IT is not possible to judge Louis Raemaekers as an artist. He is a voice, a sword, a flame. His cartoons are the tears of women, the battle-shout of indomitable defenders, the indignation of humanity, the sob of civilization. They will go down into history. They are history. To take them, to turn page after page, is to know the European War, to see it face to face, as a child sees, and not through a glass darkly.
It is one of the great works of the world which he has done. Perhaps genius was only dormant, waiting for the cry of general catastrophe to bring it forth into vivid, terrific life. And yet—for who shall say that all things in heaven and earth are understood?—it may be that those same voices that called through the orchard of Domremy called to the cartoonist in the office of the Amsterdam “Telegraaf,” that into his simple soul, recommended to God by its love of flowers, there fell a tear from on high.
George Creel in “The Century Magazine,” June, 1917.
The Strikers
Striker to Agitator: “You speak very well, but when I see these fellows I’m ashamed I ever listened to you.”
RAEMAEKERS’ cartoons will prove an immortal comment on the great world war. He makes the world see that war does not create atrocities but that war itself is the supremest of all atrocities. When the names of battles have been forgotten the name of Raemaekers will be spoken with gratitude and reverence by coming generations.
CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT.
