The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 10, 1926, Page 9

The author of this review is editor of the Modern Quarterly and author of the noted book on American literature en- titled The Newer Spirit. By V. F. CALVERTON. | ARTOONS have become a part of contemporary civilization. They have developed into a form of com- ment and criticism that is essential to our culture, They represent a kind of snap-shot logic that often is sharper than words and more effective than argument. A philosophy is captured in a flash of lines or scorned with a single gesture. In short, cartoons speak a langiiage that is direct, pithy and dramatic. While cartoons may not be able to instruct in dialectics, they are able to excite and persuade the emotions. In these days of modern psychology the importance of the emotions in forming judgments and confirming conclusions has been amply demonstrated. Car- toons have an immedsiate effect upon the emotional process, They can by their directness of presentation agi- tate, propagandize and inspire. They give emotional tonus to intellectual at- titudes. They. give spirit to logic, rea- son to tactics. In. dealing with Red Cartoons (Daily Worker Publishing Co.—$1.00) one is immediately impressed with the im- portance of subject matter as well as with the skillfulness of line and in- genuity of conception. Here are pro- letarian cartoons, conceived in the spirit of the class struggle and de- voted to the definite purpose of class propaganda. Despite the canine ulu- lations of the bourgeois critics, the artistic clarity and forcefulness of these cartoons do not suffer as a con- sequence. On the other hand, the animus that motivated their creation seems to have infused them with emo- tion molten in intensity and magnifi- cent in sweep. The titleless one by Fred Ellis (The DAILY WORKER of Jan. 26, 1924) which projects the fig- ure of a worker, his body bound by the inextricable ropes of oppression, “his suffering face thrown toward the impotent heavens, is an exquisite and excellent flash of work. Robert Proletarian Cartoons Minor’s depiction of the workers driven to the abattoirs of labor by the snakish whip of the capitalist cavalry- man (The Liberator) has a rhythmic flow of line and a symmetry of organ- ization that mark it as a strong and significant production. Another of Minor’s, “The Exodus from Dixie,” in which the great migrations of the Ne- groes from southern to northern lati- tudes are interpreted in their relation- ship to the ku klux klan and lynching programs, ig scarcely less effective. There are many others that stand out as striking, sturdy achievements, par- ticularly “Buried Alive” by Ellis, “A Sacrifice to Greed” by Juanita Preval and “The Evolution of the American Peasant’ by Robert Minor. Altogether the collection is a valuable contribu- tion to the proletarian art that is slowly growing up in this country. Such a collection as Red Cartoons is, after all, a development in the car- toon genre that has come only after numerous evolutions in its substance. The word cartoon is derived from the Italian “cartone,” which means paste- board, and the real cartoon, according to its original character, is a large pic- ture in fresco, oil or tapestry. It serves as the model of the finished work. The word cartoon was not em- ployed until 1843, when a large exhi- bition of real cartoons was held in Westminster Hall, from which selec- tion was to be made of designs for the decoration in the fresco of the new houses of parliament. What are now known as cartoons were originally called caricatures. Political carica- ture naturally did not develop until after printing was invented and rapid circulation of material could be realized. It is interesting to note the growth of the genre. The earliest car- icature (or as today called cartoon) is a French engraving that dates back to 1499, in which Louis XII is depicted playing cards with the Doge of Venice and the Swiss ruler, while the other rulers of Europe are forced to look on. In the 17th century caricatures multi- plied. One of the most amusing and yet at the same-time**bitter’is that inspired by the Protestants who fled to England after the Edict of Nantes had been revoked in 1685—this caricature consisted of 24 hideous faces gro- tesquely similar to the ministers and courtiers of Louis. In England the bourgeoisie was frequently carigatured by the artists of the aristocracy. One of these caricatures representing “The High Court of Justice, or Oliver’s Slaughter House,” is especially clever and memorable. In 1710 im the noto- rious proceedings against Dr. Sachev- erell caricature became a salient weapon. It was at this time that the word “caricature” came into common use. (the word deriving itself from the Italian “caricare,” meaning to load or charge, and hence in English trans- lated into an exaggeration). Hogarth, Gillray, Thomas, Rowlandson, Isaac Cruikshank, Temniel, Maurier and Keene are the most famous caricatur- ists. that flourished on English soil. Hogarth and Cruishank were the lead- ers of the bourgeois satirists in their effort to use caricature for the moral ends of the bourgeoisie. In America Thomas Nast was the famous political cartoonist. Defending the republican party.during the. Civil War and attack- ing -Tammeny~ afterwards, Nast was important in making the cartoon pop- ular in the United States. Puck, Judge and then Life followed with cartoons as one of their central attractions, It was Life magazine that, for instance, discovered the work of Charles Dana Gibson, . In England Max Beerbohm chalked a change in the attitude of the car- toonist. Beerbohm was the Sinclair’ Lewis of cartoonery. Instead of play- ing up the bourgeoisie as had his pre- decessors, in particular Hogarth and Cruishank, he satired it. But Beer- bohm’s caricatures had more of fun than earnestness about them, more of mischievous contempt than of deep ha- tred. The proletarian cartoonist is a new figure to emerge. In the attitude of the radical cartoonists of today there is a firm-set realization that the time for playful piquancies is past, and that pictorial satire and exposure must be undertaken in profound serious- hess. Red Cartoons bears out this fact with unequivocal emphasis. The absurdities and injustices of a class- Strangled society must not be twisted into form evocative of laughter, but revealed with candor productive of hatred. And so Red “Cartoons. satfrizes with a purpose that is as social as it is sig- nificant. To the Wall of the Communards in 1926 France and U. S. By HARRY GANNES, N the