There is much more to know about Walt McDougall

Everglades Poster (©2018) Roy R. Behrens

American cartoonist Walt McDougall (1858-1938) was the subject of the previous post, in which we reprinted the full text of a newspaper story he wrote about his attempts to persuade the US military to adopt the use of camouflage during World War I.

As it turns out, there is much more to know about him, and part of the information is in his autobiography, titled This is the Life! (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926). In that book (full text available online), he talks about how he became interested in protective coloration in nature when he was appointed the Game Protector of Florida, under the Migratory Bird Act. During his tenure in that role, the population of white egrets (which had been nearing extinction before) grew substantially, and manatee (then commonly known as the “sea cow”) became “more plentiful than the real cow, which is rather rare in Florida.” He goes on to describe how he also became interested in wartime camouflage—

Shortly after hostilities began in France, I encountered some badly wounded Canadian officers who had been sent South to recuperate, and often took them out boating. From them one day I learned about “camouflage” as practiced in the European armies, The prospect of this novel application of paint to warfare excited me immensely; I seemed to glimpse an opening whereby many aged artists could be of service to their country [p. 307].…

…In July I went to Washington…to preach camouflage to an incredulous and derisive lot of official dumb-bells who thought I was trying to introduce a new brand of French cheese. I was dubbed “Camouflage Walt” in the Press Club. I wrote a couple of page stories for the [Washington] Post that helped to make the word familiar, but alas, the reputation of humor is ruinous to any serious purpose; I got a few laughs but no consideration, although seven hundred French and English artists were even then engaged in developing the new defensive art. General Joe Kuhn, head of the War College, assured me it “was mere frills and piffle” [p. 308].

Aside from his camouflage efforts, there are other interesting aspects of McDougall’s life. In 1902, while he was a cartoonist for The North American in Philadelphia, a fellow cartoonist named Charles Nelan satirized the Governor of Pennsylvania (Samuel Pennypacker) by depicting him as a parrot. Rather like current political ploys, Pennypacker responded by calling for a legislative rule (called the “anti-cartoon act”) that would make it unlawful to portray politicians “as birds or animals.” In response, McDougall created new caricatures of the governer and other hacks—not as birds and animals, but as trees, vegetables, and a beer stein, as reproduced below.

Another, far more somber, aspect of McDougall’s biography took place decades later, when, destitute, forgotten, and living alone, he ended his life at age 80 by shooting himself in the head with an old pistol. This is how the story was told in HE MADE OTHERS LAUGH in the Owensboro Messenger (Owensboro KY), on March 12, 1938—

He had amused unnumbered thousands with his facile pen, helped elect one president with a masterful cartoon, been associated with another, and been employed by a third, yet when Walt McDougall came to die it was all alone and with a pistol clasped in his good right hand. At 80 the cartoonist, author and humorist found himself at the end of the road; money gone, friends forgetful. He had been dead a week, the coroner said.

…[US President Woodrow] Wilson commissioned McDougall to study camouflage in Europe and the report he made was the basis for much this country did in that direction during the early days of the war.•

With age and adversity upon him, the maker of laughs for other people turned to painting and his diary. If McDougall was quite frank with his pages they should have a worthwhile story to tell.

In other accounts of his passing, there are repeated references to his diary, but so far we haven't found it. It would be interesting to read, although assuredly painful. We have found only one published entry, described as having been one of his last. It reads—

Stove won’t work—tough times.

•••

• This claim seems to contradict McDougall's own account of his limited success. 

The wizard of oz becomes schooled on camouflage

Walt McDougall (1904), Land of Oz comic page

There is no denying that American artist Walt McDougall (1858-1938) was an extraordinary cartoonist. His work is funny and beautifully drawn. Above is a single full-color newspaper page (1904) for L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz. And at the bottom of this blog post is another full-page comic (1897), amazingly structured, in which works by a number of cartoonists are featured—McDougall's work is inside the triangle on the left of the page. Both of these cartoons are in public domain, and can be accessed as image files on McDougall's Wikipedia page.

