The Press: Cartoonists In Chicago

Twanging, one-eyed Cartoonist Carey Cassius Orr left the Nashville Tennessean 19 years ago to join the Chicago Tribune as No. 2 cartoonist. First draughtsman of the Tribune then as now was John Tinney McCutcheon. Fortnight ago the Tribune again raided the Tennessean for an artist. It was announced that to the Chicago paper on Aug. 1 would go 30-year-old Joseph Parrish, whose work Cartoonist Orr and Tribune Publisher Robert Rutherford McCormick had been quietly admiring. Packing up in Nashville, Democratic Cartoonist Joe Parrish drawled: “Now I reckon I’ll have to learn how to draw Republican elephants.”

Lack of such frankly partisan symbols in McCutcheon’s celebrated cartoons was undoubtedly one reason why another political artist was sought for the Tribune. For three years gentle, grey Cartoonist McCutcheon, now 66, has conserved his strength by taking frequent long vacations, sometimes drawing only three cartoons a week when on duty. In his anxiety to flay the New Deal Publisher McCormick has not been enthusiastic about Mr. McCutcheon’s calm, unvitriolic pictures. Last May Colonel McCormick deleted a pro-New Deal McCutcheon cartoon. On two other occasions McCutcheon drawings have been jerked from the Tribune after appearing in its ”bull-dog” edition.

With the Presidential campaign coming to a boil, Publisher McCormick is prepared to use all his journalistic resources to try to defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Therefore, Tribune readers last weekconfidently expected to see on Page 1 more & more of able Cartoonist Orr’s aggressive New Deal attacks, while Cartoonist Joe Parrish backs him up by interpreting McCormick ideas on the editorial page.