“Look out for the G. O. P. elephant! The real thing!” That’s how the Harrisburg Star-Independent broke the news on Saturday, January 16, 1915. On Tuesday, Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh would be sworn in as Pennsylvania’s new governor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the Republican marching clubs from Philadelphia wanted to make a splash in the big parade after the ceremony. The elephant was their party’s symbol, so they went out and found a live one.

1915 Star-Independent front-page photograph of two elephants walking in the inaugural parade on a Harrisburg street, headlined G. O. P. Elephants in the Parade

“G. O. P. Elephants in the Parade,” the Star-Independent, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, January 20, 1915, page 1. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

A real, live Jumbo

Senator James P. McNichol, known back home as “Strawberry Jim,” heard that a big elephant from a traveling menagerie was spending the winter at Lambertville, New Jersey. He hired it to march at the head of the Philadelphia Republican Club. Neither the senator nor the club’s marshal would ride it, the paper explained, since both would march “in the wake of the big animal.” Then the Star-Independent made a bold claim: “This will be the first time in history for an elephant to take part in an inaugural parade.” The Harrisburg Telegraph had its own news from Lambertville the same day. A Bucks County marching club had found “a big elephant to typify the G. O. P.” too.

1915 headline G. O. P. Elephant for the Parade, A Real, Live Jumbo Will Head Strawberry Jim McNichol's Philadelphia Club, over the story beginning Look out for the G. O. P. elephant

“G. O. P. Elephant for the Parade.” The Star-Independent, Harrisburg, January 16, 1915, page 1. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

Tango Jumbo

On Monday the paper had more. The elephant would arrive that night and sleep in the cellar of the State Library building in Capitol Park, where he’d be “warm and dry after being shunted down the shute into the basement.” His keeper had trained him for the vaudeville stage, and it turned out his name was a little longer than Jumbo.

The elephant’s name is not “Jumbo” alone, but “Tango Jumbo,” given him because of his proficiency in the famous South American tango dance. Every effort will be made by his keeper to-morrow to prevent the big elephant from tangoing when the band plays, especially when passing the reviewing stand, where it is agreed it would be very unseemly for the elephant to hoochee or even tango and rob the occasion of its dignity.

1915 newspaper item To House Elephant in Capitol, explaining that the elephant's name is Tango Jumbo and that his keeper will keep him from tangoing

“To House Elephant in Capitol.” The Star-Independent, Harrisburg, January 18, 1915, page 7. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

That same afternoon in Philadelphia, about 700 club men marched from the First Regiment Armory to the Reading Terminal with “a real elephant of large proportions, labeled ‘G. O. P.'” Next to it walked a donkey, the other party’s symbol, “carrying a heavy weight of bandages.” The Evening Public Ledger said both animals belonged to the Wheeler Brothers circus. Their leader, David H. Lane, was offered a taxicab because of the weather and his age. He turned it down and marched at the head of the line.

Trunks up for the governor

On parade day the Star-Independent counted 100,000 people watching, “fully 50,000 having come from various parts of the State.” The parade formed at Front and Market streets and marched out Market Street, with dozens of bands, the National Guard and the firemen. Some Philadelphia marchers wore silk hats, tan gloves and tan spats and carried yellow canes. A Highland pipe band marched in kilts with bare knees, and the paper noted that none of them “complained of being cold.”

The stars were two elephants, one labeled “G. O. P.” and one “Uncle Dave,” plus a “wee donkey.” When they reached the reviewing stand at Third and State streets, the Telegraph reported, “they stopped, wheeled, faced the Governor’s box” and “gracefully raised their trunks in salute to Pennsylvania’s new governor.” The crowd applauded, and “Governor Brumbaugh smiled like a school boy.” No paper reported a single tango step.

1915 newspaper item saying the two elephants stopped at the reviewing stand and raised their trunks in salute to Governor Brumbaugh

“Elephants Raise Trunks in Salute to Governor.” The Harrisburg Telegraph, January 19, 1915, page 11. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

A tango town

Tango Jumbo wasn’t the only one in Harrisburg with the tango on his mind. On the same page that introduced him, the Steelton news reported a January 14 wedding where the bride “wore a tango-colored suit with hat to match.” A notice for the Al. G. Field Minstrels promised new steps called “the Polar Bear Slide, the Pyramid Special, the Chimpanzee Trot and the Railroad Rag,” and in early February the Majestic Theatre planned “a tango tea on the Majestic stage” after a Friday matinee.

Shopping along the parade route was cheap, too. The 1c to 25c Department Store at 215 Market Street, across from the Court House, promised “Nothing Over 25c,” hats excepted. Aluminum frying pans were 10 cents, children’s rompers were 25 cents, and towels started at a nickel. Its motto was “Where Every Day Is Bargain Day.”

1915 advertisement for the 1c to 25c Department Store on Market Street, Harrisburg, with a Nothing Over 25c seal and prices like aluminum frying pans for 10 cents

The 1c to 25c Department Store’s advertisement, on the same page as Tango Jumbo. The Star-Independent, Harrisburg, January 18, 1915, page 7. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

Home in their private car

The elephants never did see that cellar. The Star-Independent said “the safest thing would be to let them remain” in their railroad car, where “they dined heartily on many bales of hay.” They rolled out of town late on inauguration day. The elephants had nothing to say about it, the paper joked, “but seemed to be pleased with the reception given them wherever they went.”

Sources

  • The Star-Independent (Harrisburg, Pa.), January 16, 1915, page 1 (“G. O. P. Elephant for the Parade”).
  • The Harrisburg Telegraph, January 16, 1915, page 1 (parade route; “Elephant to Parade”).
  • The Star-Independent, January 18, 1915, page 7 (“To House Elephant in Capitol”; News of Steelton, Eshelman-Wilson wedding; 1c to 25c Department Store advertisement).
  • Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia), January 18, 1915, page 1 (the elephant and the donkey march to the Reading Terminal).
  • The Star-Independent, January 19, 1915, page 1 (“Two Elephants With Marchers”; “Parade Is Spectacular Feature of Inauguration”).
  • The Harrisburg Telegraph, January 19, 1915, page 11 (“Elephants Raise Trunks in Salute to Governor”).
  • The Star-Independent, January 20, 1915, page 1 (“G. O. P. Elephants in the Parade,” photograph and caption).
  • The Harrisburg Telegraph, January 13, 1915, page 9 (Al. G. Field Minstrels’ new dances) and the Star-Independent, January 28, 1915, page 9 (tango tea at the Majestic).
  • Newspaper images from the Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Published 1915, public domain.
  • Cover: “Market Street, Harrisburg, Pa.,” the street the parade marched out, Detroit Publishing Co., between 1910 and 1920 (cropped). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 2016814194. No known restrictions on publication.