The Cartoons of Evansville's Karl Kae Knecht

by James Lachlan MacLeod

  “There Is a War Going On,” June 5, 1944. UE/EVPL.

  Knecht was an activist for other fundraising efforts, too, of course. On October 27, 1943, he drew a cartoon for Navy Day, captioned “Another of Our Days.” At the top, a wonderfully drawn navy battleship fires a salvo of thanks to Evansville while Mr. Public, pushing an “LST Built in Evansville” down the launching ways, responds, “You’re Welcome.” The iconic Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company station is visible in the background of the launch, though it should be noted that the LST is being launched much faster than it would have been in reality; Knecht must have known this, having been a launching platform guest of honor at the launch of LST 123 in August 1943.197 In the end, the city would produce 167 LSTs, more than any other inland shipyard in the country; in 1944, Evansville would launch an astounding average of 1 ship every four days, and Knecht drew many cartoons honoring the work of the Evansville Shipyard.198 “US Public” beams down, saluting. The bottom half of the cartoon features Mr. Public yet again, fairly sternly enjoining the readers to contribute to the Evansville Community War Chest Fund while a war plant worker places his pledge in the box.

  The shipyard is the focus of another powerful cartoon that appeared on August 24, 1942. It was a fine drawing of a ship being built, with a welder in goggles and visor waving in the foreground. Three cranes are visible, as is an Army-Navy Excellence flag. But this is also another example of Knecht’s pedagogical instincts, using the cartoon to inform his audience about Indiana’s significant contributions to the U.S. Navy. The ship being built is turned into a map of Indiana to highlight the “plants, depots, training schools, [and] camps” that are in the state, as well as a Naval Air Squadron and inland shipyards. Places like Gary, Burns City, Newport, Peru, Fort Wayne and Jeffersonville (a river city that, like Evansville, built LSTs) are all marked. In one of her more mysterious remarks, Kay rows her boat and mentions the “the salt air.”199

  Women played an enormous role in Indiana’s war effort, and by 1943, they made up about half of the workforce in the state’s war plants; at Evansville’s Chrysler Ordnance Plant, for example, 60 percent of the workers were women.200 In a cartoon published on February 3, 1943, captioned “Plenty of Jobs Open,” Knecht summed up not just the contribution of female war workers but also that of women in uniform. He was an enthusiastic proponent of women in the war effort, here celebrating all of the various acronyms that represented the different branches of service, such as the WAACs, the WAVES, the WAMS and the WAFS. He points out that “women in service release men for combat” and then in the bottom right of the cartoon, he draws a wonderful version of a “Rosie the Riveter,” tools sticking out of her back pocket, declaring that she and women like her are the “WOWS”—“Women of Work Shops.” It is a powerful document of the reality of homefront America, where the war effort simply could not have been sustained without the contributions of millions of women in all parts of the economy and the military.

  The seventh war loan, May 21, 1945. UE/EVPL.

  Knecht, like almost everyone else, was deeply concerned with security in wartime. Evansville, with such a large number of war plants, was considered to be a target for enemy espionage, and complicated security measures were taken. In June 1942, F.M. McWhirter, the navy’s district security officer, wrote to the manager of the shipyard: “The danger of espionage and sabotage to all facilities producing war material is ever-present. Your shipyard is vital to the success of the whole war effort. It must produce without interruption. A well-planned and maintained security program is the only possible defense against possible devastating enemy action.”201 Knecht also believed in the importance of urging care when speaking—loose lips, after all, could sink ships202—and, in fact, one of his most memorable, simple, striking and humorous cartoons was on this topic, published on July 27, 1942. The cartoon had the caption “Remember—Might Be in an Ear Near You,” and it showed an ear with tiny representations of Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler peeping out, with their hands cupped behind their own ears. It almost goes without saying that the Japanese figure is a racist stereotype, but all three of the Axis figures are objects of ridicule. While it is making a serious point, that enemy spies might be able to hear any conversation even in little old Evansville, it was also designed to offer comfort to the readers by mocking and belittling the Axis powers.

  The celebration of Navy Day, October 27, 1943. UE/EVPL.

