Yellow Dog Democrat (1882)

[Wilson Gray]

Why is it that the color of the dog is specifically described as being "yellow"?

-Wilson Gray


On 3/1/06, Bapopik at aol.com <Bapopik at aol.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Yellow Dog Democrat (1882)
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>
> Grant Barrett's HATCHET  JOBS AND HARDBALL: THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF
> AMERICAN POLITICAL SLANG (2004) has 1883 for "yellow dog."
> ...
> There were special elections yesterday in New York City, including one for
> the Assembly seat of the Democrat who defeated me for Manhattan Borough
> President. In that District, the Republican candidate got 9% of the vote  yesterday.
> It was said today that even if the Democrats had run a yellow  dog...
> ...
> ...
> ...
> 13 July 1882, Washington Post, pg. 2:
> _California Democrats in Convention._
> From the San Francisco Examiner.
>
> The whole course and current of the convention's thoughts and acts was an
> earnest, determined opposition to monopoly of all kinds, which was crystalized
> into an adamantine wall to check the encroachments of the great transportation
>  monopolies of the State. It was spitefully said by a railroad lobbyist at
> San  Jose that if a yellow dog mounted the platform and bayed at the railroad
> the  convention would at once nominate the dog for any office that he choose to
> ask.  Personal pique and prejudice blinded that lobbyist to the real fact of
> the case,  yet his words may be accepted as a tribute to the earnest
> anti-monopoly feeling  displayed.
>
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