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"When may I expect my uniform?"
The world through Chicago political cartoons
before and after Pearl Harbor

Fred Vultee
Doctoral student
10A Neff Hall
University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, MO 65211
(573) 882-5740
[log in to unmask]

"When may I expect my uniform?"
The world through Chicago political cartoons before and after Pearl Harbor


Introduction: When press barons stalked the earth

There was no middle ground of opinion on Franklin D. Roosevelt 
between the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune as his third 
presidential term took shape. The publisher of the afternoon News was 
Roosevelt's Navy secretary; the publisher of the Tribune was perhaps 
his fiercest press enemy (Brinkley, 1988, p. 182). In the editorial 
cartoons of the News, FDR sails steadfastly east with vital aid for 
England; in the Tribune's, Uncle Sam and Congress are forever reining 
in the warmonger in the White House. There was, if anything, less 
agreement on the proper course for the United States in a war that 
had already drawn in much of the world. The News expressed confidence 
after the loss of an American destroyer in October 1941 that "our war 
with Germany in the north Atlantic" was not one-sided ("Our limited 
war," 1941). The Tribune's headline on a report about that clash 
pointed the blame at administration policy: "We Ask For It, Sailor Writes."
  This study looks at how those themes played out, and how other 
themes emerged, in the Chicago papers' cartoons in the weeks leading 
up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the weeks that followed. Using a 
constant comparison method to generate categories for content 
analysis, it finds not only that war themes were different before the 
United States entered the war, but that even amid the apparent unity 
brought on by a cataclysm like Pearl Harbor, the rival papers still 
evidenced starkly different attitudes toward the Allies, the Axis 
powers, and even the sort of items that needed attention on the home 
front. The editorial unity – a march in lockstep from isolationism to 
nationalism – suggested in some accounts of prewar media (e.g. Lamb, 
2004) is conspicuous by its absence.
The rival fiefdoms of Colonel Frank Knox of the Daily News and 
Colonel Robert R. McCormick of the Tribune fought about more than 
foreign policy. Often, the battle was personal. A pop-eyed buffoon 
named "Colonel McCosmic" regularly appeared on the editorial pages of 
the News to claim credit for one great innovation after another. The 
Tribune accused Knox of using his cabinet position to shape and time 
the news to the benefit of his paper and the detriment of his morning 
competitor ("Knox uses Navy post," 1942). A cartoon in the Daily News 
days before Pearl Harbor celebrated the advent of another competing 
paper, the Sun, financed by the businessman who was already 
supporting the "New Deal-dedicated" (McPhaul, 1962, p. 292) tabloid 
PM in New York. The News cartoon's Everyman jumps for joy at the 
sight of "a morning NEWSpaper" (emphasis in original). And it was 
Knox (Smith, 1997, p. 436) who unsuccessfully pressed Roosevelt to 
seek charges against McCormick after a Tribune article of June 1942 
strongly suggested that U.S. intelligence had broken the Japanese 
navy's main operational cipher – a critical element in the decisive 
U.S. victory at Midway that month.
The great press barons of the 1940s have gone the way of the 
front-page editorial cartoon, but the portrayals from their era of a 
nation approaching and entering a war remain relevant. Newspapers 
might no longer do battle over circulation, but all-news television 
and Internet sites show the world through sharply different frames 
that recall those days as they compete for audiences and advertisers. 
A study of the visual rhetoric of the past could shed light on the 
electronic rhetoric of today.

