Happy Fifth of Fourth

It's the Fifth of July and most of us still have all ten fingers, so in celebration of this extra long Independence Weekend, the Graphical History Tour sets the dial back five fourths of a century ago to July 4, 1900.

"Independence Day" by C.E. Toles in St. Paul Globe, July 4, 1900

We kick things off with an illustration by a cartoonist Allan Holtz called "the mysterious master." The highly stylized signature is a challenge to read; a researcher at the Library of Congress has concluded that the cartoonist was T.E. Coles, syndicated by the International Syndicate of Baltimore, but I lean toward those who have identified him as Claude Eldridge Toles, 1875-1901.

So, apparently, does Mr. Holtz, and that's plenty good enough for me.

I found this in the St. Paul Globe, where his work was featured regularly. Toles, however, lived his entire, brief life in New York state. (Any relation to the now retired Buffalo News and Washington Post cartoonist?)

"That Recent Trip to Lincoln, Neb." by R.C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, July 4, 1900

My posts featuring historical cartoons began with examples from the Minneapolis Tribune's book of Rowland C. Bowman's editorial cartoons for the year 1900 ― a book left to me by my Aunt Barbara Jensen and since donated to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum because I do not have a climate-controlled room suitable to preserve it. The book included several cartoons mocking Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, but not this one.

Bryan received the Democratic Party's nomination (for a second time) in Kansas City, Missouri on Independence Day, 1900, having already accepted the presidential nomination of the Populist Party. The Prairie Populist from Nebraska was not a favorite of the Eastern Establishment; but David Hill, a former New York Governor and Senator, had endorsed Bryan in 1896, partly due to his own rivalry with fellow New Yorker President Grover Cleveland. 

"Creating Business for the (Political) Undertaker" by Carter Simons in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1900

Hill is in the forefront of this Independence Eve Brooklyn Eagle cartoon (the Eagle did not publish on July 4), next to Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker. Hill was in serious contention for the Democrats' vice presidential nomination in 1900, but that went to Adlai Stevenson of Illinois instead.

Bryan had campaigned in 1896 on a platform of free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1, a position then popular in the rural west but strongly opposed by Cleveland and the "Gold Democrats." The "free silver" issue had lost some of its appeal by 1900, however, thanks in part to the Klondike gold rush.  

"Watching the Pinwheel Spin" by Leon Barritt in New York Tribune, July 4, 1900

In the meantime, the U.S. had taken possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines after winning the Spanish-American War. Bryan's new issue was anti-imperialism. The 19th Century "manifest destiny" of pushing the nation's borders all the way to the Pacific was one thing; becoming a colonial power on the other side of the globe (with new territories moreover populated by dark-skinned Catholics and heathens!) was another thing entirely.

"The Chicago Platform Applied in St. Louis" by John S. Pughe in Puck, New York, July 4, 1900

The major news and satirical magazines of the day, Harper's Weekly, Puck and Judge, were united in their opposition to Mr. Bryan. Pughe depicts Bryan cheering on the strike by St. Louis streetcar workers, begun in May and lasting until September, in which clashes between strikers on one side and scabs and law enforcement on the other resulted in 14 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

"The Hardest Thing He Ever Had to Swallow" by Wm. A. Rogers in Harper's Weekly, New York, July 7, 1900

Democrats accused the McKinley administration of being in the thrall of oil, sugar, copper, steel, and railroad barons — the "trusts" — and Republicans in turn claimed that Tammany Hall, and by extension the Democratic Party, was beholden to the Ice Trust. 

The Ice Trust had nothing to do with Immigrant Capture and Expulsion; rather, this was about American Ice Company's monopoly of the supply of frozen water in New York City. What rival ice suppliers the company, founded in 1899 by Charles W. Morse, couldn't buy out, it drove out of business by smashing their deliveries, or getting Tammany Hall to revoke their dock privileges. 

After one year in business, monopoly achieved, American Ice Company doubled its prices to consumers, who relied on delivered ice for food refrigeration. Public outcry and media pressure forced the company to relent, and also exposed that Croker and other Tammany Hall figures had significant investments in American Ice.

