Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes this stuff you
Speaker 1: should know, the continued political edition. Because we did presidential pardons,
Speaker 1: we're all political now. Well, this is the time of
Speaker 1: the year, you know. Yeah, it's beginning to look a
Speaker 1: lot like political season. I'm going to day to cast
Speaker 1: my ballot for Georgia to start letting everybody buy booze
Speaker 1: on Sunday. I am too. I appreciate you doing that. No,
Speaker 1: I'm voting against it. A lot of people on the
Speaker 1: a j C they had, you know, the opinion, like
Speaker 1: what do you think? And the people that were against it,
Speaker 1: we're all just like, well, you got six days of eak,
Speaker 1: Like why to change it? Why bother? You know, it's
Speaker 1: just the one day. Is it really that big of
Speaker 1: a pain? And it's like what has lost on these
Speaker 1: people is that this is the United States of America.
Speaker 1: It's about freedom. It's not about buying booze on Sunday.
Speaker 1: It's about somebody else telling you not to when this
Speaker 1: is two thousand eleven. Yes, um, nice chuck. Yeah. Well, um,
Speaker 1: let's stop talking politics and instead let's talk animals. Let's
Speaker 1: talk biology. You know much about donkeys? Uh? No, okay,
Speaker 1: not really. Well, donkeys are a member of the horse family,
Speaker 1: but there are different species from horse. Donkeys and mules
Speaker 1: are not the same, correct there Uh, because there are
Speaker 1: different species. It makes it really weird that they can
Speaker 1: not only mate but procreate. But donkeys and horses do
Speaker 1: get it on and with the producer mules. So, um,
Speaker 1: a mule is actually the offspring of a male donkey
Speaker 1: jack and a female horse a mayor. How I do
Speaker 1: not know that in forty years a henney is a
Speaker 1: is the offspring of a female donkey a jenny, and
Speaker 1: a male horse stallion. So a mule or a henny
Speaker 1: can be boy or girl. It depends on what their
Speaker 1: parents were. So this is actually the second podcast where
Speaker 1: we've started with equestrian definitions. Yes, interesting, and I also
Speaker 1: want to give a little shout out to the donkey.
Speaker 1: Apparently a donkey they're very well known for stubbornness, of course,
Speaker 1: but um, apparently it is a misinterpretation as I understand it.
Speaker 1: Of they're incredibly well defined sense of self preservation. They
Speaker 1: are not very easily frightened or um forced into doing
Speaker 1: something they think is not in their own best interest,
Speaker 1: which comes off to us as stubborn jackass donkey mule
Speaker 1: who won't go down the trail, and they're like the
Speaker 1: gold No, no, I could fall off that interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think humans should start listening to their donkeys
Speaker 1: and to make sure that people don't accuse us of
Speaker 1: um doncubias. Yes, I want to talk also about elephants too,
Speaker 1: because if you talk donkeys, you have to talk elephants
Speaker 1: and eventually electric eels, which we'll get too later at
Speaker 1: the tea party. No, no, no, I thought they might
Speaker 1: have had their own. I don't know. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's electric eels. Pretty awesome. They do
Speaker 1: have that carved up snake. Yeah, they don't tread on
Speaker 1: me snake that was carved up into the thirteen colonies,
Speaker 1: But that's definitely not an electric eel. Elephants and are
Speaker 1: are a horse of a completely different color. A few
Speaker 1: couple of facts of them. They are, their societies are
Speaker 1: structured by female. They the if you see a group
Speaker 1: of elephants walking around, they're all female. They live in
Speaker 1: the same family their whole lives. The elephant pack is
Speaker 1: led by a female. It's matriarchal, and males spend their
Speaker 1: whole lives like just basically doing their own thing, hanging
Speaker 1: out and then coming around to mate every once in a
Speaker 1: a while. And these lives can can live, can go
Speaker 1: for up to eighty two years. And elephants are pretty
Speaker 1: amazing animals. They are very well known to mourn, scientifically
Speaker 1: proven to mourn they're dead. The first study that established
Speaker 1: that was in two thousand five that found that elephants
Speaker 1: will return to where their loved ones have fallen and
Speaker 1: visit their bones and skulls and tusks and want to
Speaker 1: stroke them and just kind of meditate over them for
Speaker 1: a while. That's very sad, right. So you have donkeys,
Speaker 1: you have elephants. You have American politics. That I think
Speaker 1: is as interesting as the story of how they became
Speaker 1: symbols of politics. I would say it's more interesting, alright.
