“Captains of industry”

Leaders in the areas of business and finance, as military officers labeled “Morgan, Dresser, Perkins, Schwab, Frick, Nixon, [and] Gates,” ride on horseback through the snow of a bitter winter and financial downturn in the shipping industry. To the far right are foot soldiers carrying the flag of the “Army of Stock Holders.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Pughe made an oblique acknowledgment to “a well known painting” after his own signature, yet he might have credited the French academician Messonier’s Retreat From Moscow. Instead of Napoleon, we see the disconsolate and leonine face of J. P. Morgan. Excepting the faces of the business titan and his lieutenants, this Puck cartoon virtually is a line-for-line recreation of the painting so famous at the time.

The immediate context was a short-term selloff in the shares of various Morgan companies, particularly United States Steel, recently purchased from Andrew Carnegie. The men in Morgan’s cartoon entourage are executives of that trust. In this period of Morgan’s career he omnivorously acquired smaller trusts and many companies in an effort to control industries “vertically,” that is, from basest origins of components to distribution and sales. In some instances Morgan put himself in precarious positions: occasionally overpaying for companies; facing reorganizations; over-extending his finances. To meet these challenges Morgan sometimes issued extra stock, or “watered stock” whose prices were ahead of their value.

A dip in Wall Street’s confidence, and a sell-off of Morgan shares was a very temporary wrinkle at the end of 1903, but analysts and cartoonists could not know. The comparison between Napoleon and Morgan ended.

An interesting note is that one of the morose lieutenants in retreat is George Perkins, a valued Morgan employee in many ways, in many of Morgan’s enterprises. In 1912 and afterwards Perkins became a trusted adviser, and financial backer, of Theodore Roosevelt’s primary challenge and Progressive Party activity; through 1916, in fact. Among Perkins’ philanthropic work, he was behind the purchase and protection of land along the Hudson Palisades that became the Palisades Interstate Park.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1903-11-11

Creator(s)

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

Period

U.S. President – 1st Term (September 1901-February 1905)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Page Count

1

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation