Hung Out to Dry

Soberback Saturday left off last week with the observation that the Senate's failure to ratify the Treaty of Versailles meant that the U.S. remained at war, and wartime prohibition of the production and sale of alcoholic beverages would, ipso facto, remain in effect.

"The Crow and the Pitcher" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 30, 1919

Of course, had the Senate ratified of the treaty, it would not have repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, which expressly prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, or the importation thereof into" the U.S.

The Volstead Act, named for House Judiciary Chair Andrew Volstead (R-MN), codified the Eighteenth Amendment into law, by defining "intoxicating liquors," establishing the penalties for breaking the law, and extending enforcement power to the states.

Efforts to undo the Act were bipartisan: President Wilson vetoed the Act on grounds that its sections regarding the enforcement of wartime measures were moot. Republican Elihu Root argued before the Supreme Court that the Eighteenth Amendment itself was an unconstitutional seizure of property (specifically in his case, of beer brewed prior to Prohibition) without compensation. And in Ohio, a 1918 amendment to the state constitution required that a statewide referendum approve any ratification of amendments to the federal constitution; Ohio's legislature ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in January, 1919, but the referendum in November, 1919, went down to the wire.

"Giddap" by Sid Chapin in St. Louis Republic, Oct./Nov., 1919

But support for Prohibition was also bipartisan. It took less than three hours for the House to override Wilson's veto of the Act on October 27, and 27 Democratic Senators helped the Senate follow suit the next day.

"The Argufyingest Corpse We Ever Saw" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. Dec., 1919

The Supreme Court would take a bit more time to rule against Mr. Root's client. "To limit the power of Congress so that it may require discontinuance only after a reasonable time from the passage of the act would seriously restrict it in the exercise of the war powers," Justice Brandeis wrote for the majority.

"Darn It, I'm Beginning to Believe It's So" by Charles "Bill" Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, ca. Jan. 6, 1920

The Court would also rule Ohio's referendum requirement unconstitutional, Justice William Day writing that in the U.S. Constitution, ratification of constitutional amendments is explicitly "limited to two methods, by action of the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, or conventions in a like number of States."

"Better Days" by Hal Coffman in Los Angeles Examiner, Nov. 24, 1919

There were still cartoonists such as Hal Coffman preaching the benefits of Prohibition, but some undesired side effects of the Eighteenth Amendment were already making themselves felt. A thriving bootlegging underground had sprung up to satisfy the thirst of anyone who didn't have a stash in his cellar or needed his bathtub for anything other than the making of gin.

"Which of You Own This Dog" by William C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. Nov. 23, 1919

As John D. Rockefeller would put it in 1932,

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.

"The Anti-Camouflage Specialists at Work" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Nov. 7, 1919

Nevertheless, flushed with his movement's success in subjugating the saloon industry on this side of the pond, American prohibition activist William Eugene "Pussyfoot" Johnson sought to bring Prohibition to Great Britain. Johnson had earned his nickname back before the turn of the century by going undercover into Oklahoma bars to gather information against their owners.

"The Statue of Liberty" by Percy H. "Poy" Fearon in London Evening News, Nov., 1919

His British visit did not go well.

At a speaking engagement at London's Essex Hall on November 13, 1919, he was seized by a mob of medical students who paraded him through the streets of London on a stretcher. Someone in the crowd hit him with a projectile, putting out his right eye. He was eventually rescued by police, but doctors were unable to save his eye.

"You Can Lead a Horse to Water..." by ___ in Morning Advertiser, London, Nov., 1919

I haven't been able to track down this cartoonist, whose caricature of Pussyfoot Johnson is closer to the real person than that of "Poy" Fearon, who made no attempt to capture his likeness. I'm guessing that it might have been published before the November 13 incident; but then, Johnson is drawn from the left side.

The Morning Advertiser, incidentally, is a biweekly trade publication founded in 1794 to promote the interests of British pub owners and managers, and is still publishing.

Reichedämmerung

The theme of this week's Sprechenzieback Saturday is Twilight of the Empires, because we have reached the centennial of the final month of World War I, and with it the final month of the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires.

"The Twilight of the Gotts" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune,  October 5, 1918

As American, British and French forces pushed Germany's western front farther and farther back, Entente cartoonists produced a flurry of editorial cartoons depicting Kaiser Wilhelm feeling betrayed by the German "Gott." It almost seems as if the ink slingers and charcoal smudgers were accepting the ancient Hebrew mindset that accepted the existence of other nations' distinct gods, believing however that their own was superior to the others.

