Riffing on World Affairs

Today's Graphical History Tour takes a quick check-up on the colonial world:

"Getting Down to Cases" by Wm. A. Rogers in Washington [DC] Post, August 1, 1925

When last we checked on international affairs, France had sent its military to help Spain quell a revolt in Morocco. Abd El Krim's Moroccan guerillas had stymied the Spanish army since 1921 in the mountains of Rif, effectively establishing the independent state of Rif and confining the Spanish to scattered fortified positions along the coast.

"And Still He Gets Away" by Wm. Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 1925

With the entry of France into the Rif War, the European nations launched all-out war to extinguish the independent Berber nation. 

"Up Against It" by Wm. Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, August 22, 1925

Aside from being satisfied to stay removed from the conflict, U.S. cartoonists were divided in their sympathies. The U.S. had allied with France in the Great War, but France's punitive demands against Germany were widely seen as an impediment to a lasting peace; American impatience for France to repay wartime loans from the U.S. was mounting.

"The Iron Dove of Peace" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, August 10, 1925

As for American attitudes toward Spain, memories of the Spanish-American War were fading — and the U.S. had emerged victorious anyway, so why hold a grudge? Still, it might be telling that, with no justification whatsoever, we blamed the country for the so-called Spanish flu.

"Take Care" by Winsor McCay, ca. August 28, 1925

On the other hand, Americans viewed Europe as a seat of civilization and Africa as part of a backward, benighted world requiring guidance and oversight by White People.

"One of Those English Jokes" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, August 5, 1925

Meanwhile, did we mention war debts?

"Going Up" by Orville Williams for Star Company, ca. Aug. 6, 1925

In part due to protectionist tariffs and trade barriers in vogue between the World Wars, the U.S. demand for rubber to keep everybody's cars on the road had run up against the British Empire trade policy.

"Rubber-r-r" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. August 17, 1925

As long as we have the Philippines essentially as a U.S. colony, some Americans argued, why not promote rubber production there?

It has been a while since we have visited the archipelago taken by the U.S. along with Cuba and Puerto Rico as spoils of the Spanish-American War over a quarter century earlier. The U.S. occupation quashed initial independence movements, promising Filipino self-determination someday. Someday just got pushed a little further down the road.

In spite of a tide of isolationism, the U.S. had come to appreciate close ties with its colonial territories.

"Let's Do It Thoroughly" by Orville P. Williams for Star Company, ca. July 1, 1925

Just not too close.

War Is Over There, If You Want It

Last week's Graphical History Tour focused on the election of Paul von Hindenburg to the German presidency in 1925, which set some editorial cartoonists worrying about the possibility of a return to World War I.

"Still Abroad" by W.A. Rogers in Washington Post, May 5, 1925

There was plenty to worry about other than German politics, as it happened. Not the least of which was countries in Europe and North Africa inexplicably moving around willy-nilly underneath Mars's feet.

"The Soft Spot" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Apr. 29, 1925

Let's start with trouble in the Balkans, in which, for the moment, Bulgaria had the starring role.

Bulgaria, a.k.a. the Balkan Prussia, had been racked with violence between the far right and far left in the years following World War I. Assassinations were almost commonplace: Tsar Boris III had narrowly escaped death in April; and two days later, a bomb killed 150 members of the Bulgarian political and military elite in Sofia as they attended the funeral of murdered General Kosia Gheorhieffe. Reportedly, Gheorhieffe had been assassinated with the expectation that the Tsar would be at his funeral, too.

"Spring in the Balkans" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 25, 1925

The right-wing Bulgarian government of Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov responded with a curfew and mass arrests of known and suspected communists, and accused the Soviet government of Russia of being behind the plot.

