Bread and Poseurs, Bread and Poseurs

All aboard the Graphical History Tour! Our destination today is Labor Day weekend, 1924.

"Boss of the World Today" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., August 30, 1924

Labor Day had been an official U.S. holiday since 1894, although I suspect it would have come as news to American workers in the 1920's that they were "boss of the world." 

Dorman Smith may have been looking at things from the perspective of the U.S. workforce being less affected by the lingering aftermath of the Great War than their European counterparts. But in this Republican-dominated era, organized labor was under assault by determined anti-union industries and their allies in state and federal government.

"One Must Push and One Must Pull" by Jesse Taylor Cargill in Sacramento Bee, September 1, 1924

Coming a little closer to the mark, Jesse Cargill at least gets it half right.

"The Cyclone Center" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, September 2, 1924

Labor Day weekend was marred by a new flare-up of violence in the strife-prone mining town of Herrin, Illinois, described by the Chicago Tribune as the "sanguinary center of Bloody Williamson County." The site of a massacre when striking miners attacked strike-breaking workers in 1922, the ensuing years saw a deadly feud between a reckless, Klan-backed prohibition enforcer named S. Glenn Young came to town and was met by anti-Klan folks who appreciated a drink or two after work.

"In Williamson County" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, September 3, 1924

Violence flared up again on August 30 started after charges were dismissed against the Shelton brothers, accused of the murder in February of Constable Caesar Cagle, a Klansman. In spite of the inevitable hostilities boiling under the surface, Sheriff George Galligan, backed by deputies and others, went to the garage owned by J.H. Smith, a known Klan headquarters, in an attempt to take possession of a car. The car had been held there for months because the Klan accused its owner of shooting at Young during an earlier riot. 

In the shooting that ensued Sheriff Galligan's confrontation with Smith and his Klan buddies, a deputy sheriff, a court bailiff, four Klansmen, and one man described as a by-stander were killed. Adjt. Gen. Carlos E. Black immediately mobilized the Illinois National Guard to restore order in the town.

"Open the Gate" by O.C. Chopin in San Francisco Examiner, ca. August 27, 1924

One of organized labor's goals in 1924 was passage and ratification of a constitutional amendment banning child labor. Supreme Court rulings in 1918 and 1922 ruled that federal laws regulating goods produced by children under 14 and 16 were unconstitutional. The House of Representatives approved the amendment on April 26, 1924, and the Senate followed suit on June 2, 1924 to send it to the states.

"They Can Stop Him" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, September 2, 1924

Opposed by business groups, the only state to have ratified the amendment by this point was Arkansas. California, Arizona and Wisconsin would follow in 1925, but the effort stalled out in the 1930's after only 28 of the necessary 36 states had approved ratification.

Since there was no time limit set on the amendment by Congress, it could still be ratified (it would need ratification by 38 states now that Alaska and Hawai'i have joined the union); but the earlier Supreme Court decisions were overruled in 1941. Still, renewed interest by some Republican-ruled states in authorizing child labor might render the issue un-moot again.

"His Day" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, September 1, 1294

Returning to 1924: the Child Labor Amendment was a key plank in the presidential platform of Progressive Party candidate Robert LaFollette — to whom cartoonist Tom Foley dedicated the entire holiday.

"The Hypnotist" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1924

Cartoonists who favored the established political parties were not so easily enthused. LaFollette's campaign and its appeal to Labor were ridiculed by his erstwhile fellow Republicans ...

"Have a Bite" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 30, 1924

... and also by Democrats. 

Both accused him of being a stooge for the Communists, despite his being roundly condemned by them as well.

"Until He Bursts" by K.A. Suvanto in Daily Worker, Chicago, August 23, 1924

All three major candidates courted the American proletariat on Labor Day. The Republicans countered their candidate's strike-breaking record by touting the current prosperity and their "full dinner pail." The Democrats sent vice presidential nominee Charles Bryan out to reassure workers that the candidate at the top of his ticket would represent the working class in spite of his Wall Street background.

"The Day after His Holiday" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, September 2, 1924

And then the holiday was over, and the candidates moved on to other issues.

Q Toon: Board to Ride

As I mentioned last week, Harley-Davidson Motor Company has disassociated itself from the Human Rights Campaign and scrapped its employee diversity program.

