Frederick Burr Opper - Nate and His Night Riders - C.1921 Political Cartoon - Shakespeare and KKK

I'm pleased to add a wild Frederick Burr Opper editorial cartoon to my collection, from my favorite bigfoot period of his. There is a lot to unpack in this piece, so let me start with some of the characters:

Nathan Miller: Miller became Governor of New York in 1920, defeating Alfred E. Smith, only to loose the governorship to Smith in 1922.

George McAneny: McAneny was the executive manager of the New York Times, later becoming the New York City Comptroller. During Miller's governorship, McAneny chaired the New York State Transit Commission.

William Prendergast: Prendergast was a businessman and politician who was the New York City Comptroller in the early part of the 20th century. During Miller's term as Governor, Prendergast became the chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission.

Henry H. Curran: Curran was a longtime New York City politician. In 1921, he was the Republican for mayor of New York City, losing by 400,000 votes.

Night Riders: In the context of this cartoon, the Night Riders refers to the Ku Klux Klan, though they have a deeper history of terrorizing tobacco farmers and African-Americans.

So here's the skinny about this piece, as best as I can discern: While governor, Miller pursued the reorganization of state government, reorganizing the Department of Labor, replacing the Industrial Commission with a single industrial commissioner. A three-member Industrial Board was created to issue, amend, and interpret the state Industrial Code Rules and to review and determine claims in workers' compensation cases. Also during Miller's administration, the two state public service districts were abolished and replaced by a single Public Service Commission with statewide authority over all public utilities except rapid transit in New York City, which was placed under a new Transit Commission. It is the Public Service Commission and State Transit Commission that this cartoon focuses on.

There is obviously a reference to Hamlet in the piece, as Miller holds the head of Yorick, AKA "New York Citizen". In the audience are the lesser-but-powerful politicians behind the men on the stage.

There is a lot of text in the piece, which I will attempt to translate here:

"The curtain rose slowly, revealing the great Shakespearean revival of Nate Miller's Up-State Klans. In the foreground were George and William as the Two Drominos. Some comedians, all right. To the left we see Nate as Hamlet. There's a grandeur and solemnity about Nate's reading of the part that is simply nifty. To the right there is that sterling tragedian Brother Curran as Richard the Third, trying to decide which horse he'd better ride. His name is liable to be changed to Dennis whichever one he picks. But hold on till you see what they did after the show. You'd never guess. As soon as the curtain went down there was a roar of -- To be continued"

Hoo boy. I do love Opper's over-the-top stuff.