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What made the donkey and the elephant political? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
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  Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes this stuff you
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  Speaker 1: should know, the continued political edition. Because we did presidential pardons,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: we're all political now. Well, this is the time of
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  Speaker 1: the year, you know. Yeah, it's beginning to look a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: lot like political season. I'm going to day to cast
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  Speaker 1: my ballot for Georgia to start letting everybody buy booze
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  Speaker 1: on Sunday. I am too. I appreciate you doing that. No,
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  Speaker 1: I'm voting against it. A lot of people on the
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  Speaker 1: a j C they had, you know, the opinion, like
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  Speaker 1: what do you think? And the people that were against it,
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  Speaker 1: we're all just like, well, you got six days of eak,
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  Speaker 1: Like why to change it? Why bother? You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: just the one day. Is it really that big of
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  Speaker 1: a pain? And it's like what has lost on these
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  Speaker 1: people is that this is the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: It's about freedom. It's not about buying booze on Sunday.
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  Speaker 1: It's about somebody else telling you not to when this
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  Speaker 1: is two thousand eleven. Yes, um, nice chuck. Yeah. Well, um,
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  Speaker 1: let's stop talking politics and instead let's talk animals. Let's
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  Speaker 1: talk biology. You know much about donkeys? Uh? No, okay,
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  Speaker 1: not really. Well, donkeys are a member of the horse family,
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  Speaker 1: but there are different species from horse. Donkeys and mules
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  Speaker 1: are not the same, correct there Uh, because there are
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  Speaker 1: different species. It makes it really weird that they can
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  Speaker 1: not only mate but procreate. But donkeys and horses do
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  Speaker 1: get it on and with the producer mules. So, um,
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  Speaker 1: a mule is actually the offspring of a male donkey
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  Speaker 1: jack and a female horse a mayor. How I do
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  Speaker 1: not know that in forty years a henney is a
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  Speaker 1: is the offspring of a female donkey a jenny, and
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  Speaker 1: a male horse stallion. So a mule or a henny
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  Speaker 1: can be boy or girl. It depends on what their
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  Speaker 1: parents were. So this is actually the second podcast where
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  Speaker 1: we've started with equestrian definitions. Yes, interesting, and I also
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  Speaker 1: want to give a little shout out to the donkey.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently a donkey they're very well known for stubbornness, of course,
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  Speaker 1: but um, apparently it is a misinterpretation as I understand it.
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  Speaker 1: Of they're incredibly well defined sense of self preservation. They
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  Speaker 1: are not very easily frightened or um forced into doing
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  Speaker 1: something they think is not in their own best interest,
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  Speaker 1: which comes off to us as stubborn jackass donkey mule
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  Speaker 1: who won't go down the trail, and they're like the
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  Speaker 1: gold No, no, I could fall off that interesting. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so I think humans should start listening to their donkeys
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  Speaker 1: and to make sure that people don't accuse us of
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  Speaker 1: um doncubias. Yes, I want to talk also about elephants too,
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  Speaker 1: because if you talk donkeys, you have to talk elephants
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  Speaker 1: and eventually electric eels, which we'll get too later at
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  Speaker 1: the tea party. No, no, no, I thought they might
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  Speaker 1: have had their own. I don't know. I don't think so.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think it's electric eels. Pretty awesome. They do
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  Speaker 1: have that carved up snake. Yeah, they don't tread on
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  Speaker 1: me snake that was carved up into the thirteen colonies,
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  Speaker 1: But that's definitely not an electric eel. Elephants and are
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  Speaker 1: are a horse of a completely different color. A few
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  Speaker 1: couple of facts of them. They are, their societies are
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  Speaker 1: structured by female. They the if you see a group
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  Speaker 1: of elephants walking around, they're all female. They live in
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  Speaker 1: the same family their whole lives. The elephant pack is
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  Speaker 1: led by a female. It's matriarchal, and males spend their
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  Speaker 1: whole lives like just basically doing their own thing, hanging
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  Speaker 1: out and then coming around to mate every once in a
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  Speaker 1: a while. And these lives can can live, can go
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  Speaker 1: for up to eighty two years. And elephants are pretty
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  Speaker 1: amazing animals. They are very well known to mourn, scientifically
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  Speaker 1: proven to mourn they're dead. The first study that established
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  Speaker 1: that was in two thousand five that found that elephants
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  Speaker 1: will return to where their loved ones have fallen and
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  Speaker 1: visit their bones and skulls and tusks and want to
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  Speaker 1: stroke them and just kind of meditate over them for
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  Speaker 1: a while. That's very sad, right. So you have donkeys,
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  Speaker 1: you have elephants. You have American politics. That I think
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  Speaker 1: is as interesting as the story of how they became
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  Speaker 1: symbols of politics. I would say it's more interesting, alright.
