Pughe, J. S. (John S.), 1870-1909 | - Theodore Roosevelt Center

Solitaire

The Republican elephant labeled “G.O.P.” sits on a stool with the U.S. Capitol and the White House within view. He is holding with his trunk a playing card with Theodore Roosevelt on it and has a tray of playing cards on his lap which show Roosevelt as the king and/or say “Roosevelt.” He is playing the card game “solitaire.”

Comments and Context

The joy in the face of the Republican elephant in Pughe’s cartoon is, if anything, understated. In 1903 the fortunes of the Republican Party, and of President Roosevelt, were high. Peace, prosperity, and an engaging young president whose vitality mirrored the expanding nation, combined for an “era of good feeling” not experienced by the United States since the 1840s.

Getting their backs up

A bull dog labeled “England,” a whippet (or greyhound) labeled “Italy,” and a dachshund labeled “Germany” gather around a dish labeled “Preferred Claims” full of food labeled “Venezuela.” Sitting above them on a fence are four cats labeled “Belgium, Spain, France, [and] Holland” with the fur on their backs raised. Both cats and dogs are seeking payment from Venezuela for its international debts.

Comments and Context

This cover cartoon expands upon Joseph Keppler’s cartoon of the previous week in Puck, which showed only England, Germany, and Italy as animals hungry to collect financial claims again the outlaw government in Venezuela. Here, Pughe adds four cats, on the fence, howling for their own just claims. The only nation both cartoons ignored was the United States, which had its own claims. Cartoons on the same topic in the weekly magazine indicate what a hot topic the Venezuelan debt crisis was, and it led to President Roosevelt formulating the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

“The overshadowing Senate”

Seven men dressed as Roman senators are labeled “T.C. Tillman, Lodge, Stewart, Morgan, Quay, [and] Hoar.” George F. Hoar is speaking to the others while pointing at a diminutive President Roosevelt standing in their midst. Caption: Senator Hoar’s Decree–Hereafter, when he wants to talk, let him ask us and say “please.”

Comments and Context

At the time of this cartoon, Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts was having one of his perennial dust-ups with President Roosevelt. Their intra-party clashes had begun in 1889, when Roosevelt was appointed to head the Civil Service Commission. Roosevelt always considered Hoar to be honest and acknowledged him as distinguished, but in private correspondence referred to him as a silly and self-absorbed Mugwump. Hoar, a Republican, was nevertheless an ardent anti-imperialist, and in this context he took up the cause of Apolinario Mabini, Filipino insurrectionist. Old and feeble, Mabini was nevertheless denied return to the Philippines from exile unless he declared allegiance to the American-backed administrations there. Hoar was a thorn in Roosevelt’s side on the issue, and the senator went public with his disdain for the young president. In Pughe’s cartoon, one of the senate’s leaders, observing the denigration of Roosevelt was Hoar’s fellow senator from Massachusetts — Henry Cabot Lodge, probably Roosevelt’s closest friend.

Taking his medicine

President Roosevelt gives the Republican elephant labeled “G.O.P.” a spoonful of “Trust Legislation Tonic.” On the elephant’s abdomen is a “Reciprocity Plaster.”

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Pughe suggests that by early 1902, President Roosevelt was manhandling his party, advancing a modified high-tariff policy and forcing trust-busting medicine down its throat. However, reciprocity had been President McKinley’s new policy trend when he died; and, as far as trusts went, neither the party nor the nation yet knew how much farther than the Northern Securities case the president would go.

Cursing the heretics

William Jennings Bryan, wearing the pope’s tiara and holding a scepter labeled “16 to 1,” jumps up and down and stamps his feet in anger, as six men labeled “Cleveland, Whitney, Hill, Gorman, Parker, [and] Olney” stand to the left, laughing.

Comments and Context

Pughe’s cartoon appeared shortly after the mid-term elections of 1902, during which the Democratic Party did not fare well, due in part to the popularity of the new president, Theodore Roosevelt, the continuing prosperity in the country, largely unabated since 1897, and what might be termed a fatigue with William Jennings Bryan. The “Commoner” had been the party’s presidential candidate in 1896 and 1900 and lost badly. His harping on the “16 to 1” free-silver coinage issue was growing thin.

His neighborly suggestion

Uncle Sam, taking a break from digging, leans on a shovel while speaking to a diminutive man wearing two handguns and a knife, and a sombrero labeled “Central America.” In the background is a sign that states “Panama Canal Route.” Caption: Uncle Sam — Now, young man, while I’m digging here, I’d like a long period of depression in the Revolution Business.