Speaker 1: It depends on your your leanings. This one was written
Speaker 1: by Sam Abramson. You remember him. He was a good guy.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I doubt if he listens. Uh so,
Speaker 1: Thomas Nast. If you're gonna start the discussion on how
Speaker 1: the donkey and the elephant became symbols of our two
Speaker 1: political parties, there's only one place to start and end,
Speaker 1: and that is a German. Oddly enough, a German born
Speaker 1: political satirist and illustrator, cartoonist, wood block cutter. Yeah, really
Speaker 1: named Thomas Nast, who was born in Germany, came over
Speaker 1: to New York City when he was six, and uh
Speaker 1: was a natural. He was a shoeing right off the
Speaker 1: bat with this artwork stuff. Yeah, he was pretty good,
Speaker 1: you can tell. And you've if you haven't heard of him,
Speaker 1: you've still seen his stuff somewhere out there. You've seen
Speaker 1: a Thomas Nast illustration. Any time you think of nineteenth
Speaker 1: century UM political cartoons, what you're envisioning as a Thomas
Speaker 1: Nast illustration or Uncle Sam? It depends one. I always
Speaker 1: think of his UM flag, Thomas flag. I can't remember
Speaker 1: his name anyway, he was the one who painted that
Speaker 1: I want you, Uncle Sam. Yeah, but Nasa is the
Speaker 1: one who popularized the first images of Uncle Sam's that right. Well,
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam was around him he was. He was the
Speaker 1: one who first put him in like a star spangled
Speaker 1: suit and made him tall and gaunt, model after Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1: But Uncle Sam was, if I may uh. He was
Speaker 1: possibly named after a guy named Samuel Wilson, not Abrahamson
Speaker 1: no Ok, who was a meat packer from Troy, New York,
Speaker 1: UH in the early nineteenth century, and who was who
Speaker 1: got a great reputations being very honest, and so he
Speaker 1: got a government contract to send meat provisions to the
Speaker 1: troops UH during the War of eighteen twelve, and these
Speaker 1: crates would come arrive stamped us, and the troops came
Speaker 1: to mention that this was a quol Sam or Uncle
Speaker 1: Sam Wilson, which came to be a symbol for the
Speaker 1: United States as a whole, and they were providing Uncle
Speaker 1: Sam's brotting food for the soldiers. In their minds, yes,
Speaker 1: it's nice. Nothing but horse me in. Santa Claus, the
Speaker 1: modern Santa Claus as we know him, was sort of
Speaker 1: captured by a Nast as well as that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got a story there, I do think so people
Speaker 1: say that Thomas Nast invented Santa Claus, and that is
Speaker 1: it's pretty close. There was St. Nick was since your clause,
Speaker 1: there was all these these conceptions of Santa Claus based
Speaker 1: around St. Nick. Thomas Nast was the one who associated St. Nick,
Speaker 1: who still today in Germany. He's honored. He has a
Speaker 1: day on December six where people give one another gifts,
Speaker 1: but it's not Christmas. Thomas Nast took the gift giving
Speaker 1: idea associated with St. Nick, put it to Christmas for
Speaker 1: Harper's and then added the elves as well. So the
Speaker 1: whole idea of Santa Claus coming and bringing gifts was
Speaker 1: Thomas Nast. Yeah, like eighteen sixty two, I believe, for
Speaker 1: the cover of Harper's Weekly, Thank you Thomas Nast. And
Speaker 1: then by eighteen eighty one he was fat and jolly
Speaker 1: thinks that Thomas Nast as well? How is this Santa
Speaker 1: gonna be lean and mean? Yeah, he was a little
Speaker 1: skinny and it's off putting to see a skinny Santa
Speaker 1: Clause earlier ones. All right, well you spilled the beans
Speaker 1: on that spoiler. Harper's Weekly was where Nast worked for
Speaker 1: twenty four years from eighteen sixty two to eighteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: and um, that is where he made his name, like
Speaker 1: big time. He was influential. He was countrywide famous. I
Speaker 1: don't know about world famous. I don't know if a
Speaker 1: whole lot of people were world famous at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's definitely like a household name, I think. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was a rock star. This is when a political cartoon
Speaker 1: really meant something and actually held sway in elections. Not
Speaker 1: so today. Yeah, because you know, so many people were illiterate,
Speaker 1: which is kind of unfortunate, because Thomas Nast drew in
Speaker 1: a time where you could draw a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, this doesn't make any sense, and
Speaker 1: just put labels on him. Apparently you can label absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, this tree. Sometimes he would come to
Speaker 1: your house and explain it to you if you still
Speaker 1: didn't get well. And I mentioned wood cut these. Uh,
Speaker 1: he did not draw these in pen and ink until later,
Speaker 1: which would end up being his undoing. We'll get to that.
