The Maine Idea
- Title:
- The Maine Idea
- Alternate Title:
- The Maine Idea
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Hamilton, Grant
- Other Creators:
- Sackett & Wilhelms, lithographer
- Date:
- 1899
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2434.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2434_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1870 - 1899
- Subject:
- Imperialism
Pictorial
Satirical
Spanish-American War - Measurement:
- 34 x 51 page (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This satirical map is an attack on Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine and his "anti-expansion" and "anti-Dewey" colleagues who opposed their fellow Republicans' support of the Spanish-American War and other overseas territorial expansion.
Reed was an imposing, self-confident and fiercely independent politician who served as Speaker from 1889-1891 and 1895-1899. He is best known for forcing the liberalization of House Rules in 1890 to eliminate the minority filibuster, a landmark action that earned him the epithet "Czar Reed." His "Reed's Rules" are still in use today in the House of Representatives and many other parliamentary bodies. Barnes 2005; see generally Tuchman 1965, ch. 3.
Reed contested for the presidential nomination in 1896 but lost to Governor William McKinley of Ohio. As McKinley and the Republican Party took on the mantle of manifest destiny and overseas expansion, Reed did everything he could to stop it. He "regarded the Hearst-fabricated furor over Spain's oppression with contempt and Republican espousal of Cuba's cause as hypocrisy. He saw his party losing its moral integrity and becoming a party of political expediency in response to the ignorant clamor of the mob." Tuchman 165. He spoke and wrote against war with Spain, including a widely-circulated article entitled "Empire Can Wait." In the summer of 1898, as American forces triumphed over Spain, Reed adhered to his principles and voted against his own party's successful effort to annex Hawaii.
Judge Magazine had repeatedly supported American imperial expansion, particularly in Cuba, since at least 1895. See ID #1123, "The Trouble in Cuba." (See also ID ##1132, 1136, 2084, 2126, 2154.) This cartoon appeared on March 25, 1899. It shows Reed and others sitting ponderously atop the U.S. wearing foolish children's hats and in one case - the radical anti-expansionist Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts - clutching a hobby horse. Reed was notoriously unaffected by criticism, but his position as Speaker had become increasingly untenable because he could not accommodate his views with those of the Republican President and his own majority. Less than four weeks later, Reed announced he would step down as Speaker and retire from Congress. New York Times, April 20, 1899, p.6.
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- Judge Magazine, March 25, 1899.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.