Psst...ask'em if they got a game this afternoon 

• 1970 
• Taylor, Bob 
• Drawing 
• Historical item 

6660965

Drawings / paintings

Psst...ask'em if they got a game this afternoon

38.5 x 29 cm

1970

Original editorial cartoon in pen/brush and ink and crayon on card for the Dallas Times Herald, probably 1970, shows president Nixon shaking hands with a group of people, ‘hard hats for Nixon’, while his vice-president Spiro Agnew skulks in the background angling after a game of golf, to Nixon’s evident displeasure. In May 1970 construction workers took to the streets of downtown New York and chased anti-Vietnam war protesters, hitting them with their hard hats as the police looked on and did not intervene. They became known as the ‘hard hats for Nixon’ who ‘support administration policy’, e.g. for Nixon’s actions in Vietnam, and feel threatened by the progressive winds blowing through America at the time. Agnew was the man who actively encouraged these views and voiced the concerns of ordinary working people, the “silent majority”. The relationship between the two men had already deteriorated by 1970, Nixon viewing Agnew as unintelligent, lazy and only interested in playing golf. His attempts to ditch Agnew for the 1972 election failed, however, as Agnew was very popular. It was a corruption scandal that finally brought Agnew down in 1973, not long before Nixon himself was toppled by the Watergate scandal. Card size 38.5 x 29 cm (15 x 11 inch), image size 35.5 x 25.5 cm, signed lower centre, caption in blue crayon in lower border, tack holes in upper corners. In very good condition.