World News

 Come with me on a quick world tour in 1921, won't you?

"St. Patrick's Day Dream of Tomorrow" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., March 17, 1921

Since we've just made it past another St. Patrick's Day, we'll start with Ireland; where their British overlords celebrated the holiday by hanging six Irish Republicans convicted of killing British intelligence officers.

"Peace and Permanent Settlement" by David Low in London Star, Jan./Feb., 1921

Sir Edward Carson was the Conservative MP given the task of finding a peaceful settlement to Britain's Irish problem. His was the novel observation that if Irish Catholics and Protestants would just stop killing each other, they wouldn't have to live in fear of each other. 

"The Dove of Peace" by Jon Cottrell in Chronicle, Manchester, ca. March, 1921

Coming to England from Australia, David Low saw the issue of Irish independence (and Indian independence as well) differently than most of the other cartoonists on that Blessed Isle. According to his memoir, Low's Autobiography, he received some strongly worded pushback from other newspapers and their readers.

"When Are You Going to Pay This Bill?" in London Opinion, ca. March, 1921

Meanwhile, London (and Paris) were insisting upon steep war indemnity from Germany, and had no patience for Germany's protestations that it couldn't afford to pay. 

"The Island of Yap" by Frederick Opper for Star Publishing, ca. Feb. 16, 1921

William Randolph Hearst and his newspapers were eager for the U.S. to call in debts supposedly owed by the major Entente powers and a smattering of other countries around the world. The issue has nothing to do with dispute between the U.S. and Japan over the Micronesian island of Yap, but that didn't stop Hearst cartoonist Frederick Opper from drawing a series of cartoons in which Yap features prominently in merry songs about how nobody is in a rush to repay loans from Uncle Sam.

(I have to apologize for his characterization of Liberia, which appears in all of Opper's "Island of Yap" cartoons. Crude caricatures of Blacks, and, for that matter, foreigners, were the rule in this era, and nowhere moreso than in Mr. Opper's work.)

"Where He Will Be Waiting for Us" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1921

Not every cartoonist thought that Japan staking a claim on the island of Yap was a joke.

"The Sick Man Sees a Silver Lining" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, March, 1921

Meanwhile, since the Harding administration wasn't interested in governing a mandate over Armenia, the allies decided to let the Ottomans retain control there, in spite of the Turkish genocide of civilians. Between 1915 and 1923, Turkey literally decimated its Armenian population through deportation, forced conversion to Islam, death marches, and outright execution.

"La Civiltà È Finalmente Nelle Nostre Mani," in Pasquino, Torino, ca. March, 1921

Turkey found a new ally in its former adversary Russia. The Bolsheviks, discarding the Romanovs' concern for defending Christianity south of the Black Sea, shared the Ottomans' interest in subjugating their Armenian citizens.

"Who Will Suffer Most?" by Winsor McCay, December, 1920

Any time there was an uprising somewhere in Russia, cartoonists in the U.S. and elsewhere rushed to their drawing boards to proclaim the imminent demise of the Soviet Socialist Republic. March, 1921 witnessed a flurry of such cartoons. What I find more interesting, however, are cartoons like this one in support of Western capitalists who saw financial opportunity in Communist Russia. Winsor McCay was not the only cartoonist who thought the U.S. was losing a potentially valuable market to other countries (especially Great Britain).

Speaking of the class struggle of the proletariat...

"Polonia ha Ordinato Trecento Aeroplani.." in Pasquino, Torino, ca. February, 1921

I have to respect Cartoon Magazine's translation, awkward as it is, of this cartoon by someone whose signature I can't read. (Why, moreover, does the Italian agitator who doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to the Russian leader have "W. Lenin" tattooed on his belly?)

Translating these cartoons isn't as easy as typing words into Google Translate, and here are a couple of cartoons that exemplify that.

"Die Seindlichen Schwestern" by Oskar Theuer in Ulk, Berlin, March 4, 1921

I include this cartoon as one of the earliest cartoons I have come across featuring the Nazi party — the sister seated on the left of her rival, the Deutsche Volkspartei (German People's Party). Both parties were anti-socialist, no matter what that uncle of yours who watches Fox News all night tells you that Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei means.

The caption on this cartoon doesn't seem to translate well; "Die seindlichen Schwestern" is literally "The Enemy Sisters." For all my searching, "Extratour" seems only to translate to English exactly as it looks. I'm only guessing that Oskar Theuer was making some sarcastic allusion to these "enemy sisters" returning to the dance floor in the final panel.

