What the H

Yesterday's post led off with an image of the Pittsburg Press, which made me curious about how the editor, publisher, and countless copy editors in the Steel City newspaper could not have known how to spell the name of their own hometown. I thought perhaps it was some misguided effort to deGermanify the name when the U.S. entered the Great War.

"Pittsburgh, PA: The Steel City Once-overed" by Bob Bell in Cartoons Magazine, June, 1919

It turns out that the "burgh" is Scottish, not German, and the idea of dropping the "h" came 23 years before the war. In 1891, the United States Board on Geographic Names decided that any "burgh" ought to drop the "h" to conform with all the other "burgs" around the country. The Pittsburg Press was already using the aitchless spelling; the Pittsburg Leader and Pittsburg Dispatch also conformed with the official federal standard. The Pittsburgh Sun, Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Pittsburgh Post and Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph did not.

The Board on Geographic Names reversed its decision twenty years later under pressure from Senator George Oliver (R-PA). Why the Press didn't correct their flag until after yet another ten years, in August, 1921, I have no idea.

Hungary for More

Pittsburg (sic) Press, March 25, 1919

As The Great War drew to a close, citizen revolts in the component parts of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire combined with Entente offensives to overthrow Emperor Karl Hapsburg and shatter the empire into pieces. In Hungary, the Aster Revolution led by Miháli Károlyi brought about the Hungarian People's Republic, whose leaders expected his country to include territories of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary. When, on March 20, 1919, the Entente powers notified the them that Hungary would lose significant territories to Romania, Czechoslovakia, and what would later become Yugoslavia, the Hungarian Prime Minister was forced to resign.

"Why Wait for the Millennium?" by Jay "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, March 29, 1919

Károlyi called on the Social Democrats to form a new government, unaware that they had secretly entered into a coalition with the "Party of Communists from Hungary" (Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja). On March 21, the new government declared the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Before long, the Communists purged the Social Democrats from leadership positions; the communist government's de facto leader, Commissar of Foreign Affairs Béla Kun, coordinated policy directly with Vladimir Lenin.

"Turning the Dog Loose" by Cyrus Hungerford in Pittsburgh (sic) Sun, March, 1919

The establishment of a second communist government was cause for alarm in the U.S. and its European allies, but Cy Hungerford's cartoon misses the mark. The Hungarian Soviet Republic was closely allied with Soviet Russia, not with the German government, and hoped for its eastern neighbor to back Hungary's territorial aspirations. Issuing calls for workers of the world to unite against the powers that be, Béla Kun could hardly have cared less about German reparations one way or the other.

"German Measles (Bolshevism)" by John H. Cassel in New York Evening World, March 28, 1919

New York World cartoonist John Cassel blamed the Hungarian situation on the Germans...

"Menetekel beim Länderschmaus" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatch, Berlin, April 6, 1919

Meanwhile, in Germany, cartoonist Arthur Johnson blamed it on the Entente powers. In a cartoon mixing biblical references, the handwriting on the wall charges that "Hungary was driven to Bolshevism," while the caption quotes from Psalm 2:10: "So nehmet nun Verstand an, ihr Könige, und lasset euch warnen, ihr Richter der Erde!" (SCH1951; "Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth!" NRSV)

"Das Selbstbestimmungerecht der Völker" by Eduard Thöny in Simplicissimus, April 8, 1919

Bolshevik-inspired revolts rocking Berlin and Munich could only have been encouraged by the new government in Budapest, but establishment voices there were just as alarmed as those of the Entente. I've been trying to figure out whom Eduard Thöny caricatured in the above cartoon, but without success. It doesn't resemble any member of the Kun government; and certainly not Karl Hapsburg, who had been deposed as both Emperor and King. If the guy in the cartoon is supposed to represent 19th-Century Hungarian rebel leader Prince Francis II Rákócsy, he doesn't look much like the guy on the 500 forint bill.

