Crime and Punishment

Today's Graphical History Tour takes us to April of 1924 to visit some of history's notorious villains.

"Down and Out Club" by T.E. Powers for Star Company ca. April 4, 1924

The Teapot Dome scandal continued to take its toll on holdovers from the Harding administration with the resignation of Attorney General Harry Daugherty. T.E. Powers depicts him walking past the "Little Green House on K Street" where many of the Teapot Dome deals were reportedly made; then meeting disgraced Interior Secretary Albert Fall, Gaston Means, and Dr. Frederick Cook.  Finally, Daugherty escapes to assume the role of elder statesman in Ohio Republican politics.

Coolidge replaced Daugherty with Harlan A. Stone, whose first action in office was to clear the place of Daugherty cronies. Coolidge would later appoint Stone to the Supreme Court; Franklin Roosevelt elevated him to Chief Justice in 1941.

(Means and Cook were only tangentially connected to the Teapot Dome case. Means, an agent of the Department of Justice, testified to the Senate in March that he had collected large bribes for Daugherty crony Jess Smith from a wide variety of persons interested in avoiding federal prosecution; Smith  committed suicide in May of 1923 — although as later with Vincent Foster, some raised doubts. Dr. Frederick Cook, a trustee of the Petroleum Producers Association, was convicted of illegally transferring some oil-producing properties in Texas to himself and his wife.)

"A Cabinet Officer Who Might Escape Congressional Criticism" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1924

Having no connection to any of the scandals then in the headlines, the actual Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, would serve out the Harding and Coolidge administrations, and well into that of Herbert Hoover. 

Side note: Attorney General Stone would launch an anti-trust investigation into Aluminum Company of America (now Alcoa), owned by the Mellon family, but it would be 14 years before any charges were filed.

"Who's Been Running It Night and Day" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 6, 1924

With Daugherty's resignation, the Coolidge administration was now free of any officers directly connected to the Teapot Dome scandal, the Veterans Bureau scandal, and other taint left over from the Harding administration.

by Charles Henry "Bill" Sykes in Life, April 10, 1924

Not that the scandals were about to stop generating headlines, of course. But the administration and Congress could at least claim to be doing what they could to expose and repair the damage.

"Still 'Demonstrating'" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger before April 12, 1924

Turning to other issues: Citizens of the mining town of Lilly, Pennsylvania repeatedly disrupted a Ku Klux Klan rally the week of April 6, spraying water from firehoses at the klansmen as they paraded through the town. The klansmen responded with gunfire, killing two and injuring several others.

Police in the town arrested 24 of the reportedly 500 klansmen as the group left Lilly by train, and confiscated some 50 firearms. The 24 were held without bail on murder charges. Four Lilly residents who were arrested for inciting a riot were released on their own recognizance. Trials were scheduled for May and June.

"The Penalty of Treason" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, April 2, 1924

Meanwhile, in Germany, verdicts came down in the trial of the Beer Hall Putsch leaders. General Erich Ludendorff, the figure most recognizable to American readers, was found not guilty.

These last cartoons are by German cartoonists; the first hangs on punning the city of Dusseldorf and the brash insult "Dusseltier," roughly, "dumbass."

"Großherzig" by Lindloff in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 13, 1924

Among the nine putsch leaders found guilty were Nazi leaders Adolph Hitler and Rudolph Hess. They were to serve their terms in fortress confinement (festungschaft); there was talk of assigning deaf guards to watch over Hitler so that he couldn't talk them into freeing him.

"Der Erste April" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, April 1, 1924

Thomas Theodor Heine's front page cartoon in the Munich satire weekly Simplicissimus — the issue dated the very day of the verdict — saw Hitler as the stuff of April Fool's jokes.

Released from his festungschaft after only nine months, Hitler had just enough time to write Mein Kampf and to plot a more successful entry into Berlin.

"Treue um Treue" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, April 13, 1924

The other character in Oskar Garvens's cartoon is Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Generalstaatskommissar of Bavaria, who was giving a speech in the Bürgerbräukeller when Hitler's Nazis stormed the beerhall and began their attempted coup. Von Kahr shared Hitler's desire of overthrowing the national government in Berlin to set up a dictatorship, but one led by himself, Lt. General Otto von Lossow of the Reichswehr, and Bavarian police commander Hans von Seisser.

