Reid, Whitelaw, 1837-1912

Creation Date

1885-10-07

Creator(s)

A great past and a pitiful present

Whitelaw Reid, John Sherman, George F. Hoar, and John Logan lift Uncle Sam above a swamp filled with several faces of corruption labeled “Blainism, Robesonism, Mahone Repudiation, Land Grab, Whiskey Ring, Rotten Ships, Pension Swindle, Fraud 1876, Star Routers, Salary Grab, Army Ring, [and] Sectional Issue.” Reid gestures toward a statue in the upper left that shows General Robert E. Lee surrendering to General Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral David G. Farragut at the base of a statue showing Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and a slave freed from bondage. Caption: Uncle Sam – “It’s no use lifting me up to look at your monumental record, gentlemen; what can you give me to stand on now!”

Collection

Creation Date

1885-10-28

Creator(s)

“The Mulligan guard lies, but – surrenders”

An explosion has occurred at the “Claim Agency, Formerly Republican Head Quarters” with William M. Evarts peeking through the opening in the tent to survey the damage. Several small kiosks labeled “Machine Republicans Meet Here, County Democracy Blaine Exchange, Tribune Blaine Organ, [and] Friends of Tammany Meet Here” have been blown over and damaged. Also knocked to the ground by the blast were “Keifer, [Blaine holding a paper that states “I Claim Everything”], Logan, W. Reid, Butler, Dana, Burchard [labeled “R.R.R.”], Robeson, Elkins, Dorsey,” and an unidentified man lying on the ground next to bags of “Soap.” On horseback, in the upper left corner, is Grover Cleveland holding a scroll labeled “Reform,” and a Puck character carrying a standard labeled “Independents.” Among the ranks are Carl Schurz, George W. Curtis, and Henry Ward Beecher. Strewn on the ground are papers that state “I.O.U. If we win. J. G., I.O.U. Conditional on Success, C.W.F., [and] I.O.U. If you get there, J. Roach”; and several of the downed “Mulligan Guard” hold papers that state “We Still Claim,” whereas Dana’s paper states “I Give Up.”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-11-19

Creator(s)

Thanksgiving day, 1884 – “let us be thankful!”

A glum Thanksgiving Day feast is occurring with the downtrodden Republican presidential candidate James G. Blaine and his supporters “W.W. Phelps, [Roscoe Conkling at an open door], William Mahone, Cabot Lodge, [John Logan], Robeson, Dorsey, [W. Reid, Benjamin F. Butler], Elkins, Platt, [Cyrus W. Field, and] C.A. Dana” gathered around a table, and with John Kelly as a dog next to a plate with a small bird labeled “Compliments of N.Y. Citizens.” Reid is removing the top of a platter labeled “Campaign” where there is a “Crow” that is “Compliments of the People.” Through a window, where Puck is looking in, can be seen Grover Cleveland carrying a large turkey labeled “Presidency” over his shoulder, and across the street is Jay Gould offering his “Congratulations.”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-11-26

Creator(s)

“Whitelaw Reid refuses to accept the New York senatorship”

Whitelaw Reid, dressed as a dandy, turns away from a young woman labeled “N. Y. State” who is carrying a bucket labeled “Reform Milk” and headed in a direction indicated by a sign “To Reform.” He is turning down a marriage proposal before it has been offered. Caption: “I cannot marry you, my pretty maid!” / “Nobody axed you, sir!” she said.

Collection

Creation Date

1884-12-03

Creator(s)

Squeezed dry

John Kelly, dressed as an old woman street vendor, sits at “Mrs. J. Kelly Political Fruit Stand,” selling “N.Y. Patronage Lemonade.” He has tossed to the gutter a lemon labeled “Edson” that shows the face of former Mayor of New York City, Franklin Edson. Whitelaw Reid leans around a corner at the end of the produce stand, where a notice has been pasted on the wall that states “City Hall Theatre. Passion Play. Judas – Edson.” Caption: A lemon that will never more contribute to the patronage bowl.