Speaker 1: But he actually carved these things. That's how they printed these.
Speaker 1: These are carvings. It's amazing, especially when you look at
Speaker 1: the detail. It's a striking Josh, I agree. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize there are wood carvings until about thirty minutes ago,
Speaker 1: so you're still reeling. Yeah, I'm a little I'm still queasy.
Speaker 1: I still have the taste of vomit in my mouth.
Speaker 1: All right. So, politically speaking, Nast was a Republican, but
Speaker 1: Republicans at the time aren't exactly what we might think
Speaker 1: of today. It was a shift over the years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that many people know this. It's a big eye open anything.
Speaker 1: It's like learning in eighth grade that, um, the United
Speaker 1: States like pretty much brought genocide down on Indians in America,
Speaker 1: you know, like learning like, wait, what are you talking about? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are cowboys and stuff, but what do you mean
Speaker 1: the same thing with this, Like that Republican and Democrat
Speaker 1: is fluid term, but really it's like conservative and liberal
Speaker 1: or the two opposing forces at all times. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good way to put it. Actually, And at the time,
Speaker 1: I guess Republicans were very much socially liberal and he
Speaker 1: was on board with that and ended up having problems
Speaker 1: with his own party because of that, which influenced his cartoons.
Speaker 1: We calling cartoons, I think, yeah, political cartoons. It's a
Speaker 1: it's an acceptable term. So donkey should we start there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the donkey first came about in eighteen seventy, was the
Speaker 1: first time the donkey made its appearance, and that was
Speaker 1: in uh and I have these printed out too. That
Speaker 1: was this one right here. The copper Head Northern Democrats
Speaker 1: were called copper Head Democrats opposed the Civil War, and
Speaker 1: he thought they were racists. Well that's what Sam calls them.
Speaker 1: Well that's what NAS thought of them, though, right right,
Speaker 1: But I think that they I think that that's over
Speaker 1: that's an overbroad description. I think that the copper Head
Speaker 1: Democrats were made up of like there were the crux
Speaker 1: of the peace movement, right they also basically they were
Speaker 1: made up of people who said it's unconstitutional to force
Speaker 1: a country together for one part of it wants to secede.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of different voices, but yes, they
Speaker 1: were very powerful, and Nast definitely opposed them for sure.
Speaker 1: And the copper Head is a snake, in case you
Speaker 1: didn't know that, So it's definitely a derogatory term, deadly snake.
Speaker 1: It is a deadly snake that we have right here
Speaker 1: in Georgia. Uh So, in eighteen seventy the he showed
Speaker 1: that the donkey kicking a dead lion the donkey, and
Speaker 1: like you said, he would just literally label them. He
Speaker 1: would write words on the body of the animals saying
Speaker 1: this is what this is. Uh, no subtext. The donkey
Speaker 1: was the copper Head Press, which was he was taking
Speaker 1: a jab at the press, not necessarily the party. And
Speaker 1: then the lion was Edwin and Stanton Lincoln, Secretary of War.
Speaker 1: It was dead and dead in the photo and it
Speaker 1: looks like there's a little eagle looking on even like
Speaker 1: what are you doing? But the eagles not labels. And
Speaker 1: I think that's the capital in the background. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. So yeah, he he would just write on it,
Speaker 1: like on the side of the donkey it says copper
Speaker 1: Head Press and it looks like have you heard of
Speaker 1: I think his name is Vim vander Wall or something
Speaker 1: like that. He he came up with the cloaca machine.
Speaker 1: He's an artist from the Netherlands. Uh. He has has
Speaker 1: like this whole exhibit where he like tattoos pigs really yeah,
Speaker 1: and like like elaborate tattoos and it looks a lot
Speaker 1: like this. I really like the woodcut or just that
Speaker 1: style that like the donkey having writing on the side
Speaker 1: of it. Okay, I got you, it's been graffito. So
Speaker 1: that is um. That was the first appearance of the donkey. Uh.