But the triumvirate of von Kahr, von Lossow, and Seisser acted to thwart Hitler's putsch, calling out the police to disperse the putschists before they could march on Berlin. For that, von Kahr lost the support of Bavarian right-wingers. Ten years later, he was arrested by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in the "Night of Long Knives" and shot to death in detention.

All This And the Isle of Yap

Fasten your seat belts: today's Graphical History Tour is going to lurch from one theme to another like a Prokofiev symphony.

"And If You Don't Like It You're a Red" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oklahoma City OK, March 14, 1923

This is a local-issue cartoon, but it will do nicely to kick off today's piece.

We last saw the work of this fellow Butler during Oklahoma's 1923 recall election that removed Governor Jack Walton from office — and I thought that perhaps Butler had laid down his pen after the recall was successful.

But here he is again, portraying a statehouse infested with, right-to-left, Cement Trust, Attorney General [George Short], Standard Oil, Reliance Shirt Factory, KKK, Bank Vampire, School Land Leech, Kept Press, Insurance Graft, School Book Trust, Bribery, [President of the State Board of Agriculture John] Whitehurst, Jack Walton, Corruption, and Loot.

The shirt factory had won a state penitentiary contract, slammed by the Leader as illegal. The Oklahoma House voted in February to impeach John Whitehurst, accusing him of corruption and neglect of duty, but fell short in a vote to impeach the State Attorney General. The Leader favored the Farmer-Labor Party, which was denounced by the state's mainstream media as "red."

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Since we're all hot and bothered about immigration today, here's where we were 100 years ago:

"Give Me More of Northern Europe" by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. Feb. 28, 1924

I regret that I wasn't able to put together a Graphical History Tour with a Black American History Month theme in February, even though half of last week's oeuvre was devoted to doings of the Ku Klux Klan.

There was an plenty of bigotry to spare in this country in 1924, as evidenced by this William Morris cartoon. Mr. Melting Pot supposedly can't digest Catholic Italians and swarthy Slavs, who were on the same side as the U.S. side during World War I; apparently Morris had gotten over any lingering distaste for Germans by this time.

I'm just surprised he didn't figure out how to add Jews to his personae non gratae.

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The Daily Cartoonist featured a post about turn-of-the-century editorial cartoonist Frederick Opper last week, so here's his take on the Teapot Dome Scandal:

"The Dough-heny Minstrels" by Frederick Opper for International Feature Service ca. March 7, 1924

Opper's modus operandi was to cram as many little ideas into a cartoon as he had room for, and to repeat them as necessary or convenient. For instance, the Island of Yap had absolutely nothing to do with the Teapot Dome scandal. The tiny Pacific island and telegraph communications hub had been a German territory claimed by Japan after World War I, a claim contested by the U.S. Opper devoted a long series of post-war cartoons to Island of Yap doggerel because he thought its name was funny.

The title of his "The Dough-heny Minstrels" series was a play on the name of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company (today's Pemex). Doheny had secured a deal with then Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall (the goat atop the mountain in the cartoon) to lease the naval oil reserves at Elk Hills, California, and was a financial backer of Democratic contender William McAdoo (fishing in the boat). The other seated figure, Harry Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, had won the Teapot Dome lease.

By this time, Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby had resigned from President Coolidge's cabinet, and Attorney General Harry Daugherty would be out of office by the end of the month.

George Creel, depicted by Opper in a gratuitously racist caricature, was actually a white man, a journalist with Colliers who had been Woodrow Wilson's head of the wartime Committee on Public Information. I don't know what exactly made Creel relevant to Opper's Dough-heny Minstrel series, in which he appeared repeatedly. What I find is that Creel wrote in February in defense of selling arms to Mexican President Obregon, and the editorial board at Colliers regarded the Teapot Dome scandal as something not worth Congress's time or their own pages.

Perhaps Opper thought Creel’s name was funny.

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"Fertile Soil" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1924

Speaking of Teapot Dome, third-party interests saw in it an opportunity for the Progressive presidential candidacy of Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin. The Oklahoma Leader, for one, touted Fighting Bob on its front page. Col. McCormick's Chicago Tribune, with this front page cartoon, clearly felt differently.

LaFollette had been in charge of an early investigation into the scandal, his belief in Secretary Fall's innocence shaken after finding his Senate office ransacked. The investigation was turned over to Democrat Thomas Walsh of Montana, the Senate's most junior member, eventually turning up Doheny's $100,000 loan to Fall.

