WEBVTT - What made the donkey and the elephant political? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:16.439 from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.120 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.560 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes this stuff you 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:27.440 should know, the continued political edition. Because we did presidential pardons, 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.440 we're all political now. Well, this is the time of 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.720 the year, you know. Yeah, it's beginning to look a 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:39.840 lot like political season. I'm going to day to cast 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.199 my ballot for Georgia to start letting everybody buy booze 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.760 on Sunday. I am too. I appreciate you doing that. No, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:51.360 I'm voting against it. A lot of people on the 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.960 a j C they had, you know, the opinion, like 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.120 what do you think? And the people that were against it, 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.200 we're all just like, well, you got six days of eak, 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.480 Like why to change it? Why bother? You know, it's 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.200 just the one day. Is it really that big of 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.920 a pain? And it's like what has lost on these 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.759 people is that this is the United States of America. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.600 It's about freedom. It's not about buying booze on Sunday. 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.520 It's about somebody else telling you not to when this 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:23.800 is two thousand eleven. Yes, um, nice chuck. Yeah. Well, um, 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.120 let's stop talking politics and instead let's talk animals. Let's 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:32.720 talk biology. You know much about donkeys? Uh? No, okay, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.000 not really. Well, donkeys are a member of the horse family, 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.160 but there are different species from horse. Donkeys and mules 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:46.000 are not the same, correct there Uh, because there are 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.760 different species. It makes it really weird that they can 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.320 not only mate but procreate. But donkeys and horses do 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.640 get it on and with the producer mules. So, um, 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.840 a mule is actually the offspring of a male donkey 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.320 jack and a female horse a mayor. How I do 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.079 not know that in forty years a henney is a 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.760 is the offspring of a female donkey a jenny, and 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:19.280 a male horse stallion. So a mule or a henny 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.240 can be boy or girl. It depends on what their 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:26.360 parents were. So this is actually the second podcast where 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:31.720 we've started with equestrian definitions. Yes, interesting, and I also 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:33.960 want to give a little shout out to the donkey. 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:39.040 Apparently a donkey they're very well known for stubbornness, of course, 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.240 but um, apparently it is a misinterpretation as I understand it. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:50.400 Of they're incredibly well defined sense of self preservation. They 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.280 are not very easily frightened or um forced into doing 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.560 something they think is not in their own best interest, 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.720 which comes off to us as stubborn jackass donkey mule 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.880 who won't go down the trail, and they're like the 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:07.120 gold No, no, I could fall off that interesting. Yeah, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.840 so I think humans should start listening to their donkeys 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.320 and to make sure that people don't accuse us of 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.480 um doncubias. Yes, I want to talk also about elephants too, 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.280 because if you talk donkeys, you have to talk elephants 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.840 and eventually electric eels, which we'll get too later at 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.560 the tea party. No, no, no, I thought they might 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.440 have had their own. I don't know. I don't think so. 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.720 I don't think it's electric eels. Pretty awesome. They do 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.560 have that carved up snake. Yeah, they don't tread on 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.320 me snake that was carved up into the thirteen colonies, 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.200 But that's definitely not an electric eel. Elephants and are 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.800 are a horse of a completely different color. A few 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.280 couple of facts of them. They are, their societies are 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:57.240 structured by female. They the if you see a group 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.640 of elephants walking around, they're all female. They live in 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:04.880 the same family their whole lives. The elephant pack is 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.120 led by a female. It's matriarchal, and males spend their 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.400 whole lives like just basically doing their own thing, hanging 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.360 out and then coming around to mate every once in a 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.760 a while. And these lives can can live, can go 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.080 for up to eighty two years. And elephants are pretty 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.400 amazing animals. They are very well known to mourn, scientifically 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.880 proven to mourn they're dead. The first study that established 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.960 that was in two thousand five that found that elephants 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.160 will return to where their loved ones have fallen and 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.080 visit their bones and skulls and tusks and want to 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.280 stroke them and just kind of meditate over them for 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.479 a while. That's very sad, right. So you have donkeys, 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:49.159 you have elephants. You have American politics. That I think 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.920 is as interesting as the story of how they became 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.920 symbols of politics. I would say it's more interesting, alright. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.000 It depends on your your leanings. This one was written 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.400 by Sam Abramson. You remember him. He was a good guy. