Labor Daze

In honor of the last holiday weekend of the summer, today's Graphical History Tour celebrates Labor Day, 1925.

"His Day" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, Sept. 7, 1925

The holiday fell on September 7 that year, so most of today's cartoons were published on that date. We start with this cartoon by the young man filling in for Jay Norwood Darling during Ding's illness. Old Man Work here graciously permits Organized Labor to join The Public on their way to some picnic grounds.

"Labor Day" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Sept. 7, 1925

John McCutcheon's Uncle Sam wishes American Labor a sixteen hour day of rest and recreation.

Come those other eight hours, I presume, American Labor was expected to get right back to work.

These first two cartoons do point out that Labor Day was finally a chance for Dad to get out and enjoy some time with his family. Paid vacation was not a thing for most workers a century ago; the "family summer vacation" typically was just for Mom and the kids. Dad stayed behind to keep punching the clock at work every day.

"The Spirit of Confidence" by Dean O'Dell in Dayton Daily News, Sept. 7, 1925

Dean O'Dell's Uncle Sam and American Labor engage in some discreet petting while the heady fumes of prosperity and peace waft from picturesque smokestacks.

"The Giant of Progress" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Sept. 7, 1925

I'm wondering at what point Tom Foley or his editorial page editor decided that his cartoon needed to be printed as a mirror image of the original drawing. Foley did not customarily sign his cartoons backward; the "LABOR" stone looks to me like something scratched onto the cartoon at the last minute.

"Rare Consistency" by John M. Baer for Labor, ca. Sept. 4, 1925

John Baer has appeared before in these Graphical History Tours in his connection to the Nonpartisan League movement of the 1910's, which had sent him to Congress from North Dakota from 1917 to 1921. After his defeat for reelection in 1920, he literally returned to the drawing board, cartooning for Labor, the newspaper of the National Railroad Union.

In "Rare Consistency" (a title possibly added by the editors of Oklahoma Leader, who routinely pasted text onto the cartoons they printed), Baer highlights the hypocrisy of industrial associations and trusts warning farmers, laborers, and soldiers against collectively organizing. 

"Well, Here's Hoping" by Bill Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 31, 1925

As Labor Day approached, the threat of a strike by anthracite coal miners loomed. Most homes and businesses were heated by coal in those days, so an interruption of the coal supply in the fall and winter was liable to have serious consequences for much of the country.

"Modest Demands" by O. "Zim" Zimmerman for Daily Worker, Chicago, Sept. 9, 1925

Drawing for the communist Daily Worker, Zimmerman laid out the United Mine Workers' demands: a nationwide contract with higher wages for fewer hours, and unemployment pay to come out of corporate profits. 

"It Does Look Like It" by Winsor McCay for Star Company, ca. Sept. 1, 1925

By Labor Day, negotiations between the UMW, led by John Lewis, and management, headed by operators' scale negotiating committee chair W.W. Inglis, had been dragging on for weeks, with no apparent progress to report.

"Hard Hard-Boiled" by Harry Westerman in Ohio State Journal, ca. Sept. 1, 1925

Harry Westerman's Uncle Sam displays a sterner attitude toward hard coal miners (and their mine operators) than Dean O'Dell's did toward American Labor in general. 

"We're With You" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, ca Sep. 5, 1925

Most editorial cartoonists placed blame for the possible strike on both labor and management; I'm sure nearly everybody was aware of what a dirty and dangerous job coal mining was and is. Bill Sykes's cartoon , however, comes as close as any I've seen to blaming the union workers.

It is difficult to read the animals' labels in Sykes's cartoon: the bird is labeled "Waste," and the wolf is labeled "Want."

"The Man Who Used to March on Labor Day" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 7, 1925

Returning to the holiday, Daniel Fitzpatrick's Labor Day cartoon raises more questions than it answers. Is the man who used to march on Labor Day driving alone or in a parade? Is he a really big guy, or is he driving the first subcompact vehicle?

"No One Has a Good Word to Say for Work" by Manuel Rosenberg in Cincinnati Post, Sept. 7, 1925

And finally, Manuel Rosenberg leaves us with some deep thoughts about justification through work.

I hope you are able to enjoy an escape from work this weekend, yet, where applicable, still have a good word to say about getting back to the job on Tuesday.

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...

✍

Meanwhile, in Non-Gump Election News

"Keeping to the Main Highway" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 9, 1922

I hope you enjoyed our recounting the past two Saturdays of Andy Gump's election to Congress and the recount that took his victory away. But it's time now to get serious and to catch up on what really happened in the off-year election of 1922.

