The Toons of November Remembered

Rummaging through the archives in Bergetoons' state-of-the-art plastic bins, our Graphical History Tour guides have run across my cartoon about funding the federal government forty years ago this month.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha Wis., Nov. 7, 1985

There's a lot of charcoal in this cartoon of Congress congratulating itself on agreeing on a deadline for resolving the federal deficit, which was almost $212 billion, 4.9% of Gross Domestic Product, in 1985. President Ronald Reagan had promised in 1980 to reduce the deficit, at which time those same figures were $74 billion and 2.6%.

Where are we now? That would be $1.8 trillion in the hole, representing 6.0% of GDP.

in Journal Times, Racine Wis., Nov. 21, 1995

2011 Redistricting in Wisconsin has secured a lopsided Republican advantage in the state legislature and our congressional delegation ever since; that was not the case in 1995. Republicans held a 17-to-16 majority in the State Senate that year.

The Milwaukee Brewers came to Madison asking for help funding the building of what is currently American Family Field. Governor Tommy Thompson was loath to raise taxes on the entire state, so he proposed instead imposing a .1% sales tax on Milwaukee County and the four counties adjacent to it, including Racine County to its south. 

The idea was extremely unpopular in Racine, and wasn't helped by Thompson gleefully telling voters outside the five-county area to "stick it to 'em." State Senator George Petak, Republican from Racine, pledged to vote against the five-county tax, and did so on several procedural votes. The deal appeared destined to fail by one vote, but then, around 4:00 in the morning, Petak switched his vote to Aye.

A supposedly grass-roots group quickly gathered enough signatures for a recall election against Sen. Petak. The Wisconsin Democratic Party denied involvement in the "No More Petax" recall effort, and if you believed them, I've got a Bridge To Nowhere I'd like to have sold you.

In the end, the recall was successful, and Democrats were happy to take over control of the State Senate from 1996 to 1998.

not in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 18, 2005

In a multi-panel cartoon, one can often get away with not drawing any background, and merely drawing one or two characters standing and talking. In a single-panel cartoon, however, it's best to have the characters doing something somewhere (especially now that everything has to be in color).

So when the Business Journal editors told me that the week's editorial was going to chide corporate boards that professed not to be able to find qualified women to serve on them, I figured the characters in my cartoon had to be discussing the issue in some men-only space. They aren't as plentiful as they were, oh, half a century ago, so I drew these corporate guys schvitzing in a sauna.

My editor quickly got back to me that the sauna setting was unacceptable, as was the second product line of Amalgamated Mustache Wax & Urinal LLC.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 18, 2005

I whipped off this version with the Mustache Wax CEO talking by phone to some unseen person, and pasted in the dialogue from the earlier version, minus the "and urinal." (It being Milwaukee, I counted on readers recognizing the Rollie Fingers bobblehead on the corner of the man's desk.)

It was the third time that year that the Business Journal editors asked me to edit or redo a cartoon, which may have had something to do with them deciding at year's end to go forward with no editorial page cartoon at all.

Or maybe it was because I had been away on a planned vacation for the November 11 issue, and readers hadn't missed me.

Moving right along...

for Q Syndicate, Nov. 2015

It seems nearly inconceivable now, but a mere ten years ago, Donald Humbert Trumpbert was just one of a dozen Republican presidential candidates, each of them clawing and biting to stand out from the pack.

At a candidates' cattle call on CNBC in October, Ted Cruz figured that the way to stand out was to attack the debate moderators. He accused them of asking "frivolous" questions (he had been asked about his opposition to the recent budget agreement, but ran out of allotted time before getting around to answering it), and said future GOP debates should have only questions submitted by GOP voters.

And his ploy might have worked, too, except that Marco Rubio and Chris Christie quickly seconded Cruz's complaint; Trump also called the questions "nasty," and it should come as no surprise to you that he was answering a question from the one female moderator on the panel when he said that.