"To Sustain the body of Capitalism" by O.R. "O. Zim" Zimmerman in Daily Worker, Chicago, May 1, 1925

It should be noted that Tsankov had come to power in 1923 after a coup against his predecessor, Aleksandar Stamboliyski of the leftist Bulgarian Agricultural National Union. Stamboliyski wasn't just overthrown; he was tortured, killed and dismembered — and not necessarily in that order.

"Zim" Zimmerman at the Communist Daily Worker in Chicago drew a skeletal Fascist government of Bulgaria enjoying a refreshing glass of workingman's blood while a bloody hand of imperialism threatened to grab a handful of angry workers.

"The Chief Occupation of Socialists" by O.R. "O. Zim" Zimmerman in Daily Worker, Chicago, May 15, 1925

The Berbers of the Rif region of northern Morocco, led by Abd El-Krim, had been fighting a guerilla war against Spain since 1921. Rif was nominally a Spanish protectorate, dating from when Europeans parceled out chunks of Africa to each other in the 1880's, although Riffians had effectively resisted Spanish rule from the beginning. Riffians, however, saw none of the benefits of Spanish mining in their mountains, while providing most of the labor and suffering all of the environmental damage.

"The Riffians and the Ruffians" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 13, 1925

The Riffian guerrilla tactics won early successes, but Spain resorted to chemical warfare (as alluded to in Zimmerman's cartoon) as well as the first amphibious landing of armored tanks. Then France, a "protector" of other parts of Morocco, joined the war on the side of Spain. Franco-Spanish forces launched a final offensive against Abd El-Krim's vastly outnumbered forces on May 8.

Objection to the Franco-Spanish military action was led by Mussolini's fascist government in Italy. Not because he was standing up for Moroccan sovereignty, but because he insisted on Italy getting some of the spoils.

Turning now to the Pacific:

"Improving the Landscape" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, May 11, 1925

After joint war games of the U.S. Army and Navy at Hawaii in May, the Chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee, Rep. Thomas Butler (R-PA), advocated turning the island chain into "the strongest military outpost in the world."

"I have always contended that Hawaii should be made our Helgoland in the Pacific," Butler announced, "east of which no enemy national would dare to come without first capturing it. I am prepared to vote to establish the greatest air base on Earth at Pearl Harbor."

"Scaring the Little Fellow in the Pacific" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, May 2, 1925

The New York Herald Tribune, in approving Rep. Butler's proposal, averred, "Under ordinary conditions, there would be little danger of an attack on Hawaii, since the attacking fleet would have to reckon, in the first instance, with the American fleet covering our coasts in the military sense, but far from them, perhaps in reality. ... But for the purposes of a base used either offensively or defensively, Pearl Harbor must be brought up to the mark."

At the time, access to Pearl Harbor was hampered by a narrow inlet at low tide. Ships had to wait outside the harbor for high tide, and ships within the harbor had to wait for one another for their turn to set sail. According to reporter Arthur Sears Henning (May 6, 1925), 

"When the American fleet reached Honolulu at the conclusion of the recent war games the destroyers, cruisers and lesser craft found anchorage at Pearl Harbor, but the battleships were compelled to anchor in the open ocean off the reef."

Addressing Senators and reporters invited to Hawaii to witness the war games, Admiral John D. McDonald thundered, 

"Turn and look yonder to the ocean. See those ships out there where they don't belong? That isn't their place — their place is in Pearl Harbor! They're not in Pearl Harbor, and the reason they're not in Pearl Harbor is because they can't get in. ...  If you want to find out whether or not they belong out there in the open water, just ask the captain of any one of those ships."

According to an Associated Press report on May 10, the Army-Navy assessment of the war games concluded that "the defenses of the island of Oahu cannot be relied upon to protect the Pearl Harbor base from an enemy investment in the event of such a surprise attack in force as was simulated in the maneuvers."

"Hula, Hula" by Homer Stinson in Dayton Daily News, May 18, 1925

Stinson may have had Rep. Thomas Butler confused with Sen. William Butler (R-MA), in office for only a few months to fill out the term of deceased Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, and not, as far as I have been able to determine, one of the senators who got to go to Hawaii for the Army-Navy war games. 

