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Chinese Exclusion

“Political Capitol and Compound Interest” 1880

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“Political Capitol and Compound Interest” – 31 January 1880 by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly. Source: UDel-Walfred

Like the year before, 1880 was not a good one for presidential hopeful James G. Blaine. Thomas Nast went after the Republican senator from Maine with a visual vengeance. Nast broke his allegiance with his beloved party of Lincoln, and took on Blaine with a relish comparable to his attacks on William. M. Tweed more than a decade earlier.

Blaine aspired for national office.  He sought to win votes in California and made a decision to break from his party and earn votes by siding with anti-Chinese Denis Kearney and the Workingmen party. Kearney’s war cry, most notably delivered in vacant Sand Lots, coined the phrase “The Chinese Must Go” which he delivered with charismatic zeal before and after each speech.

In this alternative reality cartoon, it is the Chinese who demand that Kearney, and his supporter from Maine leave. The Chinese figure is confident and defiant and taunts Blaine behind his back. He removes his hat to expose his shaven head, except for the braided queue grown from his crown. He dangles the braid toward Blaine, who doesn’t appear to know quite what to make the behavior. Chinese were typically thought to be docile, but this Chinese man feels emboldened to lash out at the august senator. Blaine’s expression is not one of appreciation.

On February 14, Blaine is reported to have been asked, “Ought we to exclude them?” His reply: “The question lies in my mind thus: either the Anglo-Saxon race will possess the Pacific slope or the Mongolians will possess it” (qtd. Gyory).

Nast taunts his nemesis as well with the visual question, how does it feel to have done to you what is being done to the Chinese?

The Chinese man craves an answer to the same question.  He wants Blaine to experience what it feels like to be an outcast and to be excluded.  The Chinese were legally prohibited from becoming citizens and could not vote.  Nast identifies the Chinese man as a”Non Voter” who exclaims: “Now Melican Man know muchee how it is himself.”

Above the Chinese man’s head, a sign shows a trans-Atlantic handshake between Democrats in California and Republicans (led by Blaine) in Maine. The handshake is a fusion of interests and with Maine breaking with the Republican Party, a change in immigration policy.

This sign, as well as top banner, plays on the word “fusion.” Nast adds the preface “con” to indicate the tumult his Republican Party is experiencing.

Another sign reads, “Denis Kearney is ready to lead a gang of men to Maine, to make the Republicans GO.” Although Blaine clearly jumped the Republican ship on the Chinese issue, Kearney had not converted the rest of the Republican Party. The signs on the wall warn Republicans that with Kearney in control, and along with the Chinese, the Republicans were next on his Exclusion list. Blaine, hat in hand, is appealing to stay. With his break in philosophy, the Chinese see Blaine as a traitor.

In California, Republicans sided with the capital interests of labor and soon fell out of favor once Kearney began his campaign to oust the Chinese. Kearney and the Democratic Party soon dominated California politics, and politics there clearly fixated on removing the Chinese.

Harper’s editorials had previously lamented the abrogation of the treaties and Blaine’s role in the treaty’s demise and decried that presidential politics had trumped common sense:

CONGRESS has announced to the world that the United States intend to break treaties at their pleasure. The peremptory abrogation of the Chinese treaty is a flagrant breach of public faith which sullies the good name of the country, and puts every other nation upon its guard in under-taking any dealings with us which depend upon our honor… But to argue that the presence of a hundred and ten or twenty thousand Chinese upon the Pacific coast is such an imminent peril to American society and civilization as to justify the peremptory abrogation of a treaty, without notice or attempted friendly modification, is insulting to common-sense. (Harper’s Weekly, March 30, 1879).

Additional reading: Andrew Gyory, “Don’t think Trump will ever pass a Muslim Exclusion Act? Just ask Sen. James G. Blaine,” The Washington Post, December 8, 2015

Works cited

African Americans, Chinese Immigrants, John Chinaman/Confucius

“Civilization of Blaine” 1879

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The Civilization of Blaine by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly, 8 March 1879. Source: UDel-Walfred

On March 8, 1979, Nast placed James G.Blaine front and center Harper’s cover with The Civilization of Blaine.  A distinguished Blaine is seen at ground level receiving the attention of a subordinate, subservient African American. The black man’s posture is weak. Attired in country clothes, he crouches and cowers with a defensive grin on his face. He has the demeanor of a beaten dog approaching his master. He does not look the white politician in the eye. In his right hand, he clutches “A Vote” and offers this almost obediently to Blaine.

