Catching Up, International Edition

By rights, today's Graphical History Tour ought to take us into cartoons from October of 1926. But we still have a couple of international stories to take care of from that September.

We start with the federal election in Canada.

"Definitions" by Douglas H.N. Russell in Vancouver Daily Province, Sept. 11, 1926

We've been following the 1926 campaign, but Douglas Russell kindly reintroduces us to the major parties contesting for power in the above cartoon. 

Arthur Meighen's Conservatives were nominally the incumbent party, but never had a coalition partner to achieve a working majority in Parliament in the three days they were in power. The coalition of William Mackenzie King's Liberals and Robert Forke's Progressives had lost their majority in November, 1925. Labour and other minor parties had more in common with the Liberals or Progressives than with the Conservatives.

"The Liberal Champion Still in the Lead" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, Sept. 10, 1926

Most of the partisan cartoons leading up to the vote predicted victory for their favored candidate and defeat for the other side. As election day neared, even the partisan cartoonists had to acknowledge that the vote could tip either way.

"Waiting for the Verdict" by George Shields in Evening Telegram, Toronto, Sept. 14, 1926

Sam Hunter was a committed Liberal, and George Shields was an unyielding Tory. Accordingly, whereas Shields depicts Meighen waiting confidently with John Bull at his shoulder (you surely recall that Canada was a part of the United Kingdom at this time), King sweats nervously, backed by his alleged patron, a scowling Uncle Sam.

"Class Selfishness Versus Canadian Progress" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Sept. 11, 1926

Arthur Racey was another dyed-in-the-wool Tory, but I find hardly any cartoons of his boosting Meighen. Instead, Racey put out an occasional cartoon critical of Progressive leader Robert Forke. This one attempts to say too much, yet artlessly and without wit, as if it were one of those godawful imitation editorial cartoons extruded by ai.

Where were we? Oh, yes…

The Progressives, with their constituency in the sparsely populated, agrarian plains provinces, ran a consistently distant third to the Liberals and Conservatives, but were indispensable to any Liberal government.

Forke had resigned as leader of the Progressives at the end of June, running instead as a Liberal-Progressive. A number of Albertan Progressives in Parliament also quit the party, switching to the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) Party.

"The Come-Back" by George Shields in Evening Telegram, Toronto, Sept. 17, 1926

Election Day was September 14. When votes in all the ridings were tallied, Meighen's Conservatives lost 24 seats. Concentrating their efforts on ridings where they stood the best chance of winning, King's Liberals gained 16 seats, despite earning fewer votes overall than the Tories.

Meanwhile, although the leaderless Progressives lost 11 seats, Forke and his Liberal-Progressives picked up eight and the UFA gained nine. Their gains were enough for the Liberals to forge a governmental majority, and King returned as Prime Minister, to the disappointment consternation of the Telegram and its cartoonist.

"Foolish Gosling" by Fred O. Seibel in Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sept. 13, 1926

Moving right along: Coming in too late to be in our August visit there, Fred Seibel came up with one more paternalistic metaphor to explain why the Philippines should remain a colony of the United States. 

A proposal by rubber industry magnates to grant independence to the largely Catholic north of the archipelago while retaining the more Moslem southern islands as an American fiefdom ultimately went nowhere.

"A Noble Ambition" by Fred Seibel in Richmond Times Dispatch, Sept. 12, 1926

Fred Seibel drew this complimentary cartoon about Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, a fellow Virginian who was elected to the British Parliament upon the death of her husband, Waldorf Astor. 

Lady Astor was an outspoken suffragist and advocate for education reform, temperance, and recruiting women into civil service. On the other hand, she was an anti-Catholic Nazi sympathizer, so her career  did not survive World War II. For the time being, however, she was quite popular in her riding and back in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

"Everything Bows to His Dominating Will" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Sept. 21, 1926

Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini survived a second assassination attempt in September. 

Anarchist Gino Lucetti had been hiding out in Marseille after shooting Fascist Alessandro Perfetti during an argument the year before, and getting shot himself . Having crossed the border back into Italy under an assumed name, Lucetti threw a bomb at Mussolini's car in front of the Porta Pia in Rome on the very day Lucetti's trial for the Perfetti shooting was to start.

