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.

Uncle Samicus Curiae Mundi

The Graphical History Tour returns to January of 1926, and a moment when it appeared that Uncle Sam was ready to break out of his isolationist sulk.

"Down Comes That Fence" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 29, 1926

On January 27, 1926, the U.S. Senate voted 76 to 17 in favor of joining the World Court, a proposal that had been waiting for Senate approval since the Harding administration. The World Court was established in 1921 as a peacekeeping arm of the League of Nations to provide an alternative to war for settling international disputes.

"On the Threshold" by Ed Gale in Los Angeles Times, Jan. 31, 1926

Senate approval came with reservations. Conditions stipulated in the Senate bill included requiring all World Court proceedings to be public, and that the U.S. should be a party to all cases having any effect on U.S. interests.

"Everything to Lose—Nothing to Gain" by Wm. A. Rogers in Washington Post, Jan. 27, 1926

William Hanny's cartoon at the top of today's post notwithstanding, opposition to U.S. participation in the World Court remained. William Rogers depicted the Court's other members outnumbering the U.S. in unified opposition. Only Uncle Sam has any chips on this poker table (they spell out "Monroe Doctrine" and "Independence").

"The Devil's Dish" by T.E. Powers for Star newspapers, ca. Jan. 26, 1926

Opposition by the "irreconcilables" crossed party lines: there were Republicans and Democrats against anything to do with the late Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, whereas the Coolidge administration was in favor of joining the World Court.

T.E. Powers, drawing for Democrat-affiliated Hearst newspapers, discounted the Court as a warmed-over stew of intrigue, revenge, jealousy, and hate.

"Got Him At Last" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, Jan. 28, 1926

Drawing from a Canadian vantage point, Sam Hunter saw the Senate bringing a reluctant Uncle Sam at long last to justice.

"All Aboard" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 28, 1926

But this Senate vote was not ratification of the treaty the U.S. had signed in Geneva. Those five reservations the Senate insisted upon were never resolved.

"Bitter Bitter Enders" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 31, 1926

In 1930, President Herbert Hoover would ask the Senate to ratify the Geneva treaty, only to have his request all but ignored. The Senate finally took up a ratification vote in 1935, during Franklin Roosevelt's first term as President. The vote in favor, 52 to 36, fell short of the two-thirds majority required.

The World Court was dissolved, along with other functions of the League of Nations, in 1945, and its duties turned over to the newly established International Court of Justice. The U.S. has been a member of the ICJ from the beginning, at least up to the present Lawless Trump Regime.

✍

Uncle Sam appears in six of today's seven editorial cartoons. Come back next week, when the Graphical History Tour follows up on a reader's question about another American symbol.

Got the Kit As Well As the Kaboodle

Today's Graphical History Tour serves up some leftover turkey from Thanksgiving Day, 1925.

"Your Uncle Sam Is Good at This" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 26, 1925

Editorial cartoonists greeted Thanksgiving a century ago with confidence and exuberance that the nation was awash in good times. The United States happily enjoyed peace and prosperity, even if the rest of the world was still recovering from World War I, revolting against colonial occupiers, or fighting to put down rebellious colonies.

"Some Stuffin'" by Ed Gale in Los Angeles Times, Nov. 26, 1925

Ed Gale lays out his specific ingredients for Uncle Sam's turkey stuffing. I'm not as confident as he was, however, that farmers in 1925 were enjoying prosperity as much as the auto makers, railroad barons, construction trades, and radio stations.

"Truly Thankful" by Dean O'Dell in Dayton Daily News, Nov. 26, 1925

A reader left a comment on my cartoon last week of Donald Napoleon Trump shushing Miss Columbia; she wondered when it was that the female characterization of the United States went out of fashion. That might be a topic for a future Graphical History Tour; but for now, here Columbia is settling down for Thanksgiving dinner with her male counterpart, Uncle Sam.