Literature: What cartoonists hope and what cartoons do
	It may be that editorial cartoonists fall asleep at night dreaming 
of their "most sacred article of faith ... the power of the medium to 
punish wrongdoing and facilitate reform" (Fischer, 1997, p. 13) after 
the model of Thomas Nast taking down Boss Tweed. The dream is 
unlikely to be satisfied. As Fischer points out, not only does the 
impact of Nast's Tweed cartooning remain unknown, but the bulk of the 
legend itself is apocryphal – down to the plaintive cry "Stop them 
damned pictures," from which Fischer drew his title.  Maschall's 
contention (1999, para. 2) that cartoonists "moved mountains" is a 
hope unsupported by evidence. At the end of the day, Michelmore 
suggests, "no one really knows whether, or how much, cartoons 
influence popular opinion" (2000, para 2). Others suggest that such 
an influence is not even the cartoon's mission: "The power of the 
political cartoon is not in its direct, persuasive effects, which are 
contestable, but in the way it frames and defines what is at issue" 
(Edwards, 2001, p. 2141). Nor is the cartoon, be it bludgeon or 
scalpel, invariably a critical tool. In Gamson and Stuart's view 
(1992, p. 61) cartoonists "form a kind of peanut gallery, frequently 
heckling and irreverent, but also given to cheers and whistles of 
support." Even though they might pride themselves on being the attack 
dogs of the newsroom, they share "fundamental biases with the 
societies they critique" (Templin, 1999, p. 20). As Edwards notes, 
they can support authority as easily as subvert it.
	Satire in newspapers faces a particular problem, Gruner (1967, 1971) 
suggests: Audiences just don't get it. Indeed, he cites research 
(1971, p. 128) indicating that a satirical radio program targeting 
Sen. Joe McCarthy had the effect of increasing regard for the 
senator. Carl (1968) finds a parallel problem for cartoonists: 
Readers might indeed get it, but what they get is usually – "an 
overwhelming 70 %" (1968, p. 534) of the time – in "complete 
disagreement" with what the artist intended. If an audience is a good 
sample of the population, then, cartoons "could hardly have much 
influence since most people are unable to grasp the cartoonist's 
message" (Gamson & Stuart, 1992, p. 62).
	There is an element of cartoons that readers do seem most likely to 
get, in Hill's summary: "It is the face of the person cartooned that 
affects us most. Symbols, emblems, regalia, and allusions may be 
misinterpreted, but seldom the physiognomy" (1984, pp. 198-9). And 
that one element can carry a great deal of information. Subjects in 
an experiment judged post-Watergate Nixon cartoons less favorable 
than pre-Watergate works by the same artists based on Nixon's face 
alone, without knowing the date (Wheeler & Reed, 1975 pp. 135-136). 
Nixon, like Tweed and like few others, served enduringly as "a 
generic symbol of political venality" (Fischer, 1996, p. 222) long 
after leaving office. He became, in DeSousa's term, (1984, p. 204) a 
commonplace: "A common, traditional topic or saying about the subject 
under discussion."
	Such elements serve as a bridge between the content and the reader: 
"an effective means of communication if by communication one means 
imparting information in such a manner that an audience can 
understand the intended meaning" (DeSousa, 1984, p. 205). Bormann, 
Koester and Bennett (1978, p. 317) liken them to an "inside joke" 
shared by the audience; Benoit, Klyukovski, McHale, & Airne (2001, p. 
377) find a "rhetorical vision" that lets readers with diverse 
attitudes in on the secret. Edwards writes that cartoons "contribute 
to the collective memory of the body politic" (1997, p. 139):  the 
year of the leadership crisis, the character issue, the increasing 
focus on the role of media in a campaign, for example. If little 
conclusive can be said about cartoons' persuasive powers, Edwards 
makes clear, they do play agenda-setting and framing roles– and if 
they can bring lawsuits down on their creators, they have clearly 
communicated (1997, p. 30). Whose agenda the cartoon puts forth – 
independent artist, editor, or publisher – has been the subject of 
some debate. As Riffe, Sneed and Van Ommeren (1985, p. 897) noted, 
"most cartoonists see themselves as marching to what they think is 
the beat of a different drum," but they are rarely as far out of step 
as the metaphor suggests. It certainly seems unlikely that two 
Tribune cartoonists would have shared McCormick's disdain for the 
battleship enough to set pen to paper about it independently.
  	Even if they have limited ability on their own to change opinions 
(Brinkman 1968), then, cartoons can reinforce them. And if their 
influence is in doubt, "what cartoons tell us about contemporary 
assumptions and prejudices is not" (Michelmore, 2000 para 3). The 
cultural resonance of cartoons is underlined in Dower's discussion 
(1986, pp. 91-93) of the role of symbols in reinforcing an 
"exterminationist sentiment" among Americans toward the Japanese. 
Among his illustrations are three by Tribune cartoonists used in this study.
	Cartoons, as Press indicates, are supposed to "beam out a specific 
message" (1981, p. 65) of something that somebody can do something 
about. The confusion cited in such studies as Carl's is that while 
some cartoons leave no doubt about the something and the somebody and 
the thing to be done, others might simply say "That's bad, isn't it" 
(Press, p. 66) without suggesting whom to blame or how anyone might 
begin arriving at a conclusion. National crises do not erase those 
ambiguities, but they can lead cartoonists to "plump heavily for the 
system" (Press p. 68) – as they did when they provided an "illusion 
of understanding" (DeSousa, 1984, p. 228) about the U.S.-Iran 
standoff of the late 1970s and early 1980s. And war itself is a 
powerful thumb on the scale of unity in popular culture. On both 
sides of the trenches in the First World War, Demm (1993, p. 167) 
writes, "political caricature now took on a new function: Its task 
was to mobilize the population both morally and intellectually for 
war, explain setbacks, confirm belief in the superiority of the 
fatherland and proclaim the hope of final victory." It is little 
surprise, then, that the weeping Statues of Liberty and 
talon-sharpening bald eagles that populated editorial pages in 
September 2001 often had, in Lamb's phrase (2004, p. 20), "all the 
bite of recruiting posters." When Uncle Sam rolled up his sleeves and 
set off after al-Qaida, it was a pose he was familiar with. He had 
struck it five times for the Tribune and twice for the News in the 
weeks after Pearl Harbor.
Research questions and methods
	This study uses content analysis to look at political cartoons from 
two antagonistic newspapers from the end of 1941 and the beginning of 
1942. It seeks to discover something about what Chicago audiences 
were seeing, first by determining what sorts of cartoons were being 
seen and then by examining how the existing patterns in cartoon 
themes changed after the Pearl Harbor attack. It poses three questions:
RQ1: What themes do these newspapers express in their cartoons about the war?
	RQ2: How does the expression of those themes differ before and after 
the attack on Pearl Harbor?
  RQ3: How does the expression of those themes in a 
pro-administration newspaper compare with their expression in an 
anti-administration newspaper?
Microfilm copies of both papers from Nov. 1, 1941, through Jan. 16, 
1942, were searched, and cartoons from the front page or editorial 
page directly pertaining to the war were selected. The study 
concentrates on a "critical discourse moment" (Gamson & Stuart, 1992, 
p. 64), but by expanding the period of study to 10 weeks, it tries to 
widen the theoretical base and reduce the number of "other" cartoons: 
nearly 40 percent in Gamson and Stuart's sample (p. 65). Cartoons in 
which the perhaps still distant war was mentioned only tangentially – 
among the concerns hovering over a family at Thanksgiving dinner, for 
example – were rejected. This initial search yielded 188 cartoons, 
127 from the Tribune and 61 from the Daily News. The News did not 
publish a Sunday edition, accounting for part of the discrepancy, and 
the Tribune used cartoons far more often on its front page (58 times, 
to 7 for the News, during the study period).
	Categories were determined using a form of the constant comparison 
method, with the idea of "permitting the categories to emerge from 
the data" (Benoit & McHale, 2003, p. 323). Each cartoon in an initial 
sampling of 125 was examined and described in a phrase or sentence 
meant to capture its theme: "The Japanese are going to get theirs," 
"Europe's wars are Europe's business," and "we've put all our 
differences aside" are some examples. The themes were then compared 
with each other; new themes that emerged went into new stacks and 
familiar ones were tentatively matched with their counterparts. After 
testing, the categories were refined into five main themes, each with 
subthemes (for definitions, see Appendix I; for sample cartoons, see 
Appendix II):
1) Axis: Focusing on the Axis nations, Germany, Italy and Japan. 
Subthemes: Backstabbing or perfidy; blundering or cowardice; life at home.
2) Allies: Focusing on the Allied nations. Subthemes: Brave and good; 
need help in their fight; don't share our interests and can't be trusted.
3) Staying out: Focusing on the importance of avoiding war: 
Subthemes: Europe's warlike past; America is in no danger; the people 
want peace; FDR is seeking a war.
4) Getting in: Focusing on the importance of the right side winning 
and the U.S. role in such a struggle. Subthemes: All pulling 
together, American character is uniquely valuable; isolationism is 
wrong and outdated; the Axis nations will get theirs now.
5) The home front. Subthemes: Need to sacrifice; some are blocking 
the effort; civil liberties are in peril.
	Most of the classification was performed by a single coder, with 60 
cartoons (32 percent) double-coded to test reliability. On the main 
themes, reliability using Cohen's kappa was .90. Within the themes, 
kappa ranged from .70 for Allies to 1.0 for Getting In.
	RQ1 was addressed by the development of these themes and subthemes.

