Herbert
Block was
born in 1909. Influenced by the work of Jay
Darling and Edmund Duffy, the nineteen
year old Block became staff cartoonist with the Chicago's
Daily News
in 1929. His cartoons, signed Herblock, initially reflected the right-wing
views of the newspaper. However, the Great
Depression radicalized Block and he became increasingly critical
of the presidency of Herbert Hoover.
In 1933 Block moved to the Newspaper
Enterprise Association
in Cleveland, the feature service that had been established by Edward
Scripps. During the 1930s Block's cartoons highlighted the dangers
of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism
in Germany. He also attacked the America
First Committee and its isolationist foreign policy.
Block
was a supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the New Deal. He later commented:
"I had started working before the Depression and was never out
of a job. But an awful lot of people were, and this guy was doing
something about it. It taught me that government can do the things
that need to be done." In 1942 Block won his first Pulitzer
Prize for cartooning.
Block joined the Washington Post
in January, 1946. His cartoons were very popular with the public but
upset his employer during the 1952 presidential campaign when his
cartoons criticized Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Worried about the influence he might be having on the public the cartoons
were not published in the final days of the campaign. However, after
complaints from readers the cartoons were reinstated.
In
the early 1950s he was one of the few cartoonists willing to take
on Joseph McCarthy. Block was the first
person to describe this crusade against people with left of centre
political views as McCarthyism. McCarthy
responded by calling the Washington Post
as "the Washington edition of the Daily
Worker". Whereas Ollie Harrington
was forced into exile and Bill Mauldin
into retirement, Block survived and went on to win his second Pulitzer
Prize in 1954.
Block
was appalled when Richard
Nixon was
elected president. He often quoted the comments of Barry
Goldwater who
claimed that Nixon was "the most dishonest individual I ever
met in my life". Block's views on Nixon were reflected in his
cartoons and he played an important role in exposing the Watergate
scandal. Block
won a third Pulitzer Prize in 1979.
For over sixty years Block produced drawings that expressed his liberal
views on politics. This included attacks on racial discrimination
and segregation. One friend, Ted Koppel, remarked that: "In person,
Herb is the sweetest, gentlest man you could ever imagine. But put
him behind a pen and something happens. His cartoons can be like a
direct hit to the solar plexus." By the 1990s Block's cartoons
were appearing in over 300 newspapers and magazines in the United
States. Herbert Block
died on 7th October 2001.
Herb Block, Joseph McCarthy,
Washington Post (4th March, 1954)
(1)
Herb Block was interviewed by Brian Lamb on 14th November, 1993.
Brian
Lamb: Who was Joe McCarthy?
Herb Block: Who was he? He was the United States senator from Wisconsin
and a man who, after he'd been in the Senate for a while, found that
there was paydirt in pretending to find Communists in the government.
He made a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, I think in 1950, February,
in which he said, "I think there were 205 Communists in the government,"
and he never showed people any list.
Brian Lamb: Here's a cartoon from the year 1950 -- The headline on
it is, "You mean I'm supposed to stand on that?" And right
up here is the word "McCarthyism." Did you invent that?
Herb Block: That's the first use of that word that I know of and I
remember how it originated because I wanted to put something on that
tar barrel and you couldn't call it McCarthy himself, and you wouldn't
say McCarthy techniques or so on and I thought, "Well, maybe
just use one word, McCarthyism," and, you know, it caught on.
Brian
Lamb: Did you ever think that McCarthyism, as you defined it, was
a threat, a real threat to this country?
Herb Block: Oh, yes. Certainly. God, it was a threat at the time.
And it was a very real threat and there were people driven out of
office, people whose careers were wrecked, there were people who commit
suicide because of the attacks on them.
Herb
Block, McCarthyism,
Washington Post (4th March, 1954)
(2) Stephen Hess, Drawn
& Quartered (1996)
Block's
distinct point of view, given free rein by his paper, established
him as a pull-no-punches cartoonist. He conveyed the public's fears
of the atomic bomb through a menacing character called "Mr. Atom".
He correctly saw the civil rights of the nation's black population
as the next big agenda item. He even attacked the Daughters of the
American Revolution for discrimination. But Block was to show the
courage of his convictions when he chose to confront an issue that
many cartoonists - and their papers - gave a wide berth, by aiming
his sights at the junior U.S. senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.
(3)
Harold Jackson, The Guardian
(9th October, 2001)
It has never been a cartoonist's job to be fair,
and Herbert Block, who has died at the age of 91, saw no reason to
discard that honourable tradition. He laid about the White House and
the Congress with splendid glee and total impartiality. His disappearance,
after an astonishing 74-year career, will let American politicians
sleep secure in the knowledge that one of their greatest tormentors
has gone to his reward.
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