Cartoons of the Week

For these Saturday posts, I usually try to tie things together with some unifying theme, but this week's is a pretty thin thread. Some time ago (long enough that I've forgotten how), I came into possession of three issues of The Outlook magazine from November and December, 1916. A regular feature was their two-page "Cartoons of the Week."

To be honest, the 1910's are not generally thought of as the heyday of editorial cartooning. Thomas Nast and Johannes Keppler were gone, and while there were such well-regarded cartoonists as John Darling, Rollin Kirby, John McCutcheon. Boardman Robinson, Art Young and Robert Minor coming into their own, most ink-slingers (and grease-slingers) traded in didactic, derivative fare: hapless Common Men, imperious European royalty, harridan suffragettes, and other images that had already become cliché. (And labels, labels everywhere!)

So how did magazine editors of the day decide what the best Cartoons of the Week were?

"The Man Who Is Out in the Wet" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, November, 1916

In the three issues that I have, all the American cartoonists drew for publications in New York, where The Outlook was also published. We can suspect that inclement weather on the way to work inspired at least two New York cartoonists and at least one sympathetic magazine editor.

"Poor Shelter" by Bell in New York Evening Post, November, 1916

The Outlook editors didn't seem to mind running redundant cartoons alongside each other, such as the two above. Last week, I included a cartoon by Nelson Harding of the Kaiser whipping a Belgian farmer to force him to labor for Germany, smoke rising from the farmer's home in the background. This cartoon ran alongside it.

"For His Own Good" by Robert Carter in New York Evening Sun, November, 1916

I don't believe the editors at The Outlook were trying to show up the cartoonists; the cartoons that used the same similes they would have used in a 500-word editorial are simply the ones that appealed to them. Given two cartoons of Kaiser Wilhelm whipping a Belgian, why not use both? Drives the point home, right?

Nor do I think that American editorial cartoons of the period are any worse than my own. I'll wrap this post up with a pretty decent holiday-themed cartoon that expressed a cartoonist's feelings on the topic of child labor laws — drawn, it should be noted, for a magazine. Not a newspaper.

"Gee, I Wish I Was a Kid Again" by Calvert H. Smith (?) in Harper's Magazine, December, 1916

I'm close, but not 100% sure that I'm correctly crediting Calvert H. Smith for this cartoon. Smith's reputation is for photorealism (see samples here and here, both signed "Calvert"), whereas this cartoon strikes me as more impressionistic. Wikimedia has a pen-and-ink cartoon from Life magazine with the same "Calvert" signature (here), but credits the cartoon only to "Calvert." The same signature appears in this cartoon, in a style closer to the one above, and credited by the blogger to Calvert H. Smith.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

For Stuffingback Saturday today, we have Thanksgiving leftovers of a sort, with hopes that your fourth Thursday of November was a pleasant one, with plenty of inspiration for the giving of thanks.

In 1916, Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday in November, not necessarily the fourth one; so 100 years ago today, Thanksgiving hadn't happened yet. Here's John McCutcheon's Thanksgiving Day cartoon of November 30, 1916:

"The Face at the Window" by John McCutcheon for Chicago Tribune,  November 30, 1916.

The Face at the Window, of course, being war-torn Europe, where French cartoonist Abel Faivre had drawn this next pathos-laden cartoon not for the American Thanksgiving holiday, but for All Saints' Day at the beginning of the month.

"Where Must I Pray for Papa?" by Abel Faivre in l'Echo, Paris, November 1, 1916

The issue consuming the cartoonists with allied sympathies was Germany's deporting of Belgian citizens to replace German soldiers in the factories and farm fields.

"Are You Ready to Make Munitions for Germany?" by Louis Raemaekers for De Telegraaf, Amsterdam, November, 1916

Use of a whip, rather than a gun, was a leitmotif of American cartoons on the subject.

"To the Step-Fatherland" by Nelson Harding for Brooklyn Eagle, November, 1916

On the other side of the trenches, the German press played up the Allies' lack of significant progress in the war. And, true enough, the Western Front was still well West of die Vaterland.

"Shall We Soon Be on the Rhine?" unsigned for Lustige Blaetter, Berlin, November, 1916

As far as whipping up sentiment against Allied behavior toward neutral countries was concerned, however, German criticism here lacks the punch of Raemaekers's and Harding's work.