Speaker 1: The next one was in eighteen seven, be four, when
Speaker 1: Republican Ulysses s Grant Ulysses was vying for a potential
Speaker 1: third term, which freaked a lot of people out right. Well,
Speaker 1: he freaked people out twice. Did he try to do
Speaker 1: that twice? Well, they tried to get him to run
Speaker 1: for a third consecutive term in eighteen seventy six, but
Speaker 1: he pooh pooed it. But then he went and traveled
Speaker 1: abroad and came back and said, I'm a better man.
Speaker 1: I think I could be president for a third time,
Speaker 1: third non consecutive term in eight Yeah, which is why
Speaker 1: that that this third term panic. The eighteen seventy four
Speaker 1: cartoon was when people were like, well, he can't. You
Speaker 1: can't have a three term president, even though you could constitutionally,
Speaker 1: that's right. So if you look at this one, this
Speaker 1: one is like, this is crazy. This looks like a
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead album cover or something. It's got a donkey
Speaker 1: in sheep's clothing labeled Caesarism, obviously referencing Julius Caesar is
Speaker 1: some mad, power hungry tyrant. And then there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of other stuff going on, and we'll get to the
Speaker 1: as the elephant plays a part in this one as well.
Speaker 1: I like the giraffe a lot on that one. It
Speaker 1: was kind of up where he looks like he's wearing
Speaker 1: a vest. Yeah, he's wearing some sort of a suit.
Speaker 1: Giraffe in a suit. And that was called third term Panic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But again, even though he was symbolizing the Democratic Press
Speaker 1: mainly with the donkey, it's sort of stuck is the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party even though that wasn't in his original intent?
Speaker 1: Is that right? Um? I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if like he I don't think he originally intended it,
Speaker 1: but I think over time he just came to see
Speaker 1: it as I think it. Yeah, popularly was picked up
Speaker 1: and kind of forced him to use it later on.
Speaker 1: You know. But even though the Democrats still haven't, that's
Speaker 1: not their uh their symbol officially, they've never adopted the
Speaker 1: brain jackasses their official party symbol. I wonder why, although
Speaker 1: the Republicans have they've adopted their symbol. That's true. But
Speaker 1: there there's some stuff in that third Term Panic thing,
Speaker 1: um that kind of pops up that was clear really
Speaker 1: important to Nast, Like inflation. There's like a plank he
Speaker 1: wrote inflation on. So apparently at the time there was
Speaker 1: a big struggle going on about abandoning the gold standard,
Speaker 1: or printing um as much silver as you wanted, or
Speaker 1: issuing paper so you could basically cause inflation so people
Speaker 1: could pay off their debts so they could buy stuff
Speaker 1: more cheaply, that kind of thing. And apparently Nast opposed
Speaker 1: that the inflation because that's like a plank that's broken
Speaker 1: over this pit. That the elephant the Republican vote, I
Speaker 1: think is what it is. Chaos, Right, there's chaos because
Speaker 1: farmers can pay their bills kind of thing. So he
Speaker 1: was like, he was definitely a social liberal, but I
Speaker 1: get from this that he was also not a populist,
Speaker 1: Like I think he liked people in theory but not
Speaker 1: in practice. Right, And then you know this is important
Speaker 1: because he was a guy who only drew what he
Speaker 1: believed in, which would also further prove to be his
Speaker 1: undoing later on. Yeah, but you gotta take your hat
Speaker 1: off to somebody like that. You know, Well, he'd made
Speaker 1: his name. I guess he was like, do you know
Speaker 1: who I am? I'm the nasty man. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: draw anything I don't believe in. Uh so, what where
Speaker 1: are we here? There was another example, um, a presidential
Speaker 1: candidate grabbing a donkey labeled Democratic Party by the tail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was Thomas F. Bayard. Yeah, and he was
Speaker 1: grabbing it by the tail. He was actually one of
Speaker 1: those guys who fought to repeal, um the issuance of
Speaker 1: paper money legal tender that doesn't really mean anything, rather
Speaker 1: than use gold. And so I guess Nasty approved of him,
Speaker 1: even though he's a Democrat. And that's this one right here,
Speaker 1: right yeah, And that's uh, he's he's trying to keep
Speaker 1: the donkey from finding falling into a pit another pit
Speaker 1: labeled financial chaos. It's very popular motif at the time,
Speaker 1: I guess. And then in the background of this one
Speaker 1: you do see the dead Republican Party elephant with is
Speaker 1: that Lincoln hovering above him? Probably I think Nas kind
Speaker 1: of had a thing for for Lincoln had a thing
Speaker 1: for him. It's strictly in an idol way with an Oh,
Speaker 1: so that is the donkey That fairly summarized how it
Speaker 1: got started. Yeah, like you said, I mean he started
Speaker 1: just kind of using it and associating it with the
Speaker 1: Copperhead Democrats, Democratic Press, and then ultimately people just said, well,
Speaker 1: I can't read, but I see that you're making fun
Speaker 1: of the Democrats, and that's the donkeys. So the Democrats
Speaker 1: are donkeys, and I said, okay, we'll go with that.
