Artist: William Allen Rogers

                This cartoon poses the question of whether Congressman William
                Randolph Hearst, the controversial newspaper publisher, will be able to
                get the Democratic Party to swallow his brand of reform, which the artist
                labels "Socialism."  Shortly after this cartoon's publication, Hearst won the
                gubernatorial nomination at the New York State Democratic Convention in
                Buffalo (the "Buffalo Donkey Show" in the cartoon).  Here, the dapper Hearst
                tugs on the resistant Democratic Donkey, trying to get it to drink from the
                trough of Socialism, while William Travers Jerome, district attorney of New
                York County and Hearst's leading rival for the nomination, pulls on the
                donkey's tail from behind.

                The background image (click to enlarge) connects the foreground battle over
                the New York governorship to the upcoming race for the Democratic
                presidential nomination in 1908.  The Democratic Party's two-time
                standard-bearer (1896, 1900), William Jennings Bryan, appears as a hobo
                carrying a bundle marked "1908" as he walks along the "Government
                Ownership" railroad track toward his Nebraska home.  In November 1906,
                Hearst lost the gubernatorial election to Republican Charles Evans Hughes,
                and, in 1908, Bryan went on to capture the Democratic presidential
                nomination for a third time before losing in the general election to Republican
                William Howard Taft.

               Born in 1863, William Randolph Hearst was the son of George Hearst, a
                wealthy mine operator, owner of the San Francisco Examiner, and
                Democratic senator (1886, 1887-1891).  His mother, Phoebe Appleton
                Hearst, introduced her young son to art and high culture on two tours of
                Europe.  A rebellious young man, Hearst was ejected from both St. Paul's
                School and Harvard (in 1885).  After writing for the Harvard Lampoon and
                Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, Hearst became editor of the San
                Francisco Examiner in 1886.  He transformed the publication from a
                political organ for his father into a commercial success, modeled after
                Pulitzer's entertaining, often sensational, World.

                In 1895, Hearst bought the New York Morning Journal to challenge
                Pulitzer's dominance in the New York newspaper market, and enticed the
                entire Sunday-edition staff of Pulitzer's World to his Journal by doubling their
                salaries.  Hearst's publications used plenty of pictures, emotional headlines,
                and celebrity news to capture the interest of average citizens, thus cutting
                across economic and ethnic divides.  Critics christened his style "yellow
                journalism" after the "Yellow Kid" comic strip in the Journal.  Hearst's
                newspapers championed the cause of the Cuban rebels, and he took credit
                for America's declaration of war against Spain in 1898.

                Like many before him, Hearst hoped to use his newspapers as a base to
                launch a political career.  He made himself prominent in the news by hosting
                civic events, usually accompanied by fireworks, and distributing food, coal,
                and clothing to the poor in New York City.  As this cartoon indicates, Hearst
                was on the left wing of American politics during the 1890s and early
                twentieth-century.  He attacked the "trusts" (large business corporations) and
                supported labor unions, including financing a publication aimed at presenting
                the union perspective, the Los Angeles Examiner (1903).  He endorsed
                municipal ownership of utilities and a progressive tax system that imposed
                higher percentage levies the higher the income rose.

                In 1902, Hearst won election to the first of two consecutive terms in
                Congress as a Democrat representing Manhattan's 11th District.  Although he
                introduced progressive-reform bills, Hearst was not interested in the daily
                routine of lawmaking and set a record for absenteeism, missing 168 of 170
                roll calls during his first term.  Besides his controversial positions, Hearst was
                hamstrung by his simultaneous pursuit of both party regularity--working with
                Tammany Hall and leading the National Association of Democratic
                Clubs--and political independence.  In 1904, Hearst was badly beaten in a
                race for the Democratic presidential nomination by Judge Alton B. Parker.
                The next year, endorsed by the Municipal Ownership League, he ran for the
                New York mayoralty, losing to incumbent George B. McClellan Jr., a
                Tammany Democrat.

                Hearst's campaign for governor unofficially began in February 1906 when he
                addressed the Independence League (formerly the Municipal Ownership
                League), claiming that the American government was no longer responsive to
                the people, but to a predatory financial class.  Members responded
                enthusiastically with applause and donations.  Hearst officially kicked off his
                gubernatorial campaign on Labor Day (which he urged be designated a
                national holiday).  On September 11, the Independence League nominated
                him for governor on a platform of public ownership of utilities, railroad rate
                regulation, direct election of U.S. senators, and similar "progressive"
                reforms.

                Worried that an independent Hearst candidacy would spell defeat for the
                Democratic Party, Tammany Hall urged the state party to nominate the
                maverick congressman and publisher.  Despite his rhetoric against "boss rule,"
                Hearst said he would accept the nomination.  At the Democratic State
                Convention in Buffalo ("Buffalo Donkey Show" above) on September 25,
                Tammany managers worked against District Attorney Jerome and other
                declared candidates by refusing to seat 60 anti-Hearst delegates and other
                duplicitous tactics.  Convention chairman Thomas Francis Grady, a state
                senator, admitted, "this is the dirtiest day's work I have ever done in my life."

                During the fall campaign against his Republican rival, Hughes, Hearst tried to
                soften his radical image by insisting that he wanted to return America to its
                Jeffersonian principles.  Since he was a Tammany candidate, he also toned
                down his rhetoric against the Democratic machine.  On October 25, a
                massive labor rally for Hearst was held at Madison Square Garden.  Two
                days before, President Theodore Roosevelt had appointed New Yorker
                Oscar Solomon Strauss as secretary of commerce and labor in hopes of
                wooing the labor and Jewish vote to the Republican camp.  Everyone knew
                that a Hearst victory would make him a leading candidate for the Democratic
                presidential nomination in 1908.

                Both sides ran a tough and vigorous campaign, but on November 6, 1906,
                Hughes edged Hearst, 52%-48%, to become New York's governor-elect.
                Hearst, the only Democrat on the state ticket to lose, congratulated "the
                bosses on their insight in defeating me."  Interpreting his personal defeat as
                evidence that the Democrats and Republicans were corrupt machines of the
                wealthy, Hearst tried to create a viable national alternative, the Independent
                Party, in 1907-1908, but failed.  In 1909, he again ran for mayor of New
                York City, finishing last in a three-man race, and the next year lost an
                independent bid for lieutenant governor.

                Although Hearst never again ran for office, his eccentric politics continued to
                be manifest.  He vocally supported Russia's communist revolution of 1917
                and the Soviet state in the 1920s, but became a fierce anti-communist in the
                1930s.  He expressed admiration for fascist dictator Benito Mussolini of Italy,
                but tried to dissuade Adolf Hitler from his anti-Semitic policies in the early
                1930s.  Hearst wholeheartedly backed Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, but
                turned against him in 1935 when the Democratic president's policies became
                more radical, and the publisher thereafter supported Republican candidates.
                Having long since alienated his original working-class audience, Hearst died in
                1951.

                Robert C. Kennedy