Q Toon: Nutcracker Suite

 

Fox Noise prime time talking head Jesse Watters was going off on petty shit that ticks him off the other day — his primary job at the news channel, apparently — fixing his pique upon holiday décor diversity.

Specifically, Watters is annoyed that Target stores offer LGBTQ+ Pride nutcrackers for sale. (Their dark-skinned Santas in wheelchairs also bug him.) 

Perhaps still smarting from the outrage ginned up by the snowflakes at Fox against its Pride merchandise displays last spring, Target offers the gay nutcracker only on line, not in their brick-and-mortar locations. Well, perhaps if Target has an outlet in the Castro or on Christopher Street, you might find one on the shelf there. Or locked away in a cabinet behind the jewelry and pain medications. I dunno.

The important thing, however, is that these Fox buddies must keep stoking this supposed "war on Christmas" to keep their audience engaged and enraged. Answering the call to arms, all the other right-wing culture warriors have joined the fight.

For its report on the LGBTQ+ Pride nutcracker, Catholic News Agency, instead of finding a picture of an actual nutcracker from Target's website, dug up this much more titillating image from Shutterstock:

A more accurate description of the product is in paragraph four, but no doubt most of CNA's readers think Leather Boi is what greets Christmas shoppers as soon as they walk in the doors of their local Target with little Patrick Xavier and Mary Elizabeth.

Our home has several wooden nutcracker dolls that we bring out every December: traditional, drummer, swordsman, king, wine steward, Packer fan, Santa, and on and on. Same basic woodwork, different paint job, maybe each its own prop.

No matter that the actual outfit LGBTQ+  Pride nutcracker wears is the same cut as all the others, just with rainbow colored paint and pinkish hair. It's the image from Shutterstock that will lodge in CNA's readers' heads, even if they did not skip over paragraph four in search of the address to complain to.

Just for that, next year’s nutcracker oughta be in drag.

This Week's Sneak Peek

What did you do in the War on Christmas, Daddy?

Pilgrims Digress

I hope you've saved a little room for some more Thanksgiving feast, because I've got some 100-year-old leftovers to serve up today!

"If the Pilgrims Had Started Thanksgiving Day in 1923" by Harold M. Talburt for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Nov. 29, 1923

Back in 1923, the U.S. celebrated Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of the month, of which there were five that year. Merchants pushing for a longer Christmas Shopping Season™ persuaded Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up to the third Thursday of November in 1938, which, however, didn't please many non-merchants. In 1941, FDR pushed it back to the fourth Thursday in November, where it has been ever since.

"We're Thankful" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Nov. 29, 1923

Tom Foley's gripe about the price of coal was the equivalent of today's complaints about the cost of gas. Coal was an absolute necessity for the heating of nearly every home, and miners' strikes after World War I kept reducing its supply. Gasoline, on the other hand, was cheap and plentiful, and most families could get along just fine with only one car or none at all.

I do like Foley's version of a John Held cartoon character in the third panel. I wonder what their girlfriends thought of the fellows' looks.

Thanksgiving offered cartoonists an opportunity to observe that on the whole, citizens of the United States were better off than many people elsewhere.

"I'd Like to Share with the People Over There" by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca, Nov. 29, 1923

Morris didn't specify what "people over there" he had in mind for this cartoon, because they could have been practically anyone anywhere. Hyperinflation in Germany and food shortages in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere were well known in the U.S. The devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan should also have been fresh in readers' memories.

Whatever Morris's specific intent was, it allows us to pivot to editorial cartoonists who decided to tie the holiday in with contemporary politics.

"Thanksgiving 1923" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Nov. 29, 1923

The table in 1923 may not have had the overstuffed turkeys Butterball & Co. offer us today, but I still think that there should have been enough white meat back then to satisfy the appetites of three diners. After all, one has got to make room for all that stuffing, sweet potatoes, veggies, corn bread, cranberry sauce, and pie, too.

Maybe I'm missing some interpretation Berryman assumed his readers would make. (I'm pretty sure there's nothing race-related in this cartoon, though.)

