I Shall Return

Every so often, the statistics report for this blog informs me of a big spike in visits to my 16-year-old post of R.C. Bowman cartoons about U.S. occupation of the Philippines in 1900. I've always guessed that some professor has that post on the syllabus. 

So, just in case some student clicks on the "Philippines" label in search of some extra credit, I like to keep my eyes open for more cartoons about the archipelago's American colonial period.

"The Little Dog with the Big Voice" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, August 15, 1926

It just so happens that the Philippines were on American drawing boards in August of 1926.

President Calvin Coolidge sent a special commission headed by Colonel Carmi Thompson to the Philippines in late July to report back on conditions there 28 years after the U.S. took the islands at the end of the Spanish-American War.

Philippines Senator Sergio Osmena announced that Coolidge had promised him, "We are going to withdraw from the Philippines, but don't intend to leave you with limited resources. We desire to first assist you in promoting economic development sufficient for your self-support."

"He's Reached the Dangerous Age" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, August 6, 1926

Philippine desire for independence was nothing new. In "Ding" Darling's view, Americans were inattentive and indifferent to matters in the nation' far-off colony.

By the way, I'm not quite sure why Ding drew "Ordinary Citizen" and "Public Opinion" as two separate persons, or what relation they are to each other, since Uncle Sam is alarmed over "where our young son is." A throuple, perchance?

"High Time Somebody Was Watching" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, August 12, 1926

This cartoon makes a little more sense, even if 28 years is an awful long time to be struggling to get a fish in your boat.

Both cartoons cast (no pun intended) Governor General Leonard Wood, 66, as the person responsible for keeping the Philippines in line. The retired Major General was appointed Governor-General of the Philippines by Warren Harding, having been Governor of the southern, majority-Muslim Moro province during Teddy Roosevelt's administration.

"Rubberneck" by Robert E. Brady in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 2, 1926

Not everyone was as disinterested in the Philippines as Ding's Public Opinion appeared to be. U.S. rubber manufacturer Harvey Firestone was convinced that the Philippines were an ideal location to grow rubber trees for the American market, a commodity then almost exclusively contained to British colonies. Firestone urged the Coolidge administration to pressure the Philippine legislature to loosen property ownership laws to allow it to buy up land to grow rubber, perhaps as a prerequisite to independence.

One serious proposal would have had the U.S. annex Mindanao and other southern islands and grant independence to the rest of the Philippines.

"Guess Who'll Be the First Victim" by Jesse T. Cargill for Central Press Assn. ca. August 20, 1926

The Chicago Daily News was skeptical. "The United States, it is safe to say, will not grant independence for the sake of rubber, no matter how many native and American cliques favor such a dicker. The question of reasonable revision of land laws should be decided on its merits. Native interests should be protected, and exploitation of the islands by combines indifferent to principle or good faith should be barred."

"Another Channel Aspirant" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, August 10, 1926

McCutcheon's cartoon riffs on Gertrude Ederle's just-completed swim across the English Channel, and focuses on concerns that if the U.S. granted independence to the Philippines, the archipelago would soon be taken over by some other world power, such as Japan. There is a paternalistic attitude in many of the American cartoons on the Philippine issue, going back to the Spanish-American War and forward to independence in 1946.

"But I Want to Cross By Myself" by Robert Day in Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1926

"The tyrant is a new role for Uncle Sam to play," opined the Los Angeles Times, "one in which neither our cartoonists nor other people on this continent ever have dreamed of seeing him. But in the childlike mind of the excited Filipino, who clamors for independence as a small boy impatiently demands a huge piece of pie, regardless of whether or not it is likely to agree with him, our Government is as despotic as any of ancient Rome. 

"It seems impossible for any of these purblind people to appreciate the anomalous position they present to the world — the strange spectacle of 10,000,000 trying to get out of the United States, while at the same time more than 10,000,000 Europeans are anxious to get in, but must be denied admission."

"The Interested Party Seems to Be Interested" by Wm. Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, August 21, 1926

"It is not yet demonstrated that the routine resolutions of the Philippine legislature [demanding independence] express the majority opinion," averred the Oakland Tribune. "It is yet to be proved that the Filipinos have 'sufficient political maturity for independence.'"

