Clean-up in Aisle Beback

Today's Graphical History Tour catches up on a few news items from a century ago that we left unresolved last Saturday, and had overlooked in previous episodes.

We'll start with the inconclusive federal election in Canada, in which the coalition government of Liberals and Progressives suffered significant losses, but without giving the Conservatives a majority in Parliament.

"Tit for Tat" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, Nov. 2, 1925

A major issue in the 1925 campaign particularly a propos today was tariffs against United States imports: the Conservatives wanted them raised, while the Liberals and Progressives were opposed. I posted some Canadian cartoonists' arguments for and against higher tariffs last week; Ed LeCocq, filling in for "Ding" Darling at the Des Moines Register, is the only cartoonist from across the line I've found addressing the issue.

"After the Assault" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Nov. 3, 1925

Cartoons by "Passepoil" in last week's installment showed Baptiste Ladébauche, the characterization of French Canada, mocking Québécois Conservative Esioff-Léon Patenaude. This cartoon by Sam Hunter in Toronto, with his own version of M. Ladébauche, cheered Patenaude's election loss as a rebuff to "Montreal big interest dictation" and "Montreal Star dictation." The "Noble Lord" in the cartoon is the founder of the Montreal Star, Sir Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan, who had sold the newspaper earlier that year but still had a hand in its management.

By the way, it seems that at least for now the identity of "Passepoil" will have to remain a mystery. His cartoons on the front page of Le Canada stopped abruptly after the 1925 election. Since his version of Baptiste Ladébauche was virtually identical to that of Albéric Bourgeois, I have to wonder whether those two cartoonists were one and the same.

"And the Cat Came Back" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Nov. 5, 1925

Over at the Montreal Star, A.G. Racey was hugely disappointed that Prime Minister William Mackenzie King was back at Canada's doorstep in spite of his party having lost 18 seats in Parliament — including his own.

King managed to stay in Parliament by getting one of the other members of his party to resign so that King could run in his place. Somehow that's perfectly acceptable in a parliamentary system, even though King had represented a Toronto, Ontario neighborhood, and the guy who gave up his seat for him represented Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

In my country, we call that carpetbagging.

"When the Western Train Comes In" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Nov. 17, 1925

Sam Hunter used a different baggage reference to depict the Conservative and Liberal leaders wooing Progressive leader Robert Forke. The Progressives' 22 seats would be more than Conservative leader Arthur Meighen needed for a majority, but not enough to do the same for King's Liberals. Ideologically, however, they had little in common with Meighen's party.

"Still Going Strong" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Nov. 4, 1925

I have overlooked some of the other elections taking place in the fall of 1925, the most prominent of which in the U.S. was for mayor of New York. I presume that since William Randolph Hearst supported the incumbent, John Hylan, cartoonists for his New York newspapers were obliged to do the same; I unfortunately do not have any examples of them. Brooklyn Daily Eagle cartoonist Nelson Harding, on the other hand, attacked him relentlessly throughout his term in office.

"Trimming His War Bonnet" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 9, 1925

Hylan, a somewhat dull-witted fellow who was not a particularly good public speaker, lost the Democratic Party primary in September to flashy man-about-town Jimmy Walker, a protegé of Governor Al Smith. Charismatic and benefiting from a smear campaign out of Tammany Hall, Walker easily bested the Republican candidate, pen magnate Frank Waterman, by 35 percentage points, and would go on to be one of the city's most colorful, albeit not ethical, mayors.

"Washington Bedtime Story" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, Nov. 1, 1925

Updating this page's cartoons of Wisconsin's special election of Robert M. La Follette, Jr., to succeed his late father in the U.S. Senate, we have a belated Hallowe'en cartoon by Ed LeCocq. "Young Bob" was elected as a Republican, but with the active opposition of the national GOP. Republicans grudgingly accepted his landslide win as at least adding to their numerical majority in the Senate, trusting that, as the Senate's most junior member, he wouldn't be as much of a problem to them as La Follette Sr. had been.

"Nathan Hale—Mitchell" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Nov. 2, 1925

Wisconsin has a tie to one other news item that I've overlooked: Army Brigadier General Billy Mitchell was demoted to colonel, then court-martialed for insubordination in November of 1925. A commander of all American air combat units in France during World War I, he advocated after war publicly and strongly that the next war would be fought in the air, necessitating the creation of a separate Air Force.

"Chief Witness for the Defense" by W.A. Rogers in Washington Post, Nov. 3, 1925

This antagonized Army and Navy brass, who were more interested in beefing up the nation's fleet of battleships, particularly because he accused them of "an almost treasonable administration of the national defense."

"Did I Get Him" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, ca. Nov. 14, 1925

Convicted of insubordination in December, Mitchell resigned his military commission the following February. Later events would vindicate Mitchell's views, although the Army refused to reverse Mitchell's court-martial conviction on the grounds that, right or wrong, he had still been insubordinate. World War II led to establishment of the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

By then, Mitchell had been dead for eleven years. He is buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city whose international airport has borne his name since 1941.

No Kings, Canadian Style

Last month, we took our Graphical History Tour to the special election in Wisconsin that sent Robert La Follette Jr. to the U.S. Senate. That was so much fun, that today, we're heading north of the border to kibbitz on the  general election Canada held one month later.

"Are We Downhearted" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, Oct. 1, 1925

Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was forced to call for a general election after the budget presented by his government was rejected by the Canadian Parliament in September, 1925. King's party held the most seats in Parliament (118), but claimed a majority only because of the tepid support of the four-year-old Progressive Party (58 seats). The Conservatives led by Arthur Meighen came to the October 29 election with only 49 seats; another five seats were held by Independent Labour and United Farmers of Alberta.