McDougall was also interested in camouflage, and he wrote a long newspaper account about that subject during World War I. I've republished the entire text below. But I haven't republished the illustrations he made for it. None of those drawings are of the quality of his cartoons, and one of them is blatantly offensive: it shows military brass having drinks at the Army and Navy Club (where I once lectured—on the subject of camouflage) in Washington DC. An African-American waiter is shown as a clueless black-faced minstrel, as was thought to be funny back then. It brings up painful memories of my own childhood when, as recently as the early 1950s, the movie theatre in the small Iowa community in which I grew up was still featuring "minstrel shows" in which white musicians (there were no black residents at the time) would perform in blackface. With that as a timely disclaimer, here is the text of McDougall's article—

Walt M’Dougall, TRAILING THE CAMOUFLAGE IN WASHINGTON JUNGLES: Certain Adventures of a Patriot Who Endeavored to Do His Bit for Our Newest Art: An “Inside Story” of the Incident That Gave Birth to Camouflage, Written and Illustrated by the Man Who Hereby Sets Forth His Claim to Rank as the Original “Camouflager,” in The Washington Post, June 10, 1917, p. 3—

Camouflage is pronounced as it is spelled, with the “g” soft and mushy, as in “garage,” and with the accent on the “cam.” The art and mystery of concealing batteries, roads and large, important officials by means of artificial scenery was given this name by the French, who knew that it would be a long time before people could determine whether it was a new kind of cheese or a bit of feminine wearing apparel.

Some time ago I became possessed of certain reliable information regarding camouflage through a returned Canadian officer and promptly addressed the War Department a fervent appeal to send me to the French front to gather further information, models, data, and insect parasites for the instruction of our own army. I realized that the task required the imagination of a playwright, the art of a scene painter, the skill of a stage carpenter, the strength of a blacksmith, the nerve of a literary agent, the stomach of a hyena, and the nerve of a motion picture substitute.

Nobody knows what became of that appeal.

New York Got the Edge
Two weeks ago I arrived in Florida in response to a suggestion from a high official to present my plea in person, and almost immediately discovered that while I had been dreaming under the orange blossoms a national camouflage division had been organized in New York, with units in various other cities, and that a number of able-bodied artists already were drilling at night in vacant lots. It was even said that they were wearing uniforms. Now, New York usually tumbles to a new thing only after all the rest of the country has tried it out, and then it starts it off as a new and original fad, but in this case, it seems to have got there first.

Somewhat startled and nervous, I devoted my initial efforts to ascertaining just how far the movement had progressed. Hastily seeking the aforesaid prominent official I was guided to the War Department, where we consulted a bland and amiable Major Blank, who, after candidly admitting that he had never heard of camouflage, said that from what I had revealed to him he didn’t think it quite fair to pester the department about such piffle when it was so busy with really important matters.

“Major, on my word of honor as a gentleman,” I repeated, “I assure you that while camouflage is a new war game, it isn’t piffle. It is saving thousands of lives and guns and military material in France.”

Patting me soothingly on the shoulder, he suggested: “Why not go over on your own account as a private citizen and study it?”

When I asked him, rather testily, I admit, how long he thought I’d last gumshoeing around the French front with a camera, a sketchbook, and a tape measure, picking centimeters and calories off the big guns, he appeared a trifle hurt, but when he got his breath he said that the War Department couldn’t bother with “frills” at this time and that perhaps I might manage to get away with the second or third division of troops going over.

I asked the next man who was consulted, point-blank, if he had ever heard of camouflage.

Thought It a New Insect Powder
“Yes,” said he in a flash; “It is the new insect powder they’re getting from the Phillippines.” However, he was only a civilian.

I began to see, dimly, that my task was going to difficult. We went to the Cosmos Club to dine, where I met an African explorer, who wanted to bet me that camouflage was a subspecies of the dingo family. Late at night, reduced to a sort of dumb despair, I went to the Press Club, where I encountered artist Felix Mahoney, [a cartoonist as well] who proved to have at his finger-ends all the knowledge there is about “Who’s Who and Where” in camouflaging. He formed the local unit and invited me to witness the evening drill the following night. I was surprised to learn that they were not drilling with paintbrushes, but actually learning the military manual under the instruction of a real army officer. This looked like something really tangible.

I also learned that evening that among other things it is supposed that “the camouflage artist is like any other soldier. He goes where he is sent, and, in addition to his arms, he carries a 6-inch sketch box, which is his palette, one-half of the box fitting on his thumb in true palette fashion, while the other half holds his little sketch boards and colors. The scene to be ‘camouflaged’ is sketched exactly as it appears in colors that match the true ones. This sketch is conveyed to the base of operations, where other artists copy it upon a large canvas. The framework, if there is any, is designed and the finished ‘scene’ is rushed to the spot it is intended to conceal.”

When I pointed out that if the scenery was already there in situ it scarcely needed to be disguised by an artificial creation precisely imitating its details to conceal it from the enemy, I was regarded with pity.

