The cover of the last issue of Puck before the presidential election (the
magazine was postdated) features the Republicans getting rid of their campaign
props: the bloody shirt, used to associate the Democratic party with secession,
Civil War, and violence; British gold, used to generate fears that tariff reform
(lower rates or free trade) would lead to British control of the American
economy; and "clerical slanders," referring to charges by certain
Protestant ministers that Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland was morally
corrupt.
