Christmas 1925

Welcome to our Graphical History Tour Christmas Special! We're just about through with the year 1925, when peace, goodwill, and sobriety reigned, and all was right with the world.

"Merry Christmas" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 25, 1925

I'm going to let Bill Hanny represent all the cartoonists who updated their Thanksgiving for General Prosperity cartoon for the next holiday on the calendar. The happy recipient of an overstuffed stocking here was Father Penn, the cartoon personification of the state of Pennsylvania, and not the guy on the Quaker Oats canister.

"Uncle Sam's Dream of Christmas" by Edward G. McCandlish in Washington Post, Dec. 25, 1925

McCandlish at the Washington Post expands on Hanny's theme, depicting a serving of Plenty, a Christmas tree festooned with Peace, Security, and No Foreign Entanglements; and, at lower right, an agreement between labor and management averting a coal miners' strike. That agreement hadn't actually materialized yet when this cartoon was drawn, however.

"The Very Thing He Wanted Most" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Dec. 25, 1925

Up the road at the Star, Clifford Berryman's Everyman had a more limited wish list. To his delight, Congress had passed the Coolidge administration's tax cut, to take effect in 1926.

"Good Will to Men" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 24, 1925

Gustavo Brunstrup shared the San Francisco Chronicle's optimism that the U.S. Senate would overcome three years of obstruction by its "irreconcilables" and join Europe in agreeing to participate in the World Court.

"Christmas Bells" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 24, 1925

Critics of the Coolidge administration such as Daniel Fitzpatrick might begrudge Republicans their peace and prosperity; they could still celebrate the Locarno agreements among the major European powers putting an end to war (offer not valid in Morocco, Syria, and Iraq), and the Geneva Protocol, drafted in June, banning chemical and biological weapons.

"The Face at the Window" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, Dec. 24, 1925

Ed LeCocq used the celebration of "the new spirit of mutual cooperation" and "comforts of capital and trade intercourse" in Europe to point out one country that was left out: Russia. 

"The Face at the Window" used to be a common cartoon theme in the Christmas season. In most such cartoons I've seen, that Face is a pitiable, sympathetic figure, left out of the warmth, feasting, and bonhomie inside, reminding readers of the plight of the poor. The cultural references that Google up for this forgotten cliché, however, are tales of criminals, murderers, and ghosts plotting their way in.

Perhaps that's why cartoonists stopped using "The Face at the Window" as a caption.

"Besorgnis" by Arthur Krüger in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 13, 1925

A pair of German cartoons took skeptical views in varying degrees of Europe's newfound international comity. In Arthur Krüger's cartoon, Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, and Italy merrily dance around their Christmas tree, with its "Peace on Earth" topper, but Not-So-Jolly St. Nicholas worries that they are about to carelessly kick the whole thing over. In an age when candles, not LED lights, lit up the Christmas tree, knocking the tree over was liable to get it considerably too lit up.

"Der Untaugliche Nussknacker" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 27, 1925

Werner Hahmann's Angel of Peace found the League of Nations (Völker Bund) not up to the task of cracking Disarmament (Abrüstung). 

These German cartoonists in the 1920's really were a bunch of sour pusses. It's as if they knew they were between the Wars.

"In the Hollow of His Hand" by Jesse Cargill for King Features Syndicate, ca. Dec. 24, 1925

Returning to America, I'm not sure what to make of Santa Claus holding the globe in the hollow of his hand. Does Jesse Cargill's Santa Claus look as annoyed to you as he does to me? He almost looks like he's getting ready to throw it at someone.

"Aw-w, There Ain't No Santa Claus" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, Dec. 26, 1925

There's no mistaking Leslie Rogers's intentions. Rogers's cartoon for the African-American newspaper the Chicago Defender ran alongside an editorial decrying the lynching in Clarksdale, Mississippi of Lindsey Coleman after a jury had acquitted him of murder charges. This while southern Senators were successfully filibustering the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill for the third consecutive Congress.

"The Night Before Christmas" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Dec. 24, 1925

Meanwhile, in Canada, the Progressive and Liberal Parties had both lost seats to the Conservatives in October elections, but not enough of them for the Conservatives to have a majority. Robert Forke's third-place Progressives had lost 36 of their previous 58 seats in Parliament, but held the balance of power between William Mackenzie King's Liberals, with whom they were more ideologically inclined, and Arthur Meighen's Conservatives.

