reat Expectations,” published May 8 (in the issue dated May 18), was Nast’s
first cartoon since the Liberal Republican National Convention concluded on May
2. He had assumed that diplomat Charles Francis Adams would be nominated for
president, and had nearly completed this drawing when he learned of the surprise
selection of Horace Greeley. Nast altered the picture, probably on the
woodblock after it had been engraved, by changing the tiny head on the mouse
from Adams’s face to Greeley’s and by inscribing vice-presidential nominee Gratz
Brown’s name on the mouse’s tail. (This is why Greeley appears twice, watching
his own figure as a mouse).
The joke in this cartoon relies upon the contrast between the “Great
Expectations” of Liberal Republicans and the pathetically small outcome of their
national convention. The “Liberal Mountain” is a visual metaphor for the “mud”
that has piled up from constant charges of corruption the Liberal Republicans
made against the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant. The cartoonist
may also have been attracted to the image by recent news reports of the
explosion of Vesuvius, the Italian volcano, on April 12, 1872. Here, out of the
man-made structure emerges the mousy Liberal Republican ticket of Greeley and
Brown. The cartoon title is taken from Charles Dickens’s novel, and the caption
about a mouse issuing forth from a mountain mimics the story of two Aesop’s
fables (later consolidated by Phaedrus). Dickens and Aesop were regular sources
of inspiration for Nast.
The top presidential contenders at the Liberal Republican Convention had been
Adams, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and Supreme Court Justice David
Davis. Greeley initially had some support for president but was considered more
likely as a vice-presidential nominee. The platform compromise on the tariff
issue, though, boosted the chances for the Tribune editor, a trade
protectionist in need of votes from tariff reformers. Governor Gratz Brown was
Missouri’s favorite-son candidate, but he lacked broad appeal. On the first
ballot, Adams made a strong showing with 205 votes, but Greeley placed a
surprisingly competitive second with 147 votes. At that point, Governor Brown
promptly withdrew and endorsed Greeley, in part to block Adams, the candidate of
Brown’s political rival in Missouri, Senator Carl Schurz. That gave momentum to
Greeley, who won the nomination on the sixth ballot, after which his campaign
managers urged the convention to select Brown for the second spot on the ticket.
In “Great Expectations,” the Liberal Republicans staring at the emergent
mouse are (left to right): Senator Reuben Fenton of New York; Greeley;
Trumbull; Schurz, in whose hat a paper indicates his desire to be secretary of
state; and a blathering Senator Thomas Tipton of Nebraska, holding his speeches
about Tom, Dick, and Harry. The two prominent Democrats looking on in the right
background are (left-right): Senator Frank Blair of Missouri, another political
rival of Schurz, and August Belmont, chairman of the Democratic National
Committee. The Democrat Party, lacking viable candidates of its own, endorsed
the Liberal Republican ticket a few weeks later.
Beginning with this cartoon, Nast ridiculed Gratz Brown throughout the
campaign as an appendage on Greeley (here, a tail, but usually a tag on
Greeley’s coat) in order to emphasize the vice-presidential nominee’s political
insignificance. Although Greeley proved to be a vulnerable candidate, his
running mate made matters worse. Known to have a drinking problem, Brown
reportedly delivered a speech at Yale while drunk, fainted before a gathering in
New York City, and often uttered misstatements.
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Background: 1859 - 1871
