Nor Any Drop to Drink

"He's Off Again" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Mar. 8, 1926

When you think of the 1920's, what comes to mind? A booming stock market? 

Attracting far too many to invest "on margin," the markets were inflated by investors borrowing against future profits. A sharp downturn in March of 1926 should have served as a warning of what was soon to come.

"His Nest Egg Hatches" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Mar. 20, 1926

The market suddenly lost billions of dollars — 1926 dollars, mind you — wiping out the savings of small investors like the one in Alley's cartoon. 

But Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon counseled calm. "The break does not touch fundamental conditions. It was the result of excessive speculation. I would have happened whatever business conditions were at the time. The effect is really wholesome. It provides a sort of 'evening up.'"

"Too Sound to Be Uprooted" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 4, 1926

Nelson Harding accepted the advice of Secretary Mellon, who continued, "If the market goes to far, it will get back again. All such movements go further than they should, until there is a reaction. There is action and reaction until they strike normal."

Harding's choice of a visual metaphor just goes to show how well Mr. Harding understood avalanches.

"Not Shaking the Mountain" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, ca. Mar. 11, 1926

The lessons against stock speculation are much easier to learn in hindsight. I can't claim any stock market expertise, either, so I don't charge these cartoons against Harding and Brown. 

But I can't figure out why Brown chose to label his Bulls and Bears, rather than to give them animal heads like any other cartoonist of the 20th Century would have.

"Dangit" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, March 13, 1926

Perhaps it's Prohibition that comes to your mind when you think of the 1920's.

Prohibition was a social reform movement that never quite took hold in the places where the social reformers saw the greatest need for social reform.

"Temptations" by Dean O'Dell in Dayton Daily News, March 18, 1926

Wets, as opponents of the Volstead Act were called, proposed in 1926 exempting beer and wine from Prohibition laws, reasoning that the cold turkey approach simply wasn't working. They also argued that the absence of legal liquor unintentionally benefited organized crime as it stepped in to fill the void.

"Now That's an Embarrassing Question" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. Mar. 12, 1926

Which brings us to Chicago gangsters.

As Billy Ireland suggested, Chicago's crime syndicates were taking advantage of a market for booze by Americans seeking to escape the enforced sobriety of the Volstead Act.

"Where There's a Will There's a Way" by James North in Washington [DC] Post, March 5, 1926

James North referred in this cartoon to the Chicago city motto, "I Will," adopted after its 1871 fire. His example of California vigilantism as a way to fight back against "lawlessness" seems counterproductive, if you ask me.

"There Was a Young Lady from Niger..." by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 4, 1926

The limerick Carey Orr cites as the parallel for how Chicago city hall had succumbed to organized crime has fallen out of favor among cartoonists. The suggestion of racism wasn't much of a factor; cartoonists tended to draw the young lady as a white person. Nor was it because nowadays Niger and Tiger don't rhyme; they didn't rhyme in 1926, either.

Nope, it's just one of those tropes that are too cliché.

Speaking of Chicago...

"Baiting Her Hooks for Her" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1926

"I Will" is on Miss Chicago's blouse in this Carey Orr cartoon commending Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover's endorsement of a plan for a nine-foot channel from Chicago to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. According to Mr. Hoover, the project would make every city on the Great Lakes a seaport.

"A Cheeky Theft" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, March 27, 1926

The Graphical History Tour has covered the Chicago waterway controversy before (see here). The project was strongly opposed by communities downstream, especially in Canada, where one rarely found Sam Hunter and Arthur Racey on the same side of an issue.

"Excellent Example" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, March 29, 1926

Hoover dismissed concern that diversion of Lake Michigan water south through Chicago would lower water levels in the natural flow of the lake's water to the St. Lawrence Seaway, claiming that five-sixths of the reduction already being experienced was due to a fluctuation in climate. The best way to settle the international lake level dispute, he told a Republican group in Chicago, would be to spend money on concrete and steel to regulate the water passing through Niagara Falls "instead of squandering it on lawyers."

•••

Well, folks, I hadn’t meant to end things right here, but a wind storm has apparently knocked out my internet service provider where I live, going on seven-plus hours as I write this, so I can’t upload any more graphic files to help wrap this up.

So have a pleasant respite between Friday the thirteenth and the Ides of March. Have some pi. See you when this all blows over.

Will You Be Mine?

