THE ASS AND THE ELEPHANT OF AMERICAN POLITICS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 59, 9 August 1940, Page 8

THE ASS AND THE ELEPHANT OF AMERICAN POLITICS

How The Democrats And Republicans Got Their Labels

TRANGE to us are the American political cartoons. . Why are there no caricatured Roosevelts or Willkies, why aren’t Democrats depicted as lions or tigers; why aren’t Republicans eagles or bears? Why just elephants and asses?

With Franklin Roosevelt standing for a third term, and every chance of making history in the U.S.A., the story is topical for the first time since 1874, when another great and popular American figure, Grant, was defeated for a third term in a campaign which led to the adoption of the elephant as the emblem of the Republicans and the ass as the emblem of the Democrats. The story was hard to find. Americans themselves do not seem to know why their two main political parties do not use more heroic animals. A _ search through the General Assembly Library, in Wellington, brought the facts to light in a history of the Republican Party published in 1904, and decorated with a foreword by that ‘other oer Roosevelt, Theodore. : Campaign Agsinit Grant It was in the spring of 1874, the year after General Grant had entered into his second term as President, and while he was at the height of his popularity, that the New York "Herald" began a cam-

paign which sought to attribute to the President pretensions of Caesarism. The very enthusiasm with which he was regarded lent strength to the charge. He was cartooned with a crown on his head. The Democratic Party took up the cry as a campaign measure and even staunch Republicans began to fear that the General’s ambitions exceeded the bounds of the U.S.A. Constitution.

Newspaper after newspaper took up the cry of "Caesarism" against Grant, although the " Herald," which professed to be independent, had started the story more as a journalistic sensation than as serious propaganda. Tension was high in 1874 when both parties were arranging their campaigns for the next elections at which, if elected, Grant would have entered into a third term. Indirectly, this catch-cry of " Caesarism" led to the establishment of the elephant and the ass as the party emblems, Another Newspaper Hoax It happened in this way. Soon after raising the political scare the "Herald" began a local scare. One morning in the summer the "Herald" carried a story about animals which had escaped from the New York Central Park Menagerie and were roaming in the wilds of Central Park. There was no truth in this newspaper fake; but mothers whose children had been sent into the Park to play were panicked-and the panic spread. This hoax furnished the text which Thomas Nast, the most celebrated

political cartoonist of his day, used when he gave the Republicans their elephant and the Democrats their ass. His cartoon, reproduced on this page, first appeared in " Harper’s Weekly," on November 7, 1874. Its object was to impress the public with the danger of the Democratic cry of " Caesarism." The caption of the cartoon was the

quotation: An Ass, having put on the lion's skin roamed about the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met with in his wanderings. Nast referred, of course, to the " Herald," which just previously had started the story of the escaped zoo animals, a story with as little truth in it as the story of Grant’s aspirations to a crown. The Elephant’s Temper It was clear why Nast had given the Democrats the attributes of the ass, but why had he made the Republicans into elephants? The foundation for that was the elephant’s traditional placidity, and his traditional and wungoverned temper when finally aroused.

The next use which Nast made of this symbol was in a cartoon drawn for " Harper’s"" of November 21, 1874. Here he pictured the elephant caught in the trap set by the cunning Democrats. Grant by then had been defeated at the polls. Now the boot is on the other foot. It is the Democrat Party which supports a third term and the Republican Party which opposes it. Will it be the ass which wins, or the elephant? * * * WHY TWO PARTIES? HE beginnings of the present twoparty political system in America may be found in the times of George Washington. Washington was himself a figure above partisan policies. Beneath him the rivals could only watch one another. Within his influence none could actually come to grips. But once he stepped out the split came. Washington had been chosen for president in 1788 and 1792 without opposition, The fun began with the elections of 1796 and 1800,

