World Film and Television Progress (1938)

CARTOONS ENTER THE PERIODICALS The cartoons of Jackson's time and after were issued separately as engravings, later as lithographs. They were sold by local booksellers and posted in public places or passed from hand to hand. During the 1860's and '70's the cartoon in this separate form began to disappear. Cartoons then became an eagerly awaited feature of the illustrated magazines such as Harpers Weekly, Frank Leslie's, Vanity Fair, Puck, Judge and the Wasp. The giant of those days was Thomas Nast, a young German, who came to America as a child, returned to Europe to follow the fortunes of Garibaldi, and finally joined the staff of Harper's Weekly. His first great service to his adopted country occurred during the days of the Civil War when Lincoln called him "our best recruiting sergeant". The most widely circulated of his cartoons in those years was the Compromise Cartoon. In 1864 McClellan, who had been relieved of his command as head of the Army of the Potomac, following a series of military disasters, ran for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket against his former commanderin-chief. The Democratic platform declared the war a failure and demanded an early peace of compromise. From Nast came this cartoon, which was reproduced by the hundreds of thousands as a campaign document. Nast's most spectacular work, however, was connected with his renowned attack on the Tweed Ring in New York. About 1870, it will be recalled, four men controlled New York City as if it were their personal property. They were William Marcy Tweed, alias "Big Bill" or the "Boss"; Peter Barr Sweeney, "Brains" or "Pete"; Richard B. Connolly, "Slippery Dick"; and A. Oakey Hall, or "O.K. Haul" as Nast called him. This quartet of early racketeers looted the city treasury and preyed upon business of every kind, while enjoying a close alliance with Jay Gould and James Fisk. The Times and Harper's Weekly led an attack against them but the culprits worried little about editorials. Nast's barrage of cartoons proved to be another matter. "Let's stop them damned pictures", Tweed demanded, "I don't care so much what the papers write about me — my constituents can't read; but, damn it, they can see pictures!" After the Times succeeded in getting hold of Connolly's private accounts, Tweed fled to Spain, where an illiterate Spaniard, who could nevertheless "see pictures", recognised him from a Nast cartoon and reported the presence of the "New York kidnapper" to the police. Tweed was arrested, sent back to New York, tried, and convicted. At long last the prison gates closed behind him. Nast had accomplished his purpose. The defeat of Greeley for the Presidency in 1872 was in some part caused by Nast's cartoons. Justly or unjustly, Nast continuously linked the famous editor with the Tammany Rings. To Nast is attributed the use of the Elephant and Donkey as symbols of the two great political parties, although they had appeared occasionally as early as the 1830's. Modern cartoonists still use other symbols which were invented by Nast — the Square Cap of Labour, the Tammany Tiger, the Rag Baby of Inflation, the Full Dinner Pail. Nast's work has never been surpassed. Two advantages served his greatness. Harper's left him entirely free to draw whatever he wished, and he drew nothing that was not dictated by sincere personal conviction. The tremendous success of Nast's work in Harper's Weekly led naturally to the founding of weekly magazines dedicated to illustration, caricature, and cartoon. Of these none was more successful than Puck, founded in St. Louis in 1870 by a young German, Joseph Kcppler. Keppler was soon forced to abandon the original enterprise, but in 1873 he left for New York and there, three years later, September, 1876, the first German number, and in March, 1877, the first English number, of a new Puck appeared. Cartoons in the early numbers were in black and white and very crude, but Keppler soon learned to use colour successfully, and the fertile wits of the young German and his collaborators quickly built up a magazine which was eagerly awaited each week for its drawings, its pungent satire, its vigorous and humorous comment. Associated with Keppler were the two Gillams, Opper, Dalrymple, and others, all able artists. Puck reached the peak of its influence in the Presidential campaign of 1884, when James G. Blaine ran against Grover Cleveland. Keppler produced a series of cartoons against Blaine so devastating that they struck actual terror to the hearts of the candidate and his supporters, and not even the loyal allegiance of such papers as the New York Tribune under Whitelaw Reid could offset the impact of this gruelling attack. The artists — sometimes Keppler himself, sometimes one of the Gillams — pictured the Republican candidate as the "Tattooed Man", his body covered with the tattooed evidence of his record in connection with the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad bonds, the Mulligan Letters and other irregular transactions of which he was accused. These cartoons form an indelible part of a campaign which for bitter vituperation has never been surpassed. DAILY CARTOONS IN THE NEWSPAPERS The subsequent decline of the influence of Puck resulted not only from the early death of Keppler but also from the fact that in this same campaign of 1884 the New York World began, in support of Cleveland, the first series of daily cartoons ever to appear in a newspaper. The first of the series were drawn by Walt McDougall, who set his standard in the famous Belshazzar's Feast, picturing Blaine, "the people's friend", dining with Gould, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Depew, and other capitalists of more or less unsavoury repute. The cartoons of Homer Davenport depicted McKinley as the tool of the capitalist, and Mark Hanna, who was regularly decked out in a suit covered with dollar signs. It is probable that most of us who think back to Hanna and the '90's think in terms of a formidable-looking thug garbed in dollarmarked clothing. That recollection is Davenport's creation. The mass of cartoons which were drawn in the "Remember the Maine" spirit created in large measure the public feeling which forced a declaration of war against Spain. Theodore Roosevelt brought a veritable spate of cartoons — acrid, humorous, sardonic, affectionate, contemptuous, glorifying. He evoked every type. The cartoons of the. period of the Great War carried the one message that public sentiment and public action must be unified to one end. How much influence cartoons may have had in defeating the entrance of America into the League of Nations and participation in a World Court, we have not yet enough perspective to judge. To-day is the day of the picture. The public has neither time nor wish for the great editorials which formerly did so much to mould political history. The cartoonist, no longer just a commentator on the passing show, has become an editorial writer who produces a leading article in the form of a picture. At his best the contemporary cartoonist is an intellectual with something of the prophet, the philosopher, as well as the humourist, in his make-up. He is quick to gather ideas and to concentrate them into a form immediately transferable to the reader who runs. An examination of the contemporary cartoons recently displayed at the Huntington Library (two examples of which are repro Civilization Comes To Africa Edmund Duffy (in the 'Baltimore Sun) duced herewith) shows at once to what a high degree of dignity and power the art has won. Cartoonists have long been important and useful to society. The future promises them an even more decisive role, and an even greater responsibility. Article by courtesy of School of Public Affairs Princeton I niversity, U.S.A., from • The Publ ic Opinion Quarte rly.' 23