Be that as it was, the Departments of the Army and Navy estimated the cost to bring Pearl Harbor "up to the mark" at $40 million (over $730 million adjusted for inflation today). Their proposal included upgrades to the base's military barracks, communications systems, and gun emplacements.

"Picturesque Hawaii, as the Militarists See It" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 23, 1925

Well, no spoilers here about how Pearl Harbor fared when the war games got real. Tune in again next week, when we promise more pleasant diversions.

How about a trip to the zoo to visit family?

In Respect to Defense

With the passage and signing into law of the Respect for Marriage Act, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act outlawing same-sex marriage has been overturned. I would like to have looked back at the passage of that earlier antigay legislation, but I didn't start drawing for the LGBTQ+ press until shortly after it was passed.

in InStep Magazine, Milwaukee Wis. Dec. 11, 1996

DOMA was passed in anticipation of a gay-friendly ruling by the Hawai'ian Supreme Court. Three same-sex couples had sued the state of Hawai'i in 1990 to respect their weddings in a case that became Baehr v. Miike. The court sent the case back to trial court with the state bearing the burden of proof that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying "furthers compelling state interests and is narrowly drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgments of constitutional rights." In December of 1996, Hawai'ian Judge Kevin S.C. Chang ruled in favor of plaintiffs, but stayed his ruling in case it were reversed on appeal.

in InStep Magazine, Milwaukee, Wis., Sept. 18, 1996. My first cartoon for the LGBTQ press before I started drawing for them on a regular basis.

The U.S. Congress had already passed, and President Bill Clinton had signed, DOMA in September, guaranteeing that if same-sex marriage were legal in Hawai'i, it would not be recognized by the federal government or any state on the mainland. Then, in 1998, Hawai'i voters approved a constitutional amendment barring same-sex couples from marrying.

in InStep Magazine, Milwaukee Wis., January 8, 1998

The religious right pushed similar "Definition/Defense of Marriage Amendments" in state after state, a crusade supported enthusiastically by Republicans and acquiesced to by not a few Democrats.

A flyer I put together as Wisconsin legislature passed its DOMA in 1997

As a consolation prize, some people suggested that same-sex couples settle for "domestic partnerships." 

for Q Syndicate, April/August, 1998

But even that was anathema to the religious right. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, state legislatures passed laws to prevent municipalities (and in some cases, even private corporations) from offering domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

for Q Syndicate, April/December, 1998

These last three cartoons are examples of ideas I originally drew for InStep Magazine of Milwaukee, but redrew when brought on to Q Syndicate for national distribution. The then-owner of the syndicate, David (Bianco) Benkof, wanted a portfolio of six cartoons he could show to potential customers; most of them were released for publication later on.

"And They Say We Threaten Their Families" above is my original version for InStep; the other two are the retreads. The "Special Rights" cartoon recast a local TV newsman and a fictional politician as ABC "Nightline" host Ted Koppel and Family Research Council head Gary Bauer.

for Q Syndicate, August, 1999

At weeks such as this one, when there doesn't seem to be enough time to handle all the tasks that pile up on top of each other, it would be nice to have a half dozen cartoons in reserve. But now more than ever before, it's hard to imagine what I could possibly draw in April that would still be fresh and relevant in August, let alone December.

Keep Calm and E Mālie

Hawai'ian Civil Defense has unveiled a new automated message.

Comic Caper, Part Dos

Stripback Saturday returns to an old comic strip I drew about a murder mystery in the funny pages. I drew The Funny Paper Caper over the course of the 1983-84 school year for the UW-Parkside Ranger (that's four years before Who Framed Roger Rabbit... but I'm not actively considering suing Disney Corporation at this point in time).