"Desafinação no Continente" by José Carlos de Brito e Cunha in Careta, Rio de Janeiro, March, 1921

I'm similarly stymied by the last word in this Brazilian cartoon, which may mean goals or ends, or, judging from Tio Sam's left hand, it could be a slang term for money and influence.

At any rate, a border conflict between Panama and Costa Rica over the latter's incursion into Almirante presented the Harding administration with its inaugural foreign crisis. Bound by treaty to protect Panama's sovereignty (and because we had seized the isthmus from Columbia in order to build a canal through it), the U.S. did indeed step in to mediate the conflict, and the matter was settled fairly quickly.

Wall Street Bombed

This week marks anniversaries of two terrorist attacks on New York City: 9/11/01, of course, but also 9/16/20.

"Murdered to Make Me Tremble" by Lucius Curtis "Lute" Pease in Newark News, Sept. 1920

At the start of the lunch hour on Thursday, September 16, 1920, a horse-drawn carriage blew up in front of the J.P. Morgan & Co. offices at the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street. The blast killed 38 and injured hundreds more, the most casualties of any peacetime attack in the U.S. up to that date (but superseded the following year by the white race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma).

There was no claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell to anarchists and communist sympathizers, who became the focus of Attorney General Palmer's investigation.

Uncaptioned, by Clifford Berryman in Washington (D.C.) Evening Star, September 17, 1920

The bomb was found to have been made of TNT and the iron weights commonly used for window sashes, connected to a timer; investigation into window sash weight makers all over the U.S. yielded nothing. One Pietro Angelo, who was connected with a bombing the previous year, was able to produce an alibi but was deported to Italy anyway. Another suspect was champion tennis player Edwin P. Fischer, who had made earlier warnings to friends predicting a mid-September Wall Street explosion; but it turned out that he happened to be in Canada that day and had developed a habit of making similar predictions.

"New York" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, Sept. 17, 1920

As for a motive for the bombing, a theory that it was an assassination attempt against J.P. Morgan was discounted because the banker was in Europe (although his son Junius was injured and his chief clerk, William Joyce, was killed). The bombing may also have been an attempt to rob a scheduled shipment of 900 gold bars to the U.S. Treasury building next door; if so, it failed in its mission.

"Seems About Time to Clean Them All Out" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 18, 1920

The FBI and Secret Service eventually dropped the investigation in 1940; the bombing remains unsolved to this day.

"The Fuse" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sept. 18, 1920

Leap Day Toons 1920

February 29 falls on a Saturday only once every 28 years; so in honor of this magical occasion, Siderealback Saturday presents a collection of editorial cartoons that happened to run on Sunday, February 29, 1920.

"There's No Law Against Running for President" by Don Herold in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 29, 1920

Humorist Don Herold was equally at home drawing full-fledged cartoons such as this one, or providing illustrations to his own humor columns. From September 29, 1918 to July 11, 1920, he syndicated a Sunday strip nationally while working at the Indianapolis Star. The Star had stopped running this strip a month before this cartoon appeared, suggesting that the series was self-syndicated.

"Standing Room Only" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, February 29, 1920

"Ding" Darling also commented on the crowded field of presidential candidates that day. The eventual winner, Warren Harding, is somewhat hidden toward the back; in spite of Darling's Republican sympathies, the cartoonist never warmed to isolationist candidate Harding. Darling's "Nonpartisan Public," for some reason, seems to be the happiest person on the train.

"The Old Story" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 29, 1920

Speaking of trains: President Wilson had just signed legislation on February 28 returning the railroads, taken over by the government during the war, to private ownership.

"Here's Your Junk..." by Frederick Boyd Stevenson in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 29, 1920

Frederick Stevenson was another writer who dabbled in cartooning. I would differentiate him from Don Herold in that Herold did more than "dabble" in cartooning (but doesn't seem to have kept up any comic title for more than a few years at a time). Furthermore, Stevenson wasn't a humorist in his writing and lecturing at all; illustrating his full-page opinion pieces was often done by one of the Eagle's other artists.