Gustavo Bronstrup, with a nod to the initially victorious Mr. Gump, celebrates the Republican sweep in California that year. Friend Richardson was elected Governor and Hiram Johnson was reelected Senator, both by landslides. (Ironically, Richardson, supported by a Republican majority in the legislature, would proceed to undo several policies enacted when Johnson had been Governor.) 

The Proposition 19 straw man fallen off the back of the car represents a defeated constitutional amendment that would have granted the governor authority to create and fund a board to develop, distribute and fix rates for water and electrical energy.

"Nearly Everybody in the House Knew..." by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Nov. 10, 1922

The California results ran counter to the national trend that year, however: Democrats gained 72 seats in House and a net gain of six seats in the Senate. 

"Shrinkage? It's a Washout" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 9, 1922

The Democrats' gain was not quite enough to regain the majority lost in the elections of 1918 and 1920, but was an impressive showing nonetheless, and set off a wave of prognostication as to where the Republican Party had gone wrong.

"Now We'll Hear the Specialists" by Edwin Marcus in New York Times, Nov. 12, 1922

One of Edwin Marcus's "specialists" is an "anti-prohibitionist" who doesn't look anything like the Mr. Dry used by every other cartoonist of the time (see John Cassel, below). That may well be because Mr. Dry looks more like an undertaker than a doctor; but it leaves me suspecting that Marcus had everything drawn before the election results were in but the labels and the elephant head.

"After the Downpour" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, Nov. 10, 1922

To the extent that Republicans were hurt by the "wet" vote, it was primarily because they happened to have more incumbents in office than the Democrats did in 1922. Prohibition sentiments pro and con crossed party lines; support for the 18th Amendment included both conservative Southern Democrats and northern progressive Republicans. Opponents included big-city Democrats and Republicans alike.

"Home Again" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Nov. 13, 1922

One of my disappointments in covering the 1922 election is that I was not able to turn up any cartoons by John Knott of the Dallas News and Galveston Daily News having anything substantial to say about the Klan candidate Texas elected to the U.S. Senate that year. Instead, he chose to celebrate Tennessee returning its governor's chair to the Democrats — and I do apologize for that character carrying Miss Tennessee's bags.

"The Retreat of the Lame-Duck Brigade" by John Baer, reprinted in National Leader (Minneapolis), December, 1922

Former Congressman John Baer cites a few of the ailments diagnosed in Edwin Marcus's cartoon and adds a few more: a proposed sales tax (to replace the income tax), an anti-strike bill, and a subsidy for shipbuilders.

What I was expecting to see in the National Leader was a celebration of Minnesotans' election to the Senate of the Farmer-Labor candidate, Henrik Shipstead, ousting Republican Senator Frank B. Kellogg, seated in the wheelchair in Baer's cartoon. (The Democrats' candidate, Anna Dickie Olesen, came in a distant third). The Farmer-Labor Party was the offspring of the Leader's "Non-Partisan League," after all, and the Leader had emblazoned a heroic sketch of Shipstead all over the front page of its November issue.

Front page of National Leader, Minneapolis, MN, November, 1922

Other than that, however, the Leader seems not to have found much to say about his campaign or his election.

Shipstead, a former and future Republican, would serve in the Senate until losing a GOP primary in 1947. An isolationist, anti-Semite, and conspiracy monger (Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all that crap), a senator described by the British Foreign office as "bigoted and crotchety," he is not remembered fondly these days.

"A Case for Careful Diagnosis" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Nov. 13, 1922

But returning again to 1922: it must be noted that for all this talk of the Republican Party needing to find out where it had gone wrong, the 1920's would continue to be a solidly Republican decade in most of the United States.

"He Fits the Niche" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, Nov. 8, 1922

To wit: 1922 saw the election of one of the Democratic Party's enduring heroes, Alfred E. Smith, as Governor of New York. As the party's presidential nominee in 1928, he would lead the Democrats to their third consecutive landslide loss.

And lucky for him, too.

How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm After They've Seen D.C.?

In January of 1922, President Warren G. Harding and Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace convened an agricultural conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the difficulties faced by U.S. farmers. The end of World War I meant that European farmers could return to their fields, drastically reducing demand for, and therefore prices of, U.S. farm goods. Meanwhile, the costs of farm machinery and of transporting goods to market remained steady.