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:10.160 I have no idea. I doubt if he listens. Uh so, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.320 Thomas Nast. If you're gonna start the discussion on how 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.479 the donkey and the elephant became symbols of our two 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.480 political parties, there's only one place to start and end, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.640 and that is a German. Oddly enough, a German born 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:34.200 political satirist and illustrator, cartoonist, wood block cutter. Yeah, really 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.240 named Thomas Nast, who was born in Germany, came over 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.640 to New York City when he was six, and uh 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.360 was a natural. He was a shoeing right off the 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.400 bat with this artwork stuff. Yeah, he was pretty good, 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:49.720 you can tell. And you've if you haven't heard of him, 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.120 you've still seen his stuff somewhere out there. You've seen 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.599 a Thomas Nast illustration. Any time you think of nineteenth 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:01.120 century UM political cartoons, what you're envisioning as a Thomas 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:05.240 Nast illustration or Uncle Sam? It depends one. I always 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.599 think of his UM flag, Thomas flag. I can't remember 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.919 his name anyway, he was the one who painted that 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.320 I want you, Uncle Sam. Yeah, but Nasa is the 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.000 one who popularized the first images of Uncle Sam's that right. Well, 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:21.839 Uncle Sam was around him he was. He was the 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:23.880 one who first put him in like a star spangled 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.479 suit and made him tall and gaunt, model after Abraham Lincoln. 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.040 But Uncle Sam was, if I may uh. He was 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.120 possibly named after a guy named Samuel Wilson, not Abrahamson 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:40.320 no Ok, who was a meat packer from Troy, New York, 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:45.120 UH in the early nineteenth century, and who was who 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.080 got a great reputations being very honest, and so he 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.680 got a government contract to send meat provisions to the 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.719 troops UH during the War of eighteen twelve, and these 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.600 crates would come arrive stamped us, and the troops came 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.120 to mention that this was a quol Sam or Uncle 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.120 Sam Wilson, which came to be a symbol for the 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.560 United States as a whole, and they were providing Uncle 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.120 Sam's brotting food for the soldiers. In their minds, yes, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.960 it's nice. Nothing but horse me in. Santa Claus, the 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.720 modern Santa Claus as we know him, was sort of 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.720 captured by a Nast as well as that, right, Yeah, 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.280 you got a story there, I do think so people 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.480 say that Thomas Nast invented Santa Claus, and that is 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.559 it's pretty close. There was St. Nick was since your clause, 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.160 there was all these these conceptions of Santa Claus based 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.160 around St. Nick. Thomas Nast was the one who associated St. Nick, 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.200 who still today in Germany. He's honored. He has a 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.280 day on December six where people give one another gifts, 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.280 but it's not Christmas. Thomas Nast took the gift giving 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.760 idea associated with St. Nick, put it to Christmas for 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.000 Harper's and then added the elves as well. So the 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.440 whole idea of Santa Claus coming and bringing gifts was 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.040 Thomas Nast. Yeah, like eighteen sixty two, I believe, for 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.040 the cover of Harper's Weekly, Thank you Thomas Nast. And 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.160 then by eighteen eighty one he was fat and jolly 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.360 thinks that Thomas Nast as well? How is this Santa 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.080 gonna be lean and mean? Yeah, he was a little 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.239 skinny and it's off putting to see a skinny Santa 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:20.120 Clause earlier ones. All right, well you spilled the beans 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.120 on that spoiler. Harper's Weekly was where Nast worked for 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.920 twenty four years from eighteen sixty two to eighteen eighty six, 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:33.520 and um, that is where he made his name, like 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:38.520 big time. He was influential. He was countrywide famous. I 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.199 don't know about world famous. I don't know if a 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.240 whole lot of people were world famous at the time. Yeah, 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.440 he's definitely like a household name, I think. Yeah, he 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.000 was a rock star. This is when a political cartoon 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:52.480 really meant something and actually held sway in elections. Not 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.480 so today. Yeah, because you know, so many people were illiterate, 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.320 which is kind of unfortunate, because Thomas Nast drew in 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.440 a time where you could draw a bunch of stuff 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.000 and be like, oh, this doesn't make any sense, and 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.360 just put labels on him. Apparently you can label absolutely everything. 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.080 It's like, okay, this tree. Sometimes he would come to 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.360 your house and explain it to you if you still 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.840 didn't get well. And I mentioned wood cut these. Uh, 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.480 he did not draw these in pen and ink until later, 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.640 which would end up being his undoing. We'll get to that. 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.319 But he actually carved these things. That's how they printed these. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.280 These are carvings. It's amazing, especially when you look at 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:34.439 the detail. It's a striking Josh, I agree. I didn't 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.880 realize there are wood carvings until about thirty minutes ago, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.880 so you're still reeling. Yeah, I'm a little I'm still queasy. 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:43.880 I still have the taste of vomit in my mouth. 