The 1924 Olympics

Today's Graphical History Tour celebrates the Olympic Spirit by revisiting the Paris Olympics of July, 1924, the games best remembered as the setting for Chariots of Fire.

Basí (?), official program of 1924 Olympics

I haven't been able to identify the artist of the official program, so I'm doing my best to read the signature in the lower right corner. I also came up short in my hunt for work by the sports cartoonists of U.S. newspapers, which I had hoped to include today. 

But I did learn that competitions in the VIIIème Olympiade included art.  Luxembourg painter Jean Jacoby won a gold medal for his triptych Étude de Sport depicting young men competing in soccer, hurdles, and rugby. I've seen at least two of the paintings on line, but not how the three were meant to be displayed together.

There were also competitions in sculpture (Greek sculptor Konstantinos Dimitriadis won the gold for "Discobole Finlandais"), literature (France's Géo-Charles, a.k.a. Charles Louis Proper Guyot, won gold for his poem "Jeux Olympiques"), architecture, and music. The Olympic judges decided that none of the contestants merited medals for music, and awarded only silver and bronze medals for architecture.

"Mademoiselle Athène" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, August 17, 1924. Source: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ 

Arthur Johnson's cartoon on the cover of Kladderadatsch is certainly a parody of the Olympiade program cover. Marianne, the traditional characterization of France, is cast as the Greek goddess Athena, with the American financier J.P. Morgan, widely resented in Germany, directing her aim.

Suffice it to say that the Germans and the French had some serious issues, and we'll get back to them again some other time. 

Over here in the States, the Paris Olympics were a pleasant diversion, even without wall-to-wall TV coverage.

"Good News" by Milton R. Halladay in Providence Journal, July, 1924

American medalists at the games included Johnny Weismuller (the future Tarzan actor), who won three gold medals in swimming and a bronze in water polo; and long jumper William DeHart Hubbard, the first Black American to win an Olympic gold medal for an individual event. Hubbard was not allowed to compete in the 100 meter dash and high hurdles competitions in spite of qualifying for them; those events were restricted to whites only.

"The Victor" by O.P. Williams for Star Company, ca. July 25, 1924

The U.S. led the medals count, taking home 94 in all, largely in field events.

Another such track and field winner was Harold Osborn, whose high jump stood as the Olympic record for twelve years.

"Aux Jeux Olympiques" in Le Petit Journal Illustré, July 20, 1924. Source: Bibliothèque National de Paris

Text: "Le Stade de Columbes vient d'enregistrer d'admirables performaces. Parmi les plus sensationnelles, on compte le record olympique du saut en hauteur qui a été battu de 4 centimètres par l'Americain Osborn. Cet athléte, en effet, franchit 1 mètre 98 dans un style impeccable. Cependant, il ne faut pas dédaigner le bel effort de notre représentant, le Francais Lewden. Bien qu'handicapé par sa petite taille, il parvint à franchir 1 mètre 95."

"Columbes Stadium has just recorded some admirable performances. Among the most sensational, we can count the Olympic record for the high jump which was beaten by 4 centimeters by the American Osborn. This athlete, in fact, cleared 1.98 meters [6'6"] in impeccable style. However, we must not disdain the fine effort of our representative, the Frenchman [Pierre] Lewden. Although handicapped by his small size, he managed to clear 1.95 meters."

Osborn also set a record in the 1924 Decathlon, with a score of 7,710.775 points earning him the title of "World's Greatest Athlete." The Petit Journal cover illustration doesn't look much like him; he had a big shock of sandy blond hair in a photograph taken at the games (and I assume he would have removed his glasses for the jump). The artist may have drawn the black-haired Lewden, who won the bronze, instead.

"Once Again" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, August 18, 1924

18-year-old tennis phenom Helen Wills won Olympic gold in women's singles (over French player Julie Vlasto) without once losing a set along the way. With her coach Hazel Wightman, she also took gold in women's doubles (over British players Phyllis Covell and Kitty McKane).

Tennis was dropped as an Olympic sport in the 1928 Amsterdam games, not to return as a medal sport until the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. 

Douglas Rodger drew the above cartoon after Wills, a California native, won the U.S. Open Women's Tournament on August 16. She won 31 grand slam titles during her career, including 19 singles titles and a 180-match winning streak from 1927 to 1933, and remains among the greatest in her sport.