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  Speaker 1: It depends on your your leanings. This one was written
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  Speaker 1: by Sam Abramson. You remember him. He was a good guy.
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  Speaker 1: I have no idea. I doubt if he listens. Uh so,
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Nast. If you're gonna start the discussion on how
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  Speaker 1: the donkey and the elephant became symbols of our two
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  Speaker 1: political parties, there's only one place to start and end,
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  Speaker 1: and that is a German. Oddly enough, a German born
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  Speaker 1: political satirist and illustrator, cartoonist, wood block cutter. Yeah, really
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  Speaker 1: named Thomas Nast, who was born in Germany, came over
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  Speaker 1: to New York City when he was six, and uh
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  Speaker 1: was a natural. He was a shoeing right off the
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  Speaker 1: bat with this artwork stuff. Yeah, he was pretty good,
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  Speaker 1: you can tell. And you've if you haven't heard of him,
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  Speaker 1: you've still seen his stuff somewhere out there. You've seen
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  Speaker 1: a Thomas Nast illustration. Any time you think of nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: century UM political cartoons, what you're envisioning as a Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Nast illustration or Uncle Sam? It depends one. I always
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  Speaker 1: think of his UM flag, Thomas flag. I can't remember
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  Speaker 1: his name anyway, he was the one who painted that
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  Speaker 1: I want you, Uncle Sam. Yeah, but Nasa is the
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  Speaker 1: one who popularized the first images of Uncle Sam's that right. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam was around him he was. He was the
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  Speaker 1: one who first put him in like a star spangled
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  Speaker 1: suit and made him tall and gaunt, model after Abraham Lincoln.
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  Speaker 1: But Uncle Sam was, if I may uh. He was
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  Speaker 1: possibly named after a guy named Samuel Wilson, not Abrahamson
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  Speaker 1: no Ok, who was a meat packer from Troy, New York,
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  Speaker 1: UH in the early nineteenth century, and who was who
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  Speaker 1: got a great reputations being very honest, and so he
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  Speaker 1: got a government contract to send meat provisions to the
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  Speaker 1: troops UH during the War of eighteen twelve, and these
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  Speaker 1: crates would come arrive stamped us, and the troops came
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  Speaker 1: to mention that this was a quol Sam or Uncle
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  Speaker 1: Sam Wilson, which came to be a symbol for the
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  Speaker 1: United States as a whole, and they were providing Uncle
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  Speaker 1: Sam's brotting food for the soldiers. In their minds, yes,
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  Speaker 1: it's nice. Nothing but horse me in. Santa Claus, the
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  Speaker 1: modern Santa Claus as we know him, was sort of
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  Speaker 1: captured by a Nast as well as that, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you got a story there, I do think so people
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  Speaker 1: say that Thomas Nast invented Santa Claus, and that is
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  Speaker 1: it's pretty close. There was St. Nick was since your clause,
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  Speaker 1: there was all these these conceptions of Santa Claus based
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  Speaker 1: around St. Nick. Thomas Nast was the one who associated St. Nick,
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  Speaker 1: who still today in Germany. He's honored. He has a
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  Speaker 1: day on December six where people give one another gifts,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not Christmas. Thomas Nast took the gift giving
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  Speaker 1: idea associated with St. Nick, put it to Christmas for
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  Speaker 1: Harper's and then added the elves as well. So the
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  Speaker 1: whole idea of Santa Claus coming and bringing gifts was
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Nast. Yeah, like eighteen sixty two, I believe, for
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  Speaker 1: the cover of Harper's Weekly, Thank you Thomas Nast. And
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  Speaker 1: then by eighteen eighty one he was fat and jolly
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  Speaker 1: thinks that Thomas Nast as well? How is this Santa
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  Speaker 1: gonna be lean and mean? Yeah, he was a little
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  Speaker 1: skinny and it's off putting to see a skinny Santa
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  Speaker 1: Clause earlier ones. All right, well you spilled the beans
