1920's Want Me (But I Can't Go Back There)

Let's catch up on the 1924 presidential race, shall we?

On the Republican side, President Calvin Coolidge had his party's nomination all sewn up. Republicans brushed aside a challenge by progressive Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA) in nearly every contest.

"Had You Noticed That Suspicious-Looking Couple in the Stagecoach" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Colliers, April 26, 1924

Meanwhile, Senator Robert LaFollette (R-WI) was seriously considering a third-party run for the presidency. A group calling itself the Progressive Party was interested in being that third party.

"That's Just Like How Theodore Acted..." by Wm. C. Morris for George Mathew Adams Service, ca. May 5, 1924

Teddy Roosevelt had gotten more popular and electoral votes than incumbent President William Howard Taft when the former President ran for a return to office on the Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party ticket in 1912. The party renominated Roosevelt in 1916, but he refused to run, and most of its members returned to the Republican Party or defected to the Democrats.

The Progressive Party of 1924 was a completely reconstituted affair, created by an umbrella group of sixteen railroad workers' unions, the Conference for Progressive Political Action. The new party, pulling together some members of the Socialist Party of America and the Farmer-Labor Party, was thus well to the left of its 1912 iteration.

"A Change of Shirts Doesn't Change a Man's Heart" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 30, 1924

Some of Sen. LaFollette's views were well to the left, too. He believed in governmental regulation of private corporations, and opposed the tax cuts proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Mellon. He was against the League of Nations, but urged self-government for Ireland and Egypt.

Germane to Alley's cartoon, LaFollette had supported Russia's Bolshevik revolution, although the lack of freedoms he saw there when he toured Europe in 1923 compelled him to reassess his support.

"Aw What's the Use" by Ed Gale in Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1924

As for the Democrats, there was still no clear front-runner in May of 1924. Party rules required that the Democratic nominee receive two thirds of the votes at their convention.

"All for the Horse" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Tribune, May 22, 1924

William McAdoo led the delegate count, but it was only a plurality in a crowded field. Some state delegates were pledged to "favorite son" candidates or to no candidate at all. His opponents played up his tenuous connection to the Teapot Dome scandal because of his association with the oilman who was head of the California Democratic Party.

"I'm Just Beginning to Sense the Meaning of Destiny" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, May 7, 1924

Clifford Berryman's cartoon sums up the issues hampering some of the leading candidates. Opposition to the Ku Klux Klan probably cost Senator Oscar Underwood of Alabama much of the southern support he was hoping for. A fractious battle for leadership of Tammany Hall was a distraction for New York Governor Al Smith, who, as hero to the Wets, was anathema to Prohibitionists. William McAdoo, conversely, courted the Drys and was rejected by the Wets.

Tom Marshall, Vice President under Woodrow Wilson, shot down speculation that he was interested in the top job; which Berryman took to be a good omen for the presidential candidacy of Marshall's fellow Hoosier, Sen. Samuel Ralston.

I'm sure you remember Sam Ralston, Man of Destiny. Of course you do.

Speaking of Indiana, the state held its primary elections just this week and 100 years ago.

Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, May 11, 1924

Indiana Secretary of State Ed Jackson won the May 7, 1924 Republican gubernatorial primary with the open support of the Ku Klux Klan. Election Day reporting in the Indianapolis News characterized the campaign as a predominantly Klan-vs.-anti-Klan affair. The Indianapolis Freeman, a Black newspaper. alleged that poll workers actively suppressed the Black vote, which was presumed to favor the anti-Klan candidate, Indianapolis Mayor Samuel Lewis Shank. 

In the first place it was demonstrated . . . that the Ku Klux Klan has captured boot and breeches, the Republican party in Indiana and have [sic] turned what  has been historically an organization of constitutional freedom into an agency for the promotion of religious and racial hate. Nobody now denies the Ku Klux Klan is the dominating power in Indiana Republican politics. In fact, the Republican party  exists in Indiana today only in name. Its place has been  usurped by the Klan purposes and leadership and issues. The fight in the future will  be purely a  contest  between the Klan  and  anti-Klan  force.

