And all this gigantic distribution has grown during the two years that
have passed since his cartoons were first exhibited in London. It is a
record that has never yet been equalled. What is the secret of this
man's appeal to men and women in all stations of life, to people of
every creed and nationality? In Europe nearly all, and in America a
great many, of the leading writers and thinkers have acclaimed the
genius of Raemaekers, but none have been able to tell us why it is that
his pictures appeal with equal intensity to the Briton, the Latin, the
Slav, and the American. A writer in the _Boston Transcript_ perhaps
comes nearest to the truth. He says: "The mantle of Dante has fallen
upon Raemaekers; he leads the conscience of the world to-day through an
inferno of wrong."

This world-wide recognition is conclusive testimony to the universality
of his genius. Raemaekers appeals to all mankind. The value of his
contribution to the cause of civilization in this war lies in the fact
that he has seen and depicted with the directness and clarity of genius
the truth that the issue is joined between the forces of evil and good.
For him there are no other considerations, no qualifications, no
compromises. He has but one enemy, and that is the destroyer of peace
and civilization; he has but one hero, and that is the defender of them.
He sees in war itself no pomp and glitter, but only the burning village,
the devastated home, the agonized women and children, and the brave and
faithful dead. He depicts militarism as hideous, brutal, coarse, and
cunning. His one thought seems to be that those things which all kindly
and gentle men and women hold dear and sacred are being trampled upon
and threatened by a monstrous wrong; and that the ideals of justice,
order, and human liberty which have been established in the conscience
of humanity after centuries of painful struggle are in danger of
annihilation. In thus narrowing the issue, in thus resolving all
doubt, he has, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, "rendered the most
powerful of the honorable contributions by neutrals to the cause of
civilization." Raemaekers' name and work will live long after many of
the men and their achievements in this war have faded from the general
mind. Future generations will look at his cartoons and will find in them
at once the cause and the justification of the rising of the world's
free peoples to give their lives for freedom and the safety of
democr