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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much

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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer,

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Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. It's Max, He's coming in hot.

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Speaker 2: Oh can I get a belated happy birthday to my mother?

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Speaker 3: Recording?

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Speaker 2: This is my mother's birthday, and I will tell you

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Speaker 2: what day we're recording.

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Speaker 3: This on, so no one will know what my mom's

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Speaker 3: actual birthday.

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Speaker 4: You can't do you don't want. You don't want to

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Speaker 4: dock somebody with their birthday.

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Speaker 1: That's Williams. Do you listen to the show.

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Speaker 2: She really liked our Mule Lads episode. She really liked

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Speaker 2: that one a lot. I tell her about ones I

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Speaker 2: think she'd find interesting. It's generally she thinks it's a

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Speaker 2: little too dumb for her. Oh well, no, sometimes we

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Speaker 2: get a little too dirty, like I wouldn't give her

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Speaker 2: the James Joyce one.

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Speaker 4: Oh well, geez no, when you listen to that one,

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Speaker 4: I've been bullet.

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Speaker 1: This is mister Noel Brown.

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Speaker 4: And we are officially too dumb for Max's mom, which

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Speaker 4: is totally fine with That's fine.

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Speaker 3: I guess part I part of that as well, though, so.

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Speaker 1: That doesn't make it right. So this is this is

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Speaker 1: part two of our continuing series on Thomas Nass. We're

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Speaker 1: having a heck of a time with it. Before we

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Speaker 1: get back into the story, please listen to part one.

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Speaker 1: And Noel Max, I thought you guys might enjoy a

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Speaker 1: joke from our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians. It's a comment.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember our early your conversation with Ben from

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Speaker 1: Badass of the Week? Absolutely, yeah, okay, so we talked

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Speaker 1: about love pit and uh, Aaron m had the following

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Speaker 1: to say, quote, it seems like if all these bad

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Speaker 1: girls were sent to nutneries, nunneries would be pretty fun.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, Well, I mean they have activities. They

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Speaker 4: probably do archery and stuff. I'm sure there's plenty of

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Speaker 4: fun things to do at nunneries, despite getting into uh,

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Speaker 4: sexual escapades, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, sure, you know, gardening, singing, twirling on hilltops. Yeah, probably,

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Speaker 1: like making fabrics.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, weaving and giving penance, which I think is the

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Speaker 4: most important past time of all.

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Speaker 1: Also, we have to uh, we have to do one

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Speaker 1: more announcement before we get into part two. Everybody seems

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Speaker 1: super down for Ridiculous History Dungeons and Dragons episode. What

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Speaker 1: classes are we choosing any character sheets?

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Speaker 4: Okay, I'll have to do a little homework.

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Speaker 2: My big question is is Strickling going to be the

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Speaker 2: villain or are we going to do this poorly?

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Speaker 4: Oh well, we were talking about potentially having some sort

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Speaker 4: of historical villain, which I'm not saying Strickland doesn't occupy

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Speaker 4: that space for us, but maybe someone a little older.

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Speaker 4: Like here's a pitch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, whoever we picked to be the villain we have

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Speaker 2: played by as aforementioned person we will not say name

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Speaker 2: of again and.

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Speaker 1: Character because of the rule.

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Speaker 4: He could do a resputant kind of situation.

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Speaker 3: I think we can have him do boss tweet.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, Here is part two of Thomas Nast in eighteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: Nast decides to go for the boss himself, and he

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Speaker 1: apparently wins. He wins through the power of I quite

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Speaker 1: like the way you put it earlier in Noll weaponized Wit.

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Speaker 4: Well, and that's the thing I mean again, this is

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Speaker 4: something I'm struggling with because I've always seen Nast as

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Speaker 4: this sort of iconoclastic, you know, creator of these images

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Speaker 4: that get seared into your mind. And maybe I'm more

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Speaker 4: associating some of the more Gonza stuff that came later

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Speaker 4: as being a little more unapologetically kind of anti establishment.

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Speaker 4: But he had an establishment in a way that he

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Speaker 4: was loyal to, and he had an idea of what

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Speaker 4: America was that he was loyal to. But then he

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Speaker 4: had these sort of what he saws as enemies of that,

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Speaker 4: you know, and Boss Tweed absolutely was that to a tee.