last Sunday in May, in com- memoration of the closing, bloody week of the Paris Commune (the armed uprising of the Paris workers in 1871 against the rule of the French capitalists) the French revolutionary workers march thru Pere Lachaise cemetery and before the Wall of the Federals proclaim their lasting and growing determination to carry to a successful end the struggle here "so valiantly lost. The 1926 parade to the Wall organized by the French Commu- nist Party was heldi@uring the days of a tense economic and political crisis, and particularly in the midst of a bit- ter campaign against fascism. Two Communist Party members, Clere and Bernardon, were on trial for the killing of three fascisti in a street fight provoked by the Young Patriots —the French imitators of Mussolini's blood-be-drenched black shirts. The rerdict was to be rendered the next day. Thruout its long duration the proceed- ings against the French comrades was _the most closely followed event of the ‘eh “Tt was a ‘court battle between Communism and fascism, with fas- cism, gun in hand, standing on the court steps, ready to retaliate in the Matteoti fashion at the least nod from Taittinger, the French Duce, For several weeks bofore the day set for the parade the party issued the slogan,. “To the Wall,” as a dem- onstration against fascism and the Briand government which was system- atically selling the French proletariat to the American bankers. Sunday morning wherever you went in Paris were hundreds of workers walking along the streets with out- spread “L’Humanite,” the Communist Party organ, exhibiting its black head- line: “Celebrate the Commune: To the Wall, Comrades!” ‘fhe circulation of “L/Humantte,” already 300,000, was considerably increased that day, I lived just one block from Mont- martre heights, where was stationed the main battery of the Federals in 1871. It was the attempt by Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas, the military tools of Thiers, that aroused the Parisian masses against the dan- ger of the shameful capitulation to Bismarck and a renewed attempt to re- store the monarchy. It was on this very street, now so solemnly paraded by workers reading “L’Humanite,” the Rochechouart and Clignancourt Delta, all the way down to Place Clichy for about two miles, that the women of the Commune held the boulevards against the Versailles soldiers, incensed to revenge by Galli- fet and the little, fat Thiers. HE parade was set for the after- noon. “L’Humanite” for that day was devoted to the Commune, its sig- nificance for the world prolétariat; the present disastrous policy of the French imperialists, and the growing danger of an American Dawes plan in France. The franc was steadily falling, and Peret, Briand’s comical minister of finance at the time, was repeating his phonograph record: “The fall of the franc is not justified by the actual eccnomic condition of the country. Have confidence in the government.” But the» franc , followed Comrade Cachin’s prediction, that is, down- ward, and with it was going the stand- ards of the already underfed and con- sumption-ridden French workers. There were several letters in the paper from veterans of the Commune. These old class warriors had fought on the barricades, had lived thru the blood bath of the Commune, the ter- rible massacre afterwards, the failure of the French socialists in 1914, and the success of the Russian revolution —the establishment of a workers’ gov- ernment that had learned from the nistakes of the revolution of 1871. The streetcar to Pere Lachaise now traverses -practi¢ally the invasion of workers’ Paris by Gallifet. All along the way here, where workers now hurry along with their red flags, the Negotiating Debt Settlement. Communards drenched with their blood. These very streets were their battlefields. Every few blocks was the scene of a barricade, and every barricade the scene -of a heroic strug- gle, and then a massacre. The fight- ing (and with it the slaughter of the Communards) intensified as the terri- tory held by the revolutionists thinned. We reach Belleville now. This is a workersdistrict, We are not far from the party trade union headquarters. More and more workers now walk to- ward “The Wall.” In 1871 several hundred, ragged and blood-bespattered workers also hurried toward the wall. It was here in Belleville that in 1871 the bitterest fighting took place. This is the doorstep of the final catastro- phe. The workers here erected a tre- mendous barricade. The cannons belched and shrieked endlessly. The Versailles troops were harrassed and enraged. “Why doesn't this damn ordure surronder!”” The Communards were outnumbered, beaten, fatigued and with not a hope of success, Their ranks dwindled, dwindled. One man remained on this barricade, He did not surrender, He retreated in the midst of the smoke and grime into the shambles of the tottering build- ings, a symbol of the workers’ revo- lution, retreating but unbeaten, We near Peré Lachaise. The streets are choked with workers and, above all, is a sea of red flags. This ceme- tery is the final battleground of the Commune. Here the last few Commu- nards retreated and behind the tomb- stones of France’s illustrious dead gave ground inch -by inch until the end of the cemetery wag reached! There was no time lost by the Ver- sailles troops. The few remaining Communards were placed against the wall, that is now so profusely decked with red flags, and summarily ‘shot. But before they died their voices were raised in a piercing cry that has not died: “Vive La Commune!” On this Sunday that cry sounded louder than ever before. Seventy-five thou- sand Parisian workers, under the lead- ership of the Communist Party, re- peated the cry: “Vive La Commune!” That was not all. The Commune had erred and lost, but the Russian revo- lution hadgsucceeded and to the cry of “Vive Commune” was added “Long Live Soviet Russia,” “Long Live the Communist International.” ers hours the party units, the trade unions and unorganized workers paraded past the Wall of the Communards. Standing in the very spot on which their comrades had exerted their last efforts on behalf of the Commune, a few grey-haired vet- erans greeted this new party, the new red youth that perpetuated the spirit of the Commune, The execution of the small group of workers before the Wall was the fin- ishing touch to the massacre of 30,000 Communards, Thiers chuckled in the thought that “socialism was dead for all time now.” But this day 75,000 revolutionists demonstrated their con- secration to Soviet Paris, ee ee ee ee ee