Visit HarpWeek.com

   
 


 Liberal Republican Movement

 


 "The Cincinnati Snowball—It Grows As It Rolls"
  Cartoonist:  Matt Morgan
  Source:  Leslie's Illustrated
  Date:   May 4, 1872, p. 121

Click to see a large version of this cartoon...

Click to see a large version of this cartoon

Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
On the newsstands only days before the Liberal Republican National Convention opened in Cincinnati, this cartoon presents the Liberal Republican movement as an expanding snowball. Previously (upper-right), President Grant, Senator Roscoe Conkling, and Vice President Schuyler Colfax scoffed at its puny size. Now, it is of massive girth, pushed by its molders-Senators Carl Schurz and Charles Sumner shouldering it in front and (l-r) Governor Gratz Brown, Senator Thomas Tipton, Senator Lyman Trumbull, editor Horace Greeley, and former Interior Secretary Jacob Cox (?) adding their force from behind-as it gains the adherence of other politicians whose names appear on it. (In reality, Sumner was ambivalent about the movement, although he belatedly endorsed the party's ticket.)

The gigantic snowball has already crushed Senator Roscoe Conkling, looking like a flattened Wyle E. Coyote, and is in the process of doing the same to Thomas Murphy, the collector of the Port of New York (the country’s most important patronage position), and one of Grant’s ubiquitous bulldogs. Among the fleeing Republicans are (l-r) Senator Oliver Morton, Senator Matthew Carpenter, President Grant, Congressman Benjamin Butler, Senator Simon Cameron, and Vice President Schuyler Colfax.
 

 

 

 
 

 

     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 

Website design © 2001-2008 HarpWeek, LLC
All Content © 1998-2008 HarpWeek, LLC
Please submit questions to webmaster@harpweek.com