"So You Don't Like My Blacklist?" by E.N. for Meggendorfer Blaetter, Munich, November, 1916

Further south, Serbian, French and Russian forces captured Monastir (present-day Bitola, Macedonia) from Bulgaria on November 19. 130,000 allied fighters died in the fighting or from disease while Germans and Bulgarian losses numbered about 61,000. The Monastir Offensive did not prove a decisive defeat of Germany's Balkan allies, and shelling of the city continued throughout the war.

"Back Home" by Clive Weed for Philadelphia Public Ledger, November, 1916

Returning to this side of the pond, we find that Pancho Villa was still pestering the U.S. Army. I've run this cartoon before, and now that we've passed by its 100th birthday, here it is again. More leftovers.

"Breaking In Again" by Sidney Greene for New York Evening Telegram, November, 1916

That's all, folks!

Frankie Joe Kicks the Bucket

In today's episode of Salzback Saturday, we observe the 100th anniversary of the death of Franz Josef (Francis Joseph, if you prefer the Anglicized version of his name), Emperor of Austria-Hungary, on November 21, 1916. The 86-year-old Hapsburg-Lorraine monarch, on the throne since 1848 (consider who the world leaders were in 1948 — when Queen Elizabeth was still a princess — to give yourself an idea of how long that is) had been in declining health for a few years.

Memorial cartoons today are no better today than they were back then, and perhaps they have gotten worse. I did not see any Imperial Eagle With A Single Tear, or St. Peter Cheerily Welcoming Franz At The Pearly Gates.

"Peace" by Nelson Harding for Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 22, 1916

From what I've been able to find, most American cartoonists neither praised nor castigated the Emperor. Nelson Harding (above) draws a cold irony about the Emperor finding peace after his country had launched the war then having consumed Europe for two years and counting. Bill Sykes's cartoon below looks instead to the succession of Franz Josef's grandnephew, Karl. If there was supposed to be something The Future was whispering to History, sadly, the Philadelphia Evening Ledger neglected to print it.

"Concerning the New Emperor" by Charles "Bill" Sykes for Philadelphia Evening Ledger, November 23, 1916

Of the cartoons I found, only John McCutcheon's attempted to assess the Emperor's legacy. For those unfamiliar with European history, Austria-Hungary at the start of the War was considerably larger than the two countries are today. The Empire covered the present-day Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and portions of Italy, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Wars had flared up in the Balkans shortly before World War I, and would rekindle in the early 1920s.

"Francis Joseph's Hyphenated Family..." by John McCutcheon for Chicago Tribune, November 22, 1918

To appreciate McCutcheon's cartoon, you must also consider the campaign against "Hyphenated Americans" during the presidential election, which would only intensify once the U.S. entered the War.

I wanted to include some cartoons from the belligerent nations here; The Great War: 1914-1918, The Cartoonists Vision includes one by a British cartoonist (I can't make out the signature) depicting Kaiser Wilhelm drawing back from Franz Josef's bier, musing, "Well, you did have the luck of dying in your bed. I wonder whether I shall!" The shadow of a noose appears on the wall above the Kaiser's shadow.

Compared to Great Britain, Italy and Russia were more directly engaged in fighting Austria-Hungary, so their cartoonists take a more caustic view of the Emperor. This first Italian cartoon was no doubt drawn before Franz Josef shuffled off his mortal coil, although it appeared in the United States afterward. Kaiser Wilhelm and Emperor Franz Josef are the thumb and forefinger of the hand; the other fingers are Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Sultan Mehmet V of Turkey, and Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany.

"The Black Hand of Europe" by "Egggini" for Il 420, Florence, ca. November, 1916

This Italian cartoon is probably representative of its country's response to the Emperor's death, and probably Russia's as well. (I suspect Russian cartoonists heaped even worse ignominy on the Emperor, perhaps having his corpse shredded by wild pigs. If there were such cartoons, they were too rude for American editors of the time, and I have yet to master Googling in the Cyrillic alphabet to find Russian sources.) The caption translates to "Need for Hygeine"; the cart reads "Universal Sanitation."

"Need for Hygeine" drawn for Numero, Turin, December 3, 1916.

And the Winner Was...

So, are you looking forward to having the 2016 election finally over with on Tuesday? Travel back in time with Spinback Saturday, then, to the thrilling conclusion of the 1916 presidential election.

