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Untitled

Joseph's mad; he's very mad:
The President won't please him.
Put him in a pudding bag,
And let Ohio squeeze him.

In
this cartoon, Governor Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio is a schoolboy throwing
a temper tantrum, as President Grover Cleveland stands unperturbed,
striking a stoic Napoleonic pose, in the background. Like many
Union veterans, Foraker was angered by the Democratic president's executive order to return captured Confederate battle flags
to their home states in the South. Although Cleveland quickly rescinded
the order, the Republican governor seized the issue during his
reelection campaign. Here, Foraker's slate reads:
"Grover Cleveland's a fool Jackass!"
Joseph Benson Foraker was born
on a farm near Rainsboro, Ohio, in July 1846. After turning 16 in
July 1862, he left home without permission and joined the Ninth Ohio
Infantry, which was part of the Union's Army of the Cumberland. He
saw action in Tennessee, West Virginia, and Georgia, serving on General
Henry Slocum's staff during the March to the Sea (November-December
1864). Still a teenager when the Civil War ended in April 1865, he
was mustered out of service as a brevet captain.
Over the next two years,
Foraker studied at Ohio Wesleyan University and read law at a local law
office, and then transferred to Cornell University (Ithaca, New York),
where he graduated in 1869 as a member of that school's first
class. He returned to Ohio, and by the end of the year had passed
the state bar and established a law practice in Cincinnati. In
1879, he was appointed as one of the city's superior court judges, a
position he held until 1883.
During the 1870s, Foraker
became active in Republican Party politics, gaining a reputation as an
effective stump speaker for Republican candidates. In 1883, the
Republican Party hoped to capitalize on his oratorical ability and
popularity in Cincinnati by nominating him for governor, but he lost in
the general election to the Democratic nominee, George Hoadly.
However, two years later, Foraker defeated Hoadly in a rematch to become
governor.
As governor, Foraker endorsed a
liquor tax and voter registration, appointed the state's first health
board and food safety commission, and oversaw repeal of Ohio's school
segregation laws. At a time when many Republicans were promoting
reconciliation between the North and South, Foraker spoke out forcefully
against violations of black voting rights in the South. Therefore,
President Cleveland's approval of the return of the Confederate battle
standards provoked Foraker's heated denunciations of the president for
capitulating to the South, earning the Ohio governor the nickname
"Fire Alarm Joe."
In early 1887, Foraker's
announcement that he would not run for reelection prompted speculation
that he would be seeking the Republican vice-presidential nomination the
next year. His chances were enhanced on February 12 when he
impressed a gathering of Republican Party leaders with an impassioned
speech at the annual Lincoln Day dinner in New York City. His
rising star raised concerns among Republican backers of
John Sherman that the governor was a potential rival to the Ohio senator
for the top spot on the Republican national ticket. In the early
spring, Foraker changed his mind and announced he was a candidate for
reelection.
During the summer of 1887, the
Ohio governor gained national attention for his angry statements against
President Cleveland's handling of the Confederate battle flags
issue. The two men finally faced each other on September 16 at a
ceremony dedicating memorials for the Union dead at the Gettysburg
(Pennsylvania) battlefield. As Foraker led the Fourteenth Ohio
Regiment past the presidential reviewing stand, he doffed his hat, and
Cleveland returned the gesture, but without bowing as he had to other
governors. At a reception that evening, the press reported that Mrs. Cleveland refused to shake hands with the Forakers.
On November 8, 1887, a few weeks after this cartoon appeared, Foraker
won reelection.
During his gubernatorial terms,
though, Foraker alienated
German-American voters by strictly enforcing a state ban on Sunday
liquor sales. Disputes with the Sherman faction of Ohio
Republicans continued to plague him. Those were the two
major factors leading to the failure of Foraker's bid for a third
gubernatorial term in 1889. Three years later, he unsuccessfully
challenged Sherman's senatorial seat. Thereafter, Foraker allied
himself with Cincinnati's reform mayor, George "Boss"
Cox. In 1896, Foraker chaired the platform committee at the
Republican National Convention, where he enthusiastically nominated
Governor William McKinley
of Ohio for president. Later
that year, the Ohio legislature elected Foraker to the U.S. Senate.
In the Senate, Foraker
supported the Republican Party policy of high protective tariffs and, as
a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the recognition of
the Cuban independence movement. Following the Spanish-American
War of 1898, he orchestrated Senate approval of the annexation of
Hawaii and an American presence in Puerto Rico and the
Philippines. In 1899, Congress passed his Foraker Amendment, which
sought to prevent American businesses from gaining privileged access to
Cuba's economic assets. The next year, Congress enacted his
Foraker Act, which established civilian government in Puerto Rico,
although it did not grant residents American citizenship, as Foraker
desired.
Reelected in 1902, Foraker
supported construction of the Panama Canal, yet was often at odds with
the policies of President Theodore Roosevelt. He finally broke allegiance to the president when
Roosevelt dismissed 167 black soldiers who were charged with fatally
shooting two white men during a rampage in Brownsville, Texas. Foraker
insisted that the men were not guilty, and worked to bring them
justice. In retaliation, Roosevelt intensified his promotion of
Foraker's Ohio rival for the 1908 Republican presidential nomination, William Howard Taft. When accusations surfaced in 1908
that Foraker was on the payroll of Standard Oil, he withdrew from his
senatorial reelection campaign. In 1914, he attempted to return to
the Senate, but was defeated by future president Warren G.
Harding. Foraker died in Cincinnati in 1917.
Robert C. Kennedy
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