The Long, Slow Race to the Finish

Our Graphical History Tour today finds the 1924 election campaigns heading into the final stretch, wrapping it up with a bow, and firing their last salvos. 

"Trying to Attract the Attention of the Enemy" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 17, 1924

From John McCutcheon's perch in the Republican stands, the U.S. presidential contest had come down to one between his party's incumbent President Calvin Coolidge and its defector to the Progressive Party, Senator Robert LaFollette. He cast Democratic nominee John Davis as the third-party also-ran.

"I Don't Believe That Chap Can Read" by Clifford Berryman in Washington [DC] Evening Star, Oct. 6, 1924

Democratic partisans put a brave face on things — such was their job, after all — in spite of polls and straw votes giving a marked advantage to the Republicans.

Straw votes in presidential contests date back one century further to 1824; and if the press generally reported them as indicating present mood rather than forecasting the official vote, editorial cartoonists were not alone in reading them as predictions. The straw polls might be limited to the students at a particular university, or members of a certain profession, or just passers-by at a busy street corner.

Opinion polls came along more recently, and supposedly were more scientific; the Literary Digest poll, launched in 1916, had successfully predicted the presidential races in that year and 1920. The first truly national poll, the Literary Digest mailed post cards around the country and tallied the results of those that were returned.

"The Dark Outlook" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, Oct. 20, 1924

Tom Foley, who favored LaFollette, posed a scenario that minimized Republicans' chances by overstating LaFollette's and Davis's. In the end, LaFollette carried only his home state of Wisconsin; and Davis failed to win New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, or Delaware.

I won't even get into Foley's forecast of Upper Michigan casting separate electoral votes from Lower Michigan.

"Who Was It Who Traded Their Birthright..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Oct. 31, 1924

For the time being, Republicans' main worry was the possibility that LaFollette's candidacy could result in none of the three major presidential candidates reaching an electoral college majority. In that case, the election of a President would be decided in the House of Representatives, and the Vice President chosen in the Senate.

By the way, the answer to Darling's question was Esav Ben-Yitzchak, if you're wondering.

"What It Will Mean" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, Oct. 24, 1924

GOP stalwart Charles Kuhn devoted nearly a dozen cartoons in October of 1924 to dire predictions of chicanery and chaos if the election were to be given to Congress to decide. (And still Kuhn had not ventured a comment on the Klan-ridden statewide races in his home state of Indiana.)

The Republican congressional majorities in both houses included some Progressives who could not be counted on to support Calvin Coolidge. Prominent Progressives Hiram Johnson (R-CA) and William Borah (R-ID) promised to support the Republican ticket, but Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart stirred things up by declaring himself for LaFollette.

"They've All Gone Wrong But Me" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Oct. 3, 1924

Charles Kuhn may have had no opinions about Indiana politics in the summer and fall of 1924, but other editorial cartoonists were happy to take note of races close to home. In Ohio, Governor Alvin "Honest Vic" Donahey had some reliable campaign help as he ran for a second term...

"This Looks Pretty Good to Me" by James "Hal" Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 14, 1924

His younger brother, James Harrison Donahey, was the front page editorial cartoonist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. From that perch, "Hal" repeatedly sang the praises of his older brother...

"My, What a Clatter" by James H. Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 24, 1924

...and pooh-poohed the corruption charges against "Honest Vic" made by his Republican opponent, former Governor Harry L. Davis. (I could have made a post here made up of Donahey's in-kind contributions to his brother's campaign, but I might not have been able to come up with much to say about the cartoons after the first four or five of them.)

"The Little Stick" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 4, 1924

Speaking of family, New York Republicans nominated as their gubernatorial candidate against Democrat Al Smith Theodore Roosevelt III, son of the late president. Sullied by the Teapot Dome scandal while Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Harding administration but cleared of any wrong-doing, he returned criticism from his cousin Franklin: "He's a maverick! He does not wear the brand of our family."

"With All the Heirlooms" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, Sept. 26, 1924

As we discussed last week, elections were held across the pond in the United Kingdom, too. The specific issues forcing Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government to stand for election were reported in the U.S. press, but I'm not finding many American cartoons getting into the particulars.

"We Got Company" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Oct. 16, 1925

There was certainly delight in some quarters, however, at his fall. 

"Well, Well, Still They Come" by Dorman Smith for NEA, ca. Oct. 25, 1924

Germany was headed for a snap election as well. The Reichstag was dissolved on October 20, with elections set for December 7. Given that it was Germany's second election that year, Americans probably greeted the news with a yawn — just another change of government in hapless Deutschland — but Germany was in fact just then entering into its so-called "Glückliche Zwanzigers," the brief period of economic recovery that ended with the global crash at decade's end.

"The Dancing-Master and the Bag-Piper" by K.A. Suvanto in Daily Worker, Chicago, Oct. 8, 1924

If you caught last week's sampling of cartoons by Montreal Star cartoonist A.G. Racey, you remember that the opposition to the Labour government charged that MacDonald failed to prosecute a communist newspaper for advocating mutiny in his majesty’s armed services and that he was an unwitting dupe of Soviet Russia. 

The commies at the Daily Worker in Chicago argued instead that MacDonald was a stooge of British capitalists.

"Took Me Just Three Weeks" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Oct. 30, 1924 

The British Parliament dissolved on October 9, and its Conservative Party won in a landslide on October 29. This Berryman cartoon just goes to show that Americans' longing for a shorter election season is nothing new.

And yet, our election season just keeps getting longer and longer, anyway.