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Show and it will bring Songs, Slogans, Symbols anc? glanders I SYMBOLS OF PARTIES, POLICIES AND CANDIDATES By ELMO SCOTT WATSON KBoan DIES and gentlemen of Amer-1 Amer-1 lea ! The "greatest show on H S earth" Is about to begin! H i J'o, this announcement i y I hasn't anything to do with P. JaaBBHSSHEa T- Barnum, the Ringling 3 j? RpNjj jl 1 brothers, "Buffalo Bill" Cody or any of the others who" have tl'SlZtA made circus history. This "greatest show on earth" Is the quadrennial drama of a Presidential Presiden-tial election. So . . . hold your horses, because . . . The animals In the political zoo are coming! Watch them as they pass: There's an elephant with the letters "G. O. P." on Its side. That stands for "Grand Old Party," for the elephant Is the symbol of the Republican Repub-lican party. There's a donkey . . . yes, and a crowing rooster. Both of them are symbols of the Democratic Demo-cratic party, although the donkey Is the more familiar one. There's a tiger . . . albeit, a rather subdued one. He's not nearly so fierce as he once was back In the days when his followers completely dominated New York city, had a great deal to say about who was the governor of New York state and exerted a considerable Influence In national politics. For the tiger Is the symbol of that powerful Democratic organization, Tammany Tam-many Hall. There's a camel, the animal that can go a long time without a drink. Naturally, it's the symbol of the "drys" In the Prohibition party. One animal, however, is missing from the parade and has been missing since 1912. That's the Bull Moose, the symbol of a party which. The First Appearance of the Republican Elephant Ele-phant (1874). was once powerful enough to send the Republican Republi-can elephant down to defeat and give to the Democratic donkey the victory which it couldn't win Itself. That was back in 1912 when ex-President ex-President Theodore Roosevelt led a revolt In the ranks of the Republican party after the nomination nomi-nation of his former friend, William Howard Taft, and formed a new third party, which he called the Progressives. The crowing rooster symbol, which many Democratic Dem-ocratic editors run at the mastheads of their newspapers In campaign years and which appears ap-pears on olliclal ballots In some states, had its origin back In 1840, In that year a certain Joseph Chapman was the Democratic candidate for the Indiana legislature from Hancock county. Things were looking very gloomy for the Democrats Demo-crats that year. The country was still suffering from the panic of 1S37 and, of course, the Democratic Demo-cratic administration under Van Buren was being be-ing blamed for it. Moreover the "singing Whigs," under the leadership lead-ership of Gen. William Henry Harrison, the "Hero of Tippecanoe," were developing great strength. In fact, they were so successful In the Hoosler state that George Pattison, editor of tie Indianapolis Constitution, a Democratic paper, pa-per, wrote to a certain William Sebastian of Greenfield as follows: "I have been Informed by n Democrat that In oue part of your county SO Van Buren men have turned for Harrison. Please let me know If such be the fact. I think such a deplorable state of fact cannot exist. If so, I will visit Hancock and address the people relative to the policy of the Democratic party. 1 have no time to spare, hut I will refuse to eat or sleep or rest so long as anything can be done. Do, for heaven's sake, stir up the Democracy. See Chapman, Chap-man, tell him not to do as he did heretofore. He used to create unnecessary alarm; he must crow; we have much to crow over. I will insure this county to give a Democratic majority of 200 votes. Spare no pains." This letter happened to fall Into the hands of the Whigs, who promptly published It In an Indianapolis paper as a means of ridiculing the Democrats. However, It had the opposite effect and "Crow, Chapman, Crow," became the slogan of the Indiana Democrats. When the Indiana Sentinel was launched In 1S41 It carried at the top of the front page the picture of a proud rooster and under It the slogan of "Crow, Chapman, Chap-man, Crow." In time this symbol spread all over the country and became the popular emblem of the Democratic party, although the more widely-used widely-used symbol by cartoonists Is the donkey. The donkey seems to have first been used In 1S:17. In that year Andrew Jackson, making his farewell address as he retired from the 1'ivsi dency, had a great deal to say about the prosperous pros-perous condition In which he left the country. As n matter of fact, that prosperity was a snare and a delusion. His destruction of the United States haul; and the distribution of the treasury surplus had paved the way for a Mood of "wiid cat" currency which led to wild speculation. Jackson had sowed the wind and