Meet the Dingbats

Last Saturday's post looked back on my abortive attempt to add a little character in my editorial cartoons giving postscriptive commentary on the topic of the day. Although I didn't keep it up, such characters are a longstanding tradition that dates back at least to the marginalia in medieval manuscripts, if not to paintings on cave walls.

In editorial cartooning, they're called dingbats, after the typesetters' term for non-alphanumeric characters used for everything from bullet points to paragraph dividers to space filler.

The best known of these in the present day was Puck, the little penguin Pat Oliphant drew at the bottom of his editorial cartoons from his early days Down Under with the Adelaide Advertiser until his retirement in 2015.

"Here I Am, the Last Livin' Person in Ireland..." by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, ca. Feb. 18, 1973

Puck came into being after a colleague at the Adelaide Advertiser brought a penguin in a paper sack to the newspaper office. The 20-something Oliphant, whose political leanings were well to the left of his editors and the publisher at the Advertiser, began adding Puck to his cartoons as a way of sneaking his true opinions past those editors. By the time they caught onto this device, Puck's popularity with readers ensured that the penguin would continue whether the editors liked it or not.

"Now Is the Time to Save Gas" by Fred Seibel in Richmond Times Dispatch, Feb. 18, 1943

I also mentioned Fred O. Seibel and his crow last week. The crow also had a name, but sources disagree whether it is Moses or Jim. Since I have not been able to track down an origin story for him, I'll leave both names here with the caveat that I found him named Jim in a contemporary source, Moses in an article written long after Seibel had died.

"Alas Poor Yorick" by Fred Seibel in Richmond Times Dispatch, Feb. 18, 1933

Getting his start in upstate New York in 1908, Seibel was the editorial cartoonist at the Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch 1926 to 1968. Representing oneself with a crow named Jim would hardly raise an eyebrow at the start of his career; by 1968, and certainly by 2021 when the above-linked article was written, there was nothing quaint or cute about "Jim Crow."

"No Trespassing" by Bob Satterfield for Satterfield Cartoon Service, ca. November, 1914

Bill Rowell might have confused Seibel's crow with Bob Satterfield's bear, whose name was Moses according to Cartoons Magazine. 

The bear's name might also have been Bizzy, however. Satterfield also drew comic strips, including one starting in 1903 starring a bear named Bizzy. A typical episode of the strip, titled "Oh, Thunder," consisted of four square panels showing the bear and perhaps another cartoon animal with a four-line poem. It ran until at least 1933.

Sat's Bear (yet another of its names) was inspired by the popular tale about Teddy Roosevelt declining to kill a bear cub brought to him to shoot at. The incident inspired a famous cartoon by Clifford Berryman, and the more enduring teddy bear dolls. Berryman's bear reappeared once in a while, whereas Satterfield's bruin was a daily constant.

"Advice from One Who Knows" by Bob Satterfield in Detroit Times, ca. July, 1916

 

In 1914, another cartoonist we've featured here from time to time, John Baer, offered Satterfield $1,000 for the rights to use the bear in his cartoons. Satterfield turned down the offer, writing, “He has become an indispensable and highly honored member of our firm, and I assure you that his place could not be successfully filled by anybody else.”

"When Doctors Disagree" by R.C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, Dec. 27, 1898

If you've been following my blog long enough, you are familiar with the work of Minneapolis Tribune cartoonist Rowland C. Bowman, and his little dog. 

When Bowman died in 1903 at the age of 32, the Tribune article eulogizing him explained that the dog had originally appeared as one of many characters in a Bowman cartoon celebrating a Minneapolis baseball team winning a pennant. Something about the dog appealed to readers, so Bowman kept bringing it back again and again.

"Castro Thinks the Venezuelan Trouble Is a Fuse" by R.C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, Feb. 5, 1903

The dog never had a name as far as I've been able to ascertain, and never spoke a word of dialogue. Occasionally, he would be hidden in the cartoon, peering out from behind a fence for instance, resulting in letters to the editor from readers who couldn't find him, or were proud of themselves that they could.