Speaker 1: Oh and also, by the way, the Wizard of Oz
Speaker 1: apparently is a popular allegory for UM politics at the time,
Speaker 1: including that whole gold standard abandonment. Was it meant to be? It? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Frank Baum, who who wrote it was a political writer
Speaker 1: UM for many many years before he wrote it. And
Speaker 1: the gold the yellow brick road is the gold standard.
Speaker 1: And then Dorothy's shoes originally were silver, not ruby, and
Speaker 1: so silver and gold was a call out to this
Speaker 1: UM free silver idea of printing sixteen silver coins to
Speaker 1: every gold coin printed to make money cheaper and abundant. Right,
Speaker 1: So interesting, a lot of a lot of subtle stuff
Speaker 1: going on in the late nineteenth century. You know, Well,
Speaker 1: they're way more obvious now, I guess because they can be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least we don't label our political cartoons as much.
Speaker 1: It's still a tradition that's upheld. It is. You just
Speaker 1: don't see words all over the place. I don't read
Speaker 1: a lot of political cartoons anymore. To you I just
Speaker 1: don't run into him very often, but I almost always
Speaker 1: enjoy him when I do upentially that Mike Luckovich guy,
Speaker 1: he is good. He is a local boy too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: luck of it just good. You know, I'm a big
Speaker 1: family Circus fan. Yeah, that's rarely political. You know when
Speaker 1: Jeffy like tracks a month through the through the House
Speaker 1: and it's like, Jeffy, have you seen the altered version
Speaker 1: of those? There's altered versions of everything. These are pretty funny.
Speaker 1: They're really really dirty, but they're funny. Dirty is not there?
Speaker 1: Or they just like um filthy? Yeah they felt okay, alright,
Speaker 1: So moving on to the elephant. Uh, this was Nast's party,
Speaker 1: the Republicans at the time, so obviously his cartoons about
Speaker 1: the elephant are going to be more positive, I guess,
Speaker 1: or sad. Yeah, true, like the dying elephant. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think he probably intuitively knew the elephants mourn they're dead,
Speaker 1: which makes you sad when you think about elephants, which
Speaker 1: is why you choose the elephant. I wonder if he
Speaker 1: knew that. I don't think you did. That's appropriate though,
Speaker 1: before he actually ever, it keeps saying penned in here,
Speaker 1: but carved his first elephant. Um. It was used twice before,
Speaker 1: once in eighteen sixty four, uh, in a Lincoln campaign
Speaker 1: literature piece, and then in eighteen seventy two by Harper's
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until eighteen seventy four that he used it,
Speaker 1: So I can imagine the Lincoln use of it was
Speaker 1: very intended to be derogatory. Yeah, probably all jackasses. So
Speaker 1: that's uh or turn panic. The one we already talked
Speaker 1: about was the first Um Republican elephant that he had carved. Okay,
Speaker 1: but the first appearance of the Republican elephant and the
Speaker 1: Democratic um donkey together as the as those two is
Speaker 1: the representative the whole party was the Stranger Things Have
Speaker 1: Happened cartoon where he's got the donkey by the tail.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, it's the first. That's what
Speaker 1: that one was called, Stranger Things have Happened. Uh. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, there was one called the Political Situation.
