William F. Nast buried at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. William F. Nast William Frederick Nast (1840–1893) was an American diplomat and entrepreneur. He was the third president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Nast was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14, 1840, the son of Methodist religious leader William Nast. From 1861 to 1865 he served at the American Consulate in Stuttgart, Germany. Upon his return to the United States, Nast entered the brokerage business in New York, New York. On September 2, 1868, Nast became president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, a position he held
Thomas Nast Rome, as crocodiles moving in to attack American school children as Irish politicians prevent their escape. He portrayed public support for religious education as a threat to democratic government. The authoritarian papacy in Rome, ignorant Irish Americans, and corrupt politicians at Tammany Hall figured prominently in his work. Nast favored nonsectarian public education that mitigated differences of religion and ethnicity. However, in 1871 Nast and "Harper's Weekly" supported the Republican-dominated board of education in Long Island in requiring students to hear passages from the King James Bible, and his educational cartoons sought to raise anti-Catholic and anti-Irish fervor among Republicans