Schurz & Reid Duet

Carl Schurz—ex-senator and Liberal Republican turned Hayes supporter—sits at a square piano while New York Tribune editor Whitelaw Reid stands beside him, violin and bow raised. Sheet music on the piano rack reads "Hayes & Wheeler Campaign Music / Overture — A Duet by C. Schurz and Whitelaw Reid." Scattered on the floor lie pages labeled "Democratic Organ Music," "1872 Campaign Music," and "Grand Finale"—Nast's shorthand for abandoned causes and failed alliances. The duet conceit skewers both men as self-important performers orchestrating Republican victory from newspaper offices rather than principle. Nast distrusted Schurz's reform pretensions and Reid's editorial influence; here he reduces them to hired accompanists playing someone else's campaign tune.