The Goal Is Won, Jerusalem

In light of near-unto-global ostracization of the U.S. for the Corrupt Trump Administration's plans to recognize Jerusalem as the exclusive capital of the state of Israel, Seventeenback Saturday takes one more look back at editorial cartoons from December, 1917. The issue this time is the British conquest during World War I of Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

"Again at the Gates of Palestine" by William Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, December, 1917

The Sinai and Palestinian Campaign of the war had begun for the most tactical of reasons: the Ottoman Empire, in league with Germany, attacked the Suez Canal in January of 1915 in an unsuccessful attempt to cut Great Britain off from its colonies in India and eastern Africa. Over the next two years, Britain retook the Sinai peninsula and advanced into Ottoman territory. The Battle of Jerusalem began on November 17, and American cartoonists, to a man, made the now unfortunate decision to depict the battle as the Fourth Crusade. ("Crusade" being the Christian word for "jihad.")

"Fourth and Last Crusade" by Kenneth R. Chamberlain in Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, December, 1917

Even Kenneth Chamberlain, an antiwar socialist whose work had appeared in The Masses (until it was shut down after the November-December, 1917 edition), succumbed to the temptation to draw the British conquest of Jerusalem as a triumph of Christendom over the Heathen Foe. "I just went along after we were in the war," Chamberlain said in a 1966 interview. "I wanted to hold my job as a cartoonist although I wasn't for the war."

The British populace, on the other hand, considered the conquest of Palestine as a minor operation, a distraction of soldiers and materiel which would be more useful fighting on the Western Front. Harper's Weekly agreed, writing, "The capture of Jerusalem by the British forces has almost eclipsed the more important military operations in Europe."

Contrast this whimsical cartoon from Punch, of Sultan Mehmet V reading a telegram from Kaiser Wilhelm, with most of the American cartoons in this post.

"A Great Incentive" by Leonard Raven-Hill in Punch, London, November, 1917.

Jerusalem surrendered to British forces on December 9, and as far as American cartoonists were concerned, it was time to break into "Good Christian Men Rejoice."

"After Seven Centuries" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December, 1917

If Lord Balfour believed that "His Majesty's government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for Jewish people," American cartoonists were not celebrating this victory as one for Zionism. (There must have been at least one cartoon drawn for an American Jewish publication on this topic, but I'm afraid I have not been able to find it.)

"Christianity's Christmas Gift" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, December, 1917

Not every cartoonist went all "Onward Christian Soldiers" on this topic. Ted Brown clearly labeled the character in this cartoon "Turkey" and clothed him to match, although the face has the upturned mustache of Kaiser Wilhelm.

"Ending the Pipe Dream" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, December, 1917

I have qualms about including this next cartoon. There is a lot of blatant racism in cartoons of this era, and I have avoided posting some otherwise interesting cartoons — not all by Dixieland cartoonists — because of stereotypes that are now offensive (and casual use of the N-word). In this case, was "Papa Mohammed" the only Muslim name Harry Keys knew, or was he actually trying to depict the Prophet? Why not draw the Ottoman Sultan (whose name, of course, is a Turkish variant on the Prophet's)?

"Papa Mohammed Hasn't Been the Same" by Harry Keys in Columbus Citizen, December, 1917

It's not as if Mehmet V's visage was totally unknown in the states; John McCutcheon had it handy for a cartoon depicting Allied forces closing in on Turkey on its Palestine, Baghdad, Persian and Persian Gulf fronts.

"The Bagdad Corridor" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, December, 1917

McCutcheon correctly does not depict Entente forces threatening Mehmet on his Balkan front. As noted last week, Romania signed an armistice with the Central Powers; Greece was busy fighting Bulgaria; and Italy was counting on Serbian help fending off Austrian and German forces in the Alps. And although Turkish and native forces made further attempts to wrest Jerusalem back from the Allies, the end result of the campaign would be the British Mandate for Palestine and the French Mandates for Lebanon and Syria.

Germany had been directly involved in the fighting in Palestine; but German cartoonists, if they commented on the British victory at all, did so in the snarkiest of terms.