"Sweeping Everything Under the Bed" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 5, 1925

The Conservatives' number one issue was their proposal to raise tariffs on imported goods, a policy opposed by the Liberals and especially the Progressives, whose constituency of prairie province farmers would be hurt by barriers to imports and exports. The issues swept under the bed here were railway and ocean rates and Senate reform.

"The Idol and the Sacrifice" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 2, 1925

Conservative stalwart A.G. Racey depicted the Liberals' low-tariff policies in the direst of ways: in one cartoon after another, his eastern Canada was at the mercy alternately of a dagger to the heart, a bludgeon to the head, and a rope to the throat.

"What a Protective Tariff Wall Has Done for the U.S.A." by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 12, 1925

In contrast, Racey pointed across the line to Calvin Coolidge's United States, where high tariffs appeared coupled with unparalleled prosperity. He could not, or would not, foresee how Herbert Hoover's United States would fare.

"Her Favorite Song" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 28, 1925

Racey's endorsement of Smoot-Hawley-style tariffs was shared by the conservative Toronto Evening Telegram, which may or may not have had an editorial cartoonist of its own; its archives for 1925 are not available on line. Sam Hunter at the Toronto Star twits the rival newspaper's editorial enthusiasm for copying the U.S. model by depicting "Tely" accompanying Meighen and Ontario Premier G. Howard Ferguson as they sing the U.S. national anthem.

"When Forke Pulls the Rope, What Happens" by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 1, 1925

In case depicting Prime Minister King stabbing, bludgeoning, and garroting hapless Quebeckers didn't work, A.G. Racey had another line of attack: arguing that the real threat came from Robert Forke, leader of the Progressive Party, the junior partner in the Prime Minister's governing coalition.

The Progressives were a fractious bunch, having suffered from party defections in the few years in elective office. By and large, however, their power center was in the central plains provinces, and were more opposed to high tariffs than the Liberals were.

"Devinette" by Passepoil (?) in Le Canada, Montréal , Oct. 8, 1925

Across town at the francophone Le Canada, its cartoonist answered Racey's October 1 question with a cartoon depicting a masked man festooned with dollar signs (a Yankee, I presume) wielding the rope around the necks of Meighen and his Québécois lieutenant, Esioff-Léon Patenaude, a former Conservative cabinet minister and member of the province's National Assembly.

I have not found any background of the cartoonist who signed his cartoons as Passepoil — son nom de plume? — if I'm reading it correctly. (I've cleaned up the out-of-focus scans of Le Canada as much as I can; I could be mistaken about the name.) The character thumbing his nose and replying "Not a darn!" is Baptiste Ladébauche, originally created by Hector Berthelot in 1877. A boisterous, roguish, and merry old peasant popularized by Albéric Bourgeois, Baptiste was the personification of French Canada, roughly the equivalent of Uncle Sam for the U.S.

Baptiste’s retort here, in English, is as it appeared in the original cartoon.

"That Meighen-Nationalist Alliance" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 16, 1925

For his part, Liberal cartoonist Hunter warns his Toronto readership that Meighen would be beholden to Patenaud and his Québécois supporters. The wedding car of Meighen and “Nationale” is tailed by “Compulsory French in Canada's Schools," "Anti-Imperialism" (opposition to British and U.S. influence), and "Quebec First.”

"What the Solid Bloc Would Let Quebec In For" by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Oct. 22, 1925

Was it the Liberals and Progressives themselves that A.G. Racey feared, or was he merely trying to gin up Quebecker resentment of Canadians out west? He certainly opposed "anti-imperialism," instead charging that Quebec would be shaken down by "Western Domination." 

The one supposedly wasteful project he listed, "the useless Hudson Bay Railway," is an 810-mile (1,300-km) track connecting Churchill, Saskatchewan to Flin-Flon, Manitoba begun some twenty years earlier to open up grain exports to Europe. Its construction was suspended during World War I, and it didn't yet reach Hudson Bay until construction resumed in 1926. The Canadian government would take over the line in 1929, eventually selling it to private ownership in 1997.

"Les Croque-Morts" by Passepoil in Le Canada, Montréal, Oct. 23, 1925

Baptiste Ladébauche holds a sheet of figures purporting to show how well the economy is doing, while the black hooded figure behind Rodolphe Monty (a Conservative candidate in Montreal), Meighen, and Patenaude holds a picket with the Conservatives' slogan, eerily prescient of one of the U.S. presidential candidates last year: "The country is in ruins; only Meighen can save it."

"A 'Party' Call" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 26, 1925

Sam Hunter also predicted that Canada would not be receptive to Conservatives' Cassandra calls of "blue ruin."

"My Moose, Mr. King" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Oct. 30, 1925

But when the votes were counted on October 29, Hunter had to acknowledge that the outcome was, at best, in doubt. Liberals lost 18 seats to the Conservatives, including Mr. King's. Progressives fared even worse, losing 36 of the 58 seats they started out with.

Yet even though the Conservatives more than doubled their previous representation in Parliament, they still fell eight members short of a majority, with none of the other parties interested in a coalition with them.

"On the Carpet" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, Oct. 31, 1925

Instead of leaving office, Prime Minister King persuaded a member of his caucus in a safe riding to resign so that King could stand for election there. The minority coalition government of Liberals and Progressives would be short-lived, thanks to a scandal already brewing in the Customs Department; but at three days, the Conservative government of Arthur Meighen that followed has the distinction of being the shortest in Canadian history.