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William Travers Jerome, District Attorney for the State of New York, defends a bridge that leads to “Honest Government” against a group of men led by Benjamin B. Odell, with “Big Tim, Little Tim, Abe Gruber, [and Charles F.] Murphy” among his followers. Caption: “Now, who will stand at my right hand and keep the bridge with me?”
Comments and Context
Timothy Daniel “Big Tim” Sullivan, the “Boss of the Bowery,” controlled everything — voters and voting, the police, dives, opium dens, and prostitution — in lower Manhattan below Union Square. He was killed when run over by a train (and his body unidentified for weeks) at only 52 years old. Ge might have risen to be the next boss of Tammany Hall but for his death and an apparent case of advanced syphilis.
When Sullivan went to Washington as a Congressman, his cousin, “Little Tim” Sullivan, always a right-hand man, was called back from his seat in the New York State Assembly to sit on the New York City Board of Alderman, where he soon became second in power to the city’s mayor. He predeceased his cousin, in 1910, by three years.
Abraham Gruber was an accountant by trade, and a low-level machine politician who apparently was dispatched by tammany Hall to infiltrate and disrupt the struggling Socialist Labor Party. Charles Francis Murphy at the time of this cartoon was the new boss of Tammany Hall. Benjamin B. Odell, the lone Republican on the bridge, had recently served as New York governor and, as a protege of Theodore Roosevelt, was reasonably successful as a reasonable reformer, cleaning up Erie Canal corruption and suppressing “Easy Boss” Thomas Collier Platt. But he got squeezed by rival factions in the Republican Party and even an attempted rapprochement with Platt could not salvage his political career. His relatively spotless reputation makes his inclusion on the cartoon’s bridge curious, except for a political rivalry with District Attorney Jerome.
William Travers Jerome, whose cousin Jennie Jerome was Winston Churchill’s mother, lives in history as one of New York’s most honest and most colorful public figures. He was associated with the reform mayor William Lafayette Strong in 1894 and the administration that appointed Theodore Roosevelt Police Commissioner. He was elected District Attorney of New York County on the Citizens Union fusion ticket that took Seth Low to the mayoralty in 1902; Jerome served until 1908. He was an almost theatrical prosecutor, making raids with his policemen on occasion. He famously prosecuted the Harry K. Thaw case, the trust magnate who killed society architect Stanford White over the former’s wife.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1905-11-01
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:
Horatius at the bridge. [November 1, 1905]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278458. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956. Horatius at the bridge. [1 Nov. 1905]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. February 26, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278458.
APA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956., [1905, November 1]. Horatius at the bridge.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278458.
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. February 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.