"Le Délaissé" by Charles LaBorde in Le Rire, Paris, August 24, 1918

It's a peculiarity of common parlance, in the U.S. at least, that original German is the default for so many easily translatable words when referring to Germany, but Germany alone. Then and now, we always refer to Emperor William as Kaiser Wilhelm, but Austria-Hungary's Emperor Francis Joseph is never Kaiser Franz Josef.

"Some Folks Reckon They've Got a Monopoly of This Iron Fist Stuff" by David Low in Sydney Bulletin, September, 1918

Yet while any English speaker was familiar with some phrases such as "Gott strafe [fill in the blank]," others such as "Eisenfaust" did not leave the Vaterland without requiring translation. Australian cartoonist David Low, not yet having adopted the style of his more famous World War II cartoons, here turns around a famous comment by Kaiser Wilhelm to his brother, Prince Heinrich, in 1897: "If anyone ... should ever venture to wish to hurt or harm us in the due exercise of our rights, smash him with an iron fist."

"I May Have to Leave You" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, October, 1918

Anyway, with Central Powers' frontiers were collapsing on all sides, I'll let these cartoons speak for themselves with only minimal explanation from little old me. As Entente forces overtook the Hindenburg line on Germany's western front, German forces abandoned their occupation of Belgium, which had been Great Britain's reason for entering the war.

"La Couronne de Finlande" by TEL in L'Homme Libre, Paris, September 24, 1918

The Kaiser's dreams of a German-dominated Mitteleuropa were crumbling from the Baltic to the Balkans. I dealt more extensively with the Finnish situation in July, in case you missed it.

Archibald Chapin in St. Louis Republic, September, 1918

Czechs and Slovaks eagerly accepted promises that the Entente powers would recognize their independence from Austria-Hungary.

"The Reports of His Death Were Greatly Exaggerated" by William Hanny in St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, September, 1918

Serbia, where the first shots of the war had been fired, had been occupied by the Central Powers since 1915. Units of the Serbian army returning from exile liberated the country in September of 1918.  Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes would declare the creation of an independent state west of Serbia on October 29, but it was never recognized by the rest of the world, and would eventually be absorbed into the kingdom of Serbia.

"Didn't Get Away With It" by R.O. Evans in Baltimore American, Sept./Oct, 1918

French and Serb forces broke through the Bulgarian lines at Dobro Polje in mid-September. Bulgaria signed an armistice with the Entente on September 30, and Tsar Ferdinand I abdicated three days later.

"The Broken Span" by Maurice Ketten in Chicago Journal, Sept./Oct., 1918

Meanwhile in Ottoman territory, British forces had conquered Palestine and entered Damascus at the end of September. Cartoonists in Christendom were particularly enthused by the Ottoman-German army's retreat from Nazareth...

"Thanksgiving Is Coming" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, September 24, 1918

... but Great Britain's victory in Palestine would not be one that the English would long remain thankful for.

As far as Americans were concerned, Austria, Turkey and Bulgaria were but junior partners in the Central Powers alliance. Entente victories over them now seemed guaranteed.

"A Race to Headquarters to Turn State's Evidence" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, Sept./Oct., 1918

"The Alliance in 1918" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September, 1918

"La Paix" by Lucien Métivet in Le Rire, Paris, October 12, 1918

The American press reported in the first week of October that Germany was prepared to surrender unconditionally. Another campaign was just underway in the U.S. to promote Liberty Loans; and with the end of hostilities visible on the horizon, that had to be an extremely difficult sell.

"If We Will Lend the Way They Fight" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 6, 1918

Nevertheless, it had become possible to anticipate the shape of a post-war world. The victors in Europe, having endured four long years of war, were not in a forgiving mood.

"The Bill" by Percy H. "Poy" Fearon, in Evening News, London, September, 1918

The devastation in lives and property over those four years hit a generation of Europeans especially hard. Disillusionment with traditional pre-war values would produce nihilistic novels and poetry, atonal music, skepticism of authority, and an ethos of "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." The Great War directly affected a greater portion of the populace than ever before, through conscription, air raids, and sinking of passenger ships.

In the whole of the previous century, from the Napoleonic Wars to the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Europe had lost fewer than 4.5 million men. Now, at least 8 million had died in four years, while more than twice as many had been wounded, some of them crippled for life.

From his artist's desk in Munich, Erich Schiller predicted that the true winners after the war would not be the Entente Powers in general, but two of them in particular.

