1933.03.20 “?”
by Charles Henry (Bill) Sykes (1882-1942)
14 x 17 in., ink on coquille board

Sykes was an American cartoonist associated with the Philadelphia Public Ledger and Evening Ledger from 1911 until its closing in 1942. He was the regular editorial cartoonist for LIFE magazine (1922-1928) and a regular contributor to Collier’s and the New York Evening Post. Sykes’s early work was distinguished by usage of coquille board for shading. His later work incorporated crayon and wash. Sykes’s technique was described as “amiable. His perspectives were unique, his anatomy precise, and his shading almost theatrical.”

This example is particularly well done, representing the artistry of cartooning.

FDR and the Three R’s: Relief, Recovery, Reform

FDR’s inauguration was early March 1933. On March 6-10, President Roosevelt declared a national banking holiday as a prelude to opening the banks on a sounder basis. The Hundred Days Congress/Emergency Congress (March 9-June 16, 1933) passed a series laws to help improve the state of the country. This Congress also passed some of FDR’s New Deal programs, which focused on: relief, recovery, reform.

Short-range goals were relief and immediate recovery, and long-range goals were permanent recovery and reform. In the New Deal programs, Congress gave the President unprecedented “blank-check” powers, which included the ability of the President to create legislation. The New Deal legislation embraced progressive ideas like unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, minimum-wage regulations, conservation and development of natural resources, and restrictions on child labor. Many of the programs that gave the President this authority were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The authority of the FDR presidency never went away. In an editorial written in 1936, in the November 11 edition of The New Republic title “Mr. Roosevelt’s Blank Check,” the staff writers posed that “if Mr. Roosevelt has any mandate from the electorate, it is a mandate to remain President and do what he wishes.”

“What will the administration write on this blank check? A reelected President is said to have an immense opportunity to act as a leader unhampered by practical politics. During his first term he is making a record for reelection; during his second, since according to custom he cannot run a third time, he is making a record for posterity. This dictum seems to us superficial, especially in the president circumstances. No President, in spite of the great power of his position, is a dictator. And even dictators have to conform with social forces in the end. What any President of the United States can do depends in large measure upon his control of Congress, his support by public opinion, the interaction of pressure groups. He can express ideas, he can wield the prestige of his personality and his office, but the limits of his effective action are determined by forces outside himself.”

“Wings Over Europe” (March 1, 1933)
by Hugh McMillen Hutton (1897-1976)
14 x 16 in., ink and crayon on heavy board

Hugh M. Hutton (1897-1976) was an American editorial cartoonist who worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer for over 30 years.

Hugh Hutton grew up with an artistic mother. After attending the University of Minnesota for two years, Hutton enlisted in the armed forces and served in World War I. Hutton pursued coursework in art through correspondence school, the Minneapolis School of Art and the Art Students League.

He worked at the New York World from 1930 to 1932 and with the United Features Syndicate in 1932 and 1933, drawing illustrations and comic strips. Hutton relocated to Philadelphia and worked as the cartoonist at the Public Ledger in 1933 and 1934. He became the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist in April 1934, where he stayed throughout his career, retiring in 1969.

Early 1933 is filled with pivotal moments.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler begins his first government service as the Germany’s Reichskanzier (chancellor), appointed by President Hindenburg.

Many expect him to start fixing Germany’s problems.

On February 1, the new Chancellor declared “More than fourteen years have passed since the unhappy day when the German people, blinded by promises from foes at home and abroad, lost touch with honor and freedom, thereby losing all… Communism with its method of madness is making a powerful and insidious attack upon our dismayed and shattered nation.”

On February 27-28, the fire in the Reichstag was a first step towards Hitler’s dictatorship.

On 27 February 1933, guards noticed the flames blazing through the roof. They overpowered the suspected arsonist, a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. He was executed after a show trial in 1934. Evidence of any accomplices was never found.
The Nazi leadership was quick to arrive at the scene. An eyewitness said that upon seeing the fire, Goering called out: ‘This is the beginning of the Communist revolt, they will start their attack now! Not a moment must be lost!’

