Ratification of the Four-Power Treaty

"It Went Through" by Winsor McCay for Star Company, by March 30, 1922

After defeating a series of amendments proposed by treaty opponents, the U.S. Senate ratified Four-Power Treaty among the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan, on March 24, 1922 by a vote of 67 to 27. The lone "reservation" to pass the Senate stipulated that nothing in the treaty should require the U.S. to commit to military action or alliance.

"Getting Rid of the Jinx" by Albert Reid in New York Evening Mail, March, 1922

The vote was bipartisan on both sides: twelve Democrats joined the Republican majority in favor, while four isolationist Republicans voted nay with with the Democratic minority. Quite a few of those Republicans voting aye had been against the international agreements brought home by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson; the Republicans who remained against treaties signed by Republican Warren Harding and Democrats who had been opposed to them all along were called "bitter enders."

"In Spite of All the 'Bitter Enders'..." by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., by March 29, 1922

If the era of U.S. isolation was over, its end wasn't accepted by all quarters of U.S. isolationism. Foremost among them in American media was the newspaper empire of William Randolph Hearst.

"'Con' and 'Bull'" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, by March 24, 1922

For all Hearst's accusation that the treaty put American interests subservient to those of Great Britain and Japan, by requiring its signatories to consult with each other in the event of any conflict in East Asia the Four-Power Treaty was in fact to America's advantage. American and Japanese interests there and in the Pacific had been in conflict before World War I, and were so again in places like Yap, the Philippines, China, and Siberia.

Under the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, had the U.S. and Japan gone to war, Great Britain would have been obliged to join Japan against the U.S. But the Four-Powers Treaty superseded the earlier bilateral one.

"Sammy and His Pals" by Frederick Opper for Star Company by March 23, 1922

Hearst's cartoonists nevertheless daily painted a picture of a hapless Uncle Sam tricked into an unwanted alliance, his negotiating team comprised of witless nincompoops bamboozled by wily furriners.

"Some Folks Are Never Satisfied" by Gaar Williams for Chicago Tribune, by March 20, 1922

Isolationism ran strong at "Colonel" McCormick's solidly Republican Chicago Tribune, so it's rather surprising to see one of his cartoonists touting the main advantage to the U.S. of the Four-Party Treaty.

"Post-War Dog" by Gaar Williams for Chicago Tribune, by March 30, 1922

Word must have come down from management that if the Tribune's cartoons couldn't stop the Senate from passing the treaty, they could complain about complying with its limitations on the size of our Army and Navy.

"We're Hardly Going to Hold Our Own" by Gaar Williams for Chicago Tribune, by March 31, 1922

The fact that it also limited the other countries' militaries notwithstanding. The numbers on Williams's rowboats reference the 5:5:3 naval ratio agreed to at the Washington D.C. Naval Conference.

"Those New Boots" by Magnus Kettner for Western Newspaper Union, March, 1922

Outside of the Hearst and Tribune empires, even Magnus Kettner, whose usual fare was the sort of genial, inoffensive slice of life cartoon beloved by circulation managers everywhere, expressed alarm at the treaty's limitations on the U.S. military.

William C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, March/April, 1922

William Morris probably correctly divined how Teddy Roosevelt would have felt about trimming the U.S. military, although Morris was one of the many cartoonists helping argue that it was time to do so a little over a year earlier.  

 

I also find it peculiar that Morris felt a need, only three years after Roosevelt's death, to label what appears to me to be an instantly recognizable caricature.

"He Will Not Bother Us Again" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, by April 13, 1922

In closing, this cautionary note: We can't all be as clairvoyant as this guy.