Friday, April 11, 2008

"TIE THAT BULL OUTSIDE"

Nearly everyone who has collected Theodore Roosevelt campaign items has encountered one or both of the pins that depict Jeff, of Bud Fisher’s Mutt and Jeff comic strip, pointing to Theodore Roosevelt with moose in tow, and telling him to “Tie that bull outside.” Many people claim that these badges are associated with TR’s 1912 Progressive Party campaign. There are, in fact, lots of pins that carry the phrase, or a variation of it. A few that I have acquired are shown in the illustration.

Figure 1 -- “Tie the Bull Outside” badges. Item 1 is a 7/8-inch celluloid version of the variety that pictures TR, and item 4 is a 1 ¼-inch lithographed version. The latter was four-color printed, and the former appeared in both color and black-and-white editions. Some of the other badges, like item 2, depict a bovine bull; and many, like items 3, 5, and 6, have only the words.

Dictionaries of slang state that the phrase means “I don’t believe you,” and that it is also used to reject or dismiss a person’s comment, or to stop an activity. In Eugene O’Neill’s play Ah, Wilderness, one of the characters at a 4th of July gathering uses it to scold a man who spouts some communist philosophy. In a story called Three Soldiers, written by John Dos Passos in 1921, one of the patients in a hospital ward shouts “Fellows, the war’s over.” The other patients respond with “Put him out,” “cut that,” “pull the chain,” and “Tie that bull outside.” If, in fact, the badges were used in the 1912 campaign, they would have been worn by Wilson or Taft supporters, announcing to the TR advocates, “I don’t believe you.”

But they were probably not used that way. During the first half of the twentieth century, several companies produced sets of novelty badges with phrases such as “Chicken Inspector,” “I’m the Guy,” and “Can it!” that were used as advertising premiums and carnival prizes. The “bull outside” badges that depict a bovine, or have only the words, were surely produced as novelties, not for political campaign use. Apparently, one manufacturer contracted with Bud Fisher to design a series of about a dozen badges that picture Mutt and Jeff acting out several of those joke phrases, then manufactured and sold them to a tobacco company for insertion in plug tobacco or cigarette packages.


Figure 2. -- Hassan Cigarette badges. These are 7/8 inch celluloid badges.

It was Mr. Fisher whose creativity probably first connected the phrase “Tie that bull outside” to Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party Bull Moose. The question is, though, when did that connection occur? Over the years, I have seen lithographed badges from the 1916 and 1920 presidential campaigns, but I have not encountered one from the 1912 campaign. It was probably during or after the 1912 campaign that Bud Fisher needed to think up a way to illustrate “Tie that bull outside,” and TR’s Bull Moose provided the needed inspiration. So it is likely that the Bud Fisher badges were manufactured after 1912. I would bet that none were actually worn during the campaign. After all, it is not Woodrow Wilson or William H. Taft, but Jeff who tells TR to “tie that bull outside.”

Even if they are not campaign items in the pure sense, the “Tie That Bull Outside” badges demonstrate how Theodore Roosevelt’s personality permeated many aspects of daily life in the early twentieth century America. No doubt these colorful and humorous Bud Fisher creations will continue to be sought by collectors of TR memorabilia.