Saturday at the Party with George

"To Be Alone — Be Great" by Hal Coffman for International Features Service, Feb. 22, 1925

If Hal Coffman's cartoon strikes you as an odd way to commemorate George Washington's birthday, yes, it is. 

So before anyone gets any bright ideas about including Napoleon Bonaparte in Felonious Trump’s Garden of Heroes, let me explain. 

February 22, 1925 fell on a Sunday, and in those days, the front page of the Sunday editorial section in every Hearst newspaper was topped by a cartoon illustration stretching all the way across the page illustrating a lengthy editorial-cum-sermon from corporate headquarters. Coffman's cartoon accompanied an essay that argued that Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln were all great-minded men, but that Napoleon lacked the modesty of the Americans and thus overstepped the limits of leadership.

Napoleon also differed from Washington and Lincoln by having his birthday in August.

"Where're You Going, Cal" by Wm. A. Ceperley in Davenport Democrat, Feb. 22, 1925

Washington's birthday is usually a time to compare and contrast our first President with the current occupant of the office. The comparison pretty much always favors Mr. Washington, although I fully expect today's Brancos and Varvels to echo Mr. Trump's egomaniacal self-aggrandizement.

Returning to 1925, I didn't run across any other editorial cartoonists joining William Ceperley in trash-drawing President Coolidge.

"The Cherry Tree Moral" by Jesse Taylor Cargill in Sacramento Bee, Feb. 21, 1925

The editorial cartoonists' go-to George Washington reference has long been the entirely apocryphal tale of not lying about chopping down his father's cherry tree. Drawing Washington saying "I cannot tell a lie" and a modern-day politician responding "I cannot tell the truth" dates at least as far back as the Nixon administration; subsequent cartoonists have added later presidents chiming in "I cannot tell the difference."

I'll bet there are a bunch of such cartoons today to balance the Varvels and Brancos.

"Washington, D.C. and the Cherry Tree" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, Feb. 22, 1925

Speaking of whom, is this where they get their ideas?

"It's Strange How It Keeps On Sprouting After All These Years" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 22, 1925

I found it interesting that several cartoonists in 1925 pictured chopping down the cherry tree in a positive light. Carey Orr at the vociferously isolationist Chicago Tribune laments the "foreign entanglements" that kept sprouting from the stump of "foreign alliances."

Everything old is new again again.

"The Cherry Tree Incident Up to Date" by T.E. Powers for Star Feature Syndicate, ca. Feb. 23, 1925

Continuing the motif of Everybody Hates Cherry Trees, T.E. Powers, whose modus operandi was to present readers with multiple choice of cartoons each day,  tosses in a couple other classic George Washington references besides the Cherry Tree Incident. If one idea didn't appeal to the reader, perhaps another one would.

The bottom two panels refer to President Coolidge getting the cabinet picks for his own full term through Congress (the Republican majority presented few obstacles, although there would be resistance to Coolidge's nominee for Attorney General), and a contemporary complaint that leftists wielded too much influence in children's education. 

"George W. Legislature" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, Feb. 23, 1925

Tom Foley used the cherry tree analogy to twit his Minnesota legislature for accomplishing so little "needed legislation."

That can't be a cherry tree, however. I don't think they are able to grow anywhere near that big.

"Hacking Away at It" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 22, 1925

That didn't stop Grover Page from drawing this cartoon, even while viewing the damage to his tree very differently than Tom Foley did his. What a relief to find a cartoon in which the tree didn't deserve to be chopped down!

It's not clear to me whether Page was arguing again against the proposed Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution (see here), or some other issue. Certainly the Eighteenth Amendment had been the work of "professional reformers"; but he might have wanted to depict more damage to the tree from an already ratified amendment.

"Why the Family didn't Get the Radio Program" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Feb. 21, 1925

So not all the editorial cartoonists reached for political topics that Sunday.

I have not discovered what specific radio program Dorman Smith might have had in mind when he drew the above cartoon. Coolidge's inauguration would be broadcast live on March 4, the first live broadcast of a presidential inauguration; but of course, that hadn't happened just yet.

According to a survey by the Sears-Roebuck Agricultural Broadcasting Stations WLS (Chicago) reported in the February 19, 1925 Indianapolis News, 33% of respondents listened to broadcast radio regularly. The most popular programs were classical music, followed closely by vocal music. After that came farm and home programs — not surprisingly, considering the survey base — and bringing up the rear, dramas, readings, and — again, no surprise — political speeches. 

"Not Skeptical But" by Chas Kuhn in Indianapolis News, Feb. 21, 1925

I don't know how common the practice was in 1925 of reading books by tossing them onto a nearby carpet. The fellow in Charles Kuhn's cartoon may have been far-sighted, I suppose.

In any case, the font of the book's text was large enough for Kuhn's readers to make out; but in case it's too small for you, it says "Washington never told a lie." 

"How Proud He Must Be of Some of His Children" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 22, 1925

I don't know what it is that editorial cartoonists of 1925 had against crossword puzzles, but virtually all of them kept throwing shade at them.