James F. Sullivan of FUN

FUN, April 8, 1885

Illustrated Journalism. The Comic Paper. By J.F. Sullivan, Magazine of Art, Vol. 14, 1891

p. 416

p. 417

p. 418

p. 419

p. 420

FUN Almanac for 1888

The Strand, Vol. 10, Dec. 1895 — HERE.

The Rise of the Comic Paper

FUN, Vol. 5, 1867

‘Studies in Illustrated Journalism; The Rise of the Comic Paper’ 

by David Anderson, The Magazine of Art, 

Vol. 14, 1891

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Is Vicksburg Ours? Or, Journalistic Optimism in 1863

by E.M. Sanchez-Saavedra

Every so often an enthusiastic rookie news reporter will rush into print without checking the facts. The pressure to “scoop” rival news media is a major factor, but personal optimism and getting swept along by a story’s momentum also enter the equation. On the dark side, reporters have also released deliberately false items in a desire for personal gain. Professional journalists and broadcasters generally pay a severe price for their lapses, ranging from loss of jobs to prison terms and fines for fraud or libel. A former classmate of mine destroyed a promising career in radio news by reporting the death of the state’s senior U.S. senator, who was very much alive at the time. (Internet bloggers, on the other hand, are under no industry regulation or societal restraints, and can publish online any and everything that pops into their heads, unhampered by ethical or factual obstacles.) The Russian proverb, “Trust – but Verify,” should be applied as a routine process of critical thinking when reading this, or any other print or electronic document. Just because a statement appears in print, “it ain’t necessarily so.”

[1863] The New York Herald, May 25.

The 1948 presidential election provided the modern icon of journalistic optimism – a grinning President-Elect Harry S. Truman waving the Chicago Daily Tribune, whose headline proclaimed “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!” (The technologies of vote tabulating, communications, typesetting, printing and distribution were much cruder and slower in 1948, and it is difficult to blame the Tribune’s editor for deciding to lock the front page and go to press, based on the available data at deadline.)

Winfield Scott.

With the rise of the penny daily press in the 1830s, any form of chicanery could be considered a legitimate tactic to lure purchasers. The object of operating a paper was not to report the news, but to sell more advertising. In 1835 the New York Sun published a series of articles claiming to describe sentient life on the Moon. This classic hoax, probably written by scholar Richard A. Locke, spoofed current astronomical theories and created a journalistic sensation (and presumably a circulation rise).

Anaconda Plan, Library of Congress.

The Sun’s rival, the New York Herald, founded by the eccentric James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835, would become the most profitable daily newspaper in the United States. It achieved notoriety a year later with its saturation coverage of the murder of New York prostitute Helen Jewett. By 1861, with characteristic modesty, it called itself “the most largely circulated journal in the world.” Bennett believed that the function of a newspaper “is not to instruct but to startle.”

Vicksburg, Mississippi.

And startle it did: the Herald’s headline on May 25, 1863, proclaimed, “VICKSBURG IS OURS. INVESTMENT AND CAPTURE OF THE REBEL GIBRALTAR OF THE WEST.” Surrounding a woodcut map of the vicinity of Vicksburg, smaller headlines proclaimed, “THE VICTORY COMPLETE.” “EIGHT THOUSAND PRISONERS TAKEN.” “NO REST FOR THE REBELS.” (An earlier reader of my copy of this paper noted in pencil in the margin, “Not Yet.” Unfortunately for Union hopes, he was correct. The key Mississippi stronghold would not surrender for another five bloody weeks.)

[1863] Harper’s Weekly, July 25.

After two years of Civil War, during which the Union had suffered huge losses, many Northerners became increasingly pessimistic. Large battles at Antietam, Maryland, and Fredericksburg, Virginia, were touted in the press as Federal triumphs, yet their crushing casualty figures and inconclusive results made them pyrrhic victories at best.

Nevertheless, the Union had a winning strategy.

[1862] Fort Donelson.

Early in 1861, ancient General Winfield Scott, hero of both the War of 1812 and the 1846-48 war with Mexico, had proposed to Lincoln and his advisors the so-called “Anaconda Plan” to strangle the Southern Confederacy by blockading her seaports and taking control of the Mississippi River, while striking overland at major manufacturing and agricultural centers.