In the years after the Civil War, Black voters tended to be a reliably Republican voting bloc, the party having been founded as an explicitly anti-slavery organization. Republicans had passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, supposedly guaranteeing civil rights to all men. The "Solid South," on the other hand, was dominated by Democrats, whose passed Jim Crow laws, literacy tests for voting, and poll taxes to discriminate against Blacks appealed to the Klan.

But by 1924, it had been almost half a century since the Republican Party had given half a shit about those 1860's Constitutional Amendments, so they were as welcome in the Klan as any Democrat. Indiana would be the Klan's opportunity to prove that its influence was bipartisan.

"Seeing Things" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, May 21, 1924

The Klan celebrated Jackson's victory by doing a march through the black areas of Indianapolis that may have attracted as many as 100,000 onlookers. D.C. Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan, declared at the march that "We must put over Jackson our very right to existence" and "The fiery cross is going to burn at every crossroads in Indiana, as long as there is a white man left in the state." Stephenson claimed to control 85% of the delegates at the state Republican convention, and the state Republican Party came to increasingly be viewed as little more than a Klan organization. (Wikipedia)

As a result, Blacks in Indiana left the Republican Party twelve years before  the realignment of the Black vote toward the Democratic Party in the rest of the country.

Jackson won the governorship in November. And when Senator Ralston died the following year (of course you still remember him), Jackson relied on Stephenson's advice in appointing Arthur Robinson to replace Ralston.

"Bedfellows' by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, May 23, 1924

"Jim" Watson in this Page cartoon was Indiana's other Senator, Republican James E. Watson. Senator Watson was on a Senate committee investigating ties to the Klan of Senator Earl Mayfield (D-TX, the subject of these stops on the Graphical History Tour a couple years ago); but that didn't stop him from endorsing Ed Jackson for Governor.

In 1926, Klan kleagle William M. Rogers would testify before Congress that in 1924, Senator Watson presented his Klan credentials during a conversation between the two. Senator Watson's denial of Rogers's allegation would have a There Are Very Fine People On Both Sides flabbiness to it:

"I have not denied that I am seeking the votes of the Ku Klux Klan, but have coupled it with the statement that I wanted the votes of all other orders, churches and creeds."

Rogers later recanted the testimony, and still later sued Watson, claiming that the senator had coerced him into recanting. In any event, the allegation doesn't seem to have hindered Watson's political career, and he was even elected Senate Majority Leader during the four years of the Hoover administration.

"The Indiana Delegates" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, late May, 1924

I find it interesting that I found cartoons about the highest Indiana elected officials' association with the Klan in May of 1924 drawn across the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky and way off in New York City, but the topic appears not to have interested Indianapolis News cartoonist Chas Kuhn.

There were six months left until Election Day, so perhaps Indiana's hometown cartoonist would find something to say about it eventually.

Stay Kuhned.

This Week's Sneak Peek

A page of character sketches drawn in advance of this week's cartoon:

Before posting Saturday's review of May It Amuse the Court, I did take care to check whether John Cassel's given name could possibly have been Ino Casals, as he is credited in the book.

Although the New York Evening World referred to him by his initials "J.H." and later as "John Cassel," his signature does appear as if it were "Jno Cassel" or even "Gino Cassel."

"More" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, April 20, 1919

If he were a first or second generation immigrant, as several other cartoonists of the late 19th and early 20th Century were, it is conceivable that some official at Ellis Island summarily Anglicized his name, or a parochial school nun decided to just change his name to that of a saint. Ellis Island officials and nuns were the coffee baristas of their day.

"After the Downpour" by John Cassel in New York World, November 10, 1922

I did not find a great deal of biographical information about Cassel, but contemporary sources all name him John. My guess is that what appears to be a lower case "o" in his signature is supposed to be a period: "Jn. Cassel."

