"'War is Hell.' Sherman, [but] Peace in Cuba under Spanish Rule Is Worse than Hell" (Judge, 30 April 1898)

A bloodied, brutal figure of Spain tramples an emaciated Cuban child and a dead sailor of the USS Maine. The tell: Sherman's famous line is borrowed, then turned to say that peace under Spain is the greater evil, so war is presented as the lesser one.

A colour lithograph by Grant Hamilton for the New York magazine Judge, published on 30 April 1898, days after the US blockade of Cuba began, and part of the so-called yellow press genre of atrocity imagery around the Spanish-American War. A brutal, bloodied figure of Spain tramples an emaciated Cuban child and a dead sailor of the USS Maine. It borrows Sherman's line about war and turns it to say that peace under Spain is worse. Fear appeal stages the harm to a child and a sailor, and scapegoating assigns it to Spain, although Spain denied responsibility for the Maine and later investigations differ on its cause.

Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon

Fear appealScapegoating

Date

April 30, 1898

Period

Pre-1914

Made by

Judge (Judge Publishing Company, New York); lithograph by Grant Hamilton