I'll start with a pre-election cartoon by Luther Bradley highlighting Wilson's Benghazi; at this point in 1916, Bradley was soon to shuffle off his mortal coil, so this may be my last opportunity to showcase his work.

"The Silent Vote" by Luther Bradley for Chicago Daily News, November, 1916

On Tuesday, November 7, Americans cast their ballots in the last presidential election in which women in some states were denied the vote. (I don't think that's a deliberate topic of Bradley's cartoon, but it's worth mentioning anyway.) The nation awoke on the Day After Election Day 1916 to headlines like this:

Editorial cartoonists, in some cases putting aside their political differences, greeted Charles Evans Hughes as the new president of the United States.

"The New Pilot" by Harry Murphy for Chicago Examiner, November 8, 1916

Some cartoonists were more enthusiastic about the Republican victory than others. At the Philadelphia Inquirer, Frederick Morgan drew at least three editorial cartoons crowing about Wilson's defeat for Wednesday's newspaper. Here are two of them, and yes, that is the actual cartoon caption printed in the Inquirer for posterity.

"The Political Ass Barrel" by Fred Morgan for Philadelphia Inquirer, November 8, 1916

"The End of a Perfect Day" by Fred Morgan for Philadelphia Inquirer, November 8, 1916

If you know anything about American history, you might be wondering why you don't remember having been taught anything in school about the Hughes administration. Well, don't blame a faulty education system. As the sun came up on Wednesday morning, Charles Evans Hughes was still several electoral votes shy of the 266 needed to win. California, Minnesota, West Virginia, Indiana and New Hampshire, with a combined 52 electoral votes, were too close to call; less than a percentage point separated Wilson's and Hughes's vote tallies in each of those states.

"Another Doubtful State—Of Mind" by John McCutcheon for Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1916

With no clear winner, what, then, was a newspaper cartoonist to do?

Fred Morgan must have had cramps in his drawing hand or run out of ink, because his pen fell silent for the next few days. The New York Evening Post reran Monday's cartoon by Oscar Cesare on Thursday, but with a new and improved caption (originally "The Anxious Seat").

"Watchful Waiting" by Oscar Cesare for New York Evening Post, November 9, 1916

By the end of the day on Thursday, California finally appeared likely to cast its 13 electoral votes for Wilson — enough to put the incumbent president over the top. Wilson's margin of victory in California was only 3,800 votes out of a million.

There is a story that when a reporter tried to telephone Hughes on Wednesday morning to get his reaction to the election returns, the person who answered the phone told the reporter that "the president is asleep."

"Newspaper Slogan" by Nelson Harding for Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 8, 1916

The reporter snapped back, "When he wakes up, tell him he isn't the president."

"Some Mix-Up" by Sidney Greene for New York Evening Telegram, November 10, 1916

The outcome in Minnesota was still in doubt when the Duluth Evening Herald ran C.F. Naughton's congratulatory cartoon on its front page; its 12 electoral votes would go in vain to Hughes.

"Good Work, Woodrow. Keep It Up" by C.F. Naughton for Duluth Evening Herald, November 10, 1916

Wilson's election having been settled by the end of the week, Mr. Hughes nevertheless did not accept the results until November 22.

"Judicial Temperament" by H.S. Smith for The Masses, January, 1917.

Campaign 1916

As we draw tantalizingly closer to the end of the 2016 campaign, Stumpback Saturday takes a look over its shoulder at editorial cartoons of the issues of the final weeks of the presidential election of 1916.

"Troubles of a Good Natured Man" by Luther Bradley in Chicago Daily News, 1916

Luther Bradley's Woodrow Wilson seems nonplussed by pups bearing his own foreign policy slogans of Watchful Waiting and Too Proud to Fight, here joined by his decision to stay out of arbitrating the railroad workers strike.

The Wilson campaign slogan that lived on in popular memory was "He kept us out of war," which inspired Republican John Darling to draw the following cartoon. Uncle Sam smarts under a barrage of bricks and planks representing national humiliation, the Lusitania, Mexican insolence, British naval blockade and opening of U.S. mails, 1914 hard times, Democratic extravagance, and "After the War?"

"He Kept Us Out of War" by John "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, 1916

I like a couple of John McCutcheon cartoons from late October. In the first, he flips "He kept us out of war" on its head; and indeed, as the Zimmerman telegram would show, the German foreign office would have been perfectly happy to keep us out of their war, too.