He Is the Original Camouflager
Now, I need to explain, perhaps, my interest in this matter. Long before the famous bank robbery where the burglars painted a fake safe and robbed the genuine one behind it, in my boyhood days, in fact, I cleverly painted a life-size effigy of my slight and skinny self and set it up in the cornfield where I was supposed to be watching the crows, and while mother thought I was on the job, I was lying under a willow by the creek fishing for perch. While I expose past duplicity with regret, my mother being long dead, I feel it needful to establish my claim as the original camouflager.

Well, I had already begun to suspect that I stood a swell chance of getting to the front, but I persisted. The next day I met a man in another department who confessed that he had heard that the French used artists in the army to “stimulate scenery” in deceiving the enemy. Needless to say, he meant “simulate.” I saw the young and enthusiastic artists drill that evening and conferred with them. They expected, every one of them, to be sent to the front, but they were rather misty as to how they were to be instructed, and where, in their special form of military art.  I took occasion to explain that I deserved to be sent over in order to qualify as an instructor for just such lads back here at home. None of these boys wanted to be generals or even captains—they wanted to camouflage.

After three days I got so that I found myself in the Army and Navy Club ordering camouflage cocktails for an aged major general and I realized that I had reached a critical stage. I proceeded to obtain a new slant on the subject. Armed with a note from Mr. Tumulty I sought the Assistant Secretary of War, but his private secretary, an alert and observing young fellow, seeing the wild, haunted look in my eyes, the hectic four-flush mantling my cheeks and my ill-concealed impatience, steered me up against some husky colonels in a remote part of the building. These officers, kindly and genial, humored me by listening to my ravings, and finally Mr. McKenna sent me by the department bus to the War College, having previously telephoned General Kuhn that I was coming.

They Treated Him Kindly
Right here I want to express my appreciation of the unfailing kindness, cheerful patience and delightful good humor of every official whose valuable time I monopolized during the week. Although they uniformly refused to take me seriously, they took me in and made me at home in every case. I lunched with the general staff on Friday, after walking many miles across country to the War College, a point usually reached only by airplane and wireless, and although I had neither guide, compass or chart, I got there before everything was eaten.

Here I received another shock. I found that General Kuhn actually knew all about camouflage! I mean, all that is known in the United States. That is nearly nothing, but the general had heard about what had been revealed. His delightful personality eased the pain I felt when I saw that he also regarded camouflage as frillery and military lingeries, as it were, but when he kindly enlightened me as to the number (something like 76,000) of eager, earnest souls who ardently desired to sail for France this week in order to study gas-bombing, trench ventilation, painless starvation, cathedral reconstruction, explosive frankfurters, dog training, the German system of converting their dead into toilet soaps, smokeless tobacco and the like on the battlefield, I saw a great light. I now perceive why departmental business proceeds slowly and painfully. If officials are as invariably polite, courteous, and obliging to every crank, bug, and jobseeker as they were to me it is wonderful that anything is accomplished, and it follows that camouflaging the departments is as necessary as anything else.

He Gave Up the Quest
The last man I interviewed on the subject was the celebrated sculptor, Mr. Paul Barlett, chairman of the executive committee of the Washington camouflage division. He assured me that a small army of artists, eminent and otherwise, was preparing to go to France, where they were to take up this pursuit.

“Do you mean that the government will send this division over as an actual organization of artists?” I asked.

He intimated that such was his understanding.

“And when this army, well-drilled and qualified as soldiers, arrives at the front, will it be marched somewhere and proceed to become students of camouflage, under the instruction of 700 busy scene painters now occupied in disguising France, or will they just camouflage around, picking up the art between the barrage fire and the hospitals?” I persisted.

Mr. Bartlett’s manner suggested that my question peeved him, or, at least, so it seemed to me, and I obtained no answer to the question of how our earnest seekers after knowledge would become qualified to proceed to camouflage. However, this finished my efforts to inject my own personality into the movement. I will not see France until the war is over, and I will never know more about camouflaging than anybody else does.

Walt McDougall and others (1897)

Earl B. Wooden | Hollywood designer and camoufleur

Earl B. Wooden (1893-1952) was a Kansas-born scenic film designer, who (as a "set decorator" and "set dresser") produced scenery for Hollywood films. One of those was Corpus Christi Bandits (1945), the poster for which is shown above. During World War I, he also served as a US Army camouflage artist, as described in the news article below.

