Harding Knocks

"The Favorite Son Rise" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 3, 1920

In celebration of America's exercise in democracy this week, Settleback Saturday recalls the election 100 years ago of the second most corrupt president in U.S. history.

But we're not here to talk about current events today.

"Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down?" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in Collier's, Nov. 6, 1920

Nelson Harding (no relation to the winner) may have had the cartoon at the top of today's post ready before the election results were final for the day-after-Election-Day newspaper but for the face; both candidates happened to be from Ohio. But as shown by Ding Darling's cartoon for Collier's weekly, published well before the votes were in, the outcome was never really in doubt. Cox carried only Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas.

Darling, a Republican through and through, disagreed strongly with Warren Harding's stand against the League of Nations; he was also disappointed by Democrat James Cox's petty campaign that was less about what a Cox administration would do than about leveling charges of financial irregularities against the Republican Party.

"It's A Great Day for America" by Albert T. Reid in National Republican, ca. Nov. 3, 1920

Staunch Republican Albert T. Reid, on the other hand, had no reservations whatsoever that Harding's election was "a great day for America." This is the one and only cartoon I came across between the Republican National Convention and Election Day in which Calvin Coolidge appears in person. Here Columbia (then still a common representation of the U.S.) presents Harding and Coolidge with "Mandate[s] from the American People for the Government of the United States."

"The Birthday Gift" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Nov. 3, 1920

Speaking of gifts, a somewhat less partisan observer, Clifford Berryman noted that Election Day 1920 happened to be Warren Harding's 55th birthday.

"Victory" by Raymond O. Evans (Sr.) for National Welfare Union, Nov. 3, 1920

Googling the National Welfare Union mostly leads me to other newspapers running this particular cartoon by R.O. Evans, who was editorial cartoonist of the Baltimore American. A cartoon of this sort on the day after Election Day might not necessarily indicate the cartoonist's or the National Welfare Union's political leanings, although "America First" is a recurrent theme in a couple examples of Mr. Evans's work that have shown up in this here blog.

"Now for the House Cleaning," unsigned, for National Welfare Union, Nov. 3, 1920

I can't find a signature in this cartoon, also for the National Welfare Union, although the style suggests perhaps Clifford Berryman of the Washington Evening Star (see "The Birthday Gift" above). The cartoonist, whoever he was, attributed Harding's landslide win to the women, Harding Democrats, and Progressives. Curiously, the G.O.P. elephant peering out from behind a pillar doesn't appear to be doing any work at all — which, frankly, doesn't make a bit of sense to me.

"Der Kampf um den Völkerbund" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 21, 1920

German cartoonists, while unfamiliar with Mr. Harding, were as happy as U.S. Republicans were to see the election results as a repudiation of President Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations. Harding's promises of a return to "normalcy" guaranteed that Germany would no longer be pestered by moralizing from the White House.

"Wilsons Abschied" by Ernst Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, Nov. 24, 1920

Wilson did find some time to write in his final years, including some essays about the rise of totalitarianism; but he left authorship about his own administration to others.

"A New Front Porch" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 5, 1920

Returning, then, to the work of Nelson Harding, we find a nation ready to turn the page, a nation relieved by the relaxed, front-porch campaign style of Warren Harding after coming through a Great War, international upheaval, and a deadly global pandemic. Anyone expecting an end to Red Scares, Klan terrorism, or governmental mismanagement, however, was to be sadly disappointed.

"Let's Have a Real Election Bonfire" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 7, 1920

I daresay you can easily find plenty of agreement with this third Nelson Harding cartoon today.

Wall Street Bombed

This week marks anniversaries of two terrorist attacks on New York City: 9/11/01, of course, but also 9/16/20.

"Murdered to Make Me Tremble" by Lucius Curtis "Lute" Pease in Newark News, Sept. 1920

At the start of the lunch hour on Thursday, September 16, 1920, a horse-drawn carriage blew up in front of the J.P. Morgan & Co. offices at the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street. The blast killed 38 and injured hundreds more, the most casualties of any peacetime attack in the U.S. up to that date (but superseded the following year by the white race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma).

There was no claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell to anarchists and communist sympathizers, who became the focus of Attorney General Palmer's investigation.

