Existing comment:
ON THE BEACH
Herblock’s first cartoon, in 1929, had been about clearcut logging, and throughout his long career environmental conditions remained one of his major concerns. By drawing the title for this cartoon from Nevil Shute’s 1957 post-apocalyptic novel and showing an American family recoiling at the disgusting water, Herblock reminded his audience that pollution had doomed many creatures. When Johnson signed the Air Quality Act of 1967 into law on November 21, 1967, he quoted Dante’s Inferno, “. . . dirty water and black snow pour from the dismal air to . . . the putrid slush that waits for them below.” The Clean Water Act did not pass until 1972.
On the Beach, 1966. Published in the Washington Post, April 2, 1967. I |