Berryman, Clifford Kennedy, 1869-1949

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1910-09-28

Creator(s)

Berryman, Clifford Kennedy, 1869-1949

Language

English

President Roosevelt rolls up a “message to the Senate and House of Representatives” “guaranteed to make a noise when opened.” A teddy bear stares as Roosevelt rolls up two sticks of dynamite and an “alarm clock” as Maurice Latta heads toward the United States Capitol building.

comments and context

Comments and Context

As the weeks counted down to the Republican National Convention, the practical perception of President Roosevelt as a lame duck accelerated. However, he would be president for a full ten months after this cartoon’s publication, and no one should have expected a man like Roosevelt to slow down in activities, or controversies.

President Roosevelt holds a “bill providing for two battleships” as the “Senate” says, “Only two!” Roosevelt replies, “Two every year, tho!”

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Comments and Context

Budget priorities were a continual point of friction between President Roosevelt and the United States Senate. The disagreements were about more than financial allocations for some issues like conservation — the establishment of national parks, game reserves, bird sanctuaries, and monuments. The very concept of protecting natural resources and wildlife sparked conflict.

President Roosevelt holds a large document labeled “Roosevelt policies” as an elephant sits against a tree in the background. House Minority Leader John Sharp Williams holds a donkey and says, “If you mount isn’t on the job, try mine.”

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Comments and Context

The day after a major message was transmitted to Congress by President Roosevelt, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives endorsed “most” of Roosevelt’s legislative proposals. Representative John Sharp Williams of Mississippi accurately is pictured in Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s cartoon (the suggestion that the president would switch parties is cartoonists’ license); and a major story on this same day addressed Williams’ admiration of the president’s program.

President Roosevelt holds a “Congressional Record speech” in his left hand and a string tied to a “special message” cannon. The “Senate” and “House,” which are depicted as two men in the distance, appear worried.

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Comments and Context

It was a full five days before President Roosevelt would transmit a Special Message to Congress, but cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman spoke for the Washington, D.C.’s political establishment in picturing the nervous apprehension about its contents.

President Roosevelt places his hand on a globe and says, “I would not have you preach an impossible ideal,” to a bunch of older men who are teachers.

comments and context

Comments and Context

On February 24, 1908, President Roosevelt hosted a delegation of the National Education Association at the White House. He delivered lengthy remarks, a transcript of which was published throughout the country and in the NEA’s Journal.

President Roosevelt and Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker point fingers at one another as little demons–“ugly rumors,” “charges,” “insinuations,” “accusations,” “falsehoods,” “malicious,” “sensations,” and “scandals”–jump out of the “patronage” box. Roosevelt and Foulke say, “You opened it!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

It had been a year since the unprecedented and uncomfortable angry exchanges between President Roosevelt and Senator Joseph Benson Foraker of Ohio at the annual Gridiron Dinner. The annual roast of politicians and newspapermen was an evening of bonhomie, with members sworn to secrecy. But the Roosevelt-Foraker feud, precipitated by the Brownsville Affair — a black army regiment being cashiered for offenses the president thought they were shielding — and Foraker’s aggressive defense of the regiment made headlines and still simmered a year later.

President Roosevelt holds up a note that reads, “Under no circumstances will I again be a candidate for the presidency. T. Roosevelt. Election night 1904.” He says to a group of men, “Boys, I stand pat on this decision!” The men, who include Secretary of War William H. Taft, Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, Secretary of the Treasury, Philander C. Knox, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, and Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, all responded approvingly.

comments and context

Comments and Context

On the day that President Roosevelt issued a statement repeating, but with finality, his decision of 1904 not to succeed himself in 1908, cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman suggests that the declaration was more for the Republican aspirants than the general public.

President Roosevelt holds a paper that reads, “The tariff cannot, with wisdom, be dealt with in the year preceding a presidential election.” A “standpatter” rejoices while a “tariff revisionist” says, “By heck!”

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Comments and Context

Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s cartoon (whose caption was clipped off by the custodian of the White House’s cartoon scrapbook) was a spot-on illustration of the situation regarding President Roosevelt and the nation’s trade barriers, its tariffs and import duties. It likewise correctly summarized the reaction of the high-protection and low-tariff and free-trade advocates.

President Roosevelt holds “federal patronage” behind his back and asks, “Which hand, gentlemen?” In the foreground a teddy bear plays with dice.

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Comments and Context

Clifford Kennedy Berryman, over his long career, often was complimented as a political cartoonist, but the rare sort who held no malice. In fact over his long career he held no real capacity for caricature. Rather he achieved realistic likenesses of political figures, either by mechanical or freehand means, and fixed those heads on smaller bodies and in situations. Often, because of this artifice, his characters wore inappropriate expressions or failed to make eye-contact. Such was the case in this cartoon.

Uncle Sam eyes “Wall St.,” J. Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller holding up a large “financial panic” rock. The man labeled Wall St. says, “It’s o.k. We have it safe.” President Roosevelt also looks on, holding a bear under his right arm and a rifle in his left hand.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-10-24

Newspaper reporters, photographers, and cartoonists gather outside a forest with several signs: “Where the president was last seen,” “To the canebrakes,” and “Posted.”