Indeed, there were leaders of the Moslem minority who preferred governance by the far-off Americans to the prospect of rule by the local Catholic majority, leading the Fort Worth Telegram to conclude: "The United States should not grant independence until the Filipinos have gone through a long period of education and are a united people instead of an artificial union of  intensely hostile elements."

"The Ever-Shortening Fuse" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. August 25, 1926

As crises go, the Crisis in Philippine Affairs didn't capture Public Opinion's very long. Nor did whatever promises President Coolidge might have given Senator Osmena.

The World According to the Daily Worker

Today's Graphical History Tours journeys 100 Aprils into the past, with an eye to some of the leftmost cartoonists in print in the U.S.

Daily Worker was published in Chicago from 1924 to 1958, giving voice to the communists and leftist socialists of the American labor movement. Editorial cartoons and illustrations appeared throughout the newspaper, particularly in the Saturday feature section edited in 1926 by Robert Minor.

Xenophobia is nothing new in U.S. history. Congress was considering a series of bills requiring that all foreign-born workers annually register their fingerprints with the government, report to authorities any time they moved or traveled from one locality to another, and carry a certificate of identification to be shown on demand.

"Thumbs Down" by Maurice Becker in Daily Worker, Apr. 10, 1926

Looking down from the sidelines in Maurice Becker's cartoon are: Fake Labor Leader, Militarist, the Courts, Calvin Coolidge, Andrew Mellon, the KKK, Election Crook, Kept Press, and Rotarian. "Fake Labor Leader" may have been a Daily Worker reference to the American Federation of Labor, which it frequently criticized for not being radical enough; but the AFL was publicly opposed to the alien registry legislation.

Labor unions such as the Machinist Locals 84 and 337 protested that "the majority of workers in the basic industries of this country are of foreign birth, and the proposed bills are clearly aimed at the working class as a whole. ... The intent of the proposed bills is clearly to intimidate the foreign-born workers; to prevent them from joining unions; to prevent them from participating in strikes, and to compel them to accept a status of subjection, forced to do scab labor during times of conflict with employers."

Unions for the Pullmans, painters, decorators, seamstresses, steamfitters, and more from Boston to San Francisco organized "Councils for Protection of the Foreign-Born" to advocate against the proposed legislation.

"The Boycott" by Rollin Kirby (?) in New York Evening World, ca. Apr. 14, 1926

The Daily Worker didn't credit the cartoonist, whom I presume was Rollin Kirby. It also seems to me that the caption doesn't fit the cartoon. I couldn't find anything in the Daily Worker reporting boycotts related to the alien registry bills; I also haven't found this cartoon printed elsewhere. [Update: see D.D. Degg's comment below.]

I did find that the U.S. had deported 55,110 resident aliens between September, 1925 and April, 1926.

"Reviving a Dead One" by William Gropper in Daily World, Apr. 9, 1926

The Democrat-sponsored alien registry bills did not make it to President Coolidge's desk, or to the drawing boards of certain mainstream cartoonists I expected would have opinions about them. Many mainstream cartoonists were more interested in proposals to create exceptions to Prohibition — one of many distractions, according to the communist press, "to get the workers' mind off the real issues."

"So That's What's in the Prohibition Barrel" by William Gropper in Daily Worker, April 25, 1926

Would you have preferred your distraction from the real issues neat or on the rocks?

"Sidetracked" by Fred B. Watson in Baltimore Afro-American, Mar. 20, 1926

The Daily Worker included this Fred Watson cartoon in its April 22 edition with an unnecessarily longer title. The cartoon answers my question of two months ago whether Watson opposed U.S. participation in the World Court, and the Worker's cut line explains that the communist leadership at the newspaper viewed the World Court as a tool of J.P. Morgan and Wall Street bankers.

The Black vote, where it could make its way into the polling place, had been reliably Republican since the end of the Civil War. Although the Anti-Lynching Bill was authored and promoted by a Republican, the repeated inaction on the bill when Republicans held all the reins of power was a sign that the party took Black loyalty for granted.