Mussolini was unscathed, although eight bystanders sustained minor injuries, and Lucetti was quickly captured. Mussolini's response to the incident included a veiled warning to France: "We must put an end to the gentle tolerance of parties capable of such matters. It would be well for responsible governments to take note of this, because otherwise their friendship with the Italian people may be fatally compromised, and we are ready to apply suitable methods for this purpose."

"Hands Across the Mediterranean" by William C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. Sept. 13, 1926

Mussolini forged alliances with his fellow fascist dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera. De Rivera had overthrown Spain's elected republic in 1923, receiving the support of King Alfonso XIII after the fact.

Morris's cartoon portrays not only the friendship of the two dictators, but also the relationship between them and their respective royals, the diminutive figures peering out between de Rivera's and Mussolini's legs.

But let's close the book on that September with some cheery news: 

"Germany's Admission to the League" by Arthur Racey in Montreal Evening Star, Sept. 16, 1926

Germany and France have promised never to go to war again! Hoorah!

A Hot, Keenly Contested, Scrappy Campaign

Our Graphical History Tour has been revisiting recent history lately, so it must be time to catch up on the news from 100 Augusts ago. 

"So Busy He Didn't Notice Him" by E.R. McTaggart in Vancouver Daily Province, July 26. 1926

On July 18, 1926 the Boston Post printed a letter from Channing H. Cox, a former Governor of Massachusetts, proposing a union of the United States and Canada. The Post lauded the idea, apparently a pet cause of its Financial Editor, Arthur J. Bean, who wrote, "It is of paramount interest to New England, which, as shown by the map, reaches up into Canada like a giant hand of friendship."

The Post editorial barely registered elsewhere in the United States, but was front page news north of the border, where parliamentary elections were underway. The campaign of Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, heading a minority government that lost a no confidence vote in record time, seized upon the spectre of annexation by the U.S. as a weapon against recently ousted Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.

"Summer Studies" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, August 10, 1926

King had nothing to do with the Boston Post editorial, but that didn't stop Canada's Tory press from running with the story.

On the campaign trail, King brandished a full-page article in the August 26, 1926 Toronto Telegram, purportedly taken from the Wall Street Journal, headlined "Mackenzie King Pictured as Wall Street's Hero — Financial Interests of U.S. Are Told That King and His Followers Believe Canada Should Be Free of British Influence."

King told his audience, "The article, according to the statement which appears at its head, has been written not in the States but in Canada. I venture to say it was written not very far from the office of the Toronto Telegram itself."

"Welcome the Wanderer" by George Shields in Toronto Evening Telegram, August 6, 1926

Shields's reference to John D. Rockefeller apparently comes from the Wall Street Journal article in question, which, according to the Telegram, identified King as "a graduate of Harvard University and late head of the Rockefeller Foundation."

In 1914, during a stretch when he was out of office, King did in fact come to New York to advise Rockefeller how to resolve a coal miners' strike in Colorado. Rockefeller asked King to stay on as a Standard Oil executive, but King returned to Ontario to resume his career in Canadian politics.

The Telegram article quoted the Journal as saying, "If Mr. King and his party succeed then Great Britain might just as well give up on the idea of a united empire. If, on the other hand, the Conservative Party is successful, it will mean that a Conservative Premier will take his place at the Imperial Conference and that Canada will have assured Great Britain that she has turned her feet toward a closer relationship with the Empire."

"The Axe Is His Way" by George Shields in Toronto Evening Telegram, August 9, 1926

Thomas L. Church was the Conservative candidate running as the incumbent for the Toronto Northwest constituency in the House of Commons. As such, the former Mayor of Toronto was strongly favored by the Telegram, so their cartoonist depicted him touting several of their shared causes as a sturdy platform for the Tories. They included "forcing" Canadian coal into Ontario in place of coal from the U.S.; and stopping Canadian farmers from illegally smuggling grain, oats, and barley to U.S. grain elevators for better prices than they could find domestically; and extending the Tories' longstanding "National Policy" of high protective tariffs.

Church would win this election, after which he threatened to launch a rebel “ginger group” within the party if Meighen were reelected as its chief standard bearer.

"The Anti-English Cry" by George Shields in Toronto Evening Telegram, August 17, 1926

King and the Liberals heaped criticism upon Governor General Baron Byng, who, as the crown's representative, had called upon Meighen to form a government when King had asked him to call for new elections.