"No Wonder He Is Peeved" by William Hanny in St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, Jan. 25, 1922

Washington Evening Star's front page cartoonist greeted the conferees the Sunday morning of the president's conference.

"To the Agricultural Conference" by Clifford Berryman in Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., Jan. 22, 1922

Early arrivals might have caught Berryman's cartoon the previous Tuesday, contrasting the administration's solicitousness toward the nation's farmers with its demands of deep wage cuts in the railroad industry, resulting in threatened labor strikes that were the topic of a December Washington conference.

"I Wish I Had Friends Like Yours" by Clifford Berryman in Evening Star, Washington D.C., Jan. 17, 1922

Not everyone was as happy as Berryman's farmer at the train station, however. Cartoonist and former Congressman John Baer complained that the guest list featured some characters his Non-partisan League found highly suspect: business tycoons, bankers, and representatives of farm groups opposed to the NPL.

"Why You Must Help" by John Baer in National Leader, Minneapolis, MN, Jan 23, 1922

The leftist NPL wasn't the only one complaining about whom the powers that be considered representative of farmers. Senator George H. Moses (R-NH), for example, complained that the so-called Agricultural Bloc then promoting an agricultural tariff bill in the U.S. Senate (Moses preferred a national sales tax) consisted only of southerners, and no actual farmers. 

"The only three farmers in the Senate," he told the National Boot and Shoe Manufacturers Dinner, "one from Maine, another from New Hampshire, and a third from New York, have never been invited to the farm bloc, where they set up the ruthless, selfish legislation.

"I Speak for Real Farmers" by Clifford Berryman in Evening Star, Washington D.C., Jan. 19, 1922

"The bloc does not know," he added, "that a farm exists north of the Mason-Dixon line or west of the Mississippi River, and they give no consideration to the truck farmers in that territory. All they know is hogs, corn, wheat and cotton."

For his part, Secretary Wallace promised that Harding's conference would include bona fide "dirt farmers," including women (six of them).

"What Baer Saw at the Conference" by John Baer in National Leader, Minneapolis MN, Feb. 20, 1922

For all the National Leader's griping that the conference was closed to like-minded farmer-activists, John Baer somehow managed to get past the guards to sketch some of the invited guests. He was clearly more impressed by some — notably Senator Edwin Ladd (R-ND) and perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (D/Pop-NE) — than by others.

"Under the Mistletoe" by Charles Plumb for American Farm Bureau, Dec. 1921 or Jan. 1922

Speaking of folks who didn't impress the National Leader, the biweekly newspaper ran a snarky critique of the above cartoon from the American Farm Bureau in its January 23 issue:

"The Leader has never been impressed with the cartoon service (charge, 30 cents per cartoon) sent to the press by Mr. [J.R.] Howard's American Farm Bureau federation. We have felt that Mr. Baer and Mr. Morris could draw more to the point than Mr. Howard's cartoonists. But we confess that one of the cartoons sent out by the A.F.B.F. is VERY MUCH to the point. ...

"We regret that Mr. Howard did not send us this cartoon earlier, as it deals with the good old Christmas custom of kissing pretty young girls who venture under the mistletoe. Of course, the holiday season is over until next winter. But the act of certain gentlemen in making love to the American Farm Bureau federation, and the willing response of the federation thereto, is a continual performance. ...

"Through Mr. Howard's confession in this cartoon, it appears that the American Farm Bureau federation, pictured as a charming girl, welcomes the caresses of various gentlemen who DO NOT ORDINARILY stand in line to make love to farmer organizations. Mr. Howard indicates in the drawing that the board of trade is not yet quite willing to receive a kiss from the fair lips of the federation. The board is urged to be a 'good sport' by the packers."

"A Tractable Beast" by John M. Baer in National Leader, Minneapolis MN, Jan 23, 1922

So, did the agricultural conference accomplish anything? Even within the National Leader's pages there was disagreement.

Cover cartoon by William Morris in National Leader, Feb 20, 1922

On the plus side, the passage of the Capper-Volstead Act on February 18, 1922, legalizing the sale of farm commodities through farmer-owned cooperatives, enabled farmers to bypass the middlemen. Congress would pass the Agricultural Appropriations Act later that year, creating the U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics.

"Everybody 'Helping' Farmer" by Wm. Morris in National Leader, Minneapolis MN, Feb. 20, 1922

In order to get its own candidates on the ballot in Minnesota in 1918, the Non-Partisan League created the Farmer-Labor Party (FLP). Derided as socialist or even bolshevik and condemned for his opposition to U.S. participation in World War I, its candidate, David Evans, still managed to make the 1918 governor's race a close one, and to keep his coalition of farmers and organized labor together.

