Part 2

Outside, in the cold Winter night, are the Democrats gazing hungrily into the lighted windows. The head of Mr. W. H. English, the defeated candidate for Vice-President, rises from a barrel, supposed to represent the large fortune which alone gave him any political standing. Mr. James Gordon Bennett appears in the character of a sportsman who has brought down a large owl-like bird having the features of Mr. John Kelly--the New York _Herald_ was credited with having obtained the local victory over the Tammany leader. “Up in a tree,” are Tilden, Wade Hampton, L. Q. C. Lamar, Chairman Barnum of the Democratic Committee, General B. F. Butler (constructively a Democrat, for cartoon purposes), and Thomas F. Bayard.

“To the man of statelier figure, who stands outside, but not among the shivering crowd of malcontents,” PUCK wished that year a Merry Christmas; and hoped that there would be many Merry Christmases for him, if not in the White House, at least “in the place where he well served the country.” The wish was vain: General Hancock died not long after.

“A SAIL! A SAIL!”

_PUCK, July 2nd, 1884._

This simple but effective cartoon hardly requires any further elucidation than is afforded by the date of its publication. It appeared on July 2nd, 1884, immediately after the nomination of Mr. Blaine at the Republican Convention at Chicago, and the consequent bolt of the Independent Republicans and so-called Mugwumps. With reference to the appearance in the picture of Mr. John Kelly in the attitude of a hostile savage, we need only say that the readiness of the Tammany Hall of that day to stab the Democratic Party in the back whenever it furthered its own ends by so doing was something that was more than suspected then, and that was conclusively proved in the first Cleveland and Harrison campaign.

SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

_PUCK, August 11th, 1886._

“Mr. Tilden’s death is to be regretted by his friends and by his political enemies. He was a man of principles and ideas. He had ambitions that looked higher than to the mere accumulation of money or the acquirement of that cheap, ephemeral power which flatters some small souls. And beside this he had courage and independence, and the breeding and education of a gentleman. Many were forced, by conscience and conviction, to oppose his political aspirations; but all found him an adversary to be respected, and a man of dignity and power. History must record of Samuel J. Tilden that he did his best to purify a great party fallen into a frightful moral decadence in its own Capuan stronghold,--must note his wonderful work in the cause of civic honesty and good government, and his loyalty to his country at a time when all his affiliations must have inclined him to disloyalty or to an indifferent neutrality. And more than this, History must say of him that he suffered a cruel wrong with dignified fortitude, and by his wisdom and self-restraint relieved his country from a well-grounded fear of dangerous civil disturbance. Remembering this, it is easy for the most partisan spirit to forget much else, and to do honor to the dead statesman and patriot.”--PUCK, _August 11th, 1886_.

LET US HAVE PEACE, NOW A PRESIDENT’S ELECTED.

_PUCK, November 3d, 1880._

PUCK for November 3d, 1880, went to press, of course, too early to receive the news of the result of the election. Consequently the cartoonist had to content himself with constructing this curious puzzle picture, in which may be found, with a little study, the portraits of the Republican and Democratic candidates, as well as those of many other prominent public men, including Mr. Roscoe Conkling, Mr. J. G. Blaine, Mr. Carl Schurz, Mr. Marshall P. Jewell, Mr. Chester A. Arthur, General U. S. Grant, Mr. R. B. Hayes, Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, Mr. Wm. H. English, General John A. Logan, Mr. John Kelly, (of New York City,) General B. F. Butler, Mr. Thos. F. Bayard, and Mr. Abram S. Hewitt.

“There is, moreover,” PUCK goes on to say, “something more in that cartoon. There is a gentle hint of a duty that we have forgotten too long, in the excitement of that wild political fight--the duty of going back to the plain old ideal of friendly federation which our forefathers had constantly in mind. We do not wish to talk any of the cheap cant about clasping hands over the bloody chasm. All the hand-shaking in the world won’t close a crevasse up. But is this nonsense to go on forever? We hope not. The work of the campaign is done. A President is elected. There will be no need of renewing the battle for another four years. Let us see if we can not use those four years in making preparations for a contest on a broader basis--on points less mean, less cheap and malicious. There is time, in these four years, for the honest men, North and South, to come to some understanding with each other; to make up their minds as to what are dead and what are living issues; to build up a new party, or two new parties, if need be, and to make the Presidential election of 1884 a respectable contest, between people who, however they may disagree on matters of principle or opinion, have all but one end in view--a wise and honest government.”

ON THE ROAD.

CONKLING.--Want a guide, sir? GARFIELD.--No; thank you!

