Good evening, and welcome to the candidates' debate. On the right, we have a monstrous grey mammal, and on the left we have a jackass.
The question
Robert Findlay of Toronto asks, "How did the Republicans choose an elephant as their party symbol and the Democrats a donkey?"
The answer
Well, they didn't actually choose those symbols, they were given them by an editorial cartoonist named Thomas Nast.
According to William Safire in his 1968 book The New Language of Politics, it all began with a campaign by the New York Herald. The newspaper objected to the possibility of Republican Ulysses S. Grant running for a third term as president because of his "Caesarism," or autocratic ways. "The issue was taken up by Democratic politicians in 1874, halfway through Grant's second term and just before the midterm elections," Mr. Safire writes, and it helped to alienate Republican voters.
Meanwhile, the Herald had perpetrated a non-political hoax known as the Central Park Menagerie Scare of 1874. It ran a totally untrue story that animals had broken out of the zoo and were terrorizing Central Park.
In the Nov. 7, 1874, issue of Harper's Weekly, Thomas Nast put these two Herald initiatives together in a cartoon showing "an ass (symbolizing the Herald) wearing a lion's skin (the scary prospect of Caesarism) frightening away the other animals in the forest." One of those animals was an elephant, representing the Republican vote, "being frightened away from its normal ties" by the phony lion of Caesarism.
On Nov. 21, 1874, Mr. Safire says, "after the election in which the Republicans did badly, Nast followed up the idea by showing the elephant in a trap," illustrating how the Republican vote had been driven away from its normal allegiance. "Other cartoonists picked up the symbol, and the elephant soon ceased to be the vote and became the party itself; the jackass, now referred to as a donkey, made a natural transition from representing the Herald to representing the Democratic party that had frightened the elephant."
CW would add that the jackass, or donkey, had occasionally been used before 1874 in reference to the Democrats, but it was Nast's cartoons that led to it being widely accepted as the Democrats' political symbol.
Further notice
Last week, in an item on why our voices change with age, we mentioned that older executives in Britain are undergoing "voice lifts" to make them sound younger.
In response, John Neilson of Edmonton, secretary of the Alberta Choral Federation, points out that vocal exercise can help to preserve the voice and that one of the best ways to perform such exercise is to sing. "Join a choir," he says, "and not only hold on to that vibrant voice but also enjoy the other health benefits of choral singing, such as warding off depression and preserving memory."
Help wanted
Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico, writes Sally Andrews of Ottawa, yet George Romney ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. "How is this possible when U.S. presidents must by law be American-born?"
Why do so few trees grow on the prairie? Joanne Helmer of Yellow Grass, Sask., wants to know.
Ron Baylis of Cobourg, Ont., asks: How can you tell how much propane is left is a barbecue tank?
Del Daignault of St. Catharines, Ont., asks: Who decides where a "deer crossing" road sign is placed and what criteria are used for its location?