“Where’s my square deal?”

James W. Alexander, president the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and generically labeled “Life Insurance Company,” drowns in a sea of papers labeled “Exposure, Bribery, Syndicate Profits, Dummy Deals, Wholesale Graft, Fake Transactions, Juggled Reports, ‘Yellow Dog’ Funds, Rake-off, [and] Investigation.” He is holding in his raised left hand a “Receipt for Campaign Funds Republican Nat’l. Com.” The “G.O.P.” [Republican] elephant dashes over a bluff on the coastline, losing a top hat and halo labeled “Geo. B.” Out at sea, lightning flashes labeled “Publicity.” A bouquet of flowers labeled “J.H.H.” (James Hazen Hyde, the vice president of Equitable, who had recently been ousted from the company’s board) has been tossed meaninglessly before Alexander.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Icons abound in this cartoon, but their meanings would have been clear to headline-followers in 1905. In the middle of the Muckraking Era, when public feelings rose high against Big Business and corporate corruption, the insurance industry — a “Trust” of a few major firms — was rocked by financial scandals and a high society sex scandal involving the heir to the Equitable Life fortune.

Although the sexual aspects were only rumors, a lavish costume ball thrown by the son of Equitable Life’s founder, and himself the vice president of the big insurance company, scandalized America. It was further rumored that the 29-year-old James Hazen Hyde had financed the extravaganza with Equitable funds.

After this and other questions about the insurance trust, a New York State investigative inquiry was held. The private attorney and counsel Charles Evans Hughes rose from the ranks of investigators to be the most prominent thorn in the side of insurance executives, as well as his fellow Republicans.

Hughes discovered a corrupt, symbiotic relationship between politicians, particularly Republicans, and insurance companies, particularly Equitable. On the witness stand, many prominent Republican figures — for instance, New York Senator Chauncey M. Depew — maintained innocence about numerous arrangements, “retainers,” and quid pro quo deals. The hearings continued for weeks and held the public’s attention.

No figures from the worlds of politics or insurance went to jail, but James Hazen Hyde was removed from the Equitable board, and he fled to Europe where he continued his playboy ways for years. Hughes was seen as a white knight and was drafted a year later to run for New York governor as a Republican. He served two terms, was nominated to the United States Supreme Court, ran for president in 1916, was secretary of state in Warren Harding’s Administration beginning in 1921, and again was named to the Supreme Court.

The “cozy” relationship between political figures, mostly Republicans, and Equitable, was evident by members of its board: Chauncey M. Depew, Cornelius Newton Bliss (treasurer of the Republican National Committee), Robert Todd Lincoln (the late president’s son, then a railroad executive), Levi P. Morton (former Republican governor of New York, and vice president under Benjamin Harrison), trust magnates John Jacob Astor, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, August Belmont, Jacob H. Schiff, James J. Hill, Edward Henry Harriman, and Henry Clay Frick.

That is the context of the Puck cover cartoon by J. S. Pughe. As the investigations ended and the insurance trust was exposed as an incestuous money pool that dealt in favors between members of its upper realms while individual policyholders agitated for reforms and better returns. The obscured face of its president James W. Alexander (who, in truth, suffered punishments for the indiscretions of his subordinate Hyde) is swamped by the charges and revelations exposed by the investigations; the lightning on the stormy horizon represents all the negative publicity. The “receipt for campaign funds” represents the documented alliances between the Republican Party and Equitable — forgiven loans, outrageous fees, etc. — over which several politicians blinked their eyes in innocence. The Republican elephant understandably flees the scene; the top hat represents George B. Cortelyou’s putative lack of corruption (he was the Republican campaign manager in the Roosevelt reelection effort; Bliss was the treasurer who squeezed the trusts for donations). The bouquet from the disgraced Hyde represents his cynical role and insouciant lack of responsibility in Equitable’s misdeeds.

Because Equitable was tied so closely to the republican party, and many political leaders were active in the late campaign, cartoonist Pughe turns the administration slogan on its head: “Where’s MY square deal?”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1905-10-11

Creator(s)

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

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

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