IT appears to me that Raemaekers’ wonderful cartoons more often than not fall naturally into two main classes: the subtle and the direct. In both methods of appeal he is a past-master, and his message never fails to drive itself home, either through the medium of one’s intellect or one’s heart. Here we have a good and vivid example of the direct method of gaining our sympathy. An appeal to the emotional rather than to the intellectual within us.

The woes of devastated Belgium, of its starving population, of its desolate homes, of its orphaned children, may be said by some to be an “oft told tale.” But surely none looking upon this most poignant drawing can fail to understand much of the tragedy and misery brought about by the German occupation of Belgian soil and the methods of Kultur which for a period of three years now have held sway in that unhappy land.

Those of us who know the facts—the things which do not always get into the papers, as the phrase is—the wilful starvation of the poor by their relentless conquerors, can best understand and appreciate the artist’s message.

What a pathetic picture this is! The starved woman—all the roundness and beauty of womanhood and motherhood brutally stamped out of her face and figure by the state of things brought about by the rule of the Hun; the child clinging to her mother with the terror and amazement which is the most piteous of all expressions that can come into and be graven upon the face of childhood. Both bear in their faces and forms the cruel marks of starvation and suffering.

And yet there are those abroad in the land who can talk and write of “saving Germany from too much humiliation.” Too much humiliation! For one, I say that if Germany can be dragged in the dust; if her rulers can be made to eat the bread of humiliation; if her bestial-minded military officials, who have deported women and girls from Belgium and France to God only knows where and to what end, can be brought to adequate punishment, then there is still some justice left in this warring world and some hope for poor, struggling, vexed, and fearful humanity. Unless Germany is conquered and humiliated, unless the wrongs of Belgium and the other devastated territories are avenged, we and the millions of our Allies will have suffered, fought, and died for the greatest cause the world has ever known—and in vain.

From the welter of battle, after the shouts of the fighting men have died away, must emerge a new basis of society and a set of new ideals in international conduct. And it is up to all of us to see to it that this comes about.

CLIVE HOLLAND.