_PUCK, February 2nd, 1881._

This cartoon sketches fairly the situation a month before Mr. Garfield’s inauguration in 1881. Mr. Conkling had shown a certain willingness to lend a hand to Mr. Garfield’s administration, and Mr. Garfield had shown no willingness whatever to accept the proffered hand. It was not to be expected that Mr. Conkling would prove himself an unreservedly loyal and disinterested Secretary of State, and there was little room for doubt that the desire of Messrs. Don Cameron and J. A. Logan to hold office under the President-Elect was of the most strictly selfish sort.

* * * * *

_Note.--As the word “Mentor,” on the flag over the distant dwelling-house shown in this cartoon, might be supposed to have some ulterior significance, it may be well to say that it is simply the name of Mr. Garfield’s home and P. O. address in Ohio._

A HUMILIATING SPECTACLE.

_PUCK, August 31st, 1881._

The situation, which this cartoon, published in PUCK of August 31st, 1881, commemorates after a peculiarly forcible fashion, is too unpleasant to invite further comment than is absolutely necessary to explain it. During the latter part of the Summer of 1881, while President Garfield lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, certain politicians of a peculiarly coarse fibre were unwilling to wait for his death to make their arrangements for the distribution of the spoils of office under his successor. These were not men who were in any way concerned in shaping the course of the government in matters of statecraft or policy; they were simply out for the spoils, as the phrase goes, and their undisguised eagerness was scandalous under the circumstances.

PUCK said at the time, with more moderation than, viewed in the light of subsequent events, the occasion called for: “Whether presidents live or die, the game of politics goes on. It is humiliating and deplorable, but it is nevertheless true that many professional politicians of more or less reputation are carefully laying their plans of procedure in the event of the decease of the dying President, We will not wrong these gentlemen by saying that they desire his death; but it is scarcely decent to raise even a discussion on the most trivial matter connected with mere machine politics, before the vital spark has fled from the body of the chief magistrate. Although his presumptive, or, to use a monarchical term, his apparent successor has acted throughout in a manly and modest way, there are political friends of his whose demeanor has not been distinguished by the sympathy and consideration that, at least, might be expected on such an occasion.”

UNCLE SAM’S LODGING HOUSE.

_PUCK, June 7th, 1882._

In 1882 (June 7th), when “Uncle Sam’s Lodging House” was drawn, the Irish “patriots,” who were trying to free their country by exploding dynamite in public places, had made this country their base of supplies, and were especially active in New York and Chicago. Their lawlessness created much excitement, and if it had not been that there was more bluster than performance about their pernicious liveliness they might have involved us in a war with Great Britain, in which we should certainly have lacked the moral support of our own conscience. These gentry did not relish the stand PUCK took in the matter, and their threats of reprisal by dynamite were frequent. The rate of letter postage had some time previously been reduced from three to two cents.

OPENING A LITTLE CAMPAIGN ALL BY HIMSELF.

_PUCK, September 6th, 1882._

The Summer of 1882 was just changing to Fall when Mr. Blaine made a notable speech at Portland, Me., which was generally received as an announcement of his determination to seek the nomination for the Presidency in 1884. In this speech, which attracted great attention, he stated with singular clearness his position in politics, affirming the moral right of the Republican Party to a continuance in rule on the strength of its record. This was, we believe, the first clear, frank and open enunciation of this idea in all its naked simplicity. It has formed since then the stock in trade of many candidates and of countless campaign orators, but the credit of putting it fairly and squarely before the people belongs to Mr. Blaine, and it should be noted that the time he chose to express his views was one in which most Republicans were offering apologies or explanations for the past and present shortcomings of their party. Mr. Blaine reaped no personal benefit from the enterprise he displayed in taking this bold stand, but he undoubtedly gave his party a lesson in audacity by which it profited materially. It was what might be called a “bluff,” and it was certainly a big and effective bluff. At the time when it was made its far-sighted cleverness was under-estimated, and its insincerity was so apparent that the reader of that day could have had little difficulty in seeing why PUCK suggested to Mr. Blaine to abandon his extreme and untenable position, and to take another, which would have been at once more credible and more popular. It is curious that the idea with which Mr. Blaine inspired his party should have been the means of his own undoing, and, in some measure, of electing Mr. Harrison to the Presidency over his head.

BLAINE LEAVING THE CAPITOL.--“I GO--BUT I RETURN!”

_PUCK, December 21st, 1881._

Mr. Blaine was the most highly honored of President Garfield’s cabinet officers. In the convention that nominated Mr. Garfield he had been, next to General Grant, Garfield’s most dangerous rival--or, perhaps it would be more correct to say that he might have been, had the time been ripe for him to exert his full strength. So, when President Garfield died, and Mr. Arthur, who had been an unpopular candidate for the Vice-Presidency, succeeded to the Presidential chair, two apparent probabilities interested the populace. It was assumed, of course, that a President must be a candidate for re-election and under such circumstances it was thought that in all likelihood Mr. Blaine would be far more powerful in the next convention than a President who owed his elevation to mere accident. Thus, when Mr. Blaine made his bow and retired from the cabinet formed by President Garfield, his very leaving seemed to imply a threat that he would return to Washington only to assume a prouder position.