Speaker 1: Pretty straight up, Uncle Sam is confused. He is labeled
Speaker 1: the vote of the people, and there's a two headed
Speaker 1: elephant choosing to decide which road Democratic road of the
Speaker 1: Republican road to go down. That's fairly self explanatory. I
Speaker 1: think it is, but it's also kind of confusing because
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam's confused. So as he's saying the Republicans can
Speaker 1: go one of two ways at the time, Well, no,
Speaker 1: because there it's two headed, so I would imagine it
Speaker 1: was it's more representative of the two already system. I
Speaker 1: think Nasty was pretty drunk that day, So, uh, what
Speaker 1: else do we have here? Um? There was the oh
Speaker 1: my favorite, I haven't seen it yet. Did you print
Speaker 1: it out? The one with the tombstone? No, I couldn't
Speaker 1: find that one. I thought this was very um sweet,
Speaker 1: but nasty. Apparently, when Rutherford B. Hayes uh ran for
Speaker 1: president he won the eight seventy six election, that um
Speaker 1: that Grant didn't go for the third term four right,
Speaker 1: and Hayes apparently said that he would only run once.
Speaker 1: And I guess he wasn't a very well like guy
Speaker 1: because he was one of those presidents who won through
Speaker 1: the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, and apparently
Speaker 1: lost the popular vote pretty bad, and so his whole
Speaker 1: presidency was in no way, shape or form a mandate.
Speaker 1: It was it was very representative of the fact that
Speaker 1: this country, our country was still very much torn apart
Speaker 1: from the Civil War, and so nas created this cartoon
Speaker 1: where this um elephant that Sam describes as bruised and
Speaker 1: battered is crouching down at a tombstone of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty cool because it's like he
Speaker 1: had the sense that there was still, no matter how
Speaker 1: um acrimonious things got, that these two parties were still
Speaker 1: American parties, that there's still a whole wild world out
Speaker 1: there for us to hate, and why are we hating
Speaker 1: each other? You know, Yeah, that's sort of a nice sentiment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to characterize nastas uh an isolationists
Speaker 1: or even a nativist, like he had one of his
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam paintings or I'm sorry carvings. Was um Uncle
Speaker 1: Sam and Columbia right Liberty uh hosting a Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 1: with all the peoples of the world, which included some
Speaker 1: Chinese people, some um black people, some Native American Indians, uh,
Speaker 1: and uh a host of others, but not the Irish.
Speaker 1: I don't think the Irish were president. But it was
Speaker 1: like it's world or suffrage for all, you know, equality
Speaker 1: for everyone in the world. Come on, comal, you're all invited.
Speaker 1: It was pretty cool. He's definitely not a bigot, as
Speaker 1: far as I could tell you, it does seemed like it. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know what standpoints out is it? And it's true.
Speaker 1: It's kind of striking that a hundred and fifty years
Speaker 1: after this or so, that these are still the symbols.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Republicans officially adopted the elephant. But he
Speaker 1: points out that a lot of that was due to
Speaker 1: just how influential and popular Nast was at the time.
Speaker 1: It just became part of the national fabric because of him.
Speaker 1: There was some good quotes about him after well, while
Speaker 1: he's working. Even apparently, Um Abraham Lincoln called Nasta's quote
Speaker 1: best recruiting sergeant during the eighteen sixty four re election.
Speaker 1: And this is while he was traveling around the country heckling, Uh,
Speaker 1: what's his name? Oh, Stephen, it's not Stephen Decatur. What
Speaker 1: was that guy's name? I don't know. We'll go with
Speaker 1: Ambrose Beers, even though it's not right. I can't believe
Speaker 1: we don't remember that guy's name. I know, my head
Speaker 1: is just bulging. Uh. Mark Twain said that Nast won
Speaker 1: a prodigious victory for grant I mean, for civilization in progress.