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Incidentally, someone commenting on D.D. Degg's post about Frederick Opper asked whether Opper had included Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt in any of his editorial cartoons during the 1920 election. 

I have not come across any; by and large, veep candidates didn't attract much attention from editorial cartoonists that year. Indeed, Claude Bowman's several cartoons in 1900 that included Teddy Roosevelt and/or Adlai Stevenson Sr. stand out as the few examples I can think of when a cartoonist paid any attention to the running mates in that era.

Instead, I can offer this cartoon featuring FDR's future running mate, Texas Senator John Nance Garner.

"I Hope the President Isn't Playing Politics" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, March 13, 1924

Taxes, by the way, were due on March 15 in those days. Congress did not pass the tax cut bill in time.

Checking Under the Hood

This week's Graphical History Tour circles back to February, 1924 to catch up on the big news stories of the day:

"Another Victory for the Miners" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, Illinois, Feb. 15, 1924

First, let's check back in at the violence-prone mining town of Herrin, Illinois, where one Glenn Young and A.J. Armitage had led a series of raids against businesses and private homes where booze was served in violation of the Volstead Act. Young and Armitage were backed by a mob, many of whom admitted membership in the Ku Klux Klan. An anti-Klan group calling itself the Knights of the Flaming Circle rose up to battle Young and his Klan Kohorts; others fighting the Klan were the "Shelton gang" of bootlegging outlaws.

When we last left Herrin in Williamson County, Sheriff George Galligan had called in the National Guard in an attempt to restore order. He sent them home when he thought tempers had cooled, but tempers flared back up immediately. On February 8, pro-klan police officers burst into an anti-klan meeting, and in the violence that ensued, one klansman was killed and another injured. 

"The Unanswered Challenge" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 1924

Sheriff Galligan took two police officers into protective custody in another county and called for the National Guard to return. 

After a police constable named Caesar Cagle was shot on a Herrin street and died at a hospital where a wounded anti-klan member was also being treated, klansmen from miles around converged on Herrin, laying siege to the hospital. Firing shots into the hospital, they set up roadblocks around the town, took over City Hall.

Young declared himself Chief of Police and had Herrin Mayor C.A. "Mage" Anderson, Sheriff Galligan, and 38 others arrested for complicity in Cagle's murder. The town council named Carl Nall to replace Anderson at request of the military. A coroner's jury the next day found that Cagle had been killed by members of the Shelton gang.

Young would be charged with "injury to property" and forced to quit his usurped office and leave town. Charges were also brought against klansmen, including some prominent Herrin and Marion businessmen, for firing upon the hospital.

Cartoonist Ellis's declaration of victory would not stand for long. Klan candidates would sweep Williamson County elections in April.

"The Newest State Capitol Decoration" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Feb. 15, 1924

Meanwhile, in Missouri, the Klan held a rally inside the state capitol. The official who granted the permit for use of the capitol building claimed that he had no idea that the persons who made the request, an engineer with the State Highway Commission and a labor commissioner, were acting on behalf of the Klan. "However," Commissioner of the Permanent Seat of Government Harry Woodruff told the press, "it would have made no difference if I had known the meeting was a gathering of the Klan, for I would not have denied them use of the hall."

Woodruff's protestations of innocence were disputed by Heber Nations, the labor commissioner. According to Heber, Rev. Z.A. Harris, a national representative of the Klan, had heard that "a lecturer for a secret religious organization, speaking in the House chamber two weeks before, had made slurring remarks about the Klan and its principles. I mentioned the request to Mr. Woodruff, who wanted the hall and what for, and he gladly granted it."

According to press reports, a crowd estimated in the hundreds listened to Harris preach on "Americanism and the Ku Klux Klan," calling for limiting immigration "in order to prevent an influx of ideas of the ideas of internationalism."

"Knights of the Double-Crossed" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 28, 1924

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours, you may recall that the Klan was split between factions led by self-styled "Colonel" William J. Simmons, founder of its 1920 iteration, and the more radical Hirman Wesley Evans, whose supporters dumped Simmons from their leadership. Simmons then founded a rival group, the Knights of Kamelia.

The latest offshoot was the Knights of the Mystic Clan, launched in Atlanta but establishing its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The KMC forswore masks and secrecy, and declared that it "the order is not connected in any manner with the Ku Klux Klan, Hiram Wesley Evans, or William Joseph Simmons."

