This cartoon was published alongside a headline reading “President’s Mind Now Made Up on War Program” in a Saturday edition of The Evening Star on the weekend before Congress was to debate U.S. involvement in the World War I.
Although the cartoonist left no doubt about his own sentiments, the cartoon appeared when many people had come to Washington to voice their opposition to the war. Tension ran high on the following Monday when more than 1,500 anti-war protesters marched up Pennsylvania Avenue. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, an advocate of entering the war, got into a fist fight with a peace demonstrator at the Capitol. Later that evening, a force of cavalry cleared a path through the peace protesters so President Woodrow Wilson could deliver a war message to Congress.
This cartoon was drawn by Clifford Berryman, one of Washington, DC’s best-known cartoonists in the early to mid-1900s. Berryman drew for the Washington Post and Evening Star newspapers. His cartoons touched on a variety of subjects including politics, elections, and both World Wars.
This cartoon is featured in America and the World: Foreign Affairs in Political Cartoons, 1898–1940, a free PDF book from the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives.