"The Olympiad" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Star, July 30, 1924

The games did not go off without controversy. The "Puliti Affair" centered on unsportsmanlike conduct by the Italian fencing team and provoked this cartoon by Arthur G. Racey. Mud drips from the laurel branch with the words "unsportsmanlike action" "vulgarity" "disorder" "jealousy" and "abuse." The cut line reads: "Why sacrifice the Olympic Games instead of regulating, or suppressing, the mud-throwing canaille who do not know what sportsmanship is?"

The namesake of the affair was the Italian fencer Oreste Puliti. The other fencers on the Italian team were accused of intentionally losing to him in order to inflate his score. Accounts differ: either Puliti physically attacked the Hungarian judge, György Kovács, who ruled that Puliti was disqualified from the finals match, or he merely threatened the judge. The rest of the Italian team withdrew in protest, singing the fascist Italian anthem as they left.

According to olympics.com, 

Two days later, when he saw Kovács again, Puliti punched him in the face and a formal duel was proposed. The two combatants met again four months later at Nagykanizsa in southwestern Hungary, near the current Serbian border. The duel lasted for an hour, at which time the two were stopped by spectators who were concerned about the many wounds the two had received. Puliti and Kovács then shook hands and honor was restored.

The gold in saber ultimately went to Hungarian Sándor Pósta; Hungarian fencers would dominate that Olympic category for decades to come. Roger Ducret of France took silver, and another Hungarian, János Garay (a Jew who would perish in a Nazi death camp), earned bronze. 

Rea C. Irvin, Life magazine cover, July 10, 1924

The 1924 Olympics closed on July 27, with ceremonies featuring the bugle corps of the French Republican Guard, and the awarding of all the medals won — including those from the Winter Games at Chamonix earlier in the year. 

"Less than half the nations which received awards for the performances of their athletes were personally represented," according to the reporter for the Washington Evening Star. "The ranks of the athletes and officials of all nations had been rapidly depleted last week, and it was a small band of survivors that marched into the stadium behind the flags of the victorious nations, most of which were borne, in the absence of their nationals, by French marines."

Saturday Sports Report

I was preparing this review of century-old cartoons a few weeks ago, only to shelve it when Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. I figured that such a momentous event was of more immediate import; these 100-year-old cartoons could stand to wait a few weeks longer.

"The Pep and Vigor of Their Grandparents" by Gaar Williams in Indianapolis News, ca. Aug./Sept. 1921

When I had originally planned to publish this post, the U.S. Open was about to start, which is a big thing in our house. I had always assumed that tennis had remained a genteel sport until, oh, I don't know, John McEnroe showed up; but Gaar Williams here shows that genteelity on the court went out of fashion along with the bustle. I can't tell, however, whether the players in the lower panel had yet adopted the habit of loudly grunting, groaning, and shrieking with every shot.

"What We May Come to..." by Herbert S. Thomas in London Opinion, by Sept. 1921

Shrieking aside, if Bert Thomas's cartoon from London Opinion is to be believed, Messrs. MacEnroe, Connors, Borg, et al. had some catching up to do before they achieved the athleticism of their female forebears. 

"Man, the Master" by Alfred G. "Zere" Ablitzere in New York Post, September 12, 1921

Turning to other popular summertime sports (we do still have a couple more days of summer, don't we?), there's baseball — of that storied American trilogy with motherhood and apple pie.

"Dad Rushes Out..." by Fontaine Fox in Providence Journal, Aug./Sept., 1921

Meanwhile, the grown-up Boys of Summer were closing in on the World Series; New York's Giants and Yankees were in hot pursuit, respectively, of the American League Pittsburgh Pirates and National League Cleveland Indians.

"The Baseball Stage" by Thornton Fisher in New York Evening World, August 30, 1921

Thornton Fisher's complaint about the National League centered on a number of rules changes, described by Evening World sports reporter Robert Boyd thusly:

"Rules makers introducing drastic measures, the livelier ball and reducing the size of the parks to increase the revenue of the club by avaricious magnates, has changed the game. Where close games and a touch of the dramatic atmosphere once prevailed, wild batting orgies now predominate. Loose fielding, pitching that once would have turned the rawest 'busher' to shame, has now robbed the great national institution of much of its former grandeur."

"In the Sportlight" by Daniel "Bud" Counihan in New York Evening World, September 30, 1921

A month later, the New York ball clubs were riding high, having just drubbed the Indians and the Philadelphia Athletix.

Sports page cartoonist Bud Counihan would later go on to pen the comic strip version of Betty Boop. (An earlier strip of his, "The Big Little Family" showed up in this here blog back in May.) 

"Outdoor Sports" by Thomas A. "Tad" Dorgan in New York Journal, ca. Sept. 16, 1921

And finally, let's check out the action on the links, where we find "Tad" Dorgan, taking his New York Journal comic panel "Indoor Sports" outside from its usual office milieu.

