Which Is the Better Able to Pocket the Other?

Nast draws Senator Carl Schurz—rendered spindly and shrunken, his oversized head atop stilt-like legs, carrying a sign reading "The German C. Schurz Vote"—confronting a large, jowly man whose coat pocket is labeled "German Vote." The big man leans forward with a knowing smirk, finger pointed at his pocket; the implicit question is who controls whom. The caption cites the N.Y. Herald reporting that Schurz claimed to carry German-American sentiment in his pocket while stumping for the Liberal Republican Cincinnati ticket. Nast mocks that pretension: the "real" German vote is far larger than Schurz himself. The caricature of Schurz—wild hair, grotesque proportions—reflects the ethnic exaggeration Nast routinely applied to German, Irish, and other immigrant figures in this period, a convention his contemporary audience read as comic diminishment rather than slur, though the effect is unmistakably dehumanizing by later standards.