"The Pilgrim Fathers Were Not the Only Ones..." by Wm. A Ceperley in Davenport Democrat, Nov. 28, 1923

The new president, Calvin Coolidge, was the overwhelming favorite for the 1924 Republican Party presidential nomination, yet that didn't mean that he was completely unchallenged. Ceperley's cartoon has Cal threatened by Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA), Congress, and "Blocs" (see Berryman's cartoon above) hiding behind a tree. The 68th Congress had yet to be convene, as the party's Progressive wing was trying to wrest power from the Old Guard in the House of Representatives. 

(Side note: There was a mailing label slapped on top of the Ceperley cartoon in the archives where I found it. I have scribbled in some lines where the label was. I find mailing labels covering part of front page cartoons somewhat often; why couldn't someone have stuck the labels on the newspapers' flags, huh?)

"Won't Talk Turkey" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, Nov. 29, 1923

Dennis McCarthy's cartoon serves as a reminder that WKRP's Arthur Carlson wasn't entirely wrong in thinking that turkeys could fly. They can.

Just not very far.

"Thanksgiving Birds" by Thomas E. Powers for Star Company, ca. Nov. 29, 1923

T.E. Powers offered a three-for-one holiday cartoon. Stinnes in the top panel was German industrialist and newspaper publisher Hugo Stinnes, then also a member of the Reichstag. The middle panel refered to a general income tax cut some U.S. politicians were proposing as an alternative to bonus payments for World War I veterans. And the bottom panel was echoing Dennis McCarthy's warning against Europeans coming after Uncle Sam's turkey.

"A Thanksgiving Controversy" by Guy R. Spencer in Omaha World-Herald, Nov. 29, 1923

Other cartoonists stuck to the tried and true themes of the holiday, such as Guy Spencer reminding his readers that Benjamin Franklin thought the turkey should be the United States' national bird rather than the bald eagle.

Spencer had been drawing editorial cartoons for two decades by this point, so I find it odd that he didn't leave the eagle's head white — the principal distinction between the American symbol and that of Prussia, Austria, Russia, Poland, et al. Bald eagles are not strangers to Nebraska, and had been a staple of editorial cartoons for decades. 

So was this supposed to be a juvenile? A brown eagle? Heck, before reading the dialogue, I thought it was a crow.

A Thanksgiving controversy indeed!

"Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Nov. 28, 1923

The farmer's axe may have come as a surprise to Guy Spencer's tom turkey; Elmer Bushnell's bird lived in mortal dread of it.

"Theory Versus Practice" by Maurice Ketten (Prosper Fiorini) in New York World, Nov. 29, 1923

Meanwhile on the consumer end of things, our great-grandparents fretted about such things as overeating on the holidays. Even if, as we were earlier reminded, children were starving in Europe. 

"Out Our Way" by J.R. Williams for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Nov. 30, 1923

Children here in America — at least in its cartoons — were sure to get something at the dinner table.

The Willet family in "Out Our Way" wasn't particularly large, so they must have had an awful lot of guests for dinner in 1923 if all that was left for young Willis Willet at the end of the table was the neck.

Either that, or he had been a bad boy that Thanksgiving, pestering Dad for the white meat.

"Out Our Way" was based on J.R. Williams's memories of growing up in small-town America; perhaps it was the future cartoonist who was expected to be thankful for the most difficult-to-eat cut of the Thanksgiving turkey. 

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

"Ye Olde Thanksgiving" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Nov. 29, 1923

But it's a sure-fire hit for the holidays.

Q Toon: There's Always Room for One More

The House Ethics Committee has found that Long Island Republican Representative George Santos, a.k.a. Anthony DeVolder, a.k.a Kitara Rivache, a.k.a. Baron Munchausen,  

knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC; and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure (FD) Statements filed with the House.

