After a hiatus in his long career as a political cartoonist for 哈珀的每周, 托马斯·纳斯特在1884年3月开始出现的漫画中“宣布”他已经回到了画架上. While his first cartoon was an anodyne plea for aid to flood victims, he quickly turned his pen and pencil to politics. A long-time supporter of President Grant and the Republican Party, 纳斯特 drew a “神圣的大象” 这是他创造的共和党的象征，只有在保持“纯粹和干净”，“负担不太重”的情况下才能获胜.尽管他的名字并没有出现在这部漫画中, 纳斯特 was clearly taking aim at “羽毛骑士”” of the Republican Party, 詹姆斯·G. 布莱恩, 被比较过的人, during his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1880, 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, “the prostitution of public office for private gain.”

After 布莱恩 was nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in June 1884, 纳斯特 began to directly attack him in the pages of 哈珀, often with more than one satirical cartoon each week. 6月21日刊(p. 395)，纳斯特画了这幅漫画，画的是他自己从布莱恩(“羽毛”乌鸦)的盛宴中站起来。. 这幅漫画, 简化形式, appeared at the bottom right-hand corner of a page, 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”, 其中共和党以少女(弗吉尼亚)的形式被她的父亲刺死, Virginius (representing liberal Republican reformers—“Mugwumps”), 而不是落入穿着长袍的令人讨厌的吉姆·布莱恩(扮演好色的阿皮乌斯·克劳迪斯)的手中。.

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 这要追溯到1880年布莱恩竞选共和党总统候选人提名的时候. 对纳斯特来说，这既是一个展示他长期以来对“羽毛骑士”的不信任和蔑视的机会(纳斯特创作的布莱恩戴着一顶装饰着三根鸵鸟羽毛的大礼帽的视觉象征，在19世纪80年代初刚刚流行起来)，也是一个抨击布莱恩道德和政治失败的机会.

在这些转载的漫画中, 纳斯特指责布莱恩支持排斥中国移民，以获得排外的加州选民的青睐，并试图在竞争激烈的缅因州选举中展示自己是一个“强人”. Few of 纳斯特’s caricatured subjects complained to him about how they had been depicted, probably to protect themselves against further vitriol, but 布莱恩 made an unavailing protest that 纳斯特 had accused him of promoting violence. 纳斯特还讽刺了布莱恩的个人魅力，把他描绘成一块巨大的磁铁，吸引了大量的金融和政治丑闻，拖累了共和党.

1884年托马斯·纳斯特

Just as Thomas 纳斯特 began his campaign against 布莱恩, 他遭受了巨大的经济损失，再也没有恢复过来——失去了他20多年来辛勤劳动积累的几乎所有财富(除了他的漫画), 他为书籍和其他哈珀兄弟的出版物绘制插图——最著名的是创造了圣诞老人的现代形象。). He had invested in Grant and Ward, a financial firm managed by Ulysses S. 格兰特,小., the son of the former president, and Ferdinand Ward. 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”

While working through the crisis in his personal life, Thomas 纳斯特 found himself caricatured in competing humor magazines and newspapers. 在他的许多漫画中，他把自己描绘成一个身材矮小的人，他的形象为公众所熟悉. 现在，他被描绘成“Mugwump的猴子”——一个反对提名布莱恩的自由派共和党改革者的工具——和一个被嘲笑的人物. 改革者, 被描述为“Mugwumps”,” took their name from an Algonquian word for “officer” or “war leader,，但更通俗的说法是，他们被嘲笑为既支持公务员制度改革，又忠于政党，以至于他们的“杯子”站在政治围栏的一边，而他们的“窝囊”站在另一边.

纳斯特, 被描绘成一个管风琴工被锁住的猴子, 被批评为虚伪:他仍然忠于共和党，而共和党已经放弃了支持黑人民权的基本原则, and savagely attacked Democratic political corruption while, 在很大程度上, overlooking the personal failings of President Grant and most Republican politicians 除了 詹姆斯·G. 布莱恩. 直到1884年, 纳斯特 had drawn scathing caricatures of the Republican reformers, 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, and he continued to batter “羽毛骑士”” right up until the election.

缅因州的吉姆·布莱恩:“纹身男”

詹姆斯·Gillespie 布莱恩 was born in 1830 in Pennsylvania. After a brief career as a school teacher and young college professor, 19世纪50年代，他搬到了缅因州, where he became a newspaper editor and a founder of the Republican Party. He was elected to the Maine legislature and then to the U.S. 国会, where he was Speaker of the House from 1869 to 1875, 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 had lost contests for his party’s presidential nomination in both 1876 and 1880, 但1884年似乎是他的“转折点”.”

尽管布莱恩是19世纪政治旗手的典型代表——被共和党支持者誉为“磁性人”和“羽衣骑士”——但腐败和自我交易的指控一直伴随着他的整个职业生涯. 尽管托马斯·纳斯特在1884年对布莱恩发起了最持久的攻击，但他并不孤单. The most telling single blow struck against 布莱恩 was Bernhard Gillam’s cartoon, "弗莱恩在芝加哥法庭上" in 顽皮的小妖精 (centerspread of the 4 June 1884 issue) Drawing upon 阿略巴古前的弗莱尼, 1861年jean - l逍遥Gérôme的画作, in which Phryne’s innocence is proved by her great beauty, 吉拉姆把布莱恩描绘成一个裸体模特，向“Mugwumps”和其他共和党改革者的观众展示了一个“纹身人”——他身上覆盖着他阴暗的过去的不可磨灭的痕迹和污点.

顽皮的小妖精 是当时最受欢迎的幽默插图杂志，它的特色是彩色印刷——每期都有几幅全彩漫画. The illustrated humor magazines struck many shrewd blows during the 1884 campaign, but most cartoonists were equal-opportunity satirists, 而纳斯特则继续打击单一目标, “羽毛骑士”.”

纳斯特借此机会把布莱恩和他最喜欢的另一个目标本杰明. 马萨诸塞巴特勒, 他是一个臭名昭著的腐败政治机会主义者，1884年曾是民粹主义绿背党的总统候选人. 许多人都看到了巴特勒的候选资格, 包括纳斯特, as a ploy to siphon votes from Grover Cleveland, 民主党候选人.

A contested election decided by the narrowest of margins

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, 并曾与年轻的西奥多·罗斯福等志同道合的共和党改革者一起跨越党派界限. 他得到了Mugwumps家族的支持, but he had alienated elements of the Democratic Party political machine. 在竞选过程中, 他也陷入了个人丑闻, accused of being the neglectful father of an illegitimate child.

1884年11月4日, Cleveland won the national popular vote by a narrow margin, but after an extraordinarily close election in New York, there were days of counting and recounting more than 1,160,000张选票. 在最后的统计中, Cleveland defeated 布莱恩 in New York by only 1,049票, but because New York had the largest number of electoral votes (36), 这为他赢得了全国选举人票, 219-182.

许多个人和政治组织对克利夫兰的胜利有共同的功劳，对布莱恩在纽约州的失利(包括选举日的恶劣天气)有共同的指责。, but in the celebrations that followed Cleveland’s victory, Thomas 纳斯特 was acclaimed as “the man who made a president.这是纳斯特应得的荣誉, 这似乎更像是“粉碎”詹姆斯·G·特朗普(詹姆斯·G. 布莱恩, rather than forwarding the candidacy of Grover Cleveland.