Auf Wiedersehn to Arms

To follow up on last Saturday's post on U.S. domestic issues 100 years ago this month, here are some of the foreign affairs popping up in the news in October, 1921. Let's start with an Aussie cartoonist:

"The Disarmament Conference" by Will Donald, for Federated Press and Australian Worker, October, 1921

Washington D.C. was gearing up to host a big disarmament conference with European powers, China, and Japan in November.

I'm a little puzzled by the "Harding Hot Air" paper on the table in this cartoon, and I wonder if it might be an addition by an American editor. The man at the head of the table bears no resemblance to President Harding, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, or Secretary of War John Weeks. He bears a slight resemblance to Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes, except that P.M. Hughes sported a mustache.

Federated Press was headquartered in Chicago, and provided news coverage and features to labor and socialist publications from 1920 to 1946. Aussie Will Donald's wide-ranging cartooning career included drawing for the Australian Worker (published 1890-1950), the newspaper of the Australian Workers' Union.

"You Folks Can't Take That Junk Aboard..." by Leo Bushnell for Central Press Features, ca. Oct. 15, 1921

A primary focus of the conference was on participants' interests in East Asia and the Pacific. Japan was interested in formalizing a sphere of influence that included Siberia, Mongolia, Tsingtao, Manchuria, and Pacific islands such as Yap. Great Britain, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, on the other hand, with their colonial possessions in south and east Asia, wanted Japan kept in check. 

"The Same Thing All the Others Are Saying..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Collier's, Oct. 15, 1921

The gender of "Ding" Darling's Mrs. National Pride notwithstanding, many historians say that western nations' extending the vote to women was a significant factor in pushing arms control to the fore.

The American public certainly viewed the primary goal of the conference as reducing armaments, and it indeed kept the naval arms race among the U.S., Great Britain, and Japan from getting completely out of hand. It produced the first multilateral arms agreement among nations, and the conference is generally viewed as a success.

It also established Japan as a major naval and colonial power in the region, allowing it to build a navy to rival those of Great Britain and the U.S., and larger than either those of France or Italy.

"He's Better Off on Board" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Sept., 1921

According to McCutcheon, Japanese and European eagerness to secure their empires in the Far East was reason enough for the United States to continue its occupation of the Philippines. Sure, it was in direct violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but we couldn't allow some other country to take over our colony!

A number of postwar issues still remained to be settled within Europe, starting with shoving Germany's eastern borders westward.

"Völkerbundsrat" by Hans-Maria Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Oct. 30, 1921

This cartoon is a hoot, coming from a cartoonist living in a (formerly) colonial power. I'd lay even odds that Kaiser Wilhelm would have had difficulty locating Yap on a globe despite making decisions for the locals in what was then a German possession.

Upper Silesia had been the southeasternmost corner of Germany prior to the Treaty of Versailles; since then (except during World War II), nearly all of it is on Poland's southern border.

"A Persistent Romeo" by William Hanny in St. Joseph News-Press, Oct. 24, 1921

Since we last checked in on postwar Hungary, its communist government had been overthrown in 1919 by Romanian troops, who were in turn succeeded by a homegrown military government — which promptly clamped down on communists, socialists, labor unions, immigrants, and, quelle surprise, Jews. The new government declared Hungary a kingdom once again. 

An unemployed former emperor, Karl Hapsburg, twice applied for the job of King of Hungary; but in the face of threatened invasion by Hungary's neighbors, the job went instead to Miklós Horthy, an admiral in the Austro-Hungarian navy, who reigned as regent until 1946. Karl was instead exiled to Madeira, where he died the following April at age 34.

"Since Nobody's Lookin'" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, Oct. 7, 1921

Meanwhile, back where the whole Great War Mess started, the various southern Slavs still were busy stirring up trouble. The 1920s would be marked with a series of Balkan War flare-ups as the various ethnic groups scattered amongst each other in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire's southern territories fought for local supremacy.

"Auch ein Tod fürs Vaterland" by Erich Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, Oct. 12, 1921

But the world had just fought a War To End All Wars, so there really wasn't anything to worry about, was there?

