Any Thing to Get In

One of Nast’s more imaginative Democratic Party-takeover cartoons featured Horace Greeley as a Trojan horse — with Gratz Brown as his tail and Carl Schurz as his coachman — outside the walled and moated fortress defending Washington. The Ku Klux Klan was climbing aboard, ready to open the gates after gaining access, while the Tweed gang, Liberal Republicans, Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair, and even a stereotyped Irishman stood by in preparation for their government takeover. For the benefit of its readers, Harper’s Weekly explained Virgil’s tale of the Greeks’ deceptive victory over Troy on the following page.