Campaigns Drawn to a Close

Graphical History Tour checks in one last time on the campaigning ahead of the 1926 midterms:

"Why Change" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, Nov. 1, 1926

The GOP went into the election in full control of Congress and the White House. Indianapolis News front page editorial cartoonist Charles Kuhn spent the final week of the campaign drawing variations on one theme: Republicans brought the nation six years of unprecedented prosperity, so why change?

"Anxious Days for Mothers" by James "Hal" Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 29, 1926

All politics being local, Hal Donahey highlighted the diverse issues bedeviling individual Republican Senate candidates around the country with President Coolidge looking on. Today’s tour explores some of these races.

"Nothing to Hide Behind" by James "Hal" Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 19, 1926

Since Donahey brought it up, we'll get Ohio out of the way first. In "Anxious Days for Mothers," Donahey showed Senator Frank Willis beset by "Newberryism," named for Michigan Senator Truman Newberry, notorious for the huge amount of money he spent to get elected in 1918 only to be pressured into resigning in 1921. 

Donahey tended to support Democrats (his brother "Honest Vic" Donahey happened to be the Democratic Governor of Ohio), so it's hardly surprising that he didn't see Republicans' record in quite the enthusiastic way Charles Kuhn did.

Detail from "Halloween Time" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 31, 1926

We were just discussing Klan involvement in Indiana's Republican Party (an issue Kuhn was more than happy to ignore), an unwelcome stumbling block in Senator James Watson’s race for reelection. Both of Indiana's senators had testified to an investigation led by Senator James Reed (D-MO) to deny being beholden to the KKK. 

Running for reelection, Senator James Watson played down his contacts with Klan representatives, saying that their people met with many other senators, and merely shared his views on the League of Nations and World Court. As for his meetings with former Grand Wizard D.C. Stephenson, by this time serving time for rape and murder, and threatening to tell all about Indiana Republican deals with the Klan, Watson testified,

"I know Stephenson. All Indiana politicians know Stephenson. He was an active fellow and went about at gatherings and conventions. ... Stephenson was never in my room privately but once, and then nothing was said about politics or anything else. He said, 'I came to pay you a visit.' After talking a while, he left.

"I didn't know why he came, and I don't know now. I had gone to bed when I heard a knock at the door. I got up and let him in and we sat and talked for a while. Then he left."

"Admirers of Coolidge Who Had Intended to Vote for Smith" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 30, 1926

Moving along to the Senate race in Illinois: the Republican establishment was embarrassed by its standard bearer, Senator Frank L. Smith (whom Donahey drew tackled by anti-Prohibition “Wets”). It was revealed that while he was Chair of the state's Commerce Commission, Smith had accepted over $200,000 from railroad magnate Samuel Insull and other public utility officials. The steadfastly Republican Chicago Tribune reported:

The President has not lifted a finger to help Smith, presumably because the President could not stomach the scandal attaching to the candidacy of the Republican nominee as a result of the conduct of Smith in taking money from the great public utility corporations subject to his regulation as chairman of the Illinois commerce commission.

It has been known for several months that Coolidge was greatly shocked at the conduct of Smith and had hoped at one time that Smith would have the decency to withdraw after the exposure of the scandal and would relieve the party of the embarrassment of his candidacy. The President was disappointed when Smith refused to budge.

Coolidge responded to a protest by a Smith defender that the Democratic candidate, George E. Brennan, had accepted a $15,000 donation from Insull by snapping, "But Brennan wasn't regulating Insull's properties, was he?"

"To the Rescue" by Fred O. Seibel in Richmond Times-Dispatch, Oct. 28, 1926

The one candidate for whom Coolidge actively campaigned was his home state Senator William Butler (the guy getting stomped by his support of tariffs in Donahey’s "Anxious Days for Mother" cartoon), who had been appointed in 1924 to finish the term of the late Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. 

Butler campaigned as "a candidate for office on a platform that pledges a continuance of the American policy of adequate tariff protection for our industries. My opponent [former Senator David Walsh] has received a Democratic nomination, and he is running on a platform that tries to fool the voters by making one gesture toward protection and another toward free trade."

