SAMUEL J. TILDEN

St. Louis (June 27) with many hopes of party success. Democracy was more nearly a unit than it had been since the days of Buchanan, and it was heartened by its victories of 1874. With Samuel J. Tilden, the most able political leader of the day, in absolute control of the party's fortunes, there was every reason for anticipating triumph. One of the articles of Democratic faith at this period was that Mr. Tilden could do no wrong. His signature to the notorious fraud circular of 1868 was declared a forgery. That as Barn-burners" wing of the Free-soil party

The circular referred to was as follows:

Rooms of the Democratic State Committee, October 27, 1868. MY DEAR SIR: Please at once to communicate with some reliable person, in three or four principal towns and in each city of your county, and request him (expenses duly arranged for at this end) to telegraph to William M. Tweed, Tammany Hall, at the minute of closing the polls, not waiting for the count, such person's estimate of the vote. Let the telegram be as follows: "This town will show a Democratic gain (or loss) over last year of." Or this one, if sufficiently certain: "This town will give a Republican (or Democratic) majority of." There is, of course, an important object to be attained by a simultaneous transmission at the hour of closing the polls, but not longer waiting. Opportunity can be taken of the usual half-hour lull in telegraphic communication over lines before actual results begin to be declared, and before the Associated Press absorb the telegraph with returns and interfere with individual messages, and give orders to watch carefully the count. Very truly yours, SAMUEL J. TILDEN, Chairman.

The object of this circular was to learn approximately at the earliest possible moment just how many votes the Ring would need to "raise" in New York City to overtop the Republican majority "beyond the Harlem."

"Mr. Tilden subsequently denied that he had signed the certificate, but the testimony he and Mr. A. Oakey Hall each gave on that subject, in December of the same year, before a Congressional committee, which sat on the election frauds of that year, in this city (New York) makes it apparent that he was well aware such a circular had been issued."-Hon John D. Townsend, in "New York in Bondage."

in 1848 he had been briefly an abolitionist, and later, during the Rebellion, a Seymour Democrat, were facts either forgotten or remembered, according to the exigencies of the argument for his support. His recent brilliant reform career had deified him with his admirers, while it had well-nigh silenced his enemies.

It is true he was opposed to some extent by "Honest " John Kelly, the head of Reformed Tammany, and an attempt was made to turn the tide to a Western candidate. Any such effort was of small avail.

When the St. Louis Convention assembled Henry Watterson was made temporary chairman, and John A. McClernand of Illinois was elected its Permanent President. The names of Governor Hendricks of Indiana, General Winfield Scott Hancock and others were then put in nomination-the name of Mr. Tilden being presented by Senator Francis Kernan of New York. Tilden led on the first ballot, with 404 votes, and before a second ballot was declared to be the Convention's unanimous choice. Governor Hendricks, who had received the second largest vote, was now selected to complete the ticket. With the strongest man from each of the two most doubtful States, the Convention would seem to have redeemed the errors of 1872.

The platform, said to have been prepared by Manton Marble, was a most exhaustive treatise on the subject and necessity of Reform. As opposed to the Republican manifest, it declared for "tariff for revenue only," and denounced the existing schedule as "a masterpiece of injustice, inequality and false pretense." It also condemned the resumption clause of the Act of 1875 and demanded its repeal. Blaine referred to the document as being at once" an indictment and a stump speech." The Republican Platform was a sort of Fourth of July flag of patriotism. The Democratic document was a luminous banner of Reform.

But although the two foremost Democratic leaders of the East and West had been united in the St. Louis ticket, it was

unfortunate that they were unable to pull precisely in one direction. In fact, they pulled precisely in opposite directions on one very important issue that of finance. Tilden of the East was for hard money. Hendricks of the West was for greenbacks. The golden calf and the Rag-baby had been yoked together.

Nast, however, did not use this figure. He supplemented his Tiger series with a cartoon of a tiger with two heads, pulling in opposite directions-the tiger of "Tilden and Deform."

The Democratic National Chairman did not have altogether an easy time in managing this two-headed exhibit.

"Talk soft money in the West and harden it as you go eastward "is reported to have been his counsel to Western speakers; while to those who were of the Atlantic States he said, "Talk hard money in the East and soften it as you travel toward the sunset." Nast's cartoons of Governor Hendricks as Mother Tilden, making Father Tilden nurse the Rag-baby, while she attends to the more active duties of the canvass, such as stirring the fire of Reform, were the amusing pictures of the campaign.

The cartoonist and his family, meanwhile, spent many days at the wonderful Philadelphia Exposition, where was displayed for the first time in America many of the rare things-sculpture,

bronze, pottery and antique curios-with which we have since become more familiar. Of these Nast, who was now out of debt and earning an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, bought a large and rather lavish selection. The Morristown home became the abode of a luxurious collector able and willing to gratify every taste and whim. His expenditures at the Exposition alone ran far into the thousands, and his purchases included some of the choice gems of that splendid exhibit.

As the campaign drew to an end it became evident that the results were to be very close. The cartoons came thicker and were somewhat more savage. Bellew, no longer on the other side, adopted Nast's Rag-baby to good purpose, while Nast, with the capabilities of fiercer warfare, was slashing about with more vigorous weapons. These political pictures and the Centennial displays well-nigh filled the Harper pictorial pages.

But just here developed one of those

wholly unexpected

events which make

complete the great drama of human existence.

In view of the "Reform " policy of the Democratic Convention, Nast had published in the Weekly, at the time, a picture entitled "Tweed-le-dee and Tilden-dum." this picture Tweed,

In

in stripes, is demon

MRS. TILDEN-"Nurse the Baby, while I stir up the Fire."

strating his qualifications for the New York Governorship by his willingness to bring to justice any number of lesser thieves -the "thieves" being symbolized by two street arabs, whom he is dragging to punishment. The picture was of no special moment at the time, but being an excellent delineation of Tweed, who (as the Boss himself one confessed) had grown to look more and more like his caricatures, it was to result in a climax as far as possible from any purpose conceived by the artist.

It had become known that Tweed was somewhere hiding in Spanish territory. As early as September 30 Nast cartooned him as a Tiger, appearing from a cave marked Spain. Now suddenly came a report-a cable-that one "Twid" (Tweed) had been identified and captured at Vigo, Spain, on the charge of "kidnapping two American children."

This seemed a curious statement; for whatever may have been the Boss's sins, he had not been given to child-stealing. Then came further news, and the mystery was explained. Tweed had been identified and arrested at Vigo through the cartoon "Tweed-le-dee and Tilden-dum," drawn by Thomas Nast. The "street gamins "-to the Spanish officer, who did not read English-were two children being forcibly abducted by the big man of the stripes and club. The printing on the dead wall they judged to be the story of his crime. Perhaps they could even spell out the word "REWARD."

Absurd as it all was, the identification was flawless. Tweed, on board the steamer Franklin, came back to America to die,* When his baggage was examined, it was found that he had preserved every cartoon Nast had drawn of him, save the few final ones published after his escape, one of which had placed him again behind prison bars. On October 7 Harper's republished this picture with the story of the Boss's capture. The pictorial drama was complete.

*In Ludlow Street Jail, April 12, 1878.