Gulliver Crispi.
From "Il Papagallo" (Rome).
On the other hand, the typical American cartoon of a generation ago concerned itself but little with questions of international interest, while in its treatment of domestic affairs it was largely lacking in the dignity and restraint which characterized the British school. Being founded upon party politics, its purpose was primarily not to reflect public opinion, but to mold it; to make political capital; to win votes by fair means, if possible, but to win them. From their very inception Puck and Judge, as the mouthpieces of their respective parties, have exerted a formidable power, whose far-reaching influence it would be impossible to gauge, especially during the febrile periods of the Presidential campaigns. At these times the animosity shown in some of the cartoons seems rather surprising, when looked at from the sober vantage ground of later years. Political molehills were exaggerated into mountains, and even those elements of vulgar vituperation and cheap personal abuse—features of political campaigns which we are happily outgrowing—were eagerly seized upon for the purpose of pictorial satire. The peculiar bitterness which marked the memorable campaign between Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Blaine in 1884 was strongly mirrored in the political caricature of the time. It marked the highwater line of the element of purely personal abuse in comic art. In the end the extreme measures to which each of the rival parties resorted during that year had very beneficial effects, for after the election the nation, in calmer mood, grew ashamed at the thought of its violence and bitterness, and subsequent campaigns have consequently been much more free from these objectionable features. Mr. Harrison, Mr. Bryan, Mr. McKinley, and Mr. Roosevelt have all been assailed from many different points. But we are no longer in the mood to tolerate attempts to rake up alleged personal scandals and to use them in the pamphlet and the cartoon. Enough of this was done by both parties in 1884 to last us for at least a generation. There are cartoons which appeared in Puck and Judge which even at this day we should not think of reprinting, and which the publications containing them and the artists who drew them would probably like to forget.
Fig. 291. Caricature de Gill. (Éclipse, 19 octobre 1873.)
Nevertheless, to the close student of political history there is in the American cartoon of this period, with all its flamboyant colorings, its reckless exaggeration, its puerile animosity, material which the more sober and dignified British cartoon does not offer. It does not sum up so adequately the sober second thought of the nation, but it does keep us in touch with the changing mood of popular opinion, its varying pulse-beat from hour to hour. To glance over the old files throughout any one of the Presidential campaigns is the next best thing to living them over again, listening once more to the daily heated arguments, the inflammable stump speeches, the rancorous vituperation which meant so much at the time, and which seemed so idle the day after the election.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