"Willie Bryan Starts in Early" by R.C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, Feb. 18, 1903

A dingbat we met just last month was William K. Patrick's wise-quacking duck.

Patrick's duck originated in the New Orleans Times-Democrat, and when the Times-Democrat merged with the New Orleans Daily Picayune in 1914, the duck took over as the dingbat in charge of reporting the weather. This put the Picayune's weatherfrog out of work after 20 years of faithful service to the Big Easy.

"Meanwhile, the Value of the Eggs" by William K. Patrick in Fort Worth Star Telegram, Feb. 1, 1923

After Patrick left New Orleans for Fort Worth, taking his duck with him, New Orleanians were left with no weathercritter telling them whether to bring an umbrella to work. That is, until 1952, when Times-Picayune editors enlisted Walt Kelly's Pogo to take the job.

The paper's readers, however, would have none of the out-of-state Okeefenokian marsupial, and voted to give the job back to the old frog, who continues his frognostications to this very day.

"What Does His Birthday Mean to You" by Wm. K. Patrick in Fort Worth Star Telegram, Feb. 22, 1923

All of which is a round-about way of telling you that I don't have any interesting tidbits to pass along about the duck itself, save that a whimsical 1918 article in Cartoons Magazine cast Patrick's duck as the colonel in charge of a convocation of cartoon dingbats assembled to pledge their support to the war effort.

in Cartoons Magazine, Chicago, August, 1918

Alas, none of us are including those beloved dingbats in our editorial cartoons any more. (Unless you count Stan Kelly.)

Perhaps that what's ailing our profession these days...

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There Will Almost Be an Ireland

Now that Barbados has thrown off the shackles of British rule, by a happy coincidence, it happens to be time to mark the centennial of the Irish Free State.

Here's what American editorial cartoonists had to say about it.

"For Ireland" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, December 7, 1921

The Anglo-Irish Agreement of December 6, 1921 came just as talks to end the three-year-long Irish War of Independence appeared to be on the brink of breaking down, imperiling a truce that had been in effect since July.

"The Balky Horse" by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthews Adams Service, Nov./Dec., 1921

The Irish rebellion was only one of several signs that, while it might have been true that "the sun never sets on the British Empire," dark clouds were gathering to block it out here and there.

"The British Dilemma" by Billy Ireland in Columbus (OH) Dispatch, Nov./Dec., 1921

(Billy Ireland here includes a common reference to the two cats of Kilkenny.)

The Anglo-Irish treaty provided for an "Irish Free State" (Saorstát Éireann), not as a completely independent country, but as with dominion status. It would have its own legislature while remaining within the British Empire and swearing allegiance, albeit somewhat conditional, to the British crown.

"It's Only Taken About 750 Years..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in  New York Tribune, December 8, 1921

The news was received with enthusiastic relief by nearly all cartoonists on this side of the pond as a sign that seven and a half centuries of conflict had finally come to an end. Full stop.

"The Journey's End" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, December 7, 1921

But the divvil, as they say, was in the details.

"'Big Brother' John" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., by Dec. 10, 1921

The six counties of majority-Protestant Ulster (Northern Ireland) had already set up a Daíl and Seanad separate from those of the isle's 26 majority-Catholic counties back in July, and the treaty provided Ulster the opportunity to opt out of the Irish Free State. It took that opportunity in December, 1922.

"Is the Ancient Feud Really Settled At Last" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Dec. 1921

A significant faction of the Irish Republican Army, moreover, and its political wing, Sinn Fein, rejected the Irish Free State in favor of a unified Ireland, completely independent of the British Empire.

John McCutcheon's is the earliest American cartoon I've found that suggested any misgivings about the Anglo-Irish Treaty's long-term prospects.

"Now, Old Top, We May Lie Down Together" by Wm. H. Walker in Life magazine, Dec. 29, 1921

William Walker here runs a close second.

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"Confidence Rather One-Sided" by Albert T. Reid in New York Evening Mail, December, 1921

Incidentally, it's not as if the U.S. didn't have its own off-shore territories clamoring for independence, too.