"Die Gralshüter" by Wilhelm Schulz in Simplicissimus, January 15, 1918

The Reign in Spain

Taking a break from today's dismal headlines, Sovereignback Saturday returns yet again to a more innocent time: namely, World War I. In the summer of 1917, we find the crowned heads of Europe shaking in their boots.

"Help!" by Harry Murphy in Chicago Examiner, September 13, 1917

1917 is remembered as the year Russia threw off the yoke of Romanov rule, only to have its attempts at establishing a liberal democracy thwarted.

Political upheaval was not limited to Russia, however. The Greek King, Constantine I, had tried to maintain his nation's neutrality while World War I raged about the country on all sides. Constantine denied the Allied and Central powers permission to use Greece as a landing base, and stymied moves by his Prime Minister Venizelos to bring Greece into the war on the side of the Allies.

Allied leaders suspected Constantine of harboring sympathies for Germany. After all, his wife was Kaiser Wilhelm's sister — but then all the crowned heads of Europe were related in one way or another.

"Family Troubles" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, 1917

On June 10, 1917, backed by the threat of an Allied landing in Piraeus, Venizelos forced King Constantine to go into exile. But since the European Entente powers weren't interested in "making the world safe for democracy," they passed up the opportunity to return democracy to its cradle; Allied Commissioner Charles Jonnart opened casting calls for another member of the royal family to take the throne. Constantine's eldest son, Crown Prince George, was too pro-German for the Allies' liking; so after Constantine's brother (also named George) refused to take the throne out of loyalty to his brother, Constantine's second son, Prince Alexander, was chosen to become the new monarch.

"I Remember Those Boys..." by Rollin Kirby in New York World, 1917

After King Alexander died from an infected monkey bite (would I make something like that up?), Greek voters approved a plebiscite to recall Constantine — who had never actually abdicated anyway —to the throne in 1920.

At the other end of the Mediterranean, there were rumblings beneath the throne of Spain's King Alfonso XIII. Spain, too, maintained neutrality in the war, but Alfonso's sympathies leaned more toward the Allies than Constantine's had. Alfonso's queen, moreover, was British, a cousin of George V.

"Alphonse and Gaston" by Cy Hungerford in Pittsburgh Sun, 1917

Outside observers perceived democratic inclinations in the Bourbon monarch. The Washington Star editorialized that

"...liberalization of the government has been along definite and practical lines for years, and the republican party has grown until, since the Spanish-American War, it has been a powerful factor in Spanish politics. ...
"Complaints against the courts are bitter, especially in the matter of appointment of officers of the army. Favoritism is the rule. So insistent are the demands for reform that the government is at a crisis of decision."

"Another One of the Boys on the Run" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, 1917

As it turned out, Alfonso remained King until 1930, his popularity eventually worn away by a six-year war to maintain Spain's territories in northern Africa, his support for the leaders of a military coup in 1923, and the worldwide Great Depression as the 1920s roared to a close.

Returning to the summer of 1917, Belgium's King Albert was in exile from his German-occupied country, as were Serbia's Peter, Montenegro's Nicholas, and Romania's Ferdinand. In Allied propaganda, the German Kaiser was due to be toppled from his throne any day now.

"Come, Junkers" by Jan Sluijters in De Nieues Amsterdamer, 1917

Cartoonists who did not accept the role of cheerleaders for their government saw no reason to presume that the havoc of war would limit itself to Europe's autocracies. Socialist Kenneth Chamberlain, drawing for The Masses, predicted the war dragging on for another three years, but the principal powers (including the U.S. — foreground) having spent themselves utterly.

"1920 — Still Fighting for Civilization" by K.R. Chamberlain in The Masses,  August, 1917

You Say You Wanted Revolution

At this point in 1917, it was dawning on the rest of the world that all was not blinis and Faberge eggs in suddenly democratic Russia. So Steppeback Saturday presents a series of cartoons about the souring situation there—and not a single nesting doll in the bunch!

Nebelspalter, Zurich, May, 1917

Competing factions in Russia were the liberal provisional government, the Socialist Petrograd Soviet, and the Bolshevik Communists. The provisional government lost public support in April with the revelation of a letter from its Foreign Minister Milyukov pledging Russia's participation in World War I until "its glorious end"; as a result, Milyukov and War Minister Guchkov resigned and six members of the Petrograd Soviet, among them Alexander Kerensky, joined an unstable coalition government.

