Sitting Out Genoa

In celebration of the centennial of the Genoa Conference, a meeting to settle the Post-World-War-I order in Europe, today's Graphical History Tour highlights cartoons about the country that wasn't there...

"Der Stille Beobachter" by Hans-Maria Lindloff, Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 9, 1922

...The United States.

Cartoonists at Berlin's Kladderadatch seem to have been keenly interested in the decision by the Harding Administration to sit out the conference. A note atop the right corner of Lindloff's cartoon explains: "The United States only wants to play the role of 'silent observer' in Genoa."

"Sammy and His Pals" by Frederick Opper for Star Company, ca. April 14, 1922

The role of American finances in the U.S. decision differed greatly depending what side of the Atlantic one was on.

"He Sent His Regrets" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 11, 1922

The official stance of the Harding administration was that European affairs were a matter for Europeans to settle and none of our business. This much pleased the isolationists who had helped Harding get elected, but ignored our increasing reliance on international commerce and our stake in international stability.

"Watching the Procession Move On" by John Cassel in New York Evening Star, April 11, 1922

Isolationists at William Randolph Hearst's newspapers and Col. McCormick's Chicago Tribune were only too pleased for the United States to sit Genoa out; John Cassel at the New York Evening Star offered a more rueful view.

"The Periscope" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier Journal, April 11, 1922

Participants at Genoa included just about every country in Europe (including San Marino), Russia, Japan, and South Africa. Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, each still part of the United Kingdom to one degree or another, also sent their own representatives. The thorniest issues on the table involved reintegrating Germany and Russia into the European community. Both countries were expected to cough up reparations and repayment of loans in order to return to the graces of the other European countries.

"Das Reparationsdiner oder Der Vergessene Gast" by Hans-Maria Lindloff (?) in Kladderadatsch, Berlin,
April 2, 1922

Whoever drew this unsigned Kladderadatsch cartoon (the style most resembles that of Herr Lindloff in my opinion) completely misjudges President Harding's position regarding the Genoa Conference. He may have been drawing about U.S. interest in repayment of loans made during the war, but those loans were made to the Entente partners. 

"Felis Militaris" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 9, 1922

Werner Hahmann's cartoon, on the other hand, suggests that the U.S. was not completely swayed by its Entente allies' punitive attitudes, particularly those of France, toward Germany.

In the cartoon, Marianne's dress partly covers French General and Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch. Text on her dress contrasts "The Innocent France" with "The Angry Germany."

"Kulturaufgaben" by Werner Hahmann, Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 9, 1922

A note above another Hahmann cartoon explains that "Germany is to pay the occupation costs for the American in dyes." Perhaps this is another example of a cartoonist latching onto an obscure news item for inspiration; given the hyperinflation in Germany at the time, its creditors could hardly be blamed for wanting to be paid in something other than Reichsmarks.

It's not as though Prohibition-era America could accept payment in German lager.

European cartoons often depicted the U.S. and other New World countries using Native American caricatures (until, in the case of the U.S., cartoons of Uncle Sam became more common). In the same manner, European, Australian and American cartoonists represented Africa, Asia, and Oceana with the crudest depictions of indigenous peoples.

"Ceterum Censeo" by Hans-Maria Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 23, 1922

Their fellow Europeans refused to cut Germany any slack on reparations, and the mood in Washington was decidedly opposed to making loans to those quarrelsome Europeans, Germany no less than anywhere else. 

What happened next came as a complete surprise.