Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956

Senator Jacob H. Gallinger appears as a Dutch girl praying to the angelic spirit of Marcus Alonzo Hanna holding a ship labeled “Ship Subsidy.” Caption: From the gallery of privilege and graft.

Comments and Context

Simple cartoons, well executed, are excellent windows to the past, even if, sometimes streamlined, they are windows metaphorically somewhat jammed. This Udo J. Keppler cartoon is an example of both clear presentation and voluminous details with which contemporary readers would have been familiar.

It is to be understood, primarily, that subsidies of American ocean ships was a major topic of the times, and a roiling controversy in 1906 (and before) even as a crowded agenda of reform legislation and regulatory reforms occupied Washington’s attention.

Joseph Gurney Cannon leads a procession including Nelson W. Aldrich, Joseph Benson Foraker, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Leslie M. Shaw who are carrying the golden ark of the Dingley Tariff, with figures labeled “Trust, Infant Industries, [and] Protected Monopoly” bowing as it passes.

Comments and Context

Approximately a decade had passed since the last major revision of tariffs in the United States, when Puck Magazine published this scathing cartoon by Udo J. Keppler. It depicted the sacrosanct regard for high tariffs among Republicans and industrialists (trusts), and specifically the inviolability of the Dingley rates. Those schedules took effect in 1897 after a major Depression during the second Cleveland administration, and prosperity returned, punctuated by good weather, record crop yields, the war with Spain, and a presidential assassination. The five years of President Roosevelt saw unprecedented prosperity.

To an extent high tariff rates were responsible, but not in the minds of powerful Republicans. In Keppler’s drawing, the kneeling figures are generic, and those bearing the ark of the covenant all are senators, excerpt for Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, and Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw.

The heads of Chauncey M. Depew labeled “Compliments of New York” and Thomas Collier Platt labeled “From the Empire State” lie on desks in the “U.S. Senate” chamber, with Uncle Sam scowling in the background.

Comments and Context

This over cartoon by Udo J. Keppler in Puck Magazine might have run any year while the twin graybeards Chauncey M. Depew and Thomas Collier Platt were senators, such was the routine assessment of the magazine and indeed much of the public (even of New York State’s citizens — this was at a time when state legislators, not the voting public, elected senators, a Constitutional system that had grown corrupt).

Indeed the concept of the cartoon might have been applied to previous New York senators, who generally were elderly and settled into careers serving special interests. And this was the case in other states’ delegations as well, since the senate had evolved into a club of a few powerful bosses.

Theodore Roosevelt, with halo, kneels on a burning pyre and is tied to a stake labeled “III Term” by tapes labeled “Popularity / Party / Pressure.” A crowd of on-lookers cheers in the background. Caption: “I can conceive of a situation that would compel Mr. Roosevelt, no matter how painful it might be, to accept a third term.”–Attorney-General Moody.

Comments and Context

There have been many martyrs and saints burned at the stake through history. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs documents many; there was the famous torching of Joan of Arc, and during the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and subsequent periods of religious accountability, opposing factions burned people with regularity.

The figure of Theodore Roosevelt in the cover cartoon of Udo J. Keppler, therefore, is not meant to represent the sentence of any particular saint (or sinner), although allegorical models were plentiful.

Benjamin R. Tillman, as “Simon Legree,” whips a black man labeled “Negro Voter.” Caption: Simon Legree Tillman — Don’t I own you, body and soul, you black dog? / Uncle Tom — Yuh may own mah body, Marse Tillman, but mah soul belongs t’ de Republican Pahty!

Comments and Context

Some cartoons dip back into their recent pasts to confirm events or truths for readers’ sakes; and some, of course unwittingly, are Rosetta Stones for researchers of future generations seeking to understand the realities of another time.

Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler’s dramatic cartoon in Puck might fit that definition. It is shockingly violent, but depicts a moment in a frequently performed theatrical play that was sympathetic to blacks. “Uncle Tom” and Uncle Tom’s Cabin have become pejorative words, but Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, possibly the best selling book of the nineteenth century, was a rallying-cry for equality. (President Abraham Lincoln reportedly met Mrs. Stowe and said, “Ah! The little lady who caused this big war!”)