Comments and Context

This cartoon was drawn immediately upon the signing of the Hay–Herrán Treaty that ceded rights to United States to build a canal through Colombia. (The signatories were John Hay, United States Secretary of State; and Tomás Herrán, Colombian chargé d’affaires.) The treaty was signed on March 14, 1903, and this issue of Puck is dated March 25.

The passing of Lent

Outside a church, an old woman labeled “Democratic Party” stands between William Jennings Bryan as a friar labeled “16 to 1” and Arthur P. Gorman as the devil. She is smiling as she looks toward the devil. Caption: Mephisto Gorman — You’ve been fasting long enough with dull Friar William. Follow me. I’ll lead you to -.

Comments and Context

One of the thematic preoccupations of cartoonists in these years was the end of Lent — signifying (in cartoons, if not in real life) shedding the bonds of holy circumspection. In the interior pages, black-and-white humorous cartoons dealt with society girls and eligible bachelors. Sometimes dealing with temptations. Cartoonist Pughe adds politics and current events to mix in this center-spread cartoon in Puck.

A harmless tour

A family of bears dressed as humans stands near railroad tracks. The youngest cub is crying. A train labeled “Presidential Special” has just passed and standing on the back of the last car is President Theodore Roosevelt holding papers labeled “Speeches.” The mother bear indicates that Roosevelt is on a campaign tour rather than a hunting expedition. Caption: Mother Bruin–Don’t be alarmed, children! This is not a shooting trip!

Comments and Context

This cartoon aims for an easy target — President Roosevelt and hunting, particularly for bears. He was an avid hunter, as the public knew. Many articles and chapters of books devoted were to the subject. In fact, only months after he was sworn in as president, Roosevelt went on a famous bear hunt in the canebrakes of Louisiana and Mississippi, and initial lack of success led well-meaning guides to rope a bear — which Roosevelt angrily refused to shoot — giving birth to the legend, image, and popularity of the “teddy bear.”

A hint to the Democratic Party

An old woman labeled “Democratic Party” turns a wheelbarrow to dump politicians labeled “Bryan, Olney, Gorman, Hill, Shepard, [and] Johnson” into a sandpit labeled the “Democratic Dumping Ground” where only the feet of other, previously discarded, Democrats are visible.

Comments and Context

What makes this cartoon particularly interesting to students of history is that the cartoonist Pughe was not criticizing Democrats from “across the aisle” or from an adversarial point of view. Puck Magazine was Democratic, and beseeched its own leaders, or moss-bound leaders of recent years, to clean house. Except for Grover Cleveland, there had been no Democratic president since before the Civil War. It is interesting that the cartoonist did not even label the politicians’ issues that failed to excite voters (free trade, bimetallism, anti-expansion), suggesting the leaders themselves had worn out their welcomes. Even Tom Johnson, reform mayor of Cleveland, is among the deplorables in Pughe’s cartoon.

“I guess I can keep right ahead”

A well-dressed, contented, obese capitalist labeled “Trusts,” wearing skates labeled “Protective Tariff,” skates near an area of thin ice labeled “Congress” and marked with a sign that says “Danger.” He seems to see no reason to be cautious.

Comments and Context

Through previous decades, cartoonists’ symbols for trusts and monopolies ranged from vultures to money-bags with faces to highwaymen. By 1903, partly through the popularization of an icon resembling an enormous, overweight, ostentatious boor as conceived by the former Puck cartoonist F. Opper, in New York Journal cartoons, the figure in Pughe’s cartoon is instantly recognizable. As the concept of his cartoon suggests, Congress, dominated by Republicans at this time, was beginning to be more favorable to regulating trusts.

A question of duty

President Roosevelt stands next to Uncle Sam who is sitting on a stool in a “U.S. Custom House.” Roosevelt has his left hand on Sam’s right arm and is gesturing to the left, toward a customs official who is inspecting the bags of a Filipino man just inside a door labeled “Philippines” and “Prohibitive Tariff.” The door is locked and barred by “Seventy-Five per cent of Dingley Rates.” In the background, a woman exits through a door labeled “Cuba” and “Reciprocity” and a man exits through a door labeled “Porto Rico” and “Free Trade.” Caption: President Roosevelt–You’ve been fair to the other two. Now, keep faith with this one.