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  Speaker 1: on that spoiler. Harper's Weekly was where Nast worked for
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  Speaker 1: twenty four years from eighteen sixty two to eighteen eighty six,
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  Speaker 1: and um, that is where he made his name, like
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  Speaker 1: big time. He was influential. He was countrywide famous. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know about world famous. I don't know if a
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  Speaker 1: whole lot of people were world famous at the time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he's definitely like a household name, I think. Yeah, he
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  Speaker 1: was a rock star. This is when a political cartoon
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  Speaker 1: really meant something and actually held sway in elections. Not
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  Speaker 1: so today. Yeah, because you know, so many people were illiterate,
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  Speaker 1: which is kind of unfortunate, because Thomas Nast drew in
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  Speaker 1: a time where you could draw a bunch of stuff
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  Speaker 1: and be like, oh, this doesn't make any sense, and
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  Speaker 1: just put labels on him. Apparently you can label absolutely everything.
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  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, this tree. Sometimes he would come to
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  Speaker 1: your house and explain it to you if you still
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  Speaker 1: didn't get well. And I mentioned wood cut these. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: he did not draw these in pen and ink until later,
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  Speaker 1: which would end up being his undoing. We'll get to that.
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  Speaker 1: But he actually carved these things. That's how they printed these.
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  Speaker 1: These are carvings. It's amazing, especially when you look at
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  Speaker 1: the detail. It's a striking Josh, I agree. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: realize there are wood carvings until about thirty minutes ago,
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  Speaker 1: so you're still reeling. Yeah, I'm a little I'm still queasy.
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  Speaker 1: I still have the taste of vomit in my mouth.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So, politically speaking, Nast was a Republican, but
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  Speaker 1: Republicans at the time aren't exactly what we might think
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  Speaker 1: of today. It was a shift over the years. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that many people know this. It's a big eye open anything.
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  Speaker 1: It's like learning in eighth grade that, um, the United
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  Speaker 1: States like pretty much brought genocide down on Indians in America,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like learning like, wait, what are you talking about? Like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there are cowboys and stuff, but what do you mean
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  Speaker 1: the same thing with this, Like that Republican and Democrat
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  Speaker 1: is fluid term, but really it's like conservative and liberal
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  Speaker 1: or the two opposing forces at all times. Yeah, that's
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  Speaker 1: a good way to put it. Actually, And at the time,
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  Speaker 1: I guess Republicans were very much socially liberal and he
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  Speaker 1: was on board with that and ended up having problems
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  Speaker 1: with his own party because of that, which influenced his cartoons.
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  Speaker 1: We calling cartoons, I think, yeah, political cartoons. It's a
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  Speaker 1: it's an acceptable term. So donkey should we start there? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the donkey first came about in eighteen seventy, was the
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  Speaker 1: first time the donkey made its appearance, and that was
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  Speaker 1: in uh and I have these printed out too. That
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  Speaker 1: was this one right here. The copper Head Northern Democrats
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  Speaker 1: were called copper Head Democrats opposed the Civil War, and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: he thought they were racists. Well that's what Sam calls them.
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  Speaker 1: Well that's what NAS thought of them, though, right right,
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  Speaker 1: But I think that they I think that that's over
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  Speaker 1: that's an overbroad description. I think that the copper Head
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  Speaker 1: Democrats were made up of like there were the crux
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  Speaker 1: of the peace movement, right they also basically they were
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  Speaker 1: made up of people who said it's unconstitutional to force
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  Speaker 1: a country together for one part of it wants to secede.
