A pretty high bar to clear
A group of Republicans try to push, pull, and coax the “G.O.P.” elephant to jump a hurdle on a race course. William B. Allison stands on the far side of the hurdle. Philander C. Knox is pulling the elephant’s trunk. William P. Frye, Nelson W. Aldrich, Stephen B. Elkins, Joseph Gurney Cannon, and Eugene Hale are pushing the elephant, which is being ridden by a plump man labeled “Stand Pat,” wielding a whip. The hurdle has four bars, the lowest labeled “Cost of Living 1896,” the next “Cost of Living 1900,” then “Cost of Living 1904,” and the highest “Cost of Living 1908.”
Comments and Context
The “High Cost of Living” has been a perennial bugaboo of politicians and icon of cartoonists through the years. In the administration of Woodrow Wilson, and especially in the two years following the Armistice ending World War I, the issue was paramount. It often was manifested by an impossibly tall and thin dour character.