Speaker 1: It's Mark Twain for you. What a guy. He can
Speaker 1: turn it price. So he Um, you said that he
Speaker 1: kind of gave up his UH career in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways by being stubborn as a donkey. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Especially he was apparently in very good with Fletcher Harper,
Speaker 1: who founded Harper's Weekly. Um, do you read Harper's. No,
Speaker 1: it's monthly, it's Lewis Lapham just left and I got
Speaker 1: into it right before he left, and I got sucked
Speaker 1: into Harper's and then he left, and now I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's just not is good? Why Why did this happen
Speaker 1: to me? Why does everything bad happen to me? But
Speaker 1: it's still it's very good. And it's been around since
Speaker 1: the mid nineteenth century, which is pretty impressive for a magazine,
Speaker 1: and endured endors. But Junior came aboard and UM didn't
Speaker 1: really side with um. Thomas nast right, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: Na's had a lot of freedom under under Fletcher Harper,
Speaker 1: but Joe Jr. Kind of tightened down the ranks, and
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, man, don't be so square. People want
Speaker 1: to be entertained. So there was a bit of a
Speaker 1: shift and UH in in the the way American public
Speaker 1: wanted to you know, what they wanted to read in magazines,
Speaker 1: and then uh, people wanted to not be bothered anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were stick of it. So the other death Noel though,
Speaker 1: was was they went to photochemical reproduction and they didn't
Speaker 1: do the woodblock cuttings anymore. And apparently woodblock, even though
Speaker 1: I mean it looks to me like incredibly detailed, it
Speaker 1: gives you a lot of leeway to make mistakes that
Speaker 1: you don't get with pen and ink and paper. So
Speaker 1: his shortcomings all of a sudden stood out. They're like,
Speaker 1: this guy kind of sucks. It's just it's just not
Speaker 1: true Santa Claus. Yeah, so he he ended up like, um,
Speaker 1: penniless as you as you love the term, Um, I
Speaker 1: do you don't you love the term penniless. I was
Speaker 1: listening to an old podcast and you're like, I hate
Speaker 1: that term. It's so no. One doesn't happen. He does
Speaker 1: the Niagara Falls one. She's I need to lighten up
Speaker 1: back then. Huh. But anyway, he was very much broke
Speaker 1: um and he tried to He tried to open his
Speaker 1: own uh paper, Nast Weekly, which lasted six months, and
Speaker 1: luckily he had a friend in Teddy Roosevelt, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he he appointed him to Council General to Ecuador
Speaker 1: and NASA. I guess it's like, all right, I guess
Speaker 1: I'll go to Ecuador. It's because there's money there, because
Speaker 1: I'm Penniless's better than doing nothing. And it actually was
Speaker 1: not better than doing nothing, because he got yellow fever
Speaker 1: there and died six months later. Yeah. Uh so that's
Speaker 1: a pretty weird end of that guy, if you ask me,
Speaker 1: But it was. He was sixty two and at the
Speaker 1: turn of the last last century, the last last turn
Speaker 1: of the century. He uh, sixty two is not bad.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good run for back then, especially being
Speaker 1: a household name wentce your celebrities over. You might as well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're dead anyway, and that just hasn't You
Speaker 1: haven't actually died yet, but you might as well be,
Speaker 1: you know. So there you go, the donkey and the
Speaker 1: the elephant. If if you feel like we've explained this,
Speaker 1: if you now understand it and gotten to the bottom
Speaker 1: of it, you were not paying attention because it's still
Speaker 1: as convoluted as ever. It's not all that's all from that. Well,
Speaker 1: don't you wish though that there was like some sort
Speaker 1: of like, oh, here's the reason why he chose the donkey. Oh,
Speaker 1: of course he would choose an elephant. It's totally intuitive. No,
Speaker 1: it's the ramblings of a madman. You used to carve
Speaker 1: stuff into woodblocks and Fletcher Harper published it for the
Speaker 1: consumption of everybody else. But now you know, knowing is
Speaker 1: half the battle the track. So if you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about Thomas Nast, if you want to read
Speaker 1: one of the extraordinarily rare Samuel Abramson articles on the site,
Speaker 1: you can type in the words why are a donkey
Speaker 1: and an elephant the symbols of the Democratic and Republican
Speaker 1: parties question mark. You could probably also just type in
Speaker 1: donkey and elephant and it will bring it up. So
Speaker 1: h I think I said that you should type it
Speaker 1: into the search bar, and if I didn't, you should
Speaker 1: type it into the search bar at how stuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1: Since I said that, it's time now for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Josh Bison feedback from Canada Burlington, Ontario, specifically, guys, your
Speaker 1: recent Bison podcast put me uh in mind one of
Speaker 1: the coolest experiences of my life when I lived out
Speaker 1: in Alberta, I'd often go hiking and Elk Island National Park.
