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Various scenes of President Roosevelt hunting bears, many regarding Roosevelt’s chances for the 1904 Republican presidential nomination.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-11-16
“Chairman of the Rep. National Committee” Marcus Alonzo Hanna collects for the “Republican Campaign Fund for Teddy” as he walks down “Wall Street” past the “Cotton Trust,” “Meat Trust,” “Sugar Trust,” “Copper Trust,” “Oil Trust—Rockefeller,” and “Steel Trust—J. P. Morgan.” Hanna wears a sign that reads, “Please Help Roosevelt—The Trusts.” Various men say, “I would not give him a soup bone,” “Millions for Hanna but none for Teddy,” and “Speak for yourself Mark!” Below, a diminutive William Rainey Harper, says, “Teddy ought to get me to do his collecting. I’m the champion.” Caption: Tom Platt’s advice to Presidential candidates: If you have no friends in Wall Street you might as well throw up the sponge.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08
President Roosevelt holds a “Panama” hat and gestures toward the seat for the “Chairman of the Republican National Committee.” Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna stands still, wearing an “I am a candidate” feather and having a pocket for “buttons.” Beside him is a small Perry S. Heath, who wears a button that says, “Vote for Hanna.” There is a picture of New York Governor Benjamin B. Odell on the wall. Caption: Roosevelt—Delighted; won’t you be seated? Hanna—No, thank you; I’ll stand pat.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-01
In this detailed cartoon, a variety of individuals try to figure out if Oklahoma Governor Charles Nathaniel Haskell—who has run off—touched second base, which has a container of “oil” on it. Uncle Sam stands in the center of the diamond and says, “It’s a draw.” A large group of people congregate just off the first-base line, including William H. Taft, Samuel Gompers, William Jennings Bryan, Norman Edward Mack, William Loeb, President Roosevelt, William F. Sheehan, Alton B. Parker, and George von Lengerke Meyer. A variety of people are around the field: Charles Francis Murphy, Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, New York Lieutenant Governor Lewis S. Chanler, William James Conners, and Patrick Henry McCarren. John D. Rockefeller, John D. Archbold, Henry Huttleston Rogers, and James Roscoe Day all watch from the side. In another section of the audience, the Democratic donkey and Republican elephant fight. A handwritten note is included: “Mr. President: This is so good I have to send it to you.”
Frequently political cartoons have a subtext related news events, gossip about figures being caricatured, and the shadowy realm of the interests and agendas of publishers. All these factors were play in the genre scene composed by cartoonist Thomas E. Powers, nominally about Oklahoma Governor Charles Nathaniel Haskell.
Haskell was also Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, with financial responsibilities in the presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan. “Touching second base” or not, as the oil can with Standard Oil’s dollar sign, sits on the base that Haskell clearly avoids, is the nub of the cartoon.
In the center of a circus ring are nine rotund figures representing trusts, high tariffs, and political graft, who are balancing on the shoulders of one consumer. A tenth figure, the “coal strike,” prepares to join in. President Taft watches, seated beside a giant sheep labeled “Schedule K.” New York Senator Elihu Root watches from the other side of the ring. In the foreground, Theodore Roosevelt leads a procession of six supporters, while “Gov. Osborn” has just left the queue and is climbing on the “Taft Band Wagon.” Inscribed below is the line, “7 little governors all in a mix one got cold feet and then there were six.”
Cartoonist Thomas E. Powers was attacking the Republican administration’s alleged loyalty to trusts in general, and to “Schedule K” of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, a controversial provision that was generous to the American wool industry. The context of this cartoon, syndicated throughout the Hearst newspaper chain, was the Republicans’ traditional “protection” of American industries through a series of tariff regulations through the decades beginning in 1890. In fact, President Taft’s administration prosecuted more monopolies in four years than President Roosevelt’s did in seven and a half years. “Schedule K” of the 1910 Payne-Aldrich Act was viewed as a showcase of schedules against the importation of wool and wool products, noxious in the eyes of free-trade advocates and Democrats generally. Governor Chase Osborn, Republican of Michigan, jumps on the “Taft Band Wagon,” deserting his troops. He was one of the “Seven Governors,” Republicans who urged Roosevelt to run against President Taft for the 1912 nomination. Powers assumed too much, because Osborn, although he was publicly concerned that party disunity was counterproductive, and even was tempted to support Democrat Woodrow Wilson, ultimately campaigned for the Progressive ticket in the general election.
A bingo board-like, twelve-frame satire of real and fictitious important figures shows: 1. Dr. Albert Frederick Cook, “Inventor of the North Pole,” 2. Herman Metz, “Who Discovered Brooklyn,” 3. “Professor Gloom-Bayside,” 4. “Col. Dillpickle Champion Pinochle Player,” 5. “J. Sargeant Gram Public Service Com.,” 6. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, 7. “Major Joy,” 8. Theodore Roosevelt, wearing a pith helmet and identified as “Bwana Tombo-3rd Term Kid,” 9. “Bill Stam, Discoverer of Stamford,” 10. John Davison Rockefeller, labeled “Oily John, Inventor of the Soft Pedal,” 11. “Casey” of “Casey at the Bat,” and 12. “Col. Baum, Man Who Discovered Hair Restorer.”
This cartoon was drawn by Thomas E. Powers for the New York American and newspapers of the Hearst chain. The “Gloom” character is self-referential — Powers drew a popular series of cartoons for more than three decades called Joys and Glooms, where stick figures representing moods and reactions of readers and caricatured figures either pranced or sulked. Often they occupied corners of cartoons, a Greek Chorus of sorts.