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Comments and Context

The day after the presidential hunting party was absorbed into the bayous and canebrakes of central Louisiana on what would be an extended black-bear hunt (October 6-19), Clifford Kennedy Berryman of the Washington Star vented the frustration of journalists and commentators that the object of their affection, or attention, would be off the boards.

William Loeb holds “Speech No. 1 Canton” in his left hand and a barrel in his right hand labeled “six speeches for western delivery.” Several men look on, including “Wall Street,” J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Edward Henry Harriman. Morgan says, “Oh, for a look in.”

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Comments and Context

President Roosevelt’s private secretary William Loeb advanced from taking dictation and handling White House correspondence to managing logistics and sometimes, at the end of Roosevelt’s term, interacting with officials and politicians

President Roosevelt travels in a riverboat that is headed toward tree branches in the river: “beef trust,” “tobacco trust,” “railroad trust,” “Harriman interests,” and “Standard Oil.” A teddy bear keeps him company in the barge.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman used the title of Mark Twain’s famous book of recollections, Life On the Mississippi, for his depiction of President Roosevelt’s progress toward Louisiana, mid-way through an extended speaking tour in the Autumn of 1907.

President Roosevelt meets with his cabinet in a room filled with snakes: “Harriman interests,” “panic,” “tobacco trust,” “powder trust,” “beef trust,” “railroad trust,” “Standard Oil,” “immunity,” “Japanese war scare,” and “telegrapher’s strike.” The chairs for Secretary of State and Secretary of War are empty.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-27

President Roosevelt fills out papers on his desk, his suitcase with tags reading, “Oyster Bay” and “Washington.” Uncle Sam says to Roosevelt, “Bid me ‘howdy’ before you go.” Presidential secretary William Loeb has a bag over his shoulder and reads a paper, “R.R. Time Table: Next train (presidential) leaves Oct.” A teddy bear reads “23 Jingles”: “In again, out again, presidential train!” In the background is the Washington Monument.

comments and context

Comments and Context

President Roosevelt, as pictured in this drawing by Clifford Kennedy Berryman, was set to embark on one of the longest trips of his presidency. As depicted in this cartoon, published on September 25, 1907, Roosevelt’s plans would take him to Ohio (for the funeral of President William McKinley’s widow), Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Tennessee, to deliver speeches. Then he planned speeches and a two-week bear hunt in the canebrakes of Louisiana, followed by speeches and appearances in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia, before returning to Washington.

President Roosevelt observes two men, holding a pitchfork with a “Nobel Peace Medal” attached to it, and gestures that he wants no part of their argument. A “telegrapher” and “telegraph company” are arguing over downed lines. Meanwhile, a teddy bear watches from a haystack, “Me for the haystack!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The point of Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s cartoon is one that is often missed by history and historians: President Roosevelt intervened in labor/management disputes, but was not constrained to do so in every instance. When private businesses and employees, or unions, had disagreements that did not represent situations where fundamental fairness was threatened, the president felt no compunction to interfere.

President Roosevelt stays hidden as he watches Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker attempt to counter the momentum of a huge rock shaped like William H. Taft’s head labeled “Taft Ohio Endorsement.”

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Comments and Context

Theodore Roosevelt would indeed end up looking upon this situation — the Ohioan Secretary of War William H. Taft gaining advantage over fellow Ohioan, Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, in their rivalry for the 1908 Republican presidential nomination. Roosevelt’s endorsement of Taft coincided with real animosity between him and the Foraker.

In the first vignette, a Japanese man holding a camera sees the Washington Monument and says, “I’ll snap this shot tower” while another Japanese man takes a picture of German Emperor William II saying, “Ah, a snap!” In the second vignette, a Japanese man takes a picture of the White House, “This may come in handy.” In the third vignette, a Japanese man draws a picture of a trolley car and says, “Hist!” In the fourth vignette, a Japanese man takes a picture of President Roosevelt as he pushes a plow, “Ha! A new engine of war!” In the fifth vignette, a Japanese man draws a picture of a trolley and a car on a torn up road, “I never saw such a sight before! Some new method of blocking a forward movement I suppose.” In the middle of the cartoon, a man labeled “American jingo” reads the “yellow journal” with the headline, “Japs posed for war! Spies everywhere!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

In this commentary-cartoon by Clifford Kennedy Berryman, the focus is not on suspicious activities by Japanese immigrants and visitors, but mocking the paranoia of nativists at the time and, specifically, the frenzy whipped up by the “Yellow Press” (a name applied to sensationalist newspapers, nothing related to racial stereotypes).

President Roosevelt and the Republican elephant stand at the dock of the “G.O.P. Boat Club” as they watch Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, Secretary of War William H. Taft, Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, Philander C. Knox, Leslie M. Shaw, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, and Secretary of State Elihu Root try to row a boat.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoons like Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s “In Training,” typical of many during his long career in Washington, D. C., were closer to illustrated observations, reflecting current events, not attempting to criticize or persuade, than to classic political cartoons. They were editorial cartoons, not at all partisan, merely addressing political realities.