The other head in Shields's cartoon is Henri Bourassa, a former Liberal from Quebec recently returned to Parliament as an Independent. Also the publisher of Le Devoir, Bourassa declared his full support of King and accused Byng of playing politics: "He put himself at the service of Mr. Meighen to satisfy either personal rancor or perhaps to serve the Imperial policy, for, after all, the Governor General is an employee of London, responsible for his acts to England and not to Canada.

"Poor Shooting" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, August 17, 1926

"That is where the question becomes more grave than the customs inquiry," Bourassa concluded, bringing up the scandal hyped by Meighen's Conservative Party that was the reason for Lord Byng to dismiss Prime Minister King's government in the first place.

According to Sam Hunter's cartoon, the Canadian public agreed that the charges fell short of justifying a change in the government.

"Doesn't Desire to Be Rescued" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, August 28, 1926

Neither did Hunter think Meighen's policy of restoring higher National Policy tariffs on U.S. goods and services from the 1920-21 Conservative-led government was a winning issue for the Tories. The sheet held aloft by Tax Payer reads "The Robb Budget Suits Me!", referring to James Robb ("Baldy" Robb in the Toronto Evening Telegram), Finance Minister in the Mackenzie King cabinet.

"I Was Assured This Was to Be a Hot, Keenly-contested, Scrappy Election Campaign" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Evening Star, August 23, 1926

Ah, well, and zut alors. I suppose it was as difficult to keep Jean Q. Publique interested in politics in the heat of summer. Especially when he had to vote on a new government every couple of months.

Hello, You Must Be Going

This week's Graphical History Tour remembers Canada's King-Byng affair, and the extremely brief and forgettable Meighen era.

For U.S. readers, it will be useful to know that Canada's Liberal and Conservative (and Labour) parties were kissing cousins of their British counterparts. Its Progressive Party was akin to the same named party in the U.S. at the time: agrarian, anti-tariff, with its base in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. 

The Conservative Party had more seats in Parliament after November, 1925 elections, but was still shy of a majority. The incumbent coalition of Liberals and Progressives came out of the election with even fewer seats than the Conservatives, but with the support of Labour and other splinter parties were able to form a government.

Arthur G. Racey in Maclean's Magazine, June 15, 1926

The scandal that brought down the Liberal-Progressive coalition government of William Mackenzie King grew out of the Department of Customs and Excise. Minister George Boivin was found to have interfered in the case of one Moses Aziz, convicted three times of smuggling liquor into the United States. Charges of bribery on behalf of Aziz led to King firing Boivin (but appointing him to a seat in the Senate) and to investigations of further graft and fraud in the Customs Department.

The above cartoon is A.G. Racey's only cartoon about the scandal in the month of June, 1926, in spite of his longstanding opposition to King and cheerleading for Conservatives. It appears to me that he went on vacation for the entire month, completely missing out on the King government's fall. Instead, he left behind for his Montreal Star readers a selection of anodyne cartoons about June weddings, cigarette-smoking youth, new-fangled fashions, reckless drivers, and other evergreen topics.

"Clean-up Wanted" by George Shields in Evening Telegram, Toronto, June 4, 1926

This leaves George Shields as the Conservative Party cartoonist to take us through the the gathering storm from the starboard side. There is an amateurish quality to his work, but it was enough to keep his cartoons in the Telegram for 62 years — at this point, on its front page.

Here Shields added a controversy over the Toronto Harbor Board to the Conservatives' list of indictments against the King government. As far as I've been able to figure out, the Liberal head of the Harbor Board had fired two hold-over board members, one of them Toronto's former mayor, who claimed that their dismissal had taken place at an illegal meeting of the board after its regular business had been concluded.

As for the "Peace River Rascality," Conservatives charged that the election of the Progressive Member of Parliament from Peace River, Alberta, was due to voters being kept from the polls. M.P. D.M. Kennedy replied to calls for him to surrender his seat, "I wouldn't resign if I could, and I couldn't if I would."

"Cold Picnicking" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, June 7, 1926

Pro-Liberal cartoonist Sam Hunter left the Customs Department and other scandals largely ignored during the month of June, save for twitting Conservative leader Meighen and his Conservative Party Board of Strategy. Liberals charged that Meighen's Board of Strategy (a group of party leaders who determined party priorities and messaging) was unduly politicizing the Customs Department investigation. An April 30 editorial in Ottawa Evening Citizen sniffed,

"It is a form of crass political humbug. From the point of view of the people of Canada who are interested in getting a strong, business-like report, to clean up the Department of Customs, it has the appearance of putting sand in the bearings."