“We are saddened by the negativity on social media over the last few weeks, designed to divide the Harley-Davidson community,” the company wrote in a statement posted on X.

The company added that “we have not operated a DEI function since April 2024, and we do not have a DEI function today. We do not have hiring quotas and we no longer have supplier diversity spend goals.”

But the company said it would review all sponsorships and outside organizations the company affiliates with, and the company will establish a central clearinghouse for approvals of those relationships. It also suggested it would drop some sponsorships, including LGBTQ+ Pride festivals, saying the brand going forward would focus exclusively on growing the sport of motorcycling. Harley-Davidson, based in Milwaukee, had previously been a longtime corporate member of the Wisconsin LBGT Chamber of Commerce.

It almost seems unfair to single out Harley-Davidson, since it was following the lead of Tractor Supply Co. and John Deere. And now the makers of Jack Daniels and Lowe's have joined the rush to knuckle under to the forces of Conformity, Inequity, and Exclusion. The announcement at Lowe's added that the home goods retailer would cease sponsorship of LGBTQ parades and festivals.

The unofficial leader of the corporate pressure campaign is Robby Starbuck, a video streamer and right-wing online activist. Monday, Starbuck posted on X claiming that he helped provoked the changes at Lowe's, saying he received an email from a Lowe's executive in response to a warning he sent the company that he planned to "expose" its "woke" policies.

"We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies without even posting just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose," he wrote.

So, just who the fuck is this cybergoon before whom the titans of industry tremble and quake?

A Harley-Davidson dealership in Barre, Vermont, with the caveat that it is not speaking for the company as a whole, has posted an accusation that Mr. Starbuck is just in it for the clicks. From its "Defending Harley" post:

Starbuck's recent video is not about genuine concern or informed critique; it’s about generating traffic to his content. By attacking established and respected companies, he knows he can provoke strong reactions, driving more views to his YouTube channel and increasing his ad revenue. This kind of clickbait strategy is not new, and Starbuck is just the latest figure to exploit it. The more controversy he stirs, the more views he gets, which translates to more money in his pocket and name recognition.

By focusing on hot-button issues and framing his attacks in inflammatory terms, Starbuck manipulates his audience’s emotions to keep them engaged. This tactic not only undermines genuine dialogue but also prioritizes his financial gain over truthful discourse. His baseless accusations against Harley-Davidson are part of a broader pattern of sensationalism aimed at monetizing outrage.

I'm not about to add to Mr. Starbuck's page views, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has also awarded himself responsibility for the state of Florida deleting the LGBTQ+ Destinations pages from its tourism website.

So now I wanna see Dykes on Bikes on the next cover of H-D's The Enthusiast magazine just so I can point to my little cartoon and claim the credit.

This Week's Sneak Peek

This one may not go over so well at home.

August Four the People

You've been waiting all month to find out what cartoons I drew in Augusts past, I can tell. So let's rummage around in the old storage bin and see what we can find, shall we?

Back in May, I posted a cartoon I'd posted of Ronald Reagan preparing to tell jokes at the funeral of U.S.-Soviet détente. When I had selected it for that week's Graphical History Tour, I thought I had drawn it after Reagan's "We begin the bombing in five minutes" joke. Looking the quotation up, however, I found that I must have drawn the cartoon about something else he said.

August, 1984

This was the cartoon I drew shortly after the actual bombing joke.

In case you're not familiar with the story, Reagan was in the habit of making pretend announcements during the sound checks before his television and radio speeches. The sound checks were not confined to the studio, but went out to all the stations that would carry the speech live. Usually, the media overlooked those flippant pseudo-announcements except for the technicians checking for feedback, hiss, and warble.

This time, ears perked up at Reagan's joke: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." In spite of a standing agreement with the media that Reagan's mic check jests would be their little secret, this one leaked out, was reported by Gannett newspapers, and became world news.

The Soviet government (should I have explained that this was when Constantin Chernenko was spending the last few months in his mortal coil being President of the U.S.S.R.?) was officially mum about the incident, but their state media condemned Reagan's joke as "unprecedently hostile," and proof that he wasn't interested in improving U.S.-Russia relations. Some unknown Soviet officer in Vladivostok returned the joke by sending a coded message that "We now embark on military action against the U.S. forces," knowing the message would be intercepted by U.S. intelligence. U.S. and Japanese militaries were briefly on high alert, but afterward, everybody had a good laugh over it.