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Speaker 2: And I will say one thing about nast is he

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Speaker 2: was unapologetic in his own beliefs. So in some cases,

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Speaker 2: like you know, his beliefs were aligning, he was virulently

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Speaker 2: anti slavery. But he also had a lot of cartoons

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Speaker 2: about we'll talk about this later that were very.

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Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 2: They were probably bad at the time, and they've aged

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Speaker 2: even worse because he was just very much He seems

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Speaker 2: like he might have been a little tricky to work

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Speaker 2: with just in general, but no way, he was very

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Speaker 2: much like he had his stance and these are things

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Speaker 2: he's gonna believe in, and these first couple of cases,

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Speaker 2: they align a lot of times with the good side

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Speaker 2: of history.

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Speaker 3: But that's not his entire story. Always.

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Speaker 1: We should also just say he was not a note taker.

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Speaker 1: He's Thomas no notes nest, which made him difficult to

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Speaker 1: work with.

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Speaker 4: This is all off the dome, for sure. I mean, like, yeah,

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Speaker 4: I know that perspective is inherent, but I guess you

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Speaker 4: could maybe almost call him we might consider a libertarian today,

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Speaker 4: Like I don't know, Like he's just like he was

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Speaker 4: staunchly in favor of this idea of the American dream

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Speaker 4: and of equity and of of you know, fairness and

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Speaker 4: municipal reform and all this stuff. And Tweed was just

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Speaker 4: absolutely an antithesis to all of those things, you know,

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Speaker 4: in terms of his wanting to take from the common

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Speaker 4: man and woman and just you know, own everything and

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Speaker 4: you know, achieve his power through the most undemocratic means possible,

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Speaker 4: you know, from within the system. He's like, that's not

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Speaker 4: gonna fly in my America.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Also, let's uh, let's note that earlier beautiful point about literacy.

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Speaker 1: So he is nast is aware that many of the

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Speaker 1: people who I guess we call him constituents, but the

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Speaker 1: the servants or the public exploited by Tweed, A lot

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Speaker 1: of those folks cannot read. So you can publish a

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Speaker 1: written article in the New York Times all day long,

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Speaker 1: and they're not gonna they're not gonna digest it because

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Speaker 1: they are not they're not functionally literate. But with a

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Speaker 1: cartoon with a single panel, Thomas Nast can speak to

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Speaker 1: these folks directly. And uh and Tweed apparently got so

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Speaker 1: irritated about this boss Tweed that he gave orders to

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Speaker 1: I think he's just shouting in a room at this point,

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Speaker 1: but you know, in like a smoky Chicago back room.

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Speaker 1: He goes, stop those damn pictures.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. This is obviously before the moving pictures. Uh,

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Speaker 4: and this would have been those Yeah, that's what they were.

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Speaker 4: And they were damnable indeed, because to your point, they

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Speaker 4: depicted exactly the rot that was going on, you know,

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Speaker 4: in that kind of political machine that was influencing and

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Speaker 4: affecting and sort of controlling, puppet mastering the democratic process

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Speaker 4: of what people saw as their rights as citizens. This

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Speaker 4: guy was actually taking a shortcut to influence that process

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Speaker 4: that should have been held very near and dear to

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Speaker 4: folks if they could just understand what was going on.

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Speaker 4: And so he's I'm trying to we should probably just

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Speaker 4: describe one of these cartoons and like, what's so effective

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Speaker 4: about it. First of all, you might remember one of

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Speaker 4: the very first panels that I described early in the

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Speaker 4: show of this kind of you know, portly gentleman in

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Speaker 4: a striped suit with like a medallion, with his hands

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Speaker 4: it deep in his pockets, and a giant bag of money,

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Speaker 4: one of those old school kind of cartoony sacks of

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Speaker 4: money with a dollar sign as a head. And then

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Speaker 4: you know, he just portrayed Tweed as this sort of

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Speaker 4: larger than life force of evil. There's another image where

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Speaker 4: there's a police officer who is depicted as being really

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Speaker 4: small and Boss Tweed again with the striped suit, jacket

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Speaker 4: and slacks on and his hands deep in his pockets,

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Speaker 4: being massive and dwarfing this. And then the policeman has

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Speaker 4: got like an inmate in his fist who's even smaller

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Speaker 4: than the policeman, with a ball and chain connected to

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Speaker 4: his leg. The idea of like Boss Tweed is above

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Speaker 4: all of this and he can never be reached, and

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Speaker 4: that's not cool.

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Speaker 2: I gotta say what I think is my favorite one.