Hunter appears to have gone on vacation in time for Dominion Day, too, just as the Liberal Party's troubles came to a head. It was, after all, the end of the legislative session, as good a time as any for a cartoonist to lay down one's pen.

"The Tight-Rope Walker" by Douglas H.N. Russell in Vancouver Daily Province, June 24, 1926

"This parasol of mine's not very reliable," says P.M. King of "Progressive Support" in Douglas Russell's cartoon. The breaking point came as Progressive leader Robert Forke withdrew his party's support of King's Liberals, leaving them well short of a majority in Parliament. 

King asked Governor General Baron Byng of Vimy to dissolve Parliament and to call for new elections. Instead, Lord Byng took the unusual step of asking Arthur Meighen to form a Conservative government.

"Canned" by George Shields in Evening Telegram, Toronto, June 29, 1926

Meanwhile, with the Progressives splintering among radical and moderate factions, Forke (one of the moderates) resigned as his party's leader on June 30. 

"Dominion Day" by George Shields in Evening Telegram, Toronto, June 30, 1926

The Conservative Evening Telegram celebrated Prime Minister King's ouster, of course; but I come up short in finding any explanation that ties all the elements of George Shields's cartoon together. Yes, it was Dominion Day Eve; the oak leaf is a well-known symbol of the nation; and King, so Shields thought, was through. But do they make a coherent cartoon? And what's with "Peek-a-boo"?

"Climbing Aboard" by Douglas Russell in Vancouver Daily Province, June 30, 1926

D.H.N. Russell welcomed Mr. Meighen onto the saddle of the government in the only cartoon I've come across to do so. Brevity was not the soul of Russell's cartoons, so in case you are reading this on a tiny screen, Mr. The People says, "That's right Sir. You ride him for a bit... It's time you were in the saddle again, and I hope you stay there!"

"Going Home" by D.H.N. Russell in Vancouver Daily Province, July 4, 1926

Barely back in town from the Dominion Day holiday, however, the Meighen government lost a motion of no confidence on July 2, 1926. Lord Byng had no choice but to dissolve parliament, setting a new general election for September.

I apologize for the gray stripe over the right side of  this last cartoon; it appears that a strip of adhesive tape or other not-quite transparent object might have been affixed to the right edge of the page when it was scanned, and I have found no other print copy of the cartoon. It's also the only cartoon I've come across about the end of the abortive Meighen government — although, since July 4, 1926 was a Sunday, it could well have been drawn before the no confidence vote on Friday.

Judge for yourself. As the party leaders headed home with speeches in hand, here's the cartoon dialogue:

Lib. [King]: "Of course I'm glad it's all over, and I can take a rest, - but I find this air of uncertainty about the future rather depressing!"

Con. [Meighen]: "Good-bye, old chap. Take care of yourself until I come back!"

Prog. [Forke]: "Well, that was certainly pretty trying. I feel as if I were dis — disintegrating as it were!"

Lab. [J.S. Woodsworth]: "So that's that. I wonder if my seat will be there when I come back — or shall I come back?"

Ottawa [Baptiste Ladébauche]: "Well, goodbye, gentlemen — hope to see you again — most of you."

Capt. D.H.N. Russell (1878-1961), by the way, was a British-born immigrant to Vancouver, and a veteran of the Boer War. He retired as the Province's front page cartoonist in 1931.

When It's Least Expected, You're Elected

Our Graphical History Tour returns to Iowa in 1926

"Making a Banquet for the Democrats" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, June 4, 1926

If you were on the Tour when we welcomed "Ding" Darling back to his drawing board in April, you may remember Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart, a Progressive Republican whose 1924 election win was overturned by his fellow Senators almost a year and a half after Iowans had cast their votes. The Republicans in the majority decided that they would rather add Daniel Steck to the Democratic minority than continue suffering Brookhart in their own caucus.

Brookhart, wielding an axe on the left in Darling's cartoon, immediately announced that he would challenge Iowa's other Senator, Republican Albert Cummins (with the sword in the foreground). Darling includes a third Republican candidate, Howard Clark, a banker who offered himself as a compromise candidate.