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  Speaker 1: There were a lot of different voices, but yes, they
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  Speaker 1: were very powerful, and Nast definitely opposed them for sure.
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  Speaker 1: And the copper Head is a snake, in case you
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  Speaker 1: didn't know that, So it's definitely a derogatory term, deadly snake.
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  Speaker 1: It is a deadly snake that we have right here
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  Speaker 1: in Georgia. Uh So, in eighteen seventy the he showed
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  Speaker 1: that the donkey kicking a dead lion the donkey, and
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  Speaker 1: like you said, he would just literally label them. He
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  Speaker 1: would write words on the body of the animals saying
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  Speaker 1: this is what this is. Uh, no subtext. The donkey
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  Speaker 1: was the copper Head Press, which was he was taking
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  Speaker 1: a jab at the press, not necessarily the party. And
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  Speaker 1: then the lion was Edwin and Stanton Lincoln, Secretary of War.
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  Speaker 1: It was dead and dead in the photo and it
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: looks like there's a little eagle looking on even like
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  Speaker 1: what are you doing? But the eagles not labels. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that's the capital in the background. Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: think so. So yeah, he he would just write on it,
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  Speaker 1: like on the side of the donkey it says copper
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  Speaker 1: Head Press and it looks like have you heard of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I think his name is Vim vander Wall or something
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: like that. He he came up with the cloaca machine.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: He's an artist from the Netherlands. Uh. He has has
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  Speaker 1: like this whole exhibit where he like tattoos pigs really yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and like like elaborate tattoos and it looks a lot
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  Speaker 1: like this. I really like the woodcut or just that
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  Speaker 1: style that like the donkey having writing on the side
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  Speaker 1: of it. Okay, I got you, it's been graffito. So
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  Speaker 1: that is um. That was the first appearance of the donkey. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The next one was in eighteen seven, be four, when
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  Speaker 1: Republican Ulysses s Grant Ulysses was vying for a potential
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: third term, which freaked a lot of people out right. Well,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: he freaked people out twice. Did he try to do
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  Speaker 1: that twice? Well, they tried to get him to run
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  Speaker 1: for a third consecutive term in eighteen seventy six, but
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  Speaker 1: he pooh pooed it. But then he went and traveled
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  Speaker 1: abroad and came back and said, I'm a better man.
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  Speaker 1: I think I could be president for a third time,
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  Speaker 1: third non consecutive term in eight Yeah, which is why
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  Speaker 1: that that this third term panic. The eighteen seventy four
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  Speaker 1: cartoon was when people were like, well, he can't. You
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  Speaker 1: can't have a three term president, even though you could constitutionally,
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  Speaker 1: that's right. So if you look at this one, this
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  Speaker 1: one is like, this is crazy. This looks like a
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  Speaker 1: Grateful Dead album cover or something. It's got a donkey
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  Speaker 1: in sheep's clothing labeled Caesarism, obviously referencing Julius Caesar is
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  Speaker 1: some mad, power hungry tyrant. And then there's all sorts
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of other stuff going on, and we'll get to the
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  Speaker 1: as the elephant plays a part in this one as well.
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  Speaker 1: I like the giraffe a lot on that one. It
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: was kind of up where he looks like he's wearing
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  Speaker 1: a vest. Yeah, he's wearing some sort of a suit.
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  Speaker 1: Giraffe in a suit. And that was called third term Panic. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But again, even though he was symbolizing the Democratic Press
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  Speaker 1: mainly with the donkey, it's sort of stuck is the
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  Speaker 1: Democratic Party even though that wasn't in his original intent?
