Life, 1918-02-28 · page 19 of 40
Life — February 28, 1918 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This WWI-era cartoon depicts Allied soldiers (labeled "Sammy," likely representing American forces) using a large cannon or gun to force Germans out of a fortified position—the "varmint" being routed out like an animal from a burrow. The surrounding text argues that Germany must face severe postwar consequences for its wartime atrocities and conduct. The author contends that only Germans themselves can truly reform their nation and punish war criminals, comparing Germany's moral burden to the biblical curse of Cain. The piece emphasizes that until Germany's leadership acknowledges and atones for "nine-tenths" of unrevealed atrocities, the nation faces lasting international isolation and economic hardship. The cartoon reinforces this message: Germany must be forcibly ejected from power, and its people must reckon with what their leaders have done.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SMOKIN THE VARMINT OUT BLOW, SAMMY, BLOW! and the hand of fellowship held out to Russia. ‘ But let Mr. Church take comfort. The Germans will see to it that Ger- many gets her duc. There is that in them that seems to insist upon thorough measures. If there is to be any let-up on them they must earn it, and by means that will cause great dissatis- faction to their military masters. Fail- ing in that they will continue to live in growing grief and discomfort until the knowledge that they are beaten is brought home to them with incontest- able finality, and they begin to hunger after righteousness with an effectual appetite. He's a-comin’! In the end it is likely that the doctors who will cure Germany—if she is cured will be German doctors. The war may instruct these physicians in their business and put them in charge of the case, just as it has turned Russia over to Russian doctors of doubtful compe- tence. But it is they who must handle it. There is no present probability that anyone but Germans will hold court in Germany and try and execute German malefactors, but if Germans ever: real- ize how terrible a harm their said male- factors have done them, and how vital it is for them that they should be pun- ished, perhaps they may do it. Ji not, there will still rema’ 339 embarrassments for Germans after ‘the So long as they honor, or even tolerate, the men who brought on this war and gave it its character, they can hardly hope to be acceptable in decent Kipling says: Nine-tenths of the atrocities that Germany has committed have not been made public. Until the veil is lifted after the war we shall have no conception of the range and system of these atrocities. No doubt. And that is part of the load that the Germans must carry when, after the war, they approach other members of the human family on the subject of raw materials and trade. And Cain said unto the Lord: My punishment is greater than I can bear. I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth: and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him, So, holy writ. Nevertheless, it was Cain's son, Enoch, who “ walked with God, and he was not, for God took him,” and out of Germany there may come good again some day. war. human society. HE New Republic prints in a pam- phlet by themselves, and commends to the attention of forward-lookers, the suggestions of a sub-committee of the British Labor party for the recon- struction of Great Britain after the war. It is of interest to persons who speculate about the immediate future of mankind. The proposals follow a quotation from Count Okuma, to effect that the present conflict. means the death of European civilization. The sub-com- mittee agrees with that opinion so far it means the “collapse of an indus- trial civilization, which the workers will not seek to reconstruct.” The next most interesting thing to what the Germans will do after the war will be the dispute whether to hold an autopsy on industrial civiliza- tion, or dope it and let it go on. comicbooks.com