1942.09.05 “Wanted – A Modern Hercules”
by Frederick (Fred) Otto Seibel (1886 – 1969)
21 x 14 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection
Frederick Seibel began his career as a cartoonist in 1916 for the Knickerbocker Press in Albany, New York. He moved to Virginia in 1926 to become an editorial cartoonist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and worked there for over 30 years. Over the course of his career, he did several shows at Metropolitan Museum Of New York, Art Institute of Chicago and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Seibel died in 1968 after completing nearly 16,000 cartoons. His most famous cartoon was "Retreat from Moscow," (5 November 1936) depicting presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith as Napoleon after FDR's landslide victory in 1936.
By early September 1942, the U.S. had been in the war for 9 months, but criticism was peaking about the poor coordination between military branches, delays in war production, and inadequate troop training and equipment. The Truman Committee (established in 1941) was actively investigating war profiteering and inefficiency. The War Production Board (WPB) had been established in June as a direct recommendation of the Committee, but it was immediately plagued by trouble and public criticism.
By September, the WPB was scrambling to keep production feasible. the Army supply program was revised downward multiple times (e.g., cut from $62 billion to $38 billion), and scheduling issues plagued aircraft and merchant marine production. A procurement priority chaos, termed “priority inflation,” was rampant, meaning that agencies were hoarding materials beyond realistic need and undermining the material allocation system.
The cartoon isn’t anti-war… it’s pro-competency. It demands a “modern Hercules” to purge the system of waste and dysfunction.
That this cartoon was gifted to Rep. James C. Auchincloss is notable. Auchincloss was a Republican Congressman from New Jersey, and he served on military affairs and appropriations committees during the war.