"He's Curious to Know" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1916

In the second, McCutcheon grudgingly acknowledges Wilson's claim to prosperity and peace (signed "World War" and "Watchful Waiting" in reference to the president's initials), but begs to attribute problems of national prestige, Mexico, pork, patriotism and paper preparedness to him as well.

"The Ones He Exhibits" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1916

At the Duluth Evening Herald, where they were confidently predicting a landslide victory for Wilson, C.F. Naughton, repeating a frequent image in Democratic cartoons, sees Hughes haunted by Wilson's question "What would you have done?" regarding American response to the war in Europe.

"The Republican Tam O'Shanter" by C.F. Naughton for Duluth Evening Herald, October 23, 1916

The Republicans at the New York Evening Sun weren't fazed by that question at all.

"He Never Had to Ask That" by Robert Carter in New York Evening Sun, 1916

Up the street at the New York World, Rollin Kirby depicts, for the umpteenth time, Hughes as a patsy for the German Kaiser. Hughes had given up a seat on the Supreme Court to accept the Republican nomination, so Kirby draws his replacement robe as a patchwork quilt of former presidents Taft and Roosevelt, the Republican old guard, Wall Street, jingoism, pacifism, women's suffrage, and hyphenated Americans (especially German-Americans).

"In Place of the Ermine" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, 1916

In fact, Hughes proclaimed himself neutral regarding whether to support Europe's Allied or Central Powers. For that matter, Wilson actively pursued the German vote; German-speaking surrogates promoted the incumbent president to German-American audiences. In the end, German-Americans did not vote as a bloc, and were not a significant factor in the election's outcome.

"The Missing Link" by Wm. C. Morris for Harpers Weekly Independent, November 6, 1916

Sid Greene's summary of the campaign probably resonates as strongly today as it did a century ago.

"You Poor Fish" by Sidney J. Greene for New York Telegram, October 28, 1916

The label on the fish reads, "Catostomus commersonmii — in plain English, this means sucker."

Hearst v. Great Britain

The Brits would not have been pleased with this August 3, 1916 front page of the Chicago Examiner. 
Hearst newspapers openly supported the Irish cause.

This week in 1916, friction between the British government and William Randolph Hearst's media empire came to a head. The publisher of a chain of newspapers including the New York Journal-American, Chicago Examiner and San Francisco Examiner, Hearst opposed U.S. entry into World War I; his International News Service was repeatedly censored by the British government over its coverage of allied reverses and criticism of British policy at sea.

"Freedom of the Seas" by Harry Murphy for Chicago Examiner, September 18, 1916

Not that Hearst was a pacifist by any means: he had famously used his newspapers to prod the U.S. into the Spanish-American War, and he was presently promoting American military activity in Mexico. His was more of an "America First" policy against entanglement in European alliances.

Hearst praised isolationist Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan for trying to keep the U.S. out of Europe's war after the sinking of the British RMS Lusitania. While Hearst papers did express outrage over the torpedoing of the Lusitania, they argued that it wasn't worth our going to war over it (unlike, say, the Maine).

"A Corking Affair" by Harry Murphy for Chicago Examiner, October 6, 1916

Hearst denounced the Allies' naval blockade of the Central Powers as an unfair restriction of U.S. trade. He editorialized that the British were opening some U.S. mails in order to uncover trade secrets in our dealings with China and Japan. He supported opening American ports to shipping from any country, including German U-boats. Rumors even circulated that Hearst was a spokesman for the Kaiser — when the British government banned Hearst's International News Service from sending dispatches from England, Hearst had reporter (and alleged German propagandist) William Bayard Hale arrange for INS dispatches to be transmitted by wireless to Long Island from Nauheim, Germany.

This Chicago Examiner cartoon by Harry Murphy mocks the British for being thwarted at sea by the German U-boats; Uncle Sam looks on, safely bemused, from behind his three-mile sovereignty limit.