Incidentally, the illustration credit for the cartoon in May It Amuse the Court is listed as "Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch." Cassel quit the New York World in 1927 over disagreement with management regarding New York Governor Alfred E. Smith's presidential campaign. After that, he was distributed by McClure Syndicate, quitting in May of 1929 to "devote his time to etching and experimental art work." 

By 1932, he had resumed drawing editorial cartoons, now at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. (It would have been odd if he had quit one Joseph Pulitzer newspaper, the Evening World, only to go to work for another, the Post-Dispatch. The St. Louis newspaper did, however, reprint Cassel's work occasionally when Daniel Fitzpatrick was on vacation. The Daily Eagle is correctly listed in the text of May It Amuse the Court as the original publication for the Cassel cartoon.)

I Could Have Danced All Night

100 years ago this week, the 1920's marathon dance craze provided inspiration for several of our best cartoonists, and a break from this here blog's preoccupation of late with gun violence.

"Breaking the Endurance Dancing Record" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 19, 1923

On Sunday, April 15, 1923, Magdeline Williams of Houston, Texas, gained national fame by dancing for 65.5 hours in a dance marathon, blowing past the previous record of 52 hours and 17 minutes, in a contest won by Samuel Glasser and Myrtle Smith of Baltimore, Maryland, the night before. (There were seven dancers still on the dance floor when theater owner Charles Whitehurst abruptly shut the Baltimore event down at 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning.)

21 couples had started the Houston dance marathon on Thursday evening. As reported by the Houston Post:

Pretty Miss Magdelina Williams, winner in a recent Valentino beauty contest, danced steadily through two days and three nights and the greater part of the third day, while couple after couple dropped out around her. To the very last, there was very little evidence of exhaustion about her, and for a swan song, she staged as lively a one-step as she did on the first night.

"She Used to Belong to Our Dancing Club" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, April 18, 1923

The last man on the dance floor, Louis Kessler, was ruled off the floor at 2:27 p.m. Sunday when judges declared that he was unable to keep time with the music. Magdalene Williams vowed to continue dancing with the goal of making it to 72 hours, but objections by the dance hall owners and a note from her parents convinced her to bow out at 3:08.

"Having an Endurance Test of His Own" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. April 23, 1923

Houston and Baltimore were only two of several cities where marathoners were testing the limits of the Lindy and the Charleston. That New York would be on the list is only to be expected; Cleveland, being the home base of Dorman Smith and the NEA, naturally rates a mention. Apparently the craze extended to England and Australia as well (although, judging from Sidney Strube's cartoon below, the marathon in London was mere kid stuff next to those in Baltimore and Houston).

When I first saw Dorman Smith's cartoon, I misunderstood it to be about some whirlwind honeymoon planned by the very-soon-to-wed Albert, Duke of York. It's not. Turns out, the future George VI never did get around to taking in the romantic sights of Cleveland, Ohio.

"Our Marathon Entry" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18, 1923

To some, the dance marathon fad was a source of befuddled amusement. Daniel Fitzpatrick's cartoon brings together two characters from the Post-Dispatch's comics page: Bud Fisher's Augustus Mutt and Fontaine Fox's "The Powerful Katrinka." (If you're wondering who they are, I refer you back to my post here on Tuesday.)

What would Mrs. Mutt say?

"Tripping the Light Fantastic" by John Cassel in New York Evening World by April 23, 1923

Needless to say, some older folks were not so amused by the kids' antics. Clergymen called on the authorities to use "lunacy laws" to curtail the dance craze, and they weren't the only ones to hit on that idea. 

"Where the Next Marathon Should Be Held" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, April 25, 1923

Maryland Commissioner for State Hygiene warned of health risks, including that "mental strain, which would be almost severe as physical, might leave a permanent impairment, a condition of mental instability, with periods of depression or of excitement."

"Her Partner" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, April 21,1923

My, that got dark quickly!

