As a tyke, I never dreamed of growing up to be a political activist/ commentator, but here I am, and it's worked out pretty well for me. I've been lucky enough to have a voice in public matters and eke out a modest living running my mouth as an independent populist agitator. Still, I have to confess to the sin of Job Envy. Not in the sense of being resentful, but regretful about my own inability to lift the trade of journalistic commentary to the heights attained by a small, feisty collection of unique public opinionators: Political cartoonists.

In framing issues and rallying people to think and act, these journalists have an unfair advantage over us mere word crafters. They can literally draw a picture to make their point! Thus, they reach masses of people viscerally as well as cerebrally. And visceral usually outpunches cerebral. Editorial cartooning is a profession made up largely of progressive mavericks who enter the social-political-cultural fray with an abundance of anti-establishment audacity, an eye for irony, a fondness for the underdog, an ability to laugh at absurdity ... plus artistic talent.

A classic example of this irreverent type is Art Young, who a century ago was part of the freewheeling staff of an iconoclastic magazine, The Masses. In 1917, at the onset of U.S. entry into World War I, he produced a bombshell of a cartoon titled "Having Their Fling." It showed four warmongering characters — a capitalist, a newspaper editor, a politician and a minister — dancing ecstatically to the drums of war, conducted by Beelzebub himself. The mighty U.S. government (then led by Democrat Woodrow Wilson) hated the mockery and promptly dragged the little magazine into court, charging that its cartoons were undermining the war effort. The humorless federal prosecutor demanded that Young explain what he meant:

"Meant? ...You have the picture in front of you."

"There isn't anything in there about recruiting and enlistment, is there? I don't believe in war, that's all, and I said so."

A hung jury refused to convict, so our government convened a new jury, but that group of citizens also didn't convict.

Victory! Yes, but bittersweet, for free speech actually isn't free, especially for a small publication forced to mount a long-term court battle against the power of a government wielding the suffocating flag of war. The financial costs of defending itself — and American liberty — forced The Masses to shut down. But they couldn't shut down Art Young, who kept drawing elsewhere.

Because cartooning is an expression of the human spirit that has been irrepressible since cave drawings, generation after generation of pen-and-ink champions of democracy like Young have blossomed. Moreover, the general public's appreciation and demand for the cartoonist's sharp-pointed honesty and satire have never flagged, even increasing whenever the artists come under public assault by autocrats, plutocrats, theocrats, cultists, racists, demagogues, screwballs and assorted other censors.

It's been my good fortune to get to know, work with, be inspired by and benefit from many of these free spirits as I've hopscotched through a career as campaign organizer, editor, author, candidate, elected official, commentator, newsletter writer, and general anti-establishment imp. During my time as Texas agriculture commissioner, for example, our battle to restrain the poisonous power of the pesticide lobby was better advanced by the stinging pen of Austin's Pulitzer-Prize winning cartooning genius, Ben Sargent, than by all of my own rhetorical harangues against the industry's deadly abuses. I know from experience that cartoonists matter.

Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes "The Hightower Lowdown," a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America's ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.

Photo credit: wir_sind_klein at Pixabay