Like that of the Klan, KMC membership was limited to qualified men who are "white and of the Protestant Christian faith." John R. Jones of Kansas City was elected temporary chair of the splinter group, and chapters were set up in Atlanta; Kansas City; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tulsa, Oklahoma; El Dorado, Kansas; Durham, North Carolina; and Russell, Kentucky.

I'm finding that by April, KMC headquarters had moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma under the leadership of one H. Tom Kight. In February, 1925, someone claiming to represent the KMC left a letter on the doorstep of the Tallequa, Oklahoma Arrow Democrat — anonymously. "To protect our order and to make our enterprise possible, we maintain the utmost secrecy in our operations."

Their secrecy was pretty darned utmost; I have yet to find any mention of the Knights of the Mystic Clan after that.

Turning now to other major news:

"Every Day Is Washday for Some" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Feb. 29, 1924

Teapot Dome was not the only scandal coming out of Washington in February, 1924, but it was by far the most prominent. Every day seemed to bring new revelations, including against at least one of the senators making hay of the scandals. Interior Secretary Albert Fall at the center of the Teapot Dome scandal was already out of office; the scandal also ensnared Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and Attorney General Harry Daugherty.

"His Nice New Cowboy Hat" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News ca. Feb. 14, 1924

Republican-leaning cartoonists played up the involvement of Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company founder Edward Doheny in a separate oil leasing deal with Interior Secretary Fall at Elk Hills, California. Doheny was a benefactor of Democratic presidential candidate James McAdoo (McAdieu in Thomas's cartoon), which was enough to fuel a lot of Whataboutism.

"Can't Stem the Flood" by Orville P. Williams in New York Evening Graphic, ca. Feb. 27, 1924

Roosevelt in this cartoon is not FDR, but Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the son of the late president, obviously). Smoot would have to be Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Reed Smoot (R-UT), better known for the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of 1930 that worsened the Great Depression.

"Thank Goodness, They're Not All Like That" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Tribune, Feb. 23, 1924

Finally, amid a flurry of cartoons on the theme of They’re All Crooked (They’re Politicians, Aren’t They?), “Ding” Darling’s stands alone for offering readers a list of government officials he thought they could still look up to.

Darling was an admirer of Herbert Hoover and Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace; he approved of the statecraft of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, who did not share the isolationism of many other Republicans. President Coolidge allowed the investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal to proceed without interference, effectively inoculating himself from any taint of corruption.

Happy Valentoons Day

Our Graphical History Tour has been wrapped up in scandal and death lately, so it's time to lighten up a little bit. Let's check out what love notes the cartoonists had in store for their readers on Valentine's Day 100 years ago, when my grandparents were newlyweds!

"St. Valentine's Day" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Gazette, Feb. 14, 1924

And fortunately for me, they all abstained from the jakeloo new divorce craze sweeping their generation.

"To Our Valentines" by Rube Goldberg for McNaught Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

I don't know what 1920's-ese is for "snark," but Rube Goldberg has plenty of it in his Valentine. It is, however, a wonderful study in fashion styles of the time.

I tried looking up the phrase "the alligator's vest," coming up mostly with advertisements for actual alligator-skin vests, and a zillion posts of the following Dad Joke:

Q. What do you call an alligator in a vest?
A. An investigator!

Let us now get back to the topic at hand. Quickly.

"A Few Valentines We'd Like to Deliver" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Feb. 14, 1924

Good gosh, such violence! Smith's was not the only "Outbursts of Everett True" sort of Valentines Day cartoon I came across while gathering today's assortment. What on earth had these cartoonists so cranky? Was this really what Valentines Day was all about in the heart of the Roaring '20's?

"The Leap Year Valentine" by Charles H. Kuhn in Indianapolis News, Feb. 14, 1924

American editorial cartoonists must have used up their Sadie Hawkins ideas earlier in the year (see John McCutcheon's and Sam Armstrong's cartoons back in January); Chas. Kuhn's valentine for Mr. Voter from Miss Presidential Year Politics is the sole example I ran across published on February 14 that year.

"Those Coolidge Valentines" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 14, 1924

Carey Orr crams a front-page's worth of headline news into his Valentine's Day offering, from Teapot Dome and tax cuts and federal farm aid to dunning European nations in debt to the U.S.

"A Valentine" by Thomas E. Powers for Star Company, Feb. 14, 1924

But enough of politics! Valentine's Day is a day for l'amour (And a famous massacre, but not for a few years yet.)

