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President Roosevelt peeks out of the “President’s Office / Army Affairs” at an old woman labeled the “meddlesome Senate.” She holds a bag: “Brownsville.”
This cartoon by J. H. “Hal” Donahey carried a direct observation about the current political situation, but also spoke to a larger subtext that contemporary readers would understand, but posterity would not, immediately.
Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou, depicted as a chick, has just popped out of an egg while Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, Secretary of War William H. Taft, and Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker–all depicted as large chickens–look on. In the corner is a feed bowl labeled “presidential popularity.” Caption: Chorus (in unison): “Wonder if that spring chicken really takes himself seriously.”
The presidential ambitions of George B. Cortelyou were always modest, as he himself was; and if he was not a chick (as in J. H. Donahey’s cartoon), he certainly was an odd duck among the politicians who hoped to be the Republican nominee in 1908. One thing that set him apart is that he was a personal secretary and a technocrat and organizer: a bureaucrat.
President Roosevelt runs away from the shade of Uncle Sam.
Rather awkward for a J. H. Donahey cartoon in drawing and concept, “As It Looks In Washington” depicts the situation that the whole nation knew and had been talking (and drawing) about for four years: President Roosevelt declines to run in 1908 to succeed himself, despite the affection and desires of most citizens.
President Roosevelt stands by a table with his right hand on some papers.
Theodore Roosevelt was always on particularly good terms with members of the press. When was he was president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, for instance, he fraternized with reporters in his offices or, frequently, made the rounds on city streets to understand situations and check on cops on duty. Roosevelt was famously gregarious, but he also realized the advantages of favorable treatment in the press.
President Roosevelt holds a stick and looks at a “third term” dog. Caption: “You go home and stay there!”
Mostly forgotten today is a popular Sunday strip from the time of J. H. Donahey’s cartoon. Billy Marriner’s page was called “Wags, the Dog That Adopted a Man,” and its weekly episodes concerned a top-hatted man who could never escape the stray that followed him everywhere. Whether Donahey intentionally borrowed that theme — after all, lonely strays are always with us, or try to be — that is the concept in this cartoon from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
President Roosevelt holds a bear in his left hand and a rifle in his right with two lines of cartridges across his belt line. Caption: The Bear: “No wonder the corporations tremble!”
J. H. Donahey, into his own as an accomplished cartoonist and superb idea-man, forecast the result of President Roosevelt’s upcoming black bear hunt in central Louisiana. It would be a two-week hunt in the virtually inaccessible — especially to press and public — canebrakes, then a wide swath of land from Florida into Mississippi and Louisiana, dense with thorny vegetation and dangerous animals like snakes, panthers and many species of black bear.
President Roosevelt–dressed in Americana boxing gear–punches a man labeled “Railroads” squarely in the face.
What makes this cartoon by J. H. Donahey significant to posterity is the date of its publication, immediately preceding the Wall Street Panic.
President Roosevelt runs away from the “presidential bees,” covering his face. His hat flies off.
Cartoonists and editorial writers had spent uncountable words and immeasurable amounts of ink on the subject of President Roosevelt’s decision against being a candidate in 1908, virtually from the moment he issued his declination on election night, 1904.
President Roosevelt holds a rifle on his right shoulder and a bag labeled “off to Louisiana” and walks away from four bears hiding behind a “Wall Street” sign.
A fascinating, and historically valuable, aspect of political cartoons, beyond their insights into contemporaneous events they address, is how the better cartoonists could be prescient — presenting and forecasting important trends, movements, and forces.
President Roosevelt pushes hay up as the man up above screams. Caption: “President Roosevelt spends the day making hay.” — News Item.
J. H. Donahey’s complimentary cartoon (he otherwise was a mild opponent, drawing for the Democratic Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper) depicts President Roosevelt, typically strenuous, over-achieving in even the simple task of loading a hay wagon. At the time Roosevelt was on the longest summer vacation of his presidency, at Oyster Bay.
President Roosevelt uses his “big stick” to stir up the “Panama Canal” pot that has “friction” and “discord” steam coming out of it.
It is a testament to Theodore Roosevelt’s management skills that history largely has forgotten the uneven start to the Panama Canal construction. “I took the isthmus…” Congress debated him instead of Canal routes, yellow fever and malaria were beaten, names like William Crawford Gorgas and George W. Goethals are honored; the Canal, a modern miracle that the French could not build, was finished ahead of schedule and under budget. Such are the bare facts and legends surrounding the Canal.