Collection

Creation Date

1884-12-17

Creator(s)

Crowding the cabinet-making business

Newspaper editors present their candidates for government appointments. James Gordon “Bennett” holds up a bust of Roscoe Conkling labeled “Sect. Interior,” with a tray labeled “Bennett’s Beauties” at his feet. Whitelaw “Reid” holds a tray labeled “Please choose these and suit us, Blaine & Reid,” on which are busts labeled “KKK” for “Sec’y Interior, Sec’y of War, [and] Treasury.” Joseph “Pulitzer” holds up a tray labeled “The World for Pulitzer” on which are busts of himself. Charles A. Dana carries a tray labeled “Dana’s Darlings” with busts of John “Kelly,” Thomas F. “Grady,” George M. “Robeson,” Samuel Sullivan “Cox,” and Benjamin F. Butler. There is also a man carrying a basket labeled “Hens’ Rights Heroines” with busts of “Lockwood, E.C. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Phoebe Cozzens [sic], [and] Lucy Stone.” President Cleveland is visible through a window on the right, conducting interviews for cabinet positions. Caption: Chorus of Journalistic Candidate-Peddlers – “Here y’are now! – I’ve got the only genuine article! – Don’t mind that other fellow!”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-12-17

Creator(s)

The knight of the wind-bag enters the senatorial field

William M. Evarts is pictured as a knight on horseback with Whitelaw Reid as his page. Reid is blowing a horn labeled “Evarts Letter” outside the “Albany Legislature” castle to announce Evarts’ arrival. Reid’s clothing is labeled “Old Issues, Bloody Shirt, [and] Blainiac.” Evarts has a plume labeled “Blaine Influence” tied to his helmet and he carries a pike with banner labeled “Barkis is willin’,” from Dickens’ David Copperfield, chapter 5.

Collection

Creation Date

1884-12-31

Creator(s)

“The soul of Blaine” still on the rampage

James G. Blaine, wearing Elizabethan style dress, and a small band of accomplices labeled “Clapp, Reid, Murat Halstead, Elkins, [and] Mahone” make their way down a Tudor style street, marking the doors of potential victims, including Puck’s offices, of a personal vendetta. Reid carries a long list that includes “C. Schurz, H. W. Beecher, G. W. Curtis, C. A. Arthur, Col. Lyman, H. White, G. Jones, [and] E. L. Godkin.” Drawn by the commotion, Arthur, Curtis, Schurz, and Beecher lean out windows observing, as does Puck’s figure of the Independent Party. Caption: He organizes a little private St. Bartholomew’s eve of his own.

Collection

Creation Date

1885-01-21

Creator(s)

Puck’s notion of the kind of fancy-dress charity ball that would be a real, solid financial success

At a costume ball, a band of newspaper editors labeled “Herald, Sun, Staats-Zeitung, World, Times, [and] Evening Post” is conducted by Puck. Among those present at the ball are James Gillespie Blaine, Whitelaw Reid, William Maxwell Evarts, Roscoe Conkling, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and John Kelly.

Collection

Creation Date

1885-01-28

Creator(s)

The dynamiter’s false friends

Newspaper editors Whitelaw Reid and Murat Halstead try to distance themselves from Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa holding newspaper headlines that indicate their earlier support. Caption: They liked him before election – they disown him now.

Collection

Opper, Frederick Burr, 1857-1937

Creation Date

1884-02-04

Creator(s)

They saw their “Flying Dutchman” – it crossed their path, and they were lost

A ship has lost its course and wrecked at the sight of the “Flying Dutchman” labeled “Speeches” with the face of James G. Blaine as the ship’s figurehead and using the “Bloody Shirt” as sails. Men cling to the wreck of the ship. Some are in the sea, and many are on the rocks. Some are identified as “Cornell, Wadsworth, Daggett, Catlin, Carr, O’Brien [who is clinging to “Davenport’s Bar’l”], Evarts, “Jake Hess,” Miller, T. Platt, Davenport, Sherman, Edmunds, [and] Jonah B. Foraker.” Among those unidentified are Whitelaw Reid holding a bottle labeled “Tribune Editorial Solace,” Joseph Pulitzer as a bird labeled “N.Y. World,” and John Logan.

