_PUCK, December 22d. 1880._
There are few more tragic or startling pages in our political history
than those which record Mr. Garfield’s brief career as the national
leader of his party. Nominated for President in the Chicago Convention
of 1880, after the collapse of the Grant Third-Term Movement, (although
it was generally supposed that he was too firmly committed to the
interests of Senator Sherman to enter the lists on his own account,)
he was elected in November, after a somewhat heated campaign, during
which much publicity was given to his unfortunate dealings with the
Crédit-Mobilier people and other objectionable speculators. His
opponent was General Hancock, a soldier and a gentleman of unblemished
reputation. He owed his defeat partly to certain utterances concerning
the tariff question which, though just in themselves, were injudicious
in view of the popular sentiment of the time; partly to the wide-spread
distrust of the Democratic party that then prevailed, and partly,
as Mr. S. W. Dorsey, one of Mr. Garfield’s campaign-managers, most
gratuitously and indecently announced after election, to wholesale
bribery in the State of Indiana. (This was the notorious “Soap” Dorsey,
so called from his using “soap” as a euphemism for bribe-money.)
By a permissible pictorial license, the artist, in PUCK of December
22nd, 1880, represents the President-Elect as already quartered within
the White House, distributing the spoils of office as presents from a
Christmas tree. Around him are the leaders of the Republican party:
General Grant, Senator John Sherman, Don Cameron, General Logan,
Vice-President Chester A. Arthur, and Carl Schurz in the foreground;
James G. Blaine and Marshall P. Jewell (the collector of the
campaign-fund) in a corner. The shadow of Roscoe Conkling’s head and of
the ambrosial curl which was supposed still to linger on his brow, is
thrown upon the side of the window-casing, but from what quarter it is
projected is difficult to determine. Mr. Conkling’s attitude toward the
new administration was dubious and peculiar.
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.
[Illustration]
“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.
[Illustration]