"The Spirit of a White Christmas" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, Dec. 24, 1925

Shunting politics aside, James Fitzmaurice gets us back to some Christmas Spirit. The cartoon's "Mr. Citizen" had finished his shopping, subscribed to the newspaper's charitable fund (charity drives were a common newspaper practice at Christmastime), and apparently had a couple of libations he doesn't want to talk about. 

"Minus Whiskers and Reindeer" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Dec. 24, 1925

Roy James noted that Santa was not the only one doing the heavy lifting for the holiday. 

"The Annual Daze" by Chester Gould in Chicago Evening American, ca. Dec. 25, 1925

The editorial cartoons of Chester Gould, later creator of "Dick Tracy," have appeared here before. This cartoon predates the pointy-chinned copper by about five years, and seems at first glance to be a light-hearted little gag about office employees not having their minds on their work between Christmas and New Year's.

Then one notices the little dingbat in the lower left corner. What Lincoln getting shot has to do with anything else in Gould's cartoon is completely beyond me.

So let us wrap up this week's Graphical Holiday Tour with a simple Christmas card with no weirdness, politics, faces at windows, or diareses

"Merry Christmas to Our Readers" by J.T. Alley in Commercial Appeal, Memphis Tenn., Dec. 25, 1925

And likewise to mine.

Political Cartoons by Chester Gould

Here's a bit of cartooning history I hadn't known before.

Earlier this week, I stumbled across a bunch of political cartoons by Chester Gould, better known as the creator of "Dick Tracy." Sure enough, the Lambiek Comiclopedia reports that Gould drew editorial cartoons for the Tulsa Democrat before moving to Illinois to draw for Hearst's Chicago Evening American.

"Serving His Country" by Chester Gould, July, 1920

By the time these cartoons appeared in the second half of July, 1920, the Tulsa Democrat had been folded into the Tulsa Tribune, which means that Gould, born in 1900, drew his Democrat cartoons as a teenager. Neither of those two Tulsa newspapers appear to be archived on line (a potential loss to history, given the Tribune's culpability in fomenting the 1921 Tulsa race riots), but I found each of these six cartoons widely disseminated to other Oklahoma newspapers: The Tahlequah Arrow Democrat, the Cimmaron Valley Clipper, the Beaver Democrat, the Wapanucka Press, Renfrew's Review in Alva, the Stigler State Sentinel, the Mountain View Times, the Norman Daily Transcript, and the Apache Week's Review.

"The Rubber Stamp Gore Used" by Chester Gould, July, 1920

All six attack incumbent Senator Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, who was challenged for reelection to a third term by Congressman Scott Ferris in the August 3 Democratic primary. The "Rubber Stamp" cartoon refers to a congressional resolution Senator Gore and Representative Atkins Jefferson McLemore of Texas introduced in 1914 in an effort to prevent the United States from being drawn into World War I. It would have banned Americans from traveling on armed merchant vessels or ships with contraband. For the most part, that meant British ships like the Lusitania, sunk by German U-boats one year later. Under pressure from President Woodrow Wilson however, both the House and Senate tabled the Gore-McLemore bill.

"Better Watch Out, Old Timer..." by Chester Gould, July, 1920

Gore, who ran for Congress in Mississippi as a Populist before joining the Democratic party and moving to Oklahoma, was elected to the Senate when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. He was blind, and a grandfather of author Gore Vidal. He was one of the first senators to endorse Woodrow Wilson's run for the presidency, in 1911, and was influential in Wilson's first term; but his strong antiwar stance before World War I and his isolationism afterward estranged him from the second term Wilson administration.

The note "Apol. to Knott" under Gould's signature in "Better Watch Out, Old Timer..." must refer either to John Knott of the Dallas News, or comic strip creator Jean Knott, one of whom who must have drawn a similar cartoon.

"That Won't Wash Off" by Chester Gould, July, 1920

Gould's cartoons attack Gore relentlessly for his prewar actions, such as the Senator's opposing military conscription, saying it would create "an army of conscripted slackers." Gore had asked: "Why should we brand the American boy as a conscript without affording him the opportunity to earn the glory of an American volunteer?" In addition to his opposition to the draft, Gore "was one of the earliest and most vigorous sponsors of a constitutional amendment to require a popular referendum on any congressional declaration of war."