[1862] The Southern Illustrated News.

In describing the strategic meeting, U.S. National Park Service historian Terrence J. Winschel states that, “Examining a map of the nation, Lincoln made a wide sweeping gesture with his hand then placed his finger on the map and said, “See what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.” It was the president’s contention that, “We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of the far South, and a cotton country where they can raise the staple without interference.” Lincoln assured his listeners that, “I am acquainted with that region and know what I am talking about, and, as valuable as New Orleans will be to us, Vicksburg will be more so.””

[1863] New York Herald, May 25.

Despite the inactivity, bungling and blundering of Lincoln’s generals, the “anaconda” gradually tightened its squeeze on southern commerce. Superior northern manpower waged a war of attrition on rebel troops. As supplies dwindled and casualties became harder to replace, only superior leadership and individual determination kept the Confederate forces in the field.

[1863] New-York Tribune, July 3.

New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi were securely in Union hands by mid 1862. A year later, Vicksburg, Mississippi, the “Sebastopol of the South,” (a.k.a. the “Gibraltar of the West”) stood virtually alone, menaced by ironclad naval gunboats coming upriver and land forces closing in from several points. If Vicksburg held out, supplies could continue to move from west to east and via the unoccupied stretches of the great river system. If the city fell, the Confederacy would be in major difficulty and both sides knew it. Not only would crucial commerce be cut off, but the river would also provide transportation for additional enemy troops to threaten the interior.

[1863] Gettysburg Headlines, New-York Tribune, July 3.

Union generals Ulysses S. Grant, the victor of Ft. Donelson, and William T. Sherman committed their forces to the capture of Vicksburg early in 1863. Their slow and bloody progress was hampered by the area’s naturally swampy terrain and dense thickets, and by a string of well-placed Confederate fortifications. Unlike his predecessors, Grant absorbed crippling losses and doggedly remained on the attack, by land, river and amphibious operations, never allowing his opponents time to regroup. By May 25, 1863, Union troops had encircled and invested Vicksburg with earthworks, beginning a classic protracted siege that would last nearly two months.

[1863] Vicksburg Items, New-York Tribune, July 3.

It was at this point that some of the northern press jumped the gun and declared victory, underestimating the resolve of their rebelling countrymen. As the weeks of intense bombardment, sorties and zigzag trenching dragged on, ultimate Union victory seemed once again in doubt. An army under General Joseph E. Johnston threatened Grant’s rear, and Union casualties continued to mount.

[1863] Harper’s Weekly, August 25.

In the east, Robert E. Lee’s troops once again menaced Maryland and Pennsylvania after winning new victories on the old battlefields of northern Virginia. This crisis served to draw public attention away from the western stalemate and focus Union effort on the mid-Atlantic theater. However, while this last major Confederate invasion was being repulsed in the three-day battles around Gettysburg, the starved city of Vicksburg finally surrendered to Grant on July 4, 1863. The news, coupled with the Gettysburg victory, created wild jubilation in the north for several days. (Reality came crashing back two weeks later with the so-called “draft riots,” which erupted in several northern cities.)

[1863] Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 8.

Grant and Sherman, the conquerors of Vicksburg, would relentlessly punish the South during the next two years, creating a burned out wasteland and economic ruin. Although her armies fought grimly on and kept Union casualty rates high, never again would the Confederacy seriously menace the Northern states.

[1863] Grant enters Vicksburg, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 25.

According to Terrence J. Winschel, “It took several days for [Grant’s] message to reach the capital, during which time the only remaining Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River — Port Hudson, Louisiana — fell into Union hands. Upon receipt of Grant’s message, Lincoln sighed, “Thank God,” and declared “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.””

For further reading: Terrence J. Winschel, Triumph and Defeat; The Vicksburg Campaign (Savas Publishing Co., 1999)

A concise summary of the Vicksburg campaign may be found HERE.

///

Joseph Keppler, political cartoonist, at 175

[1] A dashing Keppler in Vienna, 1867.

by Richard Samuel West

Today, February 1, marks the 175th birthday of Joseph Keppler, the Austrian-American cartoonist who was the driving creative force behind Puck (1876-1918), America’s first successful humor magazine. Incidentally, this date also marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of my biography of Keppler, Satire on Stone (University of Illinois, 1988).