Uncaptioned, by Clifford Berryman in Washington (D.C.) Evening Star, September 17, 1920

The bomb was found to have been made of TNT and the iron weights commonly used for window sashes, connected to a timer; investigation into window sash weight makers all over the U.S. yielded nothing. One Pietro Angelo, who was connected with a bombing the previous year, was able to produce an alibi but was deported to Italy anyway. Another suspect was champion tennis player Edwin P. Fischer, who had made earlier warnings to friends predicting a mid-September Wall Street explosion; but it turned out that he happened to be in Canada that day and had developed a habit of making similar predictions.

"New York" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, Sept. 17, 1920

As for a motive for the bombing, a theory that it was an assassination attempt against J.P. Morgan was discounted because the banker was in Europe (although his son Junius was injured and his chief clerk, William Joyce, was killed). The bombing may also have been an attempt to rob a scheduled shipment of 900 gold bars to the U.S. Treasury building next door; if so, it failed in its mission.

"Seems About Time to Clean Them All Out" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 18, 1920

The FBI and Secret Service eventually dropped the investigation in 1940; the bombing remains unsolved to this day.

"The Fuse" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sept. 18, 1920

That Last Stubborn Button

Suffragetteback Saturday celebrates the centennial of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment this month!

"The Last Few Buttons Are Always the Hardest" by Archibald Chapin in St, Louis Star, ca. May, 1920

When last we checked in back in March, West Virginia had become the 34th state to ratify the amendment; Washington added to the list later that month. Several states had rushed to be among the first to approve ratification; but 36 were needed, and that last one was proving very elusive.

"The Hesitating Heroes" by Harry Westerman in Ohio State Journal, ca. June, 1920

Even with ratification so tantalizingly close, neither the Republican nor Democratic party platform committed whole-heartedly to it (frankly, they both offered weak tea on most issues). Southern states in particular opposed the amendment; legislatures in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and South Carolina had officially rejected it.

"What Makes the Suff Rage" by Albert T. Reid in The National Republican, by July 14, 1920

Republican Albert Reid pointed out that those southern states (here portrayed by "'Kunnel' Democracy") were dominated by Democratic legislators and governors. Overall in 1920, Republicans held majorities in 32 state legislatures; Democrats had the majority in only half that number.

"Will He Get Away with It?" by Wimmer in various Tennessee newspapers, ca. August 13, 1920

Who was going to get credit for giving women the vote must have been at issue.

"Yes Or No?" by Ernest Burtt in Knoxville Journal and Tribune, ca. Aug. 13, 1920

Connecticut, Vermont, Florida, and North Carolina hadn't taken action on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment; so the deciding vote would come down to Tennessee, where Democratic Governor Albert Roberts called the legislature into special session on August 9. (Here's another one of those ouija board cartoons, and by no means the only one I've seen addressing this specific topic!)

"The Anxious Moment When the Ball Rimmed the Cup" by Archibald Chapin in St. Louis Star, August, 1920

Ratification passed easily in the Tennessee Senate, 25 to 4. Knowing that the Governor and state Attorney General supported women's suffrage, opponents in the Tennessee House pulled out all the stops to prevent passage.

A.E. Kromer in Pittsburgh Gazette Times (?), August 19, 1920

The vote in the House was very close — tied, in fact — until 24-year-old legislator Harry T. Burn (R-Niota) changed his vote from nay to aye at the urging, it is said, of his mother.

No caption, by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, August 19, 1920

But wait! Don't uncork that champagne — er, sparkling grape juice — just yet, ladies!

"Drat That Boy" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, August 23, 1920

In an effort to throw a monkey wrench into the works 37 members of the Tennessee House hopped a train to Decatur, Alabama to deny a quorum for reconsideration of the resolution, a parliamentary maneuver necessitated by the Speaker of the House. When that ploy failed, they returned and managed to pass a bill nullifying the ratification vote. Tennessee Attorney General Thompson, however, citing a moot attempt in 1870 by the New York legislature to revoke its ratification of the 15th Amendment, declared that reversing a ratification vote was illegal. Gov. Roberts signed the ratification resolution on August 24.

"Legal Technicalities" by Bob Satterfield, for Newspaper Enterprise Assn. (Cleveland) ca. July 15, 1920

One of the groups opposing the amendment, the American Constitutional League, was still not ready to give up. In a case filed in court immediately after ratification, the ACL argued that all 36 ratification votes by the states were invalid and that the Tennessee Secretary of State was ineligible to perform the constitutionally required step of signing the legislature's action.