Just kidding.

I still haven't figured out what incident prompted my earlier cartoon, but it was the better one; and that's why it was the one printed in the first UW-Parkside Ranger of the fall semester rather than this one.

Any cartoon that depicts bullets flying at a president of the United States (or any other real person for that matter) runs the risk of becoming in bad taste if that person does in fact get shot. Which, as you surely know, Ronald Reagan had been three months into his first term. Even though Reagan was known for his roles in B-grade western movies, Americans don't like watching their leaders get shot at.

Could've been why no TV network would broadcast Reagan's film The Killers (1964) while he was president. 

in Journal Times, Racine Wis., August 22, 1994

In June of 1994, I confidently drew a cartoon assuming that the Republican Party would have a tough time finding a candidate to run against my district's Democratic Congressman, Peter Barca. Barca had won a special election one year earlier to succeed eleven-term Rep. Les Aspin after the latter was appointed Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Defense.

As it turned out, the 1994 election would see a rematch between Kenoshan Barca and Mark Neumann, a real estate developer from Janesville. And Neumann would coast to victory in the Gingrich-led Republican "Contract with America" wave in November, putting an end to the longest stretch of having Democrats in the First Congressional District seat.

Neumann was (and presumably still is) a hard-line right-winger, solidly anti-abortion and against President Bill Clinton's attempt to reform the U.S. health care system. The GOP talking point against the Clinton reforms was that Americans would be denied the right to make their own health care choices — ignoring that their Contract with America also called for denying women the right to make their own reproductive health care choices.

Which was a fine and dandy campaign slogan for Republicans until their Supreme Court justices granted their wish and Republicans had to deal with women upset by government control over their uteri.

Wisconsin's First Congressional District has had two Congressmen, both Republicans, since Mark Neumann's failed run for Russ Feingold's Senate seat in 1998. In the meantime, Peter Barca served as Bill Clinton's Midwest Regional Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, then went back to representing Kenosha in the Madison legislature, and later headed the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

And now, thirty years later, he's running for his old congressional seat against incumbent Republican Bryan Steil. My better half and I talked with him at an open-air party in downtown Racine last month; he liked my Kamala Harris For The People button.

I neglected to mention that I had been drawing cartoons about him for the Journal Times thirty years earlier.

Hearkening back to 2004, here are a couple of people you did not see at the Republican National Convention last month:

for Q Syndicate, August, 2004

Come to think of it, I don't think we saw any former Republican nominees for President or Vice President on the Republican National Convention dais except for the current ones. Although to be fair, if Al Gore, John Kerry, or John Edwards spoke at the DNC this week, I missed it.

✍

I couldn't think of a good segue to any of the cartoons I drew in August of 2014, so here's some eye candy.

for Q Syndicate, August 2014

"That's So Gay" was the motto of the 2014 Gay Games, held in Akron and Cleveland, Ohio, that August.

By the way, given the kerfuffle over two female Olympians who had aspersions cast upon their gender, you might be interested to know how the Gay Games address transgender and non-binary-identifying athletes.

The Sydney Gay Games in 2002 defined gender by social identity: In the game of netball at those Games, the solution was for women’s, men’s, mixed and transgender competitions, with negotiations of rules and membership according to the gender that participants lived. These measures included removing the burden of proof from athletes to provide documentation, and instead assuming that all are genuine in their gender category selection. This was the most inclusive gender policy developed at that time, and it remains in place today.

The Gay Games were scheduled to be held in Hong Kong in 2022. They were pushed back a year due to COVID-19. New Chinese laws criminalizing "effeminate men," as well as concerns by Taiwanese athletes that they risked arrest, plus pandemic-related travel restrictions, led to a decision to split the 2023 games between Hong Kong and Guadalajara, Mexico. 

If you missed (or miss) the Paris Olympic Games this summer, the Gay Games in Valencia, Spain, are just two years away.

 

You Know You’re Governor of Minnesota When…

Time photo: Dan McCoy. The Week illustration: Jason Seiler. 

Q Toon: Do Not Disturb

Red state colleges are welcoming students back to campus by emptying their libraries of books about feminism, LGBTQ+ experience, African-American and other minority studies, and anything else reeking of social justice. Students returning to New College in Florida last week discovered waste receptacles overflowing onto the ground with such books. 

