Ink-stained Ring-side Seats

Earlier this week, I mourned the end of an era: newspapers sending their editorial cartoonists to Republican and Democratic National Conventions may soon be a thing of the past. So, in the calm between the storms of this year's conventions, let's take a look back at this by-going tradition, shall we?

"More Glimpses of the Democratic Convention" by Leo Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. June 26, 1924

Sending cartoonists to these conventions grew out of newspapers in the 19th Century not being able to reproduce photographs well (and of the earliest cameras requiring everybody to hold very still for several seconds). They sent artists to capture the drama and excitement of Americans from all around the country gathering in hot, sweltering halls to decide the fate of the nation.

Harper's Weekly, May 19, 1860

Perhaps the Republicans' second national convention was as placid an affair as Harper's Weekly's artist conveyed it, but I doubt it. Before long, illustrators wanted to portray the enthusiasm, indeed, partisanship in the hall. Here's some fellow stoked to see his fellow delegates nominating William McKinley for a second term, an outcome that had never been in doubt:

E.N. Blue in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 23, 1900

Not content simply to be neutral observers, newspapers' editorial cartoonists became reporters. As the Republicans failed in ballot after ballot to settle on a candidate at their 1920 convention in Chicago, I imagine that John McCutcheon was hoping to scoop all the other Windy City cartoonists only to have to dash off this hasty oeuvre.

"It's a Boy" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1920

(I've already covered most of McCutcheon's cartoons for the rest of that Chicago convention.)

"And So We Say Farewell to Chicago" by Gene Basset for Scripps Howard Newspapers, Aug. 30, 1968

It would be interesting to assemble visiting cartoonists' sketches of another Chicago convention: the tumultuous Democratic convention of 1968. Did any of them witness the police riot on the streets, or were they all watching the chaos in the International Ampitheatre? Certainly what was going on outside was well-known inside; an Gene Basset cartoon earlier in the week showed Hubert Humphrey obliviously stepping over the bodies of wounded and bandaged protesters.

Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, July, 1972

For the most part, however, the stuff produced by editorial cartoonists at party conventions since I started paying attention have been fun, light-hearted observations of the passing scene, as in this mélange by Pat Oliphant at the Democrats' next convention, in Miami Beach.

"The Room Situation Out Here Is Very Tight" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, August 19, 1976

Or this Bill Sanders missive from the Republicans' 1976 convention in Kansas City. This must have been a good opportunity to get reacquainted with old buddies for Sanders, who worked at the Kansas City Star from 1963 to 1967. He discusses other convention trips in his memoir, but not this one.

I used to have a copy of the Kansas City Star with the banner headline reporting Gerald Ford winning the nomination, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I guess it must have been in the box of my stuff that was destroyed when our basement flooded several years ago. That's pretty much what I figure whenever I give up looking for something.

Paul Szep in Boston Globe, August, 1984

Paul Szep of the Boston Globe took one approach to covering the Republicans' 1984 recoronation of Ronald Reagan. The late, great Jeff MacNelly took another.

"The Culture Scene in 'Big D'" by Jeff MacNelly in Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1984

Just because one's editors sent one all the way to the convention and gave one an entire page of newsprint realty all to oneself — in full color no less, which was a big effing deal in 1984 — didn't mean one actually had to go to the damn convention.

"Yachting in North Texas" by Jeff MacNelly in Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1984