“Down!”
Subject(s): Football, Football players, Reform movement, Tariff, Trusts, Industrial
Click on image to zoom in
A group of football players, labeled “Steel Trust, Tool Trust, Tobacco Trust, Clothing Trust, Leather Trust, Oil Trust, Coal Trust, [and] Beef Trust” tackle a “Consumer” with a football labeled “Tariff Revision” during a football game at a stadium labeled “Stand Pat A.C.”
Comments and Context
Perhaps inspired by President Roosevelt’s White House summit on violence in college football two weeks hence, cartoonist Joseph Keppler, Junior, chose a rather rougher scrum to make a point about “the average consumer” against a field of bullies, the trusts.
Roosevelt’s conference, convened because of widespread concerns about violence, injuries, and death in collegiate football, established rules, ultimately saved the sport, and led to the establishment of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the football body that oversees the sport today and awards an annual Theodore Roosevelt Prize for integrity on and off the field.
The “little man” became an icon in political cartoonists’ playbooks around this time. Frederick Burr Opper (1857-1937), the cartoonist for the Hearst papers and formerly of Puck, drew a pathetic soul labelled “The Common People,” and in the 1920s the political cartoonist Vaughn Shoemaker of the Chicago Daily News fashioned “John Q. Public,” a mustachioed everyman, meant to represent the put-upon common man struggling to survive the vicissitudes of modern life.
Keppler’s early version is somewhere at the bottom of the pile.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1905-09-27
Creator(s)
Period
U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)
Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Page Count
1
Record Type
Image
Resource Type
Rights
These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.
Citation
Cite this Record
Chicago:
“Down!”. [September 27, 1905]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278392. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956. “Down!”. [27 Sep. 1905]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 26, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278392.
APA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956., [1905, September 27]. “Down!”.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278392.
Cite this Collection
Chicago:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 26, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs.
APA:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs.