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Speaker 2: This is the first one I think I was ever

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Speaker 2: acquainted with back as a young history nerd. But it

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Speaker 2: is he reads at the bomb, says who stole the

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Speaker 2: people's money.

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Speaker 3: Do tell.

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Speaker 2: And it's a bunch of people pointing to the right.

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Speaker 2: Is this a circle, a ring of everyone who's like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 2: I steal the money. He stole the money, And it

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Speaker 2: just goes around because it's very much that thing where

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Speaker 2: the truth is they all did.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. Is the issue there, and I

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Speaker 1: appreciate you pointing that out.

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Speaker 3: Max.

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Speaker 1: There's also let's go back to this Tweed moment, right,

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Speaker 1: because Boss Tweed is a very powerful man in charge

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Speaker 1: of an extremely dangerous organization. At this point, when he

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Speaker 1: says stop something. When he's doing this Jay Jonah Jamison

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Speaker 1: hitting the fist on the desk kind of thing. When

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Speaker 1: he's yelling stop them damn pictures, he's not just speaking

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Speaker 1: into the void. He actually sends a proxy of his

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Speaker 1: to Thomas Nast and they try to grifft them. They say, oh,

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Speaker 1: we are European fans of your artworks, and we will

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Speaker 1: give you one hundred thousand dollars to study art in Europe. Basically,

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Speaker 1: they tried to ship him off. They're thinking, surely he'll

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Speaker 1: find something more interesting than New York, right, just get

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Speaker 1: out of town, and just so we can inflation, calculate

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Speaker 1: this one hundred thousand dollars at that time was about

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Speaker 1: any almost one point eight million dollars today.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess they're thinking, like, let the

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Speaker 4: Paris Review have him or something. Surely we can appeal

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Speaker 4: to his ego in some way and offer him this

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Speaker 4: exorbitant amount of money that he probably won't take as

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Speaker 4: you know, hush money or get out of town money.

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Speaker 4: He probably doesn't have any scruples, you know, right, surely.

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Speaker 1: Sure, yeah. So he basically does the does this song

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Speaker 1: and dance with these Tweed representatives, and he says, maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe I will hang out with you guys in Europe.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I will engage your offer. But one hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars that's not quite enough to wet my whistle. So

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Speaker 1: he increases the offer. They come back to him. They

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Speaker 1: eventually offer him five hundred thousand dollars just to go

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Speaker 1: to Europe, and then he turns it down and he

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Speaker 1: makes a moral decision. He says, look, I get it,

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Speaker 1: everybody likes money, but I made up my mind a

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Speaker 1: long time ago to put Tammany Hall behind Mars.

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Speaker 4: It's so neat because I mean, this is one of

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Speaker 4: the rare occasions of the story seems pretty apocryphal, but

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Speaker 4: this actually definitely happens. And then this is a perfect

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Speaker 4: example of someone who is more interested in, you know,

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Speaker 4: following their convictions and doing what's right and getting the

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Speaker 4: bad guy then money, and that's pretty rare in the history.

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Speaker 4: It's pretty great.

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Speaker 3: I also think it's a pointing out from everything, right.

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Speaker 2: I don't know know if this is an actual fact,

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Speaker 2: but it appears that Nast was doing fiscally pretty well

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Speaker 2: at this point.

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Speaker 4: He had to have been for the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, at this point he is one of the go

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Speaker 1: to guys. He's becoming in a very real way, the

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Speaker 1: voice of America. He has this unique visual style that

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Speaker 1: in forms many other cartoonists coming after him. So when

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Speaker 1: people again, when people see his work printed on a page,

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Speaker 1: to them, it is authoritative. There is credibility, and he

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to sacrifice that. So Tweed sends his crew

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Speaker 1: after Harper's itself and they threaten to boycott the Harper's textbooks.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess they had like a sort of like

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Speaker 4: big publishing houses often have a that that provides textbooks,

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Speaker 4: and that's big money because the schools essentially have contracts

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Speaker 4: with them and buy every new updated version like forever

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Speaker 4: in all time. So I could see how that would

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Speaker 4: be a big deal, a big chunk of their business.

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Speaker 4: But they don't cave either. They decide that it's more

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Speaker 4: important to support Nast and take down and I think

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Speaker 4: maybe they're like kind of putting their hat in the

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Speaker 4: ring because they're like, I don't know, man, if we

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Speaker 4: keep doing what we're doing and publishing Nast comics, Tammany

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Speaker 4: Hall might not be a thing or be in a

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Speaker 4: position to boycott anything.