Results: The war through Chicago eyes
	What readers see of the world and how they see it, Cohen (1963, p. 
13) wrote, depends not just on their own views "but also on the map 
that is drawn for them by the writers, editors and publishers of the 
papers they read." The maps drawn for Chicago readers by the Tribune 
and the Daily News present starkly different world views – and, 
indeed, worlds. In doing so, they suggest a much broader picture of 
the state of prewar debate than is often suggested. Isolationism was 
not limited to McCormick's Tribune – the striking image of war as a 
prostitute inviting youth to "come on in" appeared in the New York 
paper owned by McCormick's cousin Joseph Patterson – but it was 
hardly universal either. "'Short of war' was not so very short for 
the Atlantic fleet" in fall 1941, as Morison notes; neither was it 
very short for the Daily News. And the idea that cartoonists become 
"predictably nationalistic" and thus "offered little memorable 
criticism of their own government" (Lamb, 2004, p. 102) in the last 
weeks of peace would have been news to the Tribune's memorable 
Roosevelt-bashers.
These world views are so distinct (see Table 1) that chi-square 
analysis, for example, is often impossible. Before Pearl Harbor, the 
Daily News carried no cartoons in the Out category, on the virtues of 
staying out of the war; the Tribune carried 38 (71.7 percent of its 
total) in that category. The Tribune before Pearl Harbor had no 
cartoons on the importance of helping the Allies or defeating the 
Axis; the Daily News had 11 (36.7 percent of its total). Before Pearl 
Harbor, the Daily News carried no cartoons on the characteristics of 
the nations that were soon to be allies of the United States; the 
Tribune carried 5, all depicting them in a bad light. Pro-Ally 
cartoons appear in the News after Pearl Harbor; they appear in equal 
proportion in the Tribune, but they are unanimous in their praise of 
the Allies' virtues.
RQ2, what cartoons talked about before and after the war, finds no 
significant difference (x2  [df=6] = 5.42, p = .49) in overall 
coverage (see Table 2). But because of the need to drop the Out 
category from the chi-square calculation, one of the biggest, and 
almost certainly most meaningful, changes is overlooked: Out 
cartoons, thanks to the Tribune, made up more than 20 percent of the 
total in the 10-week sample period and 45 percent of the total before 
the attack, but they vanish after Dec. 7. And as they vanish, so does 
President Roosevelt as their target; he had been the main subject in 
21 of the Tribune's 38 Out cartoons. The proportion of In cartoons 
nearly triples after the attack, from 13.3 percent to 39.4 percent, 
and the largest factor is the Tribune – which produced no cartoons on 
that theme in the five weeks before the attack.
If the related categories of Axis and Allies are collapsed into one 
and the In and Out categories into another, several comparisons of 
before-and-after coverage in the individual papers are notable.  The 
Daily News shows a significant change in the themes it addressed 
before and after the attack (x2 [df = 2] = 2.22, p=.0363; see Table 
3). The change in the Tribune before and after the attack is also 
significant (x2 [df=  2] 14.07, p = .0009; see Table 4).
RQ3 addresses the stances the competing papers took compared with 
each other before and after the attack. With the categories combined 
as above (see Table 5), it is clear that the papers emphasized 
different themes throughout the study period (x2 [df=2] = 9.77, p = 
.008), before the Pearl Harbor attack (x2 [df = 2] = 11.34, p = 
.0034), and after the attack (x2 [df =2] 6.04, p = .048). The Axis 
powers remained a more persistent theme in the News throughout. 
Differences on Axis subthemes do not reach significance, but the 
subthemes of Axis perfidy and life for the oppressed citizens of 
those countries emerge in the Tribune sample only after the attack. 
The News used a broader variety of Axis themes more consistently, and 
both papers gave the heaviest weight to Axis infighting and strategic blunders.
"Bill Sikes and Oliver Twist": What the images say
	But it is what the cartoons and the people in them say and do that 
sheds the most light on the world they were trying to convey. Some 
are nearly wordless; others labor under 150-word labels. Some are 
rich with allusion and metaphor; others poke their points home 
bluntly. Political actors of the 1940s cause some puzzlement at the 
dawn of the 21st century; the elephant and donkey, though, are still 
performing their familiar tasks. And they manage, even when the two 
papers are thrown uncomfortably onto the same side of the fence, to 
draw distinctly different maps for their readers.
	Prewar readiness on the home front, in the Tribune's view, is a 
carefully guarded field of "military secrets": bungling by 
mortarboard-wearing New Dealers, with Communist spies sitting by and 
watching (Nov. 25) or perhaps a vulture perched atop a howitzer (Nov. 
17). In the News, labor might occasionally stage a boxing match with 
itself (Nov. 13), but (in the more common football theme), the CIO is 
equally likely to put a crushing block on "Our Quislings" to let 
