22 February 2008
National Archives Shows Political Cartoons To Mark Election Year
Openly expressed political humor sign of free society, Senate leaders say
Washington -- The National Archives has launched a two-pronged celebration of this U.S. election year, coupling an exhibition of early 20th-century political cartoonist Clifford Berryman’s work with a panel discussion featuring four of his modern-day successors, all Pulitzer Prize winners.
Berryman, who worked for the Washington Post and then the Washington Evening Star from 1891 until his death in 1949, depicted presidents from Cleveland to Truman, winning his own Pulitzer in 1944.
Some 2,400 cartoons he created over that stretch found their way to the archives, repository of the nation’s most important documents, in an unusual way: Stored in vermin-infested trash bags in the basement of the Washington home Berryman had shared with his daughter, Florence, they were discovered -- just before being discarded -- on her death in 1992.
The Charles Engelhard Foundation purchased them for donation to the U.S. Senate, which sent them to the archives to join other congressional records already housed there.
Forty-four of the drawings directly related to election campaigns and politics are on display in the current exhibition, Running for Office.
In a foreword to the exhibition catalog, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, cite Berryman’s role as he “tweaked some of the pretensions of those who led our nation through those trying times.”
“His cartoons remind us that one of the greatest distinctions between a free society and a dictatorship is the ability to express political humor openly and candidly,” they write.
Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States, stressed the cartoons’ continuing relevance after more than half a century. “From the decision to throw one’s hat in the ring [declare one’s candidacy], to the candidates angling for votes, and to election-day anxieties, the nation’s political rituals have remained remarkably consistent,” Weinstein said.
But while political processes may have changed little, cartoons by participants in the February 7 panel discussion, shown during that session, suggest that political cartooning has changed more markedly -- both in terms of the style of artwork and the approach of its practitioners.
Drawing techniques appear to have shifted more toward caricature from Berryman’s meticulously realistic pen-and-ink output.
As for approach, Martha Grove, archivist for the exhibition, observed that Berryman was respected widely by politicians for his kindly and even-handed stance. A look through the exhibition shows nothing more aggressive that a portrayal of a literally two-faced Henry Wallace, a third-party candidate for president in 1948, each face voicing diametrically opposed views on defense policy.
Today’s cartoonists can be considerably more direct: A sample cartoon by Ann Telnaes, the 2001 Pulitzer winner, is captioned, “Spreading Democracy in the Middle East.” It shows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice executing a balletic leap above a curved horizon, strewing missiles in all directions as she goes.
Another cartoon, by Clay Bennett, who won while with the Christian Science Monitor in 2002, shows a ballot inscribed “Decision 2008” above a column of boxes marked with the names of six presidential primary candidates and a seventh choice, “A Root Canal.” The voter has checked off the last box.
In interviews with America.gov, the cartoonists suggested they see their work as a vehicle for expressing themselves and consider any influence they might have on public opinion as simply a bonus.
Pat Oliphant, the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world and winner of the 1967 Pulitzer, acknowledged that he does hope his work carries some weight, but added, “I’ve never seen any great impact.”
Matt Davies, syndicated by Tribune Media Services and the 2004 Pulitzer winner, confided, “I don’t really have enough of an ego to think that I will influence.”
He described his cartooning efforts as “something that’s no different than a reader who writes a letter to the editor, and so my voice is heard, and that’s almost icing on the cake. When it does influence, it’s nice, but it’s not a driving force.”
Bennett had an unequivocal response when asked whether he seeks to sway opinion. “Is that my intent? Hell, yeah,” he said. “I would love to convince everybody to think the way I think. So far, the proof of that is absolutely zero, but that doesn’t mean I should stop trying. … My intent is to encourage my point of view and to discourage the opposing viewpoint, [often] … through ridicule.”
Shifting into the verbal equivalent of cartoon mode, Bennett added: “To tell you the truth, my views aren’t really doctrinaire. A lot of times, I think the Republicans are wrong, and at other times I think they’re really wrong. But sometimes both the Republicans and the Democrats are wrong. It’s not as though I think one party has the market cornered on truth. But I do, that’s the difference.”
During the panel discussion, Telnaes, a Disney animator before becoming a political cartoonist, described her new approach in producing two animated Internet cartoons weekly for Washingtonpost.com. Moderator Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, described the technique as “the wave of the future.”
But Bennett told America.gov that while he sees animated cartoons as “part of the future,” he remains optimistic about a continued role for print media. “Right now, you can’t take your computer on the bus with you, or on the subway, and it’s really hard to take it into the bathroom. As long as we have those places that are [inaccessible] to digital media, it’ll be the salvation of print,” he said.