"Trade Follows the Flag" by Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman in Judge, New York, July 7, 1900

Mocking the establishment Democrats falling in line behind Bryan, "Zim" Zimmerman skewers both Bryan's 1896 campaign platform of free silver and his 1900 campaign message against U.S. imperialism. The saying "Trade follows the flag" dates to 1870 or earlier, with the meaning that colonialism expands the colonizer's commercial opportunities.

"The Temptation" by Felix Mahony in Washington Evening Star, July 4, 1900

At last some political cartoons that acknowledge Independence Day! 

"An Old-Fashioned Fourth" by Tubman K. Hedrick in St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 4, 1900

To Bryan's supposed chagrin, Hedrick in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat enthusiastically introduced the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee, New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, nominated at the Republicans' convention the week before the Democrats'.

Republicans risked ebullient, colorful Roosevelt overshadowing staid, businesslike McKinley at the head of their ticket. (You might draw a more recent comparison with John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.) For much of U.S. history, the vice presidency was a post from which its occupants were seldom heard from again; it didn't quite work out according to plan this time.

"Kansas City's Favorite Son" by Taylor in Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1900

At this point, you might be asking whether there were any editorial cartoonists not attacking William Jennings Bryan. (Was Taylor caricaturing the Prairie Populist in this cartoon, or complaining about Kansas City's summer weather?)

The great Homer Davenport gained fame lambasting Bryan's Republican opponent, President William McKinley, and his financial backer from Ohio, Mark Hanna, so I went hunting for his work during the Democratic National Convention. I haven't been able to find any of the Hearst or Hearst-supplied newspapers that ran Davenport's cartoons that week, unfortunately.

No caption, by Robert Edgren in San Francisco Herald & Examiner, July 4, 1900

Instead, here's one by another Hearst cartoonist, drawing Mark Hanna in a  dollar-sign suitcoat, copying a Davenport trademark. 

An October 19, 1902 article in the Times-Democrat of New Orleans quoting visiting New York Herald cartoonist J.C. Fireman identified Edgren as a New York Journal cartoonist "in the same class as Davenport. He also adopts the sledgehammer style, and, being the champion hammer thrower of the world, it comes natural to him to 'knock' in his cartoons."

"Willie and His Papa" by Frederick Burr Opper in New York Journal, ca. July 4, 1900

Hearst cartoonist Frederick Opper was more of a jester than hammer thrower, but no less partisan. Instead of the dollar sign suitcoat, Opper here put Hanna in a dress, as wife of McKinley's Papa, "The Trusts." I presume that the water pail President McKinley has to carry in the cartoon is a reference to his campaign slogan of "the full dinner pail."

"A Man After My Own Heart" by May in Times-Democrat, New Orleans, July 4, 1900

I've got one cartoon specifically in support of William Jennings Bryan, and I'm afraid that I haven't been able to positively identify the cartoonist. May (certainly not Ole May, unlikely Thomas May) slapped a photograph into his cartoon of the Man After Uncle Sam's Own Heart rather than attempting to caricature him. But at least he acknowledged the holiday.

"Darned If I Can Have Any Fun on Fourth of July with These Things On" by E.T. Richards in Life, New York, July 5, 1900

Picturing the United States' new identity as a colonial power, E.T. Richards fit Uncle Sam in a crown and ermine robes, accompanied by a distressed Columbia and a mortified American eagle. Given the present regime's goose-stepping into fascist autocracy, I know how they feel.

In the background, I presume that is President McKinley dressed like Napoleon while his companion lights firecrackers tied to the dog Filipino's tail — a cruel and apparently common Independence Day pastime among nasty fin de siècle boys.

"Hurrah for the 4th" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Call, July 4, 1900

That's more than enough politics for today, so let's wrap things up with an ode to the holiday by San Francisco's Gustavo Bronstrup. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

America! It was nice while it lasted.

This Week's Sneak Peek

The saga continues:

The editorial cartoon is not a traditional outlet for long form story telling, but it's not unheard of. Bill Sanders, for example, devoted a week of cartoons to a continuing story about a couple of student protesters. Harold Talburt made a series of "Klampaigning" cartoons during the 1924 election, adding a new participant to a fanciful campaign parade each day.

