These World War I cartoons by Frank Hines, an enlisted man in Texas, were published in a base newspaper at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, in 1918. They were sent by Edward Howell Wirt to his fiance, Emily Gladys Bartlett, before he was sent overseas only weeks later. He was from Lowell and she was from Holyoke, Massachusetts. His comments are in pencil. He served in the 302nd Infantry Division in France as a military policeman. Wirt returned safely to the United States after the war and rejoined Gladys in Holyoke.
The center cartoon refers to Herbert Hoover, the future president of the United States. From 1917-1919, Hoover was in charge of the government’s voluntary food rationing program. The soldier is eating heaps at a time when civilians had been asked to cut the amount of food they ate.