Whether you know it or not, you are familiar with several phrases Dorgan contributed to American slang as cartoonist and as a sports reporter: he is responsible for dumbbell (meaning idiot), cat's pajamas/whiskers, for crying out loud, cheaters (meaning eyeglasses), hard-boiled (meaning tough and unsentimental), 23 skiddoo, dumb Dora, and —earworm alert!— "Yes, we have no bananas."

"He Got Madder and Madder..." by A.B. Frost in Life, September 29, 1921

Perhaps we had best leave these duffers alone. I'd hate to see how this guy handles a sand trap.

Q Toon: Erase to the Finish

Requblican-ruled states, especially in the South, have been rushing like mad to pass legislation against their LGBTQ+ citizens. New laws forbidding transgender students from participating in school sports have gotten a lot of attention; and Arkansas is the latest state to create a right of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, EMTs and other medical workers to deny health care to us.

On another front in Requblicans' culture war, Tennessee State Representative Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) proposed a bill last week to ban public schools in his state from authorizing any kind of educational materials that in any way address LGBTQ+ history, health, literature, current affairs, etc., etc., etc.:

 “LEAs (local education agencies) and public charter schools shall not locally adopt or use in the public schools of this state, textbooks and instructional materials or supplemental instructional materials that promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender issues or lifestyle,” the bill reads.

When I first pitched this cartoon to Q Syndicate, what was being reported to Mr. Griffey in the third panel was going to be the tearing down of a Confederate general's statue, a common controversy last year. As I sat at my drawing board, however, I changed it from tearing down statues to renaming schools because I thought that made for a better analogy. And that was before I read about exactly that generating controversy in Florida this week.

As a Trumpster firebrand, Mr. Griffey has proven to be hotter than his own party's leadership is comfortable handling ― the Speaker of the Tennessee House, a fellow Requblican, kicked Griffey off all his committee assignments this week ― but his bill is merely one of many in Tennessee that the Human Rights Campaign calls a "Slate of Hate" ("Cancel Culture" having been already claimed).

Today, the Tennessee House passed HB 1182 (SB 1224), a discriminatory bill that aims to prevent transgender people from using restrooms aligning with their identity by requiring businesses with ‘formal or informal’ policies of allowing transgender people to use the appropriate restroom to post offensive and humiliating signage. This bill, along with the anti-transgender sports bill that Governor Bill Lee signed into law last Friday, are part of the 2021 “Slate of Hate” — anti-equality bills pushed by national extremist groups and peddled by lawmakers in Tennessee in an effort to sow fear and division.

In addition to these two anti-transgender bills, the legislature is considering SB 1367 (HB 1233), another ‘bathroom bill,’ HB 578 (SB 657), an anti-trans medical care ban, SB 1229 (HB 529), an anti-lgbtq parental notification bill, HB 800 (SB 1216), a bill that would prevent schools from providing an LGBTQ-inclusive education, and HB 372 (SB 193), a bill to permit all government employees, including teachers, first responders, and public officials to opt-out of diversity training.

And you thought editorial cartoonists weren't going to have anything to draw about once Donald Joffrey Trump was gone.

And What About Naomi?

Over the weekend, Australian cartoonist Mark Knight of the Melbourne Herald Sun drew a cartoon lampooning tennis great Serena Williams for losing her temper in the US Open championship match when the court judge penalized her a point for smashing her racket and an entire game for complaining about it. The cartoon provoked accusations that Knight was promoting sexism and racism. Her lips were too big and her biracial opponent, Naomi Osaka, was too white, in the view of many observers.

"Can You Just Let Her Win" by Mark Knight in Melbourne Herald Sun, September 10, 2018

I defer to the many people, including other cartoonists, who found the caricature offensive. The real Ms. Williams's lips are not that big, and if it weren't for the dress and the situation, I wouldn't recognize her in the cartoon. Also, as others have pointed out, Knight has a tendency, shared with a number of Aussie cartoonists, to be free and loose with racial caricature. That, and the fact that the Herald Sun is a Murdoch-owned tabloid, could explain why Knight's editors doubled down by reprinting the offending caricature on the front page today.

In Knight's defense, I would note that the two players' skin tones are nearly identical; Osaka being in the background however, she has none of the shading and contouring used in the Williams caricature. On the other hand, Knight did draw Osaka's blonde ponytail much longer than she wore it during the US Open, adding to the impression that he whitened her up.

