Ladies' Home Rule Journal

Splitback Saturday tackles two topics today!

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, it's time to check in on events at the Emerald Isle a century ago. I realize that this makes a poor substitute for a cancelled parade, but I'm afraid it will have to do.

"Fer th' Love av Mike" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Association, February, 1920

With the Easter Rising and Irish wartime collaboration with Germany in the rearview mirror, the government of David Lloyd George proposed a Home Rule bill for Ireland. It established Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, which were to be governed by separate parliaments and judicial systems, but a common Lord Lieutenant, Council of Ireland, and High Court of Appeal. Both would still be part of the United Kingdom, with no authority over foreign policy, currency, or defense.

"Cruel to Be Kind" by George White in The Passing Show, February, 1920 or earlier

"Home Rule" was hardly a new idea. It had been the main goal of Irish nationalists since 1870, and proposed by Liberal governments in Great Britain as early as 1886. Parliament had finally passed a Home Rule bill just as World War I broke out, but did so simultaneously with a Suspensory Act preventing Home Rule from going into effect as long as the war lasted.

Which should have been fine and dandy now that the war was over, right?

Detail from "Cartoons of the Day" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1920

Wrong.

To begin with, Ulster Unionists — Ireland's Protestant minority— were dead set against Home Rule and literally up in arms to prevent it. Furthermore, after British execution of Easter Rising leaders, followed by Lloyd George's institution of wartime conscription in Ireland, Irish nationalists decided that "Home Rule" was too little, too late. The more radical Sinn Fein swept Irish elections in 1918 and demanded full independence.

"En ik heb vijf lange jaren naast je gevochten..." in De Notenkraker, Amsterdam, ca. February, 1920

After the war, Woodrow Wilson's idealistic talk of self-determination of small nations was more appealing to the Irish separatists than to the government of the Empire On Which The Sun Never Set.

"The Great Postponement" by Bernard Partridge in Punch, March, 1920 or earlier

The trick pig was a frequent, and intentionally insulting, representation of Ireland in British cartoons, tracing back to an 1840 cartoon in Punch. History Ireland reports, "The pig represented Ireland’s status as an agricultural, rustic and backward nation, as well as the Irish peasantry’s supposed indifference to filth and muck."

"A Test of Sagacity" by Bernard Partridge in Punch, February 18, 1920

The politicians in the next cartoon are Irish Unionist leader Edward Carson on the left and Prime Minister David Lloyd George on the right. I'm not positive who the fellow in the center is; it can't be Eamon Valera.

"The Pudding That Was to Have Been" by F.C. Gould in Saturday Westminster Gazette, ca. March, 1920

Lloyd George's bill, "The Government of Ireland Act 1920," was presented in parliament on February 26. The bill ultimately did pass, but never took effect in what is now the independent country of Ireland.

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Given that we've just passed International Women's Day and are in the middle of Women's History Month, I would be remiss if I didn't take note of a centennial this week.

Detail from "The Tiny Tribune" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1920

100 years ago this past Wednesday, West Virginia became the 34th state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to extend the vote in federal elections to women over the age of 21.

The measure almost failed to pass a special session of the West Virginia State Senate, where ratification came up one vote short. But two senators were absent: one had resigned the previous year; and the other, Jesse Bloch of Wheeling, was golfing in California.

"Now Straight Ahead" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, March 12, 1920

The Senate leadership kept the vote open until the pro-suffrage Bloch could get back home, arriving by a specially arranged train in the wee hours of March 10.

"The Grand Rush of the Reception Committee" by Jay "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, March 15, 1920

Just two more states were needed to complete the ratification process; as you can see, proponents were very optimistic at the amendment's chances.