|
|
Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
At 80 years of age during the campaign of 1904, Democrat Henry G. Davis was the oldest person ever nominated by a major party for the vice presidency. The trade-protectionist West Virginian balanced the tariff-reform New Yorker, Alton B. Parker, at the top of the ticket. Most importantly, it was assumed correctly that Davis, a wealthy railroad owner, would contribute generously to the campaign finances. He gave $185,000 ($3.7 million in 2002 dollars), which was over a third of the very small election fund.
On this Puck cover, Davis is presented as a healthy athlete being readied for the race by Senator Arthur Pue Gorman of Delaware, who rubs “Esopus Oil” (named after Parker’s hometown) on the vice-presidential nominee’s calf. Under the portrait of Parker in the background is a safe storing Davis’s wealth. It is labeled with the slogan that conservative Democrats had for finding a “safe and sane” candidate in 1904 after two failed races by William Jennings Bryan, whom they considered to be neither. |
|
|