'Tis February 14, and our Graphical History Tour turns lightly to thoughts of love!

Holidays of any sort are a godsend to editorial cartoonists, because we can just check the calendar, and thinking up our cartoon is halfway there. Is it Valentine's Day? Surely there's a job somewhere that would be just perfect for Mr. Cupid. 

Or his understudy.

"Love's Labor Lost" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, Feb. 13, 1926

Canada's Conservative Party leader Meighen continued to woo the Progressive Party for enough support to form an improbable coalition government, making for fairly obvious Valentine's Day cartoonistry. Conservatives had won more seats in Parliament than its rivals in the November, 1925 elections, whereas Liberals and Progressives had both lost seats; thanks to a very few minor party members, neither the Conservatives nor the pre-election Liberal-Progressive coalition could muster a governing majority.

"Saint Valentine's Day, 1926" by Arthur Racey in Montreal Star, Feb. 13, 1926

As a fan of the Liberals, Hunter was happy to lampoon the Conservatives' plight. Tory partisan A.G. Racey used the romantic holiday instead to complain about The Kids Today drinking and smoking and wearing rouge.

Who knew that St. Valentine wore glasses?

"Wanted a Valentine" by Clifford Berryman in Washington [DC] Sunday Star Feb. 14, 1926

Down in the States, Congress passed a tax cut bill that was deeper than the Coolidge administration had asked for. Clifford Berryman availed himself of the holiday to depict the bill as a surplus of valentine cards for Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.

"Valentines" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 13, 1926

Gustavo Bronstrup sent a tax cut Valentine to a happy taxpayer, and also drew valentine cards from Californians to their Governor (considering a run for federal office), from a traffic cop to a motorist (admonishing for breezing through red lights yet lingering at green ones), and the U.S. over the Senate's vote in favor of joining the World Court.

"A Hint to the Wise Should Be Sufficient" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, Feb. 14, 1926

Because of conditions included in that Senate bill, the U.S. never actually joined the World Court — nor the League of Nations — before they were dissolved in 1945. Accordingly, Ed LeCocq's Uncle Sam, despite his valentine to Mlle. League, had not gotten over his commitment issues.

"They Have the Exits and Their Entrances" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 14, 1926

Meanwhile, events were building that would test Uncle Sam's isolationist commitment to bachelorhood. Italy's il Duce was a topic of several Valentine's Day cartoons in 1926, and one that defied any allusion to love notes, flowers, and boxed chocolates.

Whereas editorial cartoonists today liken our modern fascist leaders to Mussolini and Hitler, cartoonists in the 1920's and '30's compared far-right politicians of their day to wartime foes of even earlier times.

"Römischer Karneval" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Feb. 14, 1926

Oskar Garvens's allusion to Napoleon rings somewhat more true than Daniel Fitzpatrick's to Kaiser Wilhelm, insofar as the most alarming part of a Mussolini speech to the Chamber of Deputies on February 6 were remarks that stopped just shy of declaring war against Austria and Germany. Denying alarmist complaints from Bavarian leaders that Italy had torn down a statue of a German poet and had also prohibited residents of former Austrian territories from having Christmas trees, Mussolini threatened, "Fascist Italy can, if necessary, carry her flag beyond the Brenner frontier" between Italy and Austria.

"Il re bambino" in Garvens's cartoon is Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III, known during World War I as "il Re Soldato" (the soldier king). At 56 years of age, the king was hardly a "bambino"; but his short stature was exaggerated by German cartoonists, especially after the Italian government broke antebellum agreements with Germany and sided with the Entente powers.

"Diplomacy's Sea Becoming Turbulent" by T.E. Powers for Star Newspapers, Feb. 13, 1926 

A few months earlier, Mussolini had celebrated the Locarno peace accords with a public rant, er, speech glorifying war. Mussolini's tirades full of bluster and bravado against Italy's neighbors alarmed leaders across the continent.

"Showing Off" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 14, 1926

Remind you of anyone?

Carey Orr's cartoon includes a laundry list of affronts to European diplomacy in addition to the latest "Insult to Germany": Fascisti defiance of France, Corfu insult to Greece, Threat to take control of Mediterranean from England, and Threat against Balkans. 

"Some of These Days He Will Puncture Himself Doing That" by Wm. Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 14, 1926 

Hubris will get you only so far. But that lesson would only come after another nine years and another World War.

