TOW #21 - Declined With Thanks

Title of Political Cartoon: Declined With Thanks

The Antis - “Here take a dose of this anti-fat and get thing again!”

Uncle Sam - “No. Sorry! I never did take any of that stuff, and I’m too old to begin.”

During the late 19th century leading into the early 20th century, American imperialism was on a rise. The idea of American imperialism was one of the largest debates in American history; the anti-imperialists versus the pro-imperialists. In this cartoon titles, “Declined With Thanks”, the author is describing the time period of US imperialism and showing the true debate behind it. On the left, there are three people that are known as “the Antis” which clearly oppose US imperialism.  Then on the right we have America as Uncle Sam and the person altering his clothes is President Mckinley. The artist of the cartoon is not clearly on one side or the other, as the artist is merely contrasting the two sides.  This cartoon is geared toward an audience of politicians and people interested in this specific time period.  The use of symbolism and parallelism is quite evident in an attempt to contrast and reveal the opposing sides of this major debate on imperialism.

The symbolism is seen through the names that are written on Uncle Sam’s pants.  The names are treated as the added territories that US wants or has already gaines. Uncle Sam is clearly representing America in this cartoon.  But Uncle Sam is very large in this drawing as the US is gaining more and more territories.  Uncle Sam’s outfit is being altered by a tailor, but in this case President Mckinley.  As Uncle Sam gets bigger and bigger, he will have to come to the tailor to get altered once again which in comparison to the more territories added.  As US gains more territories, they will have to face more troubles and changes that the President will have to deal with.

The parallelism can be seen at the two quotes at the bottom, one where the Antis are saying, “Here take a dose of this anti-fat and get thing again!”  Then Uncle Sam replies with, “No. Sorry! I never did take any of that stuff, and I’m too old to begin.” When Uncle Sam replies, there is some parallelism to previous times of America.  By having Uncle Sam saying that he is too old to begin to start taking an “anti-fat dose” it is then given that America has been expanding its territories since the birth of the nation.  This statement by Uncle Sam also has some parallelism to the Manifest Destiny time period.  This rhetorical device helps to show just how America has always been expanding, and isn’t going to stop any time soon.

In my opinion, I believe that the artist successfully demonstrated the true debate between the pro-imperialists and the anti-imperialists.  Although I would side with the anti-imperialists, I am still able to see and understand both opinions from each side.