University of Kentucky President Eli Capilauto also announced this week that UK has disbanded its Diversity office. This after he had criticized anti-DEI lawmakers in February, arguing, "Let’s not extinguish the thirst for knowledge because certain questions aren’t allowed because they are uncomfortable or challenging."

Elsewhere, George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Wyoming are among the other institutions of higher learning that have knuckled under to the demands of politicians who have decreed diversity, equity, and inclusion to be anathema. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are now literally thought crimes in Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Utah, and Kansas.

Those of you who know me know that I do not use the word "literally" figuratively.

Even private enterprise is succumbing to Republican Cancel Culture. Tractor Supply, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson have broken ties with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and announced that they will would strike any "socially motivated content" from their employee training materials. So I guess I won't need my Harley-Davidson tee shirts any more.

Not that little old me would be able to dissuade the farm equipment companies from chasing those lucrative red-state contracts to haul all those academic books and their dangerous ideas to landfills.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I'm back from a short vacation Up Nort', and was up past 1:00 a.m. drawing a cartoon last night. (Perhaps it shows.)

It was a good vacation at a Vilas County campground with my better half's family. I have never seen so many deer! They are as plentiful as squirrels up there.

The first day, while we were gathered on our cabin's front porch, a doe came and stood across from our cabin and stared at us. At first, we thought she must be expecting us to feed her. But when she came back the next day, while we were inside the cabin, we saw that our cabin was built smack dab in the middle of her dinner plan: a carpet of clover.

Well, it's back to the political animals now. I didn't have any ideas ahead of this week's Democratic National Convention that I was confident would be a propos to readers who wouldn't see them until the final day of the convention (and besides, last week's cartoon was about their presumptive vice presidential nominee anyway).

Maybe next week.

Off and Running

I'm out of the office this weekend, but I couldn't leave you without catching you up on the news from August of 1924.

"A One-Sided Affair..." by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, July 28, 1924

Our Graphical History Tour will start off with this portent of the depression to come. The United States government policy of high tariffs on foreign goods, intended to protect domestic producers, would be answered in kind by its trading partners. 

But was that an issue in the 1924 presidential election? Not judging from the editorial cartoons below the 49th Parallel.

"The Democratic Machine Loses One of Its Vital Supports" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, August 5, 1924

John McCutcheon and the Chicago Tribune had no love for Robert LaFollette and his Progressive Party candidacy, but looked on with glee as the Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor endorsed LaFollette and his running mate, Democrat Burton Wheeler (how did McCutcheon miss the obvious pun?), over the Democratic Party ticket of John W. Davis and Charles Bryan.

The Democratic and Republican conventions had both rejected AFL-promoted planks calling for the prohibition of injunctions in labor disputes, the ratification of a constitutional amendment to ban child labor, expansion of workmen’s compensation laws, and recognition of the right of workers to bargain collectively through unions and representatives of their own choosing.

"The High Hats" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, August 5, 1924

The AFL’s executive board’s statement noted that its endorsement of the LaFollette-Wheeler ticket was because “throughout their whole political careers, [they had] stood steadfast in defense of the rights and interests of wage earners and farmers.” The statement cautioned, however that,  “cooperation hereby urged is not a pledge of identification with an independent party movement or a third party, nor can it be construed as support for such a party, group or movement except as such action accords with our nonpartisan political policy.”

Gompers's endorsement of LaFollette was less than enthusiastic: “It looks as if we are forced to turn to LaFollette. … There is no other way.”

"Say, Lissen Kiddo..." by "Hay Bales" in Labor Herald, Chicago, August, 1924

The Marxists over at the Trade Union Education League's Labor Herald monthly were not amused by the AFL's endorsement of the LaFollette campaign. (As we've covered before, the AFL expelled TUEL activists at successive conventions, so they couldn't have been surprised by it, either.)

I'm assuming that "Hay Bales" was this cartoonist's nom de plume. Does anyone know who he or she really was?

"To Robt. LaFollette from Sam Gompers" by Fred Ellis in Labor Herald, Chicago, September, 1924

There was one other not-so-Marxist option available to the AFL. The Farmer-Labor Party's ticket of miners union leader Duncan McDonald and grange activist William Bouck, however, gave up campaigning soon after their party's convention.

