THE INFLUENCE OF JOURNALISM
[Illustration: A German Idea of Irish Home Rule.]
In looking backward over a century of caricature, it is interesting to
ask just what it is that makes the radical difference between the
cartoon of to-day and that of a hundred years ago. That there is a
wide gulf between the comparative restraint of the modern cartoonist
and the unbridled license of Gillray's or Rowlandson's grotesque,
gargoyle types, is self-evident; that comic art, as applied to
politics, is to-day more widespread, more generally appreciated, and
in a quiet way more effective in molding public opinion than ever
before, needs no argument. And yet, if one stops to analyze the
individual cartoons, to take them apart and discover the essence of
their humor, the incisive edge of their irony and satire, one finds
that there is nothing really new in them; that the basic principles of
caricature were all understood as well in the eighteenth century as in
the nineteenth, and that, in many cases, the successful cartoon of
to-day is simply the replica of an old one of a past generation,
modified to fit a new set of facts. When Gilbert Stuart drew his
famous "Gerrymander" cartoon, he was probably not the first artist to
avail himself of the chance resemblance of the geographical contour of
a state or country to some person or animal. He certainly was not the
last. Again and again the map of the United States has been drawn so
as to bring out some significant similarity, as recently when it was
distorted into a ludicrous semblance of Mr. Cleveland, bending low in
proud humility, the living embodiment of the principle, _L'Etat c'est
Moi_; or again, just before our war with Spain, when it was so drawn
as to present a capital likeness of Uncle Sam, the Atlantic and Gulf
States forming his nose and mouth, the latter suggestively opened to
take in Cuba, which is swimming dangerously near. _Puck's_ famous
"Tattooed Man" was only a new application of an idea that had been
used before; while the representation of a group of leading
politicians as members of a freak show, a circus, or a minstrel
troop, is as old as minstrels or dime museums themselves. Few leading
statesmen of the past half century have not at some time in their
career been portrayed as Hamlet, or Macbeth, or Richard III.; while as
for the conventional use of animals and symbolic figures to represent
the different nations, the British Lion and the Russian Bear, Uncle
Sam and French Liberty, these belong to the raw materials of
caricature, dating back to its very inception as an art. And yet,
while the means used are essentially the same as in the days of
Hogarth and Cruikshank, the results are radically different.
[Illustration: The World (Newspaper).]
[Illustration: Horatius Cleveland at the Bridge.
_From New York "Life."_]
[Illustration: Bernard Gillam of "Judge."]
The reason for this difference may be summed up in a single
word--Journalism. The modern cartoon is essentially journalistic, both
in spirit and in execution. The spasmodic single sheets of Gillray's
period, huge lithographs that found their way to the public through
the medium of London print shops, were long ago replaced by the weekly
comic papers, while to-day these in turn find formidable rivals in
the cartoons which have become a feature of most of the leading daily
journals. The celerity with which a caricature is now conceived and
executed, thanks to the modern mechanical improvements and the
prevailing spirit of alertness, makes it possible for the cartoonist
to keep pace with the news of the day, to seize upon the latest
political blunder, the social fad of the moment, and hit it off with a
stroke of incisive irony, without fear that it will be forgotten
before the drawing can appear in print. The consequences of all this
modern haste and enterprise are not wholly advantageous. Real talent
is often wasted upon mediocre ideas under the compulsion of producing
a daily cartoon, and again a really brilliant conception is marred by
overhaste in execution, a lack of artistic finish in the detail.
Besides, the tendency of a large part of contemporary cartoons is
toward the local and the ephemeral. This is especially true of the
caricatures which appear during an American political campaign, in
which every petty blunder, every local issue, every bit of personal
gossip, is magnified into a vital national principle, a world-wide
scandal. And when the morning after the election dawns, the business
settles down into its wonted channel, these momentous issues, and the
flamboyant cartoons which proclaimed them, suddenly become as trivial
and as empty as a spent firecracker or Roman candle.
[Illustration: Joseph Keppler of "Puck."]
But another change which the spirit of journalism has wrought in the
contemporary cartoon, and a more vital change than any other, is due
to the definite editorial policy which lies behind it. The dominant
note in all the work of the great cartoonists of the past, in the
English Gillray and the French Daumier, was the note of individualism.