The plaintiff was Charles S. Fairchild, acting on behalf of the American Constitutional League, and the case was argued by attorney Alfred D. Smith. Justice Frederick L. Siddons first raised the question of whether he even had the authority to issue such an order, and asked Smith to go find references and citations to show that he could do so. Smith returned to court a few hours later with the required documentation, but the judge still refused Smith’s request to summon the Secretary of State to show cause why he should not be restrained from signing the proclamation, and would not issue an order forbidding the Secretary from signing:
“I hold that the act of promulgating the ratification of the suffrage amendment is purely a ministerial act. I am averse to issuing a ruling ordering the Secretary of State to show cause why he should not be enjoined on the grounds presented here.”
The judge also seemed rather surprised to see that the “antis” were not just attacking Tennessee’s ratification, which at one time was the subject of controversy, but all 36 ratifications: “Do you attack the validity of every legislative act of the States with reference to ratification ?”
Smith replied: “We do on the grounds, first that Congress had no right to propose such an amendment, and secondly, because the acts of ratification were in some instances invalid because the legislatures which voted favorably were elected before Congress proposed suffrage ratification.”
A number of Southern States – Tennessee being the only one that actually ratified – have a rule that a Statewide election must take place between the time a Constitutional amendment is passed by Congress and the State legislature can vote on ratifying it. But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling in regard to Ohio’s ratification of the 18th Amendment (Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221), which has been interpreted by virtually all legal authorities and scholars as invalidating all restrictions on any State legislature’s right to ratify a Constitutional amendment at any time.

"Southern Chivalry Isn't What It Used to Be" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, August 24, 1920

Fairchild v. Hughes made its way to the Supreme Court in January, 1922, and was quickly disposed of. Mr. Fairchild, wrote Justice Brandeis, "is not an election officer; and the state of New York, of which he is a citizen, had previously amended its own Constitution so as to grant the suffrage to women, and had ratified this amendment. Plaintiff has only the right, possessed by every citizen, to require that the government be administered according to law and that the public moneys be not wasted."

"Hats Off, Boys" by Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, August, 1920

Meanwhile, U. S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby issued a proclamation on August 26, 1920 that officially declared the 19th Amendment ratified. As far as everybody but the poor sports in the American Constitutional League was concerned, women's suffrage was thenceforth guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

"We Suppose the Disintegration of the Home..." by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, August 29, 1920

Third Party Poopers

For this week's episode of S̄ī̀ s̄ib pædback Saturday, let's take a look at third-party options in the 1920 presidential election for those voters disenchanted with the choice between the pair of Buckeyes heading up the major party tickets.

"A Question" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News, June, 1920

For the fifth time, the Socialist Party of America nominated as its presidential candidate International Workers of the World founder Eugene V. Debs. Burt Thomas's cartoon, above, was drawn before the Democratic National Convention, when red-baiting Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was still in the running for that party's presidential nomination.

"There Are Worse Places Than a Front Porch" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, October 11, 1920

Debs would garner 913,664 votes in November, even though he was stuck in the Moundsville Federal Penitentiary in West Virginia, serving a ten-year sentence for sedition on account of antiwar passages in a speech he had given in Canton, Ohio in 1917. Berryman here compares Debs's campaign with the lackadaisical "front porch" campaign of Warren Harding.

"Now It's Triplets" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, July, 2020

After they had been turned down by William Jennings Bryan, The Prohibition Party nominated Ohio minister Aaron Sherman Watkins as its presidential nominee. Watkins thus was the third Buckeye on those November ballots where the Prohibition Party appeared.

With Prohibition already the law of the land, enshrined in the Constitution and confirmed by the Supreme Court, Watkins came in fifth in November with 189,339 votes, the poorest showing for the Prohibition party since 1884.

"The Common Nurse" by Winsor McCay in New York American, July, 1920

As early as January 1919, a group calling itself the Committee of 48 (the name referred to the number of states then in the Union) began organizing toward nominating a leftist candidate for president. The Republicans were committed to a conservative agenda of high tariffs on imports and reducing taxes on the rich; yet while the Democratic platform promised to continue liberal policies of President Wilson's administration, they too were beholden to moneyed interests. "Our country is menaced," the Committee of 48 announced, "by the growing power of an autocratic and reactionary minority at home."