Eire Apparent

"If" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch  July, 1921

I get to start this week's history tour off with a cartoon about Ireland by Ireland — Billy Ireland, that is.

"The Twelfth" celebrations in Northern Ireland in the early part of July feature twelve days of parades and bonfires in celebration of the anniversary of Protestant King William of Orange's victory over Catholic King James II on July 12, 1691 (Julian calendar). For centuries, these festivities deliberately provoked Irish Catholics, marching through their neighborhoods and burning Irish flags.

"Too Hot" by Rollin Kirby in New York Evening World, July 22, 1921

So it may have been a happy coincidence that British forces and the Irish Republican Army declared a truce in the two-year-old Irish War of Independence on July 11, 1921.

"The Next Stop" by Roy H. James in St. Louis Star, July, 1921

American newspaper reports told of the news being greeted with celebrations and parades, although I have to wonder how many of those celebrations had more to do with "The Twelfth" than the announcement of the truce.

Untitled, by Bill Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., by July 11, 1921

American cartoonists certainly received the news with enthusiasm...

Untitled, by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, July, 1921

... even if they didn't quite agree upon who was inviting whom to the peace table.

"They'll Both Enjoy a Refreshing Plunge..." by Leo Bushnell for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., by July 13, 1921

Declaring a truce was one thing. Agreeing to a peace settlement was another thing entirely. The proposal from British Prime Minister David Lloyd George offered only limited autonomy to Ireland within the British Empire, analogous to England's dominion over Canada at the time. Irish Republic President Eamonn de Valera demanded complete independence for a united Ireland. Ulster Premier Sir James Craig insisted Northern Ireland would not be governed by Dublin.

"Getting Together to Drive the Snakes Out" by Wm. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, July, 1921

Nor did hostilities stop completely. Sinn Fein founder Arthur Griffith was convinced that the violence alone had no chance of achieving victory over the British army, but irregulars in the IRA continued to recruit fighters and to stage guerilla attacks against royalist targets. Peace negotiations, mediated by South African Premier Jan Smuts, kept plugging away nevertheless.

"Bearding the Lion in His Den" by Leo Bushnell for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., by July 20, 1921

Bushnell's second cartoon here hangs on a relatively obscure story from the Old Testament; cartoonists could get away with a greater store of biblical references a century ago than we can today.

"Getting Together..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, July 25, 1921

Whereas virtually everybody can understand the challenge of getting a bulldog and a cat into the same basket.

Belly Up to the Pharmacy, Boys

Can you believe it? Here we are in the middle of 1921, three years into Prohibition, and it turns out that the alcohol racket is being run by organized medicine!

"Oh, Doctor, Doctor" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. June, 1921

In the year before Prohibition, the American Medical Association passed a resolution stating firmly that alcohol had no nutritional or therapeutic value:

Whereas, We believe that the use of alcohol is detrimental to the human economy and,

Whereas, its use in therapeutics as a tonic or stimulant or for food has no scientific value; therefore,

Be it Resolved, That the American Medical Association is opposed to the use of alcohol as a beverage; and

Be it Further Resolved, That the use of alcohol as a therapeutic agent should be further discouraged.

But since the National Prohibition Act of 1919 offered tipplers a loophole, providing permits for physicians to prescribe alcohol as they saw fit, guess what! The AMA came up with a list of 27 different ailments, from snakebites, asthma, diabetes, and cancer to lactation issues, that could be treated with alcohol.

"Well, What'll You Have..." by Gene Carr in New York World, June, 1921

Heck, your doctor could prescribe you an old fashioned for old age. And by golly, I think that's worth a shot.

"A Liberal Interpretation of the Ruling" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, ca. June, 1921

Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, relates the story of lawyer cum bootlegger George Remus, who 

"bought up a bunch of distilleries within 100 miles of Cincinnati and even further, including the Jack Daniel's distillery that was in St. Louis at the time. He also started something called the Kentucky Drug Company, and he would legally move the stuff in the company trucks to pharmacies all over the lower Midwest and upper South. Then, he would have his own men hijack his own trucks, so that they could move it into the speakeasy trade as well."