Comments and Context

In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, different tariff duties and trade policies were imposed on America’s new territorial possessions. Given their retention, this was logical because they each had different histories, geography, economies, and levels of sophistication. One of the prices of empire was dealing with the inevitable complications. Cuba, with a relatively mature infrastructure and major industry, sugar, received more consideration from Washington than did the rather unsophisticated island of Porto Rico (as it was then spelled). The Philippine Islands were a special case for several reasons: they were the farthest of the new lands from the continental United States, the population was the most resistant to American occupation, and as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the war, Spain received trade conditions equal to those of the United States. William Howard Taft, a federal judge who had been Theodore Roosevelt’s friend since he was United State Solicitor-General under Benjamin Harrison when Roosevelt was head of the Civil Service Commission, served as governor-general of the Philippines from 1901-1903, and tried to effect what historian Michael Cullinane has called the “Filipino-American collaborative empire,” characteristically seeking middle ground. Manila was represented by two representatives in Washington (the other possessions got one each), and strong arguments were made for favorable trade considerations. Pughe’s cartoon dates from the time when relatively harsh tariffs were imposed on the Philippines. Ultimately Roosevelt achieved Congress’s approval for nearly full reciprocity on each nation’s goods.

The other side

A large group of happy animals gather around a sign that states “Meeting to thank the Meat Trust for raising prices.” A bull stands on a platform, addressing the gathering. Caption: The Orator — Let us give thanks, my friends, to the noble Meat Trust for putting up prices. In Europe the laborer has meat once a week. Here he has been eating it three times a day. The higher we come the longer we live.

Comments and Context

What appears to be a light Aesopian jest cuts to the main argument of low-tariff advocates and free-traders. Cartoonist Pughe illustrates the dilemma inherent in “protective” high tariffs on foreign, imported goods. Industries, and presumably their workers, benefited from cheap foreign imports having duties imposed. But when domestic industries and agricultural/farming interests were thereby “protected,” they often felt free to raise their prices, to the ultimate disadvantage of the consumer.

Frightened

A tiny dog labeled “Cuban Reciprocity” barks at a man who has climbed a fence out of fear. His hat labeled “Sugar Trust” has fallen to the ground.

Comments and Context

The American “Sugar Trust” traditionally relied on sugar beets more than sugar cane, and its dominance was of course threatened by the prospect of an influx of cane sugar in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. However, Cuban sugar exports were factors, worldwide, before the war, even when clumsily administered by Spanish colonials. What threatened the Sugar Trust and American producers was the possibility of free trade or low import duties on Cuban cane sugar as American policies toward its new territories played out.

The subsidized newspaper

A large group of citizens read the latest news of a stock boom and rush off to the stockbroker to purchase the hot commodity. In the background, the corporate monopolist [“Trust Magnate”] is seen paying off the newspaper editor with shares of the stock. Caption: The promoter waters the stock, the newspaper booms it (for a consideration) and the silly public buys it – after which the water is squeezed out.

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Pughe’s critique of a dirty collaboration between corporate money was true enough: many newspapers were considered frank mouthpieces for industries or even individual companies. The practice was widespread, however; magazines also operated in similar fashion. A decade later, Harper’s Weekly was subsidized by Standard Oil; and Puck itself, late in its life, was funded by the Democratic Party; and in related fashion, or intent, newspaper publishers and editors sometimes were given ambassadorships as “plums.”

The flag must “stay put”

George F. Hoar, Carl Schurz, David B. Hill, and former Massachusetts Governor George S. Boutwell place their “Anti-Expansion Speech” at the feet of a huge American soldier holding a rifle and the American flag, while opposite them Filipinos place guns and swords at the soldier’s feet. Caption: The American Filipinos and the Native Filipinos will have to submit.

Comments and Context

Pughe’s cartoon is a diplomatic portrayal of a rather diplomatic cessation of hostilities and American military withdrawal from the Philippines, where insurrection had raged, with brutality on the “Filipino” and American sides almost from the moment of Spanish surrender in 1898. Senator George Frisbie Hoar (R-MA), the most prominent Congressional opponent of the “pacification” by American troops, had demanded investigation of American atrocities. In 1902 an American Marine was tried for the murder of 11 Filipinos; and an American general was convicted of ordering the death of all males over 10 years old on one of the Philippine islands (he was verbally reprimanded, returned to the United States, and discharged). On July 4, 1902, President Roosevelt ordered the full and complete pardon and amnesty to all Philippine citizens and rebels. This cartoon appeared between the surrender of the last rebel leader and the announcement of United States troop withdrawal.