The Swiss satirical magazine Nebelspalter had pro-German sympathies during the First World War, so one might expect them to sit back and enjoy the Russian political infighting. That is not at all the attitude of Russia's allies, as expressed by American cartoonists:

"A Bad Time to Be Taken with a Stomachache" by Jay "Ding" Darling in New York Herald, May 9, 1917

"When Two Heads Are Not Better Than One" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May, 1917

Naturally, there was suspicion that Germany was doing more than just taking advantage of the political situation in Russia. In particular, that Germany and Russia would settle a separate peace agreement. The Milyukov letter had been an attempt to assuage those fears, but Lenin's Bolsheviks and the more radical of the Petrograd Soviet argued in favor of withdrawal from the war.

"Poison" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 7, 1917

As the war on the Western Front ground on and on and on with little progress made by either side, the U.S. and other Entente powers were counting on Russia to keep German forces occupied on the Eastern Front.

"Working for Wilhelm" by Rollin Kirby for New York World, May, 1917

The first two hanged figures in the following German cartoon might be King Nikola I Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro (who had fled to France in January), and Peter I Karađorđević of Serbia, then the nominal head of the Serbian government in exile on Corfu. The hat of the third should be a giveaway, but I'm afraid I haven't figured out which of the Allied leaders that might be. (The face bears little resemblance to the precariously crowned heads of state of Romania, Greece or Spain. France had replaced General Robert Nivelle as Commander-in-Chief of its armies after 55 divisions mutinied in May, so perhaps it's him.)

"The European Punch and Judy Show" in Der Brummer, Berlin, May or June, 1917

On May 15, President Wilson named Elihu Root, a former Senator, Secretary of State and Secretary of War, to head a delegation to Russia to offer American aid provided that the new coalition government remain committed to the war effort, in spite of that commitment having led to the collapse of its immediate predecessor.

"Our Russian Mission" by Wm. Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger,  1917

Anticipating Led Zeppelin by half a century, Root assessed the Russians he met as "sincerely, kindly, good people, but confused and dazed."

"After Elihu Root Gets Through with Russia" by E. Gminska in The Masses,  July, 1917

American Socialists were none too impressed with the New York Republican, as shown by these two cartoons. Ryan Walker's "Adventures of Henry Dubb" was a daily feature of the Socialist New York Evening Call, in which the title character, representing subservient, easily duped American laborers (ancestors of our Trump voters), gratuitously announced his name in every final panel.

"Adventures of Henry Dubb" by Ryan Walker in New York Evening Call, May 17, 1917

(Find some other cartoons of Senator Root in previous Saturday posts here and here.)

The First Casualty of War

Censorback Saturday today notes the centennial of the Espionage Act of 1917. The House passed President Wilson's bill on May 4, 1917, and the Senate followed suit on May 14. It would be challenged in court, and ultimately was upheld in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court in Schenk v. United States in 1919. It has become the foundation of every law seeking to limit freedom of the press ever since.

"The Light That Must Not Fail" by Harry Murphy for Chicago Examiner, May 5, 1917

On its face, most of the law would only be in effect during wartime. The Espionage Act made it a crime to convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies; to promote the success of its enemies when the United States is at war; to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States; or to willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States.  The Act also gave the Postmaster General authority to impound publications that he determined to be in violation of the Act.

"That Wooden One" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1917

A number of publishers and cartoonists recognized the threat posed to a free press. William Hearst published an almost daily torrent of editorials — some of them taking up an entire page — such as this excerpt:

President Wilson, who has been right in so many things of late, is singularly wrong in his advocacy of this bill to suppress free speech and free publication.
He says that he can be trusted not to misuse the extraordinary powers which this bill confers. Possibly he can be so trusted, but why should any American President desire to see the provisions of the American Constitution violated in order to secure despotic powers which are essentially unAmerican as well as unconstitutional?

"Transplanting the Czar" by Oscar Cesare in New York Evening Post, May 4, 1917

Why should an American President, even though he might be as great as any American President we have ever had, desire to set an example in autocracy, and create a precedent which would surely be abused by some less able or less loyal chief executive elected at some future period?