Verdict of the Planet of the Apes

The Graphical History Tour has one more stop to at the Scopes Monkey Trial today. We've got exciting courtroom drama, a momentous verdict, and an unexpected twist at the end <Law & Order .wav>!

"The Monkey Hasn't a Word to Say" by W.A. Rogers in Washington Post, July 9, 1925

Given that President Coolidge, Congress, and the Supreme Court were all on their summer vacations, little Dayton, Tennessee became the center of the editorial cartooning world when the trial convened on July 10, 1925. Some cartoonists, such as Edmund Duffy, J.P. Alley, and Carey Orr, drew two or three cartoons per week about the trial.

After all, if there were only so many gags to be drawn about monkeys, the conflict between science and the Bible was a great source of inspiration — so too was the creationists' ardent defender William Jennings Bryan.

"The Volunteer Fireman" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 14, 1925

On the other hand, there were a few, for example Grover Page at the Louisville Courier-Journal, who did not produce a single cartoon about the trial during the entire month. I suppose that on this issue, Page might have had strong disagreements with his editors or publisher. Or his wife. 

"Fame" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, July 14, 1925

The Baltimore Sun — hardly a disinterested bystander, its publisher having put up the $500 (almost $9,200 in 2025 bucks) for teacher John T. Scopes's bail — sent their editorial cartoonist, Edmund Duffy, to cover the trial in person.

Courtroom sketches by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, July 16, 1925

In addition to his regular editorial cartoon, Duffy provided his newspaper with occasional sketches of the trial principals, witnesses, and by-standers.

"The Dayton War Cry" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, July 15, 1925

There is a rough, sketchy quality to Duffy's cartoons from Dayton. He didn't stick around to witness the second week of the trial; this next cartoon is more typical of his usual output.

"Let There Be Darkness" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1925

Cartooning for the prosecution, the Memphis Commercial Appeal's J.P. Alley defended his state's anti-evolution law and biblical inerrancy. 

"They Ought to Submit a Few 'Exhibits' to the Supreme Court" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 1, 1925

Alley correctly but disapprovingly noted that teacher John Scopes freely admitted having broken the law by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution, and that the defense's intention from the very beginning was to attack the law itself as unconstitutional.

I have noticed that all cartoonists gave John Scopes the title of "Professor," although those who drew him tended to cartoon the 24-year-old teacher diminutive and even childlike.

"4.4 Stuff" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 14, 1925

Here Alley twitted the out-of-state journalists and movie men descending upon little Dayton, Tennessee. Was the trial as disappointing as 4.4 ABV (alcohol by volume) beer? Alley may have been alone in that perception.

(4.4 ABV is light beer to you and me, but considerably more potent than the legal Prohibition limit of 0.5 ABV.)

"Darrow's Paradise" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 15, 1925

Tell us what you really think of "Dangerous Darrow," Mr. Alley.

"Her Bodyguard" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1925

Bravely staking out the middle ground, Carey Orr (who started his cartooning career in Tennessee) offered a defense here of religious faith, but dismissed anti-evolutionists as being of any particular importance to it. We shall get to Orr's regard for its chief spokesman presently.

"Sweet Punishment" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, July 22, 1925

In the last days of the trial, Darrow cross-examined Bryan on the stand — testimony later stricken by Judge Raulston — and Bryan in turn announced the questions he would have posed to Darrow had the judge allowed it.

Pressed by Darrow, Bryan proclaimed that he believed every word of the Bible to be true, although he couldn't answer Darrow's question about where Cain found a wife, how recorded Chinese history could be millennia older than biblical estimates of the planet's creation, or how the snake got around before God condemned it to crawl on its belly ("Do you know whether he walked on his tail or not?").  By the time Darrow brought up the creation of rainbows, both he and Bryan were shouting and pointing fingers in each other's face.

Darrow answered Bryan's questions outside the court. He did not believe in miracles, he said; asked whether he believed in the immortality of the soul, he answered, "I have been searching for proof of this all my life... and I have never found any evidence on the subject." 

Responding to other questions, Darrow said he found "much that is of value in the Bible" but that it was not divinely inspired; and that "the Christ prophesied in the Old Testament was a great Jew who should deliver his people from their physical bondage, and nothing else." 