"Some Doctors Have No Intelligence Whatsoever" by Harold T. Webster in Chicago Journal, ca. June, 1921

(Side note: I think somebody got Webster's panels out of order, don't you?)

To the extent that medicinal alcohol provided fodder for cartoonists, it was also true that it couldn't escape the attention of congressional busy-bodies with no compunction against meddling in everybody else's health care.

"Tying His Hands" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, June 29, 1921

The House passed the Willis-Campbell Act, on June 27, 1921, and the Senate followed suit on August 8; President Harding signed it into law on November 23. Under the "Beer Emergency Bill" as it was nicknamed, doctors could still prescribe wine or liquor, but not beer. The maximum amount of alcohol per prescription was limited to half a pint, and a doctor could only authorize 100 prescriptions for alcohol per 90-day period.

Well, I apologize for having only five cartoons to resurrect today, but I'm starting to feel a touch of old age flaring up again.

Or maybe it's snakebite.

Skål!

Loose Cannon on Deck

Former Lt. General Michael "Jack D. Ripper" Flynn planted his fascist foot in his mouth this week at a QAnonference in Texas, seeming to agree with a question from the floor that a Myanmar-inspired coup would be a great idea in the U.S. this year. (Donald Trump seems to expect one in August.)

100 years ago this month, another loose cannon in the U.S. Armed Services drew heavy criticism for some ill-considered remarks. Rear Admiral William S. Sims was the guest at a luncheon in London, telling the gathering:

"I do not want to touch on the Irish question, for I know nothing about it. But there are many in our country who technically are Americans, some of them naturalized and some of them born there, but none of them Americans at all.

"They are American when they want money, but Sinn Feiners when on the platform. They are making war on America today.

"The simple truth of it is that they have the blood of British and American boys on their hands for the obstructions they have placed in the way of the most effective operation of the Allied naval forces during the War. They are like zebras, either black horses with white stripes, or white horses with black stripes. But we know they are not horses ― they are asses. But each of these asses has a vote."

The Rear Admiral was no stranger to controversy; during the Wilson administration, he had publicly quarreled with Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. His 1919 criticism of what he saw as deficiencies of American naval strategy, tactics, policy, and administration in the Great War was a major embarrassment to the Department of the Navy, already reeling from the Newport sex scandal.

"At It Again" by Roy Harrison James in St. Louis Star, June, 1921

In 1910, President William Howard Taft was obliged to rebuke Sims for promising Great Britain aid from the U.S. in the event its empire were "seriously menaced by an external enemy." At the time, the idea of sending American soldiers to defend the British Empire was rather farfetched politically; but in the 1921 speech, Sims patted himself on the back for his clairvoyance. Taft, now busy lobbying behind the scenes for appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was in no position to reply to Admiral Sims. But Sims would have to answer to Secretary Daniel's successor, Edwin Denby.

"Well, Here We Are Again" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, June 11, 1921

"Best Wishes, Ol' Top" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, June 10, 1921

Admiral Sims wasn't the only American official speaking out of school in London in the spring of 1921. U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain George Brinton McClellan Harvey (whom we saw in typographic portrayal last Saturday) was another.

"Advice from an Expert" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, June, 1921

According to "Ding" Darling, so was at least one U.S. Senator.

"Maybe We Ought to Do Something..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, June 14, 1921

Rear Admiral Sims retired from the Navy in 1922, and won a Pulitzer for his memoir of the War, The Victory at Sea.  

I don't anticipate Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn earning any Pulitzers for his body of work. He'll just have to be content with his pardon from Trump.

Unless that August putsch works out in his favor.

Noises Off

Last Saturday's centennial retrospective reported on the month-by-month demise of Cartoons Magazine as it was taken over by light fiction magazine Wayside Tales. Today we take a look at the sort of editorial cartoons that your great-grandparents would no longer find in Cartoons Magazine.

