Pughe, J. S. (John S.), 1870-1909

The “G.O.P.” elephant holds a tambourine labeled “Stand Patism” and hands out free baskets labeled “Tariff Graft” containing a turkey, duck, or chicken to ragged figures labeled “Coal Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Wool Trust.” A long line of trust figures await their turn. Joseph Gurney Cannon, Nelson W. Aldrich, Joseph Benson Foraker, and Leslie M. Shaw appear in women’s clothing as the “Republican Salvation Army” singers, singing “There are no flies on Dingley.” A man labeled “Protected Monopoly” stands in the foreground, at the edge of the platform. Caption: Distribution of Christmas goodies by the Republican Salvation Army.

Comments and Context

Politics occasionally did intrude in holiday issues of Puck as this centerspread cartoon by J. S. Pughe attests. The Salvation Army was a relatively new force in 1906, but there had been urban missions and soup kitchens in lower Manhattan for generations. Pughe’s venue is a larger auditorium than might have been typical of a Salvationist Christmas food charity, but other stereotypes are there: music with a tambourine, female singers with bonnets sharing their sermons in song.

The cartoonist’s attacks are seen in the graphic subtleties: an obscure “small dealer” — that is, an individual entrepreneur — squeezed between two angry trust magnates; a fancy spat and shoe peeking from under a mogul’s pant-leg; similar kid glove and diamond jewelry on the “downtrodden”; and the hymn praising Dingley. Three leading Republican senators, and Treasury Secretary Leslie M. Shaw bleat the gospel of high tariffs.

Santa Claus, labeled “G.O.P.,” reaches to place the “Star of Hope” on top of a Christmas tree trimmed with lemons, marble hearts, a stuffed bear “From Teddy,” two “Little Big Sticks” and a “Big Stick,” a ball of “Promises,” and three balls labeled “Gas, Guff, [and] Wind.” On a nearby table is Joseph Cannon as a “Joe in the Box,” a “Home made frosted cake from Uncle Joe’s Pantry,” and a book of “Fairy Tales by Uncle Sam.”

Comments and Context

J. S. Pughe’s cover cartoon directly addresses a crisis in America’s handling of the Philippine Islands as an American territory, during an important moment of policymaking. The matters at hand were important to the Filipinos, of course: trade, tariffs, and economic sovereignty.

To the American public, especially since most of the bloody insurrection was quelled — largely by President Roosevelt’s amnesty and promises of self-determination — questions concerning the Philippines had become a matter of great indifference. Governor-General William H. Taft, returning to the United States and engaging in policy speeches, remarked that the sure way to clear a hall of reporters and attentive listeners was to mention the Philippines.

At center, Uncle Sam is drowning in the “Souvenir Post Card Craze.” Surrounding vignettes show scenes from the North Pole, North Africa, Hell, and with Robinson Crusoe on a desert island.

Comments and Context

The century’s first decade was the high-water mark of “penny postals,” greeting cards, holiday cards and comic-themed cards. This is evidenced by the uncountable numbers of surviving cards at flea markets, antique shops, and collector sites.

These cards are superb remnants of American popular culture, as they carried photographs and drawings of everyday American life, fads and fashions, social traditions, events and tragedies, political leaders and things that made America laugh. They were produced in astonishing numbers, many printed in Germany and England to meet the demand.

Nelson W.Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller appear as dark-skinned men wearing skirts labeled “Gold Dust.” Aldrich stands on top of a replica of a building labeled “Stock Exchange” and holds up a replica of the U.S. Capitol building. Rockefeller stands on the ground next to him, holding up an oil can labeled “Standard Oil” and a wallet stuffed with money. Uncle Sam stands to the left, in the foreground, stroking his beard, with a concerned look on his face. Caption: (You might as well, Uncle. They’ll do it, anyway.)

Comments and Context

The seemingly curious depiction of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller as little native boys is explained by the background of the cartoon. This was a parody of the popular, now obscure, brand of cleansing powder, Gold Dust Cleanser. Cartoonist J. S. Pughe clearly thought that calling the Senator and the tycoon “twins” was dispositive — and the implication presented by the word “gold.” The composition of the drawing is taken straight from a Gold Dust magazine advertisement drawn by E. W. Kemble, an occasional Puck cartoonist.