"Why Good Men Don't Go In For Politics" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, June 6, 1926

The leading two candidates ran a bitter race for the time. The incumbent campaigned on a motto of "Cummins or Communism”; Brookhart complained that a railroads bill Cummins had co-sponsored benefited Wall Street at farmers' expense.  

"Well, Now Where To" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Evening Tribune, June 8, 1926

When the sun came up after election day, Brookhart had bested the rest of the field, winning just over 50% of Republicans' votes. (Senator Cummins died the next month at age 75; attorney David Stewart was appointed to serve out the remaining months of Cummins's term.)

"Hoeing His Own Row" by Bill Sykes in Life, June 3, 1926

Brookart's victory was widely seen as a rebuke to Republicans and the Coolidge administration for shelving the McNary-Haugen Farm Relief Bill, a central theme of Brookhart's campaign. Responding to a post-war drop in the price of American farm crops, the bill's sponsors, both Republicans, proposed having the federal government buy a set amount from farmers to sell at a loss.

"He Don't Know Nothin' About Hosses" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 9, 1926

McNary-Haugen was opposed by laissez-faire business interests, predominantly in eastern states, as costing money, involving the government in business, and encouraging farmers to reduce production. Big business and the railroad magnates further objected to the bill's endorsement of farmers banding together in cooperatives to negotiate commodities price levels.

"Now, Consarn Ye, Don't Go Hog-Wild" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 10, 1926

Smith Brookhart's primary win was another in a series of rebukes by the party faithful to one aspect or another of Coolidge administration policies. 

"Lotsa Pep" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. June 12, 1926

Brookhart, by the way, was a staunch advocate of Prohibition, although cartoonists overlooked that aspect of his election; Cummins and Clark supported it, too, and Coolidge was pledged to enforce it. Prohibition, rather than agricultural subsidies, had been the dominant issue in the primary elections in Pennsylvania in May (we visited them here). 

But now Quaker State Republicans had a new issue.

"The Biggest Parade Yet" by Jesse Cargill for Central Press Assn., ca. June 16, 1926

Reflecting new electioneering methods of the 20th Century, campaign spending on the Pennsylvania primaries prompted congressional hearings in June, as it was revealed to have reached levels unheard of to that date. 

Jesse Cargill's cartoon recalls the previously unprecedented spending by Republican Truman H. Newberry in his 1918 primary race against Henry Ford for Michigan's Senate seat. Newberry's conviction for having spent ten times the maximum legal amount of $10,000 allowed under the Corrupt Practices Act was overturned by the Supreme Court, on the grounds that the federal government had no authority to regulate partisan primary elections. Newberry ended up resigning from the Senate in 1922, anyway.

"Late Primary Returns" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 16, 1926

Nelson Harding rests this cartoon on the actual dollar amounts reportedly spent by the Republican gubernatorial and senatorial candidates. If they seem almost quaint today, I'd note that they dwarf Mr. Newberry's expenditures to insignificance.

Adjusted for inflation, the 2026 amounts would be $20,885,171 by Pepper-Fisher, $11,221,269 by Vare-Beidelman, and $3,668,864 by Pinchot.

"And They All Chipped In" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, ca. June 28, 1926

While a main focus of the Pennsylvania primaries was on the issue of Prohibition, Rollin Kirby did not spare criticism of the Manufacturers Association. (It should also be noted that the majority of Gov. Gifford Pinchot's campaign expenditures came from his own very deep pockets.)

And since we're updating earlier History Tour stops...

"Not Very Neighborly" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1926

The governments of Great Lakes states from Wisconsin to Ohio opposed a plan to connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River through Chicago's sanitary district canal. Arguing in its favor, the Chicago Tribune concluded that "it becomes increasingly difficult to find any motive behind their antagonism other than a great sectional selfishness."

"Among all the voices raised against the Mississippi valley waterway proposal, those of Michigan and Ohio have perhaps been the loudest. The Mississippi valley states are constrained to wonder whether it is entirely coincidence that Michigan and Ohio, are, of all the central western states, the most advantageously placed in relation to the St. Lawrence route to the sea, their ports of Toledo and Detroit standing at the head of Lake Erie, obviating the need of passing around the whole state of Michigan, as must ships from Illinois, Indiana, western Michigan, and Wisconsin ports.

