Every once in a while, I come across editorial cartoons for these Graphical History Tours that I like, but which don't make the cut for one reason or another.
Which is just to say that there ain't much by way of an overall theme to today's post. And here we go!
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| "The Grist of War" by Winsor McCay in New York Herald, ca. June 18, 1926 |
I was all set to include this Winsor McCay cartoon in a recent post about Abd El-Krim's surrender to colonial French and Spain troops in Morocco, but something just seemed off about it.
Given the timing of its publication, it seems that the cartoon ought to be about the Rif War, but it's curious why the "Militarist" character is drawn with ridiculously exaggerated white lips, in the manner that White cartoonists and minstrel shows of the day portrayed Black people.
German cartoonists in the aftermath of World War I frequently drew African soldiers carrying out French military actions as a way of highlighting African soldiers' presence in France's occupation of the Ruhr region; the cartooning practice was meant to inflame German resentment at being policed by untermenschen.
Was McCay echoing that same racist propaganda here? If so, the cartoon was more likely about French policy against Germany, not France's adventures in Morocco.
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| "Well, Anyway, a Good Time Was Had By All" by James North in Washington Post, June 4, 1926 |
Meanwhile, a much-ballyhooed disarmament conference was underway. The French poppinjay in the foreground of James North's cartoon is more representative of how U.S. cartoonists represented France: stiffly waxed goatee and upturned mustache.
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| "But Isn't It Kind of Dangerous" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, June 1, 1926 |
Here’s a “Ding” Darling cartoon I liked about New York Governor Al Smith’s position on Prohibition. It didn’t quite fit in with my post on spring primary results — Smith was not in a reelection race — and I already had two other Darling cartoons having to do with Iowa’s GOP Senate primary.
I do like to keep an eye out for cartoons featuring the men who were destined to run for president and vice president later on. I shouldn’t need to warn of a spoiler alert when I explain that Smith would be the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928, and it’s not as if the "Happy Warrior" were an obscure pol in 1926. Nor is he largely forgotten today.
Unlike his 1928 running mate.
By the way, I came across this campaign button at a resale store recently. I wonder whether whoever wrote the price sticker was unaware that Franklin Roosevelt was not at the top of the ticket, but was the vice presidential nominee in that 1920 campaign.
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| "Kompromissflaggen" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, June 6, 1926 |
This cartoon suggesting designs various German political parties and interests might have had for the Weimar Republic's flag didn't fit in with recent posts on European affairs. This is an unretouched image from the Heidelberg's on-line archive; besides adding English translations, I would have tried to eliminate the yellowing of the page and to emphasize the black lines.
Perhaps Herr Garvens would have appreciated my coloring in some red on his flags, too, assuming I would be coloring the correct rectangles. My guess is that the red isn't missing because it has faded over time, but rather that it was never there — because Kladderadatsch could only afford black and yellow ink for the cartoons on its inside pages that week.
Finally, it would have been timely, in this week when the Supreme Court floods the zone with a blizzard of rulings like a college student cranking out all his term papers at once, to have put together a post about historic Supreme Court decisions. Sadly, editorial cartoons about the Court are somewhat rare in the 1920's.
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| "Memories of Dred Scott" by Wilbert Holloway in Pittsburgh Courier, June 5, 1926 |
Cartoons about the Court do show up in newspapers appealing to a Black audience, however. This Wilbert Holloway cartoon concerns the Supreme Court's decision that it had no jurisdiction to rule in Curtis & Corrigan v. Buckley et al., a case contesting the legality of private contracts restricting the sale of homes to Black persons.
The case made by the bill is this: the parties are citizens of the United States, residing in the District [of Columbia]. The plaintiff and the defendant Corrigan are white persons, and the defendant Curtis is a person of the negro race. In 1921, thirty white persons, including the plaintiff and the defendant Corrigan, owning twenty-five parcels of land, improved by dwelling houses, situated on S Street, between 18th and New Hampshire Avenue, in the City of Washington, executed an indenture, duly recorded, in which they recited that, for their mutual benefit and the best interests of the neighborhood comprising these properties, they mutually covenanted and agreed that no part of these properties should ever be used or occupied by, or sold, leased or given to, any person of the negro race or blood, and that this covenant should run with the land and bind their respective heirs and assigns for twenty-one years from and after its date.
Justice Edward T. Sanford delivered the Court's decision that the 5th, 13th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution did not apply to private contracts. Sanford, a Harding appointee from Tennessee, was a friend and protegé of Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Like Taft a conservative jurist, his earlier majority opinion in Gitlow v. New York ironically established precedent for the liberal Warren Court's decisions expanding civil rights.
