A mid-career review of the omnipresent work of radical cartoonist and the creator of ‘Henry Dubb,’ Ryan Walker.
‘The Making of a Socialist Cartoonist’ by Louis Gardy from The Northwest Worker. No. 239. August 5, 1915.
About twenty-five years ago, a blue-eyed, fluffy haired youngster slammed the door of the Appeal to Reason in Kansas City shut behind him, walked boldly up to the desk where the editor was busily reading a great pile of newspapers, letters and manuscripts, and asked for the position of a cartoonist.
The editor shifted the big black stogie which he held between his teeth, looked up at the youth and grinned. The thought of engaging a cartoonist on a new Socialist weekly which could hardly pay its running expenses struck the editor as sadly ludicrous. The boy sensed that there was something hidden behind that editor’s grin, and his hope faded. But he wanted the job, he was out of employment, and if there was any reason why he shouldn’t have it, he was at least determined to know it. So he stood near the editor’s desk and waited for an explanation.
Mutual introductions followed. The young cartoonist said his name was Ryan Walker; the editor was J.A. Wayland. Walker explained that he was jobless and was seeking a position as an illustrator of advertisements or cartoonist. He had heard that a little Socialist weekly had been started and, finding that it had no art staff, hastened to enter his application.
Wayland grew interested, left his chair and sat on top of the desk. All work was forgotten and an interesting discussion opened. It was hardly a discussion, however, for Wayland did most of the talking. Walker just sat and listened, asking a question when a point did not seem clear to him, and watching the editor roll the stogie between his thumb and finger and examine the ashes in abstract study. For over an hour the busy editor talked to the youth who wanted to know many things.
“For many years–indeed, since I had been old enough to think over things in general, I had been discontented with the prevailing social system, but had never tried to solve the problem,” Walker says, in telling of his first meeting with the pioneer Socialist editor. “I realized the great wrongs existing in the body politic but I had no remedy, being but a youth. Comrade Wayland not only pointed out these wrongs, and a million others of which I had been ignorant, but he gave a solution by which they might be righted.
“His theory appealed strongly to me and I forgot all about the object of my visit, going away with my heart singing a new song.
“A few days later I again called on Comrade Wayland, this time full of a new desire. I wanted to make cartoons for the Appeal, lending my best efforts to the cause which I had so suddenly espoused. I was all enthused–as all young people are when they have found a great object in life to work for. The Appeal was not financially in a position to pay for pictures and found even the expenses of engraving an obstacle. But we found a way out of the difficulty.”
Walker never tells how the problem was solved. Though himself sorely in need of money, he managed by doing odd drawing jobs, to pay for most of the engraving out of his own meager funds.
“I had the joy of seeing my first Socialist cartoon appear on the front page of the little old Appeal,” says Walker. “I can say with all honesty that never have I felt such joy over one of my cartoons since that day. I was a new cartoonist, the Appeal was a new paper, the Cause was young and very, very new in that part of the world and exceedingly unpopular. This last fact added zest to my work, which was literally a labor of love.”
Walker, though still a young man, has had a varied career. He was born in Kentucky and, when about 11 years old, went with his parents to Kansas City. Here he worked as a newsboy, was employed in different capacities in the Kansas City stock yards where the bestiality and debasing influence of modern society was indelibly impressed upon his young mind, and held a position as clerk in a bookstore. Then he turned to making drawings for advertisements, his subjects running all the way from mouse-traps to Eiffel towers.
When he began to make cartoons for the Appeal, Walker secured a position on the Kansas City Times. He held this post until his early twenties, when he went to St. Louis to fill the position of cartoonist on the St. Louis Republic. Three years later he went to Boston, where he spent one winter. Then Walker went to New York, where the New York Times, the Mail and Express, Life, Judge, the Bookman, the New York Star, the Arena Magazine, the Telegraph, the Twentieth Century Magazine and other publications made use of his cartoons and caricatures. A few years ago Walker became associated with a newspaper syndicate in Baltimore, for which he turned out a vast amount of matter. During the last presidential campaign he furnished the syndicate with eighteen drawings a week, besides a large number of sketches. In addition to this, he continued to contribute to Socialist publications. A breakdown in health compelled him to discontinue his strenuous labor, devoting his energies solely to cartooning for Socialist journals.
With the return of his health, Walker has again contributed to other publications, but most of his time is devoted to lecturing on “The Adventures of Henry Dubb.” Through this medium, Walker has carried the message of Socialism into districts which otherwise would have been barren to agitation. His method is clear and logical, and through its simplicity and soundness leaves an indelible impression. No method of propaganda in recent years has been as effective as Walker’s illustrated talk. He is good humored one minute, laughing with his audience at some foible of society, and the next thunders truths which shake the smug conventionality of his hearers.
His philosophy is broad and uncompromising. “Until the Golden Rule becomes our Common Law and is observed by every man and woman, the world cannot have justice, and without justice the world is unfit for the children of man.”
The Washington Socialist was a weekly newspaper of the Socialist Party of Snohomish County published in Everett, Washington and edited by Maynard Shipley, the paper ran for only 18 months when it was renamed The Northwest Worker with Henry Watts as editor in June, 1915, and again Co-Operative News with Perter Husby as editor in October, 1917. Like virtually all of the left press, the Co-Operative News was suppressed in June 1918 under the Federal Espionage Act.
PDF of full issue: https://washingtondigitalnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=NORWWORK19150805