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Speaker 1: However, you know, the rubber can always hit the road,

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Speaker 1: and Nast to have very real concerns that there might

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Speaker 1: be physical harm visited upon him and his family. So

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Speaker 1: they moved out of New York City to Moorestown, New

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Speaker 1: Jersey in eighteen seventy one. And they thought, you know,

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Speaker 1: close enough to commute far and off away, that old

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Speaker 1: Willie Tweed won't get him. The public response, according to

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Speaker 1: the Museum of the City of New York, fantastic check

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Speaker 1: it out. There was this election in eighteen seventy one,

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Speaker 1: and this election was the beginning of the end for

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Speaker 1: the Tweed Ring. For Tammany Hall, a lot of the

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Speaker 1: tammany candidates were voted out of office, and a huge

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Speaker 1: part of why they were voted out of office is

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Speaker 1: Nast cartoons that depicted the corruption nakedly and hilariously.

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Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, speaking of where the rubber

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Speaker 4: hits the road, I mean, I think there's a real

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Speaker 4: understanding that this stuff has significant power to change things,

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Speaker 4: you know, and to expose people. And I think that's

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Speaker 4: why these publishers were able to continue to support Nast

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Speaker 4: and not cave to the pressure, because no, I think

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Speaker 4: we can actually do something here, and in a time

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Speaker 4: when you know, maybe journalism seems to not have the

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Speaker 4: teeth that used to have, or it's been sort of

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Speaker 4: diluted a little bit or a lot of bit by

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Speaker 4: the Internet and by you know, kind of all the

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Speaker 4: fake news outlets and whatever and just this kind of

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Speaker 4: you know, echo chamber. It's pretty inspiring to see this

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Speaker 4: kind of support for somebody being so incredibly controversial and

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Speaker 4: you know, speaking truth to power.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he also is becoming increasingly dangerous, right or you know,

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Speaker 1: now this guy is no longer just a cartoonist. Now

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Speaker 1: he is kind of a John Stewart character. Now he's

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Speaker 1: like the daily Show, but in one panel at a

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Speaker 1: time cartoons and his commentary has real effect, as you

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Speaker 1: were saying, after that election in eighteen seventy one, which

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Speaker 1: was disastrous for Tammany Hall, there are legal charges brought

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Speaker 1: against Boss Tweed and his allies, and we talked about

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Speaker 1: this in a previous episode, things like forgery, fraud, large

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Speaker 1: and the cavalcade, a cavalcade of not good stuff and

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Speaker 1: a lot of the guys end up getting shipped off

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Speaker 1: to prison. As we know. In eighteen seventy five, Boss

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Speaker 1: Tweed escaped prison and set sail to Spain, and it

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Speaker 1: would have gotten away with it too, except a Spanish

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Speaker 1: officer recognized him from wait for it, a cartoon by

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Speaker 1: Thomas Nast.

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Speaker 4: And it's really interesting if you actually look at some

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Speaker 4: portraits that you can find of what Boss Tweed, you know,

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Speaker 4: looked like those again, those like stock still with the

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Speaker 4: weird background, oftentimes oval framed portraits. There's a handful of those,

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Speaker 4: and he really is doing a caricature Nast, because he's

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Speaker 4: got this very specific kind of nose, you know, and

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Speaker 4: these very specific kind of jowls and certain things that

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Speaker 4: he sort of exaggerates just enough. It's not over the top.

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Speaker 4: It's actually somewhat at times subtle. But as it progresses,

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Speaker 4: it gets more and more grown Tesk and he gets

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Speaker 4: fatter and fatter, and by the end when he does

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Speaker 4: get the ring gets toppled. There's a fabulous image that

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Speaker 4: Nasted of a sort of like Caesar dressed Boss Tweed

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Speaker 4: in like a surrounded by boots and hats, and it

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Speaker 4: says the Tammany boys whipped out of their boots and

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Speaker 4: Tammany rings smashed, and it's all kind of on these

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Speaker 4: like plaques in the background like it's carved into stone.

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Speaker 4: But he looks like a sad Caesar holding a broken

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Speaker 4: sword and again just monstrously fat, with these really dark

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Speaker 4: circles under his eyes. He's got progressively more and more

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Speaker 4: kind of grotesque.

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Speaker 1: As they went on, the eyes become increasingly sunken. There

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Speaker 1: are also there are also pictures or depictions of Tweed

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Speaker 1: and his cronies as vultures, which are kind of haunting.