"U.S. Foreign Policy" by (Nov. 22). And if mineworkers leader John L. 
Lewis is being a naughty boy, Uncle Sam is prepared to take him to 
the coal shed for a hiding (Nov. 18).
	If the New Dealers are prime targets of the Tribune – "When may I 
expect my uniform?" a portly friend asks Eleanor Roosevelt as she and 
assorted dupes, communists and New York mayors bar the sidewalk to 
Uncle Sam and his burden of "national defense" (Dec. 2) – the 
anti-war crowd is singled out by the News. Isolationists toss the 
"war guilt" left over from a thorough whitewashing of Hitler onto the 
White House lawn (Nov. 12); "America First political help," in the 
guise of a left-handed monkey wrench, strikes consternation into 
donkey and elephant alike (Dec. 3).
	President Roosevelt had sought the repeal of the Neutrality Act of 
1939, latest in a series meant to ensure that the United States took 
no side in the spreading conflict (Morison, 1939, p. 18), since 
September. U.S.-German tensions increased with a series of clashes in 
the Atlantic, and the first U.S. warship lost in the war, the 
destroyer Reuben James, was sunk Oct. 31. Editorial debate in the 
next weeks reflected growing concerns over the U.S. stance. In a nod 
to Charles Dickens ("Bill Sikes and Oliver Twist," Nov. 6), the 
Tribune's familiar brush-helmeted legionary, labeled "Europe's war," 
boosts a timid, battered warship ("Use of US Ships in war zones") 
through a transom over the door marked "U.S. Neutrality Law." In the 
News ("Who's that knocking at my door?" Nov. 5), the Neutrality Act 
is a flimsy door keeping a pirate away from the isolationists, a 
"Smithsonian exhibit" kept beneath Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis" 
(Nov. 7), and finally a thoroughly punctured bulletproof vest, 
dropped in a wastebasket by Uncle Sam (Nov. 15). The law was repealed Nov. 17.
	Gamson and Stuart (1992, p. 67) note a familiar figure in post-World 
War II cartoons whom they call Peace Lady, "a figure of a young 
woman, typically clad in a robe or tunic with a sash, perhaps wearing 
or offering an olive branch or a dove." She works for hawks and doves 
alike in their Cold War sample, but in the days before Pearl Harbor, 
Peace Lady and her colleagues are under contract to the Tribune 
exclusively. As an angel, she bemoans FDR's "efforts to embroil 
America ("They labor for war," Nov 5); the next day, she asks the 
"biased judge" FDR  for mercy as "America's youth" awaits sentencing 
("A mother pleads for her son," Nov. 6).
If the distinctions on the home front are stark, the differing views 
of other nations, whether likely foe or putative friend, are equally 
so. The News's warnings are directed toward the enemy camp. Little 
countries should be careful of the company they keep: "They're not of 
your kind," Uncle Sam warns a nervous-looking blackbird, "Finland," 
sitting on a telephone wire with the slavering vultures of Japan, 
Italy and Nazi Germany (Nov. 5). Japan, as a scrawny football 
spectator waving an Axis pennant, gets angry looks from bleachermates 
Uncle Sam and John Bull (Nov. 15). "Better drop that sword," Sam 
advises a caricature Japanese whose blade is labeled "aggression" (Nov. 28).
Cautions in the Tribune, which by mid-1942 had come to call its 
stance "prewar noninterventionist," run the other way. Europe and its 
ancient wars and hates are common themes. As a drunk left disabled by 
the previous war, Europe snarls "Mind your own business, Shylock" at 
Uncle Sam (Nov. 14). In front of a wall map detailing the reach of 
the British Empire, a distinctly Churchillian John Bull plays down 
the "US Committed to Free World" headline in Uncle Sam's newspaper: 
"Don't take that too literally" (Nov. 8). And Churchill himself 
contentedly digs "a better 'ole" for Britain as shot and shell fly 
over the "'ell of a 'ole" occupied by Britain's allies (Nov. 4). 
"Europe with its age-old hates, jealousies, fears and endless wars" 
is shown as an ax-wielding bum – "Not worth a single life" (Nov. 28).
The ethnic stereotyping and dehumanization in World War II images of 
the enemy, particularly the Japanese, have been discussed in 
insightful detail many times (see, particularly, Dower, 1986). They 
are certainly present in the prewar cartoons, particularly in the 
interventionist News. And many of the most commonly noted tropes – 
the Japanese as rats or subhumans, the use of an undifferentiated 
caricature to stand in as Japan next to the individualized Hitler and 
Mussolini, the "buck-toothed, nearsighted, apelike creatures" 
(Doherty, 1993, p. 137) of movie posters – are evident throughout the 
sample. But changes in the deployment of these images after the Pearl 
Harbor attack offer particular insights into their rhetorical purpose.
  "The Japs" do appear as a giant machete-wielding ape, shedding its 
round glasses as it tramples Manila, in the Daily News (Dec. 29). But 
the ape figure had appeared earlier – hammer and sickle on its belly 
and "The Vilest Regime in History" attached to its tail – as Russia, 
Roosevelt's new friend, on the front page of the Tribune (Nov. 10). 
By the Dec. 16 Tribune, Russia is an unchained bear, pursuing 
