在他作为政治漫画家的漫长职业生涯中断之后 哈珀的每周, Thomas 纳斯特 “announced” in cartoons that began to appear in March 1884 that he had returned to his easel. 而他的第一部漫画是一幅为洪水灾民提供援助的温和恳求, 他很快将笔头和铅笔转向政治. 纳斯特是格兰特总统和共和党的长期支持者 “神圣的大象” —the Republican symbol that he had created—that could only win if it was kept “pure and clean” and had “not too heavy a load to carry.尽管他的名字并没有出现在这部漫画中, 纳斯特显然是在针对共和党的“羽衣骑士”, 詹姆斯·G. 布莱恩, 被比较过的人, 在1880年竞选共和党总统提名失败期间, 给一位英勇的“羽衣骑士,” but whose long public career and “magnetic” personality had been tarnished by accusations of financial corruption; as 纳斯特 put it in a cartoon caption, 为谋取私利而出卖公职.”

After 布莱恩 was nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in June 1884, 纳斯特开始直接攻击他 哈珀，通常每周都有不止一部讽刺漫画. 6月21日刊(p. 395), 纳斯特 drew this caricature of himself rising from a feast upon 布莱恩 (the “Plumed” Crow). 这幅漫画, 简化形式, 出现在页面的右下角, 紧接着是两页漫画, “死而不耻” (p. 396-397). 纳斯特描绘了他自己版本的罗马传奇——弗吉尼亚的“死在耻辱之前”, in which the Republican Party in the form of a maiden (Virginia) is stabbed to death by her father, 弗吉尼亚(代表自由派共和党改革者-“Mugwumps”), rather being allowed to fall into the unsavory hands of a toga-clad Jim 布莱恩 (in the role of the lecherous Appius Claudius).

磁性人

托马斯·纳斯特是无情的. 在1884年7月26日《 哈珀他重复道 他早期的十幅反布莱恩漫画 dating back to the time of 布莱恩’s previous campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1880. This was both an opportunity for 纳斯特 to demonstrate his longstanding distrust and contempt for “羽毛骑士”” (纳斯特’s visual symbol of 布莱恩 wearing a top hat bedecked with three ostrich feathers was just catching hold in the early 1880s) and to hammer home his attacks on 布莱恩’s moral and political failings.

在这些转载的漫画中, 纳斯特 accused 布莱恩 of supporting the exclusion of Chinese immigrants in order to gain favor with xenophobic California voters and of attempting to show himself as a “strong man” during a contested Maine state election. 在纳斯特的漫画作品中，几乎没有人向他抱怨自己被描绘的方式, 可能是为了保护自己免受进一步的尖刻批评, 但布莱恩提出了一个无效的抗议，即纳斯特指责他宣扬暴力. 纳斯特 also had satirized 布莱恩’s personal magnetism by drawing him in the shape of a giant magnet that weighed down the Republican Party by attracting a “load” of financial and political scandals.

1884年托马斯·纳斯特

就像托马斯·纳斯特开始反对布莱恩一样, he suffered a crushing financial loss from which he never recovered—losing almost all the wealth he had had accumulated from more than 20 years of prodigious labor (in addition to his cartoons, he illustrated books and other Harper Brothers publications—most famously creating the modern 图像 of Santa Claus). 他投资了尤利西斯·S·史密斯(Ulysses S .)管理的金融公司Grant and Ward. 格兰特,小.他是前总统的儿子，还有费迪南德·沃德. 1884年5月格兰特和沃德破产时, 纳斯特 lost everything he had invested; his hero, 前总统格兰特, 也破产了.

“Mugwump的猴子”

在处理个人生活危机的时候, 托马斯·纳斯特发现自己被竞争对手的幽默杂志和报纸讽刺. He had drawn himself as a diminutive figure in so many of his cartoons that his 图像 was familiar to the public. Now he was depicted as the “Mugwump’s monkey”—a tool of liberal Republican reformers who had rebelled against the nomination of 布莱恩—and a figure of derision. 改革者, 被描述为“Mugwumps”,他们的名字来自阿尔冈琴语，意思是“军官”或“战争领袖”,” but more colloquially were derided as being so divided in their support for both civil service reform and party loyalty that their “mugs” were on one side of the political fence and their “wumps” on the other.