Van Buren, his successor, reaped the whirlwind of a severe financial panic. A contemporary cartoon, bearing the title of "The Modem Balaam and His Ass," shows Jackson, Jack-son, mounted on a donkey across whose withers hangs a hag labeled "Specie Currency Circulating Circu-lating Medium." A ghost, labeled "Bankrupts of 1837" Is causing the donkey to balk and Its rider is belaboring It with a cane labeled "Veto." Behind Be-hind them walks Van Buren saying, "I shall tread In the footsteps of my Illustrious predecessor." prede-cessor." From that time on during the disputes over the money question the donkey appeared frequently in the cartoons of the day and apparently became be-came recognized as a symbol of the Democrats. But It remained for a foreign-born cartoonist to make the Democratic donkey so widely known that it has been accepted as the principal Democratic Demo-cratic symbol ever since. He also gave us the Republican elephant and the Tammany tiger. That man was Thomas Nast, perhaps the greatest great-est cartoonist this country has ever known. Drawing for Harper's Weekly during the Civil war his pictures, which stirred the patriotic blood of the North and sent hundreds of young men to join the colors, had made him known throughout the country and President Lincoln was said to have declared once that Nast's cartoons were "the best recruiting sergeants on the side of the Union." After the Civil war Nast cartoons came Into even greater fame as he turned his attention to the heated politics of the times. The great contest con-test at that time was between President Johnson and Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war, whom Johnson was trying to remove from office. Nast was strongly anti-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 first donkey cartoon. It pictured Stanton as a dead lion kicked by a donkey labeled "Copperhead "Copper-head papers." Underneath were the lines: "A live Jackass kicking a dead Lion and such a Lion ! and such a Jackass !" Nast did not immediately repeat the donkey symbol. He had others for the Democratic party, the serpent in some cases and the fox In others. Nast's invention of the elephant as a symbol of the 'Republican party came about In a half-affectionate half-affectionate jab at his own political party. In 1874 the Republicans faced their first defeat since coming Into power in 1S00. It was not a Presidential year but In New York Samuel J. Tilden, fighting against the Republican governor, John A. Dix, wns making a double-edged fight for that office. Tilden appealed to all classes of voters, for he had been a prosecutor of Tweed and he was also a member of the reformed Tammany Tam-many Hall. The strength of the Democrats lay not In any local issue or In the power of their candidate. There was a national issue at stake, whether or not a President of the United States should have a third term. President Grant was believed to be determined to run for President again In 1S76. The principal opponent to the idea was James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald, which shrieked incessantly "Caesarism !" At this crucial moment Nast drew, his cartoon showing the first Republican elephant. It was called "The Third Term Panic." The New York Herald, an ass dressed In a lion's skin labeled "Caesarism," Is braying loudly and all of the animals ani-mals In the forest are fleeing In alarm. The Tribune Is shown as a giraffe, the World as an owl dropping an arithmetic book, the Times as a unicorn with a monocle. At the edge of an abyss, barely hidden by broken planks marked 'Inflation," "Repudiation," "Reform" (Tammany) and "Reconstruction," Is a huge elephant marked "Republican Vote." Nearby Is a half-concealed fox with features suggesting Tilden's and labeled la-beled "Democratic Party." Two weeks afterwards Nast drew a sequel to that cartoon. It showed the elephant tumbling HARRISON AMD TYLER. WILLCDERJSH in manhood THE DEFENDER OF HER IN. FANCY. Knox County, Indiana, Whigs Once Wore This Badge. down Into the pit with the rotten planks and the rejoicing animals following, mid it was called "Caught In a Trap the Result of the Third Term Hoax." From that time on the elephant was re peatcdly the symbol of the nepublicnn party in the Nast cartoons. But it was not until lu that he showed the donkey and the elephant together to-gether definitely marked Republican party and Democratic party. In this cartoon the elephant lay asleep before the White House while the donkey was jumping over a cliff into financial chaos, despite the efforts of Senator Bayard to pull it back by the tail as he exclaims, "Hold on, and you may walk over the sluggish animal up there yet." Other cartoonists were quick to adopt Nast's symbolism and for the last 50 years the Republican Repub-lican elephant, the Democratic donkey and the Tammany tiger have been commonly-accepted members