The title of the cartoon is a rare bit of resignation in Puck. It is cynicism at the fevered height of the Insurgent, pre-Progressive Era.

Prisoners engage in various recreations while incarcerated at Sing Sing for white collar crime. Caption: For the benefit of our grafting financiers whose health breaks down from exposure.

Comments and Context

This cartoon by J. S. Pughe was not inspired by the coddling of prisoners, a putative situation that is charged, or confirmed, in cycles. Sing Sing Prison was a periodic site that, perhaps due to its 40-mile proximity up the Hudson River from the media center New York City, was alternately scorned or praised by reformers for its conditions.

Rather, the inspiration for Puck’s center-spread was the great number of business titans who were running afoul of the law at this time. There were “high visibility” exposes, investigations, scandals, arrests, divorces, and even murders among high society, politicians, and especially leaders of the corporate world, politics, and the labor movement.

On the Senate floor, several Senators engage in a free-for-all around a signpost labeled “Rail Road Interests.” Watching the melee from the “Visitors’ Gallery” is Joseph R. Burton.

Comments and Context

J. S. Pughe’s center-spread cartoon in Puck, 1906, is a reversal of many cartoons drawn through the years (most memorably by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler’s 1889 gallery of moneybags, “Bosses of the Senate.” Pughe’s variation was to draw the floor of the Senate ripped out, and the well reconfigured as the floor of a stock exchange.

New York Senator Chauncey M. Depew is portrayed as a pliant errand-boy, presumably to corporate masters, and a gaggle of senators, most prominently Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, pile on each other at the “Railroad Interests” station. Senators hasten to make inquiries with trusts, or receive instructions from them; indeed at the time many politicians in Washington frankly presented themselves as serving the corporate interests in their states.

“The Yellow Dog” sits on a plank on the shore of a body of water, with its left foreleg around the shoulders of a much smaller man labeled “Corrupt Business,” watching the sunset in the distance. The dog looks back over its shoulder at the viewer.

Comments and Context

In the first half of 1906 the insurance-industry scandals and revelations continued in the daily press, moved somewhat to aftermaths like resignations of executives, flights to Europe, and continuing revelations.

The structure of corruption was being revealed to the public, not only interlocking directorates and numerous payoffs (industry leaders to each other; and “forgiven loans” and exaggerated consultation fees to politicians on boards). The insiders’ term “yellow dog funds” referred to secret accounts of money reserved for bribes and payoffs; “slush funds,” as later generations would call them.

The waterfalls at Niagara Falls are being diverted to provide power for the factories that have been built along the river ahead of the falls, leaving a cliff and a series of pipes where the water used to be. New tourist attractions, such as a barrel jump chute and a “Whirlpool” carousel, have been developed to take advantage of the dry riverbed.

Comments and Context

Relatively forgotten in history (except in the environs of Niagara Falls) and in Theodore Roosevelt’s disputes and presidential victories, is the controversy over Niagara Falls that roiled in 1906. It is interesting, beyond its long-range significance, as an example of Roosevelt’s winning skills in such matters.

The matter was, coincidentally, similar to the Alaskan Boundary Dispute: the President appointed able surrogates, yet kept a close watch on negotiations; he contended with foreign powers as well as domestic commercial interests; and he kept his conservation priorities paramount.

President Roosevelt stands on one side of a scaffold, holding a large sculpted arm with a huge stick labeled “The Big Stick” for placement on a large sculpture of a female figure labeled “Inter-State Commerce Laws.” On the other side of the scaffold is a man labeled “The Rail Road” directing Nelson W. Aldrich, Stephen B. Elkins, and Joseph Benson Foraker to use instead a much smaller arm labeled “Delay” and “Fines.” Caption: A difference of opinion as to what will fit the lady.

