NAST'S DRAWING: "RAG-BABY" (of 'inflation'). APRIL 8, 1776 (CENTENNIAL).

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/presidents-politics-and-the-pen-br-br-the-influential-art-of-thomas-nast-norman-rockwell-museum/KQXBNpeS7HjHJw?hl=en

THE HAUNTED HOUSE; OR THE “MURDERED RAG BABY WILL NOT BE STILL.

SHAKE ITS GORY LOCKS AT THEM UNTIL THEY MAKE IT VANISH.

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The image mocks the stance of Congress toward monetary policy, specifically the return to the "Gold" standard after the use of paper money during & after the Civil War.

The Greenback Party (known successively as the Independent Party, the National Independent Party, and the Greenback Labor Party) was an American political party with an anti-monopoly ideology which was active between 1874 and 1889. The party ran candidates in three presidential elections in 1876, 1880, & 1884, before fading away. The party's name referred to the non-gold backed paper money, commonly known as "greenbacks", issued by the North during the Civil War and shortly afterward. The Greenback party opposed the deflationary lowering of prices paid to producers entailed by a return to a bullion-based monetary system, the policy favored by both Republicans & Democrats. Continued use of unbacked currency, they was believed, would better foster business and assist farmers by raising prices and making debts easier to pay. During the war the need for financing it was such they paper currency called "Greenbacks" were issued and the gold standard was thus effectively suspended. Treasury Secretary Chase had already anticipated the coming financial crisis, proposing to back the greenback. not with gold, but with federal bonds. By the end of the war some $450 million of this non-gold-backed currency was in circulation. By 1870, Congress began to reinstate the Gold standard causing great inflation. This gave rise to the Greenback Party. A looser currency supply was seen as a way of breaking the perceived stranglehold on the national economy held by banks and wealthy industrialists. (Nothing ever changes, does it?) Chief among these supporters of so-called "Greenbackism" was the National Labor Union (NLU), and other groups began to advance their political agenda, with an August 1870 convention calling for the establishment of the National Labor Reform Party or Greenback Party. They were joined by organized farmers in the form of the Grange.

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And this NAST comes five months later, in 1876.

Sept. 9, 1876. Governor Tilden's Democratic " Wolf (Gaunt And Hungry ") And The Goat ( Labor ). Who is the “wolf” now, and who’s “the lamb,” in 2024? And could a single, well-executed drawing, change people’s mind on election day in 2024?

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Great NAST OVERVIEW (with audio/video interview of Nast expert). (Click here)!

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