king. Yet however bitter his portrayals, they were but the expression of a sentiment aroused by the President himself, in his attitude toward the party which had elected him. His former supporters regarded him as a traitor, and his offensive public utterances were considered a national disgrace. He was accused of endeavoring to set himself up as dictator-even of being concerned in the assassination of Lincoln. Two years later (February, 1868), after his attempt to remove Stanton and to discredit Grant, he was impeached, and was saved only by a single vote from being expelled from office.*

The "Andy" Johnson cartoons constituted Nast's great beginning in the field of caricature. They were by far his most important work in 1866, which closed with what the writer of this record considers the best of all Santa Claus pictures, because for him, then a boy of five, it made "Santa Claus and His Works" something that was real and true and gave to his Christmas a new and permanent joy.

Through 1867 the struggle over Reconstruction issues continued. Legislation with a view to the re-enfranchisement of the South, and concerning the social and civil rights of the manumitted slaves, was conducted under the most turbulent conditions. These were days less bloody but hardly less bitter than those of actual warfare. The situation in many of the Southern States was so dire that one capable authority is reported to have said that if he owned both hell and Texas, he would select the former as his dwelling place.

It was early in 1867 that a caricature of the "Government of the City of New York" marked the beginning of a crusade for civic reform, the success of which, alone, would perpetuate the name of Thomas Nast.

*The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was a measure hardly justified under the law, and would never have been undertaken but for the President's generally offensive attitude toward Congress. The unprecedented event crowded the galleries of the Senate, and special tickets of admission were issued.

HOW IT WORKS. Was

AN "ANDY" JOHNSON CARTOON OF 1866

(The beginning of Nast's custom of using Shakespearian situations as settings for his ideas)

There were no individual faces in this first picture. It merely showed the City Government in the hands of a corrupt element, roughs and gamblers, with the "Steal Ring" suspended behind the chair of the chief officer. It was by no means an able effort as compared with the "Ring" cartoons which were to appear a few years later; but if we except the page of Police Scandal " in 1859, it was the earliest of Nast's" corruption " cartoons, and constituted a sort of manifesto of a future crusade. During the remainder of the year "Andy" Johnson pictures predominated, and further portrayals of those "Ku-klux" and other Reconstruction phases which we may well afford to forget.

A

THE MEETING OF NAST AND NASBY

It was in 1867 that Nast first met David R. Locke, who as Petroleum V. Nasby had been doing the "Confedrit Crossroads" papers-a humorous political series which Nast, in com

mon with a multitude of other Northern readers, had followed with delight in Locke's paper, the Toledo Blade. The two men met with great rejoicing and became good friends. The artist subsequently made a drawing of their first meeting, and was the illustrator of two of Nasby's books-" Swingin' Round the Cirkle" and "Ekkoes from Kentucky." "Nast and Nasby made an attractive advertising phrase which the publishers used with telling effect.

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The cartoonist's most important work this year was his double page Amphitheatrum Johnsonianum," which represented Johnson as Nero regarding with composure the " Massacre of the Innocents," a race riot which had occurred at New Orleans, July

DO YOU WANT ANDREW JOH

SON PRESIDENT OR KING

JOHNSON AS KING SUPPORTED BY SEWARD AND WELLES. IN THE DISTANCE, HENRY WARD BEECHER, WENDELL PHILLIPS, CHARLES SUMNER AND OTHER ABOLITIONISTS ARE FORMED IN A LINE FOR EXECUTION. AT THE END OF THIS LINE IS NAST HIMSELF

crowded Coliseum galleries, we may to-day pick out the familiar faces of history. Nast almost never thought it necessary to label his characters, as is the custom now. Johnson was always Johnson, whatever the guise. Seward, who had kept his place in the Cabinet, and lost prestige thereby, was usually prominent and never could be mistaken. Welles, Greeley, Stanton, and all the rest-wherever they appeared and under whatever conditionsretained their features and character and needed no cards of identification. Many cartoonists have found it necessary to exaggerate features to obtain results, often at the expense of likeness. Nast, on the other hand, merely emphasized characteristics and so gained rather than lost, in establishing identity.

On May 11, 1867, Harper's Weekly published a fine full-page portrait of Nast himself, with a sketch of his life and work. In summing up his position in caricature, the writer said:

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Gilray is the only political draftsman who can be at all named with Nast, but Gilray's work is gross and prosaic caricature, compared with the subtle and suggestive touch of Nast."

Yet this was when the artist was but

twenty-seven years of age, with his great- THE PRESIDENT'S JOY AT

est work still undreamed.

PEACHMENT TRIAL