| Show 0 oft AM L I 1 11 av 6 t 4 i M 44 J t I 1 yell JL L atoll k 7 X T 6 7 y J 0 ti to 4 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON N KANSAS CITY MO there stands a public auditorium with a seating capacity of down in houston uston texas they are planning to build a similar hall which will hold and these two great structures will be used next june to stable our politico political zoo that Is to say the republican national convention nt at which candidates for president and vice president of the united states are to be nominated will be held in kansas city june 12 and two me weeks later june 20 the derno demo aa will meet in houston to name their stan aers in the 1928 campaign av wa republican zoo Is pretty much a one an affair consisting of an elephant bearing the legendary brand of G 0 P of courbe churbe the figure of a bull moose may be seen by some lurking in the shadows but it will be only a ghostly animal reminiscent of the days of 1912 1012 tie tt democratic zoo Is somewhat richer in number and variety of its animals first and foremost Is the donkey which Is as universally the symbol of the democratic Democrat le party as the elephant Is of the republican but many persons of the jeffersonian Jeners Jeffers onlan and political persuasion will tell you that tile the rooster is the true symbol of their party the tammany tiger will also be much in evidence at houston since one of the leading candidates lear learned newl how to crack the ring ringmasters masters whip in tammany hall ball As for the camel symbol of the drys where Q it be stabled in kansas city or in Hous houston toti it may be welcomed into both and then again it 11 way may be cast out by both into the desert air where it la Is supposed suppo ped to fin the use of anese symbols for political parties or certain factions in them tins lias become a recognized part of our political history and nearly every one of them has an interesting history the rooster as an emblem of the democrats was the first to appear on the scene and it came about it tills this way in 1810 1840 joseph chapman was a democratic candidate for the indiana legislature from hancock ancock II county things were looking gloomy for the democrats at that time for it was soon after the panic in van burens administration and the whigs under the leadership of gen william henry harrlson harrison the nero here of tippecanoe were developing great strength about that time george pattison Patt lson editor of the indianapolis constitution wrote to a certain tain william sebastian of greenfield cenfield Gr as follows 1 I have been informed by a democrat that in one part el your county thirty van ruren buren men havo turned for harrison Harr lon please let me know if such he be the fact I 1 think such a deplorable tate of fact cannot exist if so BO I 1 ill isalt hancock ancock II and address the people relative to the policy of the democratic party I 1 have no do time to spare but I 1 will refuse to eat cat or sleep or hekt so longas anything can be done do for heavens sake stir up the democracy see bee chapman tell him not to do as lie he did heretofore ile he used to create unnecessary alarm he mut mum crow we have much to crow over I 1 will insure tills this county to give a democrat majority of votes spite some no pains this letter ened to fall into the hands bf the ahl whigs s who promptly published it in an indianapolis paper ns as a means of ridiculing the democrats however it had the opposite effect and prow row chapman crow became the of the indiana democrats when the indiana indian sentinel was launched in 1811 1911 it carried at the tp ip of the front page the picture of it a prowl proud apter poster ter and under it the slogan of crow chapp chapan an lerew crow ll 11 in time this spread all over iva tile country and become became the popular emblem of the Derrin democratic cratic party it is still much in use by the democrats Pein themselves although the more widely used symbol by cartoonists Is the donkey the dorthey donkey as well as the republican elephant anti anil the tammany II 11 tiger er Is the product of 0 the genius of one of the greatest cartoonists this country hns has ever known thomas nast nast a bavarian by birth came to this country as a boy in school lie wasi was wore more interested in drawing pictures than tie he was in his books and at the age of sixteen lie he took some of his fits drawings to the editor of lesliee Le siles weekly who hired him film for the princely sum urn of four dollars it a week to draw of news nes events nast left lesliea Le in for fir a position on the new york illustrated news rut I 1 beekly 11 was not until lie he began drawing for harpers biweekly that lie attracted much ri notice otice by the thiard year of the civil war his fits amr pictures which stirred the patri patriotic otle blood of the north and sent ent hundreds of young men to join the colors had made him known throughout the country and president lincoln was suld to have 1 1 boff az declared once that casts cartoons were ere the best recruiting sergeants on the hie side of the union I 1 after the civil war nast cartoons came into even greater fame as lie he turned his attention to the heated politics of the times the great contest at that time wits was between president johnson and edwin SI 11 stanton the secretary of war whom johnson was trying to remove from office nast was strongly anti and johnson and pro stanton when stanton died just after his elevation to the supreme court bench by president grant the bitter feelings of the johnson stanton feud had by no means died down and southern democratic papers attacked stanton even in their obituary notices on january 15 1870 nast drew his bis first dord donkey ey cartoon it pictured stanton as a dead lion kicked by a donkey labeled copperhead papers underneath wore were the lines A live jackass mcking kicking a dead llon lion tind and such a llon lion and such a jackass it la Is curious to note that this cartoon was a small one buried on the last page of harpers weekly among the advertisements for cleansing powders sewing machines and books such was the humble beginning of a symbol which was to receive nationwide nation wide recognition nast did not immediately repeat the donkey symbol lie he had others