The Pulitzer board would add "Doonesbury" and "Bloom County" as examples of serial editorial cartoons — and Sunday's episode of the former would lend credence to that categorization. By the same token, one could add "Pogo" to that list. (But not "Mallard Fillmore." If Bruce Tinsley ever incorporated a continuous story line in his strip, I missed it.)

Recurring series are more common. Tom Toles featured the Continuing Adventures of Ronnie Raygun from time to time. David Low created the character of Colonel Blimp to satirize British conservatism (especially the views of Lord Beaverbrook, owner of  London Evening Standard, Low's employer). My Graphical History Tours have visited Frederick Opper's running series such as Freeneasy Film Company and Sammy and His Pals.

But again, those series didn't tell a continuous story — not even Opper's, running on consecutive days for weeks and months at a time.

Since I'm committed to the Leo In Federal Detention story now, yes, the saga continues.

Sorry, Leo.

All This And the Isle of Yap

Fasten your seat belts: today's Graphical History Tour is going to lurch from one theme to another like a Prokofiev symphony.

"And If You Don't Like It You're a Red" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oklahoma City OK, March 14, 1923

This is a local-issue cartoon, but it will do nicely to kick off today's piece.

We last saw the work of this fellow Butler during Oklahoma's 1923 recall election that removed Governor Jack Walton from office — and I thought that perhaps Butler had laid down his pen after the recall was successful.

But here he is again, portraying a statehouse infested with, right-to-left, Cement Trust, Attorney General [George Short], Standard Oil, Reliance Shirt Factory, KKK, Bank Vampire, School Land Leech, Kept Press, Insurance Graft, School Book Trust, Bribery, [President of the State Board of Agriculture John] Whitehurst, Jack Walton, Corruption, and Loot.

The shirt factory had won a state penitentiary contract, slammed by the Leader as illegal. The Oklahoma House voted in February to impeach John Whitehurst, accusing him of corruption and neglect of duty, but fell short in a vote to impeach the State Attorney General. The Leader favored the Farmer-Labor Party, which was denounced by the state's mainstream media as "red."

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Since we're all hot and bothered about immigration today, here's where we were 100 years ago:

"Give Me More of Northern Europe" by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. Feb. 28, 1924

I regret that I wasn't able to put together a Graphical History Tour with a Black American History Month theme in February, even though half of last week's oeuvre was devoted to doings of the Ku Klux Klan.

There was an plenty of bigotry to spare in this country in 1924, as evidenced by this William Morris cartoon. Mr. Melting Pot supposedly can't digest Catholic Italians and swarthy Slavs, who were on the same side as the U.S. side during World War I; apparently Morris had gotten over any lingering distaste for Germans by this time.

I'm just surprised he didn't figure out how to add Jews to his personae non gratae.

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The Daily Cartoonist featured a post about turn-of-the-century editorial cartoonist Frederick Opper last week, so here's his take on the Teapot Dome Scandal:

"The Dough-heny Minstrels" by Frederick Opper for International Feature Service ca. March 7, 1924

Opper's modus operandi was to cram as many little ideas into a cartoon as he had room for, and to repeat them as necessary or convenient. For instance, the Island of Yap had absolutely nothing to do with the Teapot Dome scandal. The tiny Pacific island and telegraph communications hub had been a German territory claimed by Japan after World War I, a claim contested by the U.S. Opper devoted a long series of post-war cartoons to Island of Yap doggerel because he thought its name was funny.

The title of his "The Dough-heny Minstrels" series was a play on the name of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company (today's Pemex). Doheny had secured a deal with then Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall (the goat atop the mountain in the cartoon) to lease the naval oil reserves at Elk Hills, California, and was a financial backer of Democratic contender William McAdoo (fishing in the boat). The other seated figure, Harry Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, had won the Teapot Dome lease.

By this time, Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby had resigned from President Coolidge's cabinet, and Attorney General Harry Daugherty would be out of office by the end of the month.

George Creel, depicted by Opper in a gratuitously racist caricature, was actually a white man, a journalist with Colliers who had been Woodrow Wilson's head of the wartime Committee on Public Information. I don't know what exactly made Creel relevant to Opper's Dough-heny Minstrel series, in which he appeared repeatedly. What I find is that Creel wrote in February in defense of selling arms to Mexican President Obregon, and the editorial board at Colliers regarded the Teapot Dome scandal as something not worth Congress's time or their own pages.