"It seems strange indeed that Wisconsin, Indiana, and western Michigan are not with the Mississippi valley on the side of the waterway. ... Their natural route to the sea is by way of the Mississippi, not the St. Lawrence. The valley states search for their reason and find nothing but the Chicago diversion — a five inch lowering of the lake levels out of a total lowering of almost three feet."

"While Rip Van Winkle Snores" by Hal Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 12, 1926

The Cleveland Plain Dealer countered,

"Advocates of the rivers and harbors bill now pending in the senate, which authorizes the improvement of the Illinois river and by clear implication recognizes the legality of Chicago's attack on the level of the lakes, try constantly to make it appear that opponents are opposed to a waterway from Lake Michigan to the gulf. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

"Every speaker representing the interests threatened by Chicago's continued extraction of water has made it plain that the fight of Ohio and other lake states is not against a lakes-to-gulf canal but is against a policy which for twenty-five years has been raiding the commerce of the lakes...

"This rivers and harbors bill as it passed the house over the protest of practically every member of the lake district, except those from Illinois, is almost a perfect example of pork barrel legislation."

In another editorial, the Tribune attacked what it called "the Ohio gang," which the Plain Dealer presumed meant diversion opponents Senator Frank Willis and Rep. Theodore Burton.

"For some years, Ohio has been the brat of the American family," the Tribune fulminated, "overfed and dirty. If Congress can't wash its ears and keep it in its place, the Mississippi valley will see that the effects are felt in Congress."

"You Can't Blame the Children" by Jesse Cargill for Central Press Assn., ca. June 19, 1926

Canadian editorial cartoonists who had weighed in against Chicago's lakes-to-gulf canal in earlier stops of our Graphical History Tour were silent on the U.S. Congress's Rivers and Harbors bill in June, distracted by other matters. We'll turn to their issues later this month.

"Liable to Get His Feet Wet" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, June 11, 1926

Although Sam Hunter did take a moment to keep Toronto readers apprised of that Iowa senate primary.

As West Middlesex Goes

Today's Graphical History Tour checks in on the Canadian political situation a century ago.

"So Long As All Hands Keep Their Party Oars Going..." by Arthur G. Racey in Maclean's, Toronto, March 1, 1926

You will, of course, recall that the parliamentary election of November, 1925, left no party with a majority. The incumbent Liberal Party and its partner Progressive Party both lost seats to the Conservative Party. 

Of the 245 seats in Parliament, Arthur Meighen's Conservatives won 115; William Mackenzie King's Liberals hung onto 100 (King losing his own riding but then getting elected to a vacated seat elsewhere), and Robert Forke's Progressives held 22. The number of seats needed to achieve a majority, however, was 123, just out of reach of the three major parties.

"Pretty Polly" by A.M. Barstad in Toronto Globe, March 29, 1926

King and Meighen both courted Forke's Progressives; Meighen needed to persuade only eight of them, whereas King needed all of them plus any of the eight minor party members. But on one of the Conservatives' major issues of the day, higher tariffs against U.S. goods, the agrarian Progressives stood with the Liberals. Most of the splinter parties were to the left of the larger three parties, further handicapping Meighen's chances.

"After Monday's Vote" by D.H. Russell in Daily Province, Vancouver BC, March 30, 1926

Premier King's appointment of John C. Elliot to be Minister of Labour required Mr. Elliot to run in a by-election for his parliamentary seat representing West Middlesex, Ontario. The riding was a reliable Liberal stronghold, where Elliot had been in elective office since 1908.

"Slipped Again" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, March 30, 1926

Perhaps the Conservative Party hoped to confuse voters by selecting Thomas E. Elliot as their champion to challenge John C. Elliot. If so, it didn't work; the Liberal Elliot outpolled the Conservative Elliot in every district.

"On the Way to Political Red Lake" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Daily Star, April 3, 1926

To explain the reference in Sam Hunter's cartoon, Red Lake in northern Ontario was anticipating a rush of gold prospectors as the ice broke. From later headlines, I take it that prospectors ended up being as disappointed as Hunter predicted Mr. Meighen would be. 

"Taking Willy for an Airing" by Arthur G. Racey in Macleans, Toronto, April 1, 1926

Blaming a lethargic voting public for Canada's political predicament, Conservative cartoonist Arthur Racey portrayed the Progressives' Forke at the wheel of Government, with a diminutive Premier King in his lap. "Willy, you sit still and stop trying steer," Forke says, "or I'll throw you out!"

