TOW #2 - McCarthyism Political Cartoon

On March 29th of 1950, The Washington Post published a political cartoon created by Herbert Lawrence Block, an editorial cartoonist who created hundreds of cartoons on national domestic and foreign policy. The publishing was only a bit over a month after the creation of McCarthyism when US Senator Joseph McCarthy’s speech on the rooting out of communists within the US was given. This cartoon is constructed for the American people, Republicans more specifically, in response to this speech in order to show how unstable his logic for accusing potentially innocent people was. Block is able to effectively achieve his purpose through his repeated use of symbolism throughout the cartoon. The political cartoon depicts four men labeled Garbielson, Bridges, Taft and Wherry. Each of these men were US senators for the Republican party during the 1950’s. The four men are pushing an elephant towards a tower labeled “McCarthyism” which appears rather unstable. The people are represented by the Republican elephant being pushed toward the tower. By the elephant dragging his feet in the dirt and uttering the phrase “I’m supposed to stand on that?” it is clear that the American people were quite unsure of the argument that McCarthy presented and they had to be forced (pushed) into believing and following it. The people felt that the argument was unstable and that they would not be able to “stand on it”. I do believe that Block accomplished his purpose through this cartoon as it only has one line of text written on it, however I was able to discover and interpret a drawn out analysis of such a simple drawing. I was able to see that the people (the elephant) are scared of McCarthy’s ideas and that they were being forced into them. I believe that Block’s symbolism not only proved his purpose effectively, but efficiently as well.

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/herblocks-history/fire.html