CSotD: Happy Old Year (1916)
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And welcome to 1916!
Let's start this look at the New Year of a century ago with a quick review of the year just past, and, since we're in pre-1923 public-domain territory anyway, not only can you click to embiggen, but you can get an even clearer look if you simply download a copy,
The big story was the World War, which had been going on for about a year and a half. It would be roughly another year and a half before the United States entered, and (spoiler alert!) Wilson would win re-election in the coming year on a platform that included "He kept us out of the war."
This piece is by Edgar Schilder and is a concept that was popular back when cartoonists had the elbow room to work in this kind of detail. Only one of several reasons to wish for the good old days.
However, let's not over-romanticize the era, because, while Schilder quickly brings us up to date on the many things going on in the world, a look around at other papers shows they weren't all leaping to comment on what we faced in the coming year.
I didn't vet the papers by political party, but a lot of them seemed pretty pleased with the state of the economy, and I saw this Magnus Kettner piece in several small papers.
Kettner was part of the Western Newspaper Union syndicate which apparently specialized in inoffensive nonpartisan stuff for papers that couldn't afford their own artists or even enough typesetters to put full pages together from scratch. Here's more about Kettner and his homestyle humor.
Here's another example of Kettner's work, from the Webb City Register of Webb City, Missouri, which apparently hadn't socked away much in its own bankbook, since it was only around until 1917.
But the "prosperity" of small-town papers should be examined a little more in context here: First of all, even radio was still in the future, so putting together a newspaper wasn't a bad venture, particularly if you could provide hyperlocal news that wouldn't see print in the larger papers nearby, in this case, the Joplin Globe, hardly a juggernaut itself, though it's still in business.
I edited a hyperlocal twice-weekly tiny paper at one point and we made a small profit and a lot of people very happy and loyal. And we didn't have two nickels to pay artists or writers, so we paid them one, which made my teeth ache. We actually had a couple of village columnists — those reporters of chicken dinners and visiting family members – who resented the idea of being paid and refused the money. They just liked being part of the community.
So I laugh over Kettner's cornball pablum, but it's kind of the way you chuckle over your small town's version of Gomer or Otis or Ernest T. Bass: Affectionately and with a shake of the head and, by the way, outsiders better tread lightly.
And there's nothing wrong with being local and gentle: The Indianapolis News was hardly a collection of yokels, and I adore this Gaar Williams cartoon noting the state's centennial, featuring a cute modern girl about to model an old-timey dress for the occasion.
Meanwhile, as long as we're talking about cute girls and things that make me smile, here's something else I came across that, while it's not a political cartoon, was fun to see. And proof that, just because you bought it pre-fab, it doesn't mean it can't be nice looking.
I also got a kick out of this piece, mostly because I'm just old enough to remember dipping a bubble pipe into a bowl of soapy water, before the advent of pre-mixed bubble stuff and round-topped wands. (The song was still two or three years in the future when this ran.)
The ephemeral nature of New Year's resolutions did make some cartoons, but this Ding Darling panel, in which John Barleycorn is packed up to be shipped out, indicated that keeping those pledges would be a little easier for some people than for others.
And not just in Iowa, where Ding had taken up residence for a brief period.
The new law was fodder for some cartoons, including a lot of jokes about waterwagons that would have been unmemorable even if Fontaine Fox hadn't lept into the fray and set his usual unmatchably high mark.
In any case, there were bigger issues at hand, and if the Magnus Kettners of the cartooning world weren't confronting them, others were, expressing in this case a mix of inevitability and seeming confidence.
Carey Orr expressed a little more trepidation in this "handoff" panel …
Though he added a little more gallows humor to leaven this commentary on the chaos the poor youngster was about to confront.
While still others took a more serious view of what surely must lay ahead.
It wouldn't be too many years before they'd not only get to see how things came out, but would have a chance to draw about the results, as Gaar Williams does here. (h/t to Terry Beatty — and do click on that link!)
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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