Comments and Context

J. S. Pughe’s cartoon is one of the cleverer uses of the Big Stick as an icon during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. The depiction of four men against his lone self is also a fair representation of the opposition Roosevelt faced.

There were mighty forces opposed to railroad rate legislation, and more than railroad interests: there were many trusts and related industries that profited from the railroads’ power to control rates and routes, to favor or destroy small competitors. In fact some members of House of Representatives advocated more extreme measures than the president thought just (or, more, practical to get through Congress). Of course the senatorial Old Guard, here represented by Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, Joseph Benson Foraker of Ohio — virtually a constant thorn in Roosevelt’s side — and Stephen B. Elkins of West Virginia; all them under the watchful eye of their boss, a railroad magnate. They easily handle a small statue’s arm, with harmless balloons inn its hands.

A “Foreign Socialist” is being fêted and toasted by high society. An inset at left shows a jail cell full of the types of anarchists who are now being welcomed to America.

Comments and Context

Time marches on; a theory of evolution is illustrated in this J. S. Pughe cartoon about socialism and socialists in America. Only months earlier Puck commented on socialism as an intellectual plaything of society, and in this cartoon Pughe takes “parlor socialism” a step further.

This cartoon had its inspiration, or antecedence, in a Puck double-page from twenty years earlier. In that Charles Jay Taylor cartoon, an inset showed immigrants from Germany and Russia at Ellis Island: huddled, shy, nervous, poor, hoping for work in the promised land of America. The major part of that cartoon showed them after some time in America, still ragged and poor, but enlivened, bold, shouting, and drunk in a beer hall, agitating for socialism, against the system.

Nelson W. Aldrich appears as a large spider on a cobweb labeled “Senate Committee Room” spread between the U.S. Capitol and a “Standard Oil” tower, on which several flies labeled “Anti-Trust Bill, Free Alcohol Bill, House Bill, Philippine Tariff Bill, [and] Legislation Needed” have landed.

Comments and Context

Nelson W. Aldrich was not the most senior member of the United States Senate, but by wily tactics, ability, and connections he clearly was the most powerful in the Republican-dominated Upper House during the administration of President Roosevelt. From his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee he managed to affect virtually every piece of legislation that passed (or did not) through the Senate.

That power, regarded by many politicians as sinister, is reflected in this cartoon by J. S. Pughe. “Where bills went to die” was a lament of Democrats and insurgent (reformist) Republicans. Yet Aldrich was a different kind of Reactionary, or “Stand-Patter,” or Old Guard stalwart, as borne out by his record subsequent to the time of this cartoon. For instance, he co-sponsored the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1910, which reinforced high duties and was soundly rejected by some commercial interests, in the end, as well as voters: subservience to trusts that backfired on his party. After the Panic of 1907, he helped create a commission that studied, long-term, currency reform.

A female figure labeled “Peace” stands in a barber shop, holding a large pair of shears labeled “Disarmament.” Sitting in the shop are the heads of state from “Spain, U.S. [Uncle Sam], Austria, Japan, Italy, France, England, Germany, [and] Russia,” each with bayonets and artillery as hair. A sign on the wall states “No hair tonic used here.”

Comments and Context

Disarmament. Yes, the word existed in pre-nuclear times. Theodore Roosevelt, as president and before, sought to increase America’s arms, and especially its naval defenses, yet knew that the world was in jeopardy of hurtling toward a major war, probably on the European continent. His diplomatic interventions in the Russo-Japanese War and in Venezuela, but especially in the German-French tension that led to his Algeciras Conference were in the belief that a European land war could be delayed or averted.

In this context, Puck‘s cartoonist J. S. Pughe drew a brilliant portrayal of the arms-conscious world in 1906. Armaments sprouted like wild hair on the world’s powers, all of whom accepted invitations to international peace congresses at the Hague, Netherlands, in 1899, and proposed for 1907.

A bearded, hairy man appears as a young child labeled “Russia,” learning to walk with a walker labeled “The Douma” while playing with toy figures of royalty.

