File:It Takes Grit to Remove Grime 19110003d12w.jpg

English: “It Takes Grit to Remove Grime”

	Cartoonist:  Edward Windsor Kemble
	Source:  Harper's Weekly
	Date:   November 11, 1911, p. 3

This cartoon appeared in the same issue of Harper’s Weekly that endorsed Woodrow Wilson for president. It shows him as governor cleaning up the government of New Jersey, which was notorious for its corrupt politics. A year before, Wilson had won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and a landslide election with the assistance of the state party’s political machine. He had made party “boss” James Smith no promises, however, and once in office pushed the machine aside to secure passage of a reform agenda that included utility regulation, workers’ compensation, direct primaries, municipal reform, school reorganization and, at the end of his term, antitrust legislation.