"Nothing Doing" by Wm. Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 29, 1926

William Scott Vare had won Pennsylvania Republicans' senatorial primary on an anti-Prohibition platform (see here). Nebraska's Senator George Norris, praised Prohibition of alcohol because "this greatest evil of all mankind is driven from the homes of the American people," and urged Pennsylvania to elect the Democrat, William Wilson. Norris, a Progressive Republican, often voted against establishment Republican legislation, earning the epithet "One of the Sons of the Wild Jackass."

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer and its editorial page cartoonist, William Hanny, were in the awkward position of having strongly opposed Vare in the primary as a corrupt machine boss with ties to organized crime, but now urging voters to elect him anyway.

"Wasting Their Time and Bait" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Oct. 27, 1926

If criticizing a GOP candidate was uncomfortable for Bill Hanny, fellow Republican "Ding" Darling lit into Vare and Smith without hesitation. The two were the poster boys for campaign funding excess (Donahey's Senator Willis notwithstanding, it seems). Vare and gubernatorial candidate Edward Beidleman jointly spent over $788,000 on their campaign; Smith's campaign chest was about $400,000. Adusted for inflation, those amounts would be around $15 million and $7.6 million today, respectively — chicken feed by today's standards.

($15 million is slightly less than the sum nazi oligarch Elon Musk alone has spent to boost corrupt sleazebag Ken Paxton alone.)

Getting back to our History Tour, James K Pollock, Jr., described the state of campaign finance laws in his 1926 book, Party Campaign Funds (Alfred A. Knopf):

"Despite the fact that the federal laws regulating campaign funds are often referred to as corrupt practices acts, it is erroneous to believe that these laws are of the class mentioned. There is only a federal publicity law with a few subsidiary requirements, one preventing the receipt of contributions from corporations, another prohibiting bribery, and another preventing the solicitation of gifts from civil service appointees. The last laws which could properly be described as corrupt practices acts were repealed in 1894 and nothing of a comprehensive nature has since been substituted in their place." (page 227)

"Leaving It At the Wrong Door" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 27, 1926

In the New York governor's race, Republican Ogden Mills accused incumbent Democrat Alfred Smith (no relation to the Illinois Senator) of responsibility for adulterated milk sold in New York City. Touting analysis by Pease Laboratories that found no such adulteration in their test samples, Smith proclaimed his vindication of the charges.

Opposition to Prohibition was a huge issue in New York City, championed by both Al Smith and incumbent GOP Senator James Wadsworth, Jr. Upstate, both politicians' positions were a harder sell. 

"Do I Look Enough Like a Camel" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 10, 1926

Government v. Press

This week's Graphical History Tour bravely sallies forth against censorship of newsmedia in the United States.

As a political cartoonist who has just been among a few dozen other political cartoonists, Your Humble Scribbler has a vested interest against censorship of editorial cartoons in particular. 

During the First Golden Age of my profession, in the late 18th Century and into the next, newspaper publishers saw the popularity and influence of the Thomas Nasts and Johannes Kepplers drawing for the national weeklies, and hired some of the best editorial cartoonists to grace their newspapers' front pages. And not incidentally, to push the publishers' political agendas.

"No Honest Man Need Fear Cartoons" by Homer Davenport in New York Journal, Apr. 22, 1897

Local politicians did not take kindly to being lampooned on those front pages. Upset by Homer Davenport's cartoons of influential Republican Mark Hanna, New York political boss Senator Thomas Platt, pushed a bill in the state assembly to ban cartoon depictions of real persons without their consent.

Davenport drew the parallel with Platt's predecessor, William Tweed, who had famously complained that although his constituents didn't read the papers, they saw "them damn pictures." Platt's bill failed to pass, but that didn't stop similar bills from cropping up elsewhere.

"The Governor Has His Revenge" by Robert Edgren in San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 25, 1899

A copycat bill by California Republicans failed to pass on its first go-around, but was passed during the next legislative session and signed by newly elected Republican Governor Henry Tifft Gage. As in New York, the partisan Democratic cartoons in Hearst newspapers were a major impetus for the bill; specifically, a cartoon of Gage being led on a leash by railroad magnate C.P. Huntington.

Having been signed into law, California's anti-cartoon bill was laughed — and ignored — into obscurity. Hearst cartoonist Robert Edgren offered an unusual motive for Governor Gage to sign the anti-cartoon bill: that the cartoonists were not drawing him any more.