Perhaps Opper thought Creel’s name was funny.

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"Fertile Soil" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1924

Speaking of Teapot Dome, third-party interests saw in it an opportunity for the Progressive presidential candidacy of Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin. The Oklahoma Leader, for one, touted Fighting Bob on its front page. Col. McCormick's Chicago Tribune, with this front page cartoon, clearly felt differently.

LaFollette had been in charge of an early investigation into the scandal, his belief in Secretary Fall's innocence shaken after finding his Senate office ransacked. The investigation was turned over to Democrat Thomas Walsh of Montana, the Senate's most junior member, eventually turning up Doheny's $100,000 loan to Fall.

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Incidentally, someone commenting on D.D. Degg's post about Frederick Opper asked whether Opper had included Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt in any of his editorial cartoons during the 1920 election. 

I have not come across any; by and large, veep candidates didn't attract much attention from editorial cartoonists that year. Indeed, Claude Bowman's several cartoons in 1900 that included Teddy Roosevelt and/or Adlai Stevenson Sr. stand out as the few examples I can think of when a cartoonist paid any attention to the running mates in that era.

Instead, I can offer this cartoon featuring FDR's future running mate, Texas Senator John Nance Garner.

"I Hope the President Isn't Playing Politics" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, March 13, 1924

Taxes, by the way, were due on March 15 in those days. Congress did not pass the tax cut bill in time.

Sitting Out Genoa

In celebration of the centennial of the Genoa Conference, a meeting to settle the Post-World-War-I order in Europe, today's Graphical History Tour highlights cartoons about the country that wasn't there...

"Der Stille Beobachter" by Hans-Maria Lindloff, Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 9, 1922

...The United States.

Cartoonists at Berlin's Kladderadatch seem to have been keenly interested in the decision by the Harding Administration to sit out the conference. A note atop the right corner of Lindloff's cartoon explains: "The United States only wants to play the role of 'silent observer' in Genoa."

"Sammy and His Pals" by Frederick Opper for Star Company, ca. April 14, 1922

The role of American finances in the U.S. decision differed greatly depending what side of the Atlantic one was on.

"He Sent His Regrets" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 11, 1922

The official stance of the Harding administration was that European affairs were a matter for Europeans to settle and none of our business. This much pleased the isolationists who had helped Harding get elected, but ignored our increasing reliance on international commerce and our stake in international stability.

"Watching the Procession Move On" by John Cassel in New York Evening Star, April 11, 1922

Isolationists at William Randolph Hearst's newspapers and Col. McCormick's Chicago Tribune were only too pleased for the United States to sit Genoa out; John Cassel at the New York Evening Star offered a more rueful view.

"The Periscope" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier Journal, April 11, 1922

Participants at Genoa included just about every country in Europe (including San Marino), Russia, Japan, and South Africa. Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, each still part of the United Kingdom to one degree or another, also sent their own representatives. The thorniest issues on the table involved reintegrating Germany and Russia into the European community. Both countries were expected to cough up reparations and repayment of loans in order to return to the graces of the other European countries.

"Das Reparationsdiner oder Der Vergessene Gast" by Hans-Maria Lindloff (?) in Kladderadatsch, Berlin,
April 2, 1922

Whoever drew this unsigned Kladderadatsch cartoon (the style most resembles that of Herr Lindloff in my opinion) completely misjudges President Harding's position regarding the Genoa Conference. He may have been drawing about U.S. interest in repayment of loans made during the war, but those loans were made to the Entente partners. 

"Felis Militaris" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 9, 1922

Werner Hahmann's cartoon, on the other hand, suggests that the U.S. was not completely swayed by its Entente allies' punitive attitudes, particularly those of France, toward Germany.

In the cartoon, Marianne's dress partly covers French General and Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch. Text on her dress contrasts "The Innocent France" with "The Angry Germany."

