This is a 1942 cartoon about World War II by Dr. Seuss. The title, <em>Are we Mice or Are we Men?</em>, is a reference to a book called <em>Of Mice and Men</em> written by another WWII correspondent called John Steinbeck.
3. The cats are meant to represent the dictators in Europe and Asia, more specifically the Axis leaders during WWII. The cat on the left is Adolf Hitler, who ruled Germany from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s. You can tell from the Nazi symbol on the cat's chest and the well-known moustache. On the right is a caricature of Hideki Tojo, Supreme Military Leader of Japan during the same decade. This characterization is indicated by the cat's recognizable round glasses, moustache, and Asian features.
4. The mice are American politicians (most likely the Roosevelt administration) who refused to intervene in the war. The U.S. remained neutral during the first 2 years of WWII (1939 to 1941), in spite of debates about helping the Allied powers, at least economically. Only when the Japanese attacked an American military base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, did the U.S. eventually declare war on Japan.
5. The mice have built fortifications out of theory books. By creating this metaphor, the cartoonist is representing the isolationist beliefs of Americans based on their certainty that non-intervention was the best strategy: "Why not to Help our Allies," "Isolation Handbook," etc. But these books won't stop the cats from attacking the mice, just as the theory and the principles did not prevent Japan from carrying out an attack on U.S. soil in 1941.
6. Dr. Seuss is mocking his country's isolationist policies at the beginning of WWII by representing the mice, his country leaders, as naïve and complacent. The cartoon is from 1942, so after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Therefore, we can assume that the message is: "You thought you knew what was right for the country, but in the end, you were misguided."