"By His Enemies Ye Shall Know Him" by Talburt for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. August 29, 1924

Talburt didn't include the Marxists of the Trade Union Educational League among LaFollette's enemies. It is interesting that he does include farmers (apparently not the discontented ones cited by John McCutcheon), as well as the more expected Big Biz, Private Monopoly, and Invisible Government. And of course, the Ku Klux Klan, but we'll get back to them presently.

Farmers were a vital component of the populist movement of the turn of the century, and the Progressive Party sprang from the same soil as the Non-Partisan League and Farmer-Labor Party of the 19-teens. Nationally, the coalition did not hold together well, and the Progressive Party of 1924 was more closely associated with certain labor unions, particularly the railway workers. A party plank proposing nationalization of the railroads should have appealed to farmers who were at the mercy of the railroad companies' prices for carrying their produce to market; but if you can believe Harold Talburt, who was clearly a fan of the Wisconsin senator, some farmers were content with that.

"Hard to Get Rid Of" by Chas Kuhn in Indianapolis News, August 29, 1924

If you expected labor to be in the Democrats' pocket, the association of the party's presidential nominee with Wall Street goes a long way to explain how labor's love was lost. The AFL had backed William McAdoo for the Democratic nomination, but Davis was a partner in the law firm that represented J.P. Morgan, a sworn enemy of the labor movement.

"The Persistent Talker" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, ca. August 13, 1924

I can make out "Klan Vote," "Soldier Vote," and "Patriot Vote" on the fish ignoring the Democratic donkey's bait in Carey Orr's cartoon. He faults John Davis's refuting the Ku Klux Klan and defending his running mate's opposition to military conscription.

"Nobody Wants His Friendship" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News-Tribune, August 25, 1024

Sam Armstrong depicts LaFollette and Davis running away from a bewildered Klansman, and Republican vice presidential nominee Dawes readying to hurl a boulder from the back of a fleeing elephant. Unless that leg in the foreground belongs to the incumbent president of the United States, it's curious that Calvin Coolidge is absent.

"Scared Stiff" by Rollin Kirby, in New York World, ca. August 29, 1924

Democratic-leaning cartoonist Rollin Kirby drew the Republican Party haunted by Klan infiltration of the Grand Old Parties of Maine and Indiana.

We've discussed the Klan and Indiana Republicans before. In Maine, the Klan was active against the state's Catholic and Jewish minorities. The Republican candidate for Governor, Owen Brewster, had co-sponsored Klan-backed legislation seeking to outlaw state aid to parochial schools, and now tacitly welcomed Klan support against the anti-Klan Democratic candidate, William R. Pattangall.

By the way, I still have not seen any cartoons by Indianapolis News cartoonist Chas Kuhn about Klan influence in his state's Republican Party.

"Darn" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, ca. September 1, 1924

But turning back to Rollin Kirby, he here ridicules Calvin Coolidge for having little to say about the Klan.  While Coolidge did speak out in defense of Catholics, Jews, Native Americans, and Blacks on various occasions, he believed the best way to deal with the Klan was to avoid giving it publicity. 

His running mate, Charles Dawes, condemned the Klan in a speech in Maine on August 23; according to the New York Times account, the audience was "unresponsive." Coolidge would explicitly criticize the Klan in a speech to the American Legion almost a year after the election.

Q Toon: Is This a Dad Joke?

The buzz around Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, now that he's been tapped by Vice President Kamala Harris to take over her job in 2025, is that he has that "Midwestern Dad Vibe."

For the last few days, those who know him personally have been sharing their stories, including how helpful he’s been with fixing other people’s cars, how much of a delight he was in a decade-long group chat called “Sports Buddies,” and how inspiring he was as a teacher and coach. One former coworker told a story to the Washington Post in which they tried to prank him by giving Walz a fake gift certificate for a free turkey at the local grocery store, and that Walz managed to still leave with a free turkey. “That’s just Tim Walz,” she said.

At the turn of the millennium, Walz and his wife, Gwen, were faculty advisers to the Gay-Straight Student Alliance at Mankato West High School in south central Minnesota. The future Congressman and Governor has said — I'm paraphrasing here — that he felt called to bring his straight-cred as the coach of the football team to the group.

As one former student put it, "Dare I say, there's a lot of toxic masculinity in the whole football team. And to see someone who was a football coach, but also saying, 'Hey, we're going to respect everyone. And I absolutely won't put up with any of that crap' — that was really bold."