"Das Europäische Konzert nach dem Kriege" by Erich Schiller in Simplicissimus, Munich, October 15, 1918

My Lack of God! It's Trotsky!

If there is any one single biggest loser to be found in the Brest-Litovsk treaty ending Russian involvement in World War I, it is the Bolsheviks' chief negotiator, Leon Trotsky.

"Heute rot..." by P.H. in Ulk, Berlin, March 1, 1918

During negotiations, Germany's peace terms had included creating German-allied independent states in Poland and the Baltics, up to then parts of the Russian empire. Trotsky responded by suspending negotiations and recommending to Vladimir Lenin that Russia withdraw its forces from the fighting without signing a peace treaty: an approach he labeled "neither war nor peace"— "Ни война, ни мир." He fully expected that if he waited long enough, the German and Austrian working class and soldiers, weary of war, would rise up against their rulers just as the Russian people had.

"Brest-Litovsk" by Zislin in Le Rire, Paris, February 2, 1918

But Ukraine signed its Brest-Litovsk treaty with the Central Powers on February 9, 1918, and Germany renewed military action against Russia nine days later, ramping up the pressure on Russia to accept German terms for peace.

"Der Trotzkibengel und die Wandernde Glocke" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatch, Berlin, February 24, 1918 

German-American cartoonist Arthur Johnson's cartoon in Kladderadatch is based on a Goethe poem, "The Wandering Bell," about a boy who fails to heed his mother's admonition to go to church when the steeple bell rings, only to have the bell literally follow him everywhere until he changes his ways.

"Die Heimkehr vom Markt im Osten" by Richter in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, March 17, 1918

Russia signed the treaty on March 3, and ratified it on March 15. In addition to its Baltic losses, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine, Georgia, and Finland and ceded territories to the Ottoman Empire that are now in easternmost Turkey— all told, ceding away some 1 million square miles of Russia's former territory; a third of its population or around 55 million people; a majority of its coal, oil and iron stores; and much of its industry.

"Trotsky Advances..." by Louis Raemaekers for Bell Syndicate, by March 13, 1918

As vilified in the Entente press as he had been in Germany's, Trotsky was spared the wrath of Russian cartoonists only because Russian cartoonists were not in the habit of drawing real, living domestic politicians in their cartoons. Dead people were fair game, but real people could send your ass off to the gulag. Russian cartoons throughout the Soviet era tended to limit themselves to archetypes and characters from folk tales.

"They Looked at the Little Bird" by Cy Hungerford in Pittsburgh Sun, March, 1918

Abroad, the most charitable view of Trotsky and, in Cy Hungerford's cartoon, Vladimir Lenin, was that they were unwitting, inexperienced buffoons, easily taken advantage of by the wily, expansionist Kaiser.

"Bear Steaks" by Bob Satterfield, by March 2, 1918

With his negotiating strategy thoroughly discredited, Trotsky resigned as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

"Trotsky's Good-Bye" by Percy H. "Poy" Fearon in London Evening News, March, 1918

Whether they thought of Trotsky as villain or fool, the general consensus of Entente cartoonists was that Russia had suffered an existential disaster of biblical proportions.

"Judas Bolchevik" by Nob in Le Rire, Paris, March 30, 1918

"Undertaken in the Name of Humanity" by C.R. McAuley in New York World, by March 7, 1918

The one outlier in its views on Russia's fate that I've come across is this drawing in the left-wing L'Asino of Rome, which appears to cast the Bolsheviks as David to Germany's Goliath. Since I haven't been able to locate the issue of L'Asino in which this cartoon first appeared, it is possible that it was drawn before the outcome of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations had been settled.

"Il Duello Tedesco-Bolscevico" (by Gabrieli "Rata Langa" Galanta?) in L'Asino, Rome, February or March, 1918

Certainly the editors of the Chicago Tribune, by the time they ran this cartoon on March 9, knew that David was not emerging from this duel with his (and Goliath's) head held high.

Yet even on the drawing boards of Munich's Simplicissimus there could be found some sympathy for Germany's vanquished foe. "Old metal bought [here]" reads the sign.

"Russischer Abendfriede" by C.O. Petersen in Simplicissimus, March 26, 1918

Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune finds the silver lining limning the "Russian catastrophe," now that the price of peace with Germany was on display for all to see.

"A Bad Jolt" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 19, 1918

Wow, cars must've been a whole lot sturdier then. None of that namby pamby carbon fiber polymer crap, just good old American steel.