"The Goat-Getters" by Harry Murphy for Chicago Examiner, October 10, 1916

Complaining that Hearst was peddling fictitious war reportage — often from equally fictitious war correspondents — the British government banned his International News Service from sending news dispatches from England. Hearst responded with this full-page, flag-festooned editorial, "A Reply to the Malignant and Lying Accusations of the British Government That We Distort and Garble War News," in the Chicago Examiner on October 11:

From the editorial:

"The action of the British government in ordering the British censorship to refuse the International News Service the use of both mail and cable facilities for the dispatch of news to America was excused in the fashion characteristic of the British government. ...
"The unforgivable sin of the International News Service was that it would not willingly suppress true news, distort true news, AND DISSEMINATE FALSE AND LYING NEWS to suit the British censorship and the British government.
"The unforgivable crime of the great newspapers owned and conducted by William Randolph Hearst — at whom this petty exhibition of official spite was aimed — is that they are American newspapers, honest newspapers which tell the truth without fear and without the least concern as to whether the truth is agreeable or not to the British government or to any other government on Earth."

There follows paragraph after paragraph of examples of how the British government and press had previously castigated the French, Belgians, Russians and others whom they now heralded as heroic brothers in arms in the fight against Germanic tyranny.

"WELL THERE YOU HAVE THE BEST example of British press agitating — and Judas and Ananias rolled in one could not equal it."

"Busy on All Fronts" by Harry Murphy for Chicago Examiner, October 13, 1916

A postscript here: I had wanted to use cartoons and coverage from Hearst's New York Journal-American in this post. I would assume that Hearst's hand was heavier on the editorial till in the Big Apple than in the Windy City. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find Journal-American source material from this period on line.

Fifth Grader Sings the Blues

In a departure from our usual habit of dredging up cartoons from 25, 35, 75 or 100 years ago, this week's Swingback Saturday hearkens all the way back to last week's Q Syndicate release.

Q Syndicate✒Sep 29, 2016

I was on vacation in Italy over the last two weeks, with an old iPad that doesn't block, copy and paste particularly reliably, and I didn't have the patience to type in the lengthy computer code for the AAEC thumbnail link.

As with this week's cartoon, this was a cartoon drawn before packing my suitcase, with fingers crossed that events wouldn't render either toon inappropriate in some way. Much as I would have loved to hold forth on the Clinton-Trump or Kaine-Pence so-called debates, my crystal ball was too cloudy to give me any ideas I could draw in confidence that Trump wouldn't turn out to be an eloquent statesman, or Kaine wouldn't come down with laryngitis.

In case someone out there has been jonesin' for another dose of 1916, here's a cartoon from about the time of that year's Republican convention that I didn't figure out how to include last July:

"Candidate Hughes Will Make His Campaign As Rooseveltian As Possible" by Wm. C. Morris for Harpers Weekly Independent, July 31, 1916

Whom to Believe?

Streitkräfteback Saturday returns yet again to the cartoons running in the papers 100 years ago today. Give or take a few days.

When last we checked in on the war in Europe, the Germans were starving. At least, that's what the French (and those humorless Russians, for that matter) would have you believe.

"If Only the Dove of Peace Would Come!" by K. J. Hampol in Le Pêle Mêle, Paris, September, 1916

Not surprisingly, I haven't been finding many German cartoons lamenting food shortages. Admittedly, I'm not scouring German magazines, but one would think that if there were such cartoons, the Allied and Ally-sympathetic press would have picked up on them. So what were German cartoonists drawing about?

"The Strong Lungs of Messrs. Asquith and Briand" by E. Schilling in Wieland, Munich, September, 1916

The Schilling cartoon refers to British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and to Aristide Briand, who held the French offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Minister at this point. My read on the cartoon is that it is lampooning them for empty belligerent talk while waving laurels of peace. German and German-American media were also belittling reports of Allied gains at the Somme, where the battle lines would continue to go back and forth for some time to come.

Under the category of Sour Grapes, we have another cartoon from Wieland, this about British victories at Calais, France and Saloniki (present day Thessalonika), Greece:

"Two Victories" by W. Trier in Wieland, Munich. September, 1916

With all sides weary of war, some Europeans hoped that America would step in as a neutral power to broker a peace deal.

"The Angel Of Peace Cannot Bother..." in Simplicissimus, Munich, September, 1916

Returning to the American press, this Chicago Examiner cartoon depicting, in the background, conflicting claims about the progress of the war offers proof that we've been complaining about our election campaigns for longer than you or I or grandpa has been around.

"Under Fire" by Harry Murphy in Chicago Examiner, September 26, 1916