I have always been impressed with the power of a well thought out editorial cartoon.  They can make a point, sometimes with a cutting edge that can go for the jugular.  They hold power even when you don’t agree with the subject, and you know the cartoonist to be a . . . well, never mind what the cartoonist is.

One powerful Great War cartoon appeared in the Chicago Tribune on August 7, 1914.  Drawn by John Tinney McCutcheon, it is simply entitled “The Colors.”  McCutcheon intended it to be a warning of the costs of war, and it is quite effective.  It remains a great antiwar cartoon.

Here is the story of “The Cartoon That Made People Scared to Go to War in 1914.”  http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/155519

 

Blair Tarr is the Museum Curator of the Kansas State Historical Society. He oversees the three-dimensional collections of the Society, but has special interests in the Civil War, Wichita-made Valentine diners, and Leavenworth's Abernathy Furniture. In the last few years he has also done a lot of cramming on The Great War. He is a past president of the Kansas Museums Association and the Civil War Round Tables of both Kansas City and Eastern Kansas. He is currently a board member of the Heritage League of Greater Kansas City.