  Indiana’s war effort, August 24, 1942. UE/EVPL.

  In the middle of 1942, the war was going badly for the Allies at every turn—in western Europe, in the Soviet Union, in North Africa, in the Pacific Islands and in the Atlantic Ocean. Morale was dangerously low, as people were forced to read bad news on the front page of the Courier day in and day out. But on seeing this image, it is easy to imagine a citizen of Evansville getting the message about being careful about loose lips while also getting a chuckle at the expense of the most terrifying figures on the planet. It is hard to fear someone that you are laughing at,203 and so Karl Kae Knecht here manages to achieve two vital objectives with one elegant drawing.

  Female war workers, February 3, 1943. UE/EVPL.

  “Remember—Might Be in an Ear Near You,” July 27, 1942. UE/EVPL.

  The final homefront cartoon appeared on July 24, 1943. In contrast to the previous cartoon, this appeared at a time when things seemed to be going much better for the Allies on virtually every front. This lent urgency to the cartoon, captioned “No Time to Slow Down—Work Harder Than Ever.” A paper trumpets, “Allied Successes, Africa, Sicily…Russians Rout Germans” while a group of war plant workers stand around reading papers, gossiping and applying makeup. A piece of machinery, labeled “War Work,” is inactive, with spider webs developing on either side. Into this scene of slothful inertia is interposed a soldier, with one foot on the battlefield, hitting a worker with the butt of his rifle while pointing out that “it’s far from won.” Kay adds her view that there is “a long, long way to go.” It is a very strong statement—Knecht here almost plays the part of the Old Testament prophet, wagging his boney finger in the face of a lazy was such a trusted figure, one who was with his readers every step of the war, telling hard truths while still encouraging and cajoling and amusing along the way.

  The war is far from won, July 24, 1943. UE/EVPL.

  Between 1941 and 1945, Knecht drew cartoons on one grand subject—World War II—almost every single day. It serves to communicate to a modern observer just how remarkably omnipresent the war was in people’s minds. People who were in Evansville during the war confirm today how much this was true, but sometimes it has to be seen to be believed. Karl Kae Knecht never wore a uniform during the war—he turned sixty in 1943—but his patriotic activism served a truly vital purpose. Reminding his readers of the stakes, urging them to participate, informing them about events, pressing them to give money and then give more money and, above all, encouraging them to continue with the fight, Knecht helped the people of Evansville do their part in winning the most important war in human history.

  Chapter 6

  CARTOONS 1946–60

  While World War II was an extremely significant event, the new world that it ushered in was certainly not lacking in momentous incidents and developments. As Karl Kae Knecht progressed toward the twilight of his cartooning career, he was able to grapple with some of the most pressing issues of the twentieth century. This final chapter will move in a mostly chronological manner through this era, analyzing eleven of his most interesting cartoons from these fourteen years on topics ranging from race relations to the bomb and from the space race to political correctness. It is obvious that this was also the period when his drawing style reached its peak—the marriage of the techniques he was using and the printing technology available leading to a series of images that are extremely pleasing to the eye. In the words of Phil Ensley, “Such mastery requires years to achieve; that he did achieve it is obvious to those who followed his cartoons through the years.”204


  Race relations have haunted the United States since before it even existed, and they haunt the country to this day. As has been seen, Knecht himself was not immune to the effect of race in his art, and both Indiana in general and Evansville in particular had experienced the complex and usually negative repercussions of racism. In 1946, Evansville was still basically segregated, and as recently as 1930, one of the most notorious lynchings in American history took place not far away in Marion, Indiana.205 The Ku Klux Klan had been enormously influential in Indiana in the early 1920s, and between 1922 and 1924 in Evansville and Vanderburgh County, it became, according to Leonard Moore, “a local sensation and a political force that was powerful enough to unseat the district’s anti-Klan Democratic congressman. Eventually, more than 5,400 men—or 23 percent of all native white men in the county—joined the Evansville Klan.” D.C. Stephenson, the notorious Klan leader who once said, “I am the law in Indiana,” was ultimately to become the grand dragon of the state. He was one of the most powerful Klansmen in the nation, and he lived in Evansville.206