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  Speaker 1: Is that right? Um? I don't know. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if like he I don't think he originally intended it,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: but I think over time he just came to see
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  Speaker 1: it as I think it. Yeah, popularly was picked up
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  Speaker 1: and kind of forced him to use it later on.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: You know. But even though the Democrats still haven't, that's
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  Speaker 1: not their uh their symbol officially, they've never adopted the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: brain jackasses their official party symbol. I wonder why, although
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the Republicans have they've adopted their symbol. That's true. But
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: there there's some stuff in that third Term Panic thing,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: um that kind of pops up that was clear really
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: important to Nast, Like inflation. There's like a plank he
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: wrote inflation on. So apparently at the time there was
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a big struggle going on about abandoning the gold standard,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: or printing um as much silver as you wanted, or
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: issuing paper so you could basically cause inflation so people
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: could pay off their debts so they could buy stuff
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  Speaker 1: more cheaply, that kind of thing. And apparently Nast opposed
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  Speaker 1: that the inflation because that's like a plank that's broken
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: over this pit. That the elephant the Republican vote, I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: think is what it is. Chaos, Right, there's chaos because
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: farmers can pay their bills kind of thing. So he
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: was like, he was definitely a social liberal, but I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: get from this that he was also not a populist,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Like I think he liked people in theory but not
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: in practice. Right, And then you know this is important
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: because he was a guy who only drew what he
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: believed in, which would also further prove to be his
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  Speaker 1: undoing later on. Yeah, but you gotta take your hat
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  Speaker 1: off to somebody like that. You know, Well, he'd made
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  Speaker 1: his name. I guess he was like, do you know
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  Speaker 1: who I am? I'm the nasty man. I'm not gonna
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: draw anything I don't believe in. Uh so, what where
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: are we here? There was another example, um, a presidential
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: candidate grabbing a donkey labeled Democratic Party by the tail. Yeah,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: so that was Thomas F. Bayard. Yeah, and he was
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: grabbing it by the tail. He was actually one of
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: those guys who fought to repeal, um the issuance of
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: paper money legal tender that doesn't really mean anything, rather
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: than use gold. And so I guess Nasty approved of him,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: even though he's a Democrat. And that's this one right here,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: right yeah, And that's uh, he's he's trying to keep
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the donkey from finding falling into a pit another pit
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  Speaker 1: labeled financial chaos. It's very popular motif at the time,
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  Speaker 1: I guess. And then in the background of this one
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  Speaker 1: you do see the dead Republican Party elephant with is
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  Speaker 1: that Lincoln hovering above him? Probably I think Nas kind
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  Speaker 1: of had a thing for for Lincoln had a thing
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  Speaker 1: for him. It's strictly in an idol way with an Oh,
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  Speaker 1: so that is the donkey That fairly summarized how it
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: got started. Yeah, like you said, I mean he started
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: just kind of using it and associating it with the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Copperhead Democrats, Democratic Press, and then ultimately people just said, well,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I can't read, but I see that you're making fun
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: of the Democrats, and that's the donkeys. So the Democrats
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: are donkeys, and I said, okay, we'll go with that.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Oh and also, by the way, the Wizard of Oz
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: apparently is a popular allegory for UM politics at the time,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: including that whole gold standard abandonment. Was it meant to be? It? Yeah?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Frank Baum, who who wrote it was a political writer
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: UM for many many years before he wrote it. And
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the gold the yellow brick road is the gold standard.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And then Dorothy's shoes originally were silver, not ruby, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: so silver and gold was a call out to this
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: UM free silver idea of printing sixteen silver coins to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: every gold coin printed to make money cheaper and abundant. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So interesting, a lot of a lot of subtle stuff
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: going on in the late nineteenth century. You know, Well,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they're way more obvious now, I guess because they can be. Yeah,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: at least we don't label our political cartoons as much.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: It's still a tradition that's upheld. It is. You just
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: don't see words all over the place. I don't read
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of political cartoons anymore. To you I just
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: don't run into him very often, but I almost always
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: enjoy him when I do upentially that Mike Luckovich guy,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: he is good. He is a local boy too, Yeah,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: luck of it just good. You know, I'm a big
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: family Circus fan. Yeah, that's rarely political. You know when
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Jeffy like tracks a month through the through the House
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and it's like, Jeffy, have you seen the altered version
