PRESIDENTS vs POLITICAL CARTOONISTS

 

I:Political Cartoonists Have Reflected (and Moved) Events, Decisions, and... History

by Rick Marschall

Politics and cartoons have not always been ingredients in an adversarial recipe. This drawing from PUCK is about a politician (publisher William Randolph Hearst) and his own cartoon characters, stars in his chain of newspapers. In 1904 he sought the Democrat Party nomination for President; he would have run against the incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. Around him are the creations of F Opper, Rudolph Dirks, James Swinnerton, and Carl Schultze.  

I recently returned from Washington DC, the Inauguration and related events, and while this will be old news to any who read this after it is archived, it will not be a news report. I was inspired, if that is the right word, to share a little history of presidents and cartoons. Campaigns and commentary by comic artists. It will run over several postings.  

Editorial cartooning, specifically politically cartooning, thrives at times of urgent public debates and vivid personalities.

This statement sounds trite or self-evident, barely a thesis except that – in a corollary of the “Great Man” theory of studying history – urgent public debates and vivid personalities sometimes are shaped and propelled by speeches, tracts… and cartoons.

The timing and the passions of the Revolutionary War, the French Revolution, the Spanish-American War, the New Deal, and various anti-war movements all mightily were influenced by cartoons and cartoonists.

Cartoons not only reflected events but have influenced history. Napoleon said that history was written by the victors – and it is just as true that our views of history often have been shaped by artists, including cartoonists.

                 

The legendary Thomas Nast, a self-caricature, sharpening his most lethal weapon, a pencil. His support of the North in the Civil War, and of President Abraham Lincoln, earned the latter's honorific, "The North's Greatest Recruiting Sergeant." On the other hand, his vicious cartoons against Democrat presidential candidate Horace Greeley helped defeat U S Grant's opponent in 1872. Greeley died only days after the election.

Much of what we think – and know; or think we know – of kings, presidents, generals, candidates, and leaders of movements, has been codified by cartoonists. Oftentimes, major figures in history have been portrayed to their detriment. Sometimes unfairly, sometimes falsely, often spot-on. No matter: our general opinions of: say, Andrew Jackson or Williams Jennings Bryan frequently are what the cartoonists said through their art.

Consider Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. Do we “know” them through their portraits? Speeches? Caricatures? Truth? Generalizations? Slander? Gossip? Facts? Cartoonists work on the blank slates of daily journalism in ink, but might as well carve in stone.

King Tut: What do we know of how he lived and loved? But his image endures. We have thousands of hours of Nixon on film, yet we remember him mostly through the cartoons of Herblock.

… Anyway, it was once so. Henry Major, a caricaturist of an earlier generation, noted that cartoonists more than occasionally were thrown in jail for what they drew. He said that later cartoonists should be arrested for what they don’t draw. If we return to our thesis – that political cartooning thrives during times of urgent debates and vivid personalities, and vice-versa – then we might well be entering a new Golden Age of political cartooning.

Time will tell, but signs are at hand. The Trump presidency, indeed the Trump phenomenon, provides an unprecedented opportunity for political cartoonists to spread their ink-stained wings as seldom before. Stand-up comedians and cable-news wiseguys have stolen a lot of cartoonists' thunder... but, really, only to the extent that artists and newspapers have weakened their platforms and surrendered their turf.

To appreciate the art form of the political cartoon, as much as to contextualize the opportunity presented by Trump, it is instructive to survey the history of political cartooning in America. We will see that the most powerful and memorable – and prescient – work has been at times when vivid personalities have predominated. Whether cartoonists have accurately or satirically recorded, or helped create, their victims, is an open question. That questions is as intractable as the chicken-or-egg conundrum.

Our job – as citizens, commentators, voters – is to appreciate and learn from this amazing art form of graphic humor, variously called “Wordless Journalism,” the “Ungentlemanly Art”: the political cartoon.