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:49.960 All right. So, politically speaking, Nast was a Republican, but 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.640 Republicans at the time aren't exactly what we might think 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.600 of today. It was a shift over the years. Yeah, 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.720 that many people know this. It's a big eye open anything. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.920 It's like learning in eighth grade that, um, the United 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:07.040 States like pretty much brought genocide down on Indians in America, 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.720 you know, like learning like, wait, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:11.640 there are cowboys and stuff, but what do you mean 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:15.760 the same thing with this, Like that Republican and Democrat 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.160 is fluid term, but really it's like conservative and liberal 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.040 or the two opposing forces at all times. Yeah, that's 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.040 a good way to put it. Actually, And at the time, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.280 I guess Republicans were very much socially liberal and he 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:30.840 was on board with that and ended up having problems 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.360 with his own party because of that, which influenced his cartoons. 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.200 We calling cartoons, I think, yeah, political cartoons. It's a 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:42.360 it's an acceptable term. So donkey should we start there? Yeah, 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.719 the donkey first came about in eighteen seventy, was the 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.760 first time the donkey made its appearance, and that was 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:52.920 in uh and I have these printed out too. That 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:58.240 was this one right here. The copper Head Northern Democrats 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.480 were called copper Head Democrats opposed the Civil War, and 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:07.640 he thought they were racists. Well that's what Sam calls them. 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.319 Well that's what NAS thought of them, though, right right, 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.880 But I think that they I think that that's over 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.840 that's an overbroad description. I think that the copper Head 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.040 Democrats were made up of like there were the crux 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.439 of the peace movement, right they also basically they were 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.920 made up of people who said it's unconstitutional to force 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.280 a country together for one part of it wants to secede. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.319 There were a lot of different voices, but yes, they 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.120 were very powerful, and Nast definitely opposed them for sure. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:35.880 And the copper Head is a snake, in case you 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.160 didn't know that, So it's definitely a derogatory term, deadly snake. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.480 It is a deadly snake that we have right here 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.480 in Georgia. Uh So, in eighteen seventy the he showed 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.160 that the donkey kicking a dead lion the donkey, and 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.880 like you said, he would just literally label them. He 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.280 would write words on the body of the animals saying 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.679 this is what this is. Uh, no subtext. The donkey 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:00.720 was the copper Head Press, which was he was taking 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.640 a jab at the press, not necessarily the party. And 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.160 then the lion was Edwin and Stanton Lincoln, Secretary of War. 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.199 It was dead and dead in the photo and it 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.960 looks like there's a little eagle looking on even like 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.280 what are you doing? But the eagles not labels. And 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.760 I think that's the capital in the background. Yeah, I 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.320 think so. So yeah, he he would just write on it, 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.240 like on the side of the donkey it says copper 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.880 Head Press and it looks like have you heard of 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.920 I think his name is Vim vander Wall or something 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.480 like that. He he came up with the cloaca machine. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.880 He's an artist from the Netherlands. Uh. He has has 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.319 like this whole exhibit where he like tattoos pigs really yeah, 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.640 and like like elaborate tattoos and it looks a lot 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.480 like this. I really like the woodcut or just that 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.920 style that like the donkey having writing on the side 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.319 of it. Okay, I got you, it's been graffito. So 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.880 that is um. That was the first appearance of the donkey. Uh. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.840 The next one was in eighteen seven, be four, when 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:07.720 Republican Ulysses s Grant Ulysses was vying for a potential 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.880 third term, which freaked a lot of people out right. Well, 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.000 he freaked people out twice. Did he try to do 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.120 that twice? Well, they tried to get him to run 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.680 for a third consecutive term in eighteen seventy six, but 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.240 he pooh pooed it. But then he went and traveled 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.240 abroad and came back and said, I'm a better man. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.280 I think I could be president for a third time, 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:29.200 third non consecutive term in eight Yeah, which is why 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.319 that that this third term panic. The eighteen seventy four 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.400 cartoon was when people were like, well, he can't. You 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.400 can't have a three term president, even though you could constitutionally, 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.800 that's right. So if you look at this one, this 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.800 one is like, this is crazy. This looks like a 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.400 Grateful Dead album cover or something. It's got a donkey 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:53.920 in sheep's clothing labeled Caesarism, obviously referencing Julius Caesar is 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.559 some mad, power hungry tyrant. And then there's all sorts 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.520 of other stuff going on, and we'll get to the 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.760 as the elephant plays a part in this one as well. 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.839 I like the giraffe a lot on that one. It 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:07.600 was kind of up where he looks like he's wearing 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:09.680 a vest. Yeah, he's wearing some sort of a suit. 