circus-clad Hitler, Mussolini and the anonymous Japanese as lion and 
eagle join in. Three days later, "Blitz on der Fritz" uses the same 
motifs: the bear chases a Katzenjammer-like German soldier from 
Russia as the lion sends another away from Libya. Researchers (e.g. 
MacDougall, 1999, p. 65) have often noted that popular portrayals 
usually distinguished between Germans and Nazis, and the sight of 
ordinary Germans here is particularly unusual.
Members of the "Axis gang" – Germany and Japan – appear as ethnically 
indistinguishable criminals in the News Dec. 15: "Is that all? Where 
is Manila?" "Well – where is Moscow?" The short "teeth and 
spectacles" (Blum, 1976, p. 46) figure is comparatively rare in 
Tribune portrayals of the Japanese, though he is seen admiring 
himself as a brawny European in Hitler's funhouse mirror: "Pure 
Aryan!" (Dec. 20). Intriguingly, though, he appears as the New Deal 
marching off to "undeclared war," barely restrained ("Just a minute – 
we are NOT at war, yet") by a stern Congress (Nov. 26). From the 
prewar Tribune's perspective, teeth and spectacles are most closely 
associated with FDR's Communist and intellectual hangers-on. The 
ethnic portrayals are no less dreadful than the literature makes them 
out to be, but they play out in more complicated ways.
Much as the Russians have turned from ape (or, bizarrely, a stag, 
locking antlers with "Vicious Nazis") to angry bear, Churchill as 
transformed from his cowardly prewar self into an ally close enough 
to admire Uncle Sam's bulging biceps as Santa Claus looks on ("A full 
sock for somebody," Dec. 24). Sam too has taken on a new role. Before 
the war, he summons voters and wavering politicians alike to heed the 
record: "You can't find any mandate for war in those pre-election 
speeches," (Nov. 19);"The people want peace – where do you stand?" 
(Nov. 3); "Before the war mongers get you, it is only fair to let you 
see what they are getting you into" (Nov. 17). These are often 
unusually text-heavy for a medium that places so much stock in 
commonly understood images; in the most detailed, one 151-word blurb 
ends: "If he cares to consult his pre-election pledges, he will learn 
how to keep OUT of war, instead of keeping IN wars." (Nov. 9).
	Sam's role in both papers is simpler after the Pearl Harbor attack: 
Rolling up his sleeves (Tribune, Dec. 8; Daily News, Dec. 12 and 19), 
forging weapons at an anvil (Tribune, Dec. 12 and 27), or  rolling up 
his sleeves while forging weapons at an anvil (Tribune, Dec. 18). 
Both papers use history in similar ways as well: German armor and 
Napoleonic cavalry encounter each other outside Moscow in the Tribune 
Dec. 17 and the Daily News Dec. 18. A Tribune cartoon on the sacking 
of Walther von Brauchitsch, the Wehrmacht commander who had failed to 
take Moscow, is a direct homage to John Tenniel's 1890 effort 
"Dropping the Pilot," about the Kaiser's dismissal of Bismarck.
Two Tribune stalwarts are significant by their absence after Pearl 
Harbor: Roosevelt, no longer a figure of fun, and the brush-helmeted 
"War." As quickly as the Out theme vanishes, the In theme replaces 
it, accounting for more than 44 percent of Tribune cartoons after 
Pearl Harbor. News cartoons in the In theme are less frequent after 
the attack. Three use the subtheme of unity; four, the likelihood 
that the Axis nations would soon get their deserts; and one, the 
uniquely virtuous nature of American character. In the Tribune, the 
predominant themes are American character (14) and the likelihood of 
a thrashing (15); unity, with 4, is a distant third.
The Tribune's views of the home front also reflect an increased 
emphasis on the uniqueness of American character after the attack. 
Earlier, the main theme was the likelihood of interference (5 of 7 
pre-attack cartoons), usually from some sort of crack-brained New 
Dealer; afterward, it is the need for sacrifice (8 of 12 post-attack 
cartoons). But the easily winded "Government Spending for 
Non-Military Purposes," trimming down under Uncle Sam's stern gaze, 
could conceivably share a thought with the regular-guy construction 
workers in the News Dec. 23:  "What were we arguing about last week, 
Bill? I've forgotten." "So have I."
	In summary, the Tribune found itself needing a drastic change in 
course after the critical discourse moment produced by the Japanese 
attack.  Though the president never became an iconic figure of pride, 
he stopped being an iconic figure of ridicule. The untrustworthy 
nations of Europe became loyal allies. It was time for Uncle Sam to 
step to the anvil, roll up his sleeves and make a fist. In the 
simple, clearly labeled world of the editorial cartoon, Colonel 
McCormick was on board for the war effort. His rival across town had 
been there all along. Both set out to "mobilize the population both 
morally and intellectually," in Demm's schema, but they went about it 
in different ways: particularity for the Tribune, unity for the News. 
On other themes, they were closer: embattled and outnumbered 
Americans would surprise the treacherous foe with their tenacity 
while the home front built up the muscle that would ensure "the hope 
of final victory."

