Des Moines Register
12-09-07
Doak: As in Darling's day, make Iowa an outdoors magnet
The University of Iowa Library chose today to announce improved access to a
genuine treasure - a digital archive of the editorial cartoons of J.N. "Ding" Darling.
This is the 101st anniversary of Darling's employment by The Des Moines
Register, the newspaper where he would spend a half century while becoming
renowned not only as a cartoonist but as one of America's most important
conservationists.
In addition to thanking the University of Iowa for a splendid piece of historic
preservation, today's rededication of the Ding Darling digital collection provides
an occasion to reflect on one of the interesting aspects of Darling's career - his
desire to remain in Iowa when he could have lived anywhere.
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That desire, like many of his timeless cartoons, might still carry a message worth
thinking about.
Ding Darling (D'ing was a contraction of his last name) drew an estimated 15,000
cartoons and sketches in his career, which spanned two world wars and the
Great Depression. He gave away many of his original drawings, so a complete
archive does not exist, but the University of Iowa Library has been diligently
assembling as much as possible, beginning with 6,000 drawings donated to the
university in 1949.
The U of I collection has grown to 11,000. It has been online for a number of
years, but the revamped Web site being inaugurated today
(http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/ding/) is easier to search and navigate. Additions to
the collection include some of Darling's early work not previously posted, written
material and samples of voice recordings Darling made while dictating
correspondence.
Browsing the collection is like a journey in a time machine.
Star of his time
Darling, who retired from cartooning in 1949, worked in a pre-television, preInternet era. It might be difficult in today's video-saturated world to comprehend
how important newspaper cartoonists were in those days. Cartoonists'
caricatures and metaphors, not TV sound bites, shaped public perception.
Cartoonists like Darling were media stars, in the spotlight like today's network
anchors and late-night comics. Through syndication in 150 newspapers across
the country, Darling made a six-figure income that would be the equivalent today
of more than a million dollars a year. He was a world traveler and a personal
friend of presidents and other luminaries.
Darling spent much of his boyhood in Sioux City, roaming the sloughs and
prairies in South Dakota just across the river. His love of nature and
conservationist views pervaded his work, which wasn't limited to the drawing
board.
He was active in the conservation movement in Iowa and nationally. He financed
wildlife research at then-Iowa State College. He served on what was to become
the state Conservation Commission and spent nearly two years as director of the
U.S. Biological Survey, forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where he
launched the Duck Stamp program and worked for creation of wildlife refuges.
He inspired creation of the National Wildlife Federation.
Not a New Yorker
Through it all, Darling remained an Iowan to the core. He had a winter home in
Florida, but his permanent home, by preference, was in Des Moines.
As a cartoonist with a national following, he could have lived anywhere and did
try New York. He had begun his career in Sioux City, came to Des Moines in
1906 and in 1911 was lured away by the New York Globe, which must have
seemed like a natural progression to the big time.
He returned to Des Moines less than two years later. Darling's biographer, David
Lendt in "Ding: The Life of Jay Norwood Darling," quotes a letter Darling wrote to
a friend: "I would rather live in Sioux City on $25 a week than in New York on $40
and would live longer and much more happily at that."
Another letter said, "... if it wasn't for people saying I didn't make good down in
New York I would go back to the west tomorrow."
Iowa was considered part of the West in those days, and the open country was
surely part of what drew Darling back.
Darling tried New York briefly again in 1918-19, when his syndicate asked him to
move there. He remained employed by the Register, mailing his cartoons to Des
Moines, but soon gave up on the big city again.
One with nature
He explained why in an article "Why I Wouldn't Trade Des Moines for New York,"
published in The American Magazine. The article can be found in the U of I
collection.
"So far as making cartoons is concerned," Darling wrote, "I cannot see that it
would make any difference whether I live in New York, Des Moines or
Mozambique. The days when my cartoon 'falls' in the baking, any place would
seem disagreeable... And the days when I do 'ring the bell' I could be happy
anywhere in the world....
"But when it comes to doing a good job of really living, I can see nothing in
dwelling in New York that would tempt me to trade my present surroundings in
Des Moines, although there is nothing gorgeous or unusual about the little quiet
by-way off the main traveled road which ... I call home.
"It isn't so quiet though, after all, when you come to think of it; for John is digging
a 'pirate's' cave in the backyard.... Mary has discovered a pair of bluebirds
nesting in one of our trees, and has ruined one of her dresses in attempting to
get a 'close-up' of the operation. This morning four wild ducks flew up and down
the creek that skirts our backyard.
"And while we were at breakfast Kip dropped in to say that he'd be ready to start
for the duck slough at 4:30 this afternoon for the evening shoot, a night at the
farm house, an early breakfast of homemade sausage and a whole platter of
fresh eggs, and then the morning shoot, and home tomorrow in time for the day's
work."
Hello, neighbor
Darling also referred to the easy, drop-in friendships made in "the West." He
wrote, "And when I get up in the morning and go out on the front porch to get the
morning Register, Bill, who lives next door, is generally in his yard fixing his lawn
mower or trimming his hedge; and there is something about hallooing across lots
the first thing in the morning that is fine for starting you on your day's journey."
He concluded: "When I get over on the down-hill side of the game, so that the
editors look out from under their eyeshades when I go down to sell a picture, and
murmur under their breath, 'There comes old Ding with one of his damned oldfashioned cartoons,' I shall still be able to go up and down the streets of my
friendly old town and have people slap me on the back and call me by my first
name."
Great place to live
In Darling's day, it was rare to have an occupation, like syndicated cartooning,
that could be practiced anywhere of the worker's choosing.
Today, with the Internet and jet travel, many more occupations offer the option of
living anywhere, and many more companies see the need to establish operations
in places where their employees choose to live.
The message to Iowans today is: Make this the kind of place Ding would have
liked - open, friendly, clean, teeming with wildlife - and they will come.
An Iowa as Ding pictured it should be the Iowa we're trying to build.
RICHARD DOAK is a retired Register editor and columnist and a lecturer in
journalism at Iowa State University.