Harding Knocks

"The Favorite Son Rise" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 3, 1920

In celebration of America's exercise in democracy this week, Settleback Saturday recalls the election 100 years ago of the second most corrupt president in U.S. history.

But we're not here to talk about current events today.

"Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down?" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in Collier's, Nov. 6, 1920

Nelson Harding (no relation to the winner) may have had the cartoon at the top of today's post ready before the election results were final for the day-after-Election-Day newspaper but for the face; both candidates happened to be from Ohio. But as shown by Ding Darling's cartoon for Collier's weekly, published well before the votes were in, the outcome was never really in doubt. Cox carried only Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas.

Darling, a Republican through and through, disagreed strongly with Warren Harding's stand against the League of Nations; he was also disappointed by Democrat James Cox's petty campaign that was less about what a Cox administration would do than about leveling charges of financial irregularities against the Republican Party.

"It's A Great Day for America" by Albert T. Reid in National Republican, ca. Nov. 3, 1920

Staunch Republican Albert T. Reid, on the other hand, had no reservations whatsoever that Harding's election was "a great day for America." This is the one and only cartoon I came across between the Republican National Convention and Election Day in which Calvin Coolidge appears in person. Here Columbia (then still a common representation of the U.S.) presents Harding and Coolidge with "Mandate[s] from the American People for the Government of the United States."

"The Birthday Gift" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Nov. 3, 1920

Speaking of gifts, a somewhat less partisan observer, Clifford Berryman noted that Election Day 1920 happened to be Warren Harding's 55th birthday.

"Victory" by Raymond O. Evans (Sr.) for National Welfare Union, Nov. 3, 1920

Googling the National Welfare Union mostly leads me to other newspapers running this particular cartoon by R.O. Evans, who was editorial cartoonist of the Baltimore American. A cartoon of this sort on the day after Election Day might not necessarily indicate the cartoonist's or the National Welfare Union's political leanings, although "America First" is a recurrent theme in a couple examples of Mr. Evans's work that have shown up in this here blog.

"Now for the House Cleaning," unsigned, for National Welfare Union, Nov. 3, 1920

I can't find a signature in this cartoon, also for the National Welfare Union, although the style suggests perhaps Clifford Berryman of the Washington Evening Star (see "The Birthday Gift" above). The cartoonist, whoever he was, attributed Harding's landslide win to the women, Harding Democrats, and Progressives. Curiously, the G.O.P. elephant peering out from behind a pillar doesn't appear to be doing any work at all — which, frankly, doesn't make a bit of sense to me.

"Der Kampf um den Völkerbund" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 21, 1920

German cartoonists, while unfamiliar with Mr. Harding, were as happy as U.S. Republicans were to see the election results as a repudiation of President Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations. Harding's promises of a return to "normalcy" guaranteed that Germany would no longer be pestered by moralizing from the White House.

"Wilsons Abschied" by Ernst Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, Nov. 24, 1920

Wilson did find some time to write in his final years, including some essays about the rise of totalitarianism; but he left authorship about his own administration to others.

"A New Front Porch" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 5, 1920

Returning, then, to the work of Nelson Harding, we find a nation ready to turn the page, a nation relieved by the relaxed, front-porch campaign style of Warren Harding after coming through a Great War, international upheaval, and a deadly global pandemic. Anyone expecting an end to Red Scares, Klan terrorism, or governmental mismanagement, however, was to be sadly disappointed.

"Let's Have a Real Election Bonfire" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 7, 1920

I daresay you can easily find plenty of agreement with this third Nelson Harding cartoon today.