Suggestions for future study
	This study would clearly benefit from widening the sample, to see 
whether the competing maps drawn in other cities were as distinct, 
and lengthening it, to address the durability of the bandwagon effect 
Press and DeSousa mention. Roosevelt's Cabinet, if not Roosevelt 
himself, was certainly under the Tribune's guns again by midsummer of 
1942, when a federal grand jury was investigating the Tribune under 
the Espionage Act. This honeymoon period bears comparing with George 
W. Bush's respite from cartoon ridicule after Sept. 11 (see Lamb, 2004).
	Similar comparisons with rhetoric around the outbreaks of other wars 
would also prove useful, and researchers will do well to go beyond 
the editorial pages to the headlines, ads, comic strips, and radio 
listings. For all the debate about what readers take away from their 
encounters with the editorial cartoon, the readers of 1941 had access 
to a great deal more context, in the newspaper and beyond it, than 
this study is able to provide its coders. It may be true that most 
readers can get the point of a cartoon, even if it is usually not the 
point the cartoonist intended; some artifacts in samples like this 
one are simply ungettable.
	The days of the dueling press barons, again, are gone. Though a 
study like this one could illuminate similar patterns in other 
American cities of the early 1940s, including those whose papers were 
run by New Dealers or Colonel McCormick's cousins, many of the themes 
and characters are travellers from an antique land today.  Still, the 
combination of a wide sample with a method that looks to the texts 
first for answers offers some insights into how crises are perceived 
and portrayed – and to some degree, how news workers expect media 
owners to see them portrayed. If the 1991 gulf war was the first of 
the all-news-TV age, the "war on terrorism" was the first in which 
such networks competed. And a crisis in which one network travels 
with "U.S. troops" and the other with "our guys" is one in which the 
Knox and McCormick papers would feel at home.