To be fair, the moderators' first question to the group was to identify their biggest weaknesses. It's the sort of question you might be asked in a job interview at a company whose biggest weakness is employee retention; it's not the sort of question its CEO, much less a president of the United States ever has to answer.

The unquestioned loser of that debate was CNBC itself, although they were stuck with the format of trying to get twelve candidates to do something other than regurgitate standard Republican talking points and their own campaign slogans.

As for those candidates, they had already gotten their wish. The next debate was hosted by Fox Noise.

The Nonpartisan League

In last week's post about the rocky birth of the Farmer-Labor Party in the summer of 1920, I made passing mention of one of the founding groups, the Nonpartisan League (NPL) and promised to expand on them today. Voici.

"Say It with the Ballot, Mr. Farmer" by William C. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Minneapolis, MN, June 7, 1920

Socialist Arthur C. Townley founded the Farmers Nonpartisan Organization League in 1915; the name was usually shortened to Nonpartisan League. The league rallied North Dakota farmers who resented being exploited by bankers and millers in Minneapolis and Chicago. Before long, chapters were established in surrounding states.

"Yes, and We've Seen Certain Interests..." by Wm. C. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls, MN, June 7, 1920

Their official newspaper, the Nonpartisan Leader, was originally published in Fargo, but had moved its offices to Minneapolis by the summer of 1920. Starting out as a weekly journal (biweekly after July 26, 1920), it featured editorial cartoons prominently, often on the front page and always scattered through the inside pages.

"Breaking Family Ties..." by Wm. C. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Fargo, ND, September 20, 1917

Starting in 1917, many of these were drawn by William C. Morris, cartoonist for the George Matthew Adams Service and New York Mail. Having come across several of Morris's pro-Republican syndicated cartoons, I was somewhat surprised to find he had drawn cartoons expressly for the Leader, given its strong socialist bent. (Perhaps he was related to Oliver S. Morris, its editor from December, 1916 onward, but I can't prove it either way.)

"Going Down" by Wm. C. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, St. Paul, MN, August 4, 1919

Cartoons Magazine reported on William Morris's career in August, 1916:

William C . Morris, who three years ago was doing cartoons for the Spokane Review, is rapidly making a name for himself in New York. His work in Harper's Weekly was attracting national attention at the time that historic magazine was approaching its finish. Since the demise of Harper's Mr. Morris has been publishing his cartoons in Puck and The Independent. Some of his full-page designs, satires on national and international events, show striking originality and boldness of conception.

"Then — And Now" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls, MN, November 15, 1920

By the way, the resemblance between Uncle Sam and many of these cartoon farmers is hardly coincidental. As we discussed a couple weeks ago, up until 1920 census, the U.S. population was majority rural. Giving Uncle Sam a farmer's features was only fitting.

"His Ten Commandments" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls., MN, July 12, 1920

Last week, I categorized the Republicans as being a conservative party controlled by big-money interests, and that was certainly true of the William McKinley, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Warren Harding wing of the party. Teddy Roosevelt, Bob LaFollette and Hiram Johnson were in the party's progressive wing, more favorable to government control over consumer product safety, environmental protection, and plutocratic excess.

"He Didn't Know It Had Teeth" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Fargo, ND, April 27, 1917

Then, as now, Republicans were dominant in North Dakota politics. Further to the left than the Progressives, The Nonpartisan League ran an insurgent campaign in 1916, successfully running its candidates in Republican primaries. League candidates won the governorship and control of the state legislature that year.

"The Clean Sweep in North Dakota" by John M. Baer in Nonpartisan Leader, Fargo, ND, November 9, 1916

They proceeded to establish state-run agricultural enterprises: the North Dakota Mill and Elevator, the Bank of North Dakota, and a state-owned railroad. The legislature passed a graduated state income tax which distinguished between earned and unearned income; authorized a state hail insurance fund, and established a workman's compensation fund that assessed employers. The League also set up a Home Building Association to aid people in financing and building houses.

"They Lied Living—Now Lie Dead" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls., MN, July 12, 1920

Conservative Republicans established the Independent Voters Association (IVA) in opposition to the Nonpartisan League; apparently, several of the journals they published to rival the Nonpartisan Leader were short-lived.

