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. 

PANAMA CANAL BACK IN THE NEWS. A HISTORY WITH CARTOONS

 

A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL -- PANAMA!

Back in the day, every schoolkid knew this palindrome. The US, and Theodore Roosevelt, the man with a plan, specifically, were associated with a Wonder of the Modern World, the Panama Canal. It looks like the Canal will once again dominate the news... so we present a capsule history of the Canal's construction... with some contemporary cartoons .

One of America's forgotten cartooning greats was W A Carson of the Utica (NY) Saturday Globe. For decades he drew front-page editorial and political cartoons, always in color. Here he commemorated Roosevelt's trip to Panama in 1906 to inspect progress on the Canal's construction.

After the victory in the Spanish-American War, much of the Old World assumed that America would retain Cuba as a possession. Yet Theodore Roosevelt initiated straightforward initiatives to assist the island nation toward independence.

In the Caribbean basin, in Central and South America, there seemingly were local revolutions within countries and wars between countries; centuries-old turmoil. But European powers were being drawn into them at the turn of the century, giving rise to previously unfamiliar aspects. Regional flash-points tempted Old World powers to test the mettle of the United States as an emerging world power. Also, Latin countries were growing ever more irresponsible in international trade, as many of them defaulted on debts and violated trade and customs rules with European powers, chiefly England and Germany.

To promote statecraft in the hemisphere, and to keep European nations from fishing in troubled waters, TR established what came to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This stated basically that America would intervene to schedule debt payments of rogue nations to outside powers, and would perform other such acts to promote regional order and national responsibility.

Many people opposed Uncle Sam acting as a hemispheric policeman, especially the dictators and military strongmen whose schemes were thus thwarted. These interventions were generally bloodless, and were accompanied by no-nonsense diplomacy explained with no ambiguities.

In the case of the Panama Canal, Theodore Roosevelt did not restrict himself to speaking softly; he spoke as required, acted as he saw the need, and took responsibility as he should.

A canal through Panama, joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, saving weeks and vast distances on the seas (some of them dangerous), had been dreamed of for centuries. The construction of a canal through the relatively narrow strip of land connecting North and South America had actually been attempted in the 1870s and abandoned by the French, after expenditure of a quarter-billion dollars and substantial numbers of deaths from yellow fever and malaria.

In the United States, the concept of an isthmian canal was not new. Before Roosevelt took office, the United States had negotiated with both Nicaragua and Colombia, and Congress had appropriated funds for possible leases of land.

Roosevelt needed no convincing. He realized the canal would be beneficial to commercial shipping, private sea travel, and potential military uses. But he also felt that building an isthmian canal was a historical imperative. TR wrote that “building of the canal through Panama will rank in kind … with the Louisiana Purchase and the Annexation of Texas.”

A cartoon by Victor Gillam in JUDGE Magazine, when Nicaragua was still under consideration as the best route for a "Path Between the Seas." Uncle Sam carries symbols of commerce, defense, and colonies, while ships gather in the Caribbean, and world powers press their arguments for a canal too.

The actual region (Panama, Columbia) in which the canal was to be built was in a constant state of unrest. The area's countries were small, with often-shifting borders; they dealt with deadly rivalries, ethnic and tribal competition, corruption, uncountable government overthrows, revolutions, and counter-revolutions. Colombia (and Nicaragua before it, in similar fashion) frustrated U.S. diplomats, who felt that the Central Americans seldom negotiated in good faith, and continually solicited bribes.

In 1905 a faction within a province of Colombia rebelled yet again, and declared independence as the Republic of Panama. The United States recognized the new republic, and immediately concluded a treaty to lease land and build a canal through the middle of that new country.

It is not clear whether TR was aware of back-channel machinations between Panamanians, French representatives of the previous leaseholders, and nation-building brokers working, in effect, on commission; or that many of the diplomatic details of Panama’s independence occurred in a New York hotel room, not in the jungles of Central America. In any event these would have been nothing more than details to TR at that moment.

A US Navy ship sent near Colombian waters, ostensibly to protect Americans in the Panamanian province, doubtlessly influenced events. What was important was that a new nation had achieved its independence, and America—indeed, the world—was to have a significantly important canal.

