1945 White Manuscript Political Cartoon, Tax Evasion Scandal, South Florida

Pursuing Wartime Tax Dodgers.

This is a March 1945 original-art manuscript political cartoon by George White, produced for The Tampa Tribune. The map refers to increased federal tax enforcement operations at the time, targeting resorts and parties in South Florida frequented by high-wealth individuals.

A Closer Look

This map displays the southeastern United States as the face of Uncle Sam, with his beard forming the state of Florida. Uncle Sam looks on disapprovingly as a group of 'big spenders' parties in Miami. This curious image is perplexing at first, but makes sense when considered in the context of the closing days of World War II (1939 - 1945). At the time, Allied troops were pressing in on Berlin, and most of the news of the day was taken up by developments in the war, but the war also impacted all aspects of society. Thus, extravagant parties in South Florida became the source of a political scandal when they were investigated by the U.S. Treasury Department for buying goods on the black market and being populated by tax evaders.

Wartime Spending and Tax Cheats

The wider context of the scandal referred to in this work is the significant increase in taxes and tax enforcement efforts as a result of World War II (1939 - 1945). Federal income tax on both individuals and corporations is largely the result of wartime spending, first temporarily during the War of 1812 and the U.S. Civil War and then permanently since 1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment was passed on the eve of World War I (1914 - 1918). Progressives, including both Presidents Roosevelt, also favored a progressive or graduated federal income tax in principle to reduce inequality. Once the United States formally entered World War II in December 1941, new federal income taxes were instituted to help pay for the war.

Although there was some pushback and finagling of the rates to mitigate their impact, the result was that the number of taxpayers at the federal level increased tenfold between 1940 and 1945, and by the end of the war, the top marginal rate on very high-income earners was over 90 percent. As a result, some people established shell corporations, sought loopholes, and used other means to hide their wealth from the taxman. Given the wartime spirit of shared sacrifice and patriotism, such acts were stridently denounced in the public sphere.

The influential Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., prioritized enforcement and was dogged in pursuing tax cheats, hiring a force of 5,000 investigators. Vice President Harry Truman, who became President less than a month after this map's publication, had spent much of his term in the U.S. Senate (1940 - 1945) as head of a committee investigating tax evasion, black markets, and war profiteering. (Truman's persistence was in part a defensive measure, as his political mentor and machine boss, Tom Pendergast, had recently been imprisoned for tax evasion.)

The specifically Florida portion of this story results from T-Men investigations into lavish parties held in Miami, Miami Beach, and elsewhere in South Florida, areas known to be havens for tax dodgers. Morgenthau was especially interested in investigating 'lush boys,' that is, wealthy playboys who, one would think, ought to be involved in the war effort rather than partying. Not only were these soirees unseemly given the intense wartime environment, but it was also assumed that they violated wartime rationing, relied on black market suppliers, and included several 'big name' tax dodgers. The Florida enforcement drive in early 1945 that inspired this map brought in an additional $100,000 in tax revenue, but it is unclear if any indictments or convictions resulted.

Publication History and Census

This manuscript map was prepared by cartoonist George White in March 1945. A published version appeared on the front page of the Saturday, March 24, 1945, edition of the The Tampa Tribune. White used this title and concept (the U.S. government personified by Uncle Sam getting his hair or beard tousled by an annoyance) two more times, in February 1956 to illustrate the complicated U.S. position in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and in 1961 with regard to leaked State Department documents. Though it was later published, the present work - a draft drawn by the artist's own hand - is an entirely unique manuscript work.

Cartographer

George White (1901 - March 7, 1964) was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and relocated to Tampa with this family in 1915. White studied art under Tampa artist Walter Collins and began work as a commercial artist at the Tampa Morning Tribune in 1928 and by 1934 was a regular cartoonist at the Tribune. Rather unconventionally, the paper featured his cartoons on the front page. His work displays the evolving course of America's domestic and geopolitics from the interwar period, through World War II, and into the Cold War.   Further Details...

Condition

Excellent.