And not this man? Columbia argues for Civil Rights for a wounded African American veteran. Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1859. Library of Congress
And not this man? Columbia argues for Civil Rights for a wounded African American veteran. Harper’s Weekly, August 5, 1859. Library of Congress

His right leg is drawn up, nervously rubbing the front of his right foot against the back of his left trouser, as if to polish it in the presence of greatness. Blaine’s left shoe tramples on the “Burlingame Treaty.”

As with most of Nast’s villains, Blaine’s face is not distorted or caricatured. Nast wanted him recognized and consistently depicted Blaine’s facial features realistically in his cartoons.  Like Tweed, Nast rarely deviated from a famous face once it had been established as a character.  His victim’s bodies, on the other hand, felt the weapon of distortion, but the face never!

In the background and elevated by a storefront step, a Chinese merchant emerges from his store.  Nast assigns dignity to this merchant. Nast introduces him as a Chinese diplomat, often referred to as  “John Confucius” or “John Chinaman” (the terms are interchangeable) in Nast’s cartoons.  It is an important distinction to note, that in Nast’s catalog of images, he pulled from his personal supply of default or stock characters who served a specific purpose.

Some might argue that “John” perpetuates a stereotype. In almost every instance where John appears, he does so in the same manner as Columbia or Uncle Sam, figures in Nast cartoons who represent either a government or national virtues. They are figures, whom by their expression or stance, often provide admonition or displeasure to the scene of injustice they are witnessing.  Nast could and did draw Chinese in any number of ways, and some of these are not flattering.  “John Chinaman” or “John Confucius” never really changes. His inclusion is purposeful. He is Nast’s relied-upon figure of dignity and outrage toward injustice.

The merchant assumes the elevated position in the drawing.  He is on the right, figuratively and morally. The injustice is on the left. The merchant is not shabbily dressed.  Interestingly, his hair, though long, is not braided into the queue, which factors in most of Nast’s cartoons of the Chinese. It is a subtle change for Nast to utilize. John is wearing a hat, a crown if you will, a piece of clothing that imparts respect, formality, and distinction. This further validates his dual role as a local merchant and as a representative of the Chinese. His people will be affected by adherence to the treaty that Blaine is obligated, as a U.S. Senator, to protect.  John’s arms are slightly outstretched as if encountering a surprise and ready to protest.  At the right of his storefront is a sampling of the wares — the teas, silks, china and carvings that had been for years,  favored art pieces of in Caucasian homes, bought and placed in homes “as signs of American aesthetic acumen and refinement” (Lenore-Chen 2).

Blaine senses the approach of John Confucius and waves him back with an extended left hand.  Blaine’s face is slightly cocked, and his eyes avert to the left as the Chinese merchant approaches from behind. Blaine’s expression is clearly one that intends to discard the Chinese merchant completely, as if to say, “Stay where you are–do not interfere here.” Nast speaks for John Confucius (for his mouth is drawn shut) so the audience can ponder his question placed in the caption, “Am I not a Man and a Brother!”

The cartoon and caption echo an earlier post-Civil War illustration Nast had drawn to advocate on behalf of and provoke emotion for Negro suffrage. Nast’s 1865 illustration “And Not This Man? “shows Columbia resplendent in American symbolism, arguing for the admission of a wounded Negro Union soldier into the American family.

Nast’s experiences and other images he drew on behalf of civil rights had a cumulative and successful effect. “Nast’s sensitivity to the rights of minority Americans would extend to others besides the embattled freedmen” (Keller 107). Nast would never draw African Americans again with the same dignity as this early drawing.  However, by evoking the same sentiment, this time on behalf of the Chinese, Nast might have hoped that his pen would wield influential once more on the national consciousness.