The shade of Jefferson protests

David B. Hill stands on a platform, speaking to an unseen audience. He holds a paper that states “Jefferson! Jeffersonianism!! Jeffersonian Simplicity!!!” The ghost of Thomas Jefferson is tapping him on the elbow. Caption: “Hold on there, David! – Don’t make me ridiculous! Remember, I was always an Expansionist – and if I were alive to-day I should be doing just as McKinley and Roosevelt have done.”

Comments and Context

David Bennett Hill, the former governor and senator from New York State, was a Democrat whose career seemed defined by his concurrent rise to power, and perennial opposition to, fellow New York Democrat Grover Cleveland. While senator, he was a rare Eastern Democrat who favored bimetallism, one of the reasons that Cleveland came out of retirement in 1892, to thwart Hill’s presidential ambitions. Cleveland won the nomination and re-election and in 1896 supported, though somewhat tepidly, the Populist-Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Through all political apostasies, he found himself having to assert his party loyalties, stating more than once, “I am a Democrat,” which mantra became a feast for cartoonists. In this cartoon by Pughe, Hill’s hyperbolic identification with Jefferson slightly distorts history. Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase was regarded by the third president as an aberration or at least an evolution, not a revelation: he originally desired to acquire Louisiana itself and the port of New Orleans. France’s offer turned his head. Ironically, it was the remnants of the Federalist Party that opposed the deal, which almost doubled the land area of the United States. The cartoons maintains that Jefferson was a pragmatist, and Hill was not.

After the fight

A bruised John Bull offers a “Tonic” of “Financial Help” and “Liberal Treatment” to an injured and battered Paul Kruger, President of the South African Republic, following the end of the fighting in South Africa.

Comments and Context

Puck consistently had taken the side of Great Britain through the Boer War in its editorials and cartoons. In similar fashion, as the South African nationalists under “Oom Paul” finally were defeated in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, cartoonist Pughe almost immediately depicted the terms of surrender in the most generous light. After negotiations, some of them contentious, a treaty was signed, stipulating that the “Republic of South Africa” and the Orange Free State would be formal colonies of Great Britain, with promised timetables for increased rights and eventual independence.

The Republican elephant and his growing burden

The Republican elephant uses his trunk to support, overhead, an infant labeled “Infant Industries” in a cradle labeled “Protective Tariff.” The U.S. Capitol building is visible in the background.

Comments and Context

The meaning of this cartoon was the real situation and a growing dilemma in United States politics and the American economy. High-tariff and protectionist policies after the Civil War, and accelerating as industries thrived and prosperity asserted itself, became something of an anomaly. Industries largely thrived on their own as America achieved manufacturing and trade dominance in the world, monopolies frequently profited moguls as citizens sought lower retail prices, and the Republican Party’s identification with their vaunted “infant industries” needing protection had become burdensome.

The modern Cassandra

William II, German Emperor, pushes a statue of “Frederick the Great” seated on horseback, behind a female figure labeled “‘Cassandra’ Stephens,” who is approaching Uncle Sam sitting on the U.S. Capitol Building. “Cassandra” represents a public personage named Stephens, nicknamed in the cartoon for the Greek goddess with the gift of prophecy.

Comments and Context

The statue of Frederick the Great was one of Germany’s gestures associated with the American visit of Prince Henry, the Kaiser’s brother, in 1902. The legendary leader was an ancestor of Kaiser Wilhelm and Prince Henry. The equestrian statue originally was placed in front of Roosevelt Hall at the Army War College in Washington, D.C. Because of sensibilities during two World Wars, as well as the relocation of the War College itself, the statue has also stood at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and its current location at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The figure “Stephens” in Pughe’s cartoon is lost to history.

Labor’s idea of elevating itself

A man labeled “Labor” sits on a huge firecracker labeled “Capital” which he is igniting with a torch labeled “Strikes” giving off fumes labeled “Discontent.” The fuse of the firecracker is labeled “Wages.” There are factory buildings in the background.

Comments and Context

Despite the factories in the background, Pughe’s cartoon likely was inspired by labor strife and occasional violence in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania at this time. Union organizing, strikes, and labor clashes had been growing for several years, but the scale of the coal strike in 1902, and the prospect of a lack of coal during the upcoming winter months, put this issue on the public’s mind.