[2] Keppler painting scenery at the Apollo Theater in St. Louis, 1870.

The world of research has undergone a revolution in the last 25 years. I will give you one example from my own experience. When I was researching Satire on Stone, I tried to pin down the exact date of Keppler’s arrival in the United States. It was generally known to have been in 1867 but no more precise date had ever been given. I was living near Philadelphia then. I took the train to Washington, DC, and spent six or seven hours searching microfilm records (anyone who has done this knows how much fun that is!) of the manifests of ships traveling in 1867 from Germany to New Orleans, Keppler’s purported port of entry. I found nothing. In my book, Keppler’s date of arrival remained vague.

[3] Keppler, now the famous cartoonist, in New York, c. 1880.

Flash forward seventeen years. While doing research on the San Francisco Wasp, which would become my second book, I decided to employ the resources of Ancestry.com to see if I could turn up anything new on Keppler. Within a minute or two, right before my eyes on my home computer, was a picture of the passenger manifest for the recently built S.S. Cimbria of the Hamburg-American Packet Line, which sailed from Hamburg in early December and made port in New York City on December 24, 1867. The log contained the names of Keppler, his wife Minna (mistakenly recorded as “Anna”), and Keppler’s brother, Karl. What had been an expensive fruitless search in 1986 required a simple click of the mouse in 2003.

[4] Keppler late in life, c. 1892.

In Satire on Stone I quoted from a 19th century St. Louis source that said Keppler had arrived with Minna and her brother Harry. Now the story changed. Harry may have already been in St. Louis, awaiting their arrival, or maybe he came later, but they did not travel together. I already knew that brother Karl did not settle with Keppler in St. Louis; he chose to reside with their father, who had become a leading citizen of the little German-American town of New Frankfort, Mo. — located in northern Missouri, not southern Missouri as I said in Satire on Stone. (My error is perhaps understandable in light of the fact that the town no longer exists and finding information on it pre-computers was difficult.) There is still much to learn about Keppler. The facts are out there and they will eventually be unearthed, especially now that we are living in the digital age. Part of me is happy to have answered my simple question of so many years ago; part of me grinds my teeth over the laborious inefficiencies of the past.

[5] The front printer’s proof of the Liederkranz admission ticket, 1876

The internet also led me to several books and articles I did know existed in the 1980s. The first is a memoir published in 1910 by the Princess Helen von Racowitza, who was a friend of the Kepplers in the 1870s. The Princess provides us with a rare glimpse into Keppler’s home life. She became acquainted with Keppler and his wife Pauline in 1876, when she came to New York to perform the role of Clotilde in Sardou’s Fernande in a German-American theatre there. Later in the decade, after Puck’s success, the princess visited them in their grand home in Inwood Park on the northern tip of Manhattan. She recalls Keppler’s “dear little wife” saying to her: “Oh, Goldche” (she called me this in her strong Swabian dialect), “I often think all this glory is a dream; it can’t be true. I shall wake up one morning and find myself in my little house [of old].”

[6] The back printer’s proof of the Liederkranz admission ticket, 1876.

The second internet find was a tour of the Kepplers’ second home, a brownstone on East 79th Street, conducted in 1897 by the now widowed Mrs. Keppler for the New York Times (July 11, 1897). It provides us with a peek at Keppler’s lavish lifestyle: “Though portieres of sage velvet, brocaded with gold in French heraldic design, one passes into the parquetry-floored drawing room, embellished after the period of Louis Seize. The gold furniture is upholstered in Beauvais tapestry, and the walls are hung with shrimp pink and gold brocade, the frames of numerous oil paintings by Verestschagin, Kobalsky, Henner, Stiler, Rau, Kaulbach, with a life portrait of Wagner, by Gaul, blending into the background upon which they hang without a self-assertive shine. Some admirable examples of Italian statuary occupy pedestals places at effective points, and rival attention with that one cannot fail to give to a few wonderful colored terra-cotta figures by Strauss — an Arabian water carrier and a Japanese being full of life and expression. Two notable cabinets in this room, of antique Spanish fabrication, combine ebony, tortoise shell, and brass, skillfully intermingled, and are paneled with water colors executed by some deftly handled brush of a century or more ago. The grand piano, across which is thrown a fine specimen of embroidered silk, was especially constructed to harmonize with the decorative motif employed in this apartment and the second drawing room, which adjoins it.”