Tables


Table 1: All themes in war cartoons in the Daily News (CDN) and Tribune (Trib)
_______________________________________________________________________
			
Axis		Allies		In		Out	       Home
________________________________________________________________________
All dates	CDN	31 (50.8%)	3 (4.9%)	19 (31.1%)     0 (0%)	       8 (13.1%)
		Trib	23 (18.1%)	11 (8.7%)	0 (0%)	           38 (29.9%)  19 (15%)

pre-12/8/41	CDN 	14 (46.7%)	0 (0%)		11 (36.7%)     0 (0%)	       5 (16.7%)	
		Trib	  3 (5.7%)	5 (9.4%)	0 (0%)	           38 (71.7%)  7 (13.2%)

12/8 and on	CDN	17 (54.8%)	3 (9.7%)	8 (25.8%)       0 (0%)	       3 (9.2%)
		Trib	20 (27%)	6 (8.1%)	33 (44.6%)     0 (0%)	      12 (16.2%)
________________________________________________________________________





Table 2: Themes in both papers, before and after Pearl Harbor
_______________________________________________________________
			Axis		Allies		In		Home
_______________________________________________________________
All dates		54 (28.9%)	14 (7.5%)	52 (27.8%)	27 (14.4%)
Before			17 (20.5%)	5 (6%)		11 (13.3%)	12 (14.5%)
After			37 (35.6%)	9 (8.7%)	41 (39.4%)	15 (14.4%)
_______________________________________________________________





____________________________________________
Table 3: The Daily News before and after Pearl Harbor
_________________________________________
		Axis-Allies	In-Out		Home
_________________________________________
Before		14 (46.7%)	11 (36.7%)	5 (16.7%)
After		20 (64.5%)	8 (25.8%)	3 (9.7%)
_________________________________________




Table 4: The Tribune before and after Pearl Harbor
___________________________________________
		Axis-Allies	In-Out		Home
___________________________________________
Before		8 (15.1%)	38 (71.7%)	7 (13.2%)
After		26 (35.1%)	33 (44.6%)	9 (12.2%)
____________________________________________



Table 5: Main themes in war cartoons in the Daily News (CDN) and Tribune (Trib)
_______________________________________________________
Axis-Allies		In-Out		Home
________________________________________________________
All dates		CDN	34 (55.7%)	19 (31.1%)	8 (13.1%)
			Trib	44 (34.6%)	71 (55.9%)	16 (12.6%)

12/7/41 and earlier	CDN	14 (46.7%)	11 (36.7%)	5 (16.7%)
			Trib	  8 (15.1%)	38 (71.7%)	7 (13.2%)

12/8/41 and after	CDN	20 (64.5%)	8 (25.8%)	3 (9.7%)
			Trib	26 (35.1%)	33 (44.6%)	9 (12.2%)



Table 6: The Tribune's portrayal of
the Allies, before and after Pearl Harbor
_________________________________
		Good		Bad
_________________________________
Before		0		5
After		6		0
_________________________________



Table 7: Subthemes for the Getting In theme (definitions, Appendix 
I), after Pearl Harbor
________________________________________________
		Unite		Whip		Char
________________________________________________
CDN		3 (37.5%)	4 (50%)	1 (12.5%)
Trib		5 (14.7%)	15 (44.1%)	14 (41.1%)
________________________________________________

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Appendix I: Coding instructions

Codebook: Chicago newspaper cartoons before and after Pearl Harbor

The coding unit is the individual cartoon. For each cartoon, record 
the date it appeared, the paper it appeared in, the page number, and 
the artist's name (if possible).

Cartoons may be placed in six categories, though the "other" category 
should be used only if all other possibilities are exhausted.