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: of those? There's altered versions of everything. These are pretty funny.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: They're really really dirty, but they're funny. Dirty is not there?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Or they just like um filthy? Yeah they felt okay, alright,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: So moving on to the elephant. Uh, this was Nast's party,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the Republicans at the time, so obviously his cartoons about
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the elephant are going to be more positive, I guess,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: or sad. Yeah, true, like the dying elephant. Yeah. I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: think he probably intuitively knew the elephants mourn they're dead,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: which makes you sad when you think about elephants, which
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: is why you choose the elephant. I wonder if he
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: knew that. I don't think you did. That's appropriate though,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: before he actually ever, it keeps saying penned in here,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: but carved his first elephant. Um. It was used twice before,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: once in eighteen sixty four, uh, in a Lincoln campaign
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: literature piece, and then in eighteen seventy two by Harper's
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't until eighteen seventy four that he used it,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So I can imagine the Lincoln use of it was
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: very intended to be derogatory. Yeah, probably all jackasses. So
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that's uh or turn panic. The one we already talked
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: about was the first Um Republican elephant that he had carved. Okay,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: but the first appearance of the Republican elephant and the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Democratic um donkey together as the as those two is
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the representative the whole party was the Stranger Things Have
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Happened cartoon where he's got the donkey by the tail.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: As far as I know, it's the first. That's what
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: that one was called, Stranger Things have Happened. Uh. In
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, there was one called the Political Situation.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Pretty straight up, Uncle Sam is confused. He is labeled
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the vote of the people, and there's a two headed
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: elephant choosing to decide which road Democratic road of the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Republican road to go down. That's fairly self explanatory. I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: think it is, but it's also kind of confusing because
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam's confused. So as he's saying the Republicans can
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: go one of two ways at the time, Well, no,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: because there it's two headed, so I would imagine it
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: was it's more representative of the two already system. I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: think Nasty was pretty drunk that day, So, uh, what
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: else do we have here? Um? There was the oh
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: my favorite, I haven't seen it yet. Did you print
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it out? The one with the tombstone? No, I couldn't
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: find that one. I thought this was very um sweet,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: but nasty. Apparently, when Rutherford B. Hayes uh ran for
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: president he won the eight seventy six election, that um
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that Grant didn't go for the third term four right,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and Hayes apparently said that he would only run once.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And I guess he wasn't a very well like guy
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: because he was one of those presidents who won through
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, and apparently
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: lost the popular vote pretty bad, and so his whole
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: presidency was in no way, shape or form a mandate.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: It was it was very representative of the fact that
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: this country, our country was still very much torn apart
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: from the Civil War, and so nas created this cartoon
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: where this um elephant that Sam describes as bruised and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: battered is crouching down at a tombstone of the Democratic Party,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty cool because it's like he
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: had the sense that there was still, no matter how
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: um acrimonious things got, that these two parties were still
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: American parties, that there's still a whole wild world out
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: there for us to hate, and why are we hating
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: each other? You know, Yeah, that's sort of a nice sentiment. Yeah,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to characterize nastas uh an isolationists
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: or even a nativist, like he had one of his
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam paintings or I'm sorry carvings. Was um Uncle
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Sam and Columbia right Liberty uh hosting a Thanksgiving dinner
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: with all the peoples of the world, which included some
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Chinese people, some um black people, some Native American Indians, uh,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and uh a host of others, but not the Irish.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think the Irish were president. But it was
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: like it's world or suffrage for all, you know, equality
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: for everyone in the world. Come on, comal, you're all invited.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It was pretty cool. He's definitely not a bigot, as
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: far as I could tell you, it does seemed like it. Uh.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: So you know what standpoints out is it? And it's true.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: It's kind of striking that a hundred and fifty years
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: after this or so, that these are still the symbols.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Republicans officially adopted the elephant. But he
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: points out that a lot of that was due to
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: just how influential and popular Nast was at the time.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: It just became part of the national fabric because of him.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: There was some good quotes about him after well, while
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: he's working. Even apparently, Um Abraham Lincoln called Nasta's quote
