Running For Office: Candidates, Campaigns, And The Cartoons Of Clifford Berryman Exhibit
Connecticut Old State House, Hartford
Through Nov. 11
One constant runs through American politics: Everyone thinks that their elected officials are the worst ever.
For that reason, I found a current exhibit of political cartoons by Clifford Berryman oddly reassuring. It showed that even though the names and faces of the players change, the issues remain the same. Politicians were doing the same old thing 100 years ago that we complain about now, and will probably still be doing them a hundred years to come.
Berryman was a political cartoonist for almost 60 years. His career starting in 1891 as an understudy at the Washington Post, and ended at the Washington Evening Star with his death in 1949. During that time Berryman drew almost every day, commenting on Washington politics, various scandals, and, of course, the foibles of elected officials. Some 2,400 of his original pen-and-ink drawings were preserved and gathered in a collection that is housed at the Center for Legislative Archives in Washington, D.C. The exhibit on display in Hartford features recreations of some of Berryman’s most famous works.
Perhaps Berryman’s most enduring contribution to American discourse has nothing to do with politics at all. If you’ve ever owned a teddy bear, then you have Berryman to thank for it. After hearing the story about how President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear on a hunting trip, Berryman introduced the “teddy” bear to his cartoons when drawing the president. Entrepreneurs and toy makers around the country were inspired, and soon the teddy bear stuffed toy we all know and love was born. You can see the bear in a self-portrait that Berryman drew in 1904.
Berryman’s more topical pieces may not have achieved the lasting impact of his teddy bear, but his keen eye and sharp wit still speak to the issues we face today, such as matters of war and peace. As war rages in Ukraine and now in Israel and Gaza, it has felt to me that the federal government has been consumed with managing conflicts halfway around the world rather than governing at home. Berryman noticed the same trend back in 1917, drawing “I’d Almost Forgotten About You” to satirize the obsession with prosecuting World War I to the exclusion of almost everything else, even elections.
Looking back at the past shows that even unique political figures like Donald Trump aren’t actually new. Berryman’s cartoon “Yes, We Have No Ambitions Today!” illustrates how business magnates like Henry Ford have played fast and loose with presidential politics.
My favorites of the exhibit were the cartoons that showed that political campaigning has been the same across time. There has been so much hand wringing about modern polling, our reliance on it and its fallibility. There’s no better example though than “What’s the Use of Going Through With the Election?” a cartoon published just before the 1948 election that showed Thomas E. Dewey far ahead of incumbent Harry Truman in the polls. (We all know what happened next.)
What about the aspect of modern campaigning where candidates crisscross the United States , chasing electoral votes in obscure, retail-politics-demanding fairs? “Summer Schedule” shows Ohio Sen. Robert Taft planning out his own political road trip.
And at the end of the day, politicians have always said one thing while meaning another, whether it’s about cutting taxes in “Ain’t Politics Grand?” …
… or talking out both sides of one’s mouth, as Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace was caught doing in “Which of the Two Faces is Right, Harry?”
Exhibits like these show that although politics is often a hard-nosed, serious business, there’s room for fun and good-natured insults as well. All of those problems that Berryman captured must have seemed intractable at the time, the scandals enormous. The people back then survived and overcame. The lesson is that we will too.
NEXT
The Old State House hosts the next installment in the Hartford History Lecture Series, titled “Tales & Treasures: Exploring Hartford Through Trinity College Archives & Watkinson Library” on Oct.12.
Jamil travels to Massachusetts to rock all the way out.