At a conference held by the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists in the mid-1970s, Meg Greenfield of the Washington Post addressed the assembled cartoonists and thanked them for providing “laughs” and “morning chuckles.” The assembled cartoonists mostly were outraged. After investing in careers as pictorial commentators they were being dismissed as court jesters. False News. By the Washington Post of all institutions (surprise, surprise in view of recent events? See the recent travails of cartoonist Ann Telnaes, chronicled in these columns) .

             

Several times in American history, there were calls to restrict and even censor, political cartoons. Sometimes these calls, by politicians of course, became legislative proposals. These bills never became laws. Spangler, Montgomery Advertiser, in the 1910s. The most serious of these efforts occured in Pennsylvania about the same time, by an aggrieved Senator Pennypacker.

It was outrageous that someone from the staff of the newspaper home of Herblock could so totally misunderstand the unique gift – yes, art form – of the political cartoon. Maybe cartoonists make their points through laughs. But that one creative tool among many others, is not the only special attribute of cartoons – there is the ideal of truth itself.

Next: The birth of American political cartoons, and the early American cartoonists Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. 

Cartoonists Ring In New Years!!!

 NEW YEARS 

CELEBRATED 

IN THE OLD YEARS!

by Rick Marschall

Cartoonists almost congenitally embrace holidays. Comic artists are inspired by happy events, and in turn inspire their readers. Serious artists and illustrators create commemorations. In general, a job of cartoonists is to celebrate things worthy of celebration.

There is the additional allure of holidays to cartoonists. On those days the artists do not have to scratch their heads quite so much to come up with ideas!

In any (or all) events, here are some New Years themes from Old Years. I have chosen from my collection images that -- by coincidence -- not only raise the glass to the New Year, but appeared in roughly "round number" years ago (unless you are reading this as an archive post...!)

(Above) Winsor McCay, as "Silas," drew this fanciful exception to my rule here. At the end of 1907 he drew this strip of Father Time replacing the old 1907 with a baby 1908. Where did Old Man 1907 reside? In a grandfather's clock, of course! This appeared in the New York Telegram.

We will proceed chronologically. One hundred fifty years ago, the Father of American Editorial Cartooning, Thomas Nast, introduced the New Year in his short-lived magazine Nast's Almanac.

Ten years later in Puck Magazine this greeting appeared. The drawing by Friedrich Graetz, an Austrian cartoonist who worked in the US for three years, is an original in my collection.

The prolific Dwig (Clare Victor Dwiggins) created dozens of strips from the Turn of the Century into the 1950s; and many hundreds of comic postcards in the century's first decade. This was sent in 1910. 

Almost a hundred years ago, in 1920, someone received this charming New Year card drawn by the amazing cartoonist Rose O'Neill (happy-spoiler alert: A major treatment of her life and work is in the works for the imminent arrival of NEMO Magazine!)

Also from my collection (on the wall, as you can see, of the Gibson Room in my house) from one century ago -- Charles Dana Gibson drew Life's cupid (mascot of his magazine, Life) toasting the baby cupid with the sash labeled "1925." This appeared as a cover of Life, and was then inscribed to Gibson's niece. 

The lone New Years cartoon sans smiles is also from the mid-1920s, by John Held Jr. Hoping that your own celebrations do not result in headaches -- nor, in fact, may any other activities in the upcoming Twelvemonth, we wish you a...

HAPPY 

NEW 

YEAR! 

Joseph Keppler, in PUCK Magazine, around 1890, made a prediction

125 Years Ago, PUCK Magazine Speculated on Canada Becoming Part of the United States...

by Rick Marschall

Canada, and the Colonies-then-USA, have been linked through the centuries as member lands of France, Spain, and Great Britain. Sometimes linked in territorial claims, sometimes squabbling over same; separated (except for Francophone lands) by the same language. Eh?