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: best recruiting sergeant during the eighteen sixty four re election.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: And this is while he was traveling around the country heckling, Uh,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: what's his name? Oh, Stephen, it's not Stephen Decatur. What
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: was that guy's name? I don't know. We'll go with
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Ambrose Beers, even though it's not right. I can't believe
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: we don't remember that guy's name. I know, my head
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: is just bulging. Uh. Mark Twain said that Nast won
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: a prodigious victory for grant I mean, for civilization in progress.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: It's Mark Twain for you. What a guy. He can
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: turn it price. So he Um, you said that he
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: kind of gave up his UH career in a lot
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of ways by being stubborn as a donkey. Yeah. Um.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Especially he was apparently in very good with Fletcher Harper,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: who founded Harper's Weekly. Um, do you read Harper's. No,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: it's monthly, it's Lewis Lapham just left and I got
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: into it right before he left, and I got sucked
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: into Harper's and then he left, and now I'm like,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it's just not is good? Why Why did this happen
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to me? Why does everything bad happen to me? But
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: it's still it's very good. And it's been around since
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the mid nineteenth century, which is pretty impressive for a magazine,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and endured endors. But Junior came aboard and UM didn't
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: really side with um. Thomas nast right, Yeah, I mean
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Na's had a lot of freedom under under Fletcher Harper,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: but Joe Jr. Kind of tightened down the ranks, and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: it's like, hey, man, don't be so square. People want
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to be entertained. So there was a bit of a
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: shift and UH in in the the way American public
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: wanted to you know, what they wanted to read in magazines,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and then uh, people wanted to not be bothered anymore. Yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: they were stick of it. So the other death Noel though,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: was was they went to photochemical reproduction and they didn't
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: do the woodblock cuttings anymore. And apparently woodblock, even though
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I mean it looks to me like incredibly detailed, it
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: gives you a lot of leeway to make mistakes that
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you don't get with pen and ink and paper. So
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: his shortcomings all of a sudden stood out. They're like,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: this guy kind of sucks. It's just it's just not
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: true Santa Claus. Yeah, so he he ended up like, um,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: penniless as you as you love the term, Um, I
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: do you don't you love the term penniless. I was
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: listening to an old podcast and you're like, I hate
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: that term. It's so no. One doesn't happen. He does
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: the Niagara Falls one. She's I need to lighten up
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: back then. Huh. But anyway, he was very much broke
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: um and he tried to He tried to open his
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: own uh paper, Nast Weekly, which lasted six months, and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: luckily he had a friend in Teddy Roosevelt, right, yeah,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and he he appointed him to Council General to Ecuador
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and NASA. I guess it's like, all right, I guess
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I'll go to Ecuador. It's because there's money there, because
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I'm Penniless's better than doing nothing. And it actually was
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: not better than doing nothing, because he got yellow fever
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: there and died six months later. Yeah. Uh so that's
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a pretty weird end of that guy, if you ask me,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: But it was. He was sixty two and at the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: turn of the last last century, the last last turn
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of the century. He uh, sixty two is not bad.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty good run for back then, especially being
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: a household name wentce your celebrities over. You might as well,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're dead anyway, and that just hasn't You
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: haven't actually died yet, but you might as well be,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you know. So there you go, the donkey and the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the elephant. If if you feel like we've explained this,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: if you now understand it and gotten to the bottom
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: of it, you were not paying attention because it's still
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: as convoluted as ever. It's not all that's all from that. Well,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: don't you wish though that there was like some sort
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, here's the reason why he chose the donkey. Oh,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of course he would choose an elephant. It's totally intuitive. No,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: it's the ramblings of a madman. You used to carve
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: stuff into woodblocks and Fletcher Harper published it for the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: consumption of everybody else. But now you know, knowing is
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: half the battle the track. So if you want to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: learn more about Thomas Nast, if you want to read
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: one of the extraordinarily rare Samuel Abramson articles on the site,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: you can type in the words why are a donkey
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and an elephant the symbols of the Democratic and Republican
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: parties question mark. You could probably also just type in
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: donkey and elephant and it will bring it up. So
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: h I think I said that you should type it
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: into the search bar, and if I didn't, you should
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: type it into the search bar at how stuffworks dot com.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Since I said that, it's time now for listener mail.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Josh Bison feedback from Canada Burlington, Ontario, specifically, guys, your