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Speaker 1: And this what's nuts about this is if you look

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Speaker 1: at an actual photograph of Tweed, you see what Nast

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Speaker 1: used for reference. He is clearly talking about this guy. Also,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say it Billy Tweed looks kind of

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Speaker 1: like a jerk, you know what I mean. He looks

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Speaker 1: like he takes the last slice of cake. I think

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Speaker 1: that speaks the last doughnut, you know, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think he takes the last slice of cake. Is a

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Speaker 1: very large slice of cake too, that he takes.

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Speaker 4: True, he doesn't.

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Speaker 3: Feel very bad at all about it.

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Speaker 1: He looks, you know what it is in every in

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Speaker 1: the actual photographs I've seen in the guy, he looks

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Speaker 1: like he's hiding candy in his mouth. It's like, which

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Speaker 1: I know is a very specific, weird insult. I don't

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Speaker 1: even know, like he's courting it like a squirrels and cheeks.

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Speaker 4: He does have a bit of a tight lipped appearance.

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Speaker 4: It just seems like the guy liked accumulating stuff, you know,

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Speaker 4: whether there's money or power or whatever. But he does

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Speaker 4: get recognized by that Spanish officer from the cartoon, which

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Speaker 4: at this point had international acclaim, you know, and he

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Speaker 4: goes back to prison, the New York jail in fact,

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Speaker 4: where he remains until his death in eighteen seventy eight.

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Speaker 4: And Ben, me and you were actually going to New

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Speaker 4: York this week, and I was thinking it'd be fun

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Speaker 4: to check out the Museum of the City of New

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Speaker 4: York is. This is the first time I've heard of this,

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Speaker 4: and I bet you. I mean, New York has such

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Speaker 4: a fantastically rich history. I'd love to go to a

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Speaker 4: museum just dedicated to New York in New York. That

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Speaker 4: might be fun.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They also we're going to be hanging out at one

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Speaker 1: of the oldest public houses in New York, Francis Tavern.

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Speaker 4: I've been there before. I know exactly where that place is. Yep,

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Speaker 4: that's exactly totally forgot that's where it was.

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Speaker 3: It is.

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Speaker 4: It looks like you're in this era. It's in the

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Speaker 4: Financial District, and that's going to be so fun. Oh,

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Speaker 4: I totally forgot. It was at France's the.

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Speaker 1: Now we're talking about air so now we actually have

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Speaker 1: to do it. Oh definitely, man, all right, let's do it.

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Speaker 1: We're back, so no holding back, right Verry Thomas nast

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Speaker 1: of Us. After the fall of Tammany Hall, Thomas moves

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Speaker 1: on to new targets and he is taking shots at everyone.

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Speaker 1: According to Our White House, which you can find online

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Speaker 1: our white House dot org. According to Our White House

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Speaker 1: and many other sources, this one guy is credited with

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Speaker 1: perpetuating the donkey and elephant symbols for the Democratic and

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Speaker 1: Republican parties. He didn't originate these necessarily, but he did

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Speaker 1: popularize them and cement them in American culture because again,

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Speaker 1: he's kind of a John Stewart at this point. He's

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Speaker 1: that's one of the best comparisons I can imagine. He

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Speaker 1: is a John Stewart via cartoons in the eighteen hundreds.

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Speaker 4: I've always thought it was interesting that the both parties

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Speaker 4: sort of willingly used these symbols because they sort of

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Speaker 4: seem like kind of potshots, you know, that he's putting

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Speaker 4: out like kind of mocking them for being either you know,

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Speaker 4: penny pinching, I guess, the elephant, the idea never forgets

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Speaker 4: are being too pedantic, and then the others being I

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Speaker 4: guess kind of jackasses. I've always wondered, like, I don't know,

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Speaker 4: it does not seem very complimentary, and maybe that's the point.

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Speaker 4: It's the idea of like, you know, keeping these as

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Speaker 4: symbols sort of like represents this idea that the parties

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Speaker 4: don't take themselves too seriously.

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Speaker 3: But we all know that's not true.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the we know the donkey itself was associated with

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Speaker 1: Democrats as early as eighteen thirty seven. But Thomas Jackass himself,

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Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson, Yeah yeah, but Thomas Nice, no do it

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Speaker 1: Max with the facts on that one.

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Speaker 4: Oh, here it goes.