According to their investigation, Santos used campaign funds on hotel stays in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, on Botox treatments, and subscribing to the mostly-porn site OnlyFans. Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-MS) and Ranking Member Susan Wild (D-PA) have called for Santos to be expelled from the House, something that has been done to 20 Congressmen in U.S. history — 17 of them for supporting the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

Comedians are saddened at the prospect of losing such a handy generator of punch lines, but never fear. The House is still swarming with poltroons from Marjorie Taylor Greene to Lauren Boebert to Derrick Van Orden to Gym Jordan.

And now the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley, fresh out of prison for his roll in the January 6 Insurrection, has announced a run for Congress from Arizona.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said "never fear."

Just before sending this cartoon off to Q Syndicate Monday morning, I came across this cautionary note from John Stewart, discussing Santos on The Problem with Jon Stewart back in January:

“The thing we have to be careful of — and I always caution myself on this, and I ran into this trouble with Trump — is we cannot mistake absurdity for lack of danger. Because it takes people with no shame to do shameful things.”

Okay, then. Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Surely you didn't think I would pass up this story, did you?

I had a brief argument with someone on counter.social last week about cartoons, caricature, and racist stereotypes. (It might have been a longer conversation if my phone hadn't forgotten my counter.social password; counter.social seems to think that the password I have written down is wrong. I'm fine until my desktop computer forgets the password, too.)

We were talking past each other, anyway. The other person seemed to be arguing that all caricature deserves condemnation. Which is fine if you're a cartoonist who merely adds a Photoshop filter to a photograph and calls it a cartoon.

Meanwhile, Newsweek gave Michael Ramirez a column to talk about his spiked cartoon this week, and accompanied it with a sampling of his caricatures, so readers can decide for themselves whether there is anything exceptional about his caricature of Ghazi Hamad.

Happy Threesgiving!

For this week's Graphical History Tour, I rummaged through my own stuff through the decades, and dug up a few that I still like for one reason or another.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., Nov. 3, 1983

I kicked off last month's panoply of my old cartoons with one about the deadly bombing of the U.S. Marines' barracks in Beirut in 1983, so I'll start today's with Ronald Reagan's military incursion of the small Caribbean island of Grenada weeks later.

Grenada's Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, a communist who took power in a 1979 coup, was resisting pressure to share power with his Deputy Prime Minister, resulting in protests in the streets by followers of one and the other. Bishop was put under house arrest, escaped, and ended up executed by a firing squad; his body has never been found.

Citing danger to 600 U.S. citizens attending medical school on the island, Reagan sent a force of 7,600 Army Rangers, Marines, and Navy SEALs. The U.S. students were whisked away to safety, the new government was overthrown, and several political prisoners were freed. The invasion was condemned by several foreign governments, but its anniversary remains a national holiday on Grenada.

But does anyone in this country ever pause to honor the veterans of Operation Urgent Fury? Nosiree, mon!

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., Nov. 18, 1993

Now, let's face it. Nobody likes some outsider coming in to their workplace telling them how to do their job.

Especially cops.

I had to scour the internets to refresh my memory of the news story behind this cartoon. Milwaukee's Police Chief Phillip Arreola had just reinstated a police officer to the force. The officer had been suspended after a Sept. 29 incident in which he was videotaped kicking the groin of a 17-year-old suspect who was pinned to the ground by other officers.

Now that you have that image in your head, I am not going to tell you the race of the officer or the suspect, save to bet that many of you have some part of it wrong.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 28, 2003

I don't remember what the editorial this cartoon accompanied was about, and I'm sure I've rerun it before; but a Thanksgiving cartoon is de rigueur this week, so here mine from 2003.

Besides, like the Ed's Donut Hole cartoon, I like the characters I created for the cartoon. 

The Business Journal editorials were almost exclusively about state and local issues, so I suppose this one had something to do with a disagreement over where a Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, or Winnebago casino should be built or expanded. That's just a guess, but I'm sticking with it for now.

for Q Syndicate, November, 2013

Well, it's already too late to draw any Thanksgiving cartoon for syndication this year, so I'll sign off with this 2013 cartoon, and wish you any happy holidays of your choice.