Recently as of this posting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on President-Elect Donald Trump to say hello and, by the way way, plead with the once and future president not to enact tariffs. Trump had voiced concern over trade imbalances, unfair subsidies, and especially lax border policies. Many United Statesians remember that the majority of 9-11 terrorists entered the country through Canada.

Withal, since the 1700s there has been remarkably little friction between the two countries. A few border disputes were settled by arbitration; great trade and great harmony exists and persists. As a casual analyst, I hope Canadians are happy with TV programs from the US; and down here, we have been laughing at Canadian comedians for a generation.

Also, the founder of this Web Magazine, the late and beloved John Adcock, was a native of Alberta -- another point of coincidence. Occasionally he would talk of Western provinces losing patience with the rest of Canada, and hearing whispers of Secession.

So it might not be untoward to recall in this post a classic cartoon from one of the times in history that Secession -- even a full-country merger with the United States -- was in the news.

Several times in Puck Magazine its founder and chief political cartoonist Joseph Keppler speculated (approvingly) on Canada becoming part of the United States. Other Puck cartoonists -- indeed, other cartoonists like Thomas Nast; and many politicians of the "Manifest Destiny" stripe -- cast hungry friendly eyes on the prospect. Canadians seldom shared the "dream"; the British Crown even less frequently.

In the early 1890s, Keppler drew an elaborate cartoon on the topic. At the center of the cartoon (as often a theme was carried) the magazine's mascot Puck proposes a toast. How a punchbowl wound up in the snowy wilderness is not explained, but Uncle Sam and his distaff, iconic companion Miss Columbia happily embrace as children -- each labeled to represent state of the US -- dance around the fire.

In the icy shadows, the figure representing Canada looks on with a combination of disdain and jealousy. Huddled around her are children bearing labels of the Canadian provinces. Out in the cold, they are ill-clad, ill-housed, ill-fed. Not a subtle point, Kep; but probably more charitable than Donald Trump's answer to Justin Trudeau's prediction that Canada's economy would be ruined by US tariffs: "Just become America's 51st state and become a Governor instead of Prime Minister."

     

F. OPPER'S THANKSGIVING DILEMMA

To be a comic artist, 

thankful for ONE new idea! 

by Rick Marschall

The great Frederick Burr Opper was a mainstay of the comic-art staff of Puck Magazine when he drew this cover cartoon in 1881. In his future, encomia like "the Mark Twain of American Cartooning" (in fact he actually would illustrate Twain's work) and "Dean of America's Cartoonists" awaited.. 

He would draw for Puck for two decades; he illustrated many books besides Twain's; he mastered social cartoons and political cartoons; he created the classic comic strip characters Happy Hooligan; Alphonse and Gaston; Maud the Mule and many others; and he codified many of the conventions of the comic-strip art form of which he was a pioneer.

When he drew this cartoon he was not yet 25 years old but already a star on Puck's staff; an illustrator for Leslie's Weekly; and an illustrator of several children's books. 

You would think such a fertile mind would have problem handling an assignment for a cover cartoon, especially on an "evergreen" topic like Thanksgiving. Yet he depicted himself writhing in mental anguish on the floor his studio, bereft of ideas after being "told to get up 'something new' about Thanksgiving." In his studio are sketches and submissions -- all rudely rejected by his editor for being old or predictable or "already done by Thomas Nast in 1834"! 

Inside jokes, course. Opper was a concept-machine his whole career. So here he lifted the curtain for readers and shared one new twist, after all, on a Thanksgiving subject. Let us give thanks too for this giant of American cartooning.

WHEN ELECTION DAY IS CONFRONTED BY DEADLINE DAY

 

How Cartoonists Addressed Presidential Campaigns' Results...

BEFORE the Votes Were Taken

by Rick Marschall

Appropriate to the theme of this post, I wrote this before the results of the Trump-Harris were known (medical distractions...) and before the votes were cast. The "mysterious" aspect resonates, however. 