Speaker 1: I was halfway around one of the parks longer trails
Speaker 1: one day when I looked down, I saw a fresh
Speaker 1: buffalo chip. What's that is? Scat? As I pondered what
Speaker 1: this meant, I heard a snort and about ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen meters in front of me, which is a length
Speaker 1: that I don't understand. It's roximately okay, it was ards okay,
Speaker 1: I get yards. Uh ten to fifteens in front of
Speaker 1: me was a bison. I froze. I was alone, hadn't
Speaker 1: seen another soul on the trail. I knew roughly eight
Speaker 1: kilometers whatever that is from the road, I'm sorry, from
Speaker 1: the trailhead in either direction, and I knew uh. This
Speaker 1: animal decided to charge, I was as good as dead,
Speaker 1: and we stared each other down for a few minutes.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was going through its mind, but
Speaker 1: I was weighing my options. If I turned around and
Speaker 1: it decided at a charge, I might not hear it
Speaker 1: coming and wouldn't be able to take evasive action. If
Speaker 1: I went forward, I might provoke it and be in
Speaker 1: deep troubled. I knew I couldn't stay there all day,
Speaker 1: so I decided to take a single step towards it.
Speaker 1: To Gage's response, good move, I think. I moved towards it.
Speaker 1: It gave a snort and turned its head away from
Speaker 1: me and ran into the woods to my right. Very cool,
Speaker 1: I thought, No sooner had I thought that. Then from
Speaker 1: my left came a thundering herd of bison stampeding across
Speaker 1: the trail. There must have been twenty to thirty of
Speaker 1: them running in front of me, following their lookout. That
Speaker 1: was a scout, I guess, into the forest. I stood there, utterly,
Speaker 1: all struck for several minutes before I decided to move
Speaker 1: forward to where they had just been. For the next
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, everywhere, I bet. For the next fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: or so, I kept looking over my shoulder just in
Speaker 1: case they were hiding behind a tree, ready to pounce
Speaker 1: on me like a giant cartoon kangaroo. Interesting imagination. So
Speaker 1: they didn't pounce. He made it back say, and he
Speaker 1: just says, if anyone finds himself in this situation, probably
Speaker 1: won't happen. Don't do what I did. I got lucky.
Speaker 1: These are wild animals, not petting zoo bison. I could
Speaker 1: have easily been trampled and left to die. So that
Speaker 1: is Gordon C from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Weird weird ending there.
Speaker 1: He doesn't give any any suggestions of what to do. No,
Speaker 1: but he did say that it was the most amazing
Speaker 1: experience of his life, seeming the thundering herd of bison
Speaker 1: right in front of him. I will bet I thought
Speaker 1: it was pretty cool. Yeah. Um, I want to add
Speaker 1: something from the Bison podcast. We got a tweet from
Speaker 1: some guy recently was saying, hey, I was really disappointed
Speaker 1: you guys used the word Indian instead of Native American.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, yeah, that's a smart guy. Well,
Speaker 1: how about I provide you with the link to an
Speaker 1: article that has a poll that shows that in clear
Speaker 1: for of all Indian Native American Indians, UM prefer the
Speaker 1: term Indian over Native American, prefer Native American, and then
Speaker 1: like six percent or whatever the rest is prefer something else.
Speaker 1: Don't call me, I'll call you all right. So the
Speaker 1: the not a majority, but very close to it for
Speaker 1: Indian over Native Americans. So chew on that pal. We
Speaker 1: were doing something right for once, and he goes, no,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about people from India are offended by that
Speaker 1: like me, And I was like, oh, you're to handle
Speaker 1: is Sanjay something? And I haven't responded yet, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't considered that. Yeah, I knew we were doing right
Speaker 1: by Indians of North America, but I hadn't considered how
Speaker 1: Indians of India also known as Asian Indians felt about it.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious to know. So I would like to
Speaker 1: hear from everybody, uh, if from Asian Indians and North
Speaker 1: American Indians. And I'm sure I'm just like offending everybody
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form right now, but like
Speaker 1: figure out how to establish this. I want to know,
Speaker 1: how do you consider that either? And even if you're
Speaker 1: not Asian Indian or American Indian, yes, uh, we want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. If you have a good suggestion
Speaker 1: to about how to end this conundrum. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: tweet to us like Sanjay did at s Y s
Speaker 1: K podcast. Um, you can uh go to Facebook also
Speaker 1: known as the the fifty thousand at Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash stuff you Should Know, and you can send us
Speaker 1: a plain old fashioned email at Stuff podcast at how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to check out our
Speaker 1: new video podcast Stuff from the future. Join how Stuff
Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you