 3, an armistice was reached between the new government of Italy and the Allies. Hitler was already in the north of Italy, and the Italian peninsula became a contested war zone.

On October 13, 1943, one month after Italy surrendered to the Allies, it declared war on its one-time Axis partner, Nazi Germany.

1943.03.11 “African Dodger”
by Norbert B. Quinn (1902-1987)
8 x 11 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Born in Medford, MA, and educated at Boston College High School (1920) followed by taking classes at the Museum of Fine Arts school, Quinn was an artist for the Boston Globe for many years. He retired to Maine in 1967.

The campaign of 1943 opened strongly for the German army. Profiting from that temporarily favorable turn, Rommel was set up to utilize his central position between the two converging Allied armies to strike and cripple them separately and successively. If he could neutralize the First Army, he would have both hands free to tackle the Eighth Army, which had become thinned out as its lines of supply had lengthened.

The US, which included a French division, was confident, but at the end of January the Panzers overwhelmed the French garrison before American support could arrive. On Valentine’s Day, 1943, Rommel’s forces made a strong hit on the American forces and destroyed more than 100 tanks. Three days later, the German’s captured a set of American airfields. The tables started to turn thanks to some reserve strength on the side of the Allies, and Rommel broke off his attacks on February 22 and started to withdraw.

On March 6, when Rommel attacked again, his chance of striking with a superior force had vanished. The Allied reinforcements had nearly quadrupled their strength, and Rommel’s attack was brought to a standstill. And by March 17, 1943, the Allied offensive initiated a strong and coordinated attack, now under Patton’s direction.

1943.02.20 “Get Me a New Word”
by William (Bill) Crawford (1913-1982)
18 x 22 in., ink and crayon on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Crawford_(cartoonist)

Crawford worked as a sports cartoonist and for the Washington Daily News and the Washington Post from 1936-38. He joined the Newark News as an editorial cartoonist and his cartoons were distributed to more than 700 daily newspapers by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. He was an active member of the National Cartoonists Society, serving as its president and vice-president. In 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1963 he was awarded “Best Editorial Cartoon” by the National Cartoonist Society, and in 1973 he received their Silver T-Square Award. Crawford retired in 1977.

Goebbels was the bombastic and sometime foul-mouthed minister of propaganda.

In a broadly available speech given on February 18, 1943, he provided the warrants of the Nazi intents.

“I speak first to the world, and proclaim three theses regarding our fight against the Bolshevist danger in the East.

“This first thesis: Were the German army not in a position to break the danger from the East, the Reich would fall to Bolshevism, and all Europe shortly afterwards.

“The goal of Bolshevism is Jewish world revolution. They want to bring chaos to the Reich and Europe, using the resulting hopelessness and desperation to establish their international, Bolshevist-concealed capitalist tyranny… That is a direct threat to the existence of every European power…  The West is in danger. It makes no difference whether or not their governments and intellectuals realize it or not… We also know our historic responsibility. Two thousand years of Western civilization are in danger. One cannot overestimate the danger. It is indicative that when one names it as it is, International Jewry throughout the world protests loudly. Things have gone so far in Europe that one cannot call a danger a danger when it is caused by the Jews.

“Second: The German army, the German people and their allies alone have the strength to save Europe from this threat.

“The European nations, including England, believe that they are strong enough to resist effectively the Bolshevization of Europe, should it come to that. This belief is childish and not even worth refuting… The world no longer has the choice between falling back into its old fragmentation or accepting a new order for Europe under Axis leadership. The only choice now is between living under Axis protection or in a Bolshevist Europe… Jewry has so deeply infected the Anglo-Saxon states both spiritually and politically that they are no longer have the ability to see the danger. It conceals itself as Bolshevism in the Soviet Union, and plutocratic-capitalism in the Anglo-Saxon states. The Jewish race is an expert at mimicry. They put their host peoples to sleep, paralyzing their defensive abilities.

“Third: Danger faces us. We must act quickly and decisively, or it will be too late.

“The paralysis of the Western European democracies before their deadliest threat is frightening. International Jewry is doing all it can to encourage such paralysis. During our struggle for power in Germany, Jewish newspapers tried to conceal the danger, until National Socialism awakened the people.

1943.02.02 “Adolf Ought to be Along Any Day”
by Jacob (Jake) Burck (1907-1982)
13 x 17 in, pencil on board
Coppola Collection

Active in the Communist movement from 1926 as a political cartoonist and muralist, Burck quit the Communist Party after a visit to the Soviet Union in 1936, deeply offended by political demands there to manipulate his work.

Upon his return to the United States, Burck drew political cartoons for two large mainstream dailies, the St. Louis Post Dispatch and then, starting in 1938 and going for 44 years, the Chicago Daily Times (later as the Chicago Sun-Times). Burck was awarded the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Burck of injuries sustained in a fire in his home caused by a smoldering cigarette.

The Battle of Stalingrad fought in 1942 and 1943 has been called Hitler’s Waterloo. At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffered defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era within European history.

With the Battle of Stalingrad, it brought the surrender of the huge German Sixth Army under Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus and the failure of Hitler’s invasion of Russia. The Battle provided Stalin with 91,000 prisoners, including 22 German generals. It was a decisive battle that pointed to Germany’s ultimate downfall. All told, Hitler’s Germany assembled more than four million men to invade Russia. But, in late January 1943 Hitler’s army, just like Napoleon’s, would retreat from Russia in defeat.