Asses, Elephants, Statues and Statutes

By Greg Tlapek

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The Missouri Democratic and Libertarian Parties are swapping ballot symbols. Well, almost. Missouri state statutes forbid a direct exchange. Our version of the Statue of Liberty, "Lady Liberty" will debut in the August primary election. Their new symbol debuted in the Presidential Primary, replacing the "Goddess of Liberty" they've used since 1924.

That information begs more. What symbol did the Democratic Party use prior to 1924? According to the reference department of the Missouri State Archives, the "Goddess of Liberty" was the first. The law that initiated the use of ballot symbols was written in 1921.

For at least 70 years in our state's early history, there were no ballots. People made their own, or used tickets printed by the political parties which they could alter. New York State in 1890 was the first to adopt "Australian" ballots, a practice developed in the mid-1800's in Australia where election officials printed the ballots. Missouri followed suit shortly afterwards for communities of more than 5,000 inhabitants and extended the "Australian" ballot to all precincts by the turn of the century.

The word ballot comes from the Italian "ballota" or little ball. Its use today derives from the ancient Roman practice of using colored balls to vote, a practice which survived even until Colonial American times when a secret vote was sometimes accomplished using colored beans or kernels of corn.

The history of the donkey as it relates to the Democratic Party dates back as far as Andrew Jackson's presidential election of 1828 when he used a jackass on his campaign posters. Sources which seem to rely on the account in William Safire's "Political Dictionary" agree it was political cartoonist Thomas Nast's work in the 1870's in Harper's Weekly that fixed both the Democratic and Republican parties with their nationally recognized emblems.

Safire relates that midway through Ulysses Grant's second term as president, in 1874, the "New York Herald" raised the issue of Caesarism, concerned about an unprecedented third term. That same year the publication ran a hoax story that the animals from the zoo had broken loose and were roaming Central Park looking for prey. Thomas Nast combined the ideas in a cartoon for "Harper's Weekly" drawing on the fable of the ass that puts on the lion's skin and roams around scaring the animals of the jungle. In Nast's cartoon, the ass wore a lion's skin labeled "Caeserism."  The elephant was one of the foolish animals scared by the ass's pretensions and was labeled "the Republican vote."

So what difference does the little picture on the ballot make?

Libertarians are pleased to have the Statue of Liberty. We figure that if a voter can't read and they vote based on the picture, they ought to get what they vote for.

Greg Tlapek
Executive Director
Missouri Libertarian Party
1-877-868-3487 (free call)

Join the Missouri LP for free (http://www.join.molp.org)