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 Mugwumps

 


 “Men May Come, and Men May Go”
  Cartoonist:  Joseph Keppler
  Source:  Puck
  Date:   November 5, 1884, p. 305

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Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
Appearing on newsstands shortly before the presidential election (Puck was postdated), this double-page cartoon's message is that whoever wins the election, those who truly support reform will continue building its mighty edifice. The efforts of the Independent Republicans (Mugwumps) is not intended for one campaign, but is the work of a lifetime of devotion to political and social change. Their revolt against Republican presidential nominee James Blaine in 1884 is just one segment of the construction process. Other building blocks include the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, the elections of 1882, the successful effort to block the third-term nomination of former president Ulysses S. Grant in 1880, and the (unsuccessful) ballot-"scratching" campaign against Republican gubernatorial candidate Alonzo Cornell in 1879.

At the top (left to right) are: Congressman Theodore Lyman of Massachusetts, a trustee of the Peabody Education Fund, a charitable trust for black schools in the South; New York Evening Post editor Carl Schurz, former senator, secretary of the interior, and leader of the Liberal Republican movement of 1872; journalist Horace White of the Nation and New York Evening Post; and Boston Globe reporter (and future congressman) George F. Williams. Working at the foundation are (left to right): William Everett of Massachusetts, son of famed orator Edward Everett; the Reverend James Freeman Clarke of Boston and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher of New York City, two of the nation's foremost liberal clerics, both of whom publicly defended Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland after newspapers reported his Maria Halpin scandal; George Jones, editor and publisher of the New York Times; and Harper's Weekly editor George William Curtis, president of the National and New York Civil Service Reform Associations, as well as head of the Independent Republicans of New York.

 

 

 

 
 

 

     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 

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