Not this century has a presidential campaign so severely tested the talent and originality of political cartoonists as the contest between Herbert Clark Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Even the best of the craft have had a hard time getting its essence down in black & white, while those below the best have sunk to new depths of routine caricature.
In 1928 cartoonists had sharp, tangible issues to work with—the Brown Derby,the Noble Experiment, the Church in Poli tics, Raddio, Two Cars in Every Garage—a Chicken in Every Pot. This year the election turns on larger but less concrete issues. At work below the surface are economic forces too abstract and complex for the average cartoonist to depict—the Gold Standard, War Debts, a Balanced Budget, 50¢ wheat, "Pork," "Panic," Credit Inflation, a Change. The Republicans are fighting a defensive battle on a Record that does not lend itself to easy lampooning. Ridicule of the Democratic attack has been mostly superficial and clumsy. The only new personality to enter the campaign is the Forgotten Man, and no cartoonist knows who he is, where he lives, what he looks like. Over the whole political scene rests the gloom of hard times, with the electorate in no laughing mood. Affected by this atmosphere cartoonists are inclined to become draftsmen of despair, replacing good-natured fun with partisan bitterness, amusing irony with glum sarcasm.
Despite such handicaps the Hoover-Roosevelt struggle has added considerably to cartoon history. In four years no new cartoonist has arisen to set enterprising editors bidding against each other for his services, but the top-notchers of 1928 have amply maintained their prestige and reputation.
One notable feature of this year's campaign is the support William Randolph Hearst is giving Governor Roosevelt in the form of cartoon criticism of President Hoover. Four years ago Publisher Hearst was on the other side of the political fence and his battery of cartoonists flayed the Democracy as a bejeweled "Diamond Lil" escorted by John Jacob Raskob. Now Mr. Hearst has a Democratic nominee for President of his own choosing and his guns are reversed upon the White House.