To Talk of Many Things

"News Note..." by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, March 27, 1922

Today's graphical history tour pays homage to the human interest stories and other distractions from the Truly Great Issues Of The Day.

Even cartoonists who aspire to become the Nast or Daumier of their day will, from time to time, settle for the inspiration provided by such trivia as the painting of a tree in Cleveland, Ohio.

"You Dirty Boy" by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, March, 1922

Since we have been flooded as of late by cartoons inspired by a certain movie star slapping that comedian, here's a Hollywood cartoon about Will Hays, who resigned as Warren Harding's Postmaster General (a cabinet position in those days) to become the first chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. The Presbyterian deacon would institute the infamous "Hays Code" in reaction to clergy complaints about hedonism and sin in the movies, and such scandals as the rape and murder trial of comic actor Fatty Arbuckle.

"Grandpa Hears a Strange Language..." by Leo Bushnell for Central Press Assn., March, 1922

The exploding popularity of radio didn't escape the attention of cartoonists — or of the federal government, which wasn't about to let the airwaves become the den of iniquity it believed movies had become. Especially because the kids those days could and did build their own radio sets.

"Merrell Shudders Every Time He Thinks of It" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., by March 29, 1922

Dorman Smith's crystal ball didn't quite get the future of radio right, but he did sort of foresee the boombox and the cell phone.

"Spring Fiction" by Magnus Kettner for Western Newspaper Union, by March 31, 1922

But since the iPhone was still 82 years in the future, Americans ignoring each other at the dinner table had to make do with newspapers and magazines.

"Keen Disappointment" by Dorman Smith for NEA, by March 28, 1922

'Twas spring, and a young man's thoughts turned lightly to thoughts of Prohibition. And trying to find some new joke to make about it three years on.

"When East Meets West" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News, by March 20, 1922

Henry Payne's predecessor at the Detroit News has left us this car toon, and an object lesson in cartoon structure. Whereas the punch line in Dorman Smith's maple syrup cartoon is so large that it attracts the reader's eye well before the lead-up to it does, the text in Burt Thomas's cartoon is easily overlooked.

Meanwhile, there was still no shortage of serious issues for cartoonists to tackle. Coal miners went on strike on April 1 after negotiations with the mine owners stalled. Since most American homes were heated by coal, a lot of cartoons expressed the obvious opinion that John Q. Public would be adversely affected.

"The Initial Shock Won't Hurt Him..." by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, by March 30, 1922

Any cartoonists inclined to depict the United Mine Workers as unreasonable socialists might have had second thoughts because seventeen miners working for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company were killed in an explosion on March 24.

"Anxiety at the Shaft" by Callaghan (?) in Oklahoma Leader, March 27, 1922*

I have not yet uncovered any information about the Callaghan who drew the above cartoon, save that he produced a number of pro-labor cartoons in this period. I found the cartoon in the Oklahoma Leader, a solidly pro-labor newspaper published in Oklahoma City from 1918 to 1928; the Leader often credited syndicated cartoons to their source, but I have so far not found it including a byline with any of the Callaghan cartoons it ran. It could be that, like John Baer drawing for the labor publication of train workers, Callaghan drew for a similar newspaper for a miners' union.

"Watchful Waiting" by Harold M. Talburt for Scripps-Howard News Service, by March 31, 1922

What interests me about this Harold Talburt cartoon is that I had been accustomed to his cartoons drawn with grease pencil and charcoal, whereas this early work is in pen and ink. 1922 is the year that Talburt began working for Scripps-Howard; he would be their chief editorial cartoonist until he retired in 1963, being awarded the editorial cartooning Pulitzer along the way in 1933.

"The Last of the Barons" by Winsor McCay for Star Company, April, 1922

Anyway, we'll come back to this strike on future Saturdays. The miners' strike was to last for several months, and the prediction by Talburt's cartoon officer Harding, "Wait'll they begin to shoot," would come true.

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* In Minnesota Daily Star, March 20, 1922. See D.D. Degg's comment below.