Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/445

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virtues and claimed their own national pre-eminence in them ; all bemoan the enormous financial burdens of war ; all proclaimed

immediate political revolutions in the enemy's country ; all the Allies and all neutrals united in finding Achilles' heel in the ex

pectation of the Germans of their speedy entrance into Paris, in

their prophecy of the conquest of the British fleet by the sub marines,24 in their missionary zeal for spreading kultur, and

in their attribution offear and cowardice to the Allies. All use of the illustrations of the war period must be tempered by these national characteristics and it is in this respect but duplicating the experience of the press as a whole . The illustration , like the press, may tell a plain unvarnished tale , it may present a series of unadorned facts, it may give an

embroidered story, it may represent a picture in artistic form , it may give information in regard to existing conditions, it may have a purely commercial object, it may be intended to interpret situations little understood, it may be used to influence public

opinion in both an open and a secret way . Some illustrations may be intended to make readers see, others to make them think. The illustration is everywhere therefore a parallel or a comple mentary medium of expression , working in the same fields, under much the same handicaps, having practically the same ends in view as the printed or the spoken word . Its métier is biography ,

narrative and topicalhistory,description of contemporary society , and every field open to themedium of type. Itmay run the gamut of human emotions and cover a wide range of intellectual achieve

ment. It may be witty, humorous or serious, dull, inspiring, or colorless , but whatever the field it selects or the spirit in which it

works, it is collectively and in miniature a replica of the press as a whole.

The illustration as found in the daily paper and in the periodical is of great variety, including initial letters, tail pieces, vignettes, 24 These conclusions have been largely drawn from an examination of several collections of illustrative war material, but they are the same that have been drawn by many others. See R . de la Sizeranne, “ La Caricature

et la Guerre,” Revue des Deux Mondes, June 1, 15 , 1916 , 6 . Période, 33:481 502, 806 -841. The general statements, however, are made with the con

sciousness that, like all general statements, many individual exceptions to them may be