The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-11
WAITING FOR THE NOMINEE.
Artists Sharpening Crayons for the Pictorial
Part of the Canvass.
New York Sun.

New York Sun.
Four young men with disheveled locks and
clothes of poetic misfit, sat astride a long table
on the top floor of a VeSey-Street printing-hcuse
on Friday, whitening the surface of huge wooden
blocks and toying with jet crayons. Beside
them were piles of cards bearing the features of
a score of well-known Republicans, and of other
Republicans who are not well known at all. A
tall man sat imbedded in newspapers near by,
running his fingers through his beard, and scan
ming the news from Chicago.
"We are all waiting for the nominee, he said
cheerily. 'As soon as he's selected these artists
will put his phiz in black on these white blocks,
and the business of campaign advertising will
begin. Well be ready with mountains of pla-
cards two days later. The newest thing in cam
paign wares this year will be portraits printed
in huge oval sheets to be pasted on the campaign
banners in place of the old fashioned painted
portraits. The portraits are painted in coloIs,
and are a good deal cheaper than oil. They can
be pasted in campaign club windows, too. Then
we will get out gigantic fence posters to catch
the people in the country places.
Yesterday we thought the convention team
would be Sherman and Roosevelt, but that's
knocked higher than a kite now, It's a pity,
from an artistic point of view. The phiz of the
old soldier and the young reformer would have
looked we'll together. Now we're simply laying
back in doubt, awaiting Developments"
VIII there be a boom in the banner and torch
businessGn
IF the Democrats put up Tilden it will make
a rafting campaign for the boys, we think,
here. Things will go with a hum and banners
and flags will fly and posters will blossom out
everywhere. 1t will drive the grand old party
to a supreme effort, and the campaign insignia
will sell like hot cakes. This business isn't what
it used to be years ago, though. The red-hot,
hip-hip-hurrah parade and banner electioneering
seems to have cooled down a good deal
On the other side of Vesey street a jolly man
with a SLOUGH hat and a paint-blotched palette,
daubed gilt on a business sign. Behind him in
an old desk lay a well-thumbed and battered
order book, whose pages were s~prinkled with
campaign orders back to the days of Clay.
"Oh," said he, 81 amt going into the banner
business this year. Times are changing and so
are campaign methods. The newspapers are
steadily knocking out our campaign banners
and orchlight professions. They like to look al
EN-, may be, but after the flags have ~futtered
and the torches gone out they go up to the polls
and drop their little vote ON their own calm
judgment of the relative merits of candidates
and parties. may be mistaken, but l think
its going to be so this year"
"Now, I'm an old parader myself, and speak
from experience. Years ago the people and the
officeholders used to shell out bountifully to
whoop her up for the candidates, but they do it
mighty gingerly and reluctantly now. It's like
drawing eye-teeth to get any Doodle. Civil serv-
ice reform has kinder knocked spots out of the
old campaign assessment idea. The man in office
falls back on civil-service reform, and doesn't
seem to see the contribution hat.
1.-Two things might awaken the old boom in
banners. If Tilden gets the nomination. speak
as a Republican-there1l be such a blowout of
enthusiasm that the party will have to let a good
deal of it loose in banners, posters and torches.
If Arthur gets the Republican cake the hackers
will be bound to work up a boom with the old
fashioned political methods. The machine will
go in strong, and the machine always goes round
with a big banner, a big torch and a perfect
shower of circulars, pamphlets, maps and
portraits. It'll go that way as long as its able to
run at all"
A moment after the announcement that Mr..
James G. Blaine had received the nomination
for President, in a large room In Ann street a
man. with hair sprinkled with gray, holding in
one hand a photograph and in the other a piece
of chalk, rapidly sketched on a canvass a gi-
gantic head and shoulders. Then he set to work
with a lot of big paint brushes which he dipped
continuously into a lot of big paint pots. in
three hours Mr.. James G. Blaine, with "a head
three feet in diameter, looked from the canvas.
Early yesterday morning the same gray-haired
man set to work on another canvas, and in
three hours had painted a big head of Blackjack
Logan.
I'VE wanted to be first to have pictures of the
candidates." said Mr.. Brown, yesterday, as he
Topped a lot of paint on the face of another pic
ture of Blaine, and we were"