When we left our story, our police lieutenant narrator had begun his investigation of the murder of Rufus T. Pornapple. Having just talked to Mrs. Pornapple, who thought he had arrived to take report of a burglary at their home, our intrepid detective is about to meet the neighbors.

In addition to the occasional picture on the wall of some bit of cartoon history, I mimicked the balloons and printing of the cartoon characters. I somehow failed to incorporate a gargantuan sandwich or a bathtub into this part of the story line, however.

I'm going to need to explain here the inside joke that Strollin Bowlin' was a mascot who appeared in UW-P Ranger advertisements for the campus bowling alley.

Mimicking their cartoonists' lettering, it was so much easier to cram a lot of dialogue into Kathy's balloons than Mr. Dumpstead's.

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How the Stephen Millers of the 19th Century Regarded Your Forebears

If I hadn't set the ball rolling on this Comic Caper nostalgia last week, I should probably have taken Trump's announcement of his No-Wretched-Refuse-Allowed immigration bill to present a more scholarly look back at 19th-Century editorial cartoons that warned against allowing your immigrant ancestors into the United States.

It's been done before, however. Here's an example that takes on almost every immigrant nationality, anyway (plus First Nations) (and even Canadians); and consider this your trigger warning that it's rather offensive.

"Please, Ma'am, May We Come In?" by Grant E. Hamilton in  Judge, 1893.

A Date Drawn in Infamy

Wednesday was the 75th anniversary of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, so naturally, I was curious to find the first editorial cartoons drawn in response.

By chance, John "Ding" Darling (1876-1962) had already drawn his cartoon for the Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 Des Moines Register about Japanese aggression in the Pacific.

"Now Why Should anyone Mistrust Japan" by John "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, December 7, 1941

This was not Darling's first cartoon raising the alarm about Japanese or German aggression. He firmly believed that the issues left unsettled after World War I were a threat to American interests. His career having spanned from before that Great War, Darling's support for the League of Nations to preserve peace, and the need for America to participate therein, ran counter to most of his fellow Republicans.

His post-attack cartoon portrayed a giant Uncle Sam cradling a dead seaman in his arms while scores of tiny islanders beseech him for protection from a rattlesnake with swastikas for scales and its rattle disguised as an olive branch.

"Please Excuse Hon. Doublecross" by Benben? in Pittsburgh Press, December 8, 1941

The rest of these cartoons were drawn immediately after the Japanese attack. I haven't been able to find anything out about the above cartoonist, whose name appears to be Benben. This may have been a syndicated feature, since I'm finding no other cartoons by him in the Pittsburgh Press; their editorial page usually featured the syndicated work of Harold Talburt, and less often, their own Ralph Reichhold (see below). Perhaps some staffer at the Press stepped in to provide a Pearl Harbor cartoon for the Monday afternoon editorial page when none other was available.

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Jacob Burck was born Yankel Bochkowsky in Białystok, Poland in 1907; he came to America at age 7, his family settling in Cleveland, Ohio. His work for Communist publications such as New Masses and The Daily Worker in the 1920's and '30's didn't prevent this leftist cartoonist from a 44-year career with the Chicago Times and later the Chicago Sun-Times until 1982, although publisher Marshall Field III had to defend Burck against efforts by Sen. Joe McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee to have him deported. Other newspapers, however, by the score dropped Burck's syndicated cartoons during the Red Scare.

His cartoons won the Pulitzer in 1941 and the Sigma Delta Chi award the following year. A few months after health issues forced his retirement, Burck died from injuries sustained in a fire at his home caused by his smoking habit.

"Tiger in the East" by Jacob Burck in Chicago Times, December 8, 1941

Daniel Fitzpatrick (1891-1969) started his career at the Chicago Daily News before Joseph Pulitzer Jr. hired him in 1913 at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where "the universally acknowledged" (at least according to the State Historical Society of Missouri) Dean of Editorial Cartoonists would stay until his retirement in 1952. Pulitzer granted Fitzpatrick latitude to abstain from cartooning when he disagreed with the editorial stance of the newspaper; Fitzpatrick took leaves of absence when the Post-Dispatch endorsed Republican presidential candidates in 1936 and 1948.

