A caricature from The Judge depicting House Democrats and House Republicans on either side of a street, hurling objects down at newspapermen walking by: editorialist Carl Schurz holds a violin while shielding the Evening Post, represented by an exasperated dog; political editor George Custis wears a barrel organ stamped Harpers Weekly while carrying the cartoonist Thomas Nast in miniature; and Times co-founder George Jones leads the way, ensconced in a tuba into which is etched N.Y. Times. Among the objects thrown are books, eggs, a pipe, broken plates, and a pot. A bass drummer brings up the rear as an egg splatters on his instrument.

Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks, who held the office during Grover Cleveland's first term, directs the politicians from the bottom left corner, standing on the Democratic side (his own political party) and holding a baton. The editor of The Judge, William J. Arkell, was highly critical of the Cleveland administration and handsomely paid his cartoonists to lambast it. In this example, the Vice President is depicted as encouraging congressmen to attack the free press. (Interestingly, Hendricks died unexpectedly three days before this cartoon was published).

Schurz, Custis, Nast, and Jones were all known for writing or supporting journalism that exposed corruption in government. In 1884, for instance, Custis and Nast defied the Republicans by withholding Harpers' support for their corrupt presidential nominee; a decade earlier, they had vigorously attacked Boss Tweed in Jones' New York Times, with Jones' staunch support. And Schurz led the "Mugwump" activists of the 1880s and 1890s, who sought to disrupt cronyism and nepotism in the spoils system (the practice by which an incoming president offers government positions to people--often friends and family--only of his own party).

The Judge was a weekly satirical magazine published from 1881 to 1947, closely allied in its first decades with the Republican Party. It was enormously popular and boasted a circulation of over 100,000 by the 1920s.

Cartoonist Frank Beard was a Civil War soldier who, though fully deaf, fought at Antietam and Gettysburg without sustaining injury. During the war he began to sketch cartoons of soldiers' encampments and battle scenes, many of which were published and enjoyed immediate popularity. Beard made a career of his cartoons thereafter, turning to political and societal subjects in the 1870s and 1880s. He was also an early but outspoken proponent of Prohibition, and his sketches on the topic were said to have heavily influenced public opinion in favor of it.