Grumpy Christmas!

Impeachment? What impeachment? Santaback Saturday is ready to celebrate Christmas — 1919.

Detail of "The Rectangle" by Frank O. King in Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1919

The bottom half of Frank King's "The Rectangle" presented a host of gags typical of the complaints about the High Cost of Living (the top half of his page having become the domain of Gasoline Alley at this point). I could fill this post up with them; but I already did that for Thanksgiving, and December of 1919 provided editorial cartoonists with less evergreen material, so let's move on.

Detail of "The Tiny Tribune" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, December 23, 1919

On December 21, 1919, the United States deported 249 non-citizens accused of communist or anarchist activity, shipping them to Russia (by way of Finland) aboard the USAT Buford, variously nicknamed the Soviet or Red Ark. Among them were Mother Earth founder Emma Goldman and fellow anarchist leader Alexander Berkman.

"The Christmas Spirit" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, December 22, 1919

184 of the other passengers were members of the Union of Russian Workers arrested in the Palmer Raids (named for Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer) in November. A major player in those raids, who then personally saw the deportees off at the New York docks, was an up-and-comer in the FBI named J. Edgar Hoover.

"The Reds' Christmas" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, December 24, 1919

As John McCutcheon and others predicted, many of those deported soon became disillusioned with the Russian government's suppression of free speech and association. Goldman and Berkman left Russia in 1921 after the Kremlin ruthlessly quashed a revolt by Kronstadt sailors, a group who had been among the Bolsheviks' earliest supporters.

"'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Bruce Stevenson in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 21, 1919

Meanwhile, Bruce Stevenson had some advice for Americans who didn't want to be shipped to Moscow on the next boat. Some people think all editorial cartoons should be like his: clearly drawn, patriotic, uplifting, and hopelessly dull. Consider this my Merry Christmas gift to those people.

Working for the same newspaper, Nelson Harding used his space to highlight world news with a local angle.

"The Empty Stocking" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 26, 1919

A Brooklyn businessman returning from months in Europe, Theodore Genter, described a continent in dire straits. Of Austria he told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "Her cupboard is bare. She is going to the wall, and I don't think all the powers of Europe in conjunction with America can save her." Elsewhere, a cold winter lay ahead: "England's coal production has fallen off 46%. Belgium has ceased to export coal. The French have not the cars in which to export it. ... All Europe is on coal rations."

"Barmherzigkeit!" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, December 7, 1919

If England and France were sharing in the postwar suffering, you wouldn't know it from the work of German cartoonist Werner Hahmann. His thin and threadbare German Michel shares his scraps of bread with the starving and destitute Viennese, while plump and wealthy French Marianne and British John Bull pass blithely by. The quotation underneath the cartoon excerpts the apocryphal Acts of Andrew.

"O Du Fröhliche —" by Ernst Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, December 24, 1919

German cartoonists were ready, willing and able to one-up any High Cost of Living cartoon from their American counterparts. The "ghastly doll" in Hahmann's cartoon below is labeled "Peace Treaty"; the portrait on the wall is of German Foreign Minister Hermann Müller, a signatory of the treaty.

"Keine Weihnachsfreude" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, December 14, 1919

O Freunde, nicht diese Toons! Sondern laßt uns angenehmere schließen und freudenvollere.

I close today's episode with a couple of cartoons from the January, 1919 edition of Cartoons Magazine, which its editors may have saved from earlier Christmases and are therefore not necessarily topical. This cartoon by Billy Ireland, however, prefigures present-day sheep-shooter Donald Trump Jr.

"Confidentially, We Are Planning to Pick Up a Deer" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. Dec. 1918

I leaves you with wishes for the happy holidays of your choice, and thanks for letting me catches your eye!

"I Looks Toward You All..." by Clive Weed in Philadelphia Public Ledger, ca. Dec. 1918

At the End of the War to End All Wars

Surrenderback Saturday today observes the centennial of the end of World War I with a quick survey of the editorial cartoons that appeared in America's newspapers on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.