These aspirations were misplaced.  With each election in the 1870’s, the Democratic Party gained inroads and influence, courting the votes and catering to the demands of a growing white, male labor force comprised of first and second- generation immigrants. “The loss of Republican purity was a loss of Republican power” (Keller 281). Politicians and public sentiment were drifting away from Nast. But Nast and Harper’s Weekly would not give up on minorities. “The Chinese and the Indians, in particular, came under his protective wing” (Keller 107).

 

Chinese Labor, Labor

“Protecting White Labor” 1879

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Protecting White Labor. 22 March 19-879 by Thomas Nast. Source: UDel-Walfred

Republican presidential candidate James G. Blaine visited California in a bid to swell support for his nomination as the 1880 presidential Republican candidate.

Blaine stands front and center alongside an “intelligent workman” and Blaine is clearly affronted, if not shocked by the man’s reasonable and mild sentiment expressed in the caption which reads, “Intelligent Workman. “You need not plead my cause and my children’s. I am able, and always have been, to take care of myself and mine; and no large military force is necessary to keep the peace, for real working-men are not rioters, strikers, and blowers.”

The worker is a butcher. He stands in front of an alley. On his side of the wall, posters declare that he and his non-violent colleagues feel that their products, wares, foods, and services speak for themselves. The quality of their goods and services stand up and can be matched in comparison. They are not threatened by competition.

Underneath these declarations, a statement from Wong A.R. Chong, express an opinion that merchants who are failing, have only themselves to blame.

Detail of trampled Burlingame Treaty

Blaine appears indignant at the butcher’s overtures. In Blaine’s hands and under his feet are torn remnants of the Burlingame Treaty, federal legislation enacted in 1868 to protect Chinese immigrants in America. As if to prompt Blaine to reconsider, the butcher gently rests one of his hands upon Blane’s hand. Blaine will have none of it. The Senator from Maine will not listen to reason. To advance his political future, Blaine will repeat the ripe political vitriol stirred by the Sand Lot speaker and anti-Chinese agitator Denis Kearney and Workingmen’s Party whom Kearney inspired.

Kearney and his Workingmen’s Party are represented on the right side of the wall to the alley entrance. Angry men emerge from “Hoodlum Alley” and the Sand Lots located within and are visible in the center background.

No Chinese individuals are depicted in the cartoon. The rallied workingmen carry sticks and wear guns. The declarations on their side of the wall voice their platform,

In the interest of peace and good government, the president must sign the anti-Chinese bill as it is the only means that will prevent a terrible calamity and the utter annihilation of the Chinese, which is sure to follow the veto of the bill. But whatever happens the Chinese Must Go! Denis Kearney.

The cover image is a severe indictment against Blaine. Nast does not feel it is necessary to show victimization of the Chinese. Nast places a confident, equal intelligent man directly in Blaine’s path. The hands of this intelligent laborer’s gesture and his request for Blaine’s comprehension of a more common sense approach is met with shock and disdain. Blaine’s body language suggests he is surprised, and in a bit of a huff. He did not expect this reaction from the butcher. The butcher represents reason, while the Workingmen’s Party represents Sinophobic hysteria.

Works cited

Chinese Exclusion, James G. Blaine, Thomas Nast

“A Matter of Taste” 15 March 1879

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“A Matter of Taste” by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly. Thomas Nast [Public domain], Source: UDel-Walfred
By 1879, Irish-born Denis Kearney, with two years of practice to refine his technique, successfully whipped up a furor among a majority of white, male laborers in California against the Chinese. His rallying cry, “The Chinese Must Go!” began and ended every fiery speech delivered wherever Kearney saw crowd potential. In political halls, sandlots or public squares, Kearney took advantage of economic displacement and racial prejudice to rally crowds into a loyal, spirited following. His charismatic style, delivered with his thick Irish brogue deftly turned public opinion against the Chinese.

Politicians paid attention, particularly those with presidential ambitions. They were willing to sup at the anti-Chinese stew.

With an energy matched only by his anti-Tweed campaign, Thomas Nast went after Republican presidential hopeful James G. Blaine, then serving as U.S. Senator from Maine, for siding with Kearney and his cause. Nast targeted Blaine repeatedly. Relentlessly.