[7] The cover of the Liederkranz programme, 1876.

The third find was The History of the Liederkranz of the City of New York 1847-1947 (1948). (I committed the unforgiveable mistake in Satire on Stone of repeatedly misspelling the name of the society.) This book provided me with a better understanding of the centrality that this German singing and fraternal organization played in the lives of immigrants like Keppler. Keppler thrived on his connection with it. From at least 1876 to as late as 1889, Keppler played a leading role in the production of the Liederkranz annual masked ball. I have reproduced here his artistic efforts in support of the 1876 ball, including artist proofs of the elaborate ticket of admission, the cover and centerpread of the evening’s program, and the cover of the dinner menu. Clearly, this was a labor of love for him. His ties were so great to the club that he joined with other Liederkranz members around 1890 to build a cluster of vacation homes on a mountain top in the Catskills. I noted this in the book; what I did not say is now head-slappingly obvious to me: they named the community Elka Park after their beloved club (L-K, get it?).

[8] The centerspread of the Liederkranz programme, 1876.

So, in the intervening years since Satire on Stone was published, I have learned many intriguing bits and pieces about Keppler that add color to the story of his life. What has not changed for me are the big truths about Keppler. His work continues to astonish me with its polish and wit, and I still consider him the greatest draughtsman among 19th century American political cartoonists. I have however come to regard the work of his son Keppler Jr. in a new light, believing him to be superior to his great father as a political commentator. But that is a topic for another day.

[9] The cover of the Liederkranz dinner menu, 1876.

As for now, Happy Birthday, Joe. To all who wish to honor Keppler today, I suggest you indulge in a pastime close to his heart: slaking your thirst with a good German beer.

* Richard Samuel West’s latest book ‘Iconoclast in Ink; The Political Cartoons of Jay N. “Ding” Darling’ can be purchased HERE.

Tolstoy’s Prophecy

THE story of Tolstoy’s Prophecy was a hoax of unknown original purpose, appropriated by the American or British governments of 1917. It may have been among the pamphlets and leaflets prepared by Harmsworth [Director of Propaganda to enemy countries in 1918] which were dropped over enemy lines to demoralize the German army. The story first emerged in the United States in 1913 and my account of its origins and the prophetic text [possibly altered to suit American propaganda purposes] is drawn from The Lawrence Journal of 15 May 1915.

As the story of its origin has it, shortly before his death in 1910 Tolstoy made the prophecy at the joint request of the Kaiser and the King of England, regarding future events on the continent. Accordingly, a few weeks before his death, Tolstoy dictated the prophecy to Countess Nastasia Tolstoy, “his favorite amanuensis. Tolstoy is said to have been in a condition of semi-trance at the time — a condition which overcame him when deep in literary composition.” 

Nastasia Tolstoy then passed the prophecy to the three monarchs, George, Wilhelm, and Nicholas. One of Tolstoy’s relatives leaked the story to the public through Associated Press Sunday Magazines, issued 23 Feb, 1913. If this is true the story was circulated well before the start of war in 1914. “This much is certain,” said the 1915 Lawrence Journal account, “that it has been in circulation in print for two years three months.” The so-called prophecies read:

“This is a revelation of events of a universal character, which must shortly come to pass. Their spiritual lifelines are now before my eyes. I see floating upon the surface of the sea of human fate the huge silhouette of a nude woman. She is with her beauty, her poise, her smile, her jewels – a super Venus. Nations rush madly after her, each of them eager to attract her specially. But she, like an eternal courtesan, flirts with all. 

In her hair ornament of diamonds and rubies is engraved her name: ‘Commercialism.’ As alluring and bewitching as she seems, much destruction and agony follow in her wake. Her breath, reeking of sordid transactions, her voice of metallic character, like gold, and her look of greed are so much poison to the nations who fall victim to her charms.

And behold, she has three gigantic arms with three torches of universal corruption in her hand. The first torch represents the flame of war that the beautiful courtesan carries from city to city and country to country. Patriotism answers with flashes of honest flame but the end is the roar of guns and musketry.