"Kulturaufgaben" by Werner Hahmann, Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 9, 1922

A note above another Hahmann cartoon explains that "Germany is to pay the occupation costs for the American in dyes." Perhaps this is another example of a cartoonist latching onto an obscure news item for inspiration; given the hyperinflation in Germany at the time, its creditors could hardly be blamed for wanting to be paid in something other than Reichsmarks.

It's not as though Prohibition-era America could accept payment in German lager.

European cartoons often depicted the U.S. and other New World countries using Native American caricatures (until, in the case of the U.S., cartoons of Uncle Sam became more common). In the same manner, European, Australian and American cartoonists represented Africa, Asia, and Oceana with the crudest depictions of indigenous peoples.

"Ceterum Censeo" by Hans-Maria Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 23, 1922

Their fellow Europeans refused to cut Germany any slack on reparations, and the mood in Washington was decidedly opposed to making loans to those quarrelsome Europeans, Germany no less than anywhere else. 

What happened next came as a complete surprise.

Ratification of the Four-Power Treaty

"It Went Through" by Winsor McCay for Star Company, by March 30, 1922

After defeating a series of amendments proposed by treaty opponents, the U.S. Senate ratified Four-Power Treaty among the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan, on March 24, 1922 by a vote of 67 to 27. The lone "reservation" to pass the Senate stipulated that nothing in the treaty should require the U.S. to commit to military action or alliance.

"Getting Rid of the Jinx" by Albert Reid in New York Evening Mail, March, 1922

The vote was bipartisan on both sides: twelve Democrats joined the Republican majority in favor, while four isolationist Republicans voted nay with with the Democratic minority. Quite a few of those Republicans voting aye had been against the international agreements brought home by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson; the Republicans who remained against treaties signed by Republican Warren Harding and Democrats who had been opposed to them all along were called "bitter enders."

"In Spite of All the 'Bitter Enders'..." by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., by March 29, 1922

If the era of U.S. isolation was over, its end wasn't accepted by all quarters of U.S. isolationism. Foremost among them in American media was the newspaper empire of William Randolph Hearst.

"'Con' and 'Bull'" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, by March 24, 1922

For all Hearst's accusation that the treaty put American interests subservient to those of Great Britain and Japan, by requiring its signatories to consult with each other in the event of any conflict in East Asia the Four-Power Treaty was in fact to America's advantage. American and Japanese interests there and in the Pacific had been in conflict before World War I, and were so again in places like Yap, the Philippines, China, and Siberia.

Under the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, had the U.S. and Japan gone to war, Great Britain would have been obliged to join Japan against the U.S. But the Four-Powers Treaty superseded the earlier bilateral one.

"Sammy and His Pals" by Frederick Opper for Star Company by March 23, 1922

Hearst's cartoonists nevertheless daily painted a picture of a hapless Uncle Sam tricked into an unwanted alliance, his negotiating team comprised of witless nincompoops bamboozled by wily furriners.

"Some Folks Are Never Satisfied" by Gaar Williams for Chicago Tribune, by March 20, 1922

Isolationism ran strong at "Colonel" McCormick's solidly Republican Chicago Tribune, so it's rather surprising to see one of his cartoonists touting the main advantage to the U.S. of the Four-Party Treaty.

"Post-War Dog" by Gaar Williams for Chicago Tribune, by March 30, 1922

Word must have come down from management that if the Tribune's cartoons couldn't stop the Senate from passing the treaty, they could complain about complying with its limitations on the size of our Army and Navy.

"We're Hardly Going to Hold Our Own" by Gaar Williams for Chicago Tribune, by March 31, 1922

The fact that it also limited the other countries' militaries notwithstanding. The numbers on Williams's rowboats reference the 5:5:3 naval ratio agreed to at the Washington D.C. Naval Conference.

"Those New Boots" by Magnus Kettner for Western Newspaper Union, March, 1922

Outside of the Hearst and Tribune empires, even Magnus Kettner, whose usual fare was the sort of genial, inoffensive slice of life cartoon beloved by circulation managers everywhere, expressed alarm at the treaty's limitations on the U.S. military.

William C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, March/April, 1922

William Morris probably correctly divined how Teddy Roosevelt would have felt about trimming the U.S. military, although Morris was one of the many cartoonists helping argue that it was time to do so a little over a year earlier.  

