The “Washington Star” thinks that his cartoons should not be taken merely as dealing with events of the conflict, “but with principles.” The writer proceeds: “To Germany and to Austria is upheld a mirror in which are reflected those crimes for which neither will be able to make full redress. There is no touch of vulgarity or hatred in his work, save that which comes from righteous indignation against foul crimes and the vulgarity of the thing itself.”
In appraising the value of Raemaekers’ cartoons purely as political documents, as historic records of crimes and barbarities which the civilized world must not be permitted to forget lest the horrors of the past three years descend upon us again, their purely artistic appeal is frequently ignored or forgotten, but not always. “Raemaekers is an artist,” says the “Boston Globe.” “He tells his story simply, eliminates all unnecessary detail, knows the dramatic value of light and shade, and draws a single figure cartoon with as much impressive suggestiveness as he does a crowd.” The “Providence Journal” acclaims him as a great artist to whose hand has been given the touch of immortality. “Like many geniuses,” continues the “Journal,” “this Dutch artist awaited the occasion in human affairs to awaken the power which he may not even have been aware of possessing. It took a titanic force to stir his conscience and that conscience, once stirred, leaped into aspiring activity to the service of mankind.” Particular stress is laid by the “Boston Transcript” on the artistic merit of the drawings. Comparing him to Honoré Daumier, the great French cartoonist of the Franco-Prussian War, the “Post” is of opinion that Raemaekers is the one artistic personality whose genius has been developed by the stimulus of the war. “If the measure of the influence wielded by a cartoonist is the extent and intensity of emotion aroused by his work, then possibly there has never been a cartoonist in the history of the world who can have compared with Raemaekers. The inspiration of his pictorial polemics is a hearty and profound and righteous indignation, a motive which is of first-rate artistic worth, and which is shared by all the civilized world. What strikes the mind in looking upon these cartoons is the Dantesque quality of the artist’s passion and imagination.” The “Transcript” concludes a remarkable appreciation of the cartoons with the following words: “He guides the spirit and the conscience of the world to-day through an inferno of wrong.”