Lady Justice in Populist Cartoon

Last week's blog featuring the Populist political cartoon picturing the power of wealthy was so popular that I am sharing another political cartoon from 1892.  If you missed last week's post, you may want to scroll down to read it as well.

The caption reads "I simply demand 'Justice'!  Where is she?"  The man wears a cap titled "Labor."  Of course, he is asking where Lady Justice has gone.

The structures behind the laborer represent institutions in which Justice would be expected to be found.  Because the print may be difficult to read, I will supply the names of the institutions with the corresponding excuses for Lady Justice not being found in those places.

The Press:  "Don't know her--What's her last name?"  The College:  "She lives only in ancient history."  The Church:  "She is not a member of our congregation."  The Court:  "She has moved."  Wall Street:  "Eish Dodt So?"

Unfortunately, the entry on Wall Street is an ethnic slur, intended to represent a foreign accent of the question "Is that so?".  Many in the Populist Movement believed the American economic system was controlled by wealthy bankers in England, and Jewish bankers.  The sign on Wall Street was a reference to that belief.

While Populist Movement members included people from many different countries, and the Farmers' Alliance and he People's Party welcomed all workers, the sad fact was that they did not always act as their principles directed them to act.  There was a particular animosity toward Chinese laborers brought to America to do dangerous and onerous labor building the rail lines, who were willing to work for cheap wages in unsafe conditions.  Workers from other countries who took jobs away from immigrants who had arrived decades earlier also caused resentment.  Blacks, freed by the Civil War,  could join populist groups, but often they were relegated to separate clubs.  The discrimination shown other ethnicities is not a proud chapter in the history of populisms.

As for Lady Justice, she is not a symbol unique to America.  In fact, her roots run back to Ancient Rome.  The objects she carries--a balance (scales), a sword, and the blindfold she wears--symbolize  her ability to weigh the balance of the evidence and make her decision without bias; her willingness to fight for what is right; and her impartiality, without regard to wealth, power, or status.  Her image can be found in many different countries.

The laborer in the 1892 political cartoon, who lacks wealth, power, and status, calls out for Justice in his despair, but each institution in which he had hoped to find justice denies his appeal.

     

Politics Hardly Seem to Change

It is disappointing how unaware most of us are of the past, and although I consider myself a history buff, Isaac's Journal led me to more discoveries about the history of my own community, state, and nation than I can count. One of the intriguing discoveries involves the political history of our country in the later quarter of the 1800s, for there are so many similarities to today. As examples: there was a grassroots movement challenging the two established parties, and willing to work within one of the major parties to defeat the other; there were women who became political celebrities, known for their ability to generate great enthusiasm for candidates and issues through their impassioned speeches; and, there was popular opposition among the laboring classes against the power and greed of Wall Street, corporations, and the wealthy.

Isaac's personal experiences as a homesteader on the Kansas prairie first made me want to tell his story, but as I read further in his journal, I realized he had experienced and described a significant period in history that is nearly forgotten. As he struggled to create a successful and beautiful farm, coped with falling prices and rising interest, and raised crops that now barely covered taxes and interest on his loans, he personified the economic crisis of other farmers and laborers in America at that time. When he joined the Farmers' Alliance, he was only one of many farmers, factory workers, and other laborers who saw themselves as the producers of wealth that was going into the pockets of bankers, speculators, monopolists, and corporate and Wall Street tycoons while many of the working classes were literally starving. The wealth of the nation was being disproportionately distributed, and technology was displacing workers in ways they struggled to combat, giving rise to public demonstrations and political activity. When newspapers owned or influenced by the wealthy published biased "news," laborers established newspapers of their own. Does any of this sound familiar to what we see on television, the newspapers, and on the internet today? I certainly thought so.

These two political cartoons appeared in Isaac's local newspaper, the County Capital in the 1890s, and both address issues still being argued in media today. Carl Sagan believed, "You have to know the past to understand the present." I agree with Sagan. It is essential that history is taught in our schools, and remembered and referenced accurately by adults, if we are to progress. Yet, George Bernard Shaw reminded us: "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience." Forgotten history, or history intentionally distorted, cannot pass the wisdom learned by one generation to generations in the future. Instead, we are condemned to repeat the inevitable struggles without the benefits of knowing history's lessons.

I hope that by telling Isaac's story, I can bring alive the times in which he lived, and in that way offer a context for history's lessons that will make them relevant today. As David McCullough has said, "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."

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