Back in B.I. (Before the Internet), voting in America was different than now. There were election days, although some rural areas extended the times to cast ballots. Paper ballots everywhere, excpet for arcane wrinkles -- dropping balls in separate boxes (hmmm... poll watchers could tell who you were and which party you favored); glass "fishbowls (so observers could see your ballot), and so forth. Eventually, the United States adopted the "Australian Ballot" -- private preferences.

Results were, of course, eagerly awaited. Telegraph messages were prized. And for years the New York World cast giant magic-lantern messages with the latest headlines and vote tallies onto the face of their imposing building on Park Row, New York City.

But the staffs of weekly magazines -- especially their cartoonists -- had a tougher challenge. The journals might appear on newsstands the day of the election, or close to it... but conceiving, drawing, engraving, printing, and distributing the magazines obliged the cartoonists to either skip the topics (no way!) or fudge the issue. Somehow. 

Joseph Keppler, the founder, chief cartoonist, and editor of Puck Magazine embraced the challenge. He loved creating cartoon puzzles -- if they could be called that: incorporating faces into the backgrounds, props, peripheral elements of his cartoons. One Christmas, Puck even offered a readers' contest for those who could discover and identify the faces of celebrities Keppler "hid" in his cartoons. In 1880, the political wisdom reckoned that the presidential candidates were neck-and-neck. Republican James Garfield was challenged by Gen. Winfield Hancock. 

How to address the campaign, which would be stale news -- anyway, not "new" when the issue would be on sale? Keppler draw two figured representing the two parties, shaking hands in unity. And he incorporated a great number of contemporary politicians' faces on the trees, rocks, and bushes. Here is the cartoon, from the issue dated Nov 3, 1880 -- but drawn and printed several days earlier:

You will find Sen. Roscoe Conkling (after whom the comedian Fatty Arbuckle was named); Sen. James Gillespie Blaine; Interior Secretary Carl Schurz; Marshall Jewell, former postmaster-general; GOP vice-presidential nominee Chester Alan Arthur; former President Ulysses S. Grant, who had contended for the nomination in 1880; Pres. Rutherford Birchard Hayes; Samuel Jones Tilden, 1876 Democratic presidential nominee; Democrat VP nominee William English; Senator John Logan; Tammany Hall boss John Kelly; presidential aspirant Benjamin Butler; Sen. Thomas Bayard; and future New York City Mayor (he would defeat young Theodore Roosevelt in 1886) Abram S Hewitt.

Bernhard Gillam addressed the same challenge in 1892; but he answered in a different manner. Grover Cleveland had been elected president in 1884, the first Democrat since before the Civil War. In 1888 he lost to Benjamin Harrison -- despite winning the popular vote, he lost in the Electoral College... corruption and chicanery winning the day for Harrison in his own state of Indiana. Not unique.

In 1892 the two "incumbents" met. The race was expected to be tight, so Gillam did not feel safe drawing with crossed fingers. His outlet was Judge Magazine. It was a Republican version of Puck, which was generally Democrat. Gillam had drawn the effective "Tattooed Man" cartoons at Keppler's side in 1884, be bolted and made Judge his new home.

Gillam's idea was to draw a political train wreck... and leave blank on his lithographers' stone the pertinent elements until the very last minute! This included the face of the losing candidate. One can discern that he expected, or hoped, that Cleveland would be the loser, because the body on the tracks is more like the corpulent Cleveland than the diminutive Harrison. But... Harrison's bearded and bewildered face was drawn in at the last moment. As were a few other elements, including the annoyed face of The Judge, the magazine's symbolic boss. And -- the elephant with the eye patch? Gillam originally intended that the animal would be a triumphant, rampaging GOP pachyderm.

Two more "in jokes" Gillam managed to fit in: lower left, the bitter face of Judge's publisher and Republican activist James Arkell; and Gillam's self-caricature on an upside-down monkey's body, with an arrow pointing to him from the signature. 

"Honesty is the best politics." 

-- Stan Laurel