100 years later, we have a permanent state of war, and a congenital liar as our greatly less able, less loyal chief executive who openly advocates punishment for anyone in the media who dares to contradict him (and a Justice Department that has prosecuted and convicted a woman for laughing at the Attorney General)... but I digress.

"All Ready to Fight of Liberty" by Boardman Robinson in The Masses, June, 1917

The socialist monthly The Masses likewise warned against the proposed censorship rules, and with good reason. The magazine would be prosecuted and put out of business for its antiwar articles and even an Art Young cartoon. (In case it's difficult to see on your screen, Uncle Sam is handcuffed by "censorship" in Boardman Robinson's cartoon above.)

The Masses is throwing all its weight against militarism and nationalistic prejudice. It is attempting to minimize the effect on public opinion of a press dominated by military expediency and patriotic emotionalism. It is trying to think clearly and tell the truth without patriotic hatred and without patriotic sentimentality.
Ours is a difficult task.

"The Prisoner" by George Bellows in The Masses, July, 1917; earlier in The Blast.

Others, however, were perfectly willing to grant the government whatever power it might wish to have to lock up any perceived threat to the nation. Suspicion of hyphenated-Americans was not about to go away any time soon.

"Jail Them" by Sidney Greene in New York Evening Telegram, May 4, 1917

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By the way, I see that Mark Green, Trump's second nominee for Secretary of the Army and the subject of the cartoon I posted here on Thursday, withdrew his name from consideration on Friday. I guess I don't know my own strength.

We're On Our Way to War

"Pipe Dream" by Wm. C. Morris in Independent, March 19, 1917

SafeForDemocracyback Saturday has been keeping a sharp eye on events of 100 years ago, so here we ago again to the very last days before the United States entered World War I.

By this point, America's editorial cartoonists were gung-ho to go. With the exposure of the Zimmerman Telegram, Kaiser Wilhelm dreams of turning the southwestern United States over to Mexico and Japan in William Morris's cartoon above. Uncle Sam hops over the "Canadian Boundary Fence" which I suppose the Canadians would actually have had to to pay for.

Meanwhile, Harry Keys depicts any opponents of the war, such as Wisconsin Progressive Senator "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, as prized properties of the Kaiser. Former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan is strangely missing from the collection.

"Berlin's New Hall of Fame" by Harry Keys in Columbus Citizen, March 11, 1917

At the Philadelphia Inquirer,  which added "Support Our President" to its flag on top of page 1, cartoonist Fred Morgan drew daily exhortations to muster support for the war. You may recall that when he thought Wilson had lost his bid for reelection, Morgan excitedly drew four celebratory cartoons for the next day's paper. In spite of the Inquirer's new motto, Morgan's pro-war cartoons this week drew on national symbols; Mr. Wilson did not make an appearance in them.

"Under Which Flag" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, March 25, 1917

And the jingoism just kept coming. Morris, by the way, was another Republican cartoonist.

"For Humanity" by Wm. C. Morris in Independent, April 2, 1917

Democratic partisan Sidney Greene went to the trouble to remind naturalized citizens of the country that he expected them to be all-American, through and through. And by naturalized citizens, I'm sure he meant German immigrants, although he doesn't go so far as to dress the guy in lederhosen.

"Warned" by Sidney Greene in New York Evening Telegram,  March 25, 1917

The Chicago Tribune had been all in for the belligerent Teddy Roosevelt and his klaxon call for preparedness in the previous year's election campaign. Yet this front page cartoon by Carey Orr hints at some misgivings about War, even as Uncle Sam cleans out his rifle.

"The Bogy Month" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune,  March 23, 1917

For genuine anti-war sentiment, you had to pick up a copy of The Masses. I recognize Randolph Hearst personifying "Conservative Press" (even though he had been accused of pro-German sympathies) and Teddy Roosevelt, labeled — in quotation marks — "'Americanism.'" "Big Business" may be J.P. Morgan, but I'm pretty sure that "Ignorance" is not Gomez Addams.