Before he could go on, Hitler shouted: “There will be no mercy now. Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down.”

The next morning, President Von Hindenburg promulgated the Reichstag Fire Decree. It formed the basis for the dictatorship. The civil rights of the German people were curtailed. Freedom of expression was no longer a matter of course and the police could arbitrarily search houses and arrest people. The political opponents of the Nazis were essentially outlawed.

On March 4, 1933:

Hitler associates Marxism with the mass starvation in the Ukraine, and he associates Marxism with both communists and Germany’s Social Democrats, blurring over the differences between these two groups, while communists were avoiding an alliance with the Social Democrats and calling them frauds and “social fascists.”

FDR took office in the midst of the Great Depression.

Many expect him to start fixing America’s problems.

The next day, March 5, 1933:

FDR closes the banks for a few days.

Hitler’s party wins 43.9 percent rather than the more than 50 percent that Hitler was expecting. He is forced to maintain a coalition with the German National People’s Party. The Nazis begin a boycott of Jewish businesses throughout Germany.

On March 20, 1933, Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s SS paramilitary leader, opens the first Nazi concentration camp, at Dachau.

And on March 23, Chancellor Hitler moves for a vote in the Reichstag that allows him to make laws without consulting the Reichstag – the Enabling Act. He describes the German people as having been a victim of fourteen years of treason while under the Social Democrats and his party, the National Socialists as also having been victimized. He claims that the Social Democrats allowed Germany to be dictated to by foreign powers. He ends his speech saying that “the first and foremost task of the Government to bring about inner consensus with his aims… The rights of the Churches will not be curtailed and their position vis-à-vis the State will not be altered.” The previous jailing of Communist delegates allows Hitler the two-thirds majority he needs for passage, and the President signs it into law.

“Surely, Nippon, This Cannot Be Your Answer?” (February 24, 1933)
by Vernon Van Atta Greene (1904-1965)
12 x 16 in., ink on board

Greene started his cartoon career drawing sports cartoons for Oregon’s Portland Telegram (1927–29), the Toledo Blade (1930–32) and the New York Mirror (1934–37). He was a freelancer, and began working for King Features Syndicate in 1935, eventually drawing The Shadow daily strip (1940) for the Ledger Syndicate. After the war, he ghosted on a few strips, and eventually was the one who took over “Bringing Up Father” after George McManus’s death in 1954.

GENEVA, Feb. 24, 1933 (UP) – The Japanese delegation, defying world opinion, withdrew from the League of Nations Assembly today after the assembly had adopted a report blaming Japan for events in Manchuria.

The stunned international conclave, representing almost every nation on earth, sat in silence while the delegation, led by the dapper Yosuke Matsuoka, clad in black, walked from the hall. The crowded galleries broke into mingled hisses and applause.

Japan’s formal resignation from the league is expected to be filed later.

“We are not coming back,” Matsuoka said simply as he left the hall. The assembly’s report, recommending that Japan withdraw her troops occupying Manchuria and restore the country to Chinese sovereignty, was adopted, 52 to 1, Japan voting against it.

The session, which made history, signifying the final break between the league and one of the world’s major powers, was fairly brief and simple.

Matsuoka, usually typifying the placid oriental diplomat, was nervous before he began his speech, and abandoned the text before he finished. He shouted from the rostrum:

“Japan will oppose any attempt at international control of Manchuria. It does not mean that we defy you, because Manchuria belongs to us by right. Read your history. We recovered Manchuria from Russia. We made it what it is today.”

He referred to Russia, as well as China, as a cause for “deep and anxious
concern” for Japan.

“We look into the gloom of the future and can see no certain gleam of light before us,” Matsuoka declared. He reiterated that Manchuria was a matter of life and death for Japan, and than no concession or compromise was possible, saying: “Japan has been and will always be the mainstay of peace, order and progress in the Far East.”