| s have long been a part of the iconography of | | | | be eclipsed by a new wave of racism in the |
| American politics. On the negative side, | | | | post-1880 period - and he also gave us Yellowstone |
| early-twentieth-century newspaper cartoons | | | | National Park. According to those who've read his |
| symbolized the greed of villainous "party bosses" and | | | | two-volume memoir, which was a national bestseller |
| robber barons by showing fat men lighting their | | | | in the immediate aftermath of his defeat in the 1876 |
| stogies with one-hundred dollar bills. On a more | | | | presidential campaign, he was also a terrific writer. He |
| positive note, cigar boxes were also used to | | | | wrote the memoirs for money after he discovered |
| advertise for various campaigns - in the years before | | | | that his family was near-destitute (presidents in those |
| there were television airways for candidates to | | | | days didn't get a pension) and that he was dying of |
| blanket with their personally approved "messages." | | | | throat cancer, threatening to leave his family without |
| It all starts - at least for those of us whose interest | | | | support; the memoirs helped keep his family afloat, |
| is in United States politics - with Henry Clay's 1850 | | | | and also won him acclaim from such writers as |
| visit to Cuba. A five-time presidential candidate, | | | | Gertrude Stein, Matthew Arnold and Mark Twain, |
| former leader of the Whig Party, and broker of | | | | their publisher. |
| several important legislative compromises - his | | | | With all that activity, it's amazing that he had time to |
| "Missouri Compromise" helped shape pre-Civil War | | | | be a connoisseur of whiskey and cigars, but he did. |
| America, by ensuring that slavery would not expand | | | | His presidential campaign song even acknowledged as |
| farther north than Arkansas. Clay was a | | | | much ("Less talk and no more war/ For President, |
| seventy-three-year-old eminence grise, still serving as | | | | Ulysses Grant a-smoking his cigar"). Unsurprisingly, his |
| a Kentucky senator, when he visited Cuba, where a | | | | face turned up on a number of cigar boxes, which |
| local cigar factory decided to "honor" him by using his | | | | served both to raise awareness of his campaign and |
| name and likeness on its labels. Other companies | | | | use his famous face to increase interest in the cigars |
| followed suit, using Clay and other congressmen | | | | within. (Among northerners, he was a popular hero, |
| (John Calhoun and Daniel Webster) to sell rival brands | | | | similar to Dwight Eisenhower in the aftermath of |
| (something that was easier to do in the days before | | | | World War II, or George S. Patton after that movie.) |
| copyright law). Clay's reaction to this bit of inspired | | | | In 1872, Grant ran again - this time against Horace |
| salesmanship is not known, and he died within two | | | | Greeley, the great newspaper editor who once hired |
| years of the trip - nine years too early to witness | | | | a little-known academic named Karl Marx as his |
| the Civil War that he spent his congressional career | | | | foreign correspondent - but one of the third parties |
| trying to prevent (sometimes at the expense of the | | | | in that election was the Equal Rights Party, which |
| abolitionist cause, which he sometimes espoused). | | | | nominated Victoria Woodhull, a feminist, and Frederick |
| Those who love their cigars with a little alcohol have | | | | Douglass, the great black anti-slavery writer, for |
| another reason to remember Henry Clay, however - | | | | president. (It's hard to imagine a ticket with more |
| he introduced the Mint Julep to Washington, D.C. | | | | ethical credibility than that!) The National Cigar |
| Ulysses S. Grant - yes, that's U.S. Grant - helped win | | | | Museum, an online memorabilia collection, actually |
| the Civil War for the Union side, then got himself | | | | offers images of the commemorative Equal Rights |
| elected President for two terms (1869-1877). During | | | | cigar box that was distributed for sale by supporters |
| his administration, he helped spearhead the country's | | | | of the company. After all, "equal rights for women" |
| Reconstruction - a ten-year time in which African | | | | included the ability to smoke in public, which is what |
| Americans made social and political gains that would | | | | this box depicts women doing. |