A Cartoonist, Nevertheless, 1958-1965
"Too many of today's artists regard editorial
cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be
too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers."
- Bill Mauldin
In 1958, still seeking a path, Mauldin
happened upon St. Louis. He visited Daniel Fitzpatrick, a left-liberal
cartoonist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who announced
his upcoming retirement. Mauldin applied for the position, and soon
had a venue for his cartoons. He quickly won his second Pulitzer
Prize for a cartoon produced during his first year at St. Louis.
Mauldin left the Post-Dispatch when he disagreed with his
publisher about syndication fees and editorial control four years
later.
In 1962, Mauldin joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times,
refusing the title of editorial cartoonist, but accepting that of
"cartoon commentator." His work appeared on the op-ed page so that
the readership would realize that the Sun-Times was publishing
Mauldin's opinions and that the cartoonist was not a mere spokesmen
for the publisher. Mauldin reveled in freedom as an artist at the
height of his career, "I was free to say what I pleased," he wrote,
"and travel where I wanted, so long as I got my stuff in on time."
When Mauldin first returned to cartooning in 1958 in the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch he began using crayon again, a medium he
rarely employed after his initial cartoons during the war years.
He altered his technique and media to suit the needs of reproduction.
While working for the Chicago Sun-Times Mauldin moved to
Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Natalie, returning to "the simple
black-and-white brush work," because he transmitted his drawings
over the telephone, first by telecopier and then by laser-photo.
He wrote, "At best such contraptions have approximately the reproductive
capability of a Sicilian copy camera dug from the rubble. And so
I was forced back to my heavy, simple 'style' of yore. (Actually,
I enjoy the looseness and freedom of drawing that way, but it is
still too contrasty for politics.) Then in the early 80s I discovered
Federal Express and was able to go back to my crayon and still make
my deadlines."
Civil Rights
Bill Mauldin was a champion of the
oppressed. Soon after his return to the United States in 1945 he
began attacking segregationists and the Ku Klux Klan. By the 1960s,
when the Civil Rights movement gathered momentum, he had further
honed his skills as a cartoonist. Bill Mauldin never left his readers
in doubt about his opinions, and on the issue of race relations
in the United States he was forceful.
"Let that one go. He says he don't
wanna be mah equal",
Mar. 2 1960
Crayon, ink, and white out over pencil
Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 1960.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03250 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 530 (A size)
Copyright 1960 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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When asked by Target magazine what
he thought the most important issue of his career had been,
Mauldin replied, "The one thing that meant the most to me
and that I got involved in was the whole civil rights thing
in the sixties. It was very logical and natural for me in
a way because it always seemed to me that the black was the
enlisted man of our society. ... It's just that I don't like
a man being told he's unequal until he gets a chance to prove
his own inequality." |
"By
th' way, what's that big word?", May 15, 1962
Ink, crayon, and white out over pencil with scraping out
Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 15, 1962.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03216 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 857 (B size)
Copyright 1962 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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"And you incited those
innocent rioters to violence", Nov. 29, 1962
C rayon, ink, blue pencil, and white out over pencil with
overlay
Published in the Chicago Sun-Times November 29, 1962.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03244 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 911 (A size)
Copyright 1962 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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Bill Mauldin and Bill Noke, book critic for the Chicago
Sun-Times, flew down to Oxford Mississippi on Saturday
September 29, the day before African American student James
Meredith showed up to integrate the University of Mississippi.
They returned to the airport after church on Sunday, intending
to return to Chicago in Mauldin's plane, only to discover
that it was surrounded by U.S. marshals, as Meredith had come
into town a day early. Being newspapermen, they decided that
representing the Sun-Times was more important than
their own safety, and returned to town in time to see the
riot ensue between federal officials and students. This cartoon
was produced in the judicial aftermath. |
As the Civil Rights movement picked up its pace, many White
liberals began to feel uncomfortable in the company of African
American leadership. However, as this cartoon makes clear,
Mauldin supported African Americans in their quest to gain
equality and ridiculed those who thought the progress of desegregation
and civil rights was too quick by comparing the path to progress
to a climb through thorns. |
"What
do you mean, 'not so fast'?", May 10, 1963
Crayon, ink, blue pencil, and white out over pencil
Published in the Chicago Sun-Times, May 10, 1963.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03251 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 957 (A size)
Copyright 1963 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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Vietnam
"What I discovered was the biggest reason the
Sun-Times of those days is remembered as fiercely liberal. In fact
its editorial page was wishy-washy and insignificant. Mauldin, however,
was an angry, ironic sharpshooter. The editorials endorsed Richard
J. Daley and Richard Nixon, but nobody read the editorials. Mauldin
savaged them both, and everybody read him." - Tom Tomorrow
What to do till the Peace
Corps comes, July 13, 1961
Ink, crayon, blue pencil and white out over pencil
Not published
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03252 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 1664 (B size)
Copyright 1961 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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Here are two versions of a cartoon Mauldin
prepared for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In the
version not accepted for publication, a young soldier wearing
a flak helmet leans against a tree, smokes a cigarette, and
reads a book, "What to do till the Peace Corps comes." Mauldin's
editors preferred seeing the soldier standing neck deep in
a foxhole, his rifle is mounted for firing. |
What
to do till the Peace Corps comes, July 13 1961
Ink, crayon, and white out over pencil
Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 13, 1961.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03253 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 747 (A size)
Copyright 1961 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin. |
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"Don't
forget your commitment", Feb. 16, 1965
Ink, crayon, and white out over pencil with overlay
Inscribed on overlay lower right: Drawn in Viet Nam.
Published in the Chicago Sun-Times, February 16, 1965.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03254 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 1209 (A size)
Copyright 1965 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin. |
On February 7, 1965, Mauldin experienced a Viet Cong attack
while visiting his eldest son Bruce in who was stationed as
a warrant officer and helicopter pilot with the 52nd U.S.
Army Aviation Bn. at Pleiku, some two hundred miles north
of Saigon. Mauldin had talked the Chicago Sun-Times
into buying him a ticket to Vietnam, arguing that as a cartoon
commentator he owed it to his readers to get "his own
feet wet." He sent several cartoons back to Chicago. The Sun-Times
promoted Mauldin's Vietnam visit. |
Bill
Mauldin invades Viet Nam!
For the Chicago Sun-Times, 1965
Silver gelatin photograph
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03255 (digital copy from original)
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[Up escalators],
May 4, 1965
Crayon, ink, white out and blue pencil over pencil
Published in the Chicago Sun-Times, May 4, 1965.
LC-DIG-ppmsca-03256 (digital copy from original)
CD 1 - Mauldin, no. 1252 (A size)
Copyright 1965 by Bill Mauldin. Reproduced with Permission
of the Estate of William Mauldin.
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Although Bill Mauldin generally favored the policies of
President Lyndon Baines Johnson he was critical of action
in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. The United States became
involved in the civil war in the Dominican Republic on April
28, when he published this cartoon about escalation. Maudlin
told Target, "I'm not a pacifist. I never was. And
yet I really do hate war." |
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