Here, Blaine casually and confidently leans back in his chair as he clutches a mighty club sarcastically labeled “diplomacy” (opponents considered his foreign policy to be aggressively reckless). He disrespectfully rests his feet on the globe around which tiny world leaders (British, Russian, German, Turkish, et al.) pay deference to the Republican leader on bended knees. The feathers in Blaine’s hat allude to his nickname, “Plumed Knight,” taken from Robert Ingersoll’s speech nominating Blaine for president in 1876. On Harrison’s crown the Republican elephant jostles with the tariff giraffe over the issue of the federal surplus.

As President Harrison’s secretary of state, Blaine chaired the first Pan-American Conference (1889-1890) and advocated reciprocal tariff agreements between Latin America and the United States. He also negotiated a treaty with Britain to arbitrate a Canadian-U. S. controversy over seal hunting in the Bering Sea. However, relations between the two men deteriorated over the years, culminating in Blaine’s resignation from the cabinet in 1892 to seek the Republican presidential nomination against Harrison. The president, however, was renominated on the first ballot, with Blaine and Governor William McKinley of Ohio in a near-tie for a distant second place.