"Dassent Spank Me Now!" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 28, 1919

"How Things Are Going" by Percy H. "Poy" Fearon in London Evening News, March, 1919

With the Paris Peace Accords still being hammered out and the League of Nations agreed to only in theory, the Hungarian Soviets' stated intention of reclaiming land the Entente powers had given to Hungary's neighbors, a resumption of war loomed as a likely possibility.

"The Wood-Shed-Switch Cure" by William Hanny in St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, April 1, 1919

"In the Manger" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News, March, 1919

The saying "a dog in the manger" isn't as common these days as it was a century ago; referring to the fable about the dog hoarding the other animals' manger out of spite even though he had no use for the hay himself. I do like the drawing of the horse.

"The Red Peril" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1919

As I mentioned last week, there were a lot of cartoons like John McCutcheon's here. The Red Peril could be a spider, a snake, a back-alley cutthroat, smoke, shadow, or whatever other nightmarish image struck the cartoonist's fancy. I only see most of these cartoons in grayscale images, so I have to wonder whether McCutcheon convinced the Chicago Tribune publisher to run this cartoon in red.

"The Poison Gas Attack" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, March, 1919

But not everybody was alarmed by the Bolshevik takeover of Hungary. Ryan Walker, cartoonist for the socialist New York Call, was delighted.

"Henry Dubb No Longer" by Ryan Walker in New York Call, March 25, 1919

Booed on Grant

First they came for the teachers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a teacher.

Then they came for the undocumented immigrants, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an undocumented immigrant.

Then they came for the pipeline protesters, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a pipeline protester.

Then they came for the editorial cartoonists—and there was no one left to speak for me.

A Date Drawn in Infamy

Wednesday was the 75th anniversary of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, so naturally, I was curious to find the first editorial cartoons drawn in response.

By chance, John "Ding" Darling (1876-1962) had already drawn his cartoon for the Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 Des Moines Register about Japanese aggression in the Pacific.

"Now Why Should anyone Mistrust Japan" by John "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, December 7, 1941

This was not Darling's first cartoon raising the alarm about Japanese or German aggression. He firmly believed that the issues left unsettled after World War I were a threat to American interests. His career having spanned from before that Great War, Darling's support for the League of Nations to preserve peace, and the need for America to participate therein, ran counter to most of his fellow Republicans.

His post-attack cartoon portrayed a giant Uncle Sam cradling a dead seaman in his arms while scores of tiny islanders beseech him for protection from a rattlesnake with swastikas for scales and its rattle disguised as an olive branch.

"Please Excuse Hon. Doublecross" by Benben? in Pittsburgh Press, December 8, 1941

The rest of these cartoons were drawn immediately after the Japanese attack. I haven't been able to find anything out about the above cartoonist, whose name appears to be Benben. This may have been a syndicated feature, since I'm finding no other cartoons by him in the Pittsburgh Press; their editorial page usually featured the syndicated work of Harold Talburt, and less often, their own Ralph Reichhold (see below). Perhaps some staffer at the Press stepped in to provide a Pearl Harbor cartoon for the Monday afternoon editorial page when none other was available.

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Jacob Burck was born Yankel Bochkowsky in Białystok, Poland in 1907; he came to America at age 7, his family settling in Cleveland, Ohio. His work for Communist publications such as New Masses and The Daily Worker in the 1920's and '30's didn't prevent this leftist cartoonist from a 44-year career with the Chicago Times and later the Chicago Sun-Times until 1982, although publisher Marshall Field III had to defend Burck against efforts by Sen. Joe McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee to have him deported. Other newspapers, however, by the score dropped Burck's syndicated cartoons during the Red Scare.

His cartoons won the Pulitzer in 1941 and the Sigma Delta Chi award the following year. A few months after health issues forced his retirement, Burck died from injuries sustained in a fire at his home caused by his smoking habit.