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: recent Bison podcast put me uh in mind one of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the coolest experiences of my life when I lived out
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: in Alberta, I'd often go hiking and Elk Island National Park.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I was halfway around one of the parks longer trails
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: one day when I looked down, I saw a fresh
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: buffalo chip. What's that is? Scat? As I pondered what
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: this meant, I heard a snort and about ten to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: fifteen meters in front of me, which is a length
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: that I don't understand. It's roximately okay, it was ards okay,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I get yards. Uh ten to fifteens in front of
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: me was a bison. I froze. I was alone, hadn't
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: seen another soul on the trail. I knew roughly eight
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: kilometers whatever that is from the road, I'm sorry, from
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the trailhead in either direction, and I knew uh. This
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: animal decided to charge, I was as good as dead,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and we stared each other down for a few minutes.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know what was going through its mind, but
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I was weighing my options. If I turned around and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: it decided at a charge, I might not hear it
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: coming and wouldn't be able to take evasive action. If
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I went forward, I might provoke it and be in
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: deep troubled. I knew I couldn't stay there all day,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: so I decided to take a single step towards it.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: To Gage's response, good move, I think. I moved towards it.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: It gave a snort and turned its head away from
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: me and ran into the woods to my right. Very cool,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I thought, No sooner had I thought that. Then from
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: my left came a thundering herd of bison stampeding across
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: the trail. There must have been twenty to thirty of
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: them running in front of me, following their lookout. That
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: was a scout, I guess, into the forest. I stood there, utterly,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: all struck for several minutes before I decided to move
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: forward to where they had just been. For the next
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, everywhere, I bet. For the next fifteen minutes
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: or so, I kept looking over my shoulder just in
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: case they were hiding behind a tree, ready to pounce
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: on me like a giant cartoon kangaroo. Interesting imagination. So
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: they didn't pounce. He made it back say, and he
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: just says, if anyone finds himself in this situation, probably
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: won't happen. Don't do what I did. I got lucky.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: These are wild animals, not petting zoo bison. I could
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: have easily been trampled and left to die. So that
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: is Gordon C from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Weird weird ending there.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: He doesn't give any any suggestions of what to do. No,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: but he did say that it was the most amazing
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: experience of his life, seeming the thundering herd of bison
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: right in front of him. I will bet I thought
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: it was pretty cool. Yeah. Um, I want to add
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: something from the Bison podcast. We got a tweet from
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: some guy recently was saying, hey, I was really disappointed
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you guys used the word Indian instead of Native American.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, yeah, that's a smart guy. Well,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: how about I provide you with the link to an
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: article that has a poll that shows that in clear
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: for of all Indian Native American Indians, UM prefer the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: term Indian over Native American, prefer Native American, and then
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: like six percent or whatever the rest is prefer something else.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Don't call me, I'll call you all right. So the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the not a majority, but very close to it for
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Indian over Native Americans. So chew on that pal. We
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: were doing something right for once, and he goes, no,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about people from India are offended by that
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: like me, And I was like, oh, you're to handle
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is Sanjay something? And I haven't responded yet, but I
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: hadn't considered that. Yeah, I knew we were doing right
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: by Indians of North America, but I hadn't considered how
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Indians of India also known as Asian Indians felt about it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious to know. So I would like to
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: hear from everybody, uh, if from Asian Indians and North
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: American Indians. And I'm sure I'm just like offending everybody
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form right now, but like
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: figure out how to establish this. I want to know,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: how do you consider that either? And even if you're
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: not Asian Indian or American Indian, yes, uh, we want
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to hear from you. If you have a good suggestion
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to about how to end this conundrum. Uh, you can
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: tweet to us like Sanjay did at s Y s
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: K podcast. Um, you can uh go to Facebook also
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: known as the the fifty thousand at Facebook dot com,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: slash stuff you Should Know, and you can send us
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a plain old fashioned email at Stuff podcast at how
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to check out our
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: new video podcast Stuff from the future. Join how Stuff
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you