of our national political zoo. But these animals have not been the only party symbols. The use of symbols as graphic portrayals of beliefs, political creeds, moral Issues and economic eco-nomic policies began early in our history. One The Democratic Donkey, as Depicted by Thomas Nast in 1870. of the earliest was the "black cockades" which the Federalists wore in their hats In 1798 to distinguish them from, and as a rebuke to, the Republicans (the forerunners of the modern Democrats) who were wearing the tri-color of France as evidence of their sympathy for the new republic across the Atlantic. When Andrew Jackson was the Democratic candidate for President, his partisans revived his popular nickname, "Old Hickory," gained during dur-ing the Indian wars and the War of 1S12, and made the hickory their symbol. They carried hickory canes in imitation of the one which Jackson always carried. They held tumultuous rallies around hickory poles set up on the village green, town common or public square or set one up on a wagon which headed their campaign processions. In these processions marched Democrats Dem-ocrats carrying hickory boughs and companies .of "Hickory Buds," little boys in jumpers, white underclothes and broad white collars and little girls In white dresses with blue and red sashes. Perhaps the most famous campaign in which a symbol played an important part was the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign of 1S40. A Democratic newspaper had repeated a sneering sneer-ing remark that had been made about the Whig candidate, Gen. William Henry Harrison, the "Hero of Tippecanoe." It said: "Give him a barrel of hard cider and a pension of two thousand thou-sand a year, and, our word for it, he will sit the remainder of his -days In a log cabin by the side of a sea coal fire and study moral philosophy." The Whigs joyously accepted the symbols thus suggested. Everywhere the voters turned, they saw a log cabin with a barrel of cider In front of the door and a coonskin tacked on its walls or a live coon perched on the roof. There were log cabin badges, watch charms, earrings, medals, handkerchiefs, shaving soap, etc., and washwomen wash-women advertised that they would "do up 'gentlemen's 'gen-tlemen's shirts In log cabin style." The result of this, plus the songs and slogans In praise of "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too," was the overwhelming over-whelming victory of Harrison, the Indian fighter and frontiersman, over Martin Van Buren, the "aristocratic" New Yorker, who was the Democratic Demo-cratic candidate. In this campaign, too, appeared the predecessor prede-cessor of the "full dinner pail" symbol of later campaigns. It appeared in the form of this slogan of the Whigs: "Van's Policy, Fifty Cents a Day and French Soup; Our Policy, Two Dollars Dol-lars a Day and Roast Beef." Closely akin to the appeal of the log cabin in 1S40 was the symbolism of the 1SG0 campaign when fence rails were the emblems of the Republicans Re-publicans who had nominated Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois rail-splitter, for the Presidency. Similarly, Sim-ilarly, the fact that Ulysses S. Grant had once engaged in the lowly occupation of a tanner, was used in his behalf when he was a candidate for President In 1SG8. "Tanner clubs," bearing symbols sym-bols emblematic of the trade, marched in his honor shouting, "Bring on the enemy and we'll tan his hide 1" In these parades also appeared men wearing shaggy and obviously untanned fur coats. In fact, one of the most remarkable things about the symbolism of a Presidential campaign Is the number of times some form of wearing apparel has been an important element In the appeal to the voters. The fringed hunting shirt and leggings of the frontiersman worn by men, signing "The Hunters of Kentucky," were much in evidence during the campaign to elect "Old Hickory" Jackson. A coonskin cap, fashioned after the favorite headgear of "Old Tippecanoe" Harrison, was worn by every loyal Whig In the campaign of IS 10. When Horace Greeley was the candidate of the Democrats in 1S72 his followers wore white beaver hats in Imitation of the favorite headgear of the famous New York editor. In the Cleveland Cleve-land campaign of 1SSS his running mate, Senator Tlmrman. gave his supporters a colorful emblem the red bandanna handkerchief. Thurman was the last senator to use the snuff box and he was famous for the grand gesture with which he swept his red bandanna out of his pocket after taking snuff. So Democratic men wore suits and women wore dresses made of red bandannas. Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Kiier hat undoubtedly undoubt-edly helped elect him President and last but not least in campaign headgear was Al Smith's famous fa-mous brown derby, even though It became the mhul of a defeated candidate. Western Newspaper Union |
