A.G. Racey

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists are meeting with our Canadian brethren and sistren in Montréal this weekend, so today's Graphical History Tour celebrates the work 100 years ago this month of Montreal Daily Star editorial cartoonist A.G. Racey.

"The Firecracker" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, October 1, 1924

Quebecker Arthur George Racey (1870-1941) drew editorial cartoons for Montreal's Daily Star and Witness for 40 years starting in 1899. According to his 1922 book, Canadian Men of Affairs in Cartoon, he "enjoyed a position of unique prominence and popularity as a chronicler of the world, events and men. His work in the Montreal Daily Star is known all around the British Empire and beyond."

"Where Does It Come From" by A.G. Racey  in Montreal Daily Star, October 18, 1924

So let's start beyond the British Empire. From the Far East: Japan threatened to scuttle a negotiated League of Nations agreement on armaments reduction. Meanwhile, civil war had erupted in China, which factored into the Japanese government's reluctance to agree to military cuts.

Racey's is one of the least racist cartoons about the Chinese crisis that I've come across; admittedly, American cartoonists set a pretty low bar in that regard.

"Churchill and His Hats" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star,  September 30, 1924

In this early cartoon of Winston Churchill, he's missing the cigar and extra pounds that we usually picture him with nowadays. Apparently, in an era when absolutely everybody wore hats, Churchill was known for also wearing hats.

Churchill, representing Dundee, Scotland in Parliament as a Liberal, had been ousted from office in the 1922 election by candidates of the Labour and Scottish Prohibition Parties. With new elections called in October of 1924, Churchill would be elected again, but this time as a Conservative representing Epping.

The Daily Star was an Anglophile newspaper, allied with the Conservative Party in London and Toronto — Canada being a subject of the crown a century ago — so a prospective change in Tory leadership involving the wartime Secretary of State for War was certainly of interest to its subscribers. As it happened, Winston Churchill would have to wait another 15 years to take the helm of his once and future party.

"The Foundering Ship" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, October 4, 1924

The news dominating the British Empire, including Canada, were parliamentary elections called only nine months into the administration of Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, the first of his party to hold the post. One of MacDonald's first foreign policy actions was to extend official recognition to the Soviet Union, and to open negotiations with the Russians toward a treaty on Anglo-Soviet trade and the repayment Imperial Russian loans to British bondholders.

MacDonald's minority government lost a vote of no confidence over the "Campbell Case," its decision not to prosecute the Communist Party Workers Weekly and its acting editor, J.R. Campbell, for a July 25 "Open Letter to the Fighting Forces" urging British servicemen to mutiny in the event of war.

"And He Needs It So Badly for Propaganda" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, October 22, 1924

Clearly, Racey and his editors shared the view of Britain's Conservatives and Liberals against the MacDonald Soviet-friendly foreign policy, and his cartoons amplify the Red Scare issue that was central to the Conservatives' campaign.

"St. George for England" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, October 27, 1924

In case it's too small to read on your device, the spear wielded by "Conservatism" against "Moscow Dominated Red Communism" is labeled "patriotism." I do not, however, believe that Racey intended to call the "British Electorate" a horse's ass.

"Mad Clear Through" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, October 28, 1924

Four days before the election in what we would today call an October surprise, the London Daily Mail published a letter, purportedly by Grigori Zinoviev, President of the Communist International (Commintern), intercepted by Great Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. The gist of the letter was that normalization of British-Soviet relations would facilitate the spread of Communist influence throughout the British Empire, culminating in revolution by its workers and soldiers.

"A Hallowe'en Tragedy" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, October 31, 1924

The letter is now believed to have been a forgery, but it nevertheless doomed the MacDonald government. Conservatives won a decisive majority in Parliament; Labour lost 40 seats.

Racey's cartoon overlooks one other development with the 1924 election: the Liberal Party lost 118 of its 158 seats in Parliament. Formerly the main rival to the Conservatives, the Liberals have been a  minority third party ever since.

"The Mote and the Beam" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, October 23, 1924

With so much excitement over the British elections, Racey hardly had time in October to address any Canadian issues. (In case you're wondering, he drew nothing about the election underway south of the border that month.) 

He did squeeze in this commentary on Canadian complicity in subversion of Prohibition in the United States. Here the province of Ontario, nose darkened by "manufacture of booze," lectures a grinning Quebec, whose nose is stained by "sale of booze."

The latest cartoons of Arthur Racey that I've found were in January, 1941; he died on December 21, 1941 after having been ill for several months. Just as the Parti Québecois was coming to power in Montréal, the Anglophile Montreal Star shut down in September, 1979, unable to recover from a strike of its press workers.