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Don Hewitt (on his journey in search of a country for Sancho Usufruct to rule) : "I wonder if there is any thing left of the Post-Office after my charge upon it? and what shall I destroy next?"
1 print : wood engraving, black and white ; on sheet 41 x 30 cm
Detached from: Harper's weekly, volume 21, number 1048 (1877 January 27), page 61 (cover).
During the 1876 election, Abram Hewitt (chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1876 to 1877) managed Samuel Tilden's presidential campaign. Hoping to sway Republican voters, personalized letters were mailed out. After losing the election, Hewitt used his congressional power to attack the Post Office, claiming his letters had been tampered with and information about the Democratic Committee had been leaked. Outraged, the Postmaster General offered full support in investigating the matter, but Hewitt refused to give details or even speak with investigators. It later turned out a member of the Democratic Committee had been the one behind the leaks. On January 23, three days after this postdated cartoon was published, Congressman Samuel S. Cox of New York, a Democrat, reported to the U.S. House that an investigation into the matter had exonerated the Post Office, and concluded that Hewitt's letters had not been tampered with.
Shows Hewitt as Don Quixote unhorsed after the disputed presidential election. Hewitt's lance reads, "This is the lance that will prove my letters were opened in the Post Office." Democratic candidate Tilden is depicted as Panza in the background. Tilden, a former corporation lawyer, had used the legal term "usufruct" in his letter of acceptance. Hewitt's fallen horse has "184" on it's saddle, the number of Tilden's electoral votes. A windmill represents the U.S. Post Office. The teapot in the cartoon implies that the situation is a "tempest in a teapot", a small matter that has been exaggerated out of proportion.
Forms part of The Eduardo Urbina Cervantes Project Collection.