•••

Stockton Review and Rooks County Record (Stockton KS), January 31, 1918—

Mr. and Mrs. E.B. Wooden received a letter this week from their son Earl, notifying them that he had arrived safely in France, where he went from California recently to work in the Camouflage Corps. His particular work will be the planning and architectural construction of camouflage for artillery and other things at the front that must be concealed from enemy airplanes. In this, he is an adept, as he has been engaged for the past four years in the creation of artificial scenery for a big film company at University City in Los Angeles. He says his work has hitherto ben to deceive the public at the movies; now it will be the pull the wool over the Bosche's eyes. His parents knew of his going and were surprised as well as pleased over getting word from him so promptly.

Dustin Keller | Camouflaged household appliances

Dustin Keller / Lozenge camouflage toaster

Ala serendipity, we've run across an online site called Keller's Blog on which a Canadian high school teacher (of art and guitar) named Dustin Keller has posted a camouflaged-themed problem for his students at the John Oliver Secondary School in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dustin Keller / Three-tone camouflage toaster

A variety of problems are posted there, but the one that we were drawn to (of course) is Skins & Camouflage. As specified on that page, the students were asked to design a prototype of a quasi-camouflaged "small household applicance," such as (for example) a toaster.

Dustin Keller / Dazzle camouflage toaster

The three examples posted here were designed by Mr. Keller. It's a great idea—elegant, fun, and nifty for sure. Surely, his students enjoyed it.

hidden moonshine | teddy bear stomachs suspected

Camouflaged intoxicants

CAMOUFLAGE LIQUOR TO SOLDIERS AROUSES JUDGE in Boston Globe (April 14, 1918), p. 16—

NEW YORK—Discovery of camouflage in the disposal of liquor to soldiers and sailors in uniform led to the announcement by United States Judge Hand today that imprisonment and not fines would be the punishment hereafter of persons convicted of violating the Federal law forbidding the sale of intoxicants to Army and Navy men.

Stomachs of Teddy Bears, paper bags left on mailboxes, taxicab rides around the block at $1.50 a ride, and cigar boxes passed over the counter at cigar stores are some of the methods through which servicemen here have been served with liquor recently, according to testimony in the Federal court at the arraignment of more than 300 persons, many of whom are now in prison.

hocus pocus, thimblerig, supercherie, and cozenage

Above Poster for Charlie Chaplin film, Shoulder Arms (1918), in which his character wanders behind enemy lines disguised as a tree trunk. Public Domain.

•••

CAMOUFLAGE: Everybody’s Doing It, Including the Moving Pictures, in Photo-Play Journal (December 1917), p. 25—

No periodical can count its contents complete if it has left out some mention of camouflage. The word has dug its way into our language until it has completely lost its French ancestry. Deception, misrepresentation, cozenage, coggery, ingannation, hocus pocus, thimblerig and artifice, bamboozlement, supercherie, and strategem, they all mean the same nowadays since camouflage has come into its own.

When the French paint their heavy guns to look like landscapes, that’s camouflage; when the U-boats put on paint that looks like the waves of the sea, that’s camouflage; when you make ox-tail soup out of a bouillon cube, that’s camouflage; when you’re forty and fat and you bant in your flat, that’s camouflage; when you stand pat on two pair and look like a full house, that’s camouflage.

And now the movies have taken it up. They don’t know it yet, but they have. And when the moving pictures begin to take a thing up you have no more chance of getting away from it than you have of not hearing scandal at the Country Club. So why struggle?

If you can recall the day you hid behind the old barn and indulged in your first whiff at a cigarette, you will realize that camouflage meant something to you many years before you ever heard of the blooming word. The old barn was first-class camouflage. If you’re a former little girl, remember the fan you blushed behind when he first said he loved you? ’Twas camouflage that made your face look like a fan. Verily, everybody has been doing it—this thing of camouflaging.…

•••

Boston Globe, March 31, 1918—

Cecil B. DeMille, of Paramount [Film Studios], will become a member of the United States Engineer Corps and will aid in recruiting technical experts and scenic artists for camouflage work in France.

According to a Wikipedia biography—

During World War I, the Famous Players-Lasky organized a military company underneath the National Guard called the Home Guard made up of film studio employees with DeMille as captain. Eventually, the Guard was promoted to a battalion and recruited soldiers from other film studios. They took time off weekly from film production to practice military drills. Additionally, during the war, DeMille volunteered for the Justice Department's Intelligence Office, investigating friends, neighbors, and others he came in contact with in connection with the Famous Players-Lasky. He volunteered for the Intelligence Office during World War II as well. Although DeMille considered enlisting in World War I, he stayed in the United States and made films.  

Cecil B. DeMille (1919). Public domain.