Comments and Context

The Douma, or Duma — Russian for consultative assembly, similar to a Parliament or House of Representatives but never with powers those bodies possessed — existed, on and off in Russia under czars as far back as the 18th century.

After years of growing unrest, lost colonies and lost wars, rising popular protests and bloody suppressions, Czar Nicholas II convened another Duma in 1905. His immediate motivation was to pacify both his subjects and world opinion, after his Cossacks had massacred peaceful petitioners,  and Jews were persecuted across Russia.

Nelson Aldrich sits on a throne as king of the “U.S. Senate,” with a diminutive Theodore Roosevelt kneeling before him bearing the “President’s Message.” Around them senators are reading ticker tape or enjoying the success of their investments. The surrounding vignettes show Chauncey M. Depew as a doorman welcoming a man labeled “The Trusts” into the “U.S. Senate”; John D. Rockefeller sitting at a desk pouring over “Reports” and “Expenditures”; Charles W. Fairbanks as an office boy stopping Uncle Sam at the top of the stairs demanding who he needs to see and why; and two men stuffing papers labeled “Esch-Townsend Rate Bill, Tariff Legislation, House Bill” and others into a trash can. Caption: Formerly known as the Upper House of Congress.

Comments and Context

With only the political cartoonist’s traditional “license” to exaggerate, cartoonist J. S. Pughe fairly depicted the state of affairs regarding the United States Senate in 1905.

That the Senate was imperious, if not imperial, and more a fiefdom than the House of Representatives, roughly conformed to the intention of the Framers. However by 1905 it had become a rich man’s club. A famous 1889 cartoon by Joseph Keppler, Senior, in Puck, cemented the perception in his “Bosses of the Senate” — bloated moneybags, each representing a trust, lording over the chamber. For a generation it had been that rich man’s club, wealth entering with certain members, or wealth mysteriously accrued during senatorial terms. Many senators were understood to be under obligation to serve their home industries first and individual constituents second. Even that factor may be understood in the larger concerns to be responsible to healthy economies and productive citizens back home. Yet today, however, America continues to have “senators from Boeing,” or those who “speak for the farmers.”

Theodore P. Shonts milks a cow labeled “Canal Commission” that is feeding on a mixture of hay and money labeled “Appropriation.” Shonts has a bucket labeled “Progress” between his knees. Secretary of State William H. Taft stands in the background holding a pitchfork. Up a hill on the right is an outbuilding labeled “U.S. Treasury” full of hay.

Comments and Context

J. S. Pughe’s cover cartoon in Puck is a virtual lesson in cartoon iconography — hay-barn, fodder, milk, funds. The actual context is the figures and the dialog-caption, addressing a rather continuing challenge in the construction of the Panama Canal, centered in the Culebra Cut.

That portion of the canal’s path, involving earth-moving and problems that ranged from labor problems to additional financial requirements, was a major construction challenge and a matter of much discussion between the Canal Zone (Theodore P. Shonts, Chair of the Panama Canal Commission; and Chief Engineer John F. Stevens) and Washington (President Roosevelt and his point-man, Secretary of War, William H. Taft). Of the many issues were Stevens’s recommendation of Chinese and Spanish laborers, deemed more reliable than West Indians.

Theodore Roosevelt, wearing his Rough Rider uniform, shares a feast with many wild animals sitting around a large banquet table in the wilderness. A bear is making a toast. Wearing buckskin, “Teddy Jr.” is sitting on a rock at a small table with a bear cub. Caption: The Bear (with deep feeling) Here’s hoping that when next we meet, we see you first.

Comments and Context

Puck took another opportunity at a holiday time, Thanksgiving 1905, to run a non-political cartoon. J. S. Pughe’s drawing certainly was not partisan, either, but today might be considered as advocating a social cause: Opposition to animal cruelty. Theodore Roosevelt’s joy of the hunt, and descriptions of shooting and slaughtering (though always for food, hides, or specimens) are off-putting to more readers today than in his time.