Alphabetter or Worse

The Trevor Project has joined a long list of LGBTQ+ organizations quitting Elon Musk's social medium site, X, citing its refusal to do anything about the increasing pestilence of hate speech infesting the former Twitter.

It makes perfect sense that an organization dedicated to preventing youth suicide wouldn't want their posts polluted with garbage from fascist trolls who are dedicated to pushing the suicidal over the edge just for clicks and kicks.

Back in April, about the time that he ditched the Twitter moniker in favor of "X," Musk quietly removed certain Twitter protections against misgendering and deadnaming transgender users, adding to an already hostile, hate-speech filled environment. "Twitter has become increasingly unsafe in recent months for LGBTQ and BIPOC people with anti-LGBTQ, anti-trans, anti-Black, and antisemitic tweets on the rise. The removal of this policy was the last straw," Denise Spivak, CEO of CenterLink, told Mashable as several of its 325 member LGBTQ organizations worldwide quit the platform en masse.

Complaints about what a run-down, shady neighborhood X has become since Musk took over have fallen on deaf ears. Musk, apparently, has unmasked himself as the platform's fascist troll-in-chief.

Your humble scribbler came late to Twitter (see, I can deadname, too!) and I haven't yet experienced a great deal of abuse there. Were that situation to change, I can't imagine why I would ever want to pay the Muskovite platform eight bucks a month for the privilege.

I suppose I should have saved today's title in case I ever draw a cartoon about Google. But chances are its parent company might have changed (at least its name) by then, so what the heck.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Friday, I posted a fictional complaint about a real editorial cartoon by Republican cartoonist Michael Ramirez. The fictional complaint was based on a real complaint about a more recent cartoon of his, into which I crammed bits and pieces of other complaints about it.

In his cartoon, a man with a large nose and snarling mouth, labeled “Hamas,” stands bound with ropes to four alarmed children and a cowering woman in a hijab. “How dare Israel attack civilians …” he says.

On social media, several readers called it “in poor taste.” In a post on Instagram, Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi wrote: “This is the Washington Post. This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that’s acceptable for publication.” Left-wing British activist Owen Jones called the cartoon an example of “racist dehumanization.”

Those complaints got the cartoon yanked from the Washington Post's website, only for it to be more widely circulated elsewhere than it might have been otherwise.

In old Blighty, the Guardian fired editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after Bell went public over a spiked cartoon of his based on the famous David Levine cartoon of Lyndon Johnson showing off his gall bladder operation scar shaped like Vietnam. Bell's cartoon had Benjamin Netanyahu preparing to remove a Gaza-shaped scar on his own belly; a Guardian editor thought it reminded him not of LBJ, but of the Jewish lender Shylock in Merchant of Venice demanding his "pound of flesh" — an allusion made nowhere in the cartoon.

Charging a cartoon of being anti-semitic, or anti-Arab, or racist, may be unfair when that was not the cartoonist's intent, but it works. Whatever argument the cartoonist intended to forward is immediately shut down, discarded, and forgotten, and the subject is changed to How Dare You, You Fiend!

Granted, there are cartoons that are genuinely any or all of those things. I see plenty of them when I'm rummaging through the century-old cartoons for my Saturday postings.

But the point I was trying to make Monday is that Michael Ramirez (with whose viewpoint I generally disagree) belongs to a school of cartooning that routinely if not always employs gross caricature. That school and its alumni include Clay Jones, Ted Rall, Mike Lester, Chris Britt, Joey Weatherford, Mike Peters, Tom Toles, and just about every British and Australian editorial cartoonist who has ever wielded pen and brush.

Critics who seize upon every oversized nose to censor any cartoon they think offensive remind me of a cartoon Signe Wilkinson drew when faced with similar attacks.

"My New Caricatures" by Signe Wilkinson in Philadelphia Daily News, 1992?