"Speaking of Marathon Dances" by Sidney Strube in London Daily Express by April 20, 1923

Meanwhile, some cartoonists seized on the dance marathon craze to comment on other current events. British cartoonist Sidney Strube here refers to the massive wartime loans his country promised to repay the United States — eventually. In Strube's scenario, the British Taxpayer would be dancing "the I-O-U Fox Trot" long after the next World War had come and gone.

"Destructive Dancing" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, April 20, 1923

Clifford Berryman adapted the dance craze motif for the communist regime in Russia, showing no signs of leaving the stage after 65.5 months in power.

"Here's Hoping He Goes After a World's Record" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, April 19, 1923

And I'm sorry, Dennis, but this one's a swing and a miss. Considering that the kids right there in Fort Worth had also vied for that coveted world record only to have local law enforcement shut them down after only twelve hours, this pitch was well outside the zone.

"Jazzed Up to Date" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 24, 1923

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.

Everything Old Is New Again

Italy appears poised to have fascists in their ruling coalition, almost exactly one century after the National Fascist Party came to power the first time.

"What's It All About in Italy" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Oct. 30, 1922

Mussolini's March on Rome came right at the end of October, 1922, when most U.S. editorial cartoonists were preoccupied with their local elections for Congress and/or governorships. Not John Knott, in spite of a senate race in Texas pitting a Ku Klux Klansman against a last-ditch candidate suing in court to get on the ballot.

Between a couple gaps in the on-line record of the Galveston Daily News in October and a few days when it doesn't appear to have run Knott's cartoons, I'll concede the possibility that Knott drew something about the candidates running for office in Texas. I just haven't found it.

"A Perfect Fit" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 4, 1922

I have come across a couple other early cartoons about the fascist victory in Italy, however. Dorman J. Smith was drawing for a national audience rather than a local one, so he wasn't as preoccupied as most cartoonists were with politics close to home. And unless I'm missing something here in an allusion that's older than Caligula, it seems to me that Smith actually approved of the fascists coming to power.

Conservatives today would never make such a mistake, would they? Would they?

"The Open Season for Politics" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 31, 1922

To be fair, Americans of the 1920's had no experience with fascism yet. As far as our cartoonists a century ago were concerned, this was just another change of government in a land far away. 

Nowadays, you'd think people would know better.

"The Big Four" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Oct. 20, 1922

If Italian fascists didn't yet catch the interest of editorial cartoonists in the U.S., more of them took note of the break-up of Great Britain's coalition behind Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Grover Page depicts Lloyd George joining the former leaders of the other Entente powers, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando, and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau in involuntary retirement.

"A Dangerous Bookworm" by Harry Murphy for Star Publications, ca. Oct. 3, 1922

Joining Italian fascists in the repetition of history, we have this cartoon decrying wokeness in our schools. The newspaper empire of Anglophobe William Randolph Hearst was worried that impressionable schoolboys were being terrorized by textbooks infested with "propaganda belittling American Revolution."

"Still Teaching Treason" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, ca. Oct. 11, 1922

The textbooks weren't reminding them that many of our Founding Fathers were slave-owners, of course. Perhaps some textbook had the temerity to suggest that King George wasn't entirely wrong to expect the American colonists to help pay for the redcoats defending them from the French and Indians. 

Turn we now from America's leading Anglophobe to one of its leading Anglophiles.

"According to Ambassador Harvey" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Oct. 28, 1922

Faithful followers of these Saturday History Tours may remember John Cassel having caricatured U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, George Brinton McClellan Harvey with typographical symbols during a photoengravers' strike. Reported in the London Daily Telegraph, Ambassador Harvey gave an address to the Authors Club of London on the theme "Have Women Souls?"

At the start, Ambassador Harvey gave that "[O]ur preceptors in religion... would declare with concordant impatience, if pressed, that of course women have souls, and it is absurd, if not indeed positively sacrilegious, to suggest a doubt to the contrary."

Foolishly, he continued.