Charles A. Peabody, president of Mutual Life, and Alexander E. Orr, president of New York Life, play poker with Samuel Untermeyer. Each is holding a handful of “Proxies” in one hand and a pistol in the other. Caption: A quiet game of freeze-out in life insurance gulch.

Comments and Context

In the aftermath of the lengthy, detailed, and juicy investigations into the insurance industry in 1905, undertaken by the New York State Assembly and eventually managed by attorney Charles Evans Hughes, the practices of Big Insurance in America were a hot topic, and would be for years to come.

No insurance executive or any of the surprising numbers and names of politicians in unholy alliances ever went to jail. However, many insurance executives resigned their management and board positions and many careers were ruined.

A large hot air balloon with Theodore Roosevelt’s face flies a banner of “Republican Congressional Candidates” and carries a basket overflowing with election hopefuls (and a small conventional balloon labeled “Cannon’s Boom,” referring to a short-lived effort to have Joseph Gurney Cannon contest the 1908 presidential nomination. On the ground, Samuel Gompers is using a sling-shot in an effort to shoot down the balloon.

Comments and Context

Campaigns for the presidency and seats in Congress were much, perhaps mercifully, shorter in the Roosevelt Era. The cartoon by Udo J. Keppler marks the October commencement of the elections in November.

Despite a “boomlet” urging Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon to vie for the presidential nomination, he and virtually every other Republican candidate were tethered to the administration and popularity of Theodore Roosevelt, like it or not. Most, from the old guard to the insurgents, did like it.

William Randolph Hearst accepts opium from Arthur Brisbane and, while in a drug induced state, dreams of the state house in Albany, New York, and the White House in Washington, D.C.

Comments and Context

Publisher William Randolph Hearst, the fabulously wealthy yellow journalist and Congressman from New York City, is depicted on the joss couch in an opium-induced fantasy. Supplied by Arthur Brisbane, his right-hand and chief editorial writer, he dreams of electoral vistas in Albany and Washington, D.C.

The broken pipe on the floor represents Hearst’s narrow defeat in the 1904 race to be New York City’s mayor. In 1906 Hearst both kept his White House dreams alive, and legitimately craved at-home power by declaring a gubernatorial run in New York State, late in the process.

William Randolph Hearst paints a donkey yellow from a bucket of paint labeled “Riot & Rottenness.” He holds the donkey by a bridle labeled “Dem. State Machine.” A dog, with the countenance of Hearst’s able amanuensis Arthur Brisbane, plays Buster’s dog Tige in this cartoon.

Comments and Context

Once the Yellow Journalist publisher and New York congressman William Randolph Hearst declared his interest in the 1906 gubernatorial contest as a Democrat, Udo J. Keppler and his Puck magazine fired weekly salvos against him.

Hearst had his power and influence and years of radical advocacies behind him, but he also had a record of scandal, sensationalism, and (in the view of Theodore Roosevelt and others) virtual sedition in his papers. Keppler was shared Roosevelt’s opinion.

William Randolph Hearst appears as Shakespeare’s Richard III in a dream-state when various ghosts appear before him. His armor hangs on a nearby wall in preparation for battle. The ghost of William McKinley speaks Clarence’s line, “Let me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow!”

Comments and Context

The most powerful indictment that Puck and cartoonist Udo J. Keppler could level against William Randolph Hearst in his quest to be governor of New York State appeared on the cover of the issue of election eve.

When the Hearst chain of newspapers was at its most radical, virtually promoting socialism and encouraging labor strife, it daily excoriated President William McKinley in editorials, cartoons, and manufactured “news” stories. One of Hearst’s writers, reportedly Ambrose Bierce, wrote following poem referring to the slain governor of Kentucky:

Two well-dressed men labeled “High Finance” and “Big Business” are startled by the throng of petty criminals, some labeled “Card Sharp, Safe Cracker, Second Story Man, [and] Flat Robber,” who push their way ahead to a building labeled “Anything Incorporated and No Questions Asked.”

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Udo J. Keppler addressed less the riff-raff class of criminals depicted in the drawings, and more the “white-collar” criminals similar to the two shocked businessmen at the lower right, and the types referred to in the caption.

Many factors contributed to a “squeeze” New Jersey felt, neglected by New York City and Philadelphia, the two major business centers between it sat. Rather than benefit from its proximity, it was drained, and even exploited, by domestic and world commerce, and by the importance of those cities. Waterways and rail lines tended to make New Jersey a vast highway instead of a business-megalopolis as its leaders envisioned.