  The Klan collapsed in the mid-’20s, partly as a result of the conviction of Stephenson for the brutal kidnapping, rape and torture of a young woman, but in the 1940s, it was showing signs of revival. The first cartoon in this chapter was published on June 1, 1946, under the caption “Stop Him Before He Gets Going.” It was a piece of activism in response to the revival of the Klan in Georgia in May 1946, which the Evansville Press described: “Fiery crosses atop historic Stone Mountain near here last night heralded the Dixie rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan on a theme of ‘white supremacy.’ More than 700 white-hooded figures assembled on the torch-lighted, wind-swept granite mound…[where] oil torches placed in niches formed a burning cross 300 feet high and 165 feet wide visible for miles.”207 Knecht’s message is unequivocal, supporting two of the methods that ultimately crippled the Klan in the 1940s, “Georgia State Court Action” and a “US Government Suit for Back Taxes,” which here appear as police nightsticks. Kay turns and asks the reader if they “recall 25 years ago?”—a challenging reference to the rise of the Klan in the early 1920s in Indiana and especially in Evansville itself.

  Fighting the Ku Klux Klan, June 1, 1946. UE/EVPL.

  The second image is a fabulous caricature of Harry Truman with the sword of Damocles hanging over him, published on May 17, 1947, and captioned “There It Hangs.” He is about to either sign or veto a “Labor Law” from Congress, and the sword is labeled “He will be damned if he does and damned if he does not.” This cartoon represents a pivotal moment in the struggle between organized labor and business, as it is discussing the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, more usually called the Taft-Hartley Act. This act was motivated by Republican hostility to the New Deal, a fear of the power of unions, and the prevailing and growing antagonism to communism. It was basically an attack on the unions and their ability to organize by the Republican House and Senate that had been elected in 1946: “It weakened unions in American life, while enhancing forces resisting unionization.”208 Truman had not been a “particularly prolabor” senator but took the decision to veto this act, calling it a “slave labor” law. The cartoon captures Truman’s dilemma, realizing that if he were to sign the law, he would lose the support of the ten million members of organized labor but if he vetoed it, he would be seen to be going against a Congress that had been elected in a Republican landslide the previous November.209 The Courier was generally a pro-business newspaper, and while Knecht supported the little man in many ways, he was also very much an enemy of activist unions and usually criticized strikes. This cartoon, however, is focused on the loneliness of the man in power, the man who has to make the tough decisions; it does not in itself take a position on the act but instead concentrates on the solitary figure of Truman, who must make the decision one way or the other. Labor relations have been a fraught part of human history almost forever, and in the postwar era in the United States, they were a critical area of conflict; this cartoon, while not taking sides, does manage to illustrate the enormity and the complexity of the issue.

  Another issue that has transfixed American politics for virtually the entire postwar period is relations with Israel, and Knecht made his position clear in May 1948 with a drawing that was captioned “When a ‘Feller’ Really Needs a Friend.” It depicts the “10 day old Jewish State” as a simple shepherd boy in a short tunic and sandals. He is being savagely dragged to the ground by the “Arabs of Palestine,” who simultaneously grasp his bruised arm and pull his hair; at the same time, a military figure representing Egypt strikes him on the head with a heavy club. Behind this is a huge throng, including Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Saudi Arabia, armed with rifles and long curved sabers, rushing to join the attack on Israel. It is a comment on the events that followed the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, when the Israelis were attacked by a coalition of Arab states.210 Knecht unmistakably identifies Israel as the boy David of the Bible story—perhaps the most heroic underdog figure in the history of literature—and so makes his pro-Israel stance evident.

  Truman and the sword of Damocles, May 17, 1947. UE/EVPL.