Joseph Keppler Jr of PUCK Magazine drew "Roosevelt's Rough Diggers" -- depicting the energetic President and his men with shovels at the ready.

TR viewed the Panama Canal as the most important achievement of his administration. To naysayers of his actions and rationale, he was unapologetic: “I took the Isthmus, started the Canal, and then let Congress, not to debate the Canal, but to debate me.”

An unprecedented achievement then took place: in less than a decade, the Americans cleared land and jungles and dug across a 50-mile wide swath of resistant land; they moved mechanical devices of mammoth proportions and set them in place; and they developed many important innovations in the process (as would happen in America’s later space program). Cuba redux: deadly diseases traditionally considered incurable were attacked and conquered.

Today the Canal Zone is virtually free from yellow fever and malaria. Roosevelt worked through a few false starts and consultations, enacting solutions that would ensure the construction’s success. For instance, he decided on a system of locks instead of a sea-level approach, and he appointed directors with authority and competence, men like Colonel George W. Goethals of the Army Corps of Engineers; and doctors Walter Reed and William Gorgas.

The workers used massive bulldozers and cranes, dynamite and portable double-track railroad lines. They established workers’ colonies with mosquito-netted buildings, social events, and even a newspaper. Construction proceeded, foot by grueling foot. Rusting equipment from previous failed endeavors littered the landscape where they worked, but the Panama Canal opened two years ahead of schedule. Ironically—or significantly (since military contingencies were concerns important to Roosevelt)—it commenced operations in August 1914, the same month that World War I began.

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president ever to leave U.S. soil while in office. He sailed to Panama to inspect progress on his pet project. Of course, he was not content merely to observe the progress. Ever the exuberant boy, TR was caught by photographers in the operator’s seat of a gargantuan steam shovel.

The popular Theodore Roosevelt was celebrated in cartoons -- probably more often than any president before or since -- and toys, games, cards, and merchandise. Here, a commemorative plate of the time depicted TR watching iconic Teddy Bears digging the Canal in Panama.

More than a million vessels have passed through the Panama Canal since it opened. In every respect it is one of the wonders of the world’s mechanical age. As TR predicted, his decision to move forward in building the canal was debated while the project itself proceeded... but he held firm.

This astounding personal achievement of Theodore Roosevelt’s never has been sufficiently recognized. It is unlikely that many other presidents could have managed the events and overseen such a bold project. Under his oversight, the jungles of Panama were transformed, a mechanical marvel was realized, ahead of schedule, without cost over-runs, corruption, or scandal. At the same time, the Americans conquered diseases in the region, benefitted maritime trade, and confirmed the primacy of the United States.

The late President Carter "sold" the Canal to the government of Panama for one dollar, ahead of the treaty's schedule. Today China has been outsourced to operate the locks, anyway the two ocean terminuses. And American shipping is sometimes charged triple that of other countries. The Panama Canal seems destined to be in the news again. But history books cannot change the role of Theodore Roosevelt... especially when cartoonist were there to document it all!

A cartoon in JUDGE Magazine about the time the Canal opened to world shipping and sailing in 1914. "A design for the lighthouses at the entrances to the Panama Canal."

PUTTING THE "EFFORT" IN THE "WAR EFFORT"

 On World War II's "Home Front"

An essential part of a nation's war effort is addressing the non-combat needs of the men and women in uniform. Healthy, balanced, and contented service personnel are better killers and defenders, presumably. And families back home need to maintain bonds, and to feel that they are parts of the war efforts themselves.

In America's Civil War, the father of Theodore Roosevelt never served in uniform, perhaps in deference to his Georgia-born wife's feelings, but he headed up the Allotment Bureau, devised with President Lincoln. He visited many camps to convince soldiers to apportion percentages of their pay to their families at home.

In World War II, one of the myriad campaigns to tend to servicemen was conducted by comic-strip cartoonists. It was not as flashy as USO Tours by singers and movie stars (and cartoonists did, and do, make USO tours to do chalk-talks and other entertainment), but it was an effort to encourage communications with those in uniform. In practice it was rather awkward... but give someone a medal for Good Intentions.