Pughe was Puck magazine’s go-to animal cartoonist for almost all subjects and jokes. Occasionally W. M. Goodes and L. M. Glackens drew animals, and drew them well. And when Will Crawford joined the staff he excelled in delineating horses. Other cartoonists, for other magazines, specialized in animal drawings too (anthropomorphic animals were common in humor around 1900) — Walt Kuhn, who later organized the landmark Armory Show of modern art, Bob Addams, A. Z. Baker, Gus Dirks, Leighton Budd, Frank Ver Beck, A. C. Conde, Eugene Zimmerman (ZIM), Emil Flohri, and the great A. B. Frost, most of whose work was outside the magazines (e.g., Uncle Remus).

Theodore Roosevelt, as Delilah, holds a broken pair of shears, one side labeled “Senate” and the other labeled “House.” Behind, reclining on a bed, is “Samson,” a long-haired old man labeled “The Railroads,” his hair labeled “Rate Fixing Power.” He appears to be asleep, having pleasant “Rate Fixing” dreams, caressing his long locks with his left hand. Caption: Delilah Roosevelt — I must get these shears to work together before I can do any hair-cutting.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1905-12-13

The cast of a theatrical production “Robbin’ Hood and his Merry Men” appears on stage for the final song of the production. Shown are, from left, Francis Hendricks as “Alan-a-Dale” playing “The Insurance Lyre,” John R. Hegeman as “Friar Tuck” with a small bag labeled “Loans” at his waist, John A. McCall as “Little John,” Richard A. McCurdy as “Robin Hood” with an animal horn labeled “Bluff” hanging at his waist, James H. Hyde as “Will Scarlett,” Chauncey M. Depew as “Maid Marian” with a bag labeled “Retainer” hanging at his waist, and in the background, Charles Evans Hughes as “The Sheriff of Nottingham.” A diminutive figure labeled “Policy Holder,” his arms and legs bound, is standing between McCall and McCurdy. Includes the lyrics of the song.

Comments and Context

Cartoonist J. S. Pughe closed out the year 1905 and one of its most spectacular news stories, the scandals uncovered in the insurance industry — with a parody of an opera company’s “farewell performance.” The investigations lasted so long, however, with Puck milking every opportunity to make cartoon commentary, that readers might have wondered whether there ever would be a farewell.

Yet it was time to reprise the cast of villains, at any rate, and Pughe delineated a few. At center stage is Richard A. McCurdy, president of the Mutual Insurance Company; behind him to his left is James H. Hyde, a more publicized miscreant in the hearings, both for the business shenanigans of his Equitable Life Assurance Society and for his personal embarrassments in high society.

Illustration shows a lighthearted look at the game of football as though it were played by dainty men of effeminate natures.

Comments and Context

In one of Puck‘s ever-increasing center-spreads given over to humorous commentary and multiple genre gags, cartoonist J. S. Pughe lobbed two softballs, not one, at readers: easy targets.

In 1905, President Roosevelt noted growing calls across the country to confine, restrict, or eliminate college football. Indeed it was a rough sport, even — or especially — at the Ivy League level, with few rules, little protective gear, and virtual anarchy on the field. Injuries were common, and deaths were not uncommon.

A large man wearing a red outfit, labeled “The Senate,” holds an axe above his head. He is about to chop a legislative bill, shown as rolled-up papers, labeled “Progressive Legislation.” Other bills, some labeled “Tariff Revision, R.R. Rate Bill, State Hood, [and] Pure Food Bill,” await their turns on the chopping block.

Comments and Context

The United States Senate as Grand Executioner is how Puck its cartoonist J. S. Pughe held the Upper House, and in the context of “progressive legislation,” the cover drawing is dispositive.

At this time — and 1906 might have been the high-water year of Muckraking journalism and reform laws and regulations in the United States — the White House under President Roosevelt was in full-throttle reform mode, and what the president could not accomplish through legislation, from trade and trust issues to conservation, he enacted by executive orders. Almost month by month the House of Representatives was growing more reform-minded, as former Populists and Bryanite Democrats joined a growing corps of young Republican insurgents to press reforms — sometimes too radical even for Roosevelt.