"The Accusing Fingers from Flanders Field" by Chester Gould, July, 1920

By some freakish coincidence, the Ferris campaign's main attack against Gore was also over his antiwar statements and legislation. Both candidates complained loudly that the other was attacking him unfairly, while proclaiming that each himself had treated the other with the utmost respect and civility.

"Senator Gore Called Them 'Conscript Slackers'..." by Chester Gould, July, 1920

Given that these cartoons each appeared on the front page of so many Oklahoma newspapers in July, and that I haven't come across any Gould cartoons on any other topic, I have to conclude that the synergy between Gould's cartoons and the Ferris campaign is no coincidence at all. Bolstering my conclusion that Gould was working directly for the Ferris campaign is the Week's Review of Apache, Oklahoma: it ran the "Better Watch Out, Old Timer" cartoon atop its front page on July 23, but with the disclaimer "Political Advertising" beneath it. None of the other newspapers — some of which found reason to run Ferris's portrait on page one every day — ran such a disclaimer with any of these cartoons.

Which is not to say that other newspapers weren't just as brazen in their support of Senator Gore. Newspapers in those days were not the slightest bit shy about trumpeting their political allegiances. You can rest assured that not one of those pro-Gore newspapers ran the Gould cartoons.

Scott Ferris would emerge the victor in the August 3 primary, but then lost to Republican John Harreld in November. Gore won election to the Senate in 1930, but opposed Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs and was ousted again in the 1936 primary.

RFK, 50 Years On

This Tuesday will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Somberback Saturday brings you a round-up from the pens of cartoonists from half a century ago.

"New Kid in the Neighborhood" by Alfred Buescher for King Features, May, 1968

Just to put things in context: Kennedy and Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy had entered the 1968 presidential race as the more liberal alternatives to incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. When LBJ withdrew from the race at the end of March, his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey (who should have had plenty of liberal cred of his own, but was tainted by association with Johnson's war in Vietnam) stepped in as the favored candidate of the Democratic establishment.

The Democratic nomination was still up for grabs when Kennedy won the California primary on June 5. After giving a victory speech to his supporters in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he started through the kitchen toward the press room but was shot three times by Sirhan Bishir Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian. (Yes, I know that RFK Jr. thinks that Sirhan was innocent. George Plympton is no longer with us, but someone can ask Rosey Grier or Rafer Johnson who it was that they wrestled the gun away from.)

Kennedy died of his injuries some 25 hours later at the age of 42.

"The Brothers' Tragic Reunion" by Cy Hungerford in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 7, 1968

America and the world were in shock. Robert's brother, President John Kennedy, had been assassinated only five years earlier; and this was the second major assassination in the U.S. in only two months — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's killer had not even been caught yet. (James Earl Ray would be apprehended in London a few days after Bobby Kennedy's death.)

"Bookmarks" by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun Times, June 6, 1968

I'm sure that Cy Hungerford was not the only cartoonist to draw the "Tragic Reunion" of two of Joe Kennedy Sr.'s sons, but Bill Mauldin's cartoon is more representative of the craft. What I'm finding is that by and large, cartoonists and editorial writers went to their drawing boards and typewriters to argue that RFK's assassination, as horrible as it was, bespoke a larger problem in the United States.

"He Must Be Stopped," possibly by Ted Shearer in Baltimore Afro-American, June 8, 1968

In the above cartoon, Ted Shearer (I'm confident that he was an editorial cartoonist for the Afro-American chain of newspapers, although I can only speculate whether he drew any particular cartoon) listed seven leaders murdered in just over five years. His scorecard leaves room for more, but there isn't enough space in the entire cartoon to list all the other victims of gun violence in the 50 years since.

"Tell Me Again about Keeping the World Safe for Democracy" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, June, 1968

Pat Oliphant mused mordantly on what American soldiers fighting in the jungles of Vietnam must have thought of the violence back home.

Our soldiers were not the only ones overseas taking notice.

"American Folklore: Choose Your Candidate" by Rob "Opland" Wout in De Vollskrant, Amsterdam, June, 1968

Time magazine described the rest of the world's perception of the U.S. as "a blood-drenched, continent-wide shooting range where toddlers blast off with real rifles, housewives pack pearl-handled revolvers, and political assassins stalk their victims at will." "America dreamed of a government of judges, but it suffers the law of violent people," declared Le Monde of Paris, where violent protests mere days before had nearly brought down the DeGaulle government.

