Civil Service Reform

Nast frames Andrew Jackson's famous equestrian statue—pedestal inscribed "To the Victor Belong the Spoils"—as a perverse shrine. Three men in top hats grovel and scramble in the dirt at its base, their coats rumpled and hats tumbled, desperate for patronage appointments. The rider above them, haloed like a saint, brandishes what appears to be a feather duster rather than a sword—mock-heroic and hollow. The caption identifies the grovelers as office-seekers pleading: "St. Jackson, can't you give us something?" Nast targets the spoils system—the practice of rewarding political allies with federal jobs regardless of merit—which President Rutherford Hayes was then attempting to reform against fierce resistance from machine politicians in both parties. The satire is direct: men who should stand upright debase themselves before a doctrine that corrodes democratic governance.