Happy Fifth of Fourth

It's the Fifth of July and most of us still have all ten fingers, so in celebration of this extra long Independence Weekend, the Graphical History Tour sets the dial back five fourths of a century ago to July 4, 1900.

"Independence Day" by C.E. Toles in St. Paul Globe, July 4, 1900

We kick things off with an illustration by a cartoonist Allan Holtz called "the mysterious master." The highly stylized signature is a challenge to read; a researcher at the Library of Congress has concluded that the cartoonist was T.E. Coles, syndicated by the International Syndicate of Baltimore, but I lean toward those who have identified him as Claude Eldridge Toles, 1875-1901.

So, apparently, does Mr. Holtz, and that's plenty good enough for me.

I found this in the St. Paul Globe, where his work was featured regularly. Toles, however, lived his entire, brief life in New York state. (Any relation to the now retired Buffalo News and Washington Post cartoonist?)

"That Recent Trip to Lincoln, Neb." by R.C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, July 4, 1900

My posts featuring historical cartoons began with examples from the Minneapolis Tribune's book of Rowland C. Bowman's editorial cartoons for the year 1900 ― a book left to me by my Aunt Barbara Jensen and since donated to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum because I do not have a climate-controlled room suitable to preserve it. The book included several cartoons mocking Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, but not this one.

Bryan received the Democratic Party's nomination (for a second time) in Kansas City, Missouri on Independence Day, 1900, having already accepted the presidential nomination of the Populist Party. The Prairie Populist from Nebraska was not a favorite of the Eastern Establishment; but David Hill, a former New York Governor and Senator, had endorsed Bryan in 1896, partly due to his own rivalry with fellow New Yorker President Grover Cleveland. 

"Creating Business for the (Political) Undertaker" by Carter Simons in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1900

Hill is in the forefront of this Independence Eve Brooklyn Eagle cartoon (the Eagle did not publish on July 4), next to Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker. Hill was in serious contention for the Democrats' vice presidential nomination in 1900, but that went to Adlai Stevenson of Illinois instead.

Bryan had campaigned in 1896 on a platform of free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1, a position then popular in the rural west but strongly opposed by Cleveland and the "Gold Democrats." The "free silver" issue had lost some of its appeal by 1900, however, thanks in part to the Klondike gold rush.  

"Watching the Pinwheel Spin" by Leon Barritt in New York Tribune, July 4, 1900

In the meantime, the U.S. had taken possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines after winning the Spanish-American War. Bryan's new issue was anti-imperialism. The 19th Century "manifest destiny" of pushing the nation's borders all the way to the Pacific was one thing; becoming a colonial power on the other side of the globe (with new territories moreover populated by dark-skinned Catholics and heathens!) was another thing entirely.

"The Chicago Platform Applied in St. Louis" by John S. Pughe in Puck, New York, July 4, 1900

The major news and satirical magazines of the day, Harper's Weekly, Puck and Judge, were united in their opposition to Mr. Bryan. Pughe depicts Bryan cheering on the strike by St. Louis streetcar workers, begun in May and lasting until September, in which clashes between strikers on one side and scabs and law enforcement on the other resulted in 14 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

"The Hardest Thing He Ever Had to Swallow" by Wm. A. Rogers in Harper's Weekly, New York, July 7, 1900

Democrats accused the McKinley administration of being in the thrall of oil, sugar, copper, steel, and railroad barons — the "trusts" — and Republicans in turn claimed that Tammany Hall, and by extension the Democratic Party, was beholden to the Ice Trust. 

The Ice Trust had nothing to do with Immigrant Capture and Expulsion; rather, this was about American Ice Company's monopoly of the supply of frozen water in New York City. What rival ice suppliers the company, founded in 1899 by Charles W. Morse, couldn't buy out, it drove out of business by smashing their deliveries, or getting Tammany Hall to revoke their dock privileges. 

