The ugly duckling
Subject(s): Ducks, Feathers, Peafowl, Pride and vanity, Public opinion, Ugliness
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A duck with clawed feet, wearing a medal labeled “The Senate,” carries peacock feathers labeled “Probity, Incorruptibility, Statesmanship, Patriotism, [and] Highmindedness.” Caption: The Senate is indignant over the attacks on it in American magazines. A suggestion under consideration is that some able expounder be selected to deliver a response to the criticisms.–Daily Press.
Comments and Context
In February of 1906 — the month this Udo J. Keppler cartoon appeared Puck— the revived William Randolph Hearst magazine Cosmopolitan commenced a nine-part series addressing corruption in the Upper House, “The Treason of the Senate.”
The author of the series was the noted yellow journalist and muckraker David Graham Phillips. The figure gracing the cover of the initial release was Senator Chauncey M. Depew of New York. By third installment, the exposes and publicity had doubled the magazine’s circulation.
If the title sounded hyperbolic, so did many of the innuendos in the series. Among a flurry of muckraking articles and books, it is believed the Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Phillips’s series moved President Roosevelt to warn writers and readers alike to be aware of the “Man with the Muck-Rake” in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The term has lived in history as an honorific, but Roosevelt meant the reference as a caution about people who obsessively looked only down and lived with the mud and rake, never looking heavenward at better