"America Protects Germany from Sin" by William Gropper in Daily Worker, Apr. 28, 1926

I had serious qualms about including this cartoon because of objections to the Daily Worker editor's decision to mess with it. For some reason, the editor saw fit to remove whatever dialogue Gropper had President Coolidge saying (and possibly also text or symbolism that might have been on the paper in Mr. Businessman's hand), substituting instead the editor's own text as a cut line.

Unless an editor is providing translation of a foreign-language cartoon, that's simply not cool. 

But I did want to include a caricature of Calvin Coolidge besides that barely recognizable one by Maurice Becker above. 

And speaking of Gropper caricatures:

"Mussolini Thumbs the Stub of His Nose" by William Gropper in Daily World, Apr. 24, 1926

On April 7, Violet Gibson, the 50-year-old daughter of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, attempted to assassinate Benito Mussolini. Her bullet nicked il Duce's nose; her gun jammed as she tried a second shot.

Police stopped the crowd from killing her then and there. She probably would have been executed like Mussolini's other three failed assassins but for the British government interceding on her behalf. Gibson was allegedly mentally unstable (she had attempted suicide in Rome the previous year), so Italy deported her to England, where she spent the rest of her days in a mental asylum.

But speaking of womenfolk and guns...

"The Lady Might Get Hurt" by William Gropper in Daily Worker, April 1, 1926

The Daily Worker was highly skeptical of international agreements, such as the Locarno Pact, that did not originate in Moscow.

Have we another example of the Daily Worker editor editing a cartoon? Why would Gropper attach a label to the gun if not to identify what it is supposed to represent? Could this cartoon have been drawn about a completely different topic?

"No Team Work" by Maurice Becker in Daily Worker, Apr. 3, 1926

No such question about Maurice Becker's cartoon here. It does reminds me a lot of the Arthur Racey cartoon that led last week's Graphical History Tour. It is possible, I suppose, that Becker could have seen the March issue of Macleans; I think, however, that this was simply a case of two cartoonists reaching for a common image to illustrate a similar situation.

What does puzzle me is why Becker thought it necessary to label which country in the rowboat was which. I mean, shouldn't a reader just assume that the characters are a bunch of different national leaders? How does knowing who's who matter?

"The Spirit of Locarno" by Viktor "Deni" Denisov in Pravda, ca. Apr. 13, 1926

Soviet cartoonist Deni uses caricature to indicate the nationality of some of the League members in this cartoon: the gentleman sprawled on the floor at left resembles Germany's Hans Luther, and the mustachioed fellow at top right looks like French Prime Minister Aristide Briand. Below Briand are a probable Briton and a likely Japanese, but it hardly matters to whom each butt belongs.

"Glorious Garbage" by Marvin P. "Hay" Bales in Daily World, Apr. 24, 1926

I explain these cartoons because they're 100 years old and make references that have grown obscure over time. The editors of Daily Worker explained this cartoon because they didn't trust readers to catch the subtle clues left by the cartoonist that the skull labeled "The League" is dead and that "Geneva Garbage Co." is a trash can.

At least they left the rather clever "Loco Peace Pact" nickname to stand on its own.

"With Rubber a Dollar a Pound" by Maurice Becker in Daily Worker, Apr. 17, 1926

Every once in a while, U.S. presidents would look into the possibility of granting demands for independence by the Philippines, a U.S. possession taken as spoils of the Spanish-American War at the close of the 19th Century. The Coolidge administration had recently appointed Col. Carmi A. Thompson, commander in chief of the United Spanish War Veterans, to conduct just such an investigation.

Members of Congress raised their objection to Philippine independence on a number of grounds, one being the high price of rubber from the British East India Company. U.S. firms were working to establish rubber plantations in the Philippines to rival the British monopoly.

Philippine independence would come only after World War II. 

"The Imperialist Policy in China," uncredited, in Daily Worker, Apr. 17, 1926

China's future was up in the air after the death of Premier Sun Yat Sen in March, 1925. Various warlords sought to establish their own local fiefdoms. Against the warlords, the Chinese Communist Party and  Nationalist government cooperated in the First United Front, with Soviet backing, until the Canton Coup on March 20, 1926.