"I Certainly Hate to See Him Go" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (D.C.) Evening Star, February 29, 1920

Interior Secretary Franklin Lane resigned effective at the end of February, so Clifford Berryman drew this fond send-off for him. Canadian-born Lane oversaw construction of the first Alaskan public railway; previous railroads in the territory were privately owned. He also saw a bill regulating oil and coal lands become law at end of his service, so it's somewhat ironic that he went on to work for the oil company that would be the center of the Teapot Dome scandal (although he died well before that scandal broke).

Another cabinet member to leave in February was Secretary of State Robert Lansing. Wilson was angered to learn that Lansing had urged Vice President Marshall to assume presidential duties after Wilson's stroke in September, 1919. It may or may not have been the First Lady who forced Lansing out of office, depending which historian you ask; either way, when Lansing offered his resignation on February 12, the President accepted it.

"Really a Most Remarkable Exhibition..." by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, February 29, 1920

The gravity of Wilson's condition was public knowledge by this time, and so were the reasons for Lansing's resignation. Still, President Wilson must have been healthy enough for a stalwart Republican cartoonist like Fred Morgan to safely criticize the President's "egotism" and "autocracy" as he skated away with Uncle Sam's "U.S. People's Prerogative" hat. The hole in the ice is labeled "League of Nations."

"Proof of Life After Death" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, February 29, 1920

John McCutcheon comments on New Jersey's new, anti-Prohibition Governor, Democrat Edward Edwards. Edwards and his cohorts bring a pulmotor to John Barleycorn's grave and strain to listen for signs of life: "What Does He Say?" asks an aide. Edwards reports, "He says he wants to get into politics."

"Posing for the Allies" by Edwin Marcus in New York Times, February 29, 1920

Turning to foreign affairs: cartoonists had finally figured out what Vladimir Lenin looked like. The New York Times cartoonist put Lenin and Trotsky in this parody of Raphael's putti cherubs. Hidden behind their facade are "Loot," "World Revolution," and a dead female.

"Gasoline Alley" by Frank O. King in Chicago Tribune, February 29, 1920

As long as we're here, I'll take note that by this point, Frank King's "Gasoline Alley" had become a stand-alone comic strip, now independent of his full-page "The Rectangle" feature. "The Rectangle" was discontinued two weeks earlier, along with Sundays' separate editorial section, which it had fronted. "Gasoline Alley" hadn't yet migrated to the color comics section of the Tribune, running instead across the top of page 13, section 7, the start of the Automobile news and advertising pages.

In Search of Aunty Democracy

One of these Saturday posts last month included a pair of 1920 cartoons by Clifford Berryman featuring Miss Democracy, a common representation of the Democratic Party at the time but which has long since disappeared from the scene. Here she is with door-to-door book seller Vice President Thomas Marshall 100 years ago.

"Who Was He?" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, February 17, 1920

It got me to wondering where she came from, and in spite of much digging and wandering down rabbit holes, I haven't been able to uncover anything written about her. There has been plenty written about the Democratic donkey, Republican elephant, Tammany tiger, Uncle Sam, Brother Jonathan, Columbia and so forth, but I haven't found any discussion of this lady.

"Lan' Sakes, What'll I Do with 'Em?" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, November, 7, 1912

Berryman was not alone in popularizing the character, who was variously labeled "Miss Democracy" or "Aunty Democracy." The word "Democracy" here was a common reference not to the system of government but to the Democratic Party (as noted back in my posts about R.C. Bowman). A dowdy, usually bespectacled woman of a certain age, she typically dressed in frilly clothes that would have been fashionable in the mid- to late 19th Century.

"Hen(dricks)pecked" by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1876

One often turns to Thomas Nast as the originator for such things, even though he did not invent either the Democratic donkey or the Republican elephant as commonly supposed. He did depict the Democrats' 1876 Vice Presidential candidate Thomas Hendricks as a frumpy "Mrs. Tilden" once or twice (nowhere near as often as he drew cartoons of the "rag baby" representing the Democrats' attempts to make a campaign issue of inflation), which hardly seems sufficient exposure to inspire the next generation of cartoonists to use "Mrs. Tilden" as a template for Miss Democracy. Besides, "Mrs. Tilden" was, ipso facto, married.

"Aunty Democracy" by Charles "Bart" Bartholomew in Minneapolis Journal, August 30, 1899

The earliest incontrovertible examples of Aunty/Miss Democracy my admittedly less than exhaustive research have turned up are by Charles "Bart" Bartholomew of the Minneapolis Journal in 1899. Here he is making a pun on "Aunty" and "Anti"; whether he was taking advantage of a name and character already in existence I cannot say for sure. Bart returned the character to half a dozen or so cartoons that year, and not always to exploit the pun.