I was a bit surprised to come across her in Dean O’Dell’s cartoon; her star was fading by 1925. She rarely appeared in editorial cartoons any more, except at the bier of deceased presidents. 

"Uncle Sam Will Take a Little of the Stuffing" by Wm. A. Rogers in Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1925

I'm not quite as surprised to find Miss Columbia serving Thanksgiving dinner in this cartoon by William A. Rogers. This is very late in Rogers's career, which began when he succeeded Thomas Nast at Harper's Weekly in 1877, a time when Columbia was a frequent subject of editorial cartoons. (Dean O'Dell, in contrast to the 71-year-old Rogers, was 35 in 1925, ten years into a thirty-year cartooning career.)

What really separates Rogers's cartoon from the rest in today's post is how he uses the holiday occasion not to celebrate but to complain: that "Big U.S. Banker" and the European powers represented at the Locarno conference (see last Saturday's post) — even "Little Belgium" — are going to leave poor old Uncle Sam with nothing but a little of the stuffing.

Well, every party needs its pooper.

"Dr. Hoover Makes His 1925 Report" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Nov. 8, 1925

Just for some context, here are a couple of cartoons celebrating the heady economic news coming out of Washington D.C. Clifford Berryman's cartoon depicts Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover delivering an excellent bill of health to Uncle Sam.

"Having the Time of His Life" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 12, 1925

Neither Berryman nor Dorman Smith could know that within months of Herbert Hoover taking the presidential oath of office four years later, that crashing sound from Wall Street would hardly be music to anybody's ears.

"Let Us Repair to the Dining Room" by Bill Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 26, 1925

But we return now to Thanksgiving 1925, and the requisite eating, drinking, and being merry, for tomorrow is always a day away.

"Thanksgiving at Aunt Maria's" by Archibald Chapin for New York Tribune, Nov. 26, 1925

Archibald Chapin overloaded this cartoon with labels, and since the print is probably too small for any of you reading this on a handheld screen, I'll give you some description. Those seated around the table include "the young man from the county seat," Cousin Dottie, Grandma Wyatt, the Minister, Aunt Maria, Aunt Abbie, Uncle Ham, Cousin Stella, the minister's wife, and Uncle George. Cousin Ada's chair is empty because she's heading to the kitchen. Three children are in another doorway "waiting for the second table." I'll forgo reciting all the dishes on the table and buffet, save to note that there are turkey, ham, and oysters, and two each of cakes and pies.

Chapin's Aunt Maria is saying to The Minister on her right: "Really, Brother Stephens, I'm sorry we haven't much to eat this Thanksgiving." And I should probably point out that Aunt Maria could have been Hispanic or Italian but probably wasn't; the name is common in Scandinavian and Germanic countries as well.

Authoritative cartooning historians tell me that Chapin was employed by the Philadelphia Morning Ledger and syndicated by Ledger Syndicate in 1925, yet this cartoon and others of his that year sport copyright notices crediting the New York Tribune. My guess is that the Tribune was distributing Chapin's cartoons during the illness that kept Jay N. "Ding" Darling away from his drawing board for much of 1925 and early '26.

In conclusion, here's a cautionary tale against gluttony, even if it comes too late for anyone whose eyes were bigger than their waistlines on Thursday:

"I Warned Him His Appetite Would Be the Death of Him" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Nov. 26, 1925

But I have to quibble with Doc Featherbones's post mortem diagnosis. It wasn't Tom's own appetite what done him in.

Asking Our 51st State to Go with the Flow

There has been renewed interest on the internets over comments Trump made at in California last September, promising the state "more water than you ever saw" if he were elected: 

"Donald Trump suggested there was a 'large faucet' up North that could solve all of California’s water needs for its cities, its farms and to wet down its forests so they don’t burn so fierce.

"'You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they essentially have a very large faucet,' Trump said on Friday [apparently referring to the Columbia River].