Frankly, the man was a caricaturist's dream. Too bad he was voted out of office after one term.

by Walter McDougall in North American, Philadelphia, Jan. 30, 1903

Responding to daily cartoons in Philadelphia's North American by Charles Nelan depicting gubernatorial candidate Samuel Pennypacker as the pet parrot of Republican Party boss Senator Matthew Quay, Pennypacker's inaugural address demanded censorship of the "disreputable" North American. Obligingly, State Representative Frederick Pusey introduced a bill outlawing publication of any cartoon 

"portraying, describing, or representing any person, either by distortion, innuendo, or otherwise, in the form or likeness of beast, bird, fish, insect, or other unhuman animal, thereby tending to expose such person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule."

The North American's other editorial cartoonist, Walt McDougall, responded with a cartoon stretched across the top of the front page depicting Quay, Pusey, and Pennypacker as a series of inanimate objects. (I have folded his cartoon to fit into a square format.) In an accompanying editorial, McDougall exhorted his fellow cartoonists, "Every cartoonist has a Noah's Ark full of worn, broken, and decrepit animals, bugs, and such, but the fresh vegetable field is untouched."

Pusey's bill nevertheless passed the Pennsylvania legislature and Pennypacker signed it into law. It was promptly repealed after Pennypacker was defeated in the next election.

by Frank Spangler in Montgomery [Ala.] Advertiser, Feb. 3, 1915 

As part of a package of election regulation laws, the Alabama legislature entertained a bill sponsored by Samuel D. Weakly prohibiting the caricature of any "prominent" man or politician. "It will make the average newspaper reader smile," the Advertiser editorialized, 

"that a sacred class is to be made of officeholders and office seekers, for they are the bulk of prominent people whom newspapers cartoon. A cartoon is a semi-editorial expression, and a powerful method of reaching public opinion, because ridicule and sarcasm are vividly presented to the eye. Both weapons are enormously effective on the stump, and there is no reason why the press should be deprived of their use. In fact, such a bill is a distinct effort to muzzle the press, and is an infringement of its constitutional powers."

As far as I have been able to determine, Weakly's proposal did not make it into the final bill. The Act (#171, § 11) did require cartoons expressing an opinion on any candidate or election issue to include "upon its face" the name of the newspaper's owner or the chief executive of its corporation.

"The Light that Must Not Fail" by Harry Murphy ca. May 5, 1917

U.S. entry into World War I opened the doors for government censorship of newspapers, and not just for their cartoons.

The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to publish 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 during wartime; 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 military recruiting or enlistment.  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

The U.S. was drawn into Europe's war due in part to the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania by a German U-boat. Nelson Harding, in a single-column cartoon on the Brooklyn Eagle's front page, turned the incident back against advocates for press censorship.

"Is This Somewhere in Germany or Somewhere in America" by Beaumont Fairbank in Brooklyn Sunday Eagle, May 5, 1918

In the same newspaper on the same day, Beaumont Fairbank drew his cartoon in support of an amendment to the 1917 Espionage Act by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) stating, 

"The use of the mails should not be permitted to any newspaper, magazine, periodical, circulars or pamphlets which are printed in whole or in part in the German language." 

Fairbank was by no means alone in advocating governmental censorship of the foreign language press. While that amendment had failed to be included in the final bill, local officials outlawed German-language newspapers in several cities in New Jersey and Long Island.

"Wenn Uns Jetzt Unsere Vorväter Sehen Könnten" by John Lenz in Vorbote, Chicago, Oct. 31, 1917

Protest against this censorship was almost exclusively limited to the foreign language newspapers themselves. The banner behind Congress in John Lenz's cartoon translates to "Freedom of Speech, Press Freedom, Right of Assembly." The rolled parchments beneath George Washington represent the Constitution and First Amendment.

"O Sorry Plight" by Arthur Young in Masses, New York, September, 1917

The Creel Commission also employed the U.S. Post Office to censor publication of material counter to the official line. Art Young's cartoon above appeared in the September issue of  the marxist, antiwar Masses after Burleson's USPS had declared the August issue "unmailable under the Act of June 15, 1917."

"A Convenient Perch" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, May, 1918

If Art Young expected other publications to rally in solidarity with Masses, he would be sadly mistaken. The Committee on Public Information headed by George Creel created a Bureau of Cartoons, which produced a weekly bulletin for cartoonists to direct their attention to matters the Wilson administration wanted them to draw about. By and large, cartoonists and their publishers fell right in line.