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.920 Giraffe in a suit. And that was called third term Panic. Yeah. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.679 But again, even though he was symbolizing the Democratic Press 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.240 mainly with the donkey, it's sort of stuck is the 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.960 Democratic Party even though that wasn't in his original intent? 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.000 Is that right? Um? I don't know. I don't know 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.920 if like he I don't think he originally intended it, 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.040 but I think over time he just came to see 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.200 it as I think it. Yeah, popularly was picked up 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.040 and kind of forced him to use it later on. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.160 You know. But even though the Democrats still haven't, that's 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.000 not their uh their symbol officially, they've never adopted the 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:51.320 brain jackasses their official party symbol. I wonder why, although 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.720 the Republicans have they've adopted their symbol. That's true. But 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.440 there there's some stuff in that third Term Panic thing, 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.600 um that kind of pops up that was clear really 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.720 important to Nast, Like inflation. There's like a plank he 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.480 wrote inflation on. So apparently at the time there was 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:12.120 a big struggle going on about abandoning the gold standard, 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:17.120 or printing um as much silver as you wanted, or 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:23.760 issuing paper so you could basically cause inflation so people 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:25.640 could pay off their debts so they could buy stuff 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.800 more cheaply, that kind of thing. And apparently Nast opposed 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.000 that the inflation because that's like a plank that's broken 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:37.240 over this pit. That the elephant the Republican vote, I 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.480 think is what it is. Chaos, Right, there's chaos because 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.880 farmers can pay their bills kind of thing. So he 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.200 was like, he was definitely a social liberal, but I 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.880 get from this that he was also not a populist, 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.720 Like I think he liked people in theory but not 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:56.680 in practice. Right, And then you know this is important 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.480 because he was a guy who only drew what he 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.320 believed in, which would also further prove to be his 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:04.400 undoing later on. Yeah, but you gotta take your hat 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:06.880 off to somebody like that. You know, Well, he'd made 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:08.560 his name. I guess he was like, do you know 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.160 who I am? I'm the nasty man. I'm not gonna 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.840 draw anything I don't believe in. Uh so, what where 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.400 are we here? There was another example, um, a presidential 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.920 candidate grabbing a donkey labeled Democratic Party by the tail. Yeah, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.040 so that was Thomas F. Bayard. Yeah, and he was 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:28.960 grabbing it by the tail. He was actually one of 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.560 those guys who fought to repeal, um the issuance of 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:36.080 paper money legal tender that doesn't really mean anything, rather 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.240 than use gold. And so I guess Nasty approved of him, 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.720 even though he's a Democrat. And that's this one right here, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.160 right yeah, And that's uh, he's he's trying to keep 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.160 the donkey from finding falling into a pit another pit 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:52.200 labeled financial chaos. It's very popular motif at the time, 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.360 I guess. And then in the background of this one 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.160 you do see the dead Republican Party elephant with is 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.440 that Lincoln hovering above him? Probably I think Nas kind 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.320 of had a thing for for Lincoln had a thing 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:10.399 for him. It's strictly in an idol way with an Oh, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.879 so that is the donkey That fairly summarized how it 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.760 got started. Yeah, like you said, I mean he started 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:18.679 just kind of using it and associating it with the 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:23.520 Copperhead Democrats, Democratic Press, and then ultimately people just said, well, 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.480 I can't read, but I see that you're making fun 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.000 of the Democrats, and that's the donkeys. So the Democrats 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.959 are donkeys, and I said, okay, we'll go with that. 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:34.920 Oh and also, by the way, the Wizard of Oz 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.600 apparently is a popular allegory for UM politics at the time, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:45.400 including that whole gold standard abandonment. Was it meant to be? It? Yeah? 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.560 Frank Baum, who who wrote it was a political writer 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:51.800 UM for many many years before he wrote it. And 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.280 the gold the yellow brick road is the gold standard. 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.359 And then Dorothy's shoes originally were silver, not ruby, and 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.480 so silver and gold was a call out to this 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:06.399 UM free silver idea of printing sixteen silver coins to 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.199 every gold coin printed to make money cheaper and abundant. Right, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.000 So interesting, a lot of a lot of subtle stuff 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.280 going on in the late nineteenth century. You know, Well, 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.520 they're way more obvious now, I guess because they can be. Yeah, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.760 at least we don't label our political cartoons as much. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.040 It's still a tradition that's upheld. It is. You just 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:28.840 don't see words all over the place. I don't read 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.639 a lot of political cartoons anymore. To you I just 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.000 don't run into him very often, but I almost always 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.680 enjoy him when I do upentially that Mike Luckovich guy, 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.040 he is good. He is a local boy too, Yeah, 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.240 luck of it just good. You know, I'm a big 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.280 family Circus fan. Yeah, that's rarely political. You know when 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.359 Jeffy like tracks a month through the through the House 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.600 and it's like, Jeffy, have you seen the altered version 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.080 of those? There's altered versions of everything. These are pretty funny. 