"'You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it's massive, it's as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific [Ocean], and if you turned that back, all of that water would come right down here and into Los Angeles,' he said."

It's exaggeration or hyperbole to suggest that Trump's remarks mean that he thinks that, because water flows downhill and Canada is above the United States on a standard map, water would naturally flow from Canada to California. But there is much that he doesn't know that he doesn't know, and elementary physics is on that list.

"The Battle of Lake Michigan" by Hal Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 15, 1925

But you were expecting a Graphical History Tour today, so by Gosh and Golly Alrighty then, you shall have one. 

"The Precocious Boy" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 5, 1925

A.G. Racey at the Montreal Daily Star had plenty of reservations about Canadian cooperation with United States water usage plans. 

I've lived most of my life near Lake Michigan in an area where PublicWorks Departments are acutely aware of international waterway issues. The subcontinental divide between the Great Lakes basin and the Mississippi River basin is less than ten miles from Lake Michigan around here, so water-thirsty projects that straddle that line such as Racine extending water and sewage service to the FoxConn factory practically in my back yard require approval from all the states and provinces bordering the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The divide runs through the city of Chicago. In 1900, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opened between the Chicago River (which flowed into Lake Michigan) to the Des Plaines River (which ultimately flows to the Mississippi). The canal reversed the flow of the Chicago River; complaints that Chicago was ignoring agreements with the Army Corps of Engineers to limit the amount of water diverted from Lake Michigan in order to carry sewage down the Des Plaines date from 1907.

In January, 1925, the Canadian government and the Great Lakes Harbor Association formally protested to the U.S. Congress and the Secretaries of War and State against the city of Chicago. At the same time, the dispute reached U.S. Supreme Court in Sanitary District of Chicago v. United States.

"It's Up to You" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star Weekly, Jan. 17, 1925

The U.S. Senate heard testimony from freighter captains that water levels in the Great Lakes were lowering as a result. "The water is diminishing over the whole chain of lakes all the time," skipper Edward Fitch of Cleveland testified, adding that his ship's routine load had to be cut from 500,000 bushels of wheat to 425,000 to enable it to make harbor. 

Chief of Army Engineers Brigadier General Harry Taylor told senators that Chicago's water diversion had lowered Lake Michigan and Lake Huron water levels by 5.8" (14.7 cm), Lake Erie by 5.52" (14 cm) Lake Ontario by 5.76" (14.6 cm), St. Clair River by 4.8" (12.2 cm), and the St. Lawrence River by 8.52" (21.64 cm).

I went through Chicago Tribunes for the month of January to check whether its editorial cartoonists had anything to say about the controversy. I found one cartoon by Carey Orr coming to the Windy City's defense.

"Waiting to Cross" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Jan. 7, 1925

Returning Chicago sewage to Lake Michigan — where White people were allowed to swim! — instead of letting the Des Plaines River carry it to the Gulf of Mexico meant that the federal government would require Chicago to construct a sewage treatment plant. The lame-duck Congress, in session until March 3, deferred any legislation until the next Congress took office, but the new sewage treatment plant would be begun in due course.

I believe that Dearborn in Orr's cartoon refers to the mouth of the Chicago River where Fort Dearborn (destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire) had been located. As far as I've been able to determine, there was nobody by that name in Cook County government in 1925.

"The Dog and the Bone" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 9, 1925

We noted last month A.G. Racey's opposition to Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover's proposed "Super Power Project" to deliver electricity generated at the St. Lawrence River "across the line" to the U.S. eastern seaboard. 

"Don't Worry, John" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 10, 1925

"Don't Worry, John" suggests that Racey's alarm was not shared by Canadian financiers (and perhaps governmental officials in Toronto?) willing and eager to cooperate in Hoover's Super Power Project. Racey took a dim view of other deals with Canada's southern neighbor as well, here accusing them of being disloyal to John Bull.

"An Easy Sucker" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 15, 1925

Racey's Uncle Sam put on a lot of weight between his January 5 editorial cartoon and this one a mere ten days later.

