Recently my favorite son sent me an email of a political cartoon. He wasn't aware that I had written a couple of columns on political cartoonists so this was just serendipity.

The one he forwarded was of a modified Statue of Liberty holding in his hand a plaque inscribed "SEND ME YOUR NORWEGIANS."

My maternal grandparents and my Mom were full-blooded Norwegians so I'm half and my son is at least one-fourth.

His comment on the cartoon was "At least there's a family tie-in."

In the world of the 2010s there doesn't seem to be a single notorious political cartoonist; there is so much ammunition for so many.

However, there is a name from the 19th century that stands out. He was described thusly: "As a political cartoonist, Thomas Nast wielded more influence than any other artist of the 19th century. He not only enthralled a vast audience with boldness and wit, but swayed it time and again to his personal position on the strength of his visual imagination. ... Indeed, his impact on American public life was formidable enough to profoundly affect the outcome of every presidential election from 1864 to 1884."

Not bad for a kid born in Germany who emigrated to New York City at the age of 6.

He did poorly at school lessons but his passion for drawing emerged early. When he was 19 his drawings appeared in Harper's Weekly.


After a brief sojourn overseas he returned as a staff illustrator for Harper's.

His initial compositions especially appealed to the sentiment of the viewer. A notable one was "Christmas Eve" from 1862. In it he used a wreath to frame the scene of a soldier's praying wife and sleeping children at home; a second wreath frames the soldier seated by a campfire, gazing longingly at small pictures of his loved ones.

This guy was powerful and in general, his political cartoons supported American Indians and Chinese Americans. He advocated the abolition of slavery, opposed racial segregation and deplored the violence of the Ku Klux Klan.

What might he target today?

He introduced into U.S. cartoons the approach of modernizing scenes from Shakespeare for political implications.

Nast's art aided Lincoln in his re-election in 1864 and Grant's campaigns in 1868 and 1872. Grant attributed his victory to "the sword of Sheridan and the pencil of Thomas Nast."

Meanwhile, in the 1870s, Nast's aim focused on Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall Ring.

Tweed along with his collaborators fleeced the city of New York for millions of dollars until Nast brought them down through his influence in the election of 1871. Along the way, he refused a bribe of $500,000 because he wanted "to put some of those fellows behind the bars."

Ultimately, his political views differed from his editors and he fell out of favor. He died at age 62 but not without leaving behind a legacy of the power of the pen.

• Another man who was not afraid of political criticism, the late Bob Hope, commented then (and now) "I don't know what people have got against the government — they've done nothing."