"The Third Cup" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls, MN, July 19, 1920

For this cartoon of North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier, I have to wonder if Morris had in mind a 1912 Boardman Robinson cartoon of Teddy Roosevelt scolding a waiter about to serve "nomination" soup to incumbent President Taft, "Bring that over here. When I said I wouldn't take the third cup a little while ago, I only meant I wouldn't take it right on top of the other two."

The text accompanying Morris's cartoon reads, "North Dakota likes Lynn J. Frazier and the people's government, of which, he, as governor, is head. It has rewarded his faithfulness to the farmers' and workers' program with a third nomination, and in November will elect him to a third term, thus assuring administration of the 'New Day' program by one who believes in it."

"It Can't Be Done" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls., MN, July 19, 1920

Although Leader cartoons occasionally included caricatures of specific politicians who were for or against the League, the overwhelming majority of them relied on archetypal representations of farmers, bankers, and "old guard" politicians. Many exude a supreme confidence in the NPL agenda.

"Afraid of Fire" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls, MN, July 19, 1920

The damned souls in Morris's frying pan are labeled usurious banker, crooked politician, profiteer and food gambler.

"Never Too Late to Mend" by Wm. Morris in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls, MN, July 19, 1920

Many of the cartoons are accompanied by a paragraph of text, just in case the paper's readers might have missed the cartoonist's point. The explanatory note for the above cartoon read: "It's never too late to organize, but the sooner it is done, the sooner farmers of other states will have state-owned industries like North Dakota's, including flour mills, terminal elevators, a rural credits bank and marketing reforms."

"We've Carried You Just About Far Enough" by McCoy in Nonpartisan Leader, December 15, 1915

The Leader had a number of other regular cartoonists at various times, some very amateurish, but others such as this McCoy fellow showed some flair. Sadly, I have not dug up any background information on Mr. McCoy, who was no longer drawing for the Leader by the time it started including a "Drawn expressly for the Leader by [name]" credit line under its cartoons in 1918.

Uncaptioned cartoon by John M. Baer in Plumb Plan League Labor, by June 7, 1920

The cartoonist most closely associated with the Nonpartisan Leader was John M. Baer, who drew for the Leader from its first issue and for its affiliated daily Fargo Courier-News. 

"Fired" by John Baer on the cover of the first edition of Nonpartisan Leader, Fargo, ND, Sept. 23, 1915

The same issue of Cartoons Magazine I quoted above also reported on Baer's cartoon career:

J.M. Baer, cartoonist for Jim Jam Jems and for three years postmaster at Beach, N.D., has resigned his official position and will devote his entire time to cartooning. He has gone to Fargo to work for the Nonpartisan Leader, which is not only the largest paper in the state, but is owned by an organization of farmers. His cartoons on local politics have been very influential.

"Baer Is Running for Congress" by Bart O. Foss in St. Paul Daily News by July 5, 1917. Foss was another frequent contributor to the Nonpartisan Leader early on.

Baer was elected to Congress on the Nonpartisan League ticket in August, 1917 to fill the vacancy created by the death of Henry T. Helgesen (Republican). By this time, Cartoons Magazine reports that "His cartoons are appearing daily in Hearst's New York Journal and Chicago American," and that one had been commended in the Chicago Tribune. Baer stopped cartooning right after he took the new job (which may be why the Leader added Morris just then), but only very briefly.

"Gee! But It Is Lonesome Here..." by Congressman John Baer in Nonpartisan Leader, Fargo, ND, Sept. 6, 1917

After losing reelection to a second full term in 1920, He resumed his career as full-time cartoonist and journalist for the Nonpartisan Leader and Labor, the newspaper of the National Railroad Union's "Plumb Plan League."

