The Judge, Volume 6, No. 152

"Waiting for the Free Trade Bridge," The Judge, September 13, 1884

A caricatured figure labeled "Monopoly" sits fishing at the water's edge, his suitcase nearby, while across the water a group of men—labeled with tariff and trade positions—balance precariously on a plank. One holds an American flag; another waves a flag marked "United States." Industrial smokestacks smoke in the distant background. The cartoon satirizes the free trade debate consuming American politics in the 1884 election year. Judge, the Republican weekly, used such imagery to argue that protective tariffs benefited workers and industry against Democratic free-trade proposals, which Republicans portrayed as dangerous economic folly. The monopolist waits to profit from chaos; the workers and nation teeter on an unstable crossing, dependent on tariff policy to keep them afloat.