Detail of the sandlot stew
Detail of the sandlot stew

In this full-page cartoon, a Chinese merchant or diplomat has stopped at the entry of “Kearney’s Senatorial Restaurant.” There, Blaine, along with other politicians dines at a “Table Reserved for Presidential Candidates” and eats from “A Mess of Sand-Lot Pottage.” Blaine scoops up a heaping spoonful of Kearney’s sandy stew, the sight of which sickens the merchant as he grabs his hands to his stomach in disgust. A sign hovers over the inner wall, “Hoodlum Stew.”

Detail
Detail

Above and to the left of the Chinese merchant, Nast has listed the names of politicians who voted “yeah” and “nay” and those who abstained. Nast wishes to fully expose those responsible for the injustices done to the Chinese.

In the same issue, George W. Curtis condemned the Chinese Bill in the strongest terms

It is long since the country has been stirred with so genuine an indignation as that produced by the passage of the Chinese Bill. It was so wanton a breach of the faith of treaties, so gross a wrong, committed with such haste, and without a pretense of the necessity of haste, that the popular condemnation was immediate and universal.

Curtis went on to admonish the breaking of a treaty (Burlingame Treaty) that had been entered in good faith. He applauded the President Hayes’ veto of the bill and decried those who sought to abrogate the longstanding legislation.

Detail. Nast creates a sinister looking victim
Detail. Nast creates a sinister looking victim

Interestingly,  Nast’s representative of the Chinese people, depicted in this cartoon, is not attractive. He does not possess the round, kindly face seen in Civilization of Blaine and other cartoons. This figure looks tired, aged and drawn, and as intended, sickly. One could argue a sinister quality. He is not as sympathetic or approachable as other Nast “John Chinaman” characters, and perhaps less likely to elicit an empathetic response from Nast’s audience as a result.

Works cited

Chinese Exclusion, Chinese Immigrants, Irish Americans, Irish Stereotype, Labor

“Blaine Language” 1879

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“Blaine Language” by Thomas Nast, 15, March 1879

The labor question was uppermost in the publics’ mind during the latter 1870’s. It was a political question. Nast chided Republican Senator from Maine, James G. Blaine, for his willingness to forgo promises made to the Chinese with the Burlingame Treaty, in order to secure a Chinese Exclusion measure (Paine 412)

Blaine was a three-time presidential hopeful. With corrupt scandals of the Grant administration surfacing and swirling in political circles, and with no signs of public sentiment shifting in favor of the Chinese, Blaine courted Democratic voters and advocated for a revision of the 1868 Burlingame Treaty. The treaty was the product of negotiations between the Chinese Six Companies, “the most important association representing the Chinese community and the federal government” (Takaki, 113).

The more groundbreaking articles of the treaty included measures that promised the Chinese the right to free immigration and travel within the United States, and allowed for the protection of Chinese citizens in the United States in accordance with the most-favored-nation principle” (U.S. State Dept.). The treaty was “a major victory for the Chinese” (Takaki 114).

Republican politicians who wavered and bowed to the growing anti-Chinese mob pressure alarmed the artist. “Nast never had the slightest sympathy with any sort of organization or movement that did not mean the complete and absolute right of property ownership, as well as the permission to labor, accorded to every human being of whatsoever color or race. His first real antagonism to James G. Blaine began with the latter’s advocacy of Chinese Exclusion” (Paine 386).

Nast viewed the attempts to abrogate the treaty, and Blaine’s role in that shift, as deplorable and an unforgivable breach in Republican values.   As Nast’s biographer points out, Nast frequently lampooned Blaine in order to expose his hypocrisy, a reality that made Blaine “heartsick” given his national ambitions. Nast was for Blaine, a painfully persistent pest.

Blaine was all too aware that Nast’s sphere of influence on the electorate was wide.  Nast relished exposing Blaine’s hypocrisy. Nast’s fixation on Blaine was unrelenting, nearly equaling his Tweed/Tammany days.  The adverse attention worried Blaine, who “attempted to explain and to justify his position, but the artist could see in the Chinese immigrant only a man and a brother, trying to make a living in a quiet and peaceful manner in a country that was big enough for all” (Paine, 413).

The cartoon also capitalized on the popularity of a popular 1870 poem,  Bret Harte’s “Plain Language from Truthful James,” with Nast exploiting James Blaine as Harte’s fearful and deeply suspicious character.

