A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from August 23, 2013
“Throw the rascals in!”

“Turn the rascals out” was a popular campaign slogan of 1872. Adlai Stevenson II (1900-1965) famously reversed the slogan when criticizing the Eisenhower administration in 1952. “This is the first I have ever heard of going into battle under the slogan: ‘Throw the rascals in,’” Stevenson said.
 
In 1969, novelist Norman Mailer ran for mayor of New York City and newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin ran for city council president. (John Lindsay was re-elected mayor.) “Vote The Rascals In—Mailer-Breslin” (sometimes stated as “Throw The Rascals In”) was one campaign slogan, along with “No more bullshit!”
   
 
Wikipedia: Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate. His first novel was The Naked and the Dead published in 1948. His best work was widely considered to be The Executioner’s Song, which was published in 1979, and for which he won one of his two Pulitzer Prizes. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Mailer’s book Armies of the Night was awarded the National Book Award.
 
Along with the likes of Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, which superimposes the style and devices of literary fiction onto fact-based journalism.
(...)
Mayoral campaign
In 1969, at the suggestion of Gloria Steinem, his friend the political essayist Noel Parmentel and others, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Party primary for Mayor of New York City, allied with columnist Jimmy Breslin (who ran for City Council President), proposing the creation a 51st state through New York City secession.
 
27 March 1952, Canton (OH) Repository, “Once Over” by H. I. Phillips, pg. 6, col. 7:
George Allen’s “Throw the Rascals In,” is a good book title but it sounds pretty calloused.
 
13 September 1952, Greensboro (NC) Daily News, “Adlai Declares He’ll Be Stern With Reds,” sec. 1, pg. 2, col. 4:
For the second time today Stevenson cut loose at Eisenhower for endorsing Senator Jenner.
 
“This is the first I have ever heard of going into battle under the slogan: ‘Throw the rascals in.’”
 
Google News Archive
18 September 1952, Milwaukee (WI) Sentinel, “Westbrook Pegler Says: Joe’s Win and Taft’s Support of Ike Change Campaign,” pt. 1, pg. 8, col. 2:
His (Adlai Stevenson—ed.) remark that this was the first campaign in which the opposition was trying to throw the rascals in was worth swiping and no doubt will be heard from professional drolls ere these reflections make print.
 
Google News Archive
25 June 1956, Miami (FL) Daily News, “Droodles” by Roger Price, pg. 15B, vol. 2:
BLOCKED HAT
That hat is guaranteed not to roll, and it was designed especially for the “Me First” party candidate for president, Sen. Herman Clabbercutt, to throw in the ring. The Me First party is a movement based on new ideas in politics—complete honesty with the voters. We admit that we want to get in and grab what we can. Once in office we intend to legalize graft and thereby eliminate corruption in government. Isn’t that a crackerjack of an idea? The secret handbook of the party titled “I’m For Me First” is now at your local drug store. Get your copy and join the party. Get your share! Don’t get left out. Remember our inspiring slogan: Throw the Rascals In.
   
Google News Archive
24 April 1969, The Village Voice (New York, NY), “Private Opinion: The Mailer-Breslin Ticket: Vote the Rascals In” by Joe Flaherty, pg. 59, col. 4:
Let’s throw out the dull caterers and throw the rascals in.
 
Google News Archive
23 May 1969, Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, “51st State? New York’s Mayoral Comedy Has No Straight Man” by Flora Lewis, pg. 10, col. 6:
Only one has established credentials as a prankster. That is novelist Norman Mailer, running for the Democratic nomination with columnist Jimmy Breslin on his ticket. THeir campaign headquarters, in the Columbus Circle building that served as Humphrey New York headquarters last fall, has a poster saying “Vote The Rascals In—Mailer-Breslin,” some irreverent graffiti, and a tousle-hared, mini-skirted, beer-scented atmosphere that would have driven Humphrey back to the Minnesota woods if Nixon hadn’t accomplished that already.
 
Google Books
Media Power:
Who is shaping your picture of the world?

By Robert Stein
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin
1972
Pg. 88:
Two other writers, novelist Norman Mailer and columnist Jimmy Breslin, run for mayor and president of the City Council of New York in the 1969 Democratic Primary on such slogans as “The Other Guys Are the Joke,” “Throw the Rascals In” and “No More Bullshit.”
   
Google Books
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House:
Humor, Blunders, and Other Oddities from the Presidential Campaign Trail

Edited by Charles Osgood
New York, NY: Hyperion
2008
Pg. ?:
Of the McCarthy–Jenner endorsement of Eisenhower, Stevenson said: “This is the first time I’ve heard a party campaigning on the slogan, ‘Throw the Rascals In.’
 
Columbia Journalism Review
11:55 AM - October 1, 2009
Throw the Rascals In!
Joe Flaherty’s classic account of Mailer and Breslin on the hustings

By Jamie Malanowski
(...)
No, what was special about the campaign was the candidates’ bravado (“Throw the rascals in!” was one campaign slogan), their audacity (“No More Bullshit” was another), and above all, their facility with words—soaring words, funny words, trenchant words, critical words, witty words. “I can look without horror upon any man whose hand I have to shake,” Mailer said at one appearance. “The difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m no good, and I can prove it.”
 
Time magazine 
Top 10 Failed Celebrity Political Campaigns
Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Norman Mailer
By Nate Rawlings Monday, Aug. 09, 2010
(...)
Nine years, two literary prizes and one involuntary psychiatric admittance later, Mailer was back on the campaign trail. He aligned himself with popular newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, who was running for city-council president, and the two ran in the Democratic primary on a platform endorsing New York City’s status as the 51st state. Their campaign slogan was “Throw the Rascals In.” New Yorkers chose, instead, to toss the rascals out, as Mailer came in fourth in a field of five candidates.

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityGovernment/Law/Military/Religion /Health • Friday, August 23, 2013 • Permalink


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