The Hell-Raisers

After 45 years of turning out biting, broad-stroked drawings for the editorial page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (circ. 403,068), crusading Cartoonist Daniel R. (for Robert) Fitzpatrick this week started a two-month vacation of "fishing and unwinding." While Fitz is away, the P-D plans to rerun some of his old cartoons and tap the syndicated work of the Washington Post and Times Herald's Herblock, who has been carried every Saturday for the past few years. But the bulk of the daily cartoons will be handled by a newcomer: baby-faced Bill Mauldin, 36, whose Willie-and-Joe cartoons of bearded, bone-weary G.I.s during World War II won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945.

Understudy for Crusaders. No one at the P-D is certain what will happen when Fitz comes back. His contract runs until the end of the year, but at 67, he admits he is wearying of the daily grind. All questions about the future are referred by Publisher Joseph Pulitzer Jr., 44, to Editorial Page Editor Robert Lasch, 51, who took over in October of last year, has given deft direction to the crusades of the idealistic, New Deal-leaning PD. "Maybe Mauldin will be taken on as a kind of understudy to Fitz," says Lasch. "But maybe we won't like Mauldin, and maybe he won't like us. I really don't know what will happen."

Although his only previous stint as a strictly political cartoonist was with the tabloid New York Star (nee PM), which died after seven fitful months in 1949, Mauldin has always honed an edge on his best drawings, considers his war cartoons as being "95% editorial." Says Mauldin: "The Post-Dispatch has a strong tradition of independence for its staff. I have a reputation for raising hell in cartoons, and there are not many newspapers that will stand still for that."

Going Fishing. The P-D has always stood for the hell-raising of Fitzpatrick, who has twice won Pulitzer Prizes for his cartoons. Pencil-slim (5 ft. 11 1/2 in., 126 lbs.), well-tailored, tart-tongued, and an accomplished crapshooter, Fitz was born in Superior, Wis., attended the Art Institute of Chicago, warmed up with some front-page cartoons for the Chicago Daily News, and was hired by the P-D in 1913 at 22. Fitz devised dingy Rat Alley as a cartoonland home for the criminal and corrupt, and his victims squirmed to find themselves there. Wailed one Missouri politician to a P-D staffer: "I could answer your editorials, but what can you do with that guy who draws cartoons?" Says Fitz: "I've made an awful lot of people goddam mad."

Fitz has been quick and ready to ride off on his own crusades. In 1936, when the P-D fell off its ideological platform and backed Landon against Franklin Roosevelt, and again in 1948 when it backed Dewey against Truman, ardent Democrat Fitzpatrick put down his crayon and went off fishing. Talking to Democrat Mauldin about his new job, Publisher Pulitzer asked what he would do if the P-D backed candidates he could not stomach. "Well," said Mauldin, "I guess I'd go fishing too." Grinned Pulitzer: "Fine."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.