Tie the Bull Outside Red

Black text on a white background with a red and white checkerboard outer edge

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt formed the National Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party because the President had supposedly told reporters after the assassination attempt on his life that “I’m as fit as a bull moose.”  Cartoonist Bud Fisher created a cartoon of Mutt (of Mutt & Jeff) telling the President to tie his bull outside. This term has come to mean disbelief or rejection of an idea.  In the story Three Soldiers, written by John Dos Passos in 1921, one of the patients in a hospital ward shouts “Fellows, the war’s over.” The other patients respond with “Tie that bull outside.”