"The Verdict" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, July 22, 1925

In the end, Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 ($1,837 adjusted for inflation), which came nowhere near covering the cost of the trial. In addition to routine court costs exceeding $300 and hundreds more spent by the prosecution, Scopes's defense lawyers had spent $20,000 to $25,000 bringing expert witnesses to Dayton, some of whom were barred by Judge Raulston of ever offering their testimony.

"Will the Gun Hurt" by Michael E. Brady in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 26, 1925

"When Shall We Three Meet Again" by Ed Gale in Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1925

Emboldened by the Scopes verdict, fundamentalist legislators elsewhere proposed laws similar to Tennessee's. A government clerk, Lauren Wittner, brought suit in Washington D.C. against the teaching of evolutionary theory in the nation's capital on the theory that an appropriations bill passed by Congress forbade the district from using federal funds "to teach disrespect for the Bible." 

"Migrating" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, July 25, 1925

The question appeared destined to be argued all the way to the Supreme Court. Darrow, however, gave notice that he would not represent the evolutionists any further.

Which leaves us with William Jennings Bryan.

"A Chip Off the Old Block" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1925

Bryan had been a prominent public figure for thirty years by the time of the Scopes Monkey Trial — a lifetime for some of the cartoonists our Graphical History Tour features today. Carey Orr, age 35 when he drew this cartoon, could therefore be forgiven for thinking that Bryan had been around since the Garden of Eden.

"Our Greatest Actor" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, July 17, 1925

Or if not since Adam and Eve, Orr suggested, how about these other Old Testament figures?

"Any Port in a Storm" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1925

First elected to Congress in 1890, Bryan was the Democrats' presidential nominee in 1896, 1900, and 1908. He was Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson, resigning in protest of U.S. entry into World War I. An active proponent of Prohibition, he remained at his party's center stage during their years in the political wilderness.

"You May Not Be For Him..." by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. July 26, 1925

"You may not be for him, but nevertheless, there he is," cartooned Billy Ireland as the Scopes Monkey Trial drew to a close. But suddenly, after thirty years on and off America's front pages, he wasn't.

"The Great Commoner" by Guy R. Spencer in Omaha Evening World Herald, July 28, 1925

Still in the town of Dayton, Bryan died on Saturday, July 26 in the home of Richard Rodgers, his host there during the Scopes trial. Bryan had given a stirring speech to townspeople that day, to great acclaim according to press reports. Telling friends that he had never felt better, he enjoyed a hearty meal and retired to his room for a nap. He succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage around 4:45 p.m. and was discovered by his chauffeur about 20 minutes later.

"Onward, Christian Soldier..." by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 28, 1925

As one would expect, cartoonists who defended Bryan, such as Guy Spencer from his home state and J.P. Alley, responded to his death with heartfelt eulogies. Even some dyed-in-the-wool Republicans heaped praise upon the longtime Democratic leader ....

"The Crusader" by Bill Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 28, 1925

"Epitaph for a Crusader" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1925

...even if not necessarily for his politics.

"To the Highest Court of All" by Jesse Cargill for King Features Syndicate, ca. July 28, 1925

I have not included all of the cartoons eulogizing William Jennings Bryan, but I must note that many of the cartoonists who had been lambasting him just days earlier, opted in lieu of drawing something nice to draw nothing at all. Of the cartoonists included above, Nelson Harding appears to have left on vacation as soon as the Scopes trial was over. Edmund Duffy, Ed LeCocq, and Michael Brady devoted their work for rest of July to other topics.

Carey Orr had yielded the editorial cartoonist's space on Chicago Tribune's front page back to John T. McCutcheon, but he still had to produce a cartoon for syndication. So he doffed his hat and took a bite out of it.

"Sorrow in the American Home" by Carey Orr syndicated by Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1925

It has been an extra long Graphical History Tour today, and I thank you for reading this far. Please remain seated until the tour has come to a complete stop, and make sure you have all your personal belongings with you as you disembark.

Raise the Hindenburg!

I had intended to post this last week, but if we have any motto at Graphical History Tours Ltd., it's "Better Late Than Never."

So here are the late election reports from Weimar Germany.

"Im Katastrophenjahr" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, May 4, 1925

He wasn't a candidate in the first round of Germany's presidential election in March, and he only reluctantly accepted the German People's Party nomination a week later, but when the votes were counted, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg had been elected President of the Weimar Republic.

Heine was probably being facetious captioning his cartoon "A united Germany has its President"; Hindenburg received less than half (48.3%) of the votes cast. 