Postcards were designed with popular comic-strip characters "speaking" about what the soldiers, airmen, and marines liked, and missed, and wanted. The military members were urged to fill in the blanks -- their names, vital information, and wish-lists. These cards were designed then to be sent home, to relatives or more often, to strangers. In all my years of collecting, I have only seen ONE of these cards filled out... suggesting that the campaign was not successful.

The series included four cards each of popular strip characters. Here, Dick Tracy; the casts of Barney Google and Moon Mullins were others. None (with the possible exception of Barney Google) were drawn by the actual creators of the strips.

           

Frost Bite

In the Early Days of cartooning and illustration's Golden Era, there were a fair number of A.B.s -- A B Frost; A B Shults; A B Walker, A B Wenzell; and I suppose we can add the vintage comic-strip character Abie the Agent.

We will spend a moment here and tip our YP hat to Arthur Burdett Frost. He was an artist whose immense talents and achievements arguably are the most neglected of American cartooning's pivotal figures. He certainly was a major progenitor of the comic strip format, both experimenting and codifying the language and structure of graphic narration.

If Frost was not the father of the American comic strip, he must be recognized as a godfather, a major branch on the family tree, a prophet who entered the Promised Land he espied.

 An early version of A B Frost's most famous "series," drawn in the late 1870s. "A Fatal Mistake -- The Tale of a Cat" was redrawn in 1884 (detail below), showing the unfortunate cat eating rat poison. 

He lived between 1851 and 1928, literally spanning -- and often dominating -- the fields of illustration and cartooning otherwise identified with F O C Darley and Frank Bellew through to Norman Rockwell and John Held, Jr. He studied under the great painters Thomas Eakins and William Merritt Chase; he illustrated a Christian (Swedenborgian) novel written by his sister and then scored a national sensation with hundreds of spot illustrations for Out Of the Hurly-Burly by Max Adeler; he joined the staff of the Daily Graphic, America's first illustrated daily newspaper; he drew for many magazines including Puck, Life, Scribner's, Collier's, Harper's Weekly and Harper's Monthly; and he illustrated more than a hundred books.

Frost was not merely prolific; many cartoonists and illustrators manage to keep busy. It seemed that everything he touched was significant. The authors whose works he illustrated were among the most prominent of his day: Mark Twain; H C Bunner; Frank Stockton; Theodore Roosevelt; Thomas Bailey Aldrich. He illustrated two of Lewis Carroll's books in the wake of the latter's Alice successes. If Frost never had drawn humorous illustrations and strips he would be remembered today for his hunting and wildlife work. Or, perhaps, his gouache paintings of rural life. Or, certainly, his classic folklore and ethnic themes as exemplified in illustrations for the Uncle Remus stories; their author Joel Chandler Harris paid tribute to Frost in one of the books, "you have taken it under your hand... The book was mine but now you have made it yours." The US Golf Association was founded in 1894, and Frost was an early addict of the links; his many drawings, illustrations, and books helped popularize the sport.

But a special mention must be made here of Frost's contributions to the development of the comic strip. In (primarily) the back pages of the "literary monthlies" Harper's, The Century, and Scribner's, Frost drew what were called "series," not termed strips, in the 1880s and '90s. It is possible that these multi-panel cartoons were fashioned in order to accomodate the advertisements between which they were nestled; or perhaps they were designed to encourage readers not to neglect those ad pages.

It is more likely that Frost's multi-panel strips were an organic outgrowth of his desire to tell stories -- freeing himself from staid depictions of moments in time. The great Punch cartoonists in England invariably drew frozen images with lengthy multi-line dialogue underneath; Frost was about presenting unfolding action. And "action" was his watchword. In his series there was movement, agitation, motion, perfervid activity. These tendencies virtually dictated that a story would progress from panel to panel, bursting the confines of a single image.

Regarding the "animation" in Frost's art, it is clear that he was inspired by the photographic experiments of the eccentric genius Eadweard Muybridge, whose studies of human and animal figures in motion -- captured in thousands of images like isolated frames of motion pictures -- largely were financed by Leland Stanford and published in several weighty volumes. In the course of things, Frost flawlessly captured shadows, correctly understood anatomy, and composed his scenes as arrestingly as did any fine artist.