"Modern Ulysses and the Siren" by Charles "Bart" Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal, September 28, 1899

Cartoonists often cast Miss Democracy in the role of a spinster eager for a mate, but also as the pursued maiden.

"And the Williams Still Pursued Her" by Fred Morgan (?) in Philadelphia Inquirer, 1904

Here she is fleeing William Jennings Bryan and William Hearst, by a Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist I presume to be Fred Morgan. She's listing hosts of her party's presidential nominating conventions from 1896 to 1904. Does "First I tried New York" mean that she came into existence with the 1896 campaign?

"A Critical Inspection of the Candidates" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., 1904

Bob Satterfield offers an example of "Aunty Democracy" that isn't trying to make an "anti-democracy" pun — at least, I don't think she's trying to fry the Democratic hopefuls under her magnifying glass. That's twice former President Grover Cleveland under the table, and twice unsuccessful (thus far) nominee William Jennings Bryan in the waste barrel.

"Trying to Stick Them Together" by Rowland C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, 1901

Aunty Democracy isn't seeking a mate in Satterfield's cartoon, or in this one by Bart's crosstown rival, my old pal Rowland C. Bowman. Bowman departs from convention by naming her "Dame Democracy," and in at least one other Bowman cartoon, she has children of her own.

"Iowa Has Done an' Dud Up 'at Old Dead Tat" by R.C. Bowman in Minneapolis Tribune, 1901

I like Bowman's use of alliteration, but among his peers, "Miss Democracy" was her most common moniker.

"Trespassing" by Thomas S. Sullivant for Hearst Newspapers, ca. May 12, 1908

Which brings up the question of why there wasn't a similar character to represent the Republican Party. Surely there were ample occasions when some Miss Republicanism might go a-courtin', or receive gentlemen callers, as in this cartoon in which Joseph Keppler compares Teddy Roosevelt's endorsement of William Howard Taft for the 1908 GOP nomination to The Courtship of Miles Standish.

"The Courtship of Bill Taft" by Joseph Keppler in Puck, April 24, 1907

I've always pictured Priscilla Mullins (a distant relative of mine, whom one of my aunts was named after) as a more attractive woman than this, given that Miles Standish and John Alden both fall for her. So I find it odd that Keppler drew her this way when in earlier cartoons, he had represented the Republican Party as an idealized female specimen.

"Shooing 'Em In" by Louis Dalrymple in Puck, June 1, 1892

But if Keppler couldn't decide what Miss Republicanism ought to look like, neither could his fellow Puck cartoonists.

"Her Pet" by Frederick Opper in Puck, April 13, 1892

Frederick Opper also gives Miss Republican two completely different guises. If these three influential cartoonists couldn't agree what Miss Republicanism ought to look like, what possible hope was there that she would ever catch on with the rest of the nation's ink-stained wretches?

"Their Time Has Come Again" by Frederick Opper in Puck, July 27, 1892

Returning to Miss Democracy, then. She gradually fell out of favor with the generation of cartoonists who followed Bart, Clifford Berryman, et al. (So too does the use of the word "Democracy" to refer to the Democratic Party.) One doesn't find her in the cartoons of the Ashcan School, or, for that matter, most leftist cartoonists using any media.

"What I Want I Can't Get" by Silvey J. Ray in Kansas City Star, 1952

The latest examples I've seen of her are in the 1950's, by which time everything about her is way out of date. She was incongruous to the party of organized labor, civil rights, and progressivism. Nevertheless she persisted, pursuing and being pursued.

"'Tis But Thy Name That Is My Enemy" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, February, 1950

Herblock, from what I've seen, used her only to represent the Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic Party, and hardly ever at that. He included the above cartoon in his first book, in a chapter largely about using stock characters versus caricatures of actual politicians; of this cartoon, he wrote nothing about her but mused that the joining of Dixiecrats with the G.O.P. might necessitate creation of a new stock character someday.

"Harry—What a Hat!" by Leo Joseph Roche in Buffalo Courier-Express, June, 1956

In conclusion, here is the most recent cartoon appearance of Miss Democracy that I know of, in which she is stunned by former President Harry Truman's receipt of an honorary degree from Oxford University.

