The Gratz Brown Tag to Greeley's Coat.
Thomas Nast.
Although during the years of his fecundity Thomas Nast drew many cartoons bearing on events of international importance, his name will always be remembered, first of all, in connection with the series through which he held up the extravagances and iniquities of the Tweed Ring in the pillory of public opinion. He had decided convictions on other subjects. To the end of his life it was his nature to feel intensely, even in small matters. But his scorn and hatred of the corrupt organization that was looting New York became a positive mania, which was reflected in the cartoons which he literally hurled week after week against Tweed and his satellites. "I don't care what they write about me," said Tweed, "but can't you stop those terrible cartoons?" and in the end they, more than anything else, led to his downfall, his flight and his capture in Spain, where he was recognized by the police through the likeness Nast had drawn of him as a kidnaper. But in recognizing Nast's services in behalf of New York City it is not fair to overlook his work as a political caricaturist on broader issues. To him we owe also the Gratz Brown tag to Greeley's coat in the campaign of 1872, the "Rag Baby of Inflation," the Jackass as emblematic of the Democratic Party, the Labor Cap and the Full Dinner Pail, which in later years were so much developed by the cartoonists of Judge. And if to-day, at the beginning of the twentieth century, we have a school of caricature which for scope and craftsmanship is equal, if not superior, to that of any nation of Europe, it is only just to recognize that it was Thomas Nast who first gave American caricature a dignity and a meaning.
First Appearance of the Cap and Dinner Pail as Emblematic of Labor.