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Speaker 1: We know that Nast popularized the donkey, popularized the elephant.

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Speaker 1: To your point, Nol, I think about this a lot,

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Speaker 1: like how they chose the how they chose these symbolic mascots.

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Speaker 1: I wonder what other animals would be useful. It's strange

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Speaker 1: that the bald eagle has become just a general America

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Speaker 1: symbol and no one party can control it. Right. Also,

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Speaker 1: elephants are really cool, man.

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Speaker 4: They're super cool, you know, jack. Donkeys are cool. They

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Speaker 4: can carry lots of stuff. But again, it's not a

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Speaker 4: particularly complimentary and I have noticed. I guess maybe I'm wrong, right,

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Speaker 4: I'm not watching the right shows. But it does feel

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Speaker 4: like the parties have sort of lead away from using

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Speaker 4: these images as much as maybe they want. I don't know,

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Speaker 4: what do you think, Max? Do you still see images

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Speaker 4: of the donkey and the elephant associated with the parties?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like it might be more like

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Speaker 2: outside people using it. I mean, I still can't believe

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Speaker 2: the Republican Party calls themself the Grand Old Party, which

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Speaker 2: is which is hilarious because the Democratic Party is actually

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Speaker 2: much older than them.

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Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 1: Also also this is very confusing for any of our

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Speaker 1: ridiculous historians not from the United States, and so it's

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Speaker 1: confusing for US Americans too. The Democratic Party now is

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Speaker 1: not the Democratic Party from earlier. We got the turn,

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Speaker 1: we got the turn, we got we got Shyamalans somewhere

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Speaker 1: throughout the course of history. Also, you will, to your question,

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Speaker 1: you will see you will see symbolism of donkeys and

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Speaker 1: elephants in a lot of a lot of political wonk stuff,

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Speaker 1: you know, like when you're getting candidates for electoral colleges

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that. They still have the swag, they

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Speaker 1: still have the merchandise. However, they are not you know,

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Speaker 1: to your point, You're not going to see a Republican

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Speaker 1: or Democratic president wearing a donkey or an elephant pin

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Speaker 1: when they're making a speech, you know.

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Speaker 4: And it was once again a particularly iconic cartoon that

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Speaker 4: solidified these images in history. In eighteen seventy four, Harper's

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Speaker 4: published a cartoon by Nas called Third Term Panic around

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Speaker 4: President Ulysses Grants potential bid for a third term, which

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Speaker 4: is a little on the dictatorial side, right, you know

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Speaker 4: that's not really you.

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Speaker 1: Don't like FDR.

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Speaker 4: I don't like. I mean, I'm not obviously wasn't around

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Speaker 4: during this time, but I think like it wasn't illegal,

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Speaker 4: but it was sort of in bad form, right, right.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't illegal until after World War Two?

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Speaker 2: Probably smart, yeah, because it wasn't until after FDR actually

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Speaker 2: did it. I mean, I know some people had thrown

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Speaker 2: around the idea and Drew Jackson had actually thought about

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Speaker 2: the idea of running for a third term, despite the

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Speaker 2: fact that he was barely alive. But Grant was let's see,

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Speaker 2: I'm looking at it up on the flyer around. Grand

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Speaker 2: was in his fifties at this point.

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Speaker 3: He was young.

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Speaker 1: That's super young and sexy for president at this point.

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Speaker 4: But in any case, it was definitely kind of considered

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Speaker 4: a little bit of a ooh, and this might be

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Speaker 4: a slippery slope kind of situation.

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Speaker 2: It was an implied rule that you would only go

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Speaker 2: two terms because as a Washington did.

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Speaker 1: It was a gentleman's agreement.

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Speaker 4: Like so much stuff, say we've realized now is in politics,

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Speaker 4: you know, the idea of so many things that a

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Speaker 4: president does or can or can't do. The reason historical

436
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 4: events we've discovered we're all kind of based on decorum

437
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 4: rather than the law. And when you have someone that

438
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 4: just doesn't give a crap about decorum, then you start

439
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 4: to really realize how many holes can be poked in

440
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 4: this very tenuous arrangement. And I think that Nass knew

441
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:14,120
Speaker 4: that and knew that this could potentially be a slippery

442
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 4: slope into something that he used the term Caesarism to

443
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 4: describe in this cartoon where a cartoon donkey wearing a

444
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 4: lion's mass kind of skin with the word Caesarism, which

445
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 4: is this idea of kind of like the power grabbing right,

446
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 4: and the elephant is being scared away by the donkey

447
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 4: in the lion's clothing, the elephant bearing the words Republican votes. Yeah.