The second torch bears the flame of bigotry and hypocrisy. It lights the lamps only in temples and on the altars of sacred institutions. It carries the seed of falsity and fanaticism. It kindles the minds that are still in cradles and follows them to their graves.

The third torch is that of the law, that dangerous foundation of all unauthentic traditions, which first does its fatal work in the family then sweeps through the large worlds of literature, art and statesmanship.

The great conflagration will start about 1912, set by the torch of the first arm, in the countries of South-eastern Europe. It will develop into a destructive calamity in 1913. In that year I see all Europe in flames and bleeding. I hear the lamentations of huge battlefields. But about the year 1915 a strange figure from the North – a new Napoleon – enters the stage of the bloody drama. 

He is a man of little militaristic training, a writer or a journalist, but in his grip most of Europe will remain until 1925. The end of the great calamity will mark a new political era of the Old World. There will be left no empires or kingdoms but the world will form a federation of the United States of Nations. There will remain only four great giants – the Anglo-Saxon, the Latins, the Slavs, and the Mongolians.

After the year 1925 I see a change in religious sentiment. The second torch of the courtesan has brought about the fall of the Church. The ethical idea has almost vanished. Humanity is without moral feeling. But then a great reformer arises. He will clear the world of the relics of monotheism and lay the cornerstone of the temple of pantheism. God, soul, spirit and immortality will be molten in a new furnace, and I see the peaceful beginning of an ethical era. The man determined to this mission is a Mongolian Slav. He is already walking the earth – a man of active affairs. He himself does not now realize the mission assigned to him by a superior power.

And behold the flame of the third torch which has already begun to destroy our family relations, our standards of art and our morals. The relations between man and woman is accepted as a prosine (positive?) partnership of the sexes. Art has become realistic degeneracy. Political and religious disturbances have shaken the spiritual foundations of  all nations. The race wars of Africa have strangled progress for half a century. 

I see a hero of literature and art rising from the ranks of the Latins and purging the world of the tedious stuff of the obvious. It is the light of symbolism that shall outshine the light of the torch of commercialism. In place of the polygamy and monogamy of today there will become a poetgamy – a relation of the sexes based fundamentally upon poetic conceptions of life.

And I see the nations, growing wiser, and realizing that the alluring woman of their destinies is after all nothing but an illusion. There will be a time when the world will have no use for armies, hypocritical religions and degenerate art. Life is evolution, and evolution is development from the simple to the more complicated forms of the mind and the body. I see the passing show of the world drama in its present form, but how it fades like the glow of evening upon the mountains. One motion from the hand of commercialism and a new history begins.”

Count Lyoff Tolstoy drawing by George T. Tobin,
based on a photograph, from The Century,
February 1911.

A strange and badly written farrago to pin on one of the giants of literature is it not? 

The hoax had actually been exposed on 15 December 1914 in a letter to the New York Times by Vladimir Tchertkoff, Tolstoy’s literary representative, who wrote that the article appeared first in a Swedish newspaper under the title “A World-Wide Prophecy,” then was reprinted in English American and Russian newspapers. “I feel it my duty to state that Tolstoy never wrote anything of the kind, and that the attribution of this article to him is an absolute invention.” 

Whatever the fraud’s original purpose it was put to use on 2 January 1917 in the American Tacoma Times to associate Alfred Harmsworth, than visiting America, as “Tolstoy’s Man of Destiny.” There were other candidates for the “Man of the North.” Another article on 10 July 1917 in The Day (New London, Connecticut) asked “Is Kerensky Tolstoy’s “Strong Man from the North” who will end War?”

The hoax had wings and the flight was sustained through ‘prophecy’ letters to the newspaper editors in England, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.

The Day, August 13, 1914.

The Circulation of Newspapers

Illustration by William Boucher, 1879

Here is a rare and useful clipping of circulation figures (accuracy not guaranteed) for British periodicals published September 26, 1889, including comic journals. I don’t recall which newspaper the list was published in. The second clipping on Harmsworth’s periodicals is from the Pall Mall Gazette published May 24, 1892. For American circulation figures see my previous post American Comic Journal Circulation HERE.

