Keep the Cartoon in National Cartoonists Day

Today, May 5, is National Cartoonists Day. In most years, the whole country would celebrate by gathering together at our favorite Cartoonist Restaurants for enchiladas, chips and salsa, and margaritas; but a more subdued, private observance is called for this year.

Newspapers are struggling to make ends meet, and cartoonists are among the first to get cut. Even the ever-popular comics page is not sacrosanct.

So raise your glass of Purell and enjoy this rehash of a cartoon from April 9, 1898 that I posted a few years ago.

[At the outset of the Spanish-American War, the Minneapolis Star's Charles] "Bart" Barthomomew  – standing with his back to us next to his signature gopher, or chipmunk, or whatever that animal is supposed to be – was drawing Uncle Sam (or crowing bald eagles) nearly every day.

The tall cartoonist just to Bart's right is the Minneapolis Tribune's Rowland Claude Bowman, who usually included in his cartoons that dog between his legs.

Other cartoonists in the cartoon are identified with their respective newspapers. From left to right: The Chicago Record, ?, New York Journal (standing), New York Herald (seated), Examiner San Francisco (standing), Chicago Inter Ocean (crouching), and World. Sorry, I just can't read that second fellow.

I can postulate names for the New Yorkers in this cartoon. Homer Davenport was cartoonist for the New York Journal. William A. Rogers was cartoonist for the New York Herald. The cartoonists for the (New York) World included Richard Outcault (in a self-caricature on page 71 of Stephen Hess and Sandy Northrop's American Political Cartoons, Outcault has dark shaggy hair, glasses, and an upturned moustache) and Walt McDougall.