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Show ! Birth of tho Elephant ' First use of the elephant as a syra. .bol of the Republican party was In 1874, when Thomas Nast the first of the celebrated political cartoonists of America, made the "ponderous pachyderm" pachy-derm" the O. O. P. emblem. Nast waa born In Bavaria September 27, 1040, and came to America at the ago ot six. In the early sixties he went to .Italy and was with Garibaldi as an artist for British and American news papers. As political cartooplst for a popular weekly, he" achieved an Inter-national Inter-national reputation, and bis cartoons 'were said to have been largely responsible respon-sible for the downfall of the Tweed ring In ,New York. In 1874 Nast drew a cartoon representing an elephant ele-phant labeled "Republican Party," about to fall Into a, chasm. Nast also depleted the democratic party as a fox, but later the donkey was substituted sub-stituted by the cartoonist of opposite .political faith, and this has been the democratic emblem ever since. Nast 'died In Ecuador In 1002. . TVwo |