for the democratic party the in some cases and the fox in others soon goon after the appearance of the donkey emblem nast gave to the world another political symbol in 1870 william M tweed was the boss of new york aorl sort and lie he was ruling with a high hand the new york times no and harpers weekly were virtually the only papers which had the courage to oppose tweed nast especially had fought tweed with his fits stinging caricatures until tweed Is said to have exclaimed lets stop them d n pictures I 1 dont care so much what nhat the papers write about me my constituents cant read but d n it they can see the pictures nasta reply to this threat was a cartoon in harpers dated november 11 1871 which ubach appeared jut just two days before clec election tion it showed tweed as rowan emperor in the coliseum beaming down upon the scene of it glint giant tiger rending the helpless form lorn of the republic Kc public on the tigers collar was the word americus Amerl cus the name of tweeds club of which the tl tiger er was the hie adge thin that tiger of casts literally tore tweeds ring to pieces only one of its inc members Tubers was reelected elected re and all were indicted for fraud py by the next nest week another artist had adopted the tiger as the tammany symbol and from that hint time on tammany and tiger were synonymous casts of the elephant as a symbol odthe of the republican party came about in a half ball affectionate jab at his fits own political party in 1874 the republicans faced their first defeat since coming into power in 1860 it was not a dennial year but in new york samuel J tilden fighting against the republican goer governor nor john A dix was milking making a double edged fight for that office tilden appealed to all classes of voters tor for he had find beien been n prosecutor of tweed rind he was also a member of the reformed tammany hall the strength of the democrats lay not in tiny liny local issue or in the lie power of their candidate there was it national issue at stake whether or not a president of the united states should have a thaid term president grant was believed to be determined to run for president again to in 1876 the principal opponent to the idea was james gordon bennetts Cen new york herald which shrieked led incessantly and declared that dix must be struck down to punish grant the new york world and even the tribune chimed in the chorus and th the new york times ILI dry r aft gravely warned it Is not Grant ism that Is nt at stake but at this crucial moment nast drew ills fits cartoon shoeing the first arst republican elephant it was called the third term panic the new york herold herald an ass dressed lit in a lions skin labeled Is braying loudly and all of the atil mals in the forest are fleeing deems in fit alarm the tribune Is shown as a giraffe the world as an ow dropping an arithmetic book the times as a unicorn with a monads at the edge of an abyss barely hidden bidden by broken planks marked inflation repudiation reform tammany und and reconstruction is a huge elephant marked republican vote neathy Is a half concealed fox with features suggesting Til tiddens dens and labeled democratic party two weeks later after the election of tilden and for the first time in fifteen years a republican house of representatives nast drew a sequel to that cartoon it showed the elephant tumbling down into the pit with the rotten planks and the rejoicing animals following and it was called caught in a trap tho the result of the third terru term hoax irom from I rom that time on the elephant was repeatedly the symbol of the republican party lit in the nast cartoons put hut it was not until 1880 that lie he showed the donkey nud and the elephant together definitely marked republican party and democratic party in this cartoon the elephant lay asleep before the white louse house while the donkey was jumping over a cliff into financial On ancial chaos despite the lie efforts extorts of senator bayard to pull it back by the lie tail fail as hl hi exclaims hold on and you may walk over the slug sluggish ish animal up there let other cartoonists were quick to adopt nasta symbolism and for the last fifty years the republican elephant the democratic donkey and the tammany tiger have been recognized members of our political zoo just when tile the camel as the emblem of the prohibition party joined it or which artist Is responsible Is unknown but the camel which traditionally can go without a drink for such long iong periods of line was so obviously a symbol of the party which sought to make the lite country dry that no such originality us as was shown in casts invention was vas necessary to bring it into being since the passage of the eighteenth amendment arid and the consequent decline of the pro as a wit ional nul party the lie camel hua has played but little part in the political procession otlo weer the wet anil and dry issue which Is still a concern ot of both parties has served to kepp keep this hump hacked simling alive although cac each I 1 party parly Is cautious about taking the hold bold step te p i of t team c t a in ing it with ith its own on emblem the political zoo added a new member in 1012 1912 when ex president roosevelt led a in the tha ranks of the republican party after the lie nomination of william howard taft at chicago the name adopted for the new third party parly was the progressives Progress ives hut but it would have been dini cult to have symbolized the progressives Progress ives with an ant animal as striking as either the republican elephant cle pliant or the democratic donley donkey by iy ay a lucky circumstance however such a symbol was soon furnished them one lay day newspaper reporters seeking out colonel Rn whore robust health hail had been threatened etli with a breakdown disked alia liow how he frit felt tile the reply was vas characteristic of the he rough rider and exponent ut of the siren strenuous life 1 I feel like a bull moose lie exclaimed A and a d thus was the new political symbol born fur for such guch a hardy animal however the bull moose had a short existence it IL was strong enough to help hell tho llin democratic donkey conlu y defaut the republican ele alv pliant in 1912 1012 but soon afterwards it 11 passed out of the political picture |