"Somebody's Valentine" by Magnus Kettner for Western Newspaper Union, Feb. 14, 1924

Leaving politics, scandals, vamps, and divorces behind, many of the Valentines Day cartoons in 1924 celebrated the early pangs of love experienced by pre-teen lotharios. We lead off with the most straight-forward of the bunch, by Magnus Kettner, a well-established cartoonist who supplied his syndicate's mostly rural papers with a choice of political cartoons and homey, nostalgic stuff as this. 

By the way, how strange that Kettner didn't finish drawing the house in the background — only the overhang continues to the right of that tree!

"A St. Valentine's Day We'll Never Forget" by Bob Satterfield for Bonnet Brown Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

Bob Satterfield's work used to appear regularly in these century retrospectives when he drew editorial cartoons; but 1924, he was focusing instead on gag cartoons and strips. The above cartoon was part of his "Days We'll Never Forget" series for Bonnet Brown Syndicate. Before long, he dropped the panel in favor of a strip, "The Family Next Door," which lasted less than two years. 

Bonnet Brown Syndicate would be a casualty of the Great Depression, going bankrupt and out of business in 1933.

"Life's Darkest Moment" by Harold T. Webster for New York Tribune Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

H.T. Webster was considerably more successful with (and dedicated to) his series of panel cartoons, which regularly cycled the themes "Life's Darkest Moment," "The Thrill That Comes Once in a Lifetime," "How to Torture Your Wife/Husband," and "The Timid Soul." For that last one, he created the character Caspar Milquetoast, who was spun off into a very early television series and whose surname entered the English vernacular.

"Gee Whiz Junior" by William Holman for New York Tribune Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

Here's something that has been missing from the last several cartoons: the object of Gee Whiz Jr.'s affection actually has a name!

"Gee Whiz Junior" was one of Bill Holman's many short-lived attempts at creating a comic strip before he eventually hit the big time with Smokey Stover (1935-1972). You young whippersnappers may never have heard of Smokey Stover, but some of you might appreciate that he was the OG Foo Fighter.

I did want to make sure to include the woman's point of view today. Failing to find Valentines Day cartoons by Fay King or Juanita Hamel, here's a woman's point of view of a little boy's point of view:

"'Cap' Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for George Matthew Adams Service, Feb. 14, 1924

Sticking with the women but returning to the adults' table, Nell Brinkley ends up more interested in expressing some fella's viewpoint than a woman's:

"His Saint Valentine" by Nell Brinkley for International Feature Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

"Saint Valentine was a gentleman," Brinkley begins, "a venerable man, in those gone days when bright St. Valentine's Day used to be taken so seriously that men did battle under their loves' windows... But Bill's Saint of Valentine's Day is a girl. ...

"'I don't believe in men-angels, anyway,' says Bill, as he ties to his offering of dark, fragrant, purple violets, his name with his love and his hope. 'Angels are girls. I know my Saint Valentine is a girl — all girl.'"

"Pop" by Gaar Williams in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 14, 1924

And just like that, we're back to the menfolk. Perhaps this anxious fellow in Gaar Williams's cartoon explains why some of the cartoonists at the top of today's post were in such a foul mood over the holiday.

"Gasoline Alley" by Frank King for Chicago Tribune Syndicate, Feb. 14, 1924

Finally, of special note to classic cartoon fans, Valentines Day 1921 was the day that infant Skeezix was left on Walt Wallet's doorstep, creating a family saga out of a strip that up to then had been entirely devoted to men and their jalopies. Over the years, Skeezix grew up, married, and had children and grandchildren of his own.

Because of the forced homogenization of newspaper comic pages by Gannett, McClatchy, Lee, and the other (aptly named) chains, you probably can't find "Gasoline Alley" in your local newspaper — even the Chicago Tribune doesn't run it any more — but 103-year-old Skeezix and 130-ish Walt are still out there on line.

Tempest in a Teapot Dome

The Harding Teapot Dome scandal broke wide open in January, 1924, so it's time for our Graphical History Tour to break out the toons.

No caption, by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 28, 1924

If I had a dime for every cartoon I've seen of a teapot boiling over — or, since the scandal was over oilfields, becoming a gusher — I'd have a couple of bucks. 

Daniel Fitzpatrick's cartoon stands out for incorporating the Capitol dome into the idea.