Take away the personal rancor, the almost irrational hatred of "Little
Boney" from Gillray, take away Daumier's mordant irony, his fearless
contempt for Louis Philippe, and the life of their work is gone. The
typical cartoon of to-day is, to a large extent, not a one-man
production at all. It is frequently built up, piecemeal, one detail at
a time, and in the case of a journal like _Punch_ or _Judge_ or _Life_
often represents the thoughtful collaboration of the entire staff. In
the case of the leading dailies, the cartoon must be in accord with
the settled political policy of the paper, as much as the leading
articles on the editorial page. The individual preferences of the
cartoonist do not count. In fact, he may be doing daily violence to
his settled convictions, or he may find means of espousing both sides
at once, as was the case with Mr. Gillam, who throughout the
Cleveland-Blaine campaign was impartially drawing Democratic cartoons
for _Puck_ and suggesting Republican cartoons for _Judge_ at the same
time.
What the political cartoon will become in the future, it is dangerous
to predict. There is, however, every indication that its influence,
instead of diminishing, is likely to increase steadily. What it has
lost in ceasing to be the expression of the individual mind, the
impulsive product of erratic genius, it has more than gained in its
increased timeliness, its greater sobriety, its more sustained and
definite purpose. At certain epochs in the past it has served as a
vehicle for reckless scandal-mongering and scurrilous personal abuse.
But this it seems to have happily outgrown. That pictorial satire may
be made forceful without the sacrifice of dignity was long ago
demonstrated by Tenniel's powerful work in the pages of _Punch_. And
there is no doubt that a serious political issue, when presented in
the form of a telling cartoon, will be borne home to the minds of a
far larger circle of average every-day men and women than it ever
could be when discussed in the cold black and white of the editorial
column.
[Illustration: The John Bull Octopus in Egypt.
_From "Il Papagallo" (Rome)._]
[Illustration: A Hand against every Man.
_From London "Judy," April 13, 1892._]
[Illustration: The Stability of the Triple Alliance.
_From "Il Papagallo" (Rome)._]
Another interesting effect of the growing conservative spirit in
caricature is seen in the gradual crystallization of certain definite
symbolic types. Allusion has already been made, in earlier chapters of
this work, to the manner in which the conception of John Bull and
Uncle Sam and other analogous types, has been gradually built up by
almost imperceptible degrees, each artist preserving all the essential
work of his predecessor, and adding a certain indefinable something of
his own, until a certain definite portrait has been produced, a
permanent ideal, whose characteristic features the cartoonists of the
future could no more alter arbitrarily than they could the features of
Bismarck or Gladstone. And not only have these crystallized types
become accepted by the nation at large,--not only is Uncle Sam the
same familiar figure, tall and lanky, from the New York _Puck_ to the
San Francisco _Wasp_,--but gradually these national types have
migrated and crossed the seas, and to-day they are the common property
of comic artists of all nations. John Bull and the Russian Bear,
Columbia and the American Eagle, are essentially the same, whether we
meet them in the press of Canada, Australia, Cape Colony, or the
United States. And for the very reason that there is so little variety
in the obvious features, the mere physical contour, the subtler
differences due to race prejudice and individual limitations are all
the more significant and interesting. There are cases, and
comparatively recent cases, too, where race-prejudice has found
expression in such rampant and illogical violence as prompted many of
the Spanish cartoons during our recent war over Cuba, in which
Americans were regularly portrayed as hogs--big hogs and little hogs,
some in hog-pens, others running at large--but one and all of them as
hogs. The cartoonists of the Continent, Frenchmen, Germans, and
Italians alike, have difficulty in accepting the Anglo-Saxon type of
John Bull. Instead, they usually portray him as a sort of sad-faced
travesty upon Lord Dundreary, a tall, lank, much bewhiskered "milord,"
familiar to patrons of Continental farce-comedy. But it is not in
cases like these that race prejudice becomes interesting. There is
nothing subtle or suggestive in mere vituperation, whether verbal or
pictorial, any more than in the persistent representation of a nation
by a type which is no sense representative. On the other hand, the
subtle variations of expression in the John Bull of contemporary
American artists, or the Uncle Sam of British caricature, will repay
careful study. They form a sort of sensitive barometer of public
sentiment in the two countries, and excepting during the rare periods
of exceptional good feeling there is always in the Englishman's
conception of Uncle Sam a scarce-concealed suggestion of crafty malice
in place of his customary kindly shrewdness, while conversely, our
portrayal of John Bull is only too apt to convert that bluff,
honest-hearted country gentleman into a sort of arrogant blusterer,
greedy for gain, yet showing the vein of cowardice distinctive of the
born bully.