Charles Evans Hughes and Secretary of War William H. Taft sit on President Roosevelt’s lap with a “1908” sign in the right-hand corner.
While not advocating for either potential Republican presidential candidate — the Cleveland Plain Dealer was a Democrat-run paper — cartoonist J. H. Donahey surveyed the familiar landscape of President Roosevelt’s intentions for 1908, and cleverly assessed that the field had narrowed to two. At least by this cartoon’s suggestion, Roosevelt had two favorites among half a dozen aspirants.
President Roosevelt sits in a chair listening to Uncle Sam play the violin for the “1908 waltz.” Two women labeled “G.O.P.” and “Democracy” sit and listen as well.
J. H. Donahey’s cartoon in the Cleveland Plain Dealer was yet another variation on the common question of editorialists leading up to the 1908 presidential campaign. If it was a burning question, it mainly was because cartoonists fanned the flames: Would President Roosevelt run again for president?
President Roosevelt stands on the “Harvard” platform and addresses a group of four young men. In the background is a sign: “Boost, Don’t Knock.”
Cartoonist J. H. Donahey incorporated several contemporary references and phrases in his cartoon. While the thrust of the drawing is simple, its contexts and subtexts might have become obscured through the years.
President Roosevelt fires a gun with smoke coming out labeled “Cincinnati Federal Appointment” at Joseph Benson Foraker, who holds a knife labeled “Brownsville.”
The “Brownsville Incident” — a bartender shot dead and a policeman wounded in a nighttime melee near an Army barracks housing black soldiers in Texas — had occurred in August of 1906. It lingered as a scandal because President Roosevelt, asking any of the one hundred sixty-seven soldiers to provide any information about the evening’s activities, studied the available facts and dishonorably discharged the entire regiment.
President Roosevelt sits beside a woman labeled, “Democracy,” and looks at her adoringly. Caption: “Do you know, Theodore, we’re getting better acquainted every day!”
President Roosevelt evolved toward policies that were first advanced by Populists and Democrats; in a nation’s normal political life, ideas that seem shocking are often modified by their proponents, and likely just as often the logical elements of those ideas become palatable to opponents. In Roosevelt’s case, his natural bent as a reformer brought him to address palliatives once considered beyond the pale. But — among other objections — as long as a man with, in Roosevelt’s opinion, the shallowness of William Jennings Bryan led the Democrats, he would never jump parties.
President Roosevelt grins as he stands in a boat labeled “Lock Canal System” while a generic figure labeled “Senate” sits in a large bucket filling with water labeled “Senatorial Kicks.”
History remembers, and credits, Theodore Roosevelt with the building of the Panama Canal. He famously said that he “took” Panama himself, and let Congress debate him, instead of the canal, as construction proceeded. This was a paradigm that he applied to other initiatives throughout his presidency. This sentiment implies what was the case — that work on the canal in all its particulars was controversial, and it remains the case more than a century later.
President Roosevelt looks into a schoolroom that has the words, “Thro,” “Thru,” and “Thrun” with misspellings and a picture of a boy drawn on the wall. Uncle Sam and a woman clad in the stars of the Stars and Stripes lean against the door to keep Roosevelt out. There is a book opened to the words “Simplified Spelling” at their feet.
This cartoon is from the high-point of the Simplified Spelling crusade of President Roosevelt. He joined the reform movement headed by Andrew Carnegie and others to adopt largely phonetic forms of English words. Despite an executive order to the Government Printing Office, neither the public nor the government itself (especially the Senate, whose members were witheringly dismissive) fully or permanently adopted the reforms. For a time, the Public Printer used the Simplified Spelling Board’s recommendations. For instance, the president’s message to the Congress on Panama Canal progress was typeset according to the reforms.
President Roosevelt, dressed like a farmer, sows seeds from a bag labeled “$40,000 Peace Prize” with a bird “Peace” on his head. In the background is a fence labeled “American Industry.”
The background this cartoon is the recent announcement by President Roosevelt that he would assign the monetary award from his Nobel Peace Prize committee to “social and industrial” justice. The intention was sufficiently vague that the funds only gathered interest for a dozen years, never connected to a foundation or specific project (many charitable groups during America’s participation in the Great War ultimately received the apportioned funds).
President Roosevelt runs toward a “railroad rate” base as a “railroad senator” watches. The “public” jumps up in the air and encourages Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-05-15