A large donkey sits on its haunches, wearing a Rough Rider hat and spectacles, and smiling like Theodore Roosevelt at the diminutive figures of Alton B. Parker and William Jennings Bryan. Caption: The Democratic Donkey is beginning to look like somebody.

Comments and Context

This Puck cover cartoon is typical of the best by Udo J. Keppler — a clever observation that stands the test of time; simplicity that requires few captions; and master caricatures.

The year is 1906. It cannot be denied that many of the positions that were President Roosevelt’s as his career evolved, as did the policies of Republicans in the House of Representatives labelling themselves insurgents, as well as the politicians and editorialists who adopted the term Progressive a few years later. They all championed causes that many of them had decried a few years earlier.

Sereno E. Payne, in the role of British Major John Pitcairn, commander of an occupying troop of British soldiers in Massachusetts in 1775, stands before a group of Patriots under the banner “Mass. Tariff Revisionists.” Caption: Major Sereno Payne Pitcairn (of the Stand Pat Lobsterbacks) — Disperse, ye villains! Ye rebels, disperse! Damn you, why don’t you disperse?

Comments and Context

The cartoon of Udo J. Keppler on Puck‘s cover addresses an intra-party dispute among Republicans.

The tariff had become an issue that united politicians around the end of the Civil War; and it caused divisions too. Tariffs on imports were imposed to “protect infant industries” from cheaper foreign goods during America’s industrial revolution, beginning in earnest in the 1870s. They were also advocated as revenue-generators. Soon, American manufacturers and farmers became strong enough to stand on their own; and the federal government amassed a treasury surplus, which President Grover Cleveland considered immoral. He committed the Democratic Party to a low-tariff policy.

Six cowboys, one labeled “Coal Trust” and another labeled “Miner’s Union,” all carry handguns which they are using to force a diminutive man labeled “Small Consumer” to dance.

Comments and Context

In the cliched situation of uncountable cowboy tales, where the greenhorn is made to “dance” as bullies fire at his feet, the cartoonist’s iconic Little Man — labelled here “Small Consumer” — jumps for his life. Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler addresses no specific bill but rather general situation of the trusts’ control of many aspects of everyday life.

President Roosevelt, drawn as a volcano, erupts and spews a dark cloud labeled “Tax on Wealth,” which causes an elephant labeled “G.O.P.” to race for safety. On the left is a mountain shaped like Charles W. Fairbanks, looking very stoic.

Comments and Context

The spring of 1906 saw the most radical level of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, and certainly his boldest and most radical initiatives to date. Yet an examination of his agenda reveals the distinctive Rooseveltian formula for advancing his positions — and possibly his formula for the success he enjoyed. That formula was to anticipate challenges that faced the country, incorporate solutions proposed by advocates, and in the process, soften the extremes but preserve foundational principles. In other words, compromise while moving forward. Roosevelt always thought, and said, that reform was the surest palliative against revolution, and all aspects of his public career — administrative, party leader, writer — worked toward that view of civic life, or as he came to call it, “social and industrial justice.”

An example is 1906, the high-water mark of muckraking — writers and politicians exposing corruption and agitating for major reforms in business and politics, an overnight manifestation of discontent that brewed for decades. The very term “Muckrake” was used by Roosevelt this very spring, first at a private dinner at the Gridiron Club, and publicly soon thereafter. It was a perfect example of Roosevelt’s “sane radicalism” — he largely agreed with the writers and politicians, but warned that many of them went too far in prescriptions or were too casual with the truth.

A ship labeled “Republic,” flying a banner labeled “U.S.A.,” navigates storm-tossed seas with a whirlpool labeled “Socialism” and cliffs labeled “Plutocracy” nearby.

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler depicts a loose version of the Scylla and Charybdis of Greek mythology. Its usual application meaning is an intractable dilemma, the “lesser of two evils,” a Hobson’s Choice, or, most recently a catch-22. In mythology it was the unavoidable course between a whirlpool and rough cliffs or a rationalized monster in the stones.