It was during this period that Jefferson began to dominate American politics, and he remained the dominant figure until his death in 1826. With him the Democratic Party grew up. He laid down its principles and selected its candidates. But he was not great in the sense that Washington was great. Jefferson was a_statesman-like politician. Washington had been the true statesman of the sort that is only given to nations at the beginning of new eras or as the product of new eras. Jefferson was a tactician, leading or holding back or compromising as occasion required. He was in fact both a Democrat and a Republican; and the true strength of his political idealism may be judged from the fact that when the split did come that weaned the Republican Party off the Democrat Party, both factions still looked to him as their preceptor, Slavery Caused the Split The great moral issue of slavery caused the split, and out of the upheaval that came with it another statesman was born-Abraham Lincoln. But Lincoln arrived as a Republican and gave the impetus to this party which carried it through the next fifty years a step ahead of the stricken Democrats. By comparison with these two great men, Washington and Lincoln, America since then has produced no other statesman or politicians of world stature; unless perhaps Woodrow Wilson. After Lincoln, the Democrats recovered ground with Cleveland in 1888 and 1892, but for 16 years after that lost themselves in disunity while the Republicans went from strength to strength. In 1912 came the magnificent recovery that put Woodrow Wilson into power. After the war, with Wilson a broken man, and the American nation revolted at the consequences of even their brief participation in a war that seemed to be too great a strain on their temperament, the Democrats were again thrown out. The MRepublicans went again serenely on their way. They survived the graft scandals of the Harding administration and rode high on a wave of prosperity. Then came the depression, An Era of Revolution Probably, when historians come to look back on this country they will write about 1930 as they wrote about the Renaissance, the French Revolution, and the days of Europe’s emancipation from the reactionaries of the last century. With the depression, America fell (Continued on next page)

_ Continued from previous page) into line with the revolutionary tendency throughout the world. Everywhere, except in England, where the national genius for compromise asserted itself in the shape of Baldwin, the governments that were in went out, and the governments that came in feverishly experimented with peoples’ lives and incomes to try and find some way out of the crisis. On this wave of revolution, or revulsion, Franklin Roosevelt rose into power in 1932. Roosevelt and Willkie are now appealing to their people on platforms which seem to be almost identical. Willkie will

give the Allies all help short of going to war. Roosevelt has been giving them all help possible short of going to war. If that becomes the main issue of & political campaign which has not yet become really serious, then there will be nothing for the American voter to work up partisan spirit about. Although the war issue might seem to be the great moral issue which could make Americans really excited, it does not appear that it will take a major place in the campaign, unless Roosevelt makes some misstep between now and the elections. Rather is it probable that Roosevelt’s personality will be opposed by a Republican outcry against a third term. As the story of the cartoon shows, the Democrats were quick to play Cassius to General Grant’s Julius Caesar. The cry of "Caesarism" was raised, Grant was cartooned with a crown on his head, and Grant was defeated. If the American nation sticks closely by anything, it is the constitution and its determination to preserve the shape and theory of democracy. ; It will be interesting to see if the Republicans raise against Roosevelt the catch-cry which the Democrats raised against Grant, and it will be interesting to see whether the personality of Roosevelt, projected so very much more

effectively over the new political weapon of radio, will survive the campaign better than Grant survived his. Crisis for the Democrats For the Democratic Party this may well be a major crisis. Its destinies at present are bound up in the personality of Roosevelt. When his name was submitted to the nominating convention the other candidates quickly faded out. Woodrow Wilson won a second term during the last war with the slogan " He kept us out of the War." Then he took them into the war, tried to get them into the League of Nations, and bounced

back from the wall of the Monroe doctrine-psychology of America, buttressed artfully by the political campaigning of the Republican Party. With the nation sick of war, and himself sick near to death, Wilson went tragically out of the picture. On the other hand, Roosevelt’s second term was already ending when he led the Democrat Party into the first year of this war. He is asking for a third term not because he has kept America out of the war, but in spite of ‘the fact that he is taking every risk of precipating war by helping one of the combatants at the expense of the other. This might or might not have given him the support of his people. The Republicans have negatived that possibility by coming out with the same proposal. Roosevelt will therefore have to rely on the fact that he is Roosevelt. He will have to hope that the American people will remember some advantage from the New Deal, however much Big Business nourishes the rancour caused by the defeats it suffered when Roosevelt set to work on it. And he will have to hope that there has been some new quality of inspiration about his administration that will persuade the people to elect him in spite of what his enemies may say about a Caesar asking for a crown,