The communist captain of the S.S. Zhongshan, with a Soviet naval adviser on board, moved to support a leftist uprising in Guangzhou. Chiang Kai-Shek, then the commander of the National Revolutionary Army, declared martial law in Guangzhou and arrested communists in China's armed services and their Soviet advisers.

"The Helper of Imperialist Thieves" by O.R. "Zim" Zimmerman in Daily Worker, Apr. 10, 1926

The Daily Worker promoted a rather different narrative to the purge of communists from China's National Revolutionary Army; Christian missionaries were hardly a factor in the Canton Coup.

Only from an atheist communist would you expect a Jesus Christ drawn as a Jewish stereotype 100 years ago. (Robert Minor drew the Christ with an even longer hooked nose than in this Zimmerman toon — see page 48 here.) It would be a welcome departure from the auburn-haired northern European Jesus found elsewhere but for the undercurrent of antisemitism tapped into by these cartoons.

"My Gawd, How the Money Rolls In" by William Gropper in Daily Worker, Apr. 5, 1926

And thus with yet one more William Gropper cartoon, we must leave 1926 behind for another week or two, returning to the present day secure in the knowledge that we have come so far since those bad old days.

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.

Someday Mein Prince Will Come

"Rough Going" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Nov. 6, 1923

Turning our attention to foreign affairs in November, 1923, we find Germany in danger of splintering apart. A separatist movement in the Rhineland was actively supported by a vindictively hostile France (to the horror of its erstwhile Entente allies). There were Monarchists in Bavaria loyal to Crown Prince Rupprecht, and Socialists in Saxony inspired by Vladimir Lenin.

"The Prodigal's Return" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Nov. 5, 1923

Roiling the Liebfraumilch further, Crown Prince Friedrich, the son of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, returned from exile, although his visa was for a Christmas visit only. 

"Life Iss Choost Vun Ting After Anuder" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn, ca. Nov. 26, 1923

German President Ebert fired General Otto von Lossow as commander of the Reichswehr in Bavaria only to have Lossow reappointed by Bavarian dictator Dr. Gustav von Kahr.

in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 4

Then came the Beer Hall Putsch.

Staatskommissar von Kahr was giving a speech denouncing Marxism at the Bürgerbräu Keller in Munich when General Erich von Ludendorff and an Austrian named Adolph Hitler burst in and took over the bar. Hitler declared himself ruler of Bavaria and Chancellor of Germany.

"Die Gefahren der Münchener Bräuskeller" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 18, 1923

Oskar Garvens's cartoon here recalls the socialist Mathäser beerhall putsch of 1918 (also in Munich), and suggests a royalist coup in the not distant future.

"Kicking His Dog Around" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Nov. 14, 1923

The Bürgerbräu putsch was soon put down — by that same General Lossow whom President Ebert had tried to dismiss. Hitler and Ludendorff were arrested and charged with high treason; Hitler would serve nine months in jail, but Ludendorff was acquitted of all charges.

"The Distress Signal" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Nov. 10, 1923

I may easily have missed another, but James's "The Distress Signal" is the earliest U.S. editorial cartoon I have come across in which Hitler himself makes an appearance. He showed up in earlier German cartoons of course, and there are earlier American cartoons about Nazism. But if another American cartoonist drew him before this one, I haven't seen it.

"Ein Trost" by Oskar Garvens in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Nov. 11, 1923

We shall use this Garvens cartoon, in which Uncle Sam towers over representatives of France, Japan, Russia, Italy, and an especially diminutive Great Britain, to pivot to a couple other events of note around the world in November.

"My Way Works Better" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, ca. Nov. 13, 1923

The Republic of Turkey was declared on October 29, 1923, bringing the Ottoman Empire to its official end. Field Marshall Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was already President of the Assembly, Cabinet, and Popular Party, was named President of the new Republic, without opposition. 

"The Multiple Dictator" by Ernest H. Shepard in Punch, London, Nov. 7, 1923

E.H. Shepard's take on the multitasking President borrows a stanza from "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell" by W.S. Gilbert — ironically, a poem originally rejected by Shepard's publisher because its subject was cannibalism at sea.

"Sittin' Pretty" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 1, 1923

I still see the occasional flurry of visits to this blog from students studying Philippine history, so here are a couple cartoons updating that topic.