 

I also find it peculiar that Morris felt a need, only three years after Roosevelt's death, to label what appears to me to be an instantly recognizable caricature.

"He Will Not Bother Us Again" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, by April 13, 1922

In closing, this cautionary note: We can't all be as clairvoyant as this guy.

What So Proudly We Hailed

In light of the lack of effective options to deal with Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, I offer a remembrance of a diplomatic success story 100 years ago.

The U.S., Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan reached agreement in February, 1922 on the Five-Power Treaty to limit naval build-up. A parallel Nine-Power Agreement (the additional powers being Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and China) guaranteed that each would respect China's territorial integrity. Furthermore, the U.S., Great Britain, France and Japan agreed that in the event of a crisis in the Far East, they would consult with each other before taking any other action.

"A Record Catch" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Colliers, Feb. 18, 1922

As any student of history knows, those agreements wouldn't last forever; but they remained successful for over a decade. Whatever else the Harding administration is remembered for, this set of treaties are still considered its crowning achievement.

"Ding" Darling's cartoon depicts President Warren Harding and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes more than satisfied with their catch. "Japanese War Talk Peril" is only partly subdued, apparently.

"Naval Strength" by Clifford Berryman in Evening Star, Washington DC, Feb. 17, 1922

Americans concerned about runaway armament spending lauded the agreements, which were more favorable to the Anglo powers than to Japan. As we noted a few weeks ago, thanks to U.S. eavesdropping on diplomatic cables between Washington's guest diplomats and their home countries, Hughes's negotiators knew what they could get the Japanese to accept.

"Rückkehr von der Abrüstungs-Bescherung in Washington" by Hans-Maria Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, February 26, 1922

Skepticism out of Germany of the treaty was only to be expected, but it was not all cheers and congratulations in the U.S., either. Isolationists in the Senate, particularly William Borah (R-ID) and Hiram Johnson (R-CA), promised to be a tough sell.

"Every Where That Mary Went" by John Cassel in New York World, Feb. 25, 1922

Yet even among the men drawing cartoons for rabid isolationist Randolph Hearst, there wasn't much said against the specifics of the treaty. The arguments rested for the most part on a distrust of foreign entanglements.

"Reforming the Sharks" by Harry Murphy for Star Publishing Co., Feb. 22, 1922

To them, U.S. diplomats were not the bountiful fishermen of "Ding" Darling's cartoon, but gullible naïfs wading into treacherous seas, whether they answered to the idealistic Woodrow Wilson or the normalcy-minded Warren Harding.

"Taking Candy from a Child" by Harry Murphy for Star Publishing Co., March 2, 1922

For sheer silliness, no Hearst cartoonist surpassed Frederick Opper. For months, his "Sammy and His Pals" series portrayed England, France and Japan as wantonly imposing their will on the Hughes negotiating team. His Uncle Sam was aware that he was being duped, but seemingly powerless to do much of anything about it.

"Sammy and His Pals" by Frederick Opper for Star Publishing Co., ca. March 2, 1922

 

Hearst's national chain of newspapers made him the Fox News of his day; if Murphy and Winsor McCay were his Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, then I suppose Opper was Hearst's Greg Gutfeld.

"Sammy and His Pals" by Frederick Opper for Star Publishing Co., ca. March 4, 1922

 

As William Morris's cartoon alluded to at the end of last week's post, there was talk in 1922 of changing the national anthem — or, to put it more accurately, to establish an official one in the first place. Many Americans considered "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" to be the national anthem, but there were a number of rival tunes, including "Hail, Columbia" and "America, the Beautiful." "The Star-Spangled Banner" wouldn't be officially declared our national anthem until March 3, 1931.

One would think, given the anti-British editorial policy Randolph Hearst expressed through his stable of cartoonists, that Star Publishing Company would have been happy to see "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," since it was set to the tune of "God Save the King," kicked off the piano rack. Perhaps that's why Opper's revision, even though it doesn't scan to the same tune, expresses Uncle Sam's feelings exactly.

Of Shooing Ships and Phosgene Gas

Sarinback Saturday takes us back in history once more, even before Abbott met Costello, to the beginning of the new year a century ago.