448
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: So the idea then is, and we'll see this later

449
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,479
Speaker 1: in a lot of different propaganda, the idea is what

450
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: we call like a paper tiger, you know, the opposite

451
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: of a wolf in sheep's clothing. This is a he

452
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: is arguing that Grant is pretending to be something more

453
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 1: than it is right as a as a political force.

454
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: It also reminds us symbolically of the old trope of

455
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: the elephant being scared or frightened by a mouse, you

456
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and say, the Republican vote is

457
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: running away from this thing that that could be a

458
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: threat but is not really a threat. And then eventually,

459
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 1: as the Great Game of Telephone continues, people stop thinking

460
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:32,479
Speaker 1: of the original propaganda, they stop thinking the word vote,

461
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: and they just think Republican. Oh I saw a cartoon

462
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: and they were elephants in the cartoon.

463
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 4: That's cool, That's what I like.

464
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: How Uh that poor kid from TLC her name is

465
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: not honey booboo, but that's a cash phrase and so

466
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 1: now they just started calling her that.

467
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent. And sometimes you're you can't really

468
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 4: control the way these things go. And because Nas' reach

469
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 4: was so vast and his influence so deep, he influenced

470
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 4: things that he didn't even realize or maybe wasn't even

471
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 4: attempting to. They are all these byproducts from his cartoons

472
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 4: that just sort of like embed themselves in history and

473
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 4: like in a really interesting way.

474
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: But he is still kind of a pill to work with.

475
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 1: Very he's very powerful. I know what to be careful

476
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: here because I just said, he's still a pill. He

477
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of dear friends of mine

478
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 1: who are tattoo artists. You know, they make their decision,

479
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: they get their mind made up, they stride confidently forward,

480
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: you know, and they don't take notes.

481
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 4: That's right, no notes. So by the eighteen eighties, I

482
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 4: would say that Nast's influence or his era was sort of,

483
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 4: you know, waning a little bit, right, and Britannica characterizes

484
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 4: this period of Nast as being particularly cantankerous. By eighteen

485
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 4: eighty five, they say he was constantly having disagreements with

486
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 4: the editor of Harper's Weekly and it was just becoming

487
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 4: an untenable situation. His final Harper's cartoon came out in

488
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,479
Speaker 4: eighteen eighty six, and then he sort of kind of

489
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 4: became a freelancer. I mean, he's obviously still a big name,

490
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 4: even if you know, maybe things were changing a little

491
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 4: bit and he wasn't didn't have quite the influence that

492
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 4: he once did. So he was working for other publications,

493
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 4: you know, kind of like on a case by case basis.

494
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 4: But then he ran into some pretty serious financial problems.

495
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not great at working with people, so it

496
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 1: might surprise you folks to learn that he eventually lands

497
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: a job in Ecuador, not as a cartoonist, as the

498
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: console general in nineteen oho. K, yeah.

499
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 4: Okay, why I'd never really thought of him having these

500
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 4: sort of aspirations, but I guess it makes sense that

501
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 4: he is this political force and he does have experience

502
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 4: covering politics of you know, so maybe he makes perfect sense.

503
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 3: And maybe it was the only job he made me.

504
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: That's also.

505
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 2: And a minor diplomat is how I saw it written somewhere. Yeah,

506
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 2: a friend of his felt really bad for him.

507
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: It was patronage, if we're being honest, which is kind

508
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: of the It's like a boss Tweed move. Bussweed gave

509
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: people bs jobs all the time, so so Tweet does

510
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: get It is true that he went to Ecuador. He

511
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 1: didn't stay long. He accepted the position on July one,

512
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: nineteen o two, and he did try to do the job.

513
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,719
Speaker 1: By the way, he wasn't just taking, you know, mailbox money.

514
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: He wasn't just sitting around getting in check. But he

515
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: was guilty of bad timing because a yellow fever outbreak

516
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: rocked Ecuador. He was still helping, or he was attempting

517
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: to address the pandemic. It really was a plague, and

518
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: he gets yellow fever himself. On December seventh of nineteen

519
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: oh two, he dies in Ecuador. He is sixty two

520
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: years old. His body is returned to the United States.

521
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, two months after I yeah, that's so sad. I mean,

522
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 4: I you know, I didn't think about that, Max. That

523
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 4: makes perfect sense that, you know he would have been.

