Usually, when we’ve posted cartoons involving James G. Blaine — the corrupt Speaker of the House from Maine, reknowned for his flagrant and brazen lying, who was the G.O.P.’s 1884 Presidential nominee — they’ve been the large color cartoons positioned in the front, rear, and center of Puck magazine. Puck‘s pages between the color cartoons, however, were filled with black & white cartoons & comic strips. Today, we have some of those, involving James Blaine.

Above, from September 24th, 1884, Ballad, by the Pleasing Vocalist, Mr. James G. Blaine. Below, Sad, But True, from July 16th, 1884. Both by comic artist Frederick Burr Opper.

Click on the below pictures, to enlarge the cartoons, and view them in greater detail.

Above, The Plumed Knight’s War Record, from July 16th, 1884, and below, One is Enough!, from August 12th, 1884, both by Bernhard Gillam. The below cartoon is likely the most obscure in the Blaine Tattooed-Man Series, in that in addition to being a small black & white cartoon, it’s primary target is not Blaine, but a different corrupt Republican office-holder, whom voters booted out, as (according to the cartoon) one corrupt office seeker at the top of the ticket (Blaine) was enough.

Finally, in Record-Haunted — A Tragedy, below, from October 29th, 1884, artist Frederick Graetz pictures not only Blaine‘s fate in the November 1884 election, but, the end of Blaine himself.

Doug Wheeler

NYPuck