Schurz Quijote

Nast casts Missouri Senator Carl Schurz as Don Quixote—armored, lance leveled, hurled by his horse into an abyss after a futile charge at a windmill whose blades are bolted to the U.S. Capitol dome. Senator Thomas W. Tipton of Nebraska rides a donkey at the cliff's edge, mouth agape, clutching papers, playing Sancho Panza. The caption anchors the scene to the French Arms Investigation, quoting testimony by Col. Benet that America's small-arms supply meets all emergencies—precisely the windmill Schurz had charged as a national scandal. The cartoon ridicules the Liberal Republican insurgency Schurz was then organizing against Grant: grand chivalric gesture, no real target, comic pratfall before the seat of power.