"Mister Fall Seems to Have Been the Only One Who could 'See' Anything" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Jan. 27, 1924

In the opening months of the Harding administration, Interior Secretary Albert Fall — one of the Harding administration's "Ohio Gang" — had convinced  Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby that the Interior Department was better suited than the Department of the Navy to manage the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California. President Warren Harding authorized the transfer, and Fall then leased the oilfields to buddies of his in exchange for over $400,000 in personal loans.

The Senate investigation led by Sen. Thomas Walsh (D-MT) centered on the oil leasing deal under Fall,  who had since resigned, but also faulted Denby and Attorney General Harry Daugherty (another member of the Ohio Gang) for failure to pay attention.

"I'd Do It Again" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Jan. 31, 1924

Denby testified that he saw nothing wrong with having Interior manage the naval oil reserves. He would not last three more months at his post. Coolidge would ask for Daugherty's resignation as well.

"Rushing with First Aid to the Injured" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Jan. 29, 1924

Even though the Teapot Dome scandal was a sensation in January, blared across front pages in banner headlines, most of the Republican-oriented cartoonists I've found ignored it. "Ding" Darling was a prominent exception, perhaps explained by his strong differences with Albert Fall over issues of environmental protection.

Here "Ding" complains that the scandal would only benefit the field of Democratic presidential candidates, singling out front-runner William McAdoo, dark horse Sen. Sam Ralston (D-IN), and also-ran Sen. Oscar Underwood (D-AL).

"It's an Ill Wind" by Douglas Rodgers in San Francisco Bulletin, Jan. 31, 1924

Douglas Rodgers adds progressive Republican Senator William Borah of Idaho and Democratic elder statesman William Jennings Bryan to the list of those relishing the Republican scandal. He could well have added Bob LaFollette and several other progressives.

"Beyond Control" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Jan. 31, 1924

Congress voted overwhelmingly to cancel the oil leases made by Fall, and President Coolidge appointed a special prosecutor to handle the case. Democrat-leaning cartoonists eagerly tied the entire Republican Party to the scandal.

"Can't Get Away from It" by Harold Talburt for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Jan. 31, 1924

"The Tea(Pot Dome) Party" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Jan. 29, 1924

But not so fast, O Party of Andrew Jackson!

"What Dirty Boys..." by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News Tribune, Feb. 7, 1924

Democrat McAdoo's presidential aspirations would be hobbled by his association with one of the oilmen implicated in the scandal. Edward Doheny, a major donor to the Democratic Party and chair of its Resolutions Committee in 1920, was accused of offering Albert Fall a $100,000 bribe in exchange for his company managing some of the Elk Hills oil reserves. 

"Phew" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News Tribune, Jan. 25, 1924

Doheny would be acquitted of the charge; his son Ned would murder an accused accomplice and commit suicide before going to trial for delivering the bribe; Fall would be found guilty of accepting it.

"It Backfired" by Ed Gale in Los Angeles Times, Feb. 3, 1924

That would be years down the road. McAdoo had nothing to do with approval of the oil leases, but his being a fellow Democrat in California was kind of like having one's picture taken with Jeffrey Epstein. Guilt by association was good enough to get Republican cartoonists to argue "they all do it."

"Laocoon" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Feb. 5, 1924

Setting the Stage for 1924

Our Graphical History Tour now arrives at the presidential election year of 1924.

"Let Me Carry Your Grip" by William Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, Jan. 1, 1924

I wasn't going to use this cartoon since Mike Peterson had; but the scan he used had a blank spot where William McAdoo's mouth and chin are, leading one of his readers to mistake McAdoo (just above 3:00 in Morris's cartoon) for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Some might have considered Roosevelt, the Vice Presidential candidate on the Democrats' 1920 ticket, presidential timber in 1924, but this was a mere three years after he was tainted by the Newport Sex Scandal from his tenure as Woodrow Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy. A Senate investigation into the affair at the naval base concluded that Roosevelt was "morally responsible" for a pattern there of homosexual activity, entrapment, and intimidation, and thus unfit for public office.

Roosevelt, moreover, had been paralyzed from the waist down since the summer of 1921. Although he continued active behind the scenes in Democratic and New York politics, he withdrew from public life until making the nomination speech for Al Smith at the 1924 Democratic Convention.

McAdoo, on the other hand, was the early leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. McAdoo had the backing of rural interests, prohibitionists, the Ku Klux Klan, and his father-in-law, Woodrow Wilson. His rivals included anti-prohibitionist Al Smith, and Alabama Senator Oscar Underwood, who was prohibitionist like McAdoo but publicly opposed to the Klan.

