Ding Ding Ding: Late Breaking Correction

"The Comeback" by Ed LeCocq for Des Moines Register, ca. April 26, 1925

In a recent Graphical History Tour of editorial cartoons eulogizing Fighting Bob LaFollette, I had wondered why I couldn't find an example by the Des Moines Register's Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling, a frequent LaFollette critic. Nor could I find a cartoon by him during the Scopes Monkey Trial and the subsequent passing of William Jennings Bryan. Instead, the Register had been running cartoons by Edward C. LeCocq.

I can now report that Darling was laid low for several months in 1925 with peritonitis, according to updates on the Register front page in March and April.

The University of Iowa library identifies the above LeCocq cartoon as having appeared in the Register on Sunday, April 26, 1925, which is the date on the clipping from a Tribune somewhere. I'm not finding it in the Register on that date or any other that month.

Darling's last cartoon before taking sick appeared on March 23, 1925. For a few weeks thereafter, the Register had no editorial cartoon on its front page; its March 24 front page included a boxed notice that "Due to the illness of Jay N. Darling (Ding), the cartoons will be omitted temporarily from the first page of The Register."

After a few weeks, the Register front page sported a few syndicated cartoons by Winsor McCay and Rollin Kirby. It ran the first of LeCocq's cartoons on April 19; he was soon drawing daily editorial cartoons for the front page for the rest of the year.

"If You Don't Think the World Moves, Just Try Stopping for a Year" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, April 5, 1926

Darling finally returned to the Register's front page on April 5, 1926, along with his editor's report that

Jay N. Darling, "Ding," returns to the Register's front page this morning with the first cartoon he has drawn after more than a year's absence. Mr. Darling has completely recovered his health, following the serious illness with peritonitis with which he was stricken March 19, 1925. Ed LeCocq, the young cartoonist who substituted for Mr. Darling, will draw cartoons for the Evening Tribune.

(Side note: the Des Moines Evening Tribune-News would not have been the source of the cartoon at the top of this post; it did not publish on Sundays.)