"Tiger in the East" by Jacob Burck in Chicago Times, December 8, 1941

Daniel Fitzpatrick (1891-1969) started his career at the Chicago Daily News before Joseph Pulitzer Jr. hired him in 1913 at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where "the universally acknowledged" (at least according to the State Historical Society of Missouri) Dean of Editorial Cartoonists would stay until his retirement in 1952. Pulitzer granted Fitzpatrick latitude to abstain from cartooning when he disagreed with the editorial stance of the newspaper; Fitzpatrick took leaves of absence when the Post-Dispatch endorsed Republican presidential candidates in 1936 and 1948.

Fitzpatrick won Pulitzer prizes for editorial cartooning in 1926 and 1955. He remains famous among editorial cartoon fans for his wartime cartoons depicting a gigantic swastika rolling heavily across Europe, crushing all in its path or being heroically resisted, as the occasion demanded.

"How to Save Face?" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 8, 1941

With Fitzpatrick's retirement, the Deanship passed to another cartoonist who cut his cartooning teeth at the Chicago Daily News, Herbert Block (1909-2001), best known as Herblock. Not yet having landed the plum position at the Washington Post, Herblock was in Cleveland at the start of World War II, drawing for the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

His pre-war cartoons in support of the Allies got Herblock called onto the carpet at NEA's offices in New York, where syndicate president Fred Ferguson pressured him to stop criticizing isolationists. For his part, Herblock couldn't change his views to match Ferguson's, and was frustrated at the syndicate rejecting several of his cartoons. Relations only got worse after the war began, and the syndicate, under the pretext of following Roosevelt administration calls to save paper, told him to draw smaller, square cartoons. The syndicate reversed that decision the next year, after Herblock won the first of his three Pulitzers.

"The Only Course" by Herbert Block for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., December 8, 1941

Born in Prague and emigrating to America as a child, A. Vincent Svoboda (1877-1961) was the editorial cartoonist of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1940 to 1952. Prior to that, he had drawn for the New York American, Harper's Magazine, Saturday Evening Post and movie posters. (Note: "A." is Svoboda's middle initial in most of the references I've found, but it's given as his first initial in early Brooklyn Daily Eagle articles about him.)

"United We Stand" by Vincent Svoboda in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 9, 1941

Joseph Parrish (1905-1989) followed fellow cartoonist Carey Orr from Nashville to the Chicago Tribune in 1936; along with Daniel Holland, they were dubbed "The Terrible Three From Tennessee" by publisher Robert R. McCormick. (Yes, the Trib had three editorial cartoonists at the same time!) The Tribune cartoons leading up to World War II promoted "America First" isolationism in keeping with Republican orthodoxy, but with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the newspaper and its cartoonists committed themselves fully to the war effort.

"At Your Service" by Joseph Parrish in Chicago Tribune, December 8, 1941

That's the phenomenon noted by the Pittsburgh Press's Ralph G. Reichhold (1894-1989), depicting the isolationists abandoning their America First pickets. What I've been able to find about Reichhold is that he had been drawing for the Press since at least 1936, created its long-running avian cartoon character Donnie Dingbat (originally to spice up a routine weather article) and retired in 1955. As an occasional feature, he would draw a cartoon collage illustrating selected letters to the editor.

"It's a Different Story Now" by Ralph Reichhold in Pittsburgh  Press, December 10, 1941

The Milwaukee Journal's Ross A. Lewis (1902-1977) carries forward the theme of the nationwide commitment to the war. In December of 1929, He was inspired at the New York Art Students' League by the "Ash Can School" style of Burck, William Gropper and Robert Minor. Lewis began drawing occasional local issue cartoons for the Journal, which otherwise relied on the syndicated work of "Ding" Darling. Darling's support of Herbert Hoover's reelection resulted in the pro-FDR Journal offering Lewis a regular position on the front page, which he filled until 1967. Along the way, he was awarded the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1935 for a cartoon arguing that both sides shared blame for labor-management violence.

"If There's Another Job to Do, We'll Do It" by Ross Lewis in Milwaukee Journal, December 8, 1941