"Be Kinda Hard to Hitch 'Em" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, Feb. 24, 1922

The FLP failed to catch on around the country; but in spite of the Republican tenor of the time, it would score its first major victory in 1922, as Minnesota elected Henrik Shipstead to the U.S. Senate. A distant third party anywhere else, the FLP became Minnesotans' chief alternative to the Republican Party, and the Democrats there sank to third-party status.

"Blocked" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, Jan. 26, 1922

Ain't it swell when the blocs come together? 

Christmas, 1921

We started last week's look at Christmas cartoons from 1921 with examples from Germany. This week's cartoons are from the United States, but we'll start with this one about Germany.

"Eine Christmas Fantasy" by Ellison Hoover in Life magazine, Dec. 22, 1921

By and large, the American cartoons are distinguished from the German ones by a Yankee sense of humor rather than a lot of Teutonic severity. 

Not that the Americans couldn't be serious. The daily one-column-inch front page cartoon on the Christmas Day edition of Brooklyn Daily Eagle (often by editorial page cartoonist Nelson Harding, but I don't find his initials on this one) references the Washington Naval Conference negotiating international arms control, but it could be equally a propos today for different reasons.

"Here And Now" in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 25, 1921

Eat your heart out, Massie and Boebert!

"The Profiteer's Son..." in Life Magazine, Dec. 22, 1921

As in Germany, profiteers were a major target of American cartoonists.

I have not been able to identify this cartoonist — that worm-like figure behind Junior Profiteer is the cartoonist's signature, in case any of you reading this are familiar with him or her.

"Christmas for Two" by John Baer, ca. Dec. 23, 1921

Union cartoonist and former Congressman John Baer echoes the previous cartoonist's sentiments in this bleak holiday offering.

"Merry Christmas" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Dec. 24, 1921

Republican cheerleader Dorman H. Smith chose to accentuate the positive in his Christmas cartoon. (I'd note that he was celebrating the naval holiday a bit early.)

"Aw, You Can't Fool Me" by H.T. Webster in Life magazine, Dec. 22, 1921

Harold Webster, whose syndicated newspaper cartoons hardly ever touched on politics, here takes on the Harding administration's proposed alternative to Wilson's League of Nations, and anti-League Republican Senator William Borah of Idaho.

"Which Shall Win?" by Louis Raemaekers in Life magazine, Dec. 29, 1921

Some of the serious stuff, however, had to be imported. Dutch cartoonist Louis Raemaekers earned his fame drawing scathing cartoons against the Kaiser's Germany. Here his target, judging from the costumes, is further east.

But today is Christmas, dammit, so let's just cut to the merriment and jollity.

"Jimminy Christmus" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Dec. 24, 1921

Well, lookie here. At least one of the items on Jim's Christmas wish list will warm the cockles of Massie, Boebert, and the rest of the ammosexual crowd. 

"Jerry on the Job" by Walter Hoban, Dec. 24, 1921

Children's hopes for Christmas bounty have long been an evergreen topic for cartoonists. Walter Hoban's comic strip, "Jerry on the Job," stars this little boy who has a difficult-to-determine job at an office where nobody has heard of child labor laws. 

Jerry looks to me to be a few years younger than Webster's Jimmy; both are old enough to have figured out where Santa's gifts really come from.

"Smilin' Through" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 25, 1921

Other cartoonists used their Christmas Day space to remind readers of the spirit of the season.

"The Merry Christmas Spirit" by Rae Irvin in Life magazine, Dec. 8, 1921

Or, if you will, the lack thereof.

"Yule Log Tales" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Dec. 26, 1921

Daily Cartoonist relayed the announcement this week that Gannett newspapers would not print editions on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday this week or next, a surprisingly long vacation in the news biz. Skipping a Christmas Day edition used to be quite common, particularly for afternoon newspapers; I'm  not finding any three-day hiatuses (hiati? Naah.) in 1921, however.

Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Sunday Star, Dec. 25, 1921

Christmas Day, 1921, was a Sunday, so some of the evening papers put out their regular Sunday editions. Others took Monday off instead.

"An Empty Mask Without Them" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, ca. Dec. 24, 1921

Depriving the kiddies of their Sunday funnies on Christmas, after all, would have been positively Grinchy!

"From the Evening World" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, Dec. 24, 1921

From the Evening World, and from my world, too. A merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!