Herblock Gallery
Herblock Looks at 1973: Fifty Years Ago in Editorial Cartoons

Reacting to the epidemic level of flu cases in January 1973, Herblock repurposed a cartoon drawing that he had published in reaction to a flu epidemic in 1968 in which he had used alcohol as a metaphor. Dubbed the “London Flu” by the press, the 1972–1973 outbreak was not as severe as the 1968 pandemic but still led to somewhere between 6,000 and 23,000 deaths from the flu and pneumonia.

By showing business people aloft in a hot air balloon having hooked a consumer who frowns at “living costs,” Herblock compared differing expectations between those who made goods and those who had to pay for them. Economists, in looking back, acknowledged that wholesale prices did not rise as much as consumer goods, leading to larger business profits. A combination of high international demand and bad weather led to skyrocketing food prices in January 1973.

Arguing that increasing the minimum wage from $1.60 to $2 was inflationary, President Nixon vetoed congressional legislation. Herblock contrasted a low-wage worker anchored to the floor and stretched by inflationary prices with the cocktail-drinking businessman standing next to the president. Given that inflation had driven up the cost of living 35% since the previous minimum wage increase in 1967, union leaders reacted, calling the veto, “a callous, cruel blow to the worst paid workers in America.” Under pressure of increasing inflation, Nixon acquiesced to the increase in 1974.

Before the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) imposed an embargo on the United States on October 19, 1973, oil companies waged an internal war on independent gas stations. Independent stations had been purchasing excess gasoline not sold to branded stations. Producers imposed supply limitations to support their own brands of gasoline, which forced hundreds of independent stations, mostly in rural areas, to close. Herblock juxtaposed advertisements for large vehicles with the lack of available gasoline.

When the White House requested to further delay implementation of the Clean Air Act of 1970 controls on automobile pollutants, Herblock used the visual metaphor of President Nixon tossing a bag of garbage into the face of a hiker. The automobile industry wanted to delay installation of catalytic converters on tailpipes, which put it in direct conflict with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nixon had created the EPA in 1970.

In 1973, Nixon addressed the nation seeking congressional legislation to restore the death penalty after the Supreme Court had ruled it “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Constitution. Nixon also called for longer sentences, castigating “permissive judges.” At the same time, he invoked the privilege of “executive power” to prevent his counsel, John W. Dean III, from testifying during the Senate nomination hearing for FBI director L. Patrick Gray III. Herblock used the visual metaphor of a garbage can to express his opinion.

Republican Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut opened the televised Senate Watergate hearings on May 17, 1973, with the statement, “So the story to come has its significance not in the acts of men breaking, entering, and bugging the Watergate, but in the acts of men who almost stole America.” Herblock, too, compared the somber hearings with the celebratory victory six months earlier, using the term “election return” not as a vote tally but as a moment to consider the machinations affecting the electoral process.

On August 29, 1973, as Richard Nixon resisted handing over his Oval Office tapes, Judge John Sirica, Chief Judge of the United States District Court in Washington, DC, ordered their release to him for review before deciding whether to turn over to the grand jury. The Nixon administrative invoked “executive privilege” and a constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, but failed to persuade both Sirica—and upon appeal, the Supreme Court. Herblock approved of the judge’s decision, seeing as one of the cartoon’s proposed titles suggested, “government of laws.”

Using a plumber as an allusion to the break-in at the Democratic National Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel the previous year, Herblock depicted the efforts to which the Nixon administration went—unsuccessfully—to hide corruption and scandal. As testimony to the Senate showed, the Nixon administration was complicit in a number of illegal reelection schemes and other actions that abused executive power and undermined the electoral process.

As testimony to the Senate Committee increasingly implicated President Richard Nixon in the Watergate break-in, as well as other election scandals, the president resolutely denied involvement. In a television speech on August 15, 1973, he insisted that he had made no offers of executive clemency to those involved in the break-in, despite testimony to the contrary. Here, Herblock turned the tables on the president’s speech, having him facing a mirror and offering himself a pardon with the evidence of his illegal actions surrounding him.

Pen used by Herbert L. Block (Herblock). Gift of Brian Noyes, 2010. Herbert L. Block Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (011.00.00)