Collection

Creation Date

1885-11-11

Creator(s)

A hard pull

James Gillespie Blaine is dressed as a knight, with the plumes of his helmet labeled “Dodger, Speakership Record, [and] Mulligan Letters.” He holds papers labeled “Aggressive Cash Campaign” and has his other hand in a bag of money labeled “Vote Persuader.” He is riding in a wagon labeled “J. G. Blaine, Unlicensed Vendor, Stocks, Political Influence, etc.,” the seat of which is labeled “Compressed Magnetism.” William Walter Phelps is riding on the back of the wagon, sitting on boxes of “Condensed Fireworks” and “Campaign Lies, Scandals.” He is holding a portrait painting of George Washington labeled “J. G. Blaine.” At the front of the wagon, “Dorsey, Brady, [Robeson, and] Keifer” are pulling, and at the back “Gould, Clapp, [and] Clayton” are pushing. Whitelaw Reid marches alongside as a one-man band playing a horn labeled “Brag,” a drum labeled “Bluster,” an organ labeled “Blaine Organ,” a bellows labeled “Campaign Wind,” and firing a cannon labeled “Blaine Orgun.” Stephen B. Elkins, in the background on the left, waves a whip that spells “Enthusiasm,” and former Vice President Schuyler Colfax, with a “Credit Mobilier” plume in his cap, carries the standard that states, “Westward The Star of Corruption Fakes its Way.” They are passing a sign that states “To Ohio.”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-10-01

Creator(s)

The olympus of corruption – “Apollo strikes the lyre and charms the gods”

James Gillespie Blaine is pictured as Apollo playing a lyre labeled “N. Y. Tribune” fashioned from the body of Whitelaw Reid, before a gathering of the gods on Olympus. Among those present are Cyrus W. Field as Mercury, George M. Robeson as Neptune, Charles A. Dana as Minerva, Jay Gould as Zeus, Thomas Collier Platt, Robert Green Ingersoll, and Rutherford B. Hayes as angels, Chauncey Depew, W. H. Vanderbilt as Pluto, Russell Sage, William W. Phelps, John Roach as Vulcan, Stephen B. Elkins as Dionysus, Joseph Warren Keifer as Hercules, John Alexander Logan as Mars, Benjamin F. Butler as Venus, Stephen Wallace Dorsey and Thomas Jefferson Brady as putti, and John Kelly as an owl.

Collection

Creation Date

1884-10-08

Creator(s)

The four Rips; or, twenty years behind the age

Uncle Sam is seated at a table in front of “Uncle Sam’s Inter-State Market,” with a businessman labeled “Northern Capital” on the right and an agricultural producer labeled “Southern Goods – Cotton, Sugar, Tobacco, Whiskey” on the left. Standing before the table are James G. Blaine labeled “Bloody Shirt,” and John Sherman, Whitelaw Reid, and Joseph B. Foraker, who all have long flowing hair and beards like Rip Van Winkle. Blaine is leaning on a rifle labeled “Shot Gun.” Two young African American men are sitting on a bale of cotton and a keg of “Tobacco” in the lower right corner, and in the middle ground African Americans are harvesting cotton. In the background, along the shores of a harbor, is a prosperous city. Caption: Uncle Sam “My fossil friends, the War ended twenty years ago. Have you been sleeping ever since?”