Masses ceased publication after its November/December issue.

"It's Nothing Important" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 20, 1972

Jumping ahead over half a century, President Richard Nixon tried very hard to force newsmedia to slant the news the way he wanted it reported. His administration enlisted the Federal Communications Commission to pressure television networks, cut funding to public broadcasting, and took newspapers to court. He was stymied, however, without a cooperative Congress or courts.

Instead, his communications team went on to found Fox News.

"Ask Me Anything" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, Nov. 15, 1973

In the meantime, we learned that President Richard Nixon kept an "enemies list" of critics of his administration, including many journalists. Nixon had always had a testy relationship with the media well before being elected president. As the Watergate scandal unfolded, it was revealed that he used the Justice Department, FBI, and Internal Revenue Service to open investigations against individuals on that list — although at least he never barred Jack Anderson, Daniel Schorr, or Mary McGrory from White House press briefings. 

for Bergetoons blog, August, 2018

There has been no assault on the media and the facts to rival the Absolutely Corrupt Donald Trump Regime's campaign to quash any reportage that doesn't fawn upon Dear Misleader. The two terms of his presidency have seen government websites erased, responsible reporters banned first from the Pentagon and now the White House, and weaponization against the media of both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, this time with general compliance on the part of Congress and the Supreme Court.

for Q Syndicate, February, 2025

Unless approved by Trump himself, it's all just fake news.

"They give me only bad publicity, press. I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away, ... That’s all they do. If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said. But when you go back, take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They're giving me all this bad press, and they're getting a license. When you have a network and they have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do — that license, they're not allowed to do that!" — Donald Joffrey Trump, September 16, 2025

Q Toon: Prison Break

Out of the blue, Shittiest President Ever Donald Dump  Trump announced on the Ministry of Truth Social that he had commuted the prison sentence of disgraced former Congresscritter George Santos, a.k.a. Anthony Devolder, a.k.a. Kitara Rivera, who was less than three months into serving a five-year sentence on multiple federal charges of identity theft and wire fraud.

Commutation of Santos's sentence also means that he gets out of paying fines and restitution. And if you think that’s outrageous, just wait until you witness Infinitely Corrupt Emperor Trump awarding himself over a quarter billion-with-a-B of your tax dollars while the whole government is shut down.

Santos says that he's a changed man, which should alert everyone in the country to check whether they have just become a victim of identity theft.

"George Santos was somewhat of a 'rogue,' but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren't forced to serve seven years in prison," Trump wrote. Trump likened what prosecutors had called Santos's "mountain of lies, theft, and fraud" to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CN) having stolen Vietnam service valor, which he called "far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!"

So there we have the essence of Trumpism: loyalty to Boss Donald gets you absolved of all felonies and misdemeanors, whereas anyone who has ever crossed him gets persecuted by the full weight of the Department Formerly Known As Justice, the masked jack-booted thugs of ICE, and the Red State National Guard.

Should Zohran Mamdani win the mayoralty of New York as expected, count on Generalissimo Shit Dumper to issue an executive order naming George Santos-Devolder-Rivera-YourNameHere Emergency Military Mayor of Occupied New York.

Was Ist Los in Translation

Keep your babel fish handy today: our Graphical History Tour jets overseas to check up on what cartoonists in Germany were drawing a century ago. But first: a brief layover in the Netherlands!

"Labour en Het Communisme" by Leendert J. Jordaan in Notenkraker Amsterdam, Oct. 10, 1925

I came across this Dutch cartoon some time ago and saved it on the chance that I could use it here once October, 2025 came around. Now that it has, here it is.

Leendert Jordaan had been cartoonist for the satirical magazine Die Notenkraker (The Nutcracker) since 1909. His fiercely critical cartoons against Hitler would be published by the Netherlands’ underground press during World War II. Unlike Die Notenkraker, he survived the war, cartooning for Het Parool and Vrij Nederland until his retirement in 1961.

This got me wondering why I had not been finding any cartoons by the great Dutch cartoonist Louis Raemaekers in the U.S. press after the Armistice was signed, given how celebrated he had been stateside during the Great War. After all, he was still drawing cartoons up to and during World War II.