Someday Mein Prince Will Come

"Rough Going" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Nov. 6, 1923

Turning our attention to foreign affairs in November, 1923, we find Germany in danger of splintering apart. A separatist movement in the Rhineland was actively supported by a vindictively hostile France (to the horror of its erstwhile Entente allies). There were Monarchists in Bavaria loyal to Crown Prince Rupprecht, and Socialists in Saxony inspired by Vladimir Lenin.

"The Prodigal's Return" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Nov. 5, 1923

Roiling the Liebfraumilch further, Crown Prince Friedrich, the son of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, returned from exile, although his visa was for a Christmas visit only. 

"Life Iss Choost Vun Ting After Anuder" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn, ca. Nov. 26, 1923

German President Ebert fired General Otto von Lossow as commander of the Reichswehr in Bavaria only to have Lossow reappointed by Bavarian dictator Dr. Gustav von Kahr.

in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 4

Then came the Beer Hall Putsch.

Staatskommissar von Kahr was giving a speech denouncing Marxism at the Bürgerbräu Keller in Munich when General Erich von Ludendorff and an Austrian named Adolph Hitler burst in and took over the bar. Hitler declared himself ruler of Bavaria and Chancellor of Germany.

"Die Gefahren der Münchener Bräuskeller" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 18, 1923

Oskar Garvens's cartoon here recalls the socialist Mathäser beerhall putsch of 1918 (also in Munich), and suggests a royalist coup in the not distant future.

"Kicking His Dog Around" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Nov. 14, 1923

The Bürgerbräu putsch was soon put down — by that same General Lossow whom President Ebert had tried to dismiss. Hitler and Ludendorff were arrested and charged with high treason; Hitler would serve nine months in jail, but Ludendorff was acquitted of all charges.

"The Distress Signal" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Nov. 10, 1923

I may easily have missed another, but James's "The Distress Signal" is the earliest U.S. editorial cartoon I have come across in which Hitler himself makes an appearance. He showed up in earlier German cartoons of course, and there are earlier American cartoons about Nazism. But if another American cartoonist drew him before this one, I haven't seen it.

"Ein Trost" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 11, 1923

We shall use this Garvens cartoon, in which Uncle Sam towers over representatives of France, Japan, Russia, Italy, and an especially diminutive Great Britain, to pivot to a couple other events of note around the world in November.

"My Way Works Better" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, ca. Nov. 13, 1923

The Republic of Turkey was declared on October 29, 1923, bringing the Ottoman Empire to its official end. Field Marshall Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was already President of the Assembly, Cabinet, and Popular Party, was named President of the new Republic, without opposition. 

"The Multiple Dictator" by Ernest H. Shepard in Punch, London, Nov. 7, 1923

E.H. Shepard's take on the multitasking President borrows a stanza from "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell" by W.S. Gilbert — ironically, a poem originally rejected by Shepard's publisher because its subject was cannibalism at sea.

"Sittin' Pretty" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 1, 1923

I still see the occasional flurry of visits to this blog from students studying Philippine history, so here are a couple cartoons updating that topic.

A quarter century after the Spanish-American War, the Philippines remained a territory of the United States of America. Retired Major General Leonard Wood, a good friend of Teddy Roosevelt in the day and credible Republican presidential contender in 1920, was appointed Governor General of Philippines by Warren Harding in 1921.

His was a contentious governorship; he vetoed 16 actions of the Filipino legislature in his first year in office. His reinstating of a fired American police detective in Manila provoked Wood's entire cabinet to resign in July, 1923. His policy aimed at selling publicly owned railroads and agricultural operations to U.S. capitalists, was in stark contrast with the policies of his Democratic predecessor.

"Stay With It, Leonard" by Wm. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. Nov. 9, 1923

I believe, however, that these cartoons concern the Moro rebels on Mindanao and Sulu, an Islamic minority not effectively represented in either the American administration or the Filipino legislature of the time. (I find contemporary newspaper reports in the U.S. referring to the Moro rebels as "pagans," a generic term likely used to describe anything and everything outside of Judeo-Christian religion.) Wood had some experience there as the U.S. Governor of Moro Province from 1903 to 1906.