Contrast that attitude with that of the Republican Veep-Wannabe, J.D. Vance. You might catch him in a dress; but that wasn't solidarity, it was cultural appropriation.

The Ohio senator opposed the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, which codified same-sex marriage as the law of the land, and introduced legislation that would have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth at a federal level. He has also endorsed the notion that the existence of queer and trans people in public life is inherently predatory, writing on Twitter, now X, in 2022: “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”

Republicans are trying to attack Walz for signing a Minnesota bill guaranteeing families of transgender youth the right to pursue gender-affirming care. Their epithet for him, "Tampon Tim" for signing a bill okaying (not, it must be pointed out, mandating) feminine hygiene dispensers in boys' bathrooms, was meant as an insult, but Walz has embraced it as a badge of honor. 

Because, really now. If you are asked to think of all the dangerous things we need our kids protected from in public schools, tampons are way, way down the list.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Another pesky computer issue popped up (literally) last week, and since I don't seem to get Adobe Incorporated's attention by complaining directly to them, I'm gonna go ahead and post it here.

A pop-up warning started appearing on my screen claiming to have detected unauthorized Adobe software on my computer.

In every respect, the warning behaves like every scam warning that has ever sought to infect one's computer.

It doesn't address me by name or account. It refuses to get out of the way, remaining in front of whatever else I am doing. It cannot be closed; only the "Learn more" link works, opening up a new browser. And most suspect of all, the warning gives no indication which Adobe app is allegedly suspect.

Like you, I have any number of Adobe programs on my computer. There's Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe Application Manager on the desktop, plus a bunch of other Adobe programs lurking in the shadows.

And of course, I also have Adobe Photoshop CS5, for which I paid big money to Adobe twelve years ago so that I could save my cartoons in CMYK format (a utility not available in plain old everyday Photoshop).

My strong suspicion is that it's that expensive Photoshop CS5 program that Adobe (if that is your real name!) wants me to uninstall so that I can start renting a new download of it instead.

Well, I'm not the only person who has had this nuisance show up. One of those Adobe programs lurking in the shadows is "Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service," and there are any number of on-line bulletin boards about how to turn it off. It does turn itself back on if you don't uninstall it; but from what I've read, Adobe will sneak it back onto your computer as soon as they discover that it's missing.

Ooops, I probably have said too much....

The 1924 Olympics

Today's Graphical History Tour celebrates the Olympic Spirit by revisiting the Paris Olympics of July, 1924, the games best remembered as the setting for Chariots of Fire.

Basí (?), official program of 1924 Olympics

I haven't been able to identify the artist of the official program, so I'm doing my best to read the signature in the lower right corner. I also came up short in my hunt for work by the sports cartoonists of U.S. newspapers, which I had hoped to include today. 

But I did learn that competitions in the VIIIème Olympiade included art.  Luxembourg painter Jean Jacoby won a gold medal for his triptych Étude de Sport depicting young men competing in soccer, hurdles, and rugby. I've seen at least two of the paintings on line, but not how the three were meant to be displayed together.

There were also competitions in sculpture (Greek sculptor Konstantinos Dimitriadis won the gold for "Discobole Finlandais"), literature (France's Géo-Charles, a.k.a. Charles Louis Proper Guyot, won gold for his poem "Jeux Olympiques"), architecture, and music. The Olympic judges decided that none of the contestants merited medals for music, and awarded only silver and bronze medals for architecture.

"Mademoiselle Athène" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, August 17, 1924. Source: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ 

Arthur Johnson's cartoon on the cover of Kladderadatsch is certainly a parody of the Olympiade program cover. Marianne, the traditional characterization of France, is cast as the Greek goddess Athena, with the American financier J.P. Morgan, widely resented in Germany, directing her aim.

Suffice it to say that the Germans and the French had some serious issues, and we'll get back to them again some other time. 

Over here in the States, the Paris Olympics were a pleasant diversion, even without wall-to-wall TV coverage.

"Good News" by Milton R. Halladay in Providence Journal, July, 1924

American medalists at the games included Johnny Weismuller (the future Tarzan actor), who won three gold medals in swimming and a bronze in water polo; and long jumper William DeHart Hubbard, the first Black American to win an Olympic gold medal for an individual event. Hubbard was not allowed to compete in the 100 meter dash and high hurdles competitions in spite of qualifying for them; those events were restricted to whites only.

