The 'Herblock!' Show: Cartoonists, Library of Congress Pay Tribute on Legend's 100th Birthday

Tuesday, Oct. 13

You stroll among these freshly mounted, never-before-displayed original drawings at the Library of Congress and you are struck anew by the sheer span of Herb Block's career. The longtime Washington Post political cartoonist covered 13 presidential administrations -- from Hoover to Bush the Younger -- in a sweep of history that ranged from the Great Depression to, nearly, 9/11.

Then you peer closer at these 82 works that make up this new "Herblock!" exhibit -- which opens today, on what would have been his 100th birthday -- and realize anew how much the man who coined the term "McCarthyism," and who visually linked Watergate to the Nixon White House within mere weeks of the burglary, was himself, pen in hand, a part of history.

Given this sweep as well as his readership among the powerfully and politically connected, one is tempted to summon the line from "Citizen Kane": "All of these years he covered, many of these he was." Except that by most accounts, Herblock was far too humble to claim such a place in history. In his view -- according to colleagues and confidants -- he was just doing his job. Just looking out for the little guy and holding the powerful accountable. It was a career, then, that could have been fittingly directed not by Orson Welles, but rather Frank Capra.

After viewing the exhibit, you go to The Washington Post newsroom and realize that eight years after Herb Block's death, the building is filled not with his ghosts, but with his hosts. There are many ready to bear witness to the peregrinations of the man many called "Mr. B.," as he emerged from his office to show ink-and-graphite roughs to the few, the fortunate. He is said to have listed The Post as his address for the staff directory; perhaps that is why his spirit can seem to reside here still.

-- Michael Cavna