Title | "Peevish School-Boys, Worthless of Such Honor." |
Artist/Maker | Unidentified |
Date | 1874-06-06 |
Medium | Wood engraving, black and white |
Dimensions | h. 9.5 x w. 13.5 in. (h. 24.13 x w. 34.29 cm) |
Credit Line | U.S. Senate Collection |
Accession Number | 38.00114.001 |
A passionate Republican partisan, cartoonist Thomas Nast never hesitated to assail members of his own party who strayed from the Republican platform. The Panic of 1873 had led Congress to adopt an inflationary measure that increased the amount of greenbacks–paper money–in circulation. Nasts hero, President Ulysses S. Grant, vetoed the bill in April 1874. Nast, who shared the presidents hard-money views, drew critical cartoons of Republicans who opposed Grant on the measure. Newspapers aligned with these senators then attacked Harpers Weekly for becoming "a pictorial blackguard." Nast confronted Republican senators by inserting himself in this cartoon that appeared in Harpers Weekly on June 6, 1874. Giving the impression that he is bowing, Nast stoops to read their "peevish" attacks on him, with the observation: "Republican senators can repudiate their platform, the national debt, or whatever they wish, but nobody may say a word against them, as they are sacred."