This Pen Is Mightier

It is hard to describe this book, or Herblock's cartoons in general. The beat thing would be to say: "Buy it! Read it! Treasure it! Give it to all your friends!"

Why is Herblock so wonderful? What is it that makes his work so much greater than anything you can think of? The answer is fairly simple. He describes events of the day in terms of their real significance, stripped of pretension, rationalization, or downright deception.

This is perhaps one of the rarest of talents and surely one of the most valuable. The text in this book is clear, biting, colloquial prose. It is a good job of summing up, trying together, and highlighting; but it seldom (if ever) surpasses the cartoons.

For instance, what more can be said about U. S. Diplomacy" and the "Palestine Issue" as of April, 1948, than the accompanying cartoon says? A treatise on how important oil is to America and to the whole free world would miss the hypocrisy of our stand. Documented proof that we were really interested in the people directly affected would disguise the fact that, no matter how we felt about that, oil was more important. And what simple denunciation of our policy would have the force of this cartoon? from The Herblock Book, Beacon Press

Or a picture of Senator Taft sawing the globe in half just east of Florida, with Taber telling Uncle Sam, "We've got to cut wherever we can." Can Republican foreign policy be better described?

Almost all the cartoons in the book, and there are over 400, cause either a guffaw or an "ooph" depending in each case on the reader's politics over the last six years. A few have lost their sting, but most still retain a quality which can best be likened to the impact of a razor-sharp sledge hammer.

Herblock admits to their "needling nature." But, he appropriately points out "Cartoons don't make up into lace valentines very well and they're not supposed to. That's not their function."

Therefore the most common subjects in the book are various forms of dishonesty and stupidity both deliberate and unwitting including McCarthyism, Taft Republicanism, Southern "Democracy," the "Asia Game," Communism and Russian imperialism, the pro-Franco lobby, the oil, power, and transportation lobbies, and Congress.

Long Tradition

On the latter subject, Herblock's views are completely in tune with all first-rate and perceptive American humorous and historic writing of the last 100 years. Ambrose Bierce stated the whole case in this little fable:

"A Public Treasury, feeling Two Arms lifting out its contents, exclaimed: "Mr. Shareman, I move for a division.'

"'You seem to know something about parliamentary forms of speech,' said the Two Arms.

"'Yes,' replied the Public Treasury, 'I am familiar with the hauls of legislation.'"