Cartooning people of races other than one's own is fraught with the risk of letting some racism onto the page, consciously or unconsciously. I have yet to find a computer screen color that matches oriental skin tone, and I'm even less confident that the screen color will match the printed color. Darker skin tones, moreover, can muddy a caricature, especially in print.

Coloration aside, the question is: If caricature is based on exaggeration, how much is too much? Does the oriental person one is drawing really have slanty eyes? How far can a Semitic nose be hooked without going too far? Can one identify a character as Latino without slipping "Sí, Señor" into the dialogue? Where is the line between Little Black Sambo Face and dreary portraiture?

I'll give a case in point from my own oeuvre. Three years ago, I drew a cartoon about President Obama's visit to Kenya, during which he criticized his hosts' treatment of Kenya's LGBTQ citizens. 

My caricature of President Uhuru Kenyatta included a pair of very full lips. But if you look at a photo of him, how else could he be caricatured? I didn't hear a lot of criticism of this cartoon, but that can be attributed to the limited exposure that my cartoons get. This blog rarely gets visitors from anywhere in Africa, and my cartoon certainly wasn't printed in Kenya.

Ted Rall commented on Facebook the other day that the idiosyncratically monstrous characterizations of people in his cartoons are a reaction to the racist caricatures he saw in other cartoonists' work. Nobody he draws remotely resembles anybody enough to fit any timeworn stereotype. Closer to the center of the verisimilitude spectrum, Signe Wilkinson once responded to complaints about racial stereotyping by drawing a cartoon of eight identical Everymen in suits and ties who were labeled as belonging to eight different national and ethnic backgrounds.

I do try to be inclusive in my cartoons, which means drawing people who appear not to be Minnesotans of Scandinavian heritage. Tomorrow's cartoon includes a school principal whose skin tone is darker than mine but lighter than Serena Williams's. I didn't give her a name, so you'll just have to guess for yourself where her great-grandfather might have been from. And whether it makes any difference.

And what about Naomi?

Peanuts: The Lost Characters

Shlabotnikback Saturday takes a break from politics and World War I today to pay tribute to the kids who appeared in Charles M. Schulz's epic comic strip, "Peanuts," but who failed to make the cut to join the regular cast of characters.

I'm not talking about characters like Shermy, who was in the strip in the early days before becoming African American. Changing his name to Franklin, he was with "Peanuts" for several more years, but never again as Shermy — because, as you know, once you go Black, you never go back.

No, I'm talking about characters like Roy.

Roy and Charlie Brown met in 1965 at summer camp, where socially awkward Charlie and homesick, lonely Roy quickly became fast friends. The episode mirrored the experience of many who find that when you go to summer camp, you can leave your at-home persona at home and start over with a clean slate among kids who have no idea what a wishy-washy blockhead you really are.

Roy, in turn, mentored Linus Van Pelt when they met at summer camp the following year. Roy introduced Peppermint Patty to the gang shortly after that. When Marcie entered the strip in 1971, however, she and Roy simply could not get along backstage. Forced to choose between the two of them, Peppermint Patty picked Marcie, and that was the end of Roy's career in comic strips.

With Roy thus edged out by Marcie's All About Eve power play, Charlie Brown was left with only fading memories of his Bestest Friend Ever. If Charlie Brown had only asked Roy what his last name was, he could have looked Roy up on Facebook nowadays. He would have learned that Roy grew up to be a medical research scientist specializing in human disease. Roy was well on his way to finding a cure for Adult Onset Wah-Wah Mute Syndrome before the Trump administration cut off funding this year.

😷

Peppermint Patty was the one who introduced José Peterson to the Peanuts gang in 1967. A top-notch second baseman with a batting average well above .600, he was about as likely to stick with Charlie Brown's baseball team as Alex Rodriguez would have been with the San Diego Padres. He and Patty soon left to start their own team across town.

Sidelined by torn ligaments playing college baseball, Peterson unfortunately never made it to the major leagues. Instead, he coached women's softball at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, and the University of New Mexico before discovering a passion for fusion cuisine.

Currently the chef and co-owner, with his brother Mordecai, of Los Fiordos in Beachwood, Ohio, the fame of his kosher Swedish meatball chimichangas and cajeta with lingonberries over rugelach has spread far and wide.

😋

Sometime in the spring of 1963, Schulz decided to make some sort of comment on how we are losing our identity and becoming mere numbers by introducing a character named 5.

5, actually, was short for 555 (of course). Readers never met his older sisters, 3 and 4, except as dancers in A Charlie Brown Christmas Special. After his first week and a half in the strip, 5 made only occasional appearances in "Peanuts," playing third base on Charlie Brown's baseball team.