"Go Back" by John Cassel in New York World, Jan. 9, 1922

As January 1922 dawned, negotiations in Washington D.C. among the major Entente powers toward the Washington Naval Treaty were nearing a successful completion.

"The Process of Elimination" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, Jan. 8, 1922

Most U.S. cartoonists (but not all, as we shall see in a bit) greeted the news of progress with enthusiasm. Cartoonists were most impressed with the Conference's moves to ban the use of poison gas and attacks against merchant and passenger shipping by submarines, seen as heinous tactics of the German military.

In fact, France and the U.S. also used chemical weapons against the Germans; and even after the Washington Naval Treaty was signed, Great Britain, France, Spain, and Italy employed poison gas against independence fighters in their various colonial possessions. Well after the Geneva Convention of 1925, Japan still used poison gas in China. Consider also that the U.S. made extensive use of Agent Orange in Vietnam; an herbicide, it is nevertheless a chemical weapon and had deleterious health effects on the soldiers and civilians exposed to it.

"Making a New Book..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, Jan. 14, 1922

Elihu Root, formerly a Republican Senator, Secretary of War and Secretary of State, was a member of the U.S. delegation, along with Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Democratic Senator Oscar Underwood. I am not sure why Darling chose to feature Root in this cartoon rather than then-Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, who was head of the delegation and very actively involved in it, but there was some pushback over Hughes's proposed ten-year "naval holiday." 

"Oh, What a Pal Is Sammy" by Frederick Opper in Washington (D.C.) Times, Jan. 5, 1922

"Beware of the Wiles of Foreign Diplomacy" by Winsor McCay in Washington (D.C.) Times, Jan. 6, 1922

That pushback was pressed daily in William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, whose editorialists and cartoonists charged that the other nations at the Conference, especially Japan and Great Britain, were playing the U.S. for fools. In its opposition to the "naval holiday" proposal, the Hearst press brooked no distinction between Hughes and the rest of the U.S. delegation; Frederick Opper depicted all four of them as witless suckers five or six days a week for the entire month of January in his "Oh, What a Pal Is Sammy" series.

"Auf der Hinterfront des Abrüstungskomödienhauses" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Jan. 8, 1922

Darling's having brought up Kaiser Wilhelm in his cartoon begs us to consider the German take on all of this, so here's a cartoon about the conference by Berlin cartoonist Arthur Johnson, skeptical of the negotiators' intentions. The Entente allies (clockwise from top: U.S., Japan, Great Britain, and France) point Mars toward the back door, under the inscription "Vorbehalte" (mental reservations), of their establishment.

Outside of the Germans and the Hearst cartoonists, however, rejoicing and congratulations were the rule of the day.

"Time for Them to Go Home" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Jan. 12, 1922

The Europeans, to take up Freddy Opper's point, were not the only ones engaging in "intrigue and chicanery." Unbeknownst to the other parties to the conference, the host country was spying on the communications with their governments back home. The "Black Chamber" in the U.S. Cypher Bureau was able to determine exactly how little the Japanese were willing to settle for — the short end of a 5:5:3 ratio of battleships with the U.S. and Great Britain — and got it.

"Back to Your Master..." by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Jan. 12, 1922

Top brass in the Japanese Imperial Navy were, naturally, upset with those terms. But Japanese negotiator Isaruku Yamamoto had seen American industrial facilities in Detroit and Texas, and believed that absent the treaty, the U.S. could easily outpace Japan in any all-out arms race.

"Not Exactly Our Idea of the Dove..." by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 5, 1922

France and Italy settled for even smaller submarine fleets than did Japan, although you would never know that from Nelson Harding's cartoon about the Briand government's dissatisfaction therewith. (Prime Minister Aristide Briand and his cabinet resigned in January, but that was over his failure to reach agreement with Germany on reparations.)

"The Doxology" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Jan. 17, 1922

The Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty was signed on February 6, 1922, mandating that 26 American, 24 British, and 16 Japanese warships that were either already built or under construction be scrapped. The U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy also agreed to Hughes's ten-year "naval holiday," abandoning previous capital-ship building programs with some specified exceptions. Under another article in the treaty, the United States, Great Britain, and Japan agreed to maintain the status quo with regard to their fortifications and naval bases in the eastern Pacific.