PUCK of December 21st, 1881, says, discussing the possibility of Mr. Blaine’s election to the Presidency:

“There are two or three miracles which we would gladly see worked in this country. There is that great miracle which always seems near at hand, yet which never seems nearer--the miracle of a great popular awakening to a healthy political life.... Is it not a disgrace, indeed, that we should talk about electing to the highest office in the nation a man of whom an honest, unprejudiced and unbiased journal has to say that although he is clever and strong, he has not an absolutely unblemished record?! An absolutely unblemished record! Why, a statesman’s record should be as unblemished as a woman’s should be. And yet it is very possible that we shall find the man of whom this is said the very best man whom it is possible to put at the head of our Government in 1884. Is it not time for a miracle?”

It was pretty nearly time: the miracle was worked in 1884.

HELPING THE RASCALS IN.

_PUCK, October 22nd, 1884._

The New York _Sun’s_ “bolt” of the Democratic ticket during the Cleveland Campaign of 1884 was so characteristic, so extravagant and so funny in its fantastic futility, that it can not be forgotten, even now. This cartoon appeared about the time that Mr. Chas. A. Dana was running General Benj. F. Butler as a candidate for the Presidency, and was predicting for that harlequin among political adventurers a majority over Mr. Cleveland in the City of New York. General Butler came out of the death-struggle with four-thousand-odd-hundred votes, _in all_, as his share of the suffrages of New York’s citizens; and Mr. Dana, a day or two after the election, blithely caroled, to the somewhat discordant accompaniment of his organ:

“We may be happy yet, You bet.”

QUALITY COUNTS.

_PUCK, April 11th, 1888._

The editorial article accompanying this picture draws a curious historical parallel between the characters of Samuel Pepys and Grover Cleveland, with a side glance at “South Sea Bubble” Law and certain moderns who resemble him in certain ways. After sketching Pepys’s career in the British Admiralty Office, the article closes:

“‘A man of the old way of taking pains,’ they called him in that degenerate day. Is not that even now a good standard by which to test public service? Is all greatness to lie in bluster, noise, braggadocio, and what we are pleased to call ‘smartness’? These were the attributes of the men who were the official superiors of Samuel Pepys just two centuries ago. The world has forgotten their names. But the old fashion of honest service is still honorable. Those who have borne with us so far in this historical recital may forgive us if we suggest a modern instance. A few weeks ago, the presiding officer of the United States Senate told his distinguished audience that no man was so mean or so obscure that he might not be President of the United States, now that Grover Cleveland held that place. Mr. Grover Cleveland was a lawyer in one of our smaller cities. He became, successively, Sheriff and Mayor of his town, Governor of his state, and President of the United States. In every office he has done his duty ‘in the old way of taking pains.’ He has had no hand in the corruption of political life; he has never been the pensioner of corporate monopolies. As Sheriff, Mayor, Governor and President he has served the people honestly and wisely, ‘in the old way of taking pains.’ To our mind this gives him a claim to the regard and respect of the people that will not easily be shaken by the bluster of his enemies. The people will look at the work he has done before they decide whether or no he is President by accident--whether the Time has done everything for him, he nothing--but what the little critic could have done too.”

THE CAROL OF THE “WAITS.”

_PUCK, December 23rd, 1885._

When Mr. Cleveland first became President in 1885, he put into practice a much broader theory of Civil Service Reform than certain active politicians of his party had any use for. Nor did he show any great eagerness to shower offices and honors upon those members of his party who had proved false to him in the campaign of the previous year. On December 23rd, 1885, PUCK pictured these unfortunates as Christmas “Waits,” standing outside the White House in the wintry cold, and raising their voices in plaintive song:

“God rest you, merry gentlemen, May nothing you dismay; Remember us poor spoilsmen left This blessed Christmas Day.

“Since Christmas comes but once a year, Oh, let us share your Christmas cheer, And chuck one little office here On Christmas Day in the A. M.”

AT LAST!

_PUCK, January 18th, 1888._

Another phase of the tariff question is illustrated in this cartoon, which was designed to serve as an offset to the impudent accusations of disloyal desire to serve English interests so frequently made by high protectionists against all those who questioned their divine right to profit by their ingenious scheme of taxation.

