aterial.
Since it is most frequently used to influence public opinion , it
is often found in immediate proximity to the editorial columns, although often placed on the front or the back page where it can be easily seen without turning the paper. It partakes somewhat of the nature of the caricature,37 but
it lacks the caustic features that distinguish the latter,38 it is genuinely good-natured ,and it usually represents group interests and activities rather than prominent individuals. Even the
caricature, until the outbreak of the war of 1914 , was being more and more confined to its legitimate field of depicting ob
jectionable principles or abstractions and was seldom directed against individuals unless they consciously and perniciously represented base principles of action .39 Indeed, the process of 37 There has been much confusion in the use of the two terms since they have often been used synonymously , but they are essentially different. Robert de la Sizeranne notes that the word caricature is used in three dif ferent and sometimes contradictory senses: it may denote sketches of exaggerated and grotesque figures, without legend and without moral intent ;
it may be used of scenes intentionally ironic, but without grotesque figures; it may represent figures neither grotesque nor ironic , but accompanied by the
symbols of glory , or depicting scenes of horror. Many caricatures seem to him to be simply the genre scenes of the painter, differing only in that they
evoke thought while the genre painting simply acts upon superficial vision . - " La Caricature et la Guerre," Revue des Deux Mondes, June 1 , 15 , 1916 ,
6 . Période, 33 : 481- 502, 806 - 841. The word cartoon as at present used in America apparently is an amplifica
tion of caricature in the third sense as noted by de la Sizeranne. The difference between caricature and cartoon is perhaps best suggested by M . H . Spielmann who implies that caricature has been a weapon of veno
mous attack , used as an instrument for the manufacture of public opinion , while the cartoon “ has come to be regarded as a humorous or sarcastic com
ment upon the topic uppermost in the nation 's mind .” He has also defined
the cartoon as “ a pictorial joke,” but his definition would assuredly not cover the cartoons of Cesare, Forain , and Raemaekers. He has also defined it as
" a leading article transformed into a picture," but in this case it is not a joke.
See also an editorial, “ Caricaturist and Cartoonist," New York Tribune, November 9 , 1916 .
The word cartoon , as distinguished from caricature, was first applied to a History of " Punch," chap . VIII;also his articles on “ Caricature" and " Car toon " in Encyclopaedia Britannica , 5 : 331- 336, 434 -435 .
flies with arrows that do not fester in the wound . He must be able to make
his attack so witty and laughable that even his victims will be unable not to smile.” — New York Evening Post, October 8 , 1910 . 39 “ The element of caricature in the political cartoon has been disappear
ing. Instead of personal caricature, we have symbols of parties, movements, and issues .” — New York Evening Post, May 3, 1912.