An Associated Press report of November 26, 1923 charged the Moro uprising was a symptom of generalized Filipino disagreement of General Wood, and perhaps an excuse given by the General and the Coolidge administration to ignore the Philippine legislature's request that Wood be recalled home.

"One defense of the present policy in the Philippines is that the trouble in the islands is all religious, that the Moros will not consent to being governed by Christian governors. ... The fact is, during the World War when American troops were practically withdrawn, and when [Francis] Harrison was Governor General, there was very little in the Philippines that could be twisted into resembling a religious war. But every policy must have its argument in justification."

✍

Before I sign off: lest one forget on this Veterans' Day:

"Lest You Forget" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Nov. 10, 1923

"No War for Him, Let's Hope" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 10, 1923

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, generation by generation.

Antisapientic Cartoon Decried

To the editor of the Warshinton Post-Malone:

I was profoundly dismayed over the blatant mockery of human beings in the January 20 editorial cartoon. This caricature is outrageously offensive, despicable, and blasphemous, not only to the human beings who are unfairly and racistly portrayed, but also to the countless innocent homo sapiens, living and dead, who have ever existed since the beginning of time. It is a morally reprehensible depiction that implies a justification for the drawing of antisapientic editorial cartoons by "quote" editorial cartoonists "end quote," including women and children. An apology, not just to readers, but to the countless victims of editorial cartoonists, is in order.

Why can't we see more courtroom sketches and cartoons about kittens?

Severely,

Tigger McBoots, editorial illustrator (Mrs.)

Q Toon: After Speaker Dinner

 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week, theoretically to promote an infrastructure project to the New York subway, but also because there are no TV and movie stars making the circuit during the actors' strike.

Toward the end of the interview, Colbert asked Buttigieg about the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, referencing the virulently antigay Speaker's past accusation that same-sex marriage is "a dark harbinger of chaos." Buttigieg offered the Johnson not condemnation, but an invitation to dinner.

“I don’t know, maybe we’ll just have him over. If he could see what it’s like when I come home from work, and Chas is bringing the kids home from daycare or vice versa, and one of us is getting the mac and cheese ready and the other’s microwaving those freezer meatballs — which are a great cheat code if you’ve got a toddler and you need to feed them quickly, and one won’t take their shoes off and one needs a diaper change. Everything about that is chaos, but nothing about this is dark. The love of God is in that household.”

I haven't seen any reports that Maga Mike has accepted the Glezman-Buttigieges' invitation for mac and cheese, but they ought to have plenty to talk about over dinner. They are each adoptive parents, after all, differences between adopting a pair of infants and adopting a 14-year-old notwithstanding. 

Let's hope they abide by the common wisdom and steer the conversation away from politics and religion.

This Week's Sneak Peek

 And the beat panel goes on.

The Walton Impeachment's Klimactic KlonKlusion

"Around and Around" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, Oct. 17, 1923

Today's Graphical History Tour makes one last stop at the impeachment of Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton in 1923.

"That Creepy Feeling" by W.K. Patrick in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct. 31, 1923

As you of course recall, progressive Democrat Walton was elected Oklahoma's fifth Governor by a plurality in 1922, a year and a half after the Tulsa massacre, and soon began working to wrest local government and law enforcement from the clutches of the Ku Klux Klan. In September of 1923, he declared martial law in Tulsa and Okmulgee Counties, censoring the press, suspending habeas corpus, and authorizing a military tribunal to investigate and prosecute assaults and intimidation of citizens the Klan deemed less than "100% American."

This upset members of the Oklahoma legislature, some of whom were themselves members of the Klan; and on October 23, the Oklahoma House voted to impeach the Governor.

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oklahoma City, Oct. 19, 1923

As I have noted before, it's a shame that Oklahoma's newspapers had no local editorial cartoonists in their regular employ, relying instead on syndicated cartoons from out-of-state. Some of those cartoonists supported Walton at first, but by the time he was impeached, nearly all agreed that he had overreached his authority. Several national editorial cartoonists ignored Oklahoma politics entirely, which probably suited Walton's censors just fine.