Your Teeming Masses

Since the Corrupt Trump Administration is now bowdlerizing Emma Lazarus and criminalizing legal immigrants, Stigmaback Saturday takes a wide-ranging look back at the United States's anti-immigrant hypocrisy.

I just bought myself the fifth volume of the comprehensive collection of daily and Sunday "Pogo" comic strips by Walt Kelly. The foreword by Jake Tapper includes this non-Pogo strip Kelly drew in response to the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.

Cartoon by Walt Kelly (in New York Star?), ca. June, 1948

Refugees admitted to the United States under this program were also aided by voluntary social service agencies, accredited by the Displaced Person Commission. Most of these agencies were created by religious and ethnic groups, who gave assurances that the admitted refugees would not become “public charges” and that they, the agencies, would help oversee the resettlement of the refugees.

In spite of being a nation of immigrants, the U.S. has a long history of citizens convinced that immigration got out of hand once grandpa and grandma had stepped off the boat.

I don't have a cartoonist, publication, or date for this cartoon (credit Culver Pictures), but it probably dates from the fin de siècle, and quite possibly Judge magazine.

"Where Is the Blame" by Grant Hamilton in Judge, ca. 1891

The cartoonists at Judge appear to have a long-standing animus against immigrants. The protagonist in Judge Art Editor Grant Hamilton's 1891 cartoon points at a horde of ne'er-do-wells labeled "German socialist," "Russian anarchist," "Polish vagabond," "Italian brigand," "English convict," and "Irish pauper,"  and tells Uncle Sam, "If Immigration was properly Restricted you would no longer be troubled with Anarchy, Socialism, the Mafia and such kindred evils!"

"The Unrestricted Dumping Ground" by Louis Dalrymple in Judge, ca. 1901 or '02

Another Judge cartoonist, Louis Dalrymple, portrays immigrants "direct from the slums of Europe" swarming ashore as so many rats. Italians figure rather prominently in this cartoon; so too does anarchist Leon Czolgosz, represented by the rat with the red bandanna and a dagger labeled "assassination" in its teeth. Looking through the clouds is the president he assassinated, William McKinley. (The real Czolgosz used a gun, but I guess the Socialist rat swiped it from him in this cartoon. To each according to his needs.)

"The High Tide of Immigration" by Louis Dalrymple in Judge, 1903

Dalrymple returned to a maritime metaphor in 1903, widening his paranoia to a more inclusive array of national stereotypes. Now, I'm not saying his anti-immigrant preoccupation was itself a manifestation of mental disease or defect, but as it happens, Dalrymple died of paralytic dementia just two years later, aged 44. Let that be a warning to Stephen Miller.

"Put Them Out and Keep Them Out" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, June, 1919

Since this here blog has a thing about keeping track of what cartoonists were drawing 100 years ago, let's now skip ahead to 1919. A series of terrorist attacks by communist sympathizers began with several explosive devices mailed to prominent Americans, including Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and billionaire John D. Rockefeller, intended to be delivered on May Day. A few arrived early and others were not delivered due to insufficient postage. One delivered to a senator from Georgia did explode, injuring his wife; another delivered to the mayor of Seattle was a dud. The rest were intercepted before anyone was hurt.

"An Ounce of Mosquito Netting..." by J. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, June 6, 1919

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Bombers delivered explosive devices themselves in eight U.S. cities shortly after midnight on June 2, including at the homes of Attorney General Palmer, of judges in New York City, Pittsburgh and Boston, of a Massachusetts congressman, and of the mayor of Cleveland. The Church of Our Lady of Victory in Philadelphia was another target. Two were killed in the New York bombing, one of them reportedly the bomber himself.

"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary..." by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 8, 1919

Residual panic over bombings of military and port facilities by German sympathizers during the war easily shifted to red hysteria, especially since communism was associated not only with Russians, but with Germans — especially German-American academics and socialists in elected office.

"The Hook" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Association, June, 1919

Many cartoonists were able to express their condemnation of the bombers without painting immigrants with the same brush, pen or charcoal. But for many Americans, it was taken for granted that immigrants were behind the violence and that sending them back to Europe was the obvious solution — a sentiment the Ku Klux Klan would be able to exploit in the decade to come.

"There Is Some Carpenter Work for Us to Do" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, June, 1919

But let us step back another 50 years to close with a more hopeful "Can't we all just get along?" sentiment, from German-American immigrant Thomas Nast.

"Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner" by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, November 20, 1869

Why, he even allowed the Irish guy a seat at the table!