"Licked" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 11, 1918

Kaiser Wilhelm Hohenzollern having abdicated days earlier, Germany surrendered to the Entente powers effective at 11:00 a.m. Paris Time, November 11. It accepted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points as the basis for the post-war world and agreed to pay heavy reparations to the victorious allies.

"Humanity's Greatest Day" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, November 11, 1918

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had launched the war in 1914, no longer existed; Vienna looked on, spent and helpless, as its various Slavic groups established break-away republics and Hungary divorced in the "Aster Revolution" of October 31. On November 11 Emperor Karl I stepped away from active participation in Austria's affairs of state (although he did not officially abdicate).

"Thank God!" by John H. Cassel in New York Evening World, November 11, 1918

Most of the American cartoons I have found, however, focused on Kaiser Wilhelm's fate.

"How the Mighty Fall" by Winsor McCay in New York Journal, November 11, 1918

World War I marked the last gasp of royalty as the basis of government in most of Europe. Leftist revolutions took over in Berlin and Vienna, and republics of various stripes took root throughout Mitteleuropa where Kaiser Wilhelm had planned to crown Germanic monarchs, as well as in the former Viennese vassal lands. In most remaining countries with a crowned head of state, elected legislatures would do the actual governing.

"A Mute Inglorious End" by C.F. Naughton in Duluth Evening Herald, November 11, 1918

Yet monarchy was not the only institution to take a beating. Military technology had progressed greatly in the few years since the 19th Century. For the first time, war could be fought in the air (essentially by amateurs and hobbyists) and underwater, and with a long-range gun located nearly 100 kilometers from its target. Chemical weapons killed and maimed even those sheltering in their trenches. Most deadly, however, were the rapid-fire machine guns and the improved accuracy of artillery, many times more fatal than the blunderbusses and cannons of old; yet the generals on both sides insisted on the outdated tactic of sending wave after wave of soldiers "over the top" into the line of fire.

"Germany Does Not Regret the Kaiser's Ghastly Murders..." by Charles Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, November 11, 1918

Those soldiers who managed against the odds not to be mowed down by enemy fire returned home disillusioned by the incompetence and stubbornness of their commanding officers. As a result, in stark contrast with those of earlier wars, the memorials and statues to World War I (and our observance of Veterans' Day) celebrate the common soldier and not the commanding general.

"On Their Way," unsigned (Harry Murphy, perhaps?) in Washington (DC) Times, November 11, 1918

A poem by British soldier Wilfred Owens, included in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, twists the biblical account of Abraham and Isaac:

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenched there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! and angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so,
but slew his son, —
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

"Get a New Chauffeur, I Resign!" by "Bill" Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, November 11, 1918

Even though the allies' victory was assured several days before Germany surrendered, the fighting continued right up to the stroke of 11:00 November 11. As a final tribute to the ghastly pointlessness of the military strategy of those "old men," some 2,000 sons on both sides were killed in those final eleven hours of the war.

"The Goth and the Flame" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November, 1918

The victorious allies sowed the seeds for the end of their colonial empires. Asian and African people who had seldom or never known popular rule saw the Entente powers grant self-determination to the people of eastern Europe and saw no reason why their fate should be any different. But Germany's colonies and the Ottoman Empire were divvied up among the European victors instead, without regard to their subjects' ethnic, religious and tribal identities — with repercussions that continue to echo a century later.

"Across No-Man's Land" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, November, 1918

Punishing terms imposed upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles led to the Nazi's "Make Germany Great Again" nationalism, and to the Great War's sequel in 1939-45.

"When a Feller Needs a Friend" by Clare Briggs in New York Tribune, November, 1918

Emerging from the war relatively unscathed, the United States took over from London as the seat of global finance, launching a robust economy for the next decade. For many, this was a time for optimism that the cause of democracy was on the ascendancy around the world (by which we meant Europe).