Adapting Sydney Smith’s famous formula to modern American use, PUCK said on January 18th, 1888:

“You may sit down, O well-protected Average Citizen! at your protected table, in your protected arm-chair; and button your protected coat about you, and dream that your protective tariff is a drain on the wealth of the English. But the fact remains that you pay every cent of the duties that you impose upon foreign goods, and that nobody is the worse off for the increased price, except yourself. The fact remains that you pay for goods manufactured in this country the same price which you pay for foreign-made goods of the same grade; that price being greater than the fair price by the amount of the duty imposed. And, above all, the disgraceful fact remains that all these goods on which you pay a tax are brought to this country in English ships, sailing under the English flag, which take back, on their homeward trip, your American money, O Average Citizen! in payment of freight imported by you in English bottoms. And yet, before we had a protective tariff, we were able to do our carrying trade for ourselves.”

SIEGFRIED, THE FEARLESS, IN THE POLITICAL DISMAL SWAMP.

_PUCK, December 28th, 1887._

When Mr. Cleveland began his now historic struggle for Tariff Reform he found that he had to encounter more ignorance and apathy among the public at large than he had reckoned on. In fact, he began his fight in a very mist or fog of popular misconception, and his surroundings in these first days were such as naturally suggested the grewsome allegory which PUCK published on December 28th, 1887.

The animal-portraits in this picture are for the most part readily recognizable--J. G. Blaine, John Sherman, Whitelaw Reid, W. M. Evarts, B. F. Butler, T. C. Platt, (dead, but floating,) C. A. Dana and Joseph Pulitzer. The owl in the left hand upper corner is Secretary Folger. In the corner below him is Most, the anarchist. The hedge-hog and the wild boar on the extreme right are Jacob Sharp and J. B. Foraker. The two tails protruding from holes in the ground are reminders of the brief period of activity enjoyed by Mr. Henry George and his clerical ally.

A MIDSUMMER DAY’S DREAM.

_PUCK, August 10th, 1881._

Bright as is the idea which inspires this cartoon, it inspires only the interest of reminiscence. PUCK’S chief cartoonist figures himself as falling asleep upon a hot midsummer day, so soundly that during his slumber the subjects of his facile pencil invade his studio and use his drawing materials to depict themselves according to their own conceit. Thus Roscoe Conkling, practically withdrawn from active politics, portrays himself as a Jupiter Tonans in the prime of life, and Mr. Whitelaw Reid, who was at the time accused of dallying with æsthetic dandyism, appears as a figure somewhat like Mr. Gilbert’s _Bunthorne_. Peter Cooper appears as a young and auburn-whiskered man; and Mr. Tilden, even then in the feebleness of old age, sketches himself as an ambitious athlete. Mr. James Gordon Bennett sketches himself as the Apollo Belvidere. A subtle pun is here intended. Mr. Bennett was then prominent through his efforts to introduce the game of polo into this country. The patch on his nose marks the wound he is supposed to have received in his mysterious encounter with Mr. Frederick May, a disreputable man-about-town, with whom Mr. Bennett was at one time intimate. Mr. John Kelly draws himself as a fashion-plate model; and Mr. Beecher, whose lineaments age had made somewhat gross, paints for his picture the likeness of the young man whose eloquence and originality waked a new fire in the religious circles of the West. Mr. Talmage draws himself as he perhaps would have liked to have people think he looked. General Grant sketches a mighty emperor who bears his features. And that curious political tramp, General Benjamin F. Butler, uses the canvas to straighten out his curious, ugly mug into the likeness of a good-looking man. The picture curiously suggests what General Butler might have been had he been anything but the queer and unpleasant thing he was.

A RUSSIAN NOCTURNE.

_PUCK, March 23rd, 1881._

The hideous cruelties practised by the government of the Czar of Russia on all those of his subjects who do not worship and adore the “Little Father” with single-minded devotion and reverent awe, have more than once furnished a subject for Mr. Keppler’s sympathetic pencil. At the time of the appearance of this cartoon, in March of 1881, these brutalities had attracted general attention throughout the civilized world. Perhaps they were no worse than they had been before; but there seemed to be reason to believe that they were just then of an exceptional atrocity, the recent Russo-Turkish war having noticeably stimulated the savage element in what one of their own artless writers calls the “semi-barbarian race” of Russians.

THE REIGN OF PEACE.--THE MOUSE IS SAFE WHILE THE MOON SHINES.

_PUCK, February 15th, 1888._

This cartoon bears date of February 15th, 1888, but it might have appeared with very little variation at any time during the last ten or twelve years of Bismarck’s premiership. While that great and clear light shone in the European heavens nothing was left wholly to chance in all that quarreling, jealous congeries of states. Nothing was done--nothing was even planned that was not in some measure suggested or shaped by that giant will and that alert and far-seeing intelligence.