William Jennings Bryan, just past 12:00 in Morris's cartoon, was a favorite of cartoonists to enter the race, but even he recognized that he was better off cheering and jeering from the gallery.

The 1920 Democratic nominee, James Cox, is the fellow wearing glasses just below McAdoo in Morris's cartoon.

"Hiram Isn't Waiting..." by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Jan. 5, 1924

Contrary to the left half of Morris's cartoon, Calvin Coolidge's decision to run for election on his own effectively cleared the field of Republican hopefuls, save for Senator Hiram Johnson of California (just below 9:00 in Morris's cartoon). Johnson, representing the party's Progressives and isolationists, was by all accounts a long-shot candidate.

"He Would Hitch His Wagon to a Star" by Elmer Bushnell for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Jan. 10, 1924

Elmer Bushnell's cartoon about Johnson encountering difficulty with the Republican Party in Bushnell's home state could easily have been syndicated with the word "Ohio" left out. I include it here because it is the one cartoon I've run across that spells out in those bundles the issues Johnson ran on: Mexico, foreign policy, the veterans' bonus, income tax reduction, farm policy, and staying out of the World Court and League of Nations.

"It's Just Possible..." by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, Jan. 10, 1924

I found only one cartoonist willing to take Johnson's candidacy seriously, even among cartoonists in his home state.

"The Flivver That Flivvered" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., Dec. 29, 1923

Meanwhile, Henry Ford, after a year of toying with the idea of running for the presidential nomination of one party or another, decided in December that Coolidge was a shoo-in to win in November.

"Trying to Pull Some Leap Year Stuff" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News-Tribune, Jan. 2, 1924

Sam Armstrong continues his theme from last Saturday's post of marital blisslessness with a harridan bride bearing a striking resemblance to Wisconsin's Republican Senator Bob LaFollette (who might be at 11:00 in Morris's cartoon above). Recognizing as Ford did Coolidge's inevitable nomination on the Republican ticket, LaFollette's presidential ambitions lay as a third-party candidate.

"Just the Usual Presidential Year Log Rolling" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, Jan. 4, 1924

After nearly ten months with the House of Representatives shut down, Congress was finally back in session. Gale's cartoon complains that their work was impeded by investigations of: Prohibition, the Anti-Saloon League, the Ku Klux Klan (more on that next week), the Bureau of Efficiency, the Shipping Board, the Internal Revenue Service, Alien Property Custodian, recognition of Russia, and Governor General Leonard Wood's administration of the U.S. territory in the Philippines. He unfairly includes "investigations" of tax reduction and veterans' bonuses, the very sort of issues Congress was necessarily responsible for.

"Smoked Out" by Harold Talburt for Scripps-Howard News Service, Jan. 16, 1924

Curiously absent from Gage's cartoon is the Senate investigation headed by Thomas J. Walsh (D-MT) into the Teapot Dome Scandal. Walsh publicly called for former Interior Secretary Albert Fall to testify in front of Walsh's Public Lands & Surveys Committee, which Fall had so far resisted.

"Something Must Have Crawled Under There and Died" by Harold Talburt for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Jan. 5, 1924

Since Gale brought up the Wood administration in the Philippines, here's another Talburt cartoon on that topic. To summarize the issues again from last November, Wood had repeatedly vetoed actions of the Filipino legislature, and his unwelcome meddling in the local police department had provoked his cabinet to resign en masse.

"Isn't That Pretty Strong Medicine..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Jan. 4, 1924

Having recognized the Mexican government of Álvaro Obregón Salido only months earlier, the Coolidge administration announced at the end of December that the U.S. would sell arms to Obregón in support of his fight against rebels led by Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor. While I have found a few cartoons supportive of selling weaponry to the Mexican government, most found the business of arms sales unseemly — including this friend of the Republican administration, "Ding" Darling.

That is Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes behind the pharmacist's counter, and in this next cartoon.

"Hardly Fair to Russia" by Orville P. Williams for Star Co., Jan. 9, 1924

O.P. Williams's cartoon on Coolidge administration's conditions for recognizing Russia's Communist government is definitely an outlier. Aside from those drawing for Socialist journals, every other cartoonist I've seen in this period was either skeptical of or against extending recognition to the Bolsheviks.

In any event, Russia failed to satisfy Hughes's conditions, and the U.S. would not extend recognition to the Soviet government in Moscow until 1933.