“Campaign Cigar” (October 12, 1936)
by Hugh McMillen Hutton (1897-1976)
12 x 18 in., ink and crayon on heavy board
Coppola Collection

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.

In April 1935, still struggling with the Great Depression, the US dramatically increased funds for helping the unemployed by creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA), an agency to employ 3.5 million people nationally with a budget of almost $5 billion. The federal government ended direct relief or handouts (states would do that) and focused on providing jobs in federal agencies like the WPA. Roosevelt insisted that WPA wages exceed levels for handouts but not wages in the private sector.

During the 1936 Democratic gubernatorial primaries, promises by local WPA leadership in exchange for political support surfaced. In North Carolina, $25,000 was given to the local WPA chief to distribute, in exchange for lists of key WPA personnel in the state. The incumbent Senator used lists of WPA personnel in his 1936 reelection campaign. The relief agency, with thousands of employees, had a significant influence in close Democratic primaries.

In 1939 Congress passed the Hatch Act, which limited political activities of federal employees, such as those in the WPA. Damn those quid-pro-quo laws, anyhow!

“Salesman Comes Back from the Road” (August 23, 1936)
by Gerald Aloysius (Jerry) Doyle, Jr. (1898-1986)
14 x 17 in., ink on board

Jerry Doyle spent most of his career at The Philadelphia Record, The Philadelphia Daily News (1951) and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He retired in 1973. Doyle’s support for the New Deal meant that his cartoons generally expressed support for President Roosevelt, whom he depicted as tall, imposing, powerful, and larger-than-life. Doyle’s early and continual criticism towards Hitler and Mussolini made him the only American cartoonist to be put on the Nazi hit list. He wrote the book “According to Doyle – A Cartoon History of World War II” (1943). His son, who carried his name, was also a part-time cartoonist (1926-2009).

James Farley was the mastermind of FDR’s early campaigns, and was particularly effective during the campaign of the first re-election in 1936. He was one of the first to use polling effectively.

Historians of political polls know of the 1936 fiasco of the Literary Digest poll, which was forecasting a big win for PDR’s opponent, Alf Landon. The Digest was the gospel of its day, but Farley had a different impression, declaring publically, “Landon will only carry Maine and Vermont. 7 electoral votes.”

And on election day, he was exactly correct.

“Track and Field Competition” (July 20, 1936)
by Phil Berube (1913-1989)
7.5 x 8.5 in., ink on heavy board
Coppola Collection

Berube was a sports cartoonist for the AP. During his career he also took over the art chores on a youth-oriented AP comic strip called “Oh, Diana!” He is also listed as a comic book artist, and writer, for Superman, during the mid-1940s.

The 1936 Summer Olympics were infamously hosting in Berlin, August 1-16, and opened by Chancellor Adolf Hitler. To outdo the 1932 LA Games, Hitler had a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium built. The games were the first to be televised, and radio broadcasts reached 41 countries.

Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy and antisemitism, and the official Nazi party paper wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be allowed to participate in the Games.

The US came in second (to the Germans) in the 1936 medal count.

This cartoon, coming from just before the opening ceremonies, features the Track and Field Team.

Recall that team member Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events and became the most successful athlete to compete in Berlin. Owens’s success at the games represented an unpleasant consternation for Hitler, who was using them to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. There were other controversies, over the years, about the recognition that Owens did or did not get from Hitler (and from FDR) following his wins.