Page:Cartoons by Bradley.djvu/34

 an earlier generation trudging to school through snowdrifts with the languid stripling of to-day stepping into an automobile and saying, "School, James," gave him particular pleasure.

A consistent enemy of individual and national flabbiness, he rejoiced in honorable achievement of every sort. For the great men of the past he had a particular reverence. The birthdays of Washington and Lincoln seldom or never passed without his drawing lessons from their lives for the profitable consideration of the people of to-day. For Roosevelt he had an unwavering admiration and he never grew weary of depicting that virile American in the act of doing some strenuous thing or other. This big, gentle hearted artist dearly loved also to picture women admonishing their husbands on matters of public duty or serenely setting them right when they were in the midst of some wrongheaded action typically masculine. He believed that women commonly had a finer, truer sense in matters of social service than had men, and he championed their cause effectively by expressing in many ways his conviction that as a rule they were no less clear of vision than pure of purpose in dealing with public affairs. On behalf of children, misunderstood at home or mistreated anywhere through poverty or neglect or the barbarities of war, he was always ready to fight in flaming indignation.

When the European war broke out Bradley, in the full enjoyment of his ripe creative power, turned with passionate energy to the task of depicting the gigantic criminality of militarism. The scathing indictments which he drew against it were reproduced in publications throughout the world. Their remarkable merit brought him wide fame and soon he was proclaimed by many the greatest of American cartoonists. From the earlier war cartoons—such as the one entitled "The Harvest Moon," showing a skull-shaped luminary pouring its rays down upon an illimitable plain covered with corpses—to the last three or four of the wonderful series, including "Just Another Little Fellow," showing the slender corpse of stricken Roumania over which the ponderous wheels of war has just passed —