The political Barbara Frietchie
A troop of senators, as Confederate soldiers being led by an officer on horseback labeled “Trusts,” march down a street past the house with “Barbara Fritchie” labeled “Dingley Tariff” leaning out the window, waving a flag labeled “High Protection.” Caption: “Who touches a hair on yon swelled head / Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.
Comments and Context
The reference-point of cartoonist Pughe’s cartoon is the famous poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, “Barbara Fritchie.” The legend about the old lady is almost certainly apocryphal — the Union patriot who waved her stars and stripes as occupying Confederate forces rode by her house in Frederick, Maryland.
History is magled a little further in the attempted metaphor. The old gal in the cartoon represents the Dingley Tariff, a protectionist act passed in 1897. But it would not sense that she would taunt the troops on her street: the trusts, and the Republican depicted senators were all high-tariff proponents.