"Patrons of War" by Boardman Robinson in The Masses, May, 1917

Turning to views from abroad, this French cartoonist welcomed the U.S. to the fray, but not without gently ribbing the new ally over President Woodrow Wilson's many notes sent to Kaiser Wilhelm to complain about all those ships sunk since the beginning of the war.

"A New Kind of Message" by French cartoonist in Ruy Blas, Paris, March, 1917

I wish I had a better scan of this Louis Raemaekers cartoon welcoming Uncle Sam to the fight; a lot of the detail and shading has been lost. I do try to repair some of the damage sustained by these cartoons in transit from paper to wire service to newsprint to microfilm to digital scanner, but I doubt I could fix this one without going all Borja Ecce Homo on it. In spite of the lousy reproduction here, Raemaekers's point still comes through.

"It May Happen" by Louis Raemaekers, in De Telegraaf,Amsterdam, March, 1917

This Canadian cartoonist was hardly the only one to imagine President Wilson shopping for the "latest spring styles."

"To-Day's Hero" by Lawrence (?) in Montreal Daily Mail, March 29, 1917

If Englishman Edward Reed caricatured an American accent in the dialogue of this cartoon, as was his wont, the American editors of The Independent opted not to retain it.

"The Eleventh Hour Recruit" by Edward T. Reed in Passing Show, London, March, 1917

Reed's war may have been a jolly good romp at first glance, but don't miss the warning on the door.

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare

As we step back one century again for Seekriegback Saturday, we are entering a momentous month in world history.

"The Homing Pigeon" by William "Jack" Farr in New York Evening Herald, January 28, 1917

When last we checked in, proposals to bring World War I to an end were shriveling up like the leaves of a Christmas poinsettia. The U.S. wanted a return to the status quo ante, plus a League of Nations to replace the complicated web of alliances that had obliged one European nation after another to declare war on the others for reasons that had nothing to do with the assassination of an Austro-Hungarian archduke. Germany wanted instead to ratify its gains on the battlefield, while the Entente of Russia, France and Great Britain preferred to punish Germany for its belligerence.

"The World's Two Great Comedians" by Lluis Bagaria for El Sol, Madrid, January, 1917

Since talk of peace was going nowhere, the German government declared "unrestricted submarine warfare" on February 1, 1917: a resumption of its U-boat blockade of Great Britain. The Kaiser warned that ships from any country, including neutral nations, would be attacked and sunk without warning anywhere within hundreds of miles of the British and French coasts.

"Well, Count, We Did Our Best" by W. A. Rogers in New York World, February, 1917

The British had a naval blockade of Germany, too, which as we've shown before, rankled those Americans who wished only to have transatlantic commerce and communications continue unimpeded regardless of European hostilities. The operative difference to U.S. public opinion now was that the Entente powers had not sunk any ships with Americans on them, operating under what were called prize or cruiser rules. Under these rules, British forces would board ships and place their crews in "a place of safety" before sinking the ship, unless the ship displayed "a persistent refusal to stop."

"The Last Straw" by Robert W. "Sat" Satterfield in Cleveland News, Ohio, February, 1917

As John Darling notes below, the German announcement was made with the full realization that the U.S. would be brought into the war because of it.

"Nobody But Himself to Blame" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, February, 1917

Europe's war had been raging at a stalemate for over two years, but, save for some very old veterans of the Civil War, Americans' only experience with war was of the relatively quick and easy victory over Spain twenty years earlier.

"And When It Falls 'Twill Fall on Him" by William Hanny in St. Joseph News Press, February 2, 1917

Even at Hearst's newspapers, resistance against the move toward war was waning. Here's Harry Murphy's cartoon on the day unrestricted submarine warfare was announced...

"I Feel Safer on My Own Side" by Harry Murphy in Chicago Examiner, February 1, 1917

...and five days later, as ships were being dispatched to Davy Jones's locker:

"I Want Real Preparedness" by Harry Murphy in Chicago Examiner, February 6, 1917

From this point on, jingoism fills the inkwells of nearly every cartoonist in America. The only ones still advocating against U.S. entry into the war were the socialists at The Masses.

"Peace Only with Honor" by Boardman Robinson in The Masses, February, 1917