Fitzpatrick won Pulitzer prizes for editorial cartooning in 1926 and 1955. He remains famous among editorial cartoon fans for his wartime cartoons depicting a gigantic swastika rolling heavily across Europe, crushing all in its path or being heroically resisted, as the occasion demanded.

"How to Save Face?" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 8, 1941

With Fitzpatrick's retirement, the Deanship passed to another cartoonist who cut his cartooning teeth at the Chicago Daily News, Herbert Block (1909-2001), best known as Herblock. Not yet having landed the plum position at the Washington Post, Herblock was in Cleveland at the start of World War II, drawing for the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

His pre-war cartoons in support of the Allies got Herblock called onto the carpet at NEA's offices in New York, where syndicate president Fred Ferguson pressured him to stop criticizing isolationists. For his part, Herblock couldn't change his views to match Ferguson's, and was frustrated at the syndicate rejecting several of his cartoons. Relations only got worse after the war began, and the syndicate, under the pretext of following Roosevelt administration calls to save paper, told him to draw smaller, square cartoons. The syndicate reversed that decision the next year, after Herblock won the first of his three Pulitzers.

"The Only Course" by Herbert Block for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., December 8, 1941

Born in Prague and emigrating to America as a child, A. Vincent Svoboda (1877-1961) was the editorial cartoonist of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1940 to 1952. Prior to that, he had drawn for the New York American, Harper's Magazine, Saturday Evening Post and movie posters. (Note: "A." is Svoboda's middle initial in most of the references I've found, but it's given as his first initial in early Brooklyn Daily Eagle articles about him.)

"United We Stand" by Vincent Svoboda in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 9, 1941

Joseph Parrish (1905-1989) followed fellow cartoonist Carey Orr from Nashville to the Chicago Tribune in 1936; along with Daniel Holland, they were dubbed "The Terrible Three From Tennessee" by publisher Robert R. McCormick. (Yes, the Trib had three editorial cartoonists at the same time!) The Tribune cartoons leading up to World War II promoted "America First" isolationism in keeping with Republican orthodoxy, but with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the newspaper and its cartoonists committed themselves fully to the war effort.

"At Your Service" by Joseph Parrish in Chicago Tribune, December 8, 1941

That's the phenomenon noted by the Pittsburgh Press's Ralph G. Reichhold (1894-1989), depicting the isolationists abandoning their America First pickets. What I've been able to find about Reichhold is that he had been drawing for the Press since at least 1936, created its long-running avian cartoon character Donnie Dingbat (originally to spice up a routine weather article) and retired in 1955. As an occasional feature, he would draw a cartoon collage illustrating selected letters to the editor.

"It's a Different Story Now" by Ralph Reichhold in Pittsburgh  Press, December 10, 1941

The Milwaukee Journal's Ross A. Lewis (1902-1977) carries forward the theme of the nationwide commitment to the war. In December of 1929, He was inspired at the New York Art Students' League by the "Ash Can School" style of Burck, William Gropper and Robert Minor. Lewis began drawing occasional local issue cartoons for the Journal, which otherwise relied on the syndicated work of "Ding" Darling. Darling's support of Herbert Hoover's reelection resulted in the pro-FDR Journal offering Lewis a regular position on the front page, which he filled until 1967. Along the way, he was awarded the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1935 for a cartoon arguing that both sides shared blame for labor-management violence.