"And yet, they teach with like unanimity that woman is not the equal of man in the possession of inherent rights, but is and was designed by God to be his subordinate and subject."

Going on, Harvey observed that the Ten Commandments were written "exclusively for men": the fourth commandment lists who must not work in the home on the sabbath without mentioning wives; while the tenth forbids coveting one's neighbor's wife, but not one's neighbor's wife returning the coveting.

"Not a Woman Here" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, Oct. 26, 1922

"There is no recognition in the decalogue of the possession of souls or inherent rights by women. The fact of course is that women are not only not bound by but freed at last by inference of any obligation to observe the requirements of our fundamental religious law. ...

"[E]ither the commandments should be revised to meet the requirements of modern conditions, or a specific decalogue should be constructed exclusively for women." 

Harvey, it must be noted, was not being completely serious, and his audience received his talk in the light-hearted manner in which it was intended. Yet the ambassador had earned a reputation for shooting his mouth off, and his remarks rankled feminists and clergy on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Aren't They Going to Offer the Lady a Chair" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Oct. 18,1922

Senate-appointee Rebecca Felton (D-GA, pictured here by John Knott) had a few words to say when reporters showed her Ambassador Harvey's remarks. 

"Ambassador Harvey is at home in politics — and he seems to be at a banquet table — but he is all wrong and away out of his element in commenting on the Ten Commandments and their application to women. ... That's the most amusing thing I've seen today. Isn't it funny how so many men try to change things that have been in existence for thousands and thousands of years.

"I'm glad I saw that dispatch, though. It does one so much good to be amused when suffering from a bad cold. I feel a great deal better already."

"She May Come" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, Oct. 5, 1922

Rebecca Felton has the distinction of being the first woman to serve as United States Senator, although it was only for one day. Appointed by the governor in an effort to appeal to women voters (in a state that resisted women's suffrage) after the death of Sen. Thomas Watson, she was named with the understanding that she wouldn't stand in the way of the men running for the seat in November.

As these two cartoons suggest, there was the distinct possibility that the Senate would not be in session to seat the 87-year-old Felton at all. Senate leadership did, however, call the body into session on November 21 just so she could be sworn in and give a speech. 

In that speech, Felton, an advocate of both Prohibition and women's suffrage predicted, "When the women of the country come in and sit with you…you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness."

She might be a heroine to the feminist movement today if she weren't also an outspoken white supremacist and erstwhile slave owner.

You have to like Clifford Berryman's awkward attempt to address "Mrs. Senator Felton," though.

Desperately Seeking Moujik

My cartoon for Q Syndicate this week featured the return of Brittney Griner and a character meant to be her Russian lawyer. When I first introduced Товарищ Юрист, I remarked that I had some difficulty figuring out how to get across visually that he, a fictional character, was meant to be Russian, and not, say, an American consular official.

Back when I was a junior high school student showing an interest in cartooning, my dad enrolled in Palmer Martino's class in cartooning at the local technical college for the specific purpose of allowing me to tag along. In one of the books for the course, this was how you are supposed to draw a Russian:

Detail from Cartooning the Head & Figure by Jack Hamm. Grosset & Dunlap, 1967

Clearly, Mrs. Griner's lawyer would not be showing up at her prison or in court looking like that guy.

If one looks instead to the movies, there were Dr. Zhivago (portrayed by an Egyptian), the Russian ambassador in Dr. Strangelove, (Peter Bull, a Brit), the crew of the submarine in Red October (led by a Scot), and Vladimir Ivanov in Moscow on the Hudson (Mork from Ork). None of them look like Jack Hamm's drawing, either, so let's turn back to cartooning:

"Samson et Delilah" by Pierre-Georges Jeanniot in Le Rire, Paris, ca. June/July, 1917

At the time of the Russian revolution, cartoonists' stereotypical Russian was the fellow with the gun in this cartoon. The French called him Moujik (from the Russian word мужи́к, peasant.) There are various transliterations in English; I'm going to stick with M. Jeanniot's spelling today.

