Your TR Source
President Roosevelt, West Virginia Senator Stephen B. Elkins, Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, Pennsylvania Senator Philander C. Knox, Iowa Representative William Peters Hepburn, and Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich all stir a “R.R. rates bill” soup in a pot shaped like the United States Capitol building.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-02-19
President Roosevelt holds his big stick in one hand and gestures at the “Constitution of the United States,” which sits on a ledge labeled “Congress.” Caption: “Take away that bauble!”–Oliver Cromwell.
Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World was widely acknowledged as the leading Democratic organ in the country, and while other papers hewed the party line, with influence, Pulitzer’s paper was the semi-official voice of the party. As such, any cartoon during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt would be expected to be hyper-partisan and hyper-critical.
Indeed, C. R. Macauley, the paper’s recent chief political cartoonist, earned his spurs with cartoons such as this. In four years, in fact, he would be employed by the Democratic National Committee to be its official cartoonist (a practice then not uncommon).
President Roosevelt leaves his big stick and “my policies” book and runs away from a crowd of female suffragists holding a “Votes for Women” sign.
C. R. Macauley (later spelled MacAuley) was not the only political cartoonist or newspaper editorialist who criticized Theodore Roosevelt for opposing women’s suffrage while not supporting the voting rights of women, or failing to criticize Democratic politicians for opposing the franchise.
President Roosevelt, who holds a big stick, and William Randolph Hearst, who holds a lit match, watch as Senator Joseph Benson Foraker and Oklahoma Governor Charles Nathaniel Haskell are pushed into the sky as the “Standard Oil” container explodes open.
There are several remarkable aspects to this cartoon by C. R. Macauley, published in the midst of the 1908 presidential campaign. The first is the representation of a bombshell in the campaign, largely forgotten by history. In September, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst (himself in an Ohio speech — not via editorials in his newspapers) exposed letters from the files of Standard Oil; the “Archbold Letters,” revealed corruption between the trust and prominent politicians.
President Roosevelt has his ear up to the telephone with a “private wire to Chicago.”
The point of C. R. Macauley’s perceptive cartoon in the New York World is in the caption, not the drawing itself. The president did “keep tabs” on the nominating convention in Chicago, which ran from June 16 to 19, 1908. During that period, his daybook reveals two meetings in the White House with William H. Taft, as well as meetings with cabinet officers and the evangelist Billy Sunday.
President Roosevelt holds a paintbrush and thinks as he paints a banner. The top part says: “my candidate, my policies, my platforms.” On the left is William H. Taft “for president,” but the vice president on the right is not completed.
In this clever cartoon by C. R. Macauley of the New York World, its point is not that President Roosevelt needed to wonder about, or dictate, the Republican vice-presidential nominee at the imminent national convention. At this time the selection of those candidates was strictly left to convention delegates or party bosses, never the “top of the ticket.”
President Roosevelt holds an elephant bag and the Big Stick with a spearhead arrow at its top.
The New York World’s C. R. Macauley has inherited the great Charles Green Bush’s position as political cartoonist, as well as the trademark elements of his standard Roosevelt caricature: the portly shape, an outgrown Rough Rider uniform, etc.
President Roosevelt flees from a group of women holding a banner reading “Votes for Women.” On the ground lies a small folder labeled “My Policies,” as well as Roosevelt’s “big stick.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-07
Theodore Roosevelt tracks down the GOP elephant in a hunting outfit, carrying his “Third Term” rifle.
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
1911-1912