"Violence" by John Yardley-Jones in Toronto Telegram, June, 1968

As it turned out, the assassin was an immigrant born in Jordan acting on behalf of a conflict halfway around the world from the U.S. According to Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, Sirhan Sirhan's diary revealed that he was determined to kill Kennedy by June 5, the first anniversary of the Six-Day War in which Israel had occupied the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Sinai peninsula.

"Always There Is a Black Spot in Our Sunshine..." by Stanley Franklin in Daily Mirror, London, June, 1968

Yet I came across no editorial cartoons illustrating the Mideast connection to the assassination; granted, I didn't check Ha'aretz, Ad-Dustour, or any other journal directly concerned. The Montreal Star glossed over the Palestinian connection and faulted U.S. racial injustices instead:

"It did not matter if Senator Kennedy's assailant was first believed to be a Mexican, and then a Cuban and then an Arab. The fact remains that in Harlem and Watts and every other Negro community... [assassins] exist as perpetual enemies, while the one figure who might have provided hope was removed forcibly from the arena."

Untitled, by Andy Donato in Toronto Telegram, June, 1968

Overwhelmingly, the Mideast Conflict and U.S. racial injustice took a back seat to The Gun as the root cause of America's tragedy. From within and without our borders came the demand for the U.S. to control its mass of weapons of destruction. And as has become depressingly predictable, the National Rifle Association, the 100,000-member strong enablers of our national nightmare, leapt into the fray to prevent any meaningful action from being taken.

"The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed" by Frank Benier in The Sun, London, June, 1968 

Guns don't kill people, only outlaws will have guns, registration leads to confiscation — any argument against gun control you have ever heard was already cliché in 1968. Supreme Court precedent still held that the first half of the Second Amendment established that it was about a collective right rather than an individual privilege, so the N.R.A. concentrated on the amendment's second half. (Republican majorities on the Court have since erased that "well-regulated militia" silliness.)

"How's Business?" by John Pierotti in New York Post, June, 1968

Time estimated the American arsenal to include anywhere from 50 million to 200 million handguns, shotguns, rifles, plus "uncounted machine guns, hand grenades, bazookas, mortars, even antitank guns." 3 million more were sold every year, 2 million of them by mail order sales. Some of those sales were driven by white fear of the urban riots breaking out in the 1960's, to say nothing of the lucrative market selling directly to the gangs and criminals White America was afraid of.

"In Cold Blood" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, June, 1968

The National Rifle Association had successfully quashed every attempt to regulate America's unregulated militia even after President Kennedy's assassination. Congress did manage to pass a ban on mail-order handguns, but President Johnson scoffed that the bill was a "watered-down" half-way measure.

"I Just Don't Know What This Country Is Coming To" by Herb Block in Washington Post, June, 1968

A number of Senators who had bent to the N.R.A.'s will in the wake of Rev. King's assassination, such as Hugh Scott (R-PA), Warren Magnuson (D-WA), Bill Proxmire and Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), Ed Muskie (D-ME), Mike Monroney (D-OK), and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT), indicated support of a measure by Joseph Tydings (D-MD) to require licensing and registration for the purchase of a gun.

"So You Heard Another Shot..." by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, June 6, 1968

The Senate failed to pass the Firearms Registration and Licensing Act, and the N.R.A. successfully drove Tydings out of office in 1970.

Even among liberals, however, there was a recognition that America had a problem not just with guns, but with a culture that glorified violence.

"Make Your Move, Ringo..." by Jules Feiffer for Publishers-Hall Syndicate, June, 1968

As case in point — and because it's the only way to end this blog post on a somewhat lighter note — I have to bring you the climax of a story in "Dick Tracy" on the comics page that very same week. Sharing the page with Charlie Brown and Miss Peach, Chester Gould's police detective literally vaporized a criminal mastermind and a yacht full of henchmen and bathing beauties who had schemed to steal a shipment of gold bars from Diet Smith's mines on the moon. (You read that right.) Gould's moral in Friday's episode struck many readers, and not a few editors, as being the credo of assassins and terrorists:

"Dick Tracy" by Chester Gould in Chicago Tribune, June 7, 1968

Several papers, such as the Seattle Times and Greensboro News, deleted the strip that day or dropped the feature entirely.

Any counter-protests from the National Laser Association fell on deaf ears.