"All Aboard" by John Knott in Dallas News, July, 1920

The committee's manifesto, "Revolution or Reconstruction? A Call to Arms" vowed, "It is the purpose of the Committee of Forty-eight to summon from all parts of the country the leaders of its liberal thought and of its forward-looking citizens, to meet in conference. We hope that out of this assemblage of the scattered forces of Americanism will come a flexible statement of principles and methods that will permit effective cooperation with organized Labor and Agricultural workers in the tasks of social reconstruction."

"Look Who's Here" by Bob Satterfield with Edmund Vance Cooke for NEA, July, 1920

A list of those liberal policies included public ownership of transportation, stock yards, grain elevators, public utilities, coal, oil, natural gas, mineral deposits, timber, and water works. The "Forty-eighters" platform called for "Equal economic, political, and legal rights for all, irrespective of sex or color. The immediate and absolute restoration of free speech, free press, peaceable assembly, and all civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution."

"The New Party" by Harry Westerman in Ohio State Journal, July, 1920

Prominent leaders of the group were J.A.H. Hopkins and attorney Dudley Field Malone; other members of note were historian Will Durant and Rush Limbaugh Sr., grandfather of the conservative radio asshole.

"Plenty of Assistant Cooks" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, July, 1920

The Forty-Eighters convened in Chicago on July 10 with the aim of merging with the Labor Party convention scheduled there on the twelfth. They were joined by Single Tax advocates, who pushed for raising public revenue from land and privileges rather than from income and sales. Other participants included the Northwest Farmers' National Council, the Triple Alliance of the Northwest, the Consumers' League, and the socialist Non-Partisan League (off on a tangent about which I would like to go next Saturday. Stay tuned I hope you will).

"Now All Together for Victory" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, July 12, 1920

The merger got off to a smooth enough start. On July 13, the Forty-Eighters, Non-Partisans, and Single Taxers voted to merge with the Labor Party. Delegates at the Labor Party convention voted overwhelmingly to accept them in, and the Farmer-Labor Party was born.

"The Frog's Banquet..." by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, July 16, 1920

But the harmony was short-lived once everyone sat down to work out a party platform. Derided by Illinois Federation of Labor president John Walker as "plutocratic philanthropists, lawyers and professional men who endeavor to solve the problems of the working people without themselves being members of that class," the leadership of the Forty-Eighters found themselves outnumbered by the more radical elements of the new party; even its name was a rejection of Committee of 48 desires.

"Not Conservative Enough for Me" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, July 17, 1920

The very next day, the Single Taxers pulled out from the new party over what appeared to be the likelihood of it nominating Bob LaFollette for president, and the rejection of a single tax plank in the party platform. Adopting their own single-plank platform, the Single Taxers nominated Robert Macauley of Philadelphia instead. (He, and running mate Richard Barnum of — wait for it — Ohio would get a measly 5,750 votes in November. By comparison, even American Party candidate James Ferguson, who was on the ballot only in Texas, got 47,968.)

The remaining Farmer-Labor delegates, however, insisted on a party platform LaFollette could not accept: in favor of the League of Nations, Irish independence, recognition of Soviet Russia, and nationalization of all industry and raw materials. He declared that he would not be their candidate. With that, the Forty-Eighters, save for a few western members, also quit the party.

"Getting Nowhere" by John H. Cassell in New York Evening World, by July 23, 1920

John Cassel here makes reference to the America's Cup race underway at the time.

Assessing the damage and answering IFL president Walker, LaFollette confidante Gilbert Roe told the press, "There isn't a more intolerant intellectual in this country than the labor leader is. You must understand you are not going to dictate to the intellectuals any more than the intellectuals are going to dictate to you."

The Forty-Eighters recognized that running their own candidate for President was pointless, but they lent their support to a handful of successful midwestern candidates in 1922 and LaFollette's 1924 presidential candidacy on the Progressive Party ticket.

"The Third Party" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, July/August, 1920

Meanwhile, the Farmer-Labor party drafted Utah lawyer Parley P. Christensen as its standard bearer in the 1920 election, and he pulled a fairly respectable 265,398 votes in November. Would you like to guess which state his running mate was from?

Read All About It

"It's Your Next Draw" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, June 18, 1920

Like the Republicans before them, when the 1920 Democratic National Convention met June 28 to July 6, there was no clear front runner among the possible candidates.