Nor Any Drop to Drink

"He's Off Again" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Mar. 8, 1926

When you think of the 1920's, what comes to mind? A booming stock market? 

Attracting far too many to invest "on margin," the markets were inflated by investors borrowing against future profits. A sharp downturn in March of 1926 should have served as a warning of what was soon to come.

"His Nest Egg Hatches" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Mar. 20, 1926

The market suddenly lost billions of dollars — 1926 dollars, mind you — wiping out the savings of small investors like the one in Alley's cartoon. 

But Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon counseled calm. "The break does not touch fundamental conditions. It was the result of excessive speculation. I would have happened whatever business conditions were at the time. The effect is really wholesome. It provides a sort of 'evening up.'"

"Too Sound to Be Uprooted" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 4, 1926

Nelson Harding accepted the advice of Secretary Mellon, who continued, "If the market goes to far, it will get back again. All such movements go further than they should, until there is a reaction. There is action and reaction until they strike normal."

Harding's choice of a visual metaphor just goes to show how well Mr. Harding understood avalanches.

"Not Shaking the Mountain" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, ca. Mar. 11, 1926

The lessons against stock speculation are much easier to learn in hindsight. I can't claim any stock market expertise, either, so I don't charge these cartoons against Harding and Brown. 

But I can't figure out why Brown chose to label his Bulls and Bears, rather than to give them animal heads like any other cartoonist of the 20th Century would have.

"Dangit" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, March 13, 1926

Perhaps it's Prohibition that comes to your mind when you think of the 1920's.

Prohibition was a social reform movement that never quite took hold in the places where the social reformers saw the greatest need for social reform.

"Temptations" by Dean O'Dell in Dayton Daily News, March 18, 1926

Wets, as opponents of the Volstead Act were called, proposed in 1926 exempting beer and wine from Prohibition laws, reasoning that the cold turkey approach simply wasn't working. They also argued that the absence of legal liquor unintentionally benefited organized crime as it stepped in to fill the void.

"Now That's an Embarrassing Question" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. Mar. 12, 1926

Which brings us to Chicago gangsters.

As Billy Ireland suggested, Chicago's crime syndicates were taking advantage of a market for booze by Americans seeking to escape the enforced sobriety of the Volstead Act.

"Where There's a Will There's a Way" by James North in Washington [DC] Post, March 5, 1926

James North referred in this cartoon to the Chicago city motto, "I Will," adopted after its 1871 fire. His example of California vigilantism as a way to fight back against "lawlessness" seems counterproductive, if you ask me.

"There Was a Young Lady from Niger..." by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 4, 1926

The limerick Carey Orr cites as the parallel for how Chicago city hall had succumbed to organized crime has fallen out of favor among cartoonists. The suggestion of racism wasn't much of a factor; cartoonists tended to draw the young lady as a white person. Nor was it because nowadays Niger and Tiger don't rhyme; they didn't rhyme in 1926, either.

Nope, it's just one of those tropes that are too cliché.

Speaking of Chicago...

"Baiting Her Hooks for Her" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1926

"I Will" is on Miss Chicago's blouse in this Carey Orr cartoon commending Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover's endorsement of a plan for a nine-foot channel from Chicago to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. According to Mr. Hoover, the project would make every city on the Great Lakes a seaport.

"A Cheeky Theft" by Sam Hunter in Toronto Star, March 27, 1926

The Graphical History Tour has covered the Chicago waterway controversy before (see here). The project was strongly opposed by communities downstream, especially in Canada, where one rarely found Sam Hunter and Arthur Racey on the same side of an issue.

"Excellent Example" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, March 29, 1926

Hoover dismissed concern that diversion of Lake Michigan water south through Chicago would lower water levels in the natural flow of the lake's water to the St. Lawrence Seaway, claiming that five-sixths of the reduction already being experienced was due to a fluctuation in climate. The best way to settle the international lake level dispute, he told a Republican group in Chicago, would be to spend money on concrete and steel to regulate the water passing through Niagara Falls "instead of squandering it on lawyers."

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Well, folks, I hadn’t meant to end things right here, but a wind storm has apparently knocked out my internet service provider where I live, going on seven-plus hours as I write this, so I can’t upload any more graphic files to help wrap this up.

So have a pleasant respite between Friday the thirteenth and the Ides of March. Have some pi. See you when this all blows over.