Ketten, Maurice, 1875-1965

Cartoon depicts how President Roosevelt would “tackle” the Panic of 1907.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-03-28

Armed with a big stick, President Roosevelt plays poker with “Bear” and “Bull” on a table labeled “Wall Street,” saying “It’s a square deal, boys!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Maurice Ketten, who had a long and modest but distinguished career as a cartoonist of social subjects, life’s dilemmas, and daily panel serials of suburban and domestic situations, did not draw political cartoons for long, and this attempt might explain the course set for him by his editors at the New York Evening World.

President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan are dressed in women’s clothes and are scowling at one another. Roosevelt holds “the cabinet” purse and has left go of the Republican elephant. Bryan still holds onto a Democratic donkey by a string. On the wall is a picture of William H. Taft that is askew.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The copy of this cartoon is from the White House scrapbooks that were compiled throughout the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Researchers might imagine Roosevelt himself seeing this cartoon, and wonder about his reaction. The chances are that he would have been delighted, not flattered by a representation of him as a woman, or portrayed in a shouting match.