A quarter century after the Spanish-American War, the Philippines remained a territory of the United States of America. Retired Major General Leonard Wood, a good friend of Teddy Roosevelt in the day and credible Republican presidential contender in 1920, was appointed Governor General of Philippines by Warren Harding in 1921.

His was a contentious governorship; he vetoed 16 actions of the Filipino legislature in his first year in office. His reinstating of a fired American police detective in Manila provoked Wood's entire cabinet to resign in July, 1923. His policy aimed at selling publicly owned railroads and agricultural operations to U.S. capitalists, was in stark contrast with the policies of his Democratic predecessor.

"Stay With It, Leonard" by Wm. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. Nov. 9, 1923

I believe, however, that these cartoons concern the Moro rebels on Mindanao and Sulu, an Islamic minority not effectively represented in either the American administration or the Filipino legislature of the time. (I find contemporary newspaper reports in the U.S. referring to the Moro rebels as "pagans," a generic term likely used to describe anything and everything outside of Judeo-Christian religion.) Wood had some experience there as the U.S. Governor of Moro Province from 1903 to 1906.

An Associated Press report of November 26, 1923 charged the Moro uprising was a symptom of generalized Filipino disagreement of General Wood, and perhaps an excuse given by the General and the Coolidge administration to ignore the Philippine legislature's request that Wood be recalled home.

"One defense of the present policy in the Philippines is that the trouble in the islands is all religious, that the Moros will not consent to being governed by Christian governors. ... The fact is, during the World War when American troops were practically withdrawn, and when [Francis] Harrison was Governor General, there was very little in the Philippines that could be twisted into resembling a religious war. But every policy must have its argument in justification."

✍

Before I sign off: lest one forget on this Veterans' Day:

"Lest You Forget" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, Nov. 10, 1923

"No War for Him, Let's Hope" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Nov. 10, 1923

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, generation by generation.

Returning to the Philippines

One of the gratifying things about doing this here blog is that every so often, I see spikes in views of an entry I made years ago of R.C. Bowman's cartoons in 1900 for the Minneapolis Tribune about the American occupation of the Philippines. I imagine that there is a history teacher somewhere who references that post in his/her class materials about the Spanish-American War.

So today, let's catch up with the American occupation of the Philippines in 1921.

"It Ought Not to Take Long to Decide" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, ca. Jan., 1921

More than two decades after booting the Spanish from the archipelago halfway around the world, the U.S. was still in charge over there. Certain isolationist Republicans and Bryanist Democrats were still uncomfortable with the U.S. having become a colonial power, and with a new isolationist administration about to begin, there was a push to consider letting go of the Philippines. 

Labor interests feared that competition with Filipino labor would depress wages; business interests weren't happy competing with cheaper Philippine sugar and tobacco. The idea of counting all those non-white people as American citizens didn't sit well with a lot of residents of the 48 states, either.

"Uncle, Can't I Go Out and Hunt Wolves?" by Albert Reid for National Republican, ca. Jan., 1921

The argument against it rested on concern over Japanese military build-up. The U.S. and Japan were both beefing up their naval forces, resuming a pre-war rivalry in the Pacific Ocean.

"Each Thinks He Is Being Pursued" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Jan. 3, 1921

We'll return to that topic next week. Suffice it to say that although there was plenty of war-weariness in this country, there was also plenty of suspicion that our erstwhile ally had designs of Pacific hegemony.

"The New Aesop" by Gale in Los Angeles Times, ca. Jan., 1921

As President, Warren Harding sent a commission to the Philippines to report on whether the Philippines were ready for independence. The commission ultimately decided against letting the Philippines go, citing all the benefits they saw the U.S. as having brought them, from Manila's sewer system and improved mail delivery, to religious liberty and a free press.

"The Philippinos in Danger," unsigned, in Manila Independent, by Jan., 1921

For an example of that free press, we have here a Filipino editorial cartoon that Cartoons Magazine included with the others in today's post. The title may well have been added by the American magazine, since it seems a poor fit with the dialogue. Binibini Philippines quite reasonably asks Uncle Sam to unchain her if he and Japan are going to fight — although it's hard to tell whether Japan-San is playing with his battleships or grabbing at the lady while she isn't looking.