Above, the centerspread cartoon from the Ovtober 10th, 1888 issue of Puck magazine. Titled They Can’t Travel Much Further on a Road Built of Lies and Misrepresentations, by artist Louis Dalrymple, it depicts a G.O.P. procession across a rickety bridge, built of wooden planks with labels such as “Misleading Statements”, “Forged Quotations”, “Untruths”, “Falsehoods”, etc. (Click on the picture to enlarge it, and read them all.) James G. Blaine is depicted leading the procession, with 1888 Republican Presidential nominee (and eventual winner) Benjamin Harrison, riding in the wagon, along with his V.P. choice.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Of note are the words on the banner held by Blaine — “Trusts are largely private affairs” — a phrase which Blaine and others had been using, in response to companies laying off workers, to drive down the supply of goods, so as to drive up prices. (The kind of anti-competitive tactic, wherein companies openly collude with each other to rig market prices, which happened before anti-Trust regulations, which are amongst the regulations current Tea Party Republicans want to eliminate!) Blaine’s statement, I guess, can be seen as analogous Mitt Romney’s telling a crowd that “Corporationa are People”.

Doug Wheeler

NYPuck James Blaine