"Won't Leave Him Alone" by John Baer in Nonpartisan Leader, Mpls, MN, October 17, 1921

The 1920's were not good to the Nonpartisan League. Falling commodities prices hit farmers and the North Dakota government programs set up to help them hard; the bankers so vilified by the Nonpartisan League were not particularly inclined to save the day.

"Hooray, We Won..." by Wm. C. Morris in National Leader, Mpls., MN, December 26, 1921

Along with the state Attorney General and Commissioner of Agriculture, Governor Frazier was  recalled from office in 1921, giving him the distinction of being one of only two U.S. Governors removed from office that way. (The other was Democrat Gray Davis of California, in 2003.) He would then, however, be elected Senator the next year, serving until 1941.

In November, 1921, NPL founder Arthur Townley exhausted his appeals to overturn a conviction for "conspiracy to discourage enlistments" during World War I and began serving a 90-day jail sentence.

"The Highest Court" by John Baer for National Leader, Minneapolis, MN., November 14, 1921

Meanwhile, the Nonpartisan Leader ran a front-page editorial warning that farmers who didn't pay their "dues" would not continue to receive the paper (not a good omen), then changed its name to The National Leader with the November 14, 1921 edition. That same year, the Fargo Forum reported that the Fargo Courier-News had suspended publication, a report vigorously denied by the Courier-News. Its publisher would end up selling off the Courier-News and suspending publication of the National Leader — publishing monthly since May, 1922 — with the July, 1923 edition. Townley and Baer were contributors to the Leader right up to the end; the last of Morris's Leader cartoons that I know of was in the September, 1922 issue.

"He's Workin' Aginst Us" by Wm. Morris in National Leader, Mpls, MN, September, 1922

The Nonpartisan League itself continued on, but became increasingly estranged from the state Republican Party. In the 1950's, its members merged with the Democratic Party of North Dakota, which officially remains the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party, ("D-NPL").

A Brief History of Wisconsin Recall Elections

Now that the 2011-2012 spitstorm of Wisconsin recall elections is over, our elected representatives in Madison (the Republican ones, anyway) have promised to rewrite the state Constitution to make recalls more difficult -- requiring a charge of official malfeasance. They will probably move pretty quickly on that idea, too, while resentment of the recall process remains high.

But before that happens, let's take a quick look at previous recall elections in Wisconsin.

I'm going to stick with the recalls in my lifetime -- the ones I've drawn cartoons about -- starting with the recall of George Petak in 1996. Republican Petak represented Racine County in the State Senate.Republican  Tommy Thompson was Governor, and Republicans held a one-vote margin in the Senate. The Milwaukee Brewers wanted to replace County Stadium, and wanted Wisconsin taxpayers to chip in big time for the proposed Miller Park Stadium.

Instead of hiking taxes on the entire state, Thompson and the Republicans came up with the idea of imposing a .1% sales tax on Milwaukee County and the four counties which border it. Opposition to the tax in Racine County on Milwaukee's southern border was strong (not helped by Thompson's telling the rest of the state to "stick it to 'em"). Petak opposed the tax plan as well, but Senate leaders kept bringing their plan up for votes again and again, late into the night. Finally, at 4:00 in the morning, Petak changed his vote, and the tax plan passed.

Racine citizens started the recall process almost immediately. The Wisconsin Democratic Party claimed at first to have no part in the "No More Petax" drive, although that charade lasted about as long as the pretense that Petak and the Republicans had no connection to "push poll" telephone calls attacking the Democratic candidate, Kim Plache.

Plache, however, won the election, and Democrats gained the majority in the State Senate. Twelve years later, that .1% sales tax is still in place, and the recall is still a sore point with Wisconsin Republicans. It's also not a good idea for Racine residents to identify themselves as such at Brewer home games or Milwaukee sports bars.

The next year, right-wing religious groups, led by Family Research Council chair Gary Bauer and "Virginia Citizens for Reform" (and supported by presidential candidate Steve Forbes) launched a recall effort against Wisconsin's two Democratic U.S. Senators, Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, based on their support of women's right to choose. The drive was unsuccessful, and was ultimately ... aborted.