Collection

Creation Date

1885-09-16

Creator(s)

A preliminary set-to

James G. Blaine, badly bruised after boxing a round against the “Ohio Secretary of State,” is slumped against the ropes. William W. Phelps and Whitelaw Reid attempt to revive Blaine with a bottle of “Monopoly Mixture,” as Grover Cleveland hops into the ring, ready to go the next round with Blaine. Caption: Grover Cleveland – “You weren’t fighting me that round, my fine fellow! Now come up to the scratch, if you can!”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-10-22

Creator(s)

The opium-joint of the Republican “irreconcilables” — a cheap way of being happy

In an opium den labeled “Bloody Shirt Joint – Blaine and Reid Managers,” James G. Blaine passes out pipes labeled “Tribune Editorials, Blaine’s Augusta Speech, Blaine Speeches, [and] Speeches” to fellow Republicans labeled “Chandler, J. Roach, Evarts, Cornell, Logan, Hoar, Foraker, J. Sherman, Brady, Dorsey, [and] Reid,” Unidentified is Elihu Root and the man dreaming of becoming the “Secy. of Navy.” They have resorted to opium as the panacea for their political woes and while in their drug-induced stupor they dream of Blaine’s ascendancy to the presidential throne and of themselves becoming members of Blaine’s cabinet.

Collection

Zimmerman, Eugene, 1862-1935

Creation Date

1885-09-23

Creator(s)

“The sleeping party”

A woman labeled “Republican Party” sleeps in the background, while members of her court, some dressed as women, also sleep in the foreground. Depicted are Whitelaw Reid, Murat Halstead, Russell Sage, John Roach, Jay Gould, Benjamin F. Butler, James G. Blaine, William H. Vanderbilt, John Logan, Cyrus W. Field, two dogs labeled “Phila. Press” and “Chicago Tribune,” Chester A. Arthur, Rutherford B. Hayes, William W. Phelps, John Sherman, Simon Cameron, George F. Hoar, Alonzo B. Cornell, Stephen W. Dorsey, Thomas J. Brady, William M. Evarts, George M. Robeson, William E. Chandler, and Joseph W. Keifer. Caption: She bungled with the civil-service reform distaff, and she and all her court were condemned to sleep for __ years.

Collection

Creation Date

1885-08-26

Creator(s)

The only source from which he gets absolution

Whitelaw Reid, pictured as a bishop, absolves James Gillespie Blaine, who is kneeling on a long list of scandals, at a confessional labeled “Tribune Sanctum.” On the floor between them is a statement published in the “N. Y. Tribune, Sept. 30, 1872” stating, “The startling exposure of Speaker Blaine’s venality in connection with the Union Pacific Road, Eastern Division, entirely destroys, of course, whatever credit some people may have given to his evasive denial of the Oakes Ames bribery, and puts the whole case of the Crédit Mobilier upon a different basis. *** Now it is shown that Speaker Blaine never deserved his good reputation. He has taken bribes in another case.” Caption: W. R. – “I absolve you! Go forth a pure and a guiltless man!” – Puck (aside) – “But that won’t save him on ‘Judgement-Day.'”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-09-03

Creator(s)

The political Courtney

At a boathouse is an exhausted James Gillespie Blaine, suffering from “Guano Gout,” being attended by Jay Gould, Whitelaw Reid, George M. Robeson, William Walter Phelps, and Stephen B. Elkins who is searching a box of patent medicines labeled “Remedy, Record Cleaner, Tariff Fever Cure, R.R. Record Purifier, Tattoo Eradicator, [and] Vermont Reviver (Homoepathic)” for a cure. John A. Logan readies the racing shell labeled “Aggressive Campaign” that may be stuck in “Monopoly Mud,” and Stephen Wallace Dorsey, at the entrance to the boathouse, carries oars labeled “Soap” and [Star] “Router.” Hanging on the wall are shells and oars labeled “Guano Statesmanship, Speaker Ship’s Record Boat, Senatorial Record, [and] Tariff Issue.” Grover Cleveland waits in his racing shell labeled “Reform” and Carl Schurz stands at the entrance to the “Independent Boat House” which is next to the “Democratic Boat House.” In the background is a crowded grandstand. Caption: Logan – “Come, Jim, show some nerve, or nobody won’t believe you’re in the race! Ain’t you never going to be aggressive?”

Collection

Creation Date

1884-09-10

Creator(s)