100 Years Ago: War with Mexico

100 years ago this week, the Wilson administration's election slogan that "He Kept Us Out of War" was in trouble. You may recall an Australian cartoon that ran here a couple Salsaback Saturdays ago anticipating imminent war between the U.S. and Mexico.

You can always click to embiggen these images, but only so far; so here's a close-up of the above Naughton cartoon:

C.F. Naughton for Duluth Herald, June 24, 1916

The first thing to establish when going to war is that your adversary has no business being in charge of itself. Racism (witness any vocal Trump supporter) is an early tactic:

July, 1916 Cartoons Magazine cover after a cartoon by Nelson Harding in The Brooklyn Eagle

Virtually all the U.S. cartoonists I saw published predicted an easy thrashing for that upstart south of the border. The first Mexican-American War was more or less of a cakewalk, and was a distant memory (as distant as World War II today, but without the movies). The Spanish-American War was fresher in memory, and how much more difficult could the Mexicans be than Spain had been?

May for Cleveland Leader

Luther Bradley for Chicago Daily News

C.F. Naughton for Duluth Herald, June 26, 1916. (Unsigned, again!)

There was at least one editorial cartoonist, however, who seems to have suggested that the "Punitive Expedition" hadn't been such a piece of cake so far.

Charles H. "Bill" Sykes for Philadelphia Evening Ledger