Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/402

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.



with almost a standing caption over the leading article, "Any- thing to Beat Grant." The result, as every student knows, was that both Grant and Elaine were defeated and the nomination went to James A. Garfield.

CABTOON EEVIVED

To The New York World belongs the honor of reviving the cartoon, the wordless editorial of American journalism. From the time that Franklin had cut a snake into eight parts, each part representing a section of the country, and published the same in his Gazette under the caption "Join or Die," cartoons had ap- peared spasmodically in the American press usually at times of great political or national excitement. The New York World, however, was the first newspaper to make the cartoon a regular feature. Its first cartoon, printed on August 10, 1884, was en- titled " The Difference Between Two Knigh,ts," and was a con- trast of Blaine and Cleveland. This cartoon was not signed. In August, 1884, The World began in its Sunday issue a series of political cartoons which attracted a great deal of attention and so increased its circulation that new presses had to be ordered. So popular, indeed, were these cartoons that they were introduced into the daily edition. Of these early cartoons none was more popular than that entitled "Belshazzar's Feast," which ap- peared on August 30 and dealt with the coming presidential elec- tion of the Cleveland-Blaine Campaign. It occupied half of the first page and showed the Republican chiefs in the robes of Babylonian revelers at the Belshazzar banquet of Special Priv- ilege. Though the cartoon was crudely drawn, it had a certain strength which caused it to be remembered long after Cleveland was elected to the Presidency.

FIGHT OF TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION

In 1884 The New York Tribune possibly aided the election of Grover Cleveland though not through the support of its edi- torial page. This assistance, such as it was, grew out of a strike which started in December of 1883 when the Typographical Union decided upon a boycott of the paper because of some dis- agreement about wages of printers. A circular was sent to labor