524
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 4: He alienated so many people. I mean, honestly, if you

525
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 4: think about it, he was kind of a professional alienator.

526
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 4: It's just he had to be pointed at something. He

527
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 4: had to, like, all that negative energy that he had,

528
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 4: it kind of had to be aimed at something. Thankfully

529
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 4: for us, he focused it at a lot of important causes.

530
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 4: I guess you could call him kind of a you know,

531
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:50,239
Speaker 4: a righteous ahole. He did, as you mentioned, Max, have

532
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 4: some political and racial views that did not age well.

533
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 4: He was very anti Irish and depicted them off and

534
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 4: as like brawling drunks and you know, not making apologies

535
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 4: for that, but you see problematic things enrolled all books

536
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 4: and some Doctor SEUs stuff that he did outside of

537
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 4: his children's era that would a little bit I believe

538
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 4: anti semitic.

539
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 2: So there's some troublesome stuff in some of his Doctor

540
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 2: SEUs children's book stuff as well.

541
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: They played the way Theodoric Eisel. You mean the guy

542
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: who uh, the guy who cheated on his terminally ill wife.

543
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 3: Did you know that part?

544
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 4: Yeah?

545
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 3: I did not know that one. Yeah.

546
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 2: I mean granted, the Doctor Seuss group whatever it's called,

547
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 2: they pulled the books themselves and then everyone lost their

548
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 2: minds over it. One thing I do want to jump into,

549
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 2: who Knowle's righteous a whole thing? Like I've always heard

550
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 2: it put this way that like professional athletes, to become

551
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 2: a professional athlete, you have to be a certain level

552
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 2: of egotistical to get that high. And I think to

553
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 2: be as great, uh what he was, this he had

554
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 2: to be a certain level of an a whole Oh yeah.

555
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: Well sure you have to, you know, like the good

556
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 1: surgeons have a higher incident of sociopathy, right, Like there

557
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: are there are things that tie in to this. Thomas

558
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: dask was indeed a man with righteous cause, and he

559
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: was indignant about bad things. He also yet, as we said,

560
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: he's opinionated. He's a no notes guy. He is trying

561
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: to do his best, and in doing so he changed history.

562
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: As we know it, right, like shout out to the elephants,

563
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 1: shout out to the donkeys, shout out to Santa Claus.

564
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: Come on, man, this guy's pretty cool. I think also,

565
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: you know, to the point of our mission, he's ridiculous.

566
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 4: Oh boy, is the that mustache alone qualifies some for

567
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 4: ridiculous status? But man, I think this is a This

568
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 4: has made it into a two parter. Yeah, yes, Max,

569
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 4: can we get a like a game show? Sound perfect?

570
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: Uh? No, you are the winner, sir. You have guessed correctly.

571
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: This is a two parter.

572
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 4: But we already know that at this point because you're

573
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 4: listening to this second part right. This is only us

574
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 4: just now realizing in the moment that we're going to

575
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 4: make this a two parter. But thankfully it is a

576
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 4: perfect candidate for a two parter because this guy did

577
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff and had a lot of eras

578
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 4: so hoarded.

579
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: Live is what we say live, which is kind of

580
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: a fatuous term, sort of like saying, uh, like when

581
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: you go to a grocery store and you see stuff

582
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 1: advertised as handmade, you.

583
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 4: Know, artisanal. This is an artist artistical, this is organic.

584
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:39,919
Speaker 1: This is our organic two parter.

585
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 4: Uh thanks organic, But it's got lots of gluten full of.

586
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in, Folks, We hope you

587
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: enjoyed this exploration as much as we did. Big big

588
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big big

589
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: thanks to A. J. Bahamas Jacobs aka the Puzzler. Big

590
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: thanks to our own boss tweet Jonathan Strickland aka the Quiztor.

591
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 4: M hm, he's Jeff Coast. Christoph Fraciota is here in spirit,

592
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 4: Alex Williams, who composed this theme. Max to you, of course,

593
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 4: as our research associate. If Ben already thanks you. I'm

594
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 4: thinking you again, buddy, because you deserve it.

595
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 1: Oh, and our own Thomas Nest Nick Benson. Thanks Nick, Yeah.

596
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 4: Oh he made it an the episode twice. Well jeez,

597
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 4: I guess we'll see you next time, folks. For more

598
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 4: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

599
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 4: wherever you listen to your favorite shows