"Greedy American Super Power Interests" tempt the Canadian sucker with "Pretense of cheaper grain carriage rates" from a can of "Enlarged St. Lawrence Waterway Bait."

"Paging the Man with the Wad" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Jan. 27, 1925

The Super Power Project would be blocked February 21 by the opposition of Ottawa and Quebec. Mr. Canada's newspaper, however, lists other sources of friction in U.S.-Canada relations, such as a long-standing Canadian resentment against forestry deals which, Racey charged, favored the Yanks.

In closing, I'd just like to caution the incoming Even More Corrupt Trump Administration not to screw up the amicable relations that our country and Canada have ironed out over the century since these cartoons were drawn. We've come to agreements on water and hydroelectricity and forestry now, and everything is hunky dory between us resource-management-wise.

Well, almost everything. 

Cartoons from the Foreign Desk

Since Trump was dreaming about annexing Canada as a 51st state, today's Graphical History Tour's first stop is with our northern neighbors for a quick reality check.

Tell us how you really feel, Johnny Canuck. And don't hold back.

"The Black Hand of Foreign Domination" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Dec. 5, 1924

100 Decembers ago, U.S. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover endorsed a "Super Power Project" to meet Atlantic states' growing energy needs with power from Canada's hydroelectric dams along the St. Lawrence River. The Montreal Star fretted that "These official prognostications from across the boundary will sooner or later be directed upon Canada with pressure that any government will find it difficult, if not impossible, to resist."

That the project would benefit states far from the river and its watershed, such as Massachusetts, rankled some Canadians. These days, there is a compact among states and provinces bordering the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River; it is still exceedingly rare for Canadian interests to scuttle any U.S. plan to bend the rules of the compact in its favor.

"Ye Merrie Yuletide" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, Dec. 10, 1924

Racey returned to the theme of Yankee bullying of his home country a few days later; this time in the timber industry.

In his chapter of Sketches from an Unquiet Country: Canadian Graphic Satire 1840-1940, Christian Vachon put forth the case that the popular image of Uncle Sam was invented by Canadian cartoonists and copied by Thomas Nast. Here, Racey appears to have copied his personification of "American Interests" from U.S. cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper’s turn-of-the-century characterization of the Trusts.

"Wahlnot" in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 7, 1924

In case you have been overwhelmed by the constant barrage of campaign fund-raising emails that continue unabated regardless of the election having past, consider the plight of der geplagte Michel 100 years ago this month. Germany held elections for the Reichstad on December 7 — for the second time in six months. Nazis, Communists, monarchists, Social Democrats, and "Catholic Centrists" all competed for voters' affections.

At least none of them had discovered Mailchimp. 

"Die beiden Unzufriedenen" in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Dec. 21, 1924

When the ballots were counted, the parties on the left and right extremes had lost seats in the Reichstag; the Social Democrats under Hermann Müller gained almost as many seats as the Nazi party and Communists lost combined.

I haven't been able to definitively credit these two cartoons, initialed rather than signed. Kladderadatsch had abandoned its occasional practice of printing a credit above its cartoons; with the prospect of one or another radical element coming to power, it's understandable that a cartoonist might want some degree of anonymity. 

Of Kladderadatsch's regular cartoonists, Oskar Garvens, Werner Hahmann, Arthur Johnson, Hans-Maria Lindloff, M. Richter, and the occasional Egon Erwin Kisch, I would rule out Hahmann, who initialed his cartoons in the same style as his signature, and Johnson, whose drawing style doesn't match. The signed cartoons of Czech-born Kisch have a quickly sketched quality to them, but some of his other published work is more thoroughly polished. I can't dismiss Lindloff, Garvens, or some other cartoonist.

"A Confiding Old Gentleman..." by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 9, 1924

Turning to U.S. cartoonists, here's William Hanny's take on the news from France, which arrested and deported 60 members of the French Communist Party in December.

