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"The Effect of 'Negative Gravity,' "
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In this cartoon, James Blaine is the manipulative power behind Benjamin Harrison, whose strings he literally pulls. As the Republican nominee tugs on his bootstraps, the future secretary of state lowers a rope hoisting Harrison upward toward a cornucopia of wealth through taxation. The “Fool’s Paradise” of false prosperity symbolizes the large federal surplus created by high tariffs intended to protect American industry from foreign competition. Meanwhile, the elevation trick is not working for Uncle Sam, who yanks up on the straps of his boots labeled “War Tariff”—a reference to the policy of high tariffs, which the cartoonist traces to increased rates enacted by Congress during the Civil War. Uncle Sam is baffled by how the Harrison hoax operates, but he argues that any connection between tariffs and genuine prosperity is against reason. To pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps means to improve one’s socioeconomic position by individual effort, but cannot be accomplished here because of the artificiality of the war tariff. |
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Warning
1860