An oversized man labeled “Beef Trust,” with skeleton face, performs a magic trick on a stage by taking “Diseased Livestock” and pushing them through a tube labeled “Packingtown” to produce packaged “Pure Meat Products.” A diminutive man, “The Prof’s Assistant,” wearing a cap labeled “Inspector,” is standing on the stage on the left. Packingtown is a real section Chicago that was the setting for the horrible actions committed in Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, published as a book when this cartoon appeared. Caption: A monstrous and amazing feat of magic.

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Udo J. Keppler is significant in many ways. It is a marker along the road of Puck‘s growing radicalism as it became more forceful in imagery and grim in details than cartoons of its past. In this regard it was willingly swept up in the tide of muckraking and reform in contemporary periodicals. In fact it nearly coincided with the book publication of the magazine-serialized Jungle by Upton Sinclair. In a sense it could have served as an illustration in the book, or its cover, because the Chicago setting of the revolting horrors of the Beef Trust and meat-packing industry (some of them actually fictional) were set in the real-life section of the city called Packingtown.

The other significant subtext of the cartoon is that in Puck‘s advertising pages, traditionally though the years, and even at this time, there were numerous ads for meat products, placed by members of the Beef Trust. Leibig’s Extract of Beef, Armour beef derivatives and buillions, and other products including medicines, were promoted only pages from this powerful pictorial indictment of the Beef Trust. Puck and other magazines dared to bite the hands that fed them.

Benjamin R. Tillman, Joseph W. Bailey, and William E. Chandler appear as war veterans playing musical instruments and marching. Tillman carries a banner labeled “The Original Rate Bill” and Bailey’s drum is labeled “The White House Post No. 23.”

Comments and Context

The lengthy and thorny negotiations over the 1906 Railroad Rate bill, ultimately passed and known the Hepburn Law, reveals how hands-on President Roosevelt was in legislative matters dear to his heart, as most everything in his field of vision was. The issue was of utmost importance, by virtually common consent — unfair competition, rigging of schedules, kickbacks, and such — but how to assemble a congressional consensus was the challenge.

Senate Republican leader (Finance Committee chair) Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island schemed to stymie the bill by the unprecedented move of naming a Democrat as floor leader to navigate its passage. He chose Benjamin R. Tillman of South Carolina, a reformer with Populist credentials, but a virulent racist who hated Roosevelt for inviting Booker T. Washington, to the White House. Tillman’s nickname was “Pitchfork Ben” after he swore to drive a pitchfork through that “bag of lard,” President Grover Cleveland of his own party.

A large man labeled “Big Shipper” appears as a blacksmith holding a diminutive man labeled “Small shipper” on an anvil labeled “The Rail Road” and striking it with a hammer labeled “Rebates.” On the floor at his feet is a pile of coins labeled “Illegitimate Profits,” and eager schoolchildren (Nelson W. Aldrich, Chauncey M. Depew, Thomas Collier Platt, and others) gather at the entryway hoping to “catch the burning sparks that fly like chaff from the threshing floor.” Includes verse.

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Udo J. Keppler appeared only two weeks before the passage of the Hepburn Act, the long-awaited, intensely contentious, law that granted the Interstate Commerce Commission power to review and cap railroad rates; extending regulatory jurisdiction over lines and competition; and eliminated rebates and free passes. The Hepburn Act technically was a group of amendments to the toothless Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.

Its passage revolutionized fairer commerce and let small railroads establish themselves and compete, especially in under-served areas of the United States, which in turn spurred further development of the continent’s farming and small manufacturing activities.

Chauncey M. Depew and Thomas Collier Platt hold awards “For Good Attendance” and “Reward of Merit” at commencement exercises, with Charles W. Fairbanks sitting in the background in the Senate chamber.

Comments and Context

Puck began to focus its aim New York State’s two Republican senators on January 10, 1906, in a cover cartoon portraying Thomas Collier Platt and Chauncey M. Depew as Falstaff and Prince Hal from Shakespeare’s King Henry IV casting about for some men to bribe. Word had leaked out — if a huge publicity campaign can be called “leaking” — that William Randolph Hearst had bought Cosmopolitan magazine. It pledged to be the muckraker among muckraking journals. It hired David Graham Phillips to be its lead investigator; he was to expose the United States Senate as a cancerous center of corruption, and the face of Depew would dominate the first cover.

So it happened. “The Treason Of the Senate” was the sensational series of articles, and Depew was skewered from the start. Cosmopolitan‘s circulation shot up past a half-million copies per month.