A Selection of Cartoons from PuckKeppler, Joseph Ferdinand
General
A Selection of Cartoons from Puck
Keppler, Joseph Ferdinand
American wit and humor, Pictorial
Loyalty and lack of moderation were equally marked as characteristic
of the support which Mr. Roscoe Conkling gave to any cause that
enlisted his sympathies. The hot, unreasoning, fanatical vehemence
of the attempt which he made in 1880 to dragoon the Republican party
into nominating General Grant for a third term undoubtedly made the
third term idea far more unpopular than a more judicious advocacy
might have made it. Mr. Conkling treated the question of General
Grant’s nomination almost as though it were a matter of divine right;
and although Mr. Conkling himself had a right to be considered honest
in his enthusiasm, as much could not be said for the most of his
active assistants in the management of the “Boom”--among whom were
Ex-Secretaries Belknap and Robeson, two officials who had reflected
anything but credit upon General Grant’s cabinet, Boss Shepherd, and
other members of the ring that had been formed in Washington during the
Ex-President’s second administration. The artist has drawn a parallel
between the methods employed by the “Salvation Army,” which had invaded
this country a little while before, and those of the “halcyon and
vociferous” Mr. Conkling--to quote his own immortal phrase.
[Illustration]
THE CINDERELLA OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND HER HAUGHTY SISTERS.
_PUCK, October 13th, 1880._
During the Presidential campaign of 1880, which ended in the
election of Mr. Garfield, Mr. R. B. Hayes, then the incumbent of the
Presidential chair, was treated with studied neglect and coldness by
the leaders of his own party. Although General Grant had failed to get
the nomination at the Chicago convention, in spite of the vigorous
efforts of Mr. Roscoe Conkling, the ex-President and his ally were
prominent in the campaign on their own account.
“They speak at mass-meetings, they are interviewed, they write letters;
they are never out of the public eye,” says PUCK of October 13th, 1880.
Mr. Hayes, however, received no pressing invitation from the party
managers to assist in electing their Republican ticket. Undoubtedly
this deliberate slight was due to the extreme sensitiveness felt by
all classes of Republicans on the question of Mr. Hayes’s title to the
office which he held; and it was in its inception a creditable feeling
that prompted the desire to keep him in the background. At the same
time, it was a severe, almost a cruel retribution to be visited upon
a man who had tried hard to atone for his capture of the Presidential
chair by trick and device, by giving the country an uncommonly good,
and, in some respects, decidedly courageous administration. Messrs.
Grant and Conkling seemed to be solicitous to draw attention to their
complete silence concerning the outgoing administration, and their
enthusiasm in Mr. Garfield’s behalf. Although, to quote again from
PUCK, “both these talkative gentlemen might have found their eloquence
at a discount if Mr. Hayes had not kept up the score of the party
through the last four years.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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