"If There's Another Job to Do, We'll Do It" by Ross Lewis in Milwaukee Journal, December 8, 1941

Long Road to Victory, Part IV

Part IV: State by State

After voters in Hawai'i overruled their state supreme court on marriage equality, states all around the country began passing Defense / Definition of Marriage laws and constitutional amendments. Marriage rights activists believed that their best chance of stemming this tide was in the state of California. A ballot initiative written by State Senator Pete Knight to write marriage discrimination into the California constitution was on the ballot as Proposition 22 in 2000, actively supported by the Catholic and Mormon Churches, among others.

"No on Knight" tried to close the gap in the polls with print and television ads calling Prop 22 unnecessary: "You want the best for your children, but what if your child, or the child of someone you know, turns out to be gay? ... Gay marriage is already banned and it stays banned when you vote no. For your child, or someone else's, vote no on 22." This mealy-mouthed approach utterly failed, and Prop 22 passed by a whopping 61% to 39% margin.

Where marriage equality was finally able to stem the tide was in New England. I mentioned last Saturday that Vermont had led the nation with its recognition in July, 2000 of same-sex civil unions (nine years later, it would be the first state to recognize same-sex marriage by legislation rather than a court ruling). The first court ruling in favor of marriage equality came in the fall of 2003, in Massachusetts. In a 4-to-3 ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Court gave the state legislature 180 days to legalize same-sex marriages.

The California Supreme Court found Proposition 22 unconstitutional in 2008, and the Connecticut Supreme Court found in favor of marriage equality that same year. Both decisions, like that in Massachusetts, were by one-vote majorities. Surprisingly, the first unanimous court decision came in April, 2009, not in some liberal coastal state, but in Iowa.

(Someone from central Iowa contacted me after this cartoon appeared, wondering how I knew of Sac City. As it happens, it was the only small town I found on the map with a name which clearly fit metrically in the Green Acres theme song. I've never been in Iowa west of the Mississippi River Highway.)

Conservatives in Iowa succeeded in ousting three of their Supreme Court justices in the next election, but the tide was turning in favor of marriage equality. I can't include my cartoons about each of the fifty states here, especially since the most recent progress has come, via U.S. Circuit Court rulings, several states at a time. But here are a couple favorites -- Hawai'i in 2009:

Minnesota in 2011:

And finally, from last year, featuring Wisconsin's then-Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whom I could have replaced with any of a few dozen elected Republicans from other states:

The Long Road to Overnight Victory, Part I

My cartoon for this week is included in an LGBT cartoonist round-up over at Fusion -- you can check it and seven others out now, or wait for me to post it tomorrow.

Looking at the other cartoonists' submissions, I wish that I had found something more personal to say. I can blame a combination of a hectic schedule and some unpleasant prepping for a medical procedure (it turns out I'm healthy); but the fact is, I've been drawing about marriage equality for so long, I don't know how much more I could possibly find to say about it.

I've drawn so many cartoons about it, in fact, that I wasn't able to winnow them down to fit in a single blog entry.

I wasn't drawing cartoons in 1972 when Baker v. Nelson came before the Minnesota Supreme Court; but in 1996, I was drawing cartoons for InStep, one of  two LGBT newspapers in Milwaukee, when a circuit court judge in Hawai'i ruled that state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

Judge Kevin S.C. Chang's ruling in Baehr. v. Miike would be overturned by Hawai'i voters, but not before giving LGBT marriage advocates hope, and antigay activists a fund-raising and vote-getting bonanza. Legislators in Hawai'i and just about every other state, as well as the U.S. Congress, rushed to define "marriage" as a special rite that could only be entered into by one man and one woman.

Very well, replied some LGBT activists and liberal allies. If we can't get "married," how about if we call it something else?

Fine. We're in a "committed relationship." We've even had a "commitment ceremony." But what do I call you? My "committee"?

Another term to come down the pike was "domestic partnership"; one could at least refer to the other as "partner." Like dancers, law firms, and bridge players have.

As if there weren't already enough euphemisms for "marriage lite," I had to offer one of my own:

We'll continue this retrospective on marriage equality on Stepback Saturday, starting with "Evolution of the Democrats."