"The Victor" by O.P. Williams for Star Company, ca. July 25, 1924

The U.S. led the medals count, taking home 94 in all, largely in field events.

Another such track and field winner was Harold Osborn, whose high jump stood as the Olympic record for twelve years.

"Aux Jeux Olympiques" in Le Petit Journal Illustré, July 20, 1924. Source: Bibliothèque National de Paris

Text: "Le Stade de Columbes vient d'enregistrer d'admirables performaces. Parmi les plus sensationnelles, on compte le record olympique du saut en hauteur qui a été battu de 4 centimètres par l'Americain Osborn. Cet athléte, en effet, franchit 1 mètre 98 dans un style impeccable. Cependant, il ne faut pas dédaigner le bel effort de notre représentant, le Francais Lewden. Bien qu'handicapé par sa petite taille, il parvint à franchir 1 mètre 95."

"Columbes Stadium has just recorded some admirable performances. Among the most sensational, we can count the Olympic record for the high jump which was beaten by 4 centimeters by the American Osborn. This athlete, in fact, cleared 1.98 meters [6'6"] in impeccable style. However, we must not disdain the fine effort of our representative, the Frenchman [Pierre] Lewden. Although handicapped by his small size, he managed to clear 1.95 meters."

Osborn also set a record in the 1924 Decathlon, with a score of 7,710.775 points earning him the title of "World's Greatest Athlete." The Petit Journal cover illustration doesn't look much like him; he had a big shock of sandy blond hair in a photograph taken at the games (and I assume he would have removed his glasses for the jump). The artist may have drawn the black-haired Lewden, who won the bronze, instead.

"Once Again" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, August 18, 1924

18-year-old tennis phenom Helen Wills won Olympic gold in women's singles (over French player Julie Vlasto) without once losing a set along the way. With her coach Hazel Wightman, she also took gold in women's doubles (over British players Phyllis Covell and Kitty McKane).

Tennis was dropped as an Olympic sport in the 1928 Amsterdam games, not to return as a medal sport until the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. 

Douglas Rodger drew the above cartoon after Wills, a California native, won the U.S. Open Women's Tournament on August 16. She won 31 grand slam titles during her career, including 19 singles titles and a 180-match winning streak from 1927 to 1933, and remains among the greatest in her sport.

"The Olympiad" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, July 30, 1924

The games did not go off without controversy. The "Puliti Affair" centered on unsportsmanlike conduct by the Italian fencing team and provoked this cartoon by Arthur G. Racey. Mud drips from the laurel branch with the words "unsportsmanlike action" "vulgarity" "disorder" "jealousy" and "abuse." The cut line reads: "Why sacrifice the Olympic Games instead of regulating, or suppressing, the mud-throwing canaille who do not know what sportsmanship is?"

The namesake of the affair was the Italian fencer Oreste Puliti. The other fencers on the Italian team were accused of intentionally losing to him in order to inflate his score. Accounts differ: either Puliti physically attacked the Hungarian judge, György Kovács, who ruled that Puliti was disqualified from the finals match, or he merely threatened the judge. The rest of the Italian team withdrew in protest, singing the fascist Italian anthem as they left.

According to olympics.com, 

Two days later, when he saw Kovács again, Puliti punched him in the face and a formal duel was proposed. The two combatants met again four months later at Nagykanizsa in southwestern Hungary, near the current Serbian border. The duel lasted for an hour, at which time the two were stopped by spectators who were concerned about the many wounds the two had received. Puliti and Kovács then shook hands and honor was restored.

The gold in saber ultimately went to Hungarian Sándor Pósta; Hungarian fencers would dominate that Olympic category for decades to come. Roger Ducret of France took silver, and another Hungarian, János Garay (a Jew who would perish in a Nazi death camp), earned bronze. 

Rea C. Irvin, Life magazine cover, July 10, 1924

The 1924 Olympics closed on July 27, with ceremonies featuring the bugle corps of the French Republican Guard, and the awarding of all the medals won — including those from the Winter Games at Chamonix earlier in the year. 

"Less than half the nations which received awards for the performances of their athletes were personally represented," according to the reporter for the Washington Evening Star. "The ranks of the athletes and officials of all nations had been rapidly depleted last week, and it was a small band of survivors that marched into the stadium behind the flags of the victorious nations, most of which were borne, in the absence of their nationals, by French marines."