Hanny's cartoon makes reference to the supposed "Zinoviev letter" that had helped bring down the first Labour government of British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald in October. Although the letter is now believed to have been forged, it was still widely accepted as genuine at the time.

"Declaring Himself In" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 13, 1924

British-French relations also come up in another Hanny cartoon a few days later. The British government announced that it would like France to repay $3 billion in loans to finance the Great War, which concerned the Coolidge administration because the U.S. was waiting for France to cough up $4 billion to repay loans from America.

The French, for their part, were impatiently expecting reparations from Germany, anticipated to be facilitated under the Dawes Plan, namesake of the U.S. Vice President-elect.

"Who'll Get the Short End" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Dec. 14, 1924

As illustrated by J.P. Alley, the U.S. concern was that France would be unable to meet its obligations to both the U.S. and Great Britain, necessitating negotiation of a deal more favorable to France than the one already in effect regarding repayment of British wartime loans from the U.S.

Retiring French Ambassador to the U.S. Jean Jules Jusserand promised that his country's debt to the U.S. would be repaid "to the last cent," but protested that five sixths of the money borrowed was spent in the U.S., and besides, "I think you will not forget that we spent more blood than any of the Allies, much treasure, and further, that we were the only country that supplied a battlefield."

"It Was 'Nearly Over With'" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Dec. 17, 1924

The London Post opined that U.S. pressure on its allies over wartime loans was out of line, and that it was America that owed a debt to the Entente powers: "Is it sound morality or even good business to mulct France of sums lent to her for helping to save America, and incidentally the Monroe Doctrine, from the clutches of Germany?"

Maybe we should've just sicced tariffs on them all instead.

Oh, that's right. We did.

Checking Under the Hood

This week's Graphical History Tour circles back to February, 1924 to catch up on the big news stories of the day:

"Another Victory for the Miners" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, Illinois, Feb. 15, 1924

First, let's check back in at the violence-prone mining town of Herrin, Illinois, where one Glenn Young and A.J. Armitage had led a series of raids against businesses and private homes where booze was served in violation of the Volstead Act. Young and Armitage were backed by a mob, many of whom admitted membership in the Ku Klux Klan. An anti-Klan group calling itself the Knights of the Flaming Circle rose up to battle Young and his Klan Kohorts; others fighting the Klan were the "Shelton gang" of bootlegging outlaws.

When we last left Herrin in Williamson County, Sheriff George Galligan had called in the National Guard in an attempt to restore order. He sent them home when he thought tempers had cooled, but tempers flared back up immediately. On February 8, pro-klan police officers burst into an anti-klan meeting, and in the violence that ensued, one klansman was killed and another injured. 

"The Unanswered Challenge" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 1924

Sheriff Galligan took two police officers into protective custody in another county and called for the National Guard to return. 

After a police constable named Caesar Cagle was shot on a Herrin street and died at a hospital where a wounded anti-klan member was also being treated, klansmen from miles around converged on Herrin, laying siege to the hospital. Firing shots into the hospital, they set up roadblocks around the town, took over City Hall.

Young declared himself Chief of Police and had Herrin Mayor C.A. "Mage" Anderson, Sheriff Galligan, and 38 others arrested for complicity in Cagle's murder. The town council named Carl Nall to replace Anderson at request of the military. A coroner's jury the next day found that Cagle had been killed by members of the Shelton gang.

Young would be charged with "injury to property" and forced to quit his usurped office and leave town. Charges were also brought against klansmen, including some prominent Herrin and Marion businessmen, for firing upon the hospital.

Cartoonist Ellis's declaration of victory would not stand for long. Klan candidates would sweep Williamson County elections in April.

