Favorite Cartoonist of the Vermin Press

and the cartoon that made their heads explode

Essays published here are serialized. Go back for context…

We were introduced to the so-called “Crucifixion of Uncle Sam” and efforts to discern who was responsible as early as April of 1941.

Of all the dozens, likely hundreds, of anti-New Deal, isolationist, anti-Semitic (?) comics and political cartoons circulated up until 1941, why was this one particularly offensive, or effective?

“History Repeats! -Dedicated to his country by an unnamed Patriot,” is the official title and byline of this work.

The print was circulated by a number of our usual suspects and I have documented mailings with Charles B. Hudson’s “America in Danger,” William Kullgren’s “Beacon Light,” and reports of its appearance in Elmer Garner’s “Publicity.” So, this image got around. It was a large image, refered to as a circular, poster, and probably broadside.

It may have been reprinted smaller and I have read descriptions of articles printed on the back, which may not have originated with the first printing.

The details are almost too fine to have reproduced clearly on a postal card, but for mass mailings, as were reportedly done, I can’t say that a postcard didn’t exist.

To hear the screech of the opponents of its message, one would think they were all good Christians. “Blasphemous!” seems a popular condemnation.

Here is one of the slickest attacks on the work. Even though the depiction had circulated and been condemned widely through the spring and summer of ‘41, this news item connects it with the German torpedo attack on the USS Kearney in October.

“2 Authors of Nazi Poster Which Tormented Sailor's Mother Quit Fight to Avoid Trial Here”

You’ll notice that this is the work of Dillard Stokes of the Washington Post, who was complicit in the entrapment of defendants in the Mass Sedition trial, and whose other hatchet jobs have been discussed and shared here. There’s more to follow.

Next up, let’s meet the artist Otto Brennemann…