Herblock Gallery
Herblock Looks at 1964: Fifty Years Ago in Editorial Cartoons, Part II

In June 1964, natural gas producers pressured President Johnson not to extend F.E.P. Commissioner Charles R. Ross to a second term. Turning up the heat, the industry lobbied Congress, the White House, and the Federal Power Commission. Herblock wrote, “Some of these seem to be under the impression that the agencies exist to serve the industries they’re supposed to regulate….”

Weeks before the 1964 United States presidential election, the Soviets announced Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894–1971) “retirement” on October 15, 1964. The news caused international concern that the policy of “peaceful co-existence with the West” might come to an end. Herblock feared that international instability would undermine the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In 1946, he had created Mr. Atom, a menacing warhead that frequently appeared in his Cold War cartoons as a metaphor for the fragility of life.

By the end of 1964, more than a year after the November 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Congress failed to pass significant gun control legislation. Herblock vented his frustration using sarcasm and exaggeration. Members of the National Rifle Association, divided over the issue of controlling mail-order gun purchases, unified their opposition to new laws proposed in nearly every state. Harper’s Magazine reacted to their resistance to gun licenses, calling the NRA a “high-powered pressure group . . . within gunshot of the White House.”

An investigation into the deaths of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney revealed a Ku Klux Klan plot that particularly targeted Schwerner and Goodman because they were Jewish. Herblock drew this cartoon in response to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s mass arrest on December 4, 1964, of twenty-one men involved in their murders. Those charged in the crimes included Neshoba County sheriff Lawrence A. Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price.

Despite both the military and financial assistance provided to Vietnam, both the Johnson Administration and Herblock despaired over the lack of clout the United States held. Herblock used the visual metaphor of an American soldier tripping backwards down a staircase to symbolize faltering prestige. In December 1964, General Nguyen Khanh overthrew a fledging Vietnamese civilian government and spoke out against U.S. ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor and his foreign policy. Khanh warned if Taylor did not “act more intelligently, the United States will lose Southeast Asia and we will lose our freedom.”

While Herblock frequently drew cartoons about the Republican Party candidates during the 1964 presidential election, this sunny cartoon, depicting everything “coming up roses,” expresses the cartoonist’s feelings about Lyndon Baines Johnson just five months after the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Johnson announced his Great Society program to eliminate poverty on April 24, 1964, a program of which Herblock approved.

By having a Barry Goldwater delegate crush an image of President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) as the Republican Party held its presidential nomination convention in San Francisco, Herblock makes it clear that he saw the Republican Party divorcing itself from its historic past with its shift to the right. Because enforcing the newly signed Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a political platform issue, Herblock and other journalists noted the increasing racism from the party that had freed the slaves.

Herblock used a wild, ghoulish tree sporting the eyeglasses of Republican Party presidential nominee Barry Goldwater to portray what he saw as the candidate’s pessimism and negativity. In the last three weeks before the November 3, 1964, election, Goldwater attacked Johnson’s policies and stated that “the time has come for the Democratic Party to change its name to the Socialist Party.” Chastising voters, Goldwater stated that American moral fiber is “beset with rot and decay.” Goldwater lost the election by a wide margin, winning 38.5 percent of the popular vote and carrying only six states.

Bemoaning the endless negativity in election advertisements, Herblock portrays a couple sitting on a couch wishing they could watch horror shows. The Democratic Party’s famous advertisement featuring a little girl counting petals on a daisy while nuclear holocaust ensued rarely aired during the 1964 election, but its pessimistic tone echoed throughout mass media. As a result, political advertising itself became a campaign issue. The Democratic Party hired ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach to shape their image; the party won not only the presidency but maintained control of the House and Senate.

Days before Americans celebrated Thanksgiving in 1964, Herblock used the turkey as a metaphor for right-wing Republicans, which he believed had the potential to cleave the party into two. Because Republicans had lost seats in the House, they were still the minority party in Congress and had lost the presidential election. Herblock argued “it certainly looked as if the party needed new direction and brighter, more attractive leadership if it was not determined to plod on to wherever it is that the elephants go to die.”