What a difference 138 years doesn't make!
The cartoon
That single line was the whole of the original post; the rest was the picture. It is a Thomas Nast cartoon from a page of Harper's, signed 'Th. Nast' and captioned 'Blaine Language', with James G. Blaine (as 'Truthful James') kicking a Chinese labourer off a plinth inscribed 'Equal Rights to All Men. The Corner-Stone of Our Republic', while a workman labelled 'voter' looks on. Around the figures run quotations from the poet Joaquin Miller in defence of the Chinese, and below them the 'Blaine Language' verse: 'We are ruined by Chinese labor.'
Sources
First published January 16, 2018, kept and lightly revised September 16, 2026. On how this journal is rebuilt and sourced, see the about page.
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