"From the Ashes of Despotism" by Sidney Greene in New York Evening Telegram, November 11, 1918

Further to the left, the world socialist movement saw the end of the war as their chance to overthrow the forces of capitalism and plutocracy. A mutiny by German sailors at Wilhelmshaven at the end of October spread, fueled by socialist unrest, and sent Kaiser Wilhelm fleeing into exile on November 9.

It's unfortunate that The Masses had been shut down, scattering its cartoonists to the winds; but I still have an example for you of a radical left-wing cartoon from the socialist New York Call. (Ryan Walker's cartoon in the November 11 issue had no relevance to war or peace, so here's his cartoon from the next day.)

"My Place Is in the Sun!" by Ryan Walker in New York Call, November 12, 1918

Walker's cartoon depicts the "Worker" demanding his place in the sun from human figures Capitalism, Militarism, Profiteer (plus two others I can't read) and a snake labeled "Reactionary Press." Under his feet are the ruins of Russian, German and Austrian autocracy. And since I relaxed the deadline to include Ryan Walker, here's the November 12 cartoon by Clifford Berryman, who didn't get a cartoon in his paper the previous day.

"Me Und—Napoleon" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Times, November 12, 1918

While cartoonists across the United States were celebrating the fall of the Kaiser and the triumph of democracy, readers of the Des Moines Register's front page on November 11 were treated to a more somber message from the pen of John "Ding" Darling. Every party needs its pooper.

"Now All She Has to Do..." by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, November 11, 1918

Tune in again next week for a look at what European cartoonists were up to in the immediate aftermath of the war.

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

This week's episode of Sneezeback Saturday catches (up on) the Spanish Influenza epidemic in the fall of 1918, which was at its worst in October.

"La Nouvelle Indisposition" by TEL in L'Homme Libre, Paris, August 24, 1918

But first, let's reach back to August, when the French cartoonist penning under the nom de plume "TEL" referenced the Spanish Flu in a cartoon about Spain's official letters of protest to Germany over the sinking of Spanish ships. Neutral in the war, Spain nevertheless lost a fifth of its merchant marine and at least 100 Spanish sailors to German torpedoes. In retaliation, the Spanish government threatened to confiscate an equal number of German ships if Germany did not guarantee safe passage for continued Spanish shipping.

"Speaking of Epidemics" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, September 25, 1918

There is a theory that Germany's defeat in the war was due in part to the Central Powers' armies being ravaged by the Spanish flu pandemic. That, and propaganda that the disease originated in Austria may or may not have helped inspire John McCutcheon's cartoon above. The Spanish flu was spreading through the Entente lines as well, however.

"Open a Window..." by Gaar Williams in Indianapolis News, Sept./Oct. 1918

As noted here before, the Spanish flu had nothing to do with Spain. The first documented case of the disease befell Private Albert Gitchell at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, Kansas in March of 1918; within a week, 100 more soldiers at Fort Riley had the disease, and it was spreading as the soldiers shipped out through New York to Europe.

"How to Get a Seat" by Maurice Ketten in New York World, October, 1918

Somehow, the contagion got the name Spanish flu even though there were no cases of the disease in Spain until November. In other European countries, wartime censorship kept the press from reporting the extent of the pandemic; the association of the disease with Spain may have had something to do with the lack of such wartime censorship there.

Detail from "The Rectangle" by Frank O. King in Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1918

We weren't about to let it be called "Kansan flu," you know.

"LaBarouche Toreador..." by J. McIsaac in Le Charivari, Montreal, Canada, October 19, 1918

Not that we actually fooled the rest of the world, or at least our neighbors to the north.

"Grand-dad Inadvertently Sneezed..." by William Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, October, 1918

In spite of the tens of thousands of their fellow citizens stricken with the deadly flu, American cartoonists seem to have had a flippant attitude toward the disease. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that there was a deliberate campaign to downplay public fears.

"That Guiltiest Feeling" by Clare Briggs in Chicago Tribune, October, 1918

Well, I don't know any better, so I'm going right ahead with my plans to suspect a conspiracy borne of wartime censorship.