After one year in business, monopoly achieved, American Ice Company doubled its prices to consumers, who relied on delivered ice for food refrigeration. Public outcry and media pressure forced the company to relent, and also exposed that Croker and other Tammany Hall figures had significant investments in American Ice.

"Trade Follows the Flag" by Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman in Judge, New York, July 7, 1900

Mocking the establishment Democrats falling in line behind Bryan, "Zim" Zimmerman skewers both Bryan's 1896 campaign platform of free silver and his 1900 campaign message against U.S. imperialism. The saying "Trade follows the flag" dates to 1870 or earlier, with the meaning that colonialism expands the colonizer's commercial opportunities.

"The Temptation" by Felix Mahony in Washington Evening Star, July 4, 1900

At last some political cartoons that acknowledge Independence Day! 

"An Old-Fashioned Fourth" by Tubman K. Hedrick in St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 4, 1900

To Bryan's supposed chagrin, Hedrick in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat enthusiastically introduced the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee, New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, nominated at the Republicans' convention the week before the Democrats'.

Republicans risked ebullient, colorful Roosevelt overshadowing staid, businesslike McKinley at the head of their ticket. (You might draw a more recent comparison with John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.) For much of U.S. history, the vice presidency was a post from which its occupants were seldom heard from again; it didn't quite work out according to plan this time.

"Kansas City's Favorite Son" by Taylor in Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1900

At this point, you might be asking whether there were any editorial cartoonists not attacking William Jennings Bryan. (Was Taylor caricaturing the Prairie Populist in this cartoon, or complaining about Kansas City's summer weather?)

The great Homer Davenport gained fame lambasting Bryan's Republican opponent, President William McKinley, and his financial backer from Ohio, Mark Hanna, so I went hunting for his work during the Democratic National Convention. I haven't been able to find any of the Hearst or Hearst-supplied newspapers that ran Davenport's cartoons that week, unfortunately.

No caption, by Robert Edgren in San Francisco Herald & Examiner, July 4, 1900

Instead, here's one by another Hearst cartoonist, drawing Mark Hanna in a  dollar-sign suitcoat, copying a Davenport trademark. 

An October 19, 1902 article in the Times-Democrat of New Orleans quoting visiting New York Herald cartoonist J.C. Fireman identified Edgren as a New York Journal cartoonist "in the same class as Davenport. He also adopts the sledgehammer style, and, being the champion hammer thrower of the world, it comes natural to him to 'knock' in his cartoons."

"Willie and His Papa" by Frederick Burr Opper in New York Journal, ca. July 4, 1900

Hearst cartoonist Frederick Opper was more of a jester than hammer thrower, but no less partisan. Instead of the dollar sign suitcoat, Opper here put Hanna in a dress, as wife of McKinley's Papa, "The Trusts." I presume that the water pail President McKinley has to carry in the cartoon is a reference to his campaign slogan of "the full dinner pail."

"A Man After My Own Heart" by May in Times-Democrat, New Orleans, July 4, 1900

I've got one cartoon specifically in support of William Jennings Bryan, and I'm afraid that I haven't been able to positively identify the cartoonist. May (certainly not Ole May, unlikely Thomas May) slapped a photograph into his cartoon of the Man After Uncle Sam's Own Heart rather than attempting to caricature him. But at least he acknowledged the holiday.

"Darned If I Can Have Any Fun on Fourth of July with These Things On" by E.T. Richards in Life, New York, July 5, 1900

Picturing the United States' new identity as a colonial power, E.T. Richards fit Uncle Sam in a crown and ermine robes, accompanied by a distressed Columbia and a mortified American eagle. Given the present regime's goose-stepping into fascist autocracy, I know how they feel.

In the background, I presume that is President McKinley dressed like Napoleon while his companion lights firecrackers tied to the dog Filipino's tail — a cruel and apparently common Independence Day pastime among nasty fin de siècle boys.

"Hurrah for the 4th" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Call, July 4, 1900

That's more than enough politics for today, so let's wrap things up with an ode to the holiday by San Francisco's Gustavo Bronstrup. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

America! It was nice while it lasted.