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.919 They're really really dirty, but they're funny. Dirty is not there? 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:05.439 Or they just like um filthy? Yeah they felt okay, alright, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.439 So moving on to the elephant. Uh, this was Nast's party, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.800 the Republicans at the time, so obviously his cartoons about 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.200 the elephant are going to be more positive, I guess, 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.399 or sad. Yeah, true, like the dying elephant. Yeah. I 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:24.639 think he probably intuitively knew the elephants mourn they're dead, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.120 which makes you sad when you think about elephants, which 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:28.560 is why you choose the elephant. I wonder if he 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.560 knew that. I don't think you did. That's appropriate though, 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.480 before he actually ever, it keeps saying penned in here, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.919 but carved his first elephant. Um. It was used twice before, 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.040 once in eighteen sixty four, uh, in a Lincoln campaign 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.520 literature piece, and then in eighteen seventy two by Harper's 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.479 but it wasn't until eighteen seventy four that he used it, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:53.679 So I can imagine the Lincoln use of it was 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:59.040 very intended to be derogatory. Yeah, probably all jackasses. So 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.320 that's uh or turn panic. The one we already talked 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:08.520 about was the first Um Republican elephant that he had carved. Okay, 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.360 but the first appearance of the Republican elephant and the 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:18.159 Democratic um donkey together as the as those two is 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:20.520 the representative the whole party was the Stranger Things Have 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.000 Happened cartoon where he's got the donkey by the tail. 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:25.600 As far as I know, it's the first. That's what 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.720 that one was called, Stranger Things have Happened. Uh. In 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.440 eighteen seventy six, there was one called the Political Situation. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.879 Pretty straight up, Uncle Sam is confused. He is labeled 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:38.600 the vote of the people, and there's a two headed 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.159 elephant choosing to decide which road Democratic road of the 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.240 Republican road to go down. That's fairly self explanatory. I 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.880 think it is, but it's also kind of confusing because 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.919 Uncle Sam's confused. So as he's saying the Republicans can 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:54.520 go one of two ways at the time, Well, no, 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.119 because there it's two headed, so I would imagine it 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.159 was it's more representative of the two already system. I 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:07.720 think Nasty was pretty drunk that day, So, uh, what 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:13.240 else do we have here? Um? There was the oh 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.480 my favorite, I haven't seen it yet. Did you print 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.679 it out? The one with the tombstone? No, I couldn't 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.200 find that one. I thought this was very um sweet, 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:25.879 but nasty. Apparently, when Rutherford B. Hayes uh ran for 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:31.240 president he won the eight seventy six election, that um 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.080 that Grant didn't go for the third term four right, 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:39.280 and Hayes apparently said that he would only run once. 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.000 And I guess he wasn't a very well like guy 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.400 because he was one of those presidents who won through 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.560 the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, and apparently 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.960 lost the popular vote pretty bad, and so his whole 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.680 presidency was in no way, shape or form a mandate. 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.879 It was it was very representative of the fact that 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.639 this country, our country was still very much torn apart 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.960 from the Civil War, and so nas created this cartoon 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.600 where this um elephant that Sam describes as bruised and 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:16.280 battered is crouching down at a tombstone of the Democratic Party, 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:20.119 which I thought was pretty cool because it's like he 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.040 had the sense that there was still, no matter how 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:28.800 um acrimonious things got, that these two parties were still 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:32.120 American parties, that there's still a whole wild world out 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.200 there for us to hate, and why are we hating 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.520 each other? You know, Yeah, that's sort of a nice sentiment. Yeah, 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.720 but I don't want to characterize nastas uh an isolationists 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:42.879 or even a nativist, like he had one of his 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:47.680 Uncle Sam paintings or I'm sorry carvings. Was um Uncle 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:53.919 Sam and Columbia right Liberty uh hosting a Thanksgiving dinner 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:56.679 with all the peoples of the world, which included some 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:03.119 Chinese people, some um black people, some Native American Indians, uh, 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.760 and uh a host of others, but not the Irish. 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.960 I don't think the Irish were president. But it was 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:12.719 like it's world or suffrage for all, you know, equality 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.160 for everyone in the world. Come on, comal, you're all invited. 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.000 It was pretty cool. He's definitely not a bigot, as 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:22.520 far as I could tell you, it does seemed like it. Uh. 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.160 So you know what standpoints out is it? And it's true. 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.639