Schurz Greeley Joker

At the Cincinnati Convention of 1872, Carl Schurz — hand raised to conceal a grin — presents Columbia, the female personification of the United States, with a fool's-head scepter bearing Horace Greeley's caricatured face. A scroll reads Presented to the American Nation by the Liberals. Columbia turns away in plain disgust. Behind Schurz, a crowd including Boss Tweed and August Belmont watches in barely suppressed amusement. The bulletin board announces Greeley and B. Gratz Brown as the Liberal Republican ticket. Nast's argument is blunt: the Liberal Republicans, by nominating the eccentric newspaper editor Greeley against Grant, are handing the nation a joke — and the corrupt Democratic machine knows it and approves.