My guess is that in the years between the wars, isolationist sentiment in the U.S. meant that there was little interest in Raemaekers’s belligerently anti-German cartoons. Even in his home country, Raemaekers was unable to find a Dutch publisher for his 1927 collection of cartoons.

"Zeit-Ie-Wat" by Louis Raemaekers in De Telegraaf, Amsterdam, Oct. 15, 1925

So here is what I could find that Raemaekers was getting published in Amsterdam in those days (American audiences having enough trouble sussing bee's knees, spifflication, and gams without pondering the lingo of the guys and dolls overseas, too).

I will merely Yanksplain Raemaekers's joke by pointing out that "slang" is the Dutch word for "snake." Get it?

Moving on to Germany so that I may impress you with my ability to googlen sie deutsch:

"Souvenir de Locarno" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich/Stuttgart, Oct. 26, 1925

The major European news for the month was an international conference of continental leaders in Locarno, Switzerland. Over the next few months, conferees would hammer out a series of agreements, notably establishing new mutual borders of France, Belgium, and Germany, and admitting Germany into the League of Nations.

The cut lines in Thomas Heine's imagined photographs read:

"[Italy's Benito] Mussolini, who decided to smile occasionally at the conference."

"[Belgium's Émile] Vandervelde during a performance of The Marseillaise in the hotel .”

"[German Foreign Minister Gustav] Stresemann happily reports to [Chancellor Hans] Luther that he has been greeted by a French journalist."

"[France's Aristide] Briand striking a comma from the press release."

"[Britain's Foreign Secretary Sir Austen] Chamberlain choosing his tie."

Speaking of British decorum... 

"Selbsterkenntnis" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Oct. 4, 1925

The cut line accompanying Garvens's cartoon identifies the caption as something David Lloyd George said during a debate on expanding the British fleet. If so, Lloyd George was quoting Rev. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones in a statement that has since been misconstrued as the Welsh pastor's characterization of the former Prime Minister.

"Helden des Sports" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Oct. 11, 1925

Garvens continued his concern for dark-skinned peoples a week later, citing a French report about an American sports personality who had joined the Franco-Spanish air attacks in Morocco, where Rif rebels had established an independent Islamic state.

The tiny paragraph explaining the cartoon doesn't cite the source of the French report or name the American jock, so I can't tell you with certainty who he was. A September feature article for the Philadelphia Public Ledger by Charles G. Reinhart, however, names ten American fighter pilots, most of them World War I veterans, flying for France. Reinhart's article mentions that one of them, Charles Wayne Kerwood ("Chuck"), was an amateur athlete in Philadelphia.

"Just Can't Keep Them Out of War" in Salt Lake Tribune, September 6, 1925. Kerwood is seated under the W in the headline.

They weren't just flying reconnaissance, by the way. The Associated Press reported on September 11, 1925: 

"The American aviators of the Sherifian esquadrille, in their bombing of Sheshuan, Riffian stronghold, are reliably reported to have killed more than 100 warriors. Their bombs also greatly damaged the Riffian military establishment and disorganized the troops concentrated there."

"Sie Hält Es Nicht Mehr Aus" by Werner Hahmann in Kladeradatsch, Berlin, Oct. 11, 1925

I haven't seen much celebration of the 140th birthday of the Statue of Liberty this month, but her 40th anniversary caught the eye of Kladderadatsch cartoonist Werner Hahmann. I would guess that he used the occasion to twit the United States over Prohibition, and New York City in particular for its air pollution.

"Polen und der Sicherheitspakt" by Arthur Krüger in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Oct. 4, 1925

The Danzig (Gdansk) Corridor, affording Poland access to the Baltic Sea but separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany, was a sore point for Germans between the wars. Krüger portrays the corridor as a knife in the shoulder of Michel, the cartoon personification of Germany; an unkempt Poland urges France to join in a security pact with the condition that the knife stays in place.

“Danzig” by Emil Weiss(?) in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Oct. 11, 1925 

I’m sure this was funnier in the original German, but at least I shouldn’t have to explain what the cartoonist was trying to say.

Toon: Perhaps Ivermectin Would Help

Sigh. I've finally given in and drawn Donald Joffrey Trump again.

Try as I might, I just couldn't ignore him any more.

Heck, Stephen Colbert started referring to him by name again when The Late Show came back from the writers' strike. I guess I at least held out longer than Colbert did. 