Which brings us to the recall of Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament in 2002. Ament was a reasonably popular County Executive -- at least, the Milwaukee Business Journal, for whom I was drawing at the time, and the Journal Sentinel liked him. Then the lucrative pension system for Milwaukee County employees and its capacity for bankrupting the county came to light and all hell broke loose. A group calling itself Citizens for Responsible Government mounted a recall drive against Ament. And they would have succeeded, too, if Ament had not resigned from office (thus saving his own $87,000 pension). Seven county supervisors lost recall races over the scandal.


An election to elect a new County Executive was held that summer, and the victor was none other than one Scott Kevin Walker.

Update: And if you perceived a link between the Milwaukee County pension scandal and the Republicans' 2012 attack on unions, give yourself a hand. Bruce Murphy has the best post mortem I've read yet on the bipartisan creation of the scandal and how unions are now paying the price for it.


There has also been a recall of the mayor of Sheboygan earlier this year -- a sordid affair involving public drunkenness and sexual assault. I haven't drawn any cartoons about it, but I bring it up because it is the only one of these recalls that involved "official malfeasance."

Wisconsin toon: Voter fraud & the GOP

After state Attorney General (and chair of John McCain's Wisconsin campaign in 2008) J.B. van Hollen searched tirelessly for examples of the voter fraud his fellow Republicans keep assuring us is running rampant in Wisconsin, he managed to unearth scores of cases. Well, not scores, exactly. More like exactly one score.

From Rick Ungar's The Policy Page for Forbes.com:

"A study of the 2008 election conducted by the Wisconsin Justice Department has turned up just two instances of people 'double' voting, six people who engaged in voter registration shenanigans and 11 ex-cons who violated the prohibition on felons voting.

"In fact, there has been a sum total of 20 people charged with some form of voter fraud out of the millions of Wisconsin residents who voted in the 2008 election. And over half of them are already on voter denial lists as they are convicted felons."

Since the 2010 election produced a Republican monopoly on power in all branches of state government, Republicans had no problem cranking out a Voter ID bill this year requiring voters to produce a photo ID: a driver's license, a passport, a military ID, a tribal identification or a student ID, provided that the student ID shows an expiration date -- meaning that the University of Wisconsin (for one large example) would have to redo all their student IDs, at a cost of $1.1 million. And if Grandma doesn't have any of the above, she can schlep on down to the Department of Motor Vehicles to spend the day getting a $28 voter ID card.

And you thought that Poll Taxes were a thing of the past.

As Rep. Kelda Helen Roys (D-Madison) pointed out,

"Republicans know that their days of complete control over Wisconsin’s government are numbered, so they are rushing frantically to game the system to keep power,” Roys said. “They know that according to a 2005 study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, about 180,000 Wisconsinites (23 percent) aged 65 and older do not have a state-issued ID, and about half of African-Americans and Latinos/Latinas lack a valid driver’s license – compared with 17 percent of white Wisconsinites."

The voter suppression law was originally set to go into effect in time for the 2012 elections, but with six Republican state senators threatened with recall elections this summer, the timetable was moved up to Right Away. Meanwhile, since those same Republicans were busy trying to jam the Republican agenda down our throats, they couldn't devote their full attention to defending themselves in the recall elections.

So the party recruited Republican volunteers to run against the Democratic challengers in Democratic primaries.

"Stephan Thompson, executive director of the state party, issued a statement justifying the practice because Republican senators have been too busy in Madison to prepare for the recall elections. 'The Republican Party of Wisconsin has advocated that protest candidates run in Democratic primaries to ensure that Republican legislators have ample time to communicate with voters throughout their districts after the state budget is approved.'"

Naturally, since those Democratic primaries will be the only races on the July 12 ballot, nobody seriously expects that only Democratic voters will be deciding who the Democratic nominees will be. And since the Republican party has disenfranchised so many members of the Democratic base, it shouldn't require quite as many Republican crossover voters to make the recall elections moot before they happen.

If only there were some Republican party primary which Democrats could cross over and mess up next year...