If you've been following these Graphical History Tours of mine since the centennial of World War I, you know that most of my posts are about whatever was in the news 100 years earlier. But every once in a while, I like to come forward a bit to discuss some of the major news events from fifty years ago that I can actually remember: the Vietnam War... the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy... Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and Apollo 13 making it back to Earth... the Watergate break-in... the Six-Day War...
So let's take a look at this monumental, life-changing news story from March, 1974:
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| "The Nudity Crisis" by Cyrus Hungerford in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 9, 1974 |
Streaking.
Spring was just around the corner, so college students naturally shed their winter parkas and started running around au naturel, as one is wont to do.
And news media loved it. Catching snapshots of studly students and comely co-eds dashing through the quad in their birthday suits was a welcome break from reporting the news of rising oil prices, a looming recession, and the criminal indictment of seven of President Nixon's closest aides.
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| "They Say Streaking Is a Phenomenon Directly Related to the Pressures and Frustrations of Our Society. Was That Who I Thought It Was?" by Don Wright in Miami News, March 5, 1974 |
I remember the Chicago Tribune, Time, and Newsweek devoting entire pages to streaker photos. (I recall a large photo in the Tribune spread of a guy with one leg in a cast streaking on crutches!) Television had to be a bit more careful about what got caught on camera, but bare all they did. Which begat more streaking, which begat more photo spreads, which begat more streaking... The fad was seemingly everywhere … even on stage at the Oscars!
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| "The Object of 'Streaking'..." by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1974 |
Certainly the nation's editorial cartoonists were eager to join in the fun.
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| "Again Eluding the Congress and the Courts..." by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, March 6, 1974 |
We editorial cartoonists fancy ourselves to be serious journalists, speaking truth to power. Distilling important news down to its bare essence! Exposing hypocrisy and corruption! But deep down, we are also the kid in the back of the class drawing pictures of the school principal saying "Poop!" in our notebooks.
(Ask Clay Jones to show you his.)
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| "Streaking" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, March 6, 1974 |
Even the great Herblock in the capital's newspaper of record couldn't resist dashing off a cartoon of the President in the altogether.
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| "Good Grief..." by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond Times-Leader, ca. March 11, 1974 |
Likewise Jeff MacNelly, then early in his newspaper career. What he got right in this cartoon was that many collegiate streakers protected what was left of their modesty by pulling a balaclava over their face.
Had enough of Nixon in the nude? Yeah, me too.
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| "Senior Streaker" by Lou Grant for Los Angeles Time Syndicate, ca. March 14, 1974 |
We can now be grateful to Lou Grant for putting Richard Nixon in a streaking cartoon yet mercifully leaving him fully dressed.
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| "Streaking through 1974" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, March 7, 1974 |
With the Watergate scandal and economic hardship dominating the news, Republicans were taking a beating in local elections. That included losing the House seat of newly-minted Vice President Gerald Ford.
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| "We've Been 'Streaking' for Years" by D. Edward Holland in Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1974 |
For cartoonists (or their editors) who were leery of depicting the President of the United States in the nude, a safer alternative — especially for the dwindling number of Nixon defenders such as Ed Holland — was to draw John Q. Public stripped bare by the Internal Revenue Service.
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| "Streaking" by Gene Basset for Scripps Howard Newspapers, ca. March 14, 1974 |
Or one could draw Jane Q. Consumer losing everything to Inflation Bar Sinister.
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| "Streaker" by Don Hesse in St. Louis Democrat, ca. March 16, 1974 |
Or heck, why not draw about inflation and taxes? There's no limit to the kinds of major expenses that you could draw stealing the shirt off your back and the pants off your tush.
But you can leave your hat on.
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| "Like Father Like Son" by Jim Lange in Daily Oklahoman, March 7, 1974 |
Returning whence the fad began, I'm not sure whether Jim Lange was commenting on the economy in general or college tuition in particular. But I do know that the tuition grant I was awarded a couple years later, a significant amount at the time, would barely cover the cost of one semester's textbooks today.
The average college tuition in 1974 was $1,650/year for a public college, $3,420/year for a private college. Today, adjusted for inflation, that would be $12,155 and $21,395, respectively. With the proliferation of fees since the '70's, looking at the actual cost of college today is like comparing apples and fruit salad; but the average cost for a four-year public college last year was $21,878, and for a private college, it was $47,961.
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| "Vulgar Indeed, Miss Finch..." by Clyde Peterson "C.P. Houston" in Houston Chronicle, ca. March 9, 1974 |
That's enough math and calculus. I'll bring today's NSFW romp to a close with a couple of cartoons that expressed relief that college and university students were blowing off steam in harmless, frivolous ways, in contrast to students of only a few years prior.
(Side note: I've seen the C.P. Houston cartoon with the word "mirthfully" instead of "joyously"; I do not know which word appeared in the Houston Chronicle. And the Doug Marlette cartoon below must have been drawn for national syndication in place of the local-issue cartoon of his with a streaking theme that appeared in the Charlotte Observer.)
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| "Once a Campus Revolutionary..." by Doug Marlette for Charlotte Oberver, ca. March 13, 1974 |
P.S.: If you caught a Joe Cocker earworm a couple paragraphs back and would rather get rid of it, try this one.
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