"Anybody, Good Lord" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, June, 1920

San Francisco hosted the Democrats, so here's a cartoon by the hometown cartoonist, Gustavo A. Bronstrup. There were at least fourteen active Democratic candidates for the nomination, and several states sent delegations that weren't committed to any of them. It was anybody's game.

"It Took the Whole Family to Chloroform It" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, July 3, 1920

If there was any candidate in the front of the pack, it was Former Treasury Secretary William MacAdoo. But MacAdoo was stymied by his father-in-law, incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, who clung to the unreasonable hope that the party would overlook his extremely poor health and nominate him for a third term.

"It's a Long, Long Way to San Francisco" by Albert Reid in The National Republican, ca. June 14, 1920

Another hopeless aspirant was three-time loser William Jennings Bryan, an advocate of U.S. neutrality in World War I who had quit as Wilson's Secretary of State in 1915. Republican Albert Reid's cartoon greatly overstates Bryan's differences with Wilson's foreign and domestic policies; Bryan had put his doubts about the League of Nations aside to give it public support. He and Wilson agreed on pushing for laborers' 8-hour workday (Bryan believed more strongly on their right to strike than Wilson did), and both came around to favor female suffrage.

"Outside the Convention Door" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Collier's Weekly, July 3, 1920

The issue most associated with Bryan in 1920, however, was Prohibition. Bryan's push for the strictest possible party plank in favor of Prohibition put him dead set against "Wet" candidates such as Governors Al Smith of New York and Edward Edwards of New Jersey.

"Little Hans Stopping the Hole in the Dike" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, June/July, 1920

Bryan stood adamantly against the "Wets" calling for total repeal of Prohibition, and also against "Moist" planks allowing the production and sale of cider, light wines, and 3.2% alcoholic beer. It may or may not have been the most contentious issue at the convention; it certainly was of great interest to newspaper reporters and cartoonists.

"The Substitute" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, July, 1920

Hometown cartoonist Bronstrup suggested that if Bryan had his way, the Democratic party might need a new cartoon symbol to replace its donkey. Bryan's "Bone Dry" plank met defeat, however.

"They Never Saw Him" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News, July, 1920

The Democratic platform passed without any statement on Prohibition; it also settled for wishy-washy platitudes in support of the people of Ireland and Armenia.

I haven't been able to find any cartoon delving into as many platform issues as the one on the GOP platform by John McCutcheon, so here's one by Orville Williams bemoaning the Democrats' plank in favor of Wilson's League of Nations. (In case your screen is too small, that's Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson levitating back there.)

"Off the Trail" by Orville P. Williams in New York American, June/July, 1920

After 44 ballots over four days (including July 4), the convention finally agreed on a presidential candidate at 1:40 a.m. Pacific Time on July 6: Governor James Middleton Cox of Ohio.

"What, Another One?" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times Picayune, July, 1920

That both major political parties' presidential nominees were Ohioans was fodder for the immediate batch of editorial cartoons.

"An Awkward Moment for Mother" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1920

"Centering Right Over Ohio" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, July, 1920

The cartoonist for Cleveland, Ohio's socialist weekly, however, was not particularly impressed.

"Introducing the 'Peepul's Choice'" by Keas in The Toiler, Cleveland, OH, July 9, 1920

Not only were Harding and Cox both from the same state, they both also came to politics after starting their careers in newspapers: Harding as publisher-editor of the Marion Star, and Cox as a copy editor at the Dayton Daily News.

"The Political Ouija" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, July, 1920

(Ouija boards were all the rage among editorial cartoonists in 1920. I must have come across hundreds of cartoons about them.)

"Competition Among Ohio Newsies" by Harry Keys in Columbus Citizen, February, 1920

In his congratulatory message to the Democratic nominee, Warren Harding took note of the above cartoon Harry Keys had drawn for the Columbus Citizen the previous February: "I recall a much remarked cartoon which portrayed you and me as newsboys contending for the White House delivery. It seems to have been prophetic."

"Why Not a Newspaper Cabinet?" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post Dispatch, July, 1920

Daniel Fitzpatrick has a bit of fun with the coincidence, casting a number of newspaper comic strip characters as the cabinet of the future president.

"Going to Press with the Second Edition" by Claude Shafer in Cincinnati Post, July, 1920

After all, what is the point of having a newspaper without any cartoons?