Max Bachmann, Political Cartoonist in Clay – 1896

Leslie’s Weekly, June 18, 1896. [#1] Hon. Thomas Platt: “Weighed and Found Wanting.”

by Richard Samuel West

 

Max Bachmann was born in Brunswick, Germany, in 1862, emigrated with his family to New England, and was living in New York by the mid-1890s, the city he would call home for the rest of his life. Somewhere along the line, he received training in the sculpting arts. Though some of his pieces had been displayed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, he was little known in 1896 when he began contributing political cartoon sculptures to Leslie’s Weekly Illustrated, which printed them large scale on the front page.

While we know the sculptures were made of clay and then photographed, and that they were so hastily done that the backs of the sculptures remained unfinished, we do not know anything about their size. Were they one foot high? Four feet high? Leslie’s Weekly never says. Bachmann’s contribution was special. Political cartoon sculptures were never a featured part of an American political campaign before Max Bachmann’s work and have never been a featured part since.

Leslie’s Weekly, June 25, 1896. [#2] William McKinley: A Man Wanted and Found. / Leslie’s Weekly, July 2, 1896. [#3] Mr. Cleveland and his Boom.

His first sculpture, depicting New York Republican boss Thomas Platt, appeared on the cover of the June 18, 1896, issue. Thereafter followed twenty-three cartoon statues, one every week. Three depicted a heroic Republican presidential nominee William McKinley, but many more (a total of fifteen) were reserved for demonizing or belittling the Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan.

Leslie’s Weekly, July 23, 1896. [#6] The New [Not the True] Democracy Unmasked. / Leslie’s Weekly, August 6, 1896. [#8] A Hopeless Case.

Bachmann’s broadsides were a major part of a much larger campaign conducted by almost the entire journalism community (Hearst’s New York Journal was the only powerful exception) to paint Bryan and his followers in the most extreme light and frighten undecided voters away from the Democratic party. Bachmann’s sculptures and the larger effort were successful. McKinley won in a landslide. Bachmann’s work was recognized as groundbreaking by the press of the day. 

Leslie’s Weekly, August 20, 1896. [#10] A Modern St. George and the Dragon. / Leslie’s Weekly, September 3, 1896. [#12] A Sure Winner if Bryan is Elected.

The New York Mail and Express wrote: “Leslie’s Weekly’s unique and telling statuary groups on its first page have proved a novel and valuable contribution to modern campaigning.” 

The New York Tribune said, “Perhaps the most novel feature of this year’s caricature has been its expression in sculpture… While many of [Bachmann’s sculptural] arguments have been self-evident, they have doubtless had a considerable influence by their effect of sculptured permanence; as if, after each week’s puzzling argument in the daily papers, some clear voice rose above the clatter and said in a downright way: “But the fact remains!” 

Leslie’s Weekly, September 17, 1896. [#14] Thou Shalt Not Kill. The Vain Attempt of the Popocratic Presidential Candidate to Kill the Bird that Lays the Golden Egg. / Leslie’s Weekly, October 1, 1896. [#16] United for the National Honor.

As a coda to the campaign, Bachmann contributed one last cartoon sculpture in December on the plight of Cuba under Spain’s harsh rule. It would prove to be the starting gun in the next great contest: the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Leslie’s Weekly, December 10, 1896. Another Spanish Victory.

After his stint with Leslie’s Weekly, Bachmann gained a reputation as an architectural sculptor. In 1899 Joseph Pulitzer commissioned him to design allegorical figures representing the seven continents for the Pulitzer building on Park Row. His busts of an American Indian (1902) and of Lincoln (1905) are still widely celebrated. From the earliest days of filmmaking he was called on to supply work for the movies. In the midst of an active and successful career, he died of pneumonia in January 1921 at the age of 58.

Leslie’s Weekly, October 15, 1896. [#18] Cutting the Dinner Pail in Two. / Leslie’s Weekly, November 5, 1896. [#21] Little Billy Bryan and the Tantalizing Bee. (The bee is labeled Palmer, a reference to John Palmer, the presidential nominee of the Gold Democrats who bolted the party.)

* Richard Samuel West’s latest book ‘Iconoclast in Ink; The Political Cartoons of Jay N. “Ding” Darling’ can be purchased HERE.