HISTORY IN POLITICAL CARTOONS
Clifford Kennedy Berryman was Washington’s best-known and most admired graphic commentator on politics in the first half of the 20th century. Berryman’s drawings showed the power of cartoons to enhance, explain, and interpret the inside game of Washington’s politics. His detailed drawings illustrated the personalities, politics, and processes behind major events without belittling their targets. Berryman was something of a “court” cartoonist for Congress, capturing the rich culture of the legislative branch at work. Politicians considered him a friend and his unrivaled work earned him a Pulitzer Prize.
By 1912, 13 states had adopted the progressive idea of direct presidential primaries to break the control of party bosses on delegate selection for the national convention. Theodore Roosevelt dominated these state primaries. In this cartoon, which features Roosevelt and President William Howard Taft tugging on the arms of a personified “Ohio,” Berryman depicts the climax of this preconvention battle, which took place in that state in late May. Berryman called Ohio “The Mother of Presidents” not only because it was Taft’s home state but also because it sent a large quota of delegates to the national convention. In an intense and bitter contest, Roosevelt won a complete victory, winning the popular vote by a large margin and capturing nearly every district delegate.
Clifford K. Berryman was one of the most prolific and famous political cartoonists in American history. Born in Kentucky in 1869, he came to Washington in 1886 to work as a draftsman in the U.S. Patent Office. While there, he often submitted cartoons to Washington newspapers, and in 1891, he was hired as an understudy for cartoonist George Y. Coffin at the Washington Post. When Coffin died in 1896, Berryman was promoted to his position.
In 1902, Berryman created his most famous character from a popular story about President Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a tired old bear while hunting. Berryman changed the bear to a cute cub, and his cartoon inspired a toy maker in Brooklyn to begin manufacturing stuffed bears.
This cartoon (an early variation of one that was published on March 18, 1912) depicts Theodore Roosevelt as an opera singer who wins the favor of “Miss Insurgency” (the Insurgent Republicans), spewing forth a program that Berryman sarcastically terms “Progressive Fallacies.” Roosevelt’s political agenda became increasingly radical during his presidential campaign. Relegated to the background of the cartoon, the dejected radical Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette, who considered Roosevelt “a progressive only in words,” watches in disgust–probably brooding over the disloyalty of the progressive Republicans who, in his estimation, had abandoned him for a less rigorously devoted reformer. Berryman significantly softened the cartoon before publication: Roosevelt’s “song,” to give one example, is characterized by the satiric but less pejorative title “Progress Sweet Progress” in the published version.
The spring and summer of 1922 were marred by massive strikes by coal miners and railroad workers brought on by proposed wage cuts. President Warren G. Harding supported the owners, believing that his concept of “normalcy” meant deflation. The United Mine Workers, led by John L. Lewis, went on strike to protest efforts by mine owners to scale back wages from $7.50 per day to the 1917 level of $5.00 per day in order to meet competition from non-unionized mines. After the old contract expired on March 31, 1922, over 600,000 union coal miners struck, supported by another 150,000 non-union miners. Similarly, railway workers went out on strike to protest proposed wage cuts. As the strikes continued on into the summer, state governors appealed to President Harding to take over the mines and railroads, but Harding refused. Violence had erupted in some states between strikers and strike-breakers. Harding did offer federal protection to workers who wished to return to work. Cartoonist Clifford Berryman shows a determined Uncle Sam advising a coal mine operator: “You get the coal out and we will protect you.”
Ajax was one of the great Greek heroes in Homer’s Iliad. Cartoonist Clifford Berryman portrays a brave Polish soldier as a modern Ajax, attempting to hold back the armies of Nazi Germany, which were massing on the Polish border and were reported to be encircling the Free City of Danzig. August 24, 1939, is the date this cartoon appeared.