"Sharpening the Rusty Sword" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, June 23, 1917

Here's an American cartoonist's version of M. Moujik.

In the popular imagination circa World War I, the typical Russian wore his hair long, and perhaps unkempt — or perhaps neatly combed, as in this cartoon by Dutchman Louis Raemaekers.

"A Poison Gass Attack on New Russia" by Louis Raemaekers for Philadelphia Public Ledger Co., ca. July, 1917

More common, or at least more durable, in the American imagination was this older moujik by Ted Brown:

"Set 'em Up Again" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, Nov. 10, 1917

German cartoonist Lutz Chremberger offers us four versions of M. Moujik; at that particular moment during World War I, Germans anticipated that Russia's February Revolution would necessitate the Kerensky government withdrawing from the war.

"Aus dem Toten Hause" by Lutz Chremberger in Lustige Blätter, Berlin, March 16, 1917

At the same time, Germans had another, more menacing version of M. Moujik. Another Lustige Blätter cartoonist portrays the revolutionary Duma as a doll not to be messed with.

in Lustige Blätter, March 16, 1917 (?)

This less charitable characterization is dominant in German cartoons during World War II, even when trying to minimize him.

"Dies Kind, Kein Engel Ist So Sein" by Hans-Maria Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Feb. 1, 1942

By the end of the war, as the German army is falling back all across the eastern front, Herr Moujik has bulked up considerably — he is even more menacing than Tsar Nicholas's plaything.

"Die Geöffnete Tür" by Ernst Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, Aug. 30, 1944

I notice, however, that he has lost his mop of hair. Just to confirm his new haircut, here's another from the late days of the war:

"Der Englische Koch..." by Wilhelm Schultz in Simplicissimus, Munich, Sept. 13, 1944

Contrast the brutish, balding German Moujik with one from the United States, an ally for the time being:

A Fourth for Bridge" by Melville Bernstein in PM, New York, Oct. 8, 1944

By this point, Moujik was something of a rarity in American cartoons. Russia was far more often represented by Josef Stalin or, if one was hesitant to portray Russia in a positive light, this old stand-by:

"He Hibernates Long..." by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Jan. 22, 1945

In this case, the bear is a propos; neither Moujik nor Stalin was known for habitual hibernation. As a symbol, the Russian bear goes way back, possibly to the 1500's. I do find the gratuitous "Br'er" in Carey Orr's cartoon a bit curious; but, having spent some time cartooning in Tennessee, allusions to southern folklore prolly came a tad natural-like to him.

Excerpt from "Suffern on the Steppes" in Pogo Peek-a-Book by Walt Kelly. Simon & Schuster, 1955

Speaking of Southern stuff, let's move along to our Cold War depictions of Russian folk with this example from Walt Kelly.

For "Suffern on the Steppes, or 1984 and All That," Pogo cartoonist Kelly shifted his characters from the Okefenokee to the Soviet Union for a tale drawn expressly for a comic book. To do so, he simply drew Pogo, Howland, Albert, Churchy and Beauregard in Russian costumes. He tossed in some 1984-style revisionist dialectic, a round of Russian roulette, and the occasional onion dome in the background, and Так! We're in Russia, Comrade!

"Bootstraps Gorbachev" by Pat Oliphant, July 22, 1991

By the sunset of the Soviet Union, Pat Oliphant's M. & Mme. Moujik were his prevalent image of the common tovarisch. Gone are Moujik's flowing locks, and hers are tucked safely away under her babushka. For all the reports in the West of bare grocery shelves, he and she nevertheless appear not to be starving.

I guess those bootstraps must be pretty filling after all.

Still, none of these images strike me as being quite right for my Russian lawyer character.

So let me rummage through my own cartoons for inspiration. Ah, here's a Russian couple my generation grew up with!

for Q Syndicate, July, 2013

Pish posh. We all knew where Pottsylvania really was.