  Interestingly, other than the traditional costumes and a possibly stereotypical Arab facial structure, there is an absence of the racism evident in some earlier depictions. But clearly Israel is the plucky little good guy (who, of course, will ultimately win), and Israel’s enemies are the villains of the piece. Knecht’s position on Israel was, however, a little complicated. Although a man who was sympathetic to Judaism, frequently noting events like the Jewish New Year and sometimes placing Hebrew phrases in his cartoons, Knecht had earlier been critical of the partition of Palestine, likening it to a camel that had been cut in two, leaving neither side viable.211 Just a few days before his cartoon of Israel under attack, he drew one in which David (the UN) faced up to Goliath (war) in an apparent even-handed approach to the conflict. Despite the complexities and ambiguities of Middle East politics, on this day, at least, Knecht was on the side of Israel.

  The Cold War was perhaps the most significant phenomenon in international (and often domestic) politics during this period, and Knecht drew many cartoons that dealt with it. On July 26, 1950, he drew a cartoon that has already been mentioned, recycling the gorilla-savage-beast trope but, this time, making the savage beast “communism” rather than Nazism. The setup and indeed the entire cartoon, especially the savage beast, are virtually identical to the earlier version. The timing of this cartoon is significant; in July 1950, the Korean War was not going well—the main front-page story that day reported, “Communist troops have loosed a lightning drive along Korea’s south coast…overwhelming strategic Yougdoug and driving the American defenders two miles to the east.”212 The image is a really interesting example of how one decade’s enemy of civilization gives way to another; if Knecht were alive today, perhaps he would be drawing the same beast but labeling it “Radicalized Islam.”

  Six years later, on February 3, 1956, he produced another notable Cold War cartoon that showed British prime minister Sir Anthony Eden shaking hands with President Eisenhower. It powerfully sets out the Western perspective on the entire Cold War, as Knecht contrasts the “slavery” of communism, represented by a gigantic ball and chain, with the burning torch of “liberty.” The central statement in the image is: “While Russia by Communistic aggression has taken freedom from 100,000,000 persons in ten countries—we have helped 600,000,000 in 20 countries to set up national freedom…” The year 1956 was to be one of the key years of the conflict, witnessing both the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution; Knecht’s position on one of the most fundamental political divides of the twentieth century could not have been clearer.

  Israel is attacked by many enemies, May 1948. UE/EVPL.

  One of the most important aspects of the Cold War was, of course, the nuclear arms race, and one of the most momentous steps in that race was the development of the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s. In a cartoon of January 21, 195
0, Knecht responds to the growing conversation in the country about the next technological step for nuclear weapons. The previous day, the paper had reported in a front-page story that “the Truman administration today was reported favorable to production of the hydrogen superbomb on which experimental work is already being pushed.”213 In a very powerful and telling cartoon, Mr. Public reacts with shock and horror to the news—his mouth is open, his eyes are wide and his hair stands on end. He absorbs the information that the new bomb is potentially “1000 times more ruinous” than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Kay covers her ears. Unlike the cartoon that greeted the atomic bomb—which was light and cheerful and talked of its “power”—this one is dark and frightening and puts the emphasis on the destructive capabilities of the bomb, using the word “ruinous.” Technology was evolving fast, and so was Knecht.

  Having drawn Stalin at the Potsdam Conference as the great survivor of all the Allied war leaders, Knecht was to mark the Soviet dictator’s death eight years later. This cartoon appeared on March 5, 1953, with the caption “For Better or for Worse?” It shows twelve hands reaching for the vacated power that Stalin left behind, but a lash and a bloody pointed cudgel symbolize the power; these two items combine to cast a shadow that is the Soviet symbol of the hammer and sickle. In a reminder of the challenges of drawing a daily cartoon when news changes from minute to minute, Knecht drew a note saying “Stalin unconscious from stroke,” which is what the situation was as he drew, but also included a piece with the word “dead” on it that could have been literally cut and pasted onto the image to make it more up to date. Stalin did indeed die between the drawing being executed and its publication, although the cartoon was not changed. It appeared on the editorial page (as his cartoons did at this point) opposite an editorial that made clear the paper’s position, one that might well have exactly matched Knecht’s own: “We of the free west stand in mortal danger today, as we stood yesterday and the day before, and will stand so long as the great power of Russia is ruled by communist totalitarians, bent on enslaving the whole world.”214