Blaine is seen center at the top of an equal rights podium, welcoming an Irishman on right, and giving him space on the platform by kicking off a Chinese worker. The irony that both ethnic groups arrived in the U.S. to flee famine, was not lost on Nast. All of the accusations leveled at the Irish by Protestants, e.g. cult religion, large numbers (hordes) of poor and diseased people of a different race (the Irish were thought to be of a different race) who would ruin and dilute American culture, and an unwillingness to assimilate, became the exact charges the Irish leveled against the Chinese.

Chinese Exclusion, Chinese Immigrants, James G. Blaine

“Selections From Blaine Cartoons” 1884

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26 July 1884 Selections from Blaine Cartoons

After unsuccessful attempts at winning the presidential nomination in 1876 and 1880, James G.Blaine won the Republican nomination for the 1884 presidential elections. The issue of Chinese Exclusion now decided and enacted into law, Harper’s decided to reprise some of Nast’s anti-Blaine cartoons.

Both Thomas Nast and Harper’s editor George W. Curtis could not endorse, nor support Blaine or their beloved Republican party. Nast and Curtis endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland and became “Mugwumps” former Republicans who went over to the Democratic side for reasons of principle. Cleveland won the election.

For details on some of the cartoons featured here see:

 

 

Labor, Thomas Nast

“Ah Sin Was His Name” 1879

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“Ah Sin Was His Name” – 8 March, 1879 by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly. Source: UDel-Walfred
Thomas Nast once again borrowed from Bret Harte’s popular 1870 poem “Plain Language from Truthful James ” and the “heathen chinee” character Ah Sin as the focus of this cartoon against Denis Kearney, the leader of the anti-Chinese movement making waves in California.

A gaunt Uncle Sam is seen crawling out of the tapered mouthpiece of a large bull horn with the “UNITED STATES” engraved along its long scrimshaw.  The largest part of the opening faces West, where framed by majestic mountains a vaguely drawn figure dances around a campfire.

The horn has additional engraving. “This is the land of Liberty, and the home of the KEARNEY’s.” In between a flourish is another declaration “Kearney’s Equal Rights.” Lengthwise, the tail of the horn is engraved “Declaration of Independence by Kearney.” As Uncle Sam crawls out of the smaller end, he offers up the “Anti-Chinese Bill” to Ah Sin, a Chinese merchant waiting under an umbrella at the edge of Chinatown. Behind Ah Sin,  Chinese architecture is visible. His community is under transition. Beyond, the village stores, owned by non-Chinese, are display signs, “American Produce Market Closed” and “No Foreign Devils Wanted.”

Ah Sin appears startled by Uncle Sam’s weakened appearance. Ah Sins’s hands are on his knees, ready to rise. His queue vaults in the air by the surprise. Uncle Sam is unable to stop the fast-moving current of anti-Chinese legislation, and in fact, has become a reluctant courier — a mere delivery boy for Kearney’s orders.

Nast’s message is clear. Denis Kearney has a big mouth. He needs a big horn. Kearney, an Irish immigrant, is the self-proclaimed soldier and leader of the Workingmen’s Party, an organization of white labor fixated on driving Chinese labor competition -— and all Chinese immigrants — out of California.

By 1879, Kearney had been at his anti-Chinese campaign for a solid two years, effectively growing his agitated labor base. His voice still thick with an Irish brogue, Kearney’s charismatic Sand Lot speeches provoked white workers to violence toward the Chinese —  and Kearney’s successful lobbying efforts led to the passage of numerous local anti-Chinese laws.  National political candidates, most notably presidential aspirant James G. Blaine were eager to please a growing western labor constituency in the West.  Kearney and his followers were sought out and courted for their votes.

In this cartoon, Nast attributes Kearney’s loudmouth proclamations as self-serving attempts to remake and rebrand the U.S. Constitution as his own personal instrument to redefine the meaning of civil rights. Nast’s cartoon highlights the hypocrisy of one immigrant ordering another immigrant to leave the country.

