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.