First, determine which category the cartoon is broadly commenting 
about: the AXIS nations, the ALLIES, our STAYING OUT, our GETTING IN, 
or the HOME FRONT.  Then determine which subcategory the cartoon 
best. Again, you may use the OTHER subcategory for each main 
category, but it should be used sparingly

If you want to mention any particular difficulties you had reaching a 
decision, use the Comments section.

If a cartoon appears to fit in two categories or two subcategories, 
the coder should determine which category or subcategory is the better fit.

Category AXIS (code as AXIS)
	Cartoons in this category have the Axis nations (Germany, Italy and 
Japan) as their main focus. Subcategories:
•	Axis backstabbing or perfidy toward other Axis members, satellite 
nations, or Allied or neutral nations. Nations shouldn't choose the 
bad side. Code as PERF
•	Axis blundering, bumbling or cowardice, in general or on one or 
more war fronts. Code as BLUN
•	Life in Axis or Axis-occupied nations is bad. Axis leaders' 
decisions could make life worse for ordinary people. Code as LIFE.

Category ALLIES (code as ALLY)
Cartoons in this category concentrate on the virtues of Allied 
nations (before Pearl Harbor, mostly Britain, France, Russia and 
China; after Pearl Harbor, including Latin American allies and others 
in Europe or Africa). Subcategories:
•	Allies are brave and good; they're fighting evil (GOOD)
•	It's important to help the nations fighting evildoers (HELP)
•	Allies or putative allies don't share our interests; they can't be 
trusted (BAD)

Category STAYING OUT (code as OUT)
Cartoons in this category emphasize the benefits of staying out of 
the war or try to paint interventionists as warmongers or deceivers. 
Subcategories:
•	Europe's wars are part of Europe's history and not our business (EUR)
•	America is in no danger; don't fear the scaremongers (SAFE)
•	The people want peace; the young generation doesn't deserve war; 
war is bad for everyone; innocents will suffer (PEACE)
•	FDR, New Dealers, Democrats and the like are trying to drag us into 
war, sometimes circumventing laws to do so (FDR)

Category GETTING IN (code as IN)
	Cartoons in this category emphasize that the right side must win. 
U.S. help, whether as an ally or as a nonbelligerent, is important. 
U.S. entry will tip the balance, and despite some setbacks, it and 
its allies will triumph. Subcategories:
•	The U.S. is now united, infighting is over; let's pull together (UNITE)
•	There is something uniquely good about U.S. national character or 
Americans in general, and it will help our side. (CHAR)
•	Isolationism and neutrality are wrong and outdated. We need to help. (HELP)
•	The United States, particularly Uncle Sam, is getting ready to 
deliver a whipping to the evildoers; they're going to get theirs now. (WHIP)

Category HOME FRONT (code as HOME)
	Cartoons in this category talk about life on the home front. Subcategories:
•	You might have to sacrifice; do your part to help the cause. (SAC)
•	Some people are hurting the cause or aren't doing their part. (SLACK)
•	Our civil liberties are in peril (FREE)
	
























Appendix II: Examples

















Daily News, 11/6/41: The freighter FDR is		Tribune, 11/4/41: 
Churchill is clearly
delivering implements "to defeat Hitler"; the		ready to fight to the 
last non-Briton.
closest shell splash to it recalls the destroyer		Coded ALLY/BAD
Reuben James. Coded IN/HELP				



















Daily News, 11/13/41: Labor punches 		Tribune, 11/14/41: "Dr. FDR"
  itself in the face with strikes in defense		delivers Baby War as Congress
industries. Coded HOME/SLACK			prepares to repeal the Neutrality
							Act. Coded OUT/FDR
								



















Daily News, 11/5/41: Uncle Sam 			Tribune, 12/17/41: Parallels with
advises Finland that it's keeping bad			Napoleon's invasion of Russia were
company (Germany, Italy, Japan).			frequent; in the next day's News,
Coded AXIS/PERF					Hitler tries to hitch a ride with
							Bonaparte. Coded AXIS/BLUN
								
















Daily News, 12/13/41: "What were we 		Tribune, 12/19/41: "You fellows
arguing about last week, Bill? I've			aren't takin' any stock of this rumor
forgotten." "So have I." Coded IN/UNITE		that THIS generation is soft, are
							you?" Coded IN/CHAR





















Daily News, 12/29/41: The classic 			Tribune, 11/10/41: But the ape has
stereotypes: "Teeth and spectacles"			appeared before. Here, he is FDR's
and dehumanization; the Japanese			new friend and toughest sales
as apes. Coded AXIS/PERF				assignment. ALLY/BAD


















Tribune, 12/16/41: The Russians,			Tribune, 11/26/41: An unusual 
rehabilitated, are a bear rather than an ape.		role for "teeth and 
spectacles": the
Hitler and Mussolini are identifiable; the		New Deal. OUT/FDR
Japanese is not. ALLY/GOOD