Chinese Exclusion

“Boom! Boom!! Boom!!!” – 1 May, 1880

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Blaine, with a Chinese queue, bangs on a drum
Boom! Boom!! Boom!!! 1 May, 1880, by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly. Source: UDel-Walfred. Public Domain
Regarding the upcoming presidential election of 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes declined to run for an additional term, thus leaving the Republican nomination up for grabs.

In 1876 Maine Republican James G. Blaine launched his first bid for the U.S. Presidency. Although he promoted himself as a favorite, and indeed he was a popular and strong candidate, his campaign was derailed by scandal. From the beginning neither Harper’s editor George W. Curtis or Thomas Nast were fans of Blaine.

In Boom! Boom! Boom!!! Nast pokes fun of Blaine and his attempts to reinvigorate excitement for his candidacy and Blaine’s belief that his nomination was assured. The term “boom” was widely used in politics at the time. Today the term “buzz” would be analogous. The Republican field was crowded and competitive with former president U.S. Grant tepidly allowing his name to be placed in nomination along with Blaine and John Garfield of Ohio.

In 1876 bid Blaine had been deeply humiliated by Nast’s Chinese cartoons (Paine 420). In an effort to court votes, Blaine included anti-Chinese rhetoric in his speeches. Nast saw Blaine’s pandering as a betrayal of Republican values of inclusion. Nast repeated his attacks on Blaine in 1880.

In January 1880, Blaine wrote to the artist directly, in reaction to depicting Blaine as a plumed Indian, and asked Nast to reconsider victimizing him in his cartoons. There is no record of a Nast reply, other than a continuation of the cartoons.

Blaine over campaigned in California and Nast ridiculed him continually. Blaine bangs his own drum and Blaine is shown in Chinese clothing and wearing a long queue.

 Nast put little stock in popular trends or booms. A graveyard of self-aggrandizing “boomers” is seen laid to rest in the background.

Nast would repeat attacks on Blaine in 1884 when the politician tried for a third try for the presidency. Despite Blaine’s earning the party nomination, the third attempt would not prove to be the charm.

For Nast, Blaine’s third attempt marked the end of an era. Blaine embodied, better than any other politician of his generation, the transformation of the Republican Party and of American politics – from the social and ideological commitments of the Civil War era to the blander organization style of the Gilded Age (Keller 324). Disillusioned by his own Republican Party, Nast’s own passion for politics also waned after Blaine’s final attempt for the presidency.

 

 

Chinese Exclusion

“Blaine’s Teas(e)” – 20 March, 1880

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Blaine steam from his tea resembles a chinese man
“Blaine’s Teas(e)” 20 March 1880, by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly. Source: UDel-Walfred. Public Domain

Republican presidential hopeful James G. Blaine was all too aware that Nast’s sphere of influence on the electorate was wide.  Nast relished exposing Blaine’s hypocrisy and anti-immigration stance. East Coast, New England tolerance toward accepting newcomers had been a point of Republican pride. Blaine was the first Republican official to defect to the Democratic way of thinking. Nast’s fixation on Blaine was unrelenting, and nearly equaled his Tweed/Tammany days.  The attention worried Blaine, who “attempted to explain and to justify his position, but the artist could see in the Chinese immigrant only a man and a brother, trying to make a living in a quiet and peaceful manner in a country that was big enough for all” (Paine, 413).

Nast’s Blaine’s Teas(e) shows the dilemma the politician faced. The Evening News Blaine reads, chronicles the West Coast’s growing calls for “The Chinese Must Go.” A savvy politician, Blaine needed votes in the West. All the while working to undermine the legitimacy of Chinese Americans, Nast lets Americans see that Blaine enjoyed the teas and porcelains resulting from U.S. trade with China. Nast calls out hypocrisy and incongruity of admiring Chinese “things” but hating the source of the objects.

The clammy Chinese figure rising before Blaine’s conjures the haunting, ethereal quality of ghosts who confront Dickens’ Scrooge. Whether Dickens’s spirits were an inspiration is unknown. Blaine is visited, in this instance, by a hot steamy specter who rises up from Blaine’s teacup to scold and confront the politician. This apparition will not allow Blaine to enjoy his tea in peace and privacy. Blaine’s hair appears to rise in alarm,  but Blaine looks more annoyed that fearful. His right hand has gripped the paper suddenly, indicating he is unnerved, yet he continues to clutch at his truth as he comes to terms with what is before him. Otherworldly, and celestial, the Chinese tea ghost peers directly into Blaine’s eyes with and bears a stiff upper lip.

