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 The Election Results

 


 “Very Little Hope"
  Cartoonist:  Eugene Zimmerman
  Source:  Judge
  Date:  December 10, 1904

Click to see a large version of this cartoon...

Click to see a large version of this cartoon

Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
This Judge cartoon by Eugene Zimmerman is a sequel to his “Shoeing the Old Democratic Mule.” Here, the cartoonist argues that even after being defeated in three consecutive presidential elections, the Democrats are too ideologically divided to give the party much hope for the near future. In the left foreground sits David B. Hill on a rolled-up “Jeffersonianism” sleeping bag. The campaign manager of the unsuccessful Democratic presidential nominee in 1904, Alton B. Parker, Hill had announced during the campaign that he would retire from politics at the end of the year. The former New York governor, senator, and state party boss sheds a tear as he looks at Parker’s portrait. The feather in his cap reading, “What Am I?” is a pun on his famous remark of partisan loyalty, “I am a Democrat.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic Donkey is being pulled in two opposite directions. He is tugged backward by former president Grover Cleveland for tariff reform, Senator Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman of South Carolina for Southern Democracy, and financier August Belmont Jr. for the gold standard. Riding the animal in the middle is labor activist Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party presidential nominee in 1900. The donkey is being yanked forward by William Jennings Bryan for free silver, former congressman Thomas Watson of Georgia for Populism, and publisher and Congressman William Randolph Hearst for the “Socialistic Hearstocratic Party.” In the background is Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. He was a loyal Democrat, but often critical of his party.

In 1908, the Democratic Party nominated Bryan for a third time, but he lost the presidential election to Republican William Howard Taft.

 

 

 

 
 

 

     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 
     
 

 

 

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