"Der Seiltänzer" by "L" in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, May 1, 1921

And not just because of the salty language. Nor because of the German language; even during the Great War, Cartoons Magazine occasionally printed German cartoons. (I wonder how they would have translated "Eiffelturmspiße.")

"Warren Gamaliel Harding" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, May 1, 1921

Perhaps because Germany had no delusions that "normalcy" was returning, German satirical publications continued to thrive while American ones withered away. Just the same, German-American cartoonist Arthur Johnson had high hopes for the new U.S. administration as President Harding made good on his campaign promise to keep out of the League of Nations. Johnson depicts the League as a monstrous hybrid of the British lion and French rooster in this cover illustration for Kladderadatsch.

"Der Amerikanische Rettungsring" by Erich Wilke in Kladderadatsch, May 8, 1921

Only a week later, Johnson's fellow cartoonist at Kladderadatsch, Erich Wilke, presented a considerably less heroic depiction of the new president, throwing Deutscher Michel a worthless life preserver. That's a much more recognizable Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes in the back of the lifeboat.

"Off with the Old..." by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. May 24, 1921

It hadn't taken long for U.S. cartoonists to begin showing some sympathy for Germany's post-war plight. Notwithstanding the high anxiety about German-American saboteurs during the war, Americans tended not to harbor the same degree of animosity toward the German people as did the British and French. American vitriol was focused more on Kaiser Wilhelm and family than on their subjects.

"If France Insists on Having Beefsteak..." by Elmer Bushnell for NEA, ca. May 6, 1921

French demands on occupying the Ruhr valley threatened to rekindle the war, and found little support from this side of the Atlantic. For now, however, Germany was unwilling to call France's bluff.

"The Shock-Proof Public" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1921

Instead, Germany fought to suppress an uprising of ethnic Poles in Silesia, a mineral-rich and ethnically mixed region that had been part of Germany before the war. A League of Nations-sponsored plebiscite to determine which country the region should belong to narrowly favored Germany, so Poles took up arms in May as the League members dithered. 

"If He Could Only Catch His Tail..." by Elmer Bushnell for NEA, ca. May 23, 1921

Italian, French, and British forces would be drawn into the Silesian conflict, even as rebellion against Britain heated up again in Ireland. As violence in Ireland escalated that May, the IRA killed 15 policemen and burned Custom House, headquarters of the Local Government Board for Ireland.

"The Apt Pupil" by Harold "Hal" Coffman for Int'l Feature Service, ca. May 20, 1921

Hearst cartoonists in particular railed against allowing Britannia and Japan to rule the waves.

"Speaking of Disarmament" by Bill Satterfield for NEA, ca. June 2, 1921

The figure pushing "disarmament polish" on President Harding is Senator William Borah (R-ID), a progressive who proved a thorn in the side of presidents of both political parties.

"Alla Camera Nuova" by Gabriele "Rata Longa" Galantara in l'Asino, Rome, May 22, 1921

As long as we're looking abroad, I don't want to lose sight of political events in Italy between the wars. This month 100 years ago saw Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti call for parliamentary elections. Concerned over gains in popular support for Italian socialists, Giolitti brought fascists and nationalists into his governing coalition. He thought that this would instill a degree of reason and responsibility into the far right. 

Apparently that never quite works.

"The Supply and the Demand" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, ca. May 17, 1921

Mainstream U.S. cartoonists eschewed socialism, and seized every opportunity to predict the downfall of Lenin's Bolshevik government in Russia. But every now and then (primarily in the Hearst fold), someone would notice that the U.S. market might do well to sign the Soviets on as paying customers.

"I Can't Hear You" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, ca. May 30, 1921

By and large, however, Carey Orr had an accurate sense of how Americans felt about foreign affairs in 1921.

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Nachtrag:  I ran across the word Eiffelturmspiße in a book on aerodynamics after posting this. The translation there was "Eiffel Tower spike," which makes a whole lot more sense than what every goddamned on-line translation site gave me.