"It Happens in the Best of Families!" by Sid Chapin in St. Louis Republic, October, 1918

P.S.: Have you gotten your flu shot yet?

Life During Wartime

After two Saturdays in a row rummaging through my own cartoons, it must be time to turn the clock back a full century and see what the Committee on Public Information's Office of Cartoons was suggesting to American editorial cartoonists in the summer of 1918. Let's see which issues that would survive World War I were showing up in these wartime cartoons.

"An Efficiency Expert at Work" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1918

McCutcheon's printing is tiny no matter how much you embiggen these cartoons, so here's a summary. Mr. Efficiency Expert recommends putting convicts to work making equipment for bridges, insane asylum patients to work in the ship camouflage department, and schools vacated during the summer to use teaching English "to every citizen who can't speak it." Lastly, for "the distillers and brewers likely to be closed next Jan.," he suggests putting them to work making liquid flame for the Kaiser.

"All Highest Has the Influenza" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1918

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed anywhere from 50- to 100-million people worldwide between January 1918 and December 1920. Kaiser Wilhelm was not one of them, but I wanted to include these cartoons just to be able to mention what remains one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history.

"Germany Suffers from the Grip" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, July 11, 1918

We don't know for sure where the pandemic started; various theories have pointed to Austria, northern China, and Haskell County, Kansas — but probably not Spain. (In Spain, the disease was nicknamed "el soldado de Nápoles.")  What is certain is that the wartime confluence and dispersal of soldiers and sailors is responsible for spreading the contagion to every continent and some of the remotest locations on Earth.

"Not Fatal" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 12, 1918

In a typical epidemic, the sickest patients stay home and don't spread the disease much farther than their own family; but in this instance, soldiers with the worst cases of the flu would be sent from the front in crowded trains to equally crowded field hospitals, facilitating widespread dispersal of the most virulent strains.

Moving on to lighter subjects:

"Snapshots" by Maurice Ketten (né Prosper Fiorini), in New York Evening World, ca. July 15, 1918

The characters in Ketten's slice of life cartoon regularly confronted the shortages and cultural changes brought about by the war. In this July cartoon, he poked fun at the price of shoe leather, women taking over jobs traditionally performed by men, and the peculiar if short-lived attempt to popularize what were called "cloth-saving suits" for men. This last measure was necessitated by shortages of wool; Germany dealt with the problem with the invention of paper-based fabrics. After the war, American and Britain would (pardon the expression) follow suit.

"Fall Styles, 1918" by Harry J. Tuthill in St. Louis Star, ca. June, 1918

Sending so many young men (and not-so-young men; the draft now included men in their 40's) off to the trenches, ships and airfields abroad meant that women were needed to take their place in the labor market. Harry Tuthill didn't foresee Rosie the Riveter just yet, but turning urban housewives into household breadwinners completely undercut one of the last remaining arguments against extending women the vote.

"The False Patriot" by ? (Al Zere? Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman?), ca. July 8, 1918

I recently heard an interview with the author of a new book about Herbert Hoover; the author believes that Hoover got a raw deal from other historians because he is judged solely for his response to the Great Depression. Hoover isn't mentioned in these particular July cartoons, but his name was intimately associated with wartime rationing and belt tightening measures. In a way, this must have set him up for the popular resentment when that austerity returned under Hoover eleven years later in peace time.

"Fight Behind the Lines" by John Cassel in New York World, June 24, 1918

Meanwhile, back in 1918, the Office of Cartoons surely recommended combating any discontent such as illustrated in "The False Patriot" (if I find the name of that cartoonist, I'll correct it here) with cartoons illustrating the reported bread shortages among the Central Powers. The Entente press played up accounts of demonstrations protesting food shortages, especially in Austria.

"Felix Fake May Be an Edison Yet" by C.F. Naughton in Duluth Evening Herald, June 12, 1918

Americans aren't much for hardship, but we'll put up with a lot as long as some enemy has it worse.

Front page notice in Duluth Evening Herald, July 13, 1918

But, oh, no! Not the free promotional copy of my newspaper!