The earliest English-language references to the "carrot and stick" come from authors in the mid-19th century who in turn wrote in reference to a
caricature or
cartoon of the time that depicted a race between donkey riders, with the losing jockey using the strategy of beating his steed with "blackthorn twigs" to urge it forward; meanwhile, the winner of the race has tied a carrot to the end of his stick and simply sits in his saddle relaxing and dangling the carrot in front of his donkey. In fact, in some oral traditions, turnips were used instead of carrots as the donkey's temptation. , depicting
Death enticing an emaciated donkey towards a precipice with a carrot labeled "Victory" at the end of a stick Decades later, the idea appeared in a letter from
Winston Churchill, dated July 6, 1938: "Thus, by every device from the stick to the carrot, the emaciated Austrian donkey is made to pull the Nazi barrow up an ever-steepening hill." The earliest uses of the idiom in widely available U.S. periodicals were in ''
The Economist's
December 11, 1948 issue and in a Daily Republic'' newspaper article that same year that discussed Russia's economy. In the German language, as well as Russian and Ukrainian, a related idiom translates as
pastry and whip. In
Mexico, president and dictator
Porfirio Diaz was known for his
pan o palo (bread or stick) policy. While Diaz favored conciliation, he also saw the necessity of violence as an option, epitomized by his statement: "Five fingers or five bullets." == See also ==