纳斯特, 被描绘成一个管风琴工被锁住的猴子, was criticized for his hypocrisy: he had remained loyal to a Republican Party that had abandoned its founding principle of support of Black civil rights, 猛烈抨击民主党的政治腐败, 在很大程度上, 忽视了格兰特总统和大多数共和党政治家的个人失败 除了 詹姆斯·G. 布莱恩. 直到1884年, 纳斯特对共和党改革派进行了尖刻的讽刺, 但现在支持他们的事业. The attacks on 纳斯特 seemed to miss the point; he was not the party candidate, 直到大选前，他一直在抨击这位“羽衣骑士”.

缅因州的吉姆·布莱恩:“纹身男”

詹姆斯·吉莱斯皮·布莱恩1830年出生于宾夕法尼亚州. 在短暂的教师生涯和年轻的大学教授生涯之后, 19世纪50年代，他搬到了缅因州, 在那里他成为了一名报纸编辑，也是共和党的创始人之一. 他被选入缅因州立法机构，然后进入美国.S. 国会, 他在1869年到1875年担任众议院议长, 在1876年被选入参议院之前, 并于1881年被任命为国务卿. 布莱恩在1876年和1880年两次竞选共和党总统候选人时都失败了, 但1884年似乎是他的“转折点”.”

While 布莱恩 was the very 图像 of a 19th-century political standard bearer—acclaimed as the “Magnetic Man” and “Plumed Knight” by his Republican supporters--accusations of corruption and self-dealing followed him throughout his career. Although Thomas 纳斯特 launched the most sustained attacks on 布莱恩 in 1884, he was not alone. 对布莱恩最有力的一击是伯恩哈德·吉拉姆的漫画， "弗莱恩在芝加哥法庭上" in 顽皮的小妖精 (1884年6月4日那期的中幅 阿略巴古前的弗莱尼, 1861年jean - l逍遥Gérôme的画作, 弗琳的美貌证明了她的清白, Gillam showed 布莱恩 as a nude model revealed to an audience of “Mugwumps” and other Republican reformers as the “tattooed man”—covered with the indelible marks and blemishes of his shady past.

顽皮的小妖精 was the most popular illustrated humor magazine of its day and it featured chromolithographs—several cartoons in each issue appeared in full color. 插图幽默杂志在1884年的竞选中受到了许多精明的打击, 但大多数漫画家都是机会均等的讽刺作家, 而纳斯特则继续打击单一目标, “羽毛骑士”.”

纳斯特 took the opportunity to link 布莱恩 with another of his favorite targets, Benjamin F. 马萨诸塞巴特勒, a notoriously corrupt political opportunist who in 1884 was the presidential candidate of the populist Greenback Party. 许多人都看到了巴特勒的候选资格, 包括纳斯特, 是为了从格罗弗·克利夫兰那里吸走选票, 民主党候选人.

由最微弱的差额决定的有争议的选举

纽约州州长格罗弗·克利夫兰, 民主党总统候选人, 作为公务员制度的改革者是否得到广泛支持, and had worked across party lines with likeminded Republican reformers such as young Theodore Roosevelt. 他得到了Mugwumps家族的支持, 但他已经疏远了民主党政治机器中的一些人. 在竞选过程中, 他也陷入了个人丑闻, 被指责为一个私生子的父亲.

1884年11月4日, 克利夫兰以微弱优势赢得了全国普选, 而是在纽约一场势均力敌的选举之后, 数了好几天，又数了好几天,160,000张选票. 在最后的统计中, 克利夫兰在纽约以一分之差击败布莱恩,049票, 而是因为纽约州拥有最多的选举人票(36张), 这为他赢得了全国选举人票, 219-182.

There were many people and political organizations who shared credit for Cleveland’s victory and blame for 布莱恩’s loss in New York (including bad weather on Election Day), 而是在克利夫兰获胜后的庆祝活动中, 托马斯·纳斯特被誉为“造就总统的人”.这是纳斯特应得的荣誉, it appears to have been more a matter of “unmaking” the presidential ambitions of 詹姆斯·G. 布莱恩，而不是转发格罗弗·克利夫兰的候选资格.