"The Newest State Capitol Decoration" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Feb. 15, 1924

Meanwhile, in Missouri, the Klan held a rally inside the state capitol. The official who granted the permit for use of the capitol building claimed that he had no idea that the persons who made the request, an engineer with the State Highway Commission and a labor commissioner, were acting on behalf of the Klan. "However," Commissioner of the Permanent Seat of Government Harry Woodruff told the press, "it would have made no difference if I had known the meeting was a gathering of the Klan, for I would not have denied them use of the hall."

Woodruff's protestations of innocence were disputed by Heber Nations, the labor commissioner. According to Heber, Rev. Z.A. Harris, a national representative of the Klan, had heard that "a lecturer for a secret religious organization, speaking in the House chamber two weeks before, had made slurring remarks about the Klan and its principles. I mentioned the request to Mr. Woodruff, who wanted the hall and what for, and he gladly granted it."

According to press reports, a crowd estimated in the hundreds listened to Harris preach on "Americanism and the Ku Klux Klan," calling for limiting immigration "in order to prevent an influx of ideas of the ideas of internationalism."

"Knights of the Double-Crossed" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 28, 1924

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours, you may recall that the Klan was split between factions led by self-styled "Colonel" William J. Simmons, founder of its 1920 iteration, and the more radical Hirman Wesley Evans, whose supporters dumped Simmons from their leadership. Simmons then founded a rival group, the Knights of Kamelia.

The latest offshoot was the Knights of the Mystic Clan, launched in Atlanta but establishing its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The KMC forswore masks and secrecy, and declared that it "the order is not connected in any manner with the Ku Klux Klan, Hiram Wesley Evans, or William Joseph Simmons."

Like that of the Klan, KMC membership was limited to qualified men who are "white and of the Protestant Christian faith." John R. Jones of Kansas City was elected temporary chair of the splinter group, and chapters were set up in Atlanta; Kansas City; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tulsa, Oklahoma; El Dorado, Kansas; Durham, North Carolina; and Russell, Kentucky.

I'm finding that by April, KMC headquarters had moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma under the leadership of one H. Tom Kight. In February, 1925, someone claiming to represent the KMC left a letter on the doorstep of the Tallequa, Oklahoma Arrow Democrat — anonymously. "To protect our order and to make our enterprise possible, we maintain the utmost secrecy in our operations."

Their secrecy was pretty darned utmost; I have yet to find any mention of the Knights of the Mystic Clan after that.

Turning now to other major news:

"Every Day Is Washday for Some" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Feb. 29, 1924

Teapot Dome was not the only scandal coming out of Washington in February, 1924, but it was by far the most prominent. Every day seemed to bring new revelations, including against at least one of the senators making hay of the scandals. Interior Secretary Albert Fall at the center of the Teapot Dome scandal was already out of office; the scandal also ensnared Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and Attorney General Harry Daugherty.

"His Nice New Cowboy Hat" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News ca. Feb. 14, 1924

Republican-leaning cartoonists played up the involvement of Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company founder Edward Doheny in a separate oil leasing deal with Interior Secretary Fall at Elk Hills, California. Doheny was a benefactor of Democratic presidential candidate James McAdoo (McAdieu in Thomas's cartoon), which was enough to fuel a lot of Whataboutism.

"Can't Stem the Flood" by Orville P. Williams in New York Evening Graphic, ca. Feb. 27, 1924

Roosevelt in this cartoon is not FDR, but Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the son of the late president, obviously). Smoot would have to be Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Reed Smoot (R-UT), better known for the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of 1930 that worsened the Great Depression.

"Thank Goodness, They're Not All Like That" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Tribune, Feb. 23, 1924

Finally, amid a flurry of cartoons on the theme of They’re All Crooked (They’re Politicians, Aren’t They?), “Ding” Darling’s stands alone for offering readers a list of government officials he thought they could still look up to.

Darling was an admirer of Herbert Hoover and Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace; he approved of the statecraft of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, who did not share the isolationism of many other Republicans. President Coolidge allowed the investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal to proceed without interference, effectively inoculating himself from any taint of corruption.