So one ends up with trifles such as Butler's "When Night-hood Was in Flower" series in the leftist Oklahoma Leader— a series which disappeared from that weekly newspaper after the issue carrying the above cartoon.

Ad in Jack Walton's Paper, Oklahoma City, Nov. 1, 1923

Responding to his impeachment, Walton and his allies published a newspaper of their own: a four-page broadsheet filled with bold, lurid headlines over accounts of Klan atrocities. This advertisement for a book appeared in some editions of the short-lived Jack Walton's Paper.

The cartoon Klansmen on Walton's book cover (assuming that this is an accurate depiction of it) certainly appears to have been inspired by a "Ding" Darling cartoon.

"Making the Citizens of Oklahoma Over Into 100% Americans" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Sept. 18, 1923

The beaten woman in the ad also reminds me of another cartoon, but I have not been able to place it. Louis Raemaekers, perhaps?

Back at the impeachment proceedings, Gov. Walton demanded that his accusers in the legislature confess whether they were Klan members or not; but he was ruled out of order. Walton eventually stormed out of the Senate chambers, complaining that the trial was unfair.

"Well, Walton Is Out" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 26, 1923

On November 19, 1923, Walton was convicted on eleven of the House's 22 charges against him, and removed from office. Lieutenant Governor Martin Trapp, a conservative Democrat serving in that office under Walton and two previous governors, succeeded Walton as Governor for the remainder of his term. (State law limiting governors to a single term prohibited Trapp from running for a term of his own.)

Daniel Fitzpatrick may well have been the last editorial cartoonist paying any attention to Oklahoma politics. His cartoon notes the ouster of Governor Walton without approval or condemnation; but with a great deal of contempt for Oklahomans in general. Right down to their dogs.

There were plenty of issues with the Klan elsewhere, of course.

"The Sinister Hand" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Nov. 8, 1923

On the same Memphis Commercial Appeal front page with this Alley cartoon about the Atlanta Grand Wizard's potential for influence in Memphis government were two unrelated reports about Klansmen on trial — in Houston, Texas, and Balstrup, Louisiana — and two more about warrants issued against Klan officials in Birmingham, Alabama, and the case in Atlanta of a Klan spokesman arrested for the murder of an attorney working for deposed Klan Wizard William Simmons.

"Is the Ku Klux Question Solving Itself" by Wm. C. Morris for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, ca. Nov. 19, 1923

Alley's cartoon appeared on the Commercial Appeal's front page on the date of municipal elections in Memphis. The Commercial Appeal supported the reelection of the incumbent mayor, Rowlett Payne, over two rivals, one of whom was allied with the Klan. As an Commercial Appeal editorial put it, challenger Joe Wood's ticket "runs on an issue imported from Atlanta, the leaders thereof now being engaged in a bloody feud among themselves."

"Poison" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Oct. 18, 1923

Payne would win reelection, with Wood coming in second.

I checked, and found that the doings of the Klan never piqued the interest of Atlanta Journal editorial cartoonist A.W. Brewerton at any point that November. Here's his cartoon on the same day (a Thursday) as Alley's "Halt, Memphis" cartoon above.

"Here and There in the News" by Alfred W. Brewerton in Atlanta Journal, Nov. 8, 1923

At the same time that the intra-Klan murder in Atlanta gave some like William Morris hope that the Klan was in deKline, the Texas State Fair devoted an entire day to the hate group. Imperial Wizard Hiram W. Evans gave a keynote speech to a crowd numbering upward of 75,000 Dragons, Klaybees and Cyclopses, decked out in their finest gold, purple, and scarlet robes and "100% American" buttons at the fair.

Evans charged that Black Americans were infested with tuberculosis and venereal disease, that Jews were an "unblendable" element in American society, and that "Do you realize, my friends, that the illiteracy of Europe is practically confined to Catholic countries?"

"The Hooded Cobra" by Al Frueh in New York World, ca. Nov. 16, 1923

I wonder if Frueh didn't mean "Klobra."