Last month marked the 133rd anniversary of the appearance of a cartoon by Thomas Nast, then an illustrator and caricaturist for The New Yorker. The cartoon appeared in Harper’s Weekly, and from that one rendering came the party symbols for both the Republican and Democratic parties.

President Ulysses S. Grant was depicted as a wanna-be Caesar by James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald upon Grant’s possible run for a third term. Halfway through Grant’s second term, Democrats took up the issue and helped agitate the Republican voters.

In an unrelated and totally nonpolitical circulation builder, the Herald ran a totally untrue story about the animals in the zoo breaking loose and roaming the wilds of New York’s Central Park searching for prey.

Nast took these two separate examples and wove them together in a cartoon depicting an ass (symbolizing the Herald) wearing a lion’s skin (recalling the scary prospect of Caesarism) frightening away other animals in the forest (Central Park). His caption quoted a familiar fable: “An ass, having put on a lion’s skin, roamed about in the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met with in his wanderings.”

One of the animals was, of course, an elephant, which he depicted as the Republican vote, not the party. It was being frightened away from its normal ties by the erroneous scare of Caesarism. Later, on Nov. 21 in the same year of 1874, Nast followed up the idea with the elephant in a trap, illustrating the way the Republican vote had been deceptively upset from its normal allegiance.

Other cartoonists used the symbol, and soon the elephant came to stand for the party, not the vote. The jackass, now called a donkey, made its transition from representing The Herald to representing the Democratic Party that had frightened the elephant.

Why an elephant? New York state Sen. N.A. Elsberg in Francis Curtis’ 1904 book, “The Republican Party,” explains: “Among the elephant’s known characteristics are cleverness and unwieldiness. He is an animal easy to control until he is aroused; but when frightened or stirred up, he becomes absolutely unmanageable. Here we have all the characteristics of the Republican vote.”

Adlai Stevenson had a somewhat less sympathetic explanation: “The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor.”

In one of John F. Kennedy’s campaign speeches in 1959, he accused the Republican Party of imitating their mascot by running around in circles with their nose wrapped around the tail of the one in front of them all sharing the same view.

The elephant has been described in many ways by both parties. The Republican Party uses such words as “dignified,” “strong” and “intelligent.” The Democratic Party on the other hand has described the animal as “bungling,” “stupid,” “pompous” or “conservative.” And of course the donkey is illustrated in equally opposite words. The Republicans call it “stubborn,” “silly” and “ridiculous.” The Democrats on the other hand see it as “humble,” “smart,” “courageous” and “lovable.”

Leonardo DaVinci, in his book of fables, takes what I think is a gentler, certainly nonpolitical approach to describe the elephant from the Legend by Leofante. He describes qualities that are rare in humans — “honesty, prudence and justice.” They are religious and show it every full moon as they go down to the river, which they love, and wash for a long time. If one falls in a pit, the others throw branches and rocks into the hole to raise the bottom and help the captive elephant climb out.

Adult elephants make a dam with their huge bodies if they are crossing a river and let the children walk across below them where the current will not wash them away. They are merciful with their victims.

An elephant with a raised trunk supposedly symbolizes good luck and harmony. If you put this symbol in your family room, it promotes peace, happiness and prosperity.

Does this compassionate animal belong as the symbol of the Republican Party? I don’t think so. With “trunk in cheek,” I humbly ask that we stand up for the elephants of the world and switch the symbols. The more I learn about elephants, the less I see them as a symbol of the GOP.

The Good Old Party. I remember when occasionally it was good. It’s old. But party? That would connote something to celebrate. The Republican Party, 133 years after its symbol was born, most certainly should not be celebrating. Many Americans are in a pit, and I don’t see the good old guys throwing branches and rocks into the hole to help them climb out.