After leaving "Peanuts," 5 moved to Chicago and pursued a career in acting. He joined the Second City comedy troupe and appeared in a number of commercials for Fifth Third Bank. He was cast in the title role for a 1986 remake of "The Third Man" which, unfortunately, was never filmed due to a dispute with the Orson Welles estate. You may recall the movie's title track by U2; it spent seven weeks on Casey Kasem's Top 40.

5's grandson, 555 95472 III, is one of the leading bioengineers working to network us all into Elon Musk's Borg Collective.

😐

Schulz introduced tennis player Molly Volley into the strip in April, 1982; she was Snoopy's doubles partner at the Italian Open in Perugia that year.

The two were eliminated as the result of a disputed call in the quarterfinals match against Bad Call Benny and Crybaby Boobie.

Snoopy withdrew from the doubles tennis circuit shortly afterward; Molly subsequently partnered with Farley from "For Better or Worse," then Odie from "Garfield," with whom she won the Labrador Invitational in 1988.

In her 2003 autobiography, Puppy Love 40, Molly Volley admitted to steroid use, which she blamed for her sideburns and handlebar mustache, and her arrest when she tried to use the ladies' rest room during a visit to Raleigh last October. (Molly Volley's court date in Raleigh is still pending.) She currently lives in Bark River, Michigan with her wife, Sybil from "Wee Pals," and their German shepherd, Marmaduchess.

They nearly bought a collie named Dolly.

But that would be silly.

😉

Q Toon: Anyone for Tennis?

After drawing two cartoons in a row about marriage equality, I needed to find some other topic -- any other topic -- for this week. Believe you me, it was a tough challenge.

My husband is a big tennis fan; I see enough of it when Wimbledon and the Australian, French and U.S. Opens are on that I know the big names in the sport: Rafael Nadal... Roger Federer... Venus, Serena and Brian Williams... Nocnoc Djokovic... Angus Podgorny...

I see that I've been getting some visits here from readers in Ukraine, so perhaps some of you are familiar with Sergiy Stakhovsky; but here in the states, I doubt there are many who know of the 30-ranked tennis player who beat Roger Federer in the second round of the Wimbledon Championships two years ago. Even fewer of you caught this story:

Professional tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky has made some inflammatory comments about women's tennis and the lack of gay men on the men's tour. He told xsport.ua, which 9news in Australia translated:
"You see, on the ATP, we have a normal atmosphere," he said. "If there was anything, we'd know about it, because it's a very closed circle. In the backbone of the top 100 there are definitely no gays."
"On the WTA Tour, almost every other player is a lesbian. Can you imagine — half of them. So I for sure won't send my daughter to play tennis."

If you haven't clicked through to read the cartoon, stop right here, because I'm about to trample all over the punch line. Seriously. Read the cartoon before reading one more word. Okay, I assume that everyone still reading this paragraph has read the cartoon and had a good chuckle or wry smile or eye roll. I just wanted to apologize to my non-Yankee readers that I had young Miss Stakhovskova aspiring to play "soccer." I know that what she would rather play is called "football." My print clients, however, are all in the U.S. of A., so I had to use the term that we Yankees call The Beautiful Game. If I had written "football," my Yankee readers wouldn't have caught my meaning.

For that matter, my Yankee readers probably also didn't catch that I misspelled "Ukrainian."

And congratulations, by the way, to the World Champion U.S. Women's National Team!

Q Toon: Pardon the Interruption

Since all the news today is about the massive database amassed by the U.S. government of every phone call, fax,  instant message, tweet, Facebook post, Google search, and garage door code for every person in the world, it's quite possible that you have forgotten the news items at the heart of this week's cartoon.

But rest assured that there is someone at the National Security Agency who remembers Ellen Sturtz, the woman who heckled Michelle Obama about employment non-discrimination, and they know what the PIN for her credit card is, how often she uses her microwave oven, and where she drove yesterday. If it's not someone at the NSA, then it's at least some high school dropout tech geek who got a job at some NSA subcontractor by virtue of his skills at Tomb Raider.

And, as that NSA subcontractor geek well knows, Chris had our TV tuned to the French Open on Sunday morning watching Rafael Nadal beat David Ferrer when one of the antigay yet homoerotic Hommen protesters stormed the court with a flare. Which was a great thing as far as I was concerned, thanks to the fifth law of editorial cartooning: Two Things Make a Cartoon. It's also been months since I've had an excuse to draw a guy without his shirt on.

It's also been over a year since I've had any use for my high school French.