"Goose Stepping Again" by Bill Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, April 28, 1925

Hindenburg was familiar to Americans (and no less to the French and the English) as the leader of the Imperial German Army during World War I. The 77-year-old Generalfeldmarschall’s military career dated from the Austrian-Prussian War in 1866; he tried retiring in 1911 only to be called back to active duty by Kaiser Wilhelmina. 

His electoral victory speech warned the extreme right and left against "rash adventures," and promised that he would govern as an independent.

"Let no one by any chance imagine that henceforth I shall take orders from any political party. The battle is over, and I honestly and unreservedly declare that I am ready to offer my hand to every German for the common task, and I include my former opponents." (Translation per O.D. Tolischus, Washington Herald, April 28, 1925)

"Der Lotse Besteigt das Schiff" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, May 10, 1925

Arthur Johnson's cartoon updates a famous cartoon by Sir John Tenniel in Punch, "Dropping the Pilot," depicting Otto von Bismarck, dismissed as Chancellor by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1890, heading down those stairs. 

"Dropping the Pilot" by John Tenniel in Punch, or the London Chiavari, March 29, 1890

The Tenniel cartoon is well-known in both Britain and Germany, and has been parodied many times when some powerful politician resigned or fell out of favor. It used to be an occasional reference in American editorial cartoons, too; but nowadays it would be an inside joke understood mainly by fellow editorial cartoonists. Your average editor today is more likely to understand a cartoon of Homer Simpson retreating into foliage.

"That Morning After Feeling" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, April 28, 1925

Speaking of cartoons that today's editors might have liked, Fitzmaurice's ambivalent regard of Hindenburg's election was very much an outlier among cartoonists in the nations of World War I's Entente. From what I've seen he doesn't seem to have been one for forceful opinions.

"Willie Has Hopes" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, Apr. 29, 1925

Hindenburg was a declared royalist, and ex-Kaiser Wilhelm Hohenzollern applauded his election, but a return by the Kaiser to the throne six years after the armistice was a far fetched scenario.

"Peek-a-Boo" by Edmund Duffy in The Independent, Boston, May 16, 1925

Alfred von Tirpitz, Admiral of the German Imperial Navy during the war, was responsible for convincing Hindenburg to enter the presidential race.

We left Erich Ludendorff singing forlornly on a mountain in a previous GHT. Coming in dead last in the first heat of the 1925 presidential election, Ludendorff, a vocal proponent of the Dolchstosslegende, the idea that Germany lost the war because of traitorous Germans "stabbing it in the back," withdrew from public affairs. He wasn’t missed. 

"The Black Eye" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Montreal, April 29, 1925

A.G. Racey's strong reaction against Hindenburg's election was typical of most western editorial cartoonists. But in fact, the German presidency was somewhat of a figurehead. The president had no authority to initiate policy, and the coalition behind him in the multi-party legislature did not hold a plurality of seats.

"In der Saddle Again" by Harold M. Talburt for Scripps-Howard, ca. Apr. 29, 1925

Harold Talburt proposed that the election of a monarchist president would be bad for the Germans themselves, burdened as they were with debt and reparations payments. The Kaiser, in the background, hopes to be pulled out of the mud, although nobody in the foreground appears to be equipped for a tow.

"Scaring France and Hurting Germany" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1925

Reaction to Hindenburg's election was especially hostile in France. Le Temps of Paris declared, "The election of von Hindenburg is a defiance to the allies and to America. It is not the political genius of the old man which is disquieting, it is the force of brutal revenge which is behind him." 

Poles and Czechs also responded with trepidation. The Austrian press were disappointed in Hindenburg's election as well, opining that it was a setback in hopes for a union of Austria with Germany. (I'm going to have to look up that Austro-Prussian War someday.) 

"The New Helmet Cover" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, April 28, 1925

For his part, Hindenburg sought to reassure the outside world:

"I affirm before the whole world that it has always been my holiest endeavor to prevent new horrors of war and to help to the utmost the victims of past wars. This aim can best be attained by unity, and to serve my people as leader in this sense will be my holiest task." — as reported by Associated Press

"His Hopes May Be Stronger Than His Ship" by Homer Stinson in Dayton Daily News, May 1, 1925

Perhaps alone among western cartoonists, Homer Stinson sang a note of optimism. 

Spoiler alert: Paul von Hindenburg might not have been what the rest of Europe needed to worry about.