The cartoon asks a question, which in a century and a half later, Lenore Metrick-Chen made the focus of her book Collecting Objects/Excluding People. “What happens when the exotic refuses to remain our fantasy, our abstraction and instead intrudes into our space?”(1)

Nast’s ghost intrudes, haunts and teases Blaine with the reality of the politician’s actions and xenophobic policies. Nast challenges the worthiness of  Blaine’s Republican ideals – his obligation as a member of Lincoln’s Party to tolerate newcomers to the United States.

Nast confronts a reality that Metrick-Chen continues to wrestle with and unpack in her book. Throughout America’s earliest history, spanning across Nast’s era and well into the twentieth century, American and Western culture held a fascination with exotic Eastern objects and artifacts. Blaine wants to enjoy his Chinese tea from Chinese porcelain. He embodies exactly the kind of person who collects objects but excludes people. Nast reminds his audience, and Blaine, that the Chinese people created these cherished goods and services. Blaine deserves to be haunted by his hypocrisy.

Chinese head coming out of a lamp
Money vs. Muscle, or, Chinese Emigration, To the Workmen and Trade Unions of America, New York: The “Season” Press, 1870. Courtesy of New York Public Library

Nast’s idea for this cartoon, however, may not be original. A “spectral disembodied head emerges from a magic lamp” in John S. Cook’s 1870 illustration of Money vs.Muscle, or Chinese Emigration. To the Workmen and Trade unions of America, published by the Season Press. It is not known if Nast had access to the book. The images are strikingly similar.

Metrick-Chen writes that soon after the United States was formally recognized as a country under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the U.S. eagerly entered into trade with China. “The predominant American view of the Chinese had been laudatory” (19).

With the conclusion of The Opium War (1839- 1842), American superiority (Manifest Destiny) grew. Reports from Protestant missionaries stationed in China relayed to the American people their unsuccessful attempts to convert the Chinese to Christianity. These reports making their way home factored in supplanting favorable views toward China into negative opinions (Metrick-Chen 21-23). Defining Chinese as non-Christian heathens was an important element in disqualifying them as competitive laborers and applicants as citizens and visitors to the U.S.

 

Chinese Exclusion

“The “Magnetic” Blaine;or, a Very Heavy “Load” stone for the Republican Party to Carry” 1880

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Blaine's head sits atop of a magnet body
The Magnetic Blaine…by Thomas Nast, 8 May, 1880

On the eve of the 1880 Republican convention, Nast introduced one of his favorite targets, James G. Blaine, as a”magnetic man “who had attracted many undesirable political features” (Paine 425).

Nast dehumanizes Blaine by removing his human form (with the exception of his face) .

Blaine’s head rests upon a barrel of campaign funds. Nast reintroduces the “Mulligan letters” scandal of 1876 which had cost Blaine the presidential nomination. His personal magnetism draws close to Blaine references of past issues:“A Bloody Shirt Campaign,” Credit Scandal,”  “Fort Smith and Little Rock R.R. Bonds,” The Mulligan Letters,” “Machine Politics,” “Grant’s Cast Off Followers.” Center to the drawing, a Chinese man lies lifeless, a metal clip at the end of his queue affixed to the magnet. Next to the Chinese, a man in prison stripes rests his head along a declaration, “For Vice President Denis Kearney”  and lastly a silver dollar, acknowledging a controversy about using silver as currency. 

As a magnet of dubious attraction, Blaine is also rendered ineffective. His torso is missing. He has lost is manhood – his originality and bravery are neutered. At the end of his magnetic legs, Blaine’s feet are missing, disabling the presidential hopeful to take a  moral stand  His hands are flat and immobile at his side. Blaine is, in effect, paralyzed by his past positions, and is unable to disassociate or break the hold of his scandalous and immoral past.

As Morton Keller has observed, with Grant no longer in the political arena, Nast lost his sense of passion for Republican personalities and his perception of their shift away from the moral compass where social issues were concerned.