Ryan Walker

Ryan Walker (December 26, 1870 in Springfield, Kentucky - June 23, 1932 in Moscow) was an American political activist and cartoonist. A prolific artist who published political cartoons in a variety of radical newspapers and magazines in the United States, Walker is best remembered as the creator of the recurring character "Henry Dubb", an American worker who ambled through life blithely being victimized by capitalism ostensibly as a result of his blind acceptance of the ideas of the ruling class.

A member of the Socialist Party of America during his younger years, Walker's political views hardened with the coming of the Great Depression in 1929 and he joined the Communist Party USA the following year, joining the editorial staff of the party's English-language daily newspaper in New York City. Walker died of pneumonia in June 1932 while on a visit to the Soviet Union.

Biography

Early years Ryan Walker as he appeared in 1900, early in his career as a cartoonist.

Ryan Walker was born in Springfield, Kentucky, on December 26, 1870. His father, Edwin Ruthwin Walker, was a farmer who later became a lawyer and moved the family to the Midwestern metropolis of Kansas City, Missouri, where Ryan attended public school.

Showing a proclivity for art from an early age, submitting his first freelance cartoons to Judge in 1883, at the age of 13. These were not of sufficiently finished quality to appear in the pages of the magazine, but the ideas were accepted and redrawn into a two-page center spread and back cover cartoon by a house artist, for which Walker received a royalty check of $15.

Upon leaving school Walker studied for a time at the Art Students' League in New York City, before working for a number of years in a series of manual jobs, refining his drawing in his spare time.

Walker moved from freelance to syndicated work in 1904, joining with the Baltimore-based International Syndicate as a cartoonist. His health broke down from the strain, however, and he resigned his position as a syndicated cartoonist to pursue political pursuits full-time.

Walker contributed cover art to this 1931 Communist Party political pamphlet, Race Hatred on Trial.

It was through the pages of the socialist Appeal to Reason, a mass circulation weekly published in Southeastern Kansas to which he began regularly contributing in 1906, that Walker first gained popular fame. It was in those pages that he first introduced the character "Henry Dubb," an American worker who unthinkingly rejected the ideas of unionism and socialism, only to accept as inevitable his victimization by the violence and corruption of the social system around him. Exposed as a dupe and a fool by his worldly wife and somehow cognizant child, the oblivious and intractable protagonist would respond to his latest existential insult with an unblinking stare into space and the catchphrase "I'm Henry Dubb!" Walker was effective in his role as a socialist lecturer, so much so that his abilities were lauded by party orator Eugene V. Debs, who called him "accurate and resourceful", and declared him a "great cartoonist" and "equally great" public speaker, who could delight and hold an audience of socialists and non-socialists alike.

Following a conservative turn of the editorial line of the Appeal during the years of World War I, Walker took his art and the Henry Dubb character to the pages of the New York City socialist daily New York Call and later to its successor, the New Leader.

Communist years

In the fall of 1930 Walker joined the Communist Party USA and the John Reed Club, In conjunction with his new role, Walker created a new regularly recurring character for his cartoons, a stolid proletarian known as Bill Worker.

Death and legacy

During a visit to the Soviet Union in the spring of 1932, Ryan Walker fell ill and was forced to be hospitalized. He died of pneumonia at Rotkinsky hospital in Moscow on June 22, 1932. He was 61 years old at the time of his death.

Footnotes

Works

The Social Hell. Rich Hill, MO: The Coming Nation, 1902. Jim and James. Girard, KS: Appeal to Reason, 1906. The Socialist Primer: A Book of First Lessons for the Little Ones in Words of One Syllable. (Illustrator.) Girard, KS: Appeal to Reason, 1908. The Red Portfolio: Cartoons for Socialism. Girard, KS: The Coming Nation, 1913. Adventures of Henry Dubb: Cartoons. New York: Ryan Walker, 1914. New Adventures of Henry Dubb: Cartoons. Chicago: Socialist Party, 1915.