It was "fine art" that lured him to France and away from his pen-work and myriad thematic preoccupations between 1906 and 1914. He was charmed by the Impressionists -- who wouldn't be? -- and despite his color-blindness he painted among the masters around Giverny, hoping to capture their "feel." Ironically, Frost met one mode of expression he could not master. His attempts at oil-on-canvas Impressionism was flat and uninspired. He returned to the United States, drew some series but mostly panel cartoons in pen and ink, especially for Life in the '20s. He died in 1928 in Pasadena CA.

There is much to share of A B Frost's impressive work; and we shall, perhaps category by his various categories, in days to come. As I have said, his "series" heralded the birth of the comic strip; as precursors they usually were pantomimic, and when he employed dialog it was in traditional typeset captions, not speech balloons. But the early signs of Frost all pointed to graphic excellence and comic strips.    

Theodore Roosevelt Center AT DSU

Welcomes Rick Marschall To Team

Political cartoonist, historian and author Rick Marschall

Rick Marschall contributes a weekly column, A Crowded Life in Comics, to Yesterday's Papers 

Read more with links HERE.

J. Campbell Cory, June 29, 1912

The Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University is creating a comprehensive digital library of all things Roosevelt, including correspondence, newspaper clippings, personal and office diaries, sound and film recordings, and political cartoons. To learn more about the Center, or to access any of the 57,000 items available to date, visit www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org.

TR

A Crowded Life in Comics –

A Cartoon Archivist In Our Midst

 by Rick Marschall

Actually, a point of personal privilege, which most of these columns are, after all is said and done (or even before things are said and done).

I have worn many hats and pursued various pursuits in my vineyard toils -- writing, cartooning, editing, teaching; and in fields other than comics: cultural history; criticism; music; publishing; politics; ministry. Something has come along that actually combines several interest areas (or, I would hope to say, specialties).

I have been named Cartoon Archivist at the Theodore Roosevelt Center of Dickinson State University. The connected dots include history, cartoons, and… TR, a lifelong hero about whom I have written two books and many articles. I also serve on the Advisory Board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, an organization I have addressed at conferences and for whom I write a weekly Facebook column on (surprise) Theodore Roosevelt and cartoons. In addition to all this, I named my only son Theodore.

I am happy with all these associations, pursued with evangelical zeal for a man I consider one of America’s natural wonders and national treasures. I have many thousands of vintage cartoons in which he is featured; and in fact for the TR Center I will engage in a “Cartoon-Off” with other scholars – displaying cartoons, explaining why we think they are significant (that is, good cartoons, not only good history!), and inviting attendees to discuss and vote. Bully!

I am not going to share contemporary cartoons here and now – but might do so in the future; and I invite readers of “A Crowded Life” in Yesterday’s Papers to forward questions, suggestions, and clippings in the Roosevelt category as in all other categories. Today I will just share a couple of TR images that are not cartoons (not supposed to be funny, that is), the “point of personal privilege,” portraits of TR that I have painted. This little corner of my life will continue as offerings for TRA auctions, and exclusively at the Western Edge Gallery in Medora, North Dakota, near Roosevelt’s cattle ranches.

So that’s it from Johnny Not-One-Note, sharing the news of an exciting opportunity. The Roosevelt Center is in the process of completing a remarkable project: gathering all possible Theodore Roosevelt materials – letters, articles, photographs, cartoons, and associated resources – all possible material from all over the world. Digitally. So, scholars will no longer have to trek to Harvard or to the Library of Congress or the Khartoum Institute, if there be such; as everyone, everywhere is digitalizing everything… the Roosevelt Center is arranging to be the go-to source of research material. And not merely as a vacuum-cleaner, but to provide annotation, background data, in fact metadata as much as possible. For this task they are assembling leading scholars, of which I am supposed to be one in the Cartoon Category.

Again, I welcome feedback and suggestions. One of the joys of this new gig is that I work from the office I currently clog; my current projects, and other future projects, will continue unabated; and that among those pursuits are the revival of Nemo magazine and the weekly strolls through this “Crowded Life” series.

No. 51