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Butler and Blaine |
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“How They Got Their Heads Together” |
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Cartoonist: Thomas Nast |
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Source: Harper's Weekly |
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Date:
September 13, 1884, p. 595
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Click to see a large version of this cartoon |
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Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
Although the Republicans were secretly funding the campaign of Greenback-Labor nominee Benjamin Butler, cartoonist Nast views Butler and Republican nominee James Blaine's meeting of the minds on the tariff and British questions as injurious to both. Blaine (right) trips over "Dear Fisher Letters," a reference to his railroad scandal. The "20 Years of Usefulness to Blaine" (on his salesman's satchel) is a play on the title of Blaine's memoirs of his public life, Twenty Years in Congress, manipulated to fit Nast's theme that Blaine used public office for his personal gain.
For Butler, it is his military record that causes him to fall. When Butler failed miserably in his effort to take Fort Fisher (North Carolina) from the Confederates in December 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln, both of whom already considered him to be an incompetent general, agreed to his removal from active duty for the remainder of the war. Butler's excuse of being "bottled up" earned him yet another nickname. |
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Warning
1860