 ✍

On second thought, there is a better way to end this post, and that is with a few words from Robert Kennedy's final speech to the crowd at the Ambassador Hotel:

"What I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis, and that what has been going on within the United States over the period of the last three years — the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society — the divisions, whether it's between Blacks and Whites, between the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups, or on the war in Vietnam — that we can start to work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country, a compassionate country."

1916: Eggs, Dachshunds, Horses and Lions, Oh, My

I've still got a few more cartoons from my December 13, 1916 copy of The Outlook magazine, so here are some almost random cartoons from a century ago. I'll even throw in a couple other cartoons as a bonus.

Prompted by a Chicago alderman, a women's group called the Political Equality League announced a protest against the price of eggs on November 26, 1916. Unless the price were lowered from 50 cents per dozen, the PEL pledged to boycott eggs entirely.

"If James E. Wetz, the Egg King, carries out his threat," [Alderman George Pretzel told the group], "I may be in jail soon for conspiring to boycott him; but I am willing to take this chance to break the egg trust. There are about eight men in the trust, who sell to one another in order to keep the price up."

As egg prices continued to rise, others joined the fight against Mr. Egg over the next year, such as the National Housewives League and the Kansas City Restaurant Association. Prices hit a high of 65 cents per dozen before being cut in half in 1917.

"Boycotted" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, December, 1916

It may be unintentional, but the posters on the wall in Kirby's background are reminiscent of those that would be festooned all over the background of the typical Thomas Nast cartoon (especially the question "What are you going to do about it?"). The lower one refers to a Chicago Commissioner of Weights and Measures, who persuaded local theaters to display a notice on their screens reading,

"Smash the egg gamblers—Join the egg boycott. It's the man higher up—not the retailer. Practice economy in use of eggs. Buy only for aged, infirm and children. Decrease demand and watch price come down. It's up to you."

At The Outlook, the editors attribute the rise in egg prices to the seasonal fact that hens lay fewer eggs in cold weather. The editors recommend "cold storage":

"It requires only the foresight to purchase fresh eggs in the spring, when they are cheap and plentiful, and to preserve these same eggs until the following winter, when they are scarce and dear. Eggs can be preserved for a much longer time than this in crocks filled with a solution of water-glass or silicate of soda."

Nelson Harding finds a clever pun for a cartoon critical of a bill by a Rep. Fitzgerald (D-NY), Chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, enacting an embargo on the exportation of foodstuffs for one year, to be enforced by the U.S. Army and Navy.

"The Dog in the Measure" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December, 1916

The aim of the bill, opposed by farmers and others in the food industry, was to drive down the cost of groceries. Harding here opines that the bill would benefit Germany by cutting off American exports to Great Britain. (England was already blockading American exports to Germany, as we've noted before.) The bill was also opposed by Rep. Adamson of Georgia, Chair of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, whom we have met previously in his bill regarding the railway workers' strike.

Let's give some attention to a few cartoonists from outside the United States, shall we? Turning a cliché back in on itself in this cartoon featuring British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Canadian cartoonist Sam Hunter is skeptical of the latest peace proposal from the Kaiser:

"Looking the Gift Horse in the Mouth" by Sam Hunter for Toronto World, December 21, 1916

So is this Parisian cartoonist, I suppose. At least I'm guessing the speaker in the cartoon is a French soldier; the Western front had been fought on French soil, not German soil. for two years and counting. Besides, the uniform seems consistent with that interpretation. If so, then the other two men must be German citizens, unless the soldier is German and the two with the plank are from a neutral country.

"Peace?" by cartoonist in Le Rire, Paris, December, 1916

What's with that P? Are they Privates from Prussia? Peaceniks from Pays Bas? Damn that French cartoonist for not putting one of those helmets with the pointy spire on top on somebody's head so we historically illiterate 21st Century Americans can tell who's who!

There's no ambiguity in this British cartoon featuring Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg.

"The Lion that Grew" by F. Carruthers Gould in Westiminster Gazette, London, December, 1916

A full-page cartoon in the Canadian bi-weekly La Bataille offers a much less smug view of the war. As Europa grimly packs half the seed of Europe, one by one as cannon fodder, the U.S. appears as the light ("la lumiere") on the horizon. (I'm sure I don't need to remind you that Canada, as part of the United Kingdom, was already at war.)

Untitled cartoon by Phyl (LaFerrière?) in La Bataille, Montreal, December 14, 1916