Of Monkey and Moon Shines

Your humble scribe is still trying to wrap up our look back the cartoons of May, 1923.

"??????" by Charles Kuhn in Indianapolis News, May 24, 1923

That month, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential nominee and Secretary of State in the Wilson administration, was a candidate for Moderator of the 135th session of the Presbyterian Churches of the United States in Indianapolis, declaring his intention to have "the heretics of the church brought to task." There he made news fulminating against "the brute doctrine of evolution."

"There Are Worse Evils..." by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. May 29, 1923

Free Silver having become a moot issue by 1923, opposition to Darwin's theory of evolution had joined Prohibition as Bryan's main causes celebres. He had delivered a speech in 1921 entitled "The Menace of Darwinism."

"Not to Be Diverted" by Lute Pease in Newark News, ca. May 24, 1923

Bryan was defeated in balloting for the denomination's Moderator by Dr. Charles F. Wishart, President of Wooster College in Ohio. Bryan was offered the chairmanship of a church commission on Home Missions, but turned the position down. Delegates did, however, approve a Bryan plank requiring a pledge of total abstinence by all Presbyterian clergy and laity, as well as heads of colleges and schools of all faiths.

"Greatest Show on Earth" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 22, 1923

Daniel Fitzpatrick here depicts Bryan leading the Democratic donkey, followed by animal symbols for Prohibition and Darwinism. Other than a handful of editorial cartoonists, few people took Bryan seriously as a presidential contender any more; but he remained his party's foremost "Dry" advocate.

"The Damp Road or the Dry Road" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. June 19, 1923

There was no unity in Democratic Party on the issue of Prohibition, however. (Dorman Smith here employs then-common usage of "Democracy" to refer to the Democratic Party.) May of 1923 saw repeal by the New York state legislature of the "Mullan-Gage Act," which had authorized state police enforcement of Prohibition. New York's Governor, Al Smith, opposed Prohibition, even serving liquor in the Governor's office, and was preparing for a presidential run in 1924.

By signing the "Repealer Act," Smith invited the calumny of Mr. Bryan, who warned Smith to "expect resistance from the defenders of the home, the school and the Church." Smith, in return, observed that when given the opportunity to send the three-time presidential nominee to the White House, “a wise and discriminating electorate usually takes care to see that Mr. Bryan stays at home.”

"It's Sure to Cause Talk" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1923

Support and opposition to Prohibition crossed party lines. On June 15, a coalition of Republicans, Socialists, and the lone Democrat in Wisconsin's Assembly followed New York in passing a bill, inspired by the New York law, which would have stopped enforcement of Prohibition in my home state.

The Wisconsin State Journal, conceding that its editorial board had its differences with Wisconsin's Senior Senator, cautioned the "Wet" politicians that the Assembly's action might become an unwelcome embarrassment to Robert LaFollette's presidential aspirations.

The measure was not taken up in the State Senate, however, where "Dry" forces were firmly in control. 

"The Liveliest Stump" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. June 1, 1923

There will be more to come on both the Evolution and Prohibition stories to come. Stay tooned!

The Great Northern Migration

The 1920's were a high-water mark for conservative movements in the U.S.A., and that includes the Ku Klux Klan.

"The South Will Soon Be Demanding Restriction of Migration of Its Labor" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1923

The differential in wages was certainly a contributing factor, but Klan activity in the South, where it had thoroughly permeated local and state government and law enforcement, was a significant impetus compelling the Great Migration of Black Americans north. Time magazine reported (May 5, 1923) that 32,000 Blacks had left Georgia, 22,750 had quit South Carolina, and 20,000 fled Alabama, an exodus that "almost rivals the phenomenal movement of 1915-16, when the best authorities estimate that 250,000 went North."

Contrary to John McCutcheon's cartoon, southern governments do not appear to have been alarmed by the exodus. Race-based and church groups up north, on the other hand, often had their hands full dealing with the newcomers.

Hauling livestock and whatever else they could from their farms, Blacks arrived at Penn Station every weekend. The new arrivals faced many of the same attitudes repeated in the "immigration crisis" of today (yet were not bused back south to Florida or Texas). 

Crusader News Service quoted a New York City spokesperson for Travelers Aid Society on June 20, 1923:

"It is argued that we get the bad element, the undesirables. This is true only relatively. We get some good and we get some bad. The good we get need a chance and opportunity if they are to remain good. The bad must have a chance, an opportunity, some instructions, some help if they are to become good.

"Before we hasten to discourage the brother whose flight from the South is just a little later than our own, let us give him a chance, a man's chance. Strangers are suspicious of other strangers, and naturally so. It is our duty to offer the welcome, and they will accept it in the spirit given.

"We have little reason to point out their faults, their awkwardness, their crude customs, their revolvers, and their lack of decorum, until we are sure they have been taught by us in all the things known to our community life."

Crusader News Service didn't identify that spokesperson, but I think you can probably guess the color of his or her skin.

Migrants north arrived to find that the Klan was already here. The Klan became an issue in the mayoral contest in Minneapolis in the spring of 1923, after their local publication there, The Voice of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, published allegations against incumbent Mayor, George Leach.

"Going South" by Wilfred Canan in Minneapolis Daily Star May 19, 1923

The Voice had published an accusation by one Gladys Kennedy that Mayor Leach had visited her gambling house for "wild parties" and had carried on an affair with her. Leach fought back, taking five Klan members to court. They included Klan "Exalted Cyclops" Roy H. Miner, who was running against Leach for mayor, editor and publisher of Hennepin County Enterprise George Silk, and suspended deputy sheriff Thomas Sullivan.

In May, a Minneapolis jury found the five guilty of libel. Kennedy recanted her allegations, but she and Miner were sentenced to 90 days at a workhouse. Silk and Sullivan received 60-day sentences; and Shirley Reichert, a University of Minnesota student who as a notary public received the Kennedy affidavit, was fined $50.

"The Usurper" by William F. Canan in Minneapolis Daily Star, June 9, 1923

Miner withdrew from the mayoral race. In June, the Minneapolis Daily Star reported that the mayoral candidate replacing Miner, State Senator William A. Campbell, was under investigation for being a leader in the Minnesota Klan. Campbell had supposedly written a number of articles for the Voice alleging malfeasance by various city council members.

Leach would be reelected by a hefty margin.

"Tearing Off the Sheet" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, ca. May 29, 1923

In New York and New Jersey, the Klan staged mass protests against an amendment proposed by State Senator (later Mayor of New York City) Jimmy Walker to New York's Civil Rights Law compelling unmasking of KKK members. 

Signed into law by Governor Al Smith, the Walker Amendment didn't mention the Klan by name, instead requiring "every existing corporation and every existing unincorporated association having a membership of 20 or more person, which incorporation or association requires an oath as a prerequisite or precondition of membership, other than a labor union or a benevolent order mentioned in the Benevolent Orders Law... [to] file with the Secretary of State a sworn copy of its constitution, by-laws, rules, regulations, and oath of membership, together with a roster of its membership and list of its officers for the current year."

New York Daily News, May 28, 1923

The New York Daily News reported that 8,000 klansmen gathered at Eastport, Long Island; the newspaper's photographers were at a simultaneous rally in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Further demonstrations were reported in Syracuse, Buffalo, Schenectady, and Binghamton.

"Civilization, 1923" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 31, 1923

A hooded speaker identified as the King Kleagle swore to the Pompton Lakes mob, "Al Smith by signing that bill barred himself forever from the presidency of the United States." 

Given that Smith was Roman Catholic by faith, the Klan was already predisposed against his presidential aspirations. By the time he was the Democratic nominee in 1928, the Klan's "whispering campaign" attacking him was well-established.

Klan opposition would have nothing to do with Mayor Walker's eventual downfall, however.

Constitutionality of the Walker Law would ultimately be upheld by the New York and United States Supreme Courts in a case brought by Buffalo Klansman George C. Bryant, who argued that it violated the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. 

In the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, Justice Willis Van Devanter wrote the Walker Law could legally single out the Klan, given that

"it was conducting a crusade against Catholics, Jews, and negroes, and stimulating hurtful religious and race prejudices; that it was striving for political power, and assuming a sort of guardianship over the administration of local, state, and national affairs, and that at times it was taking into its own hands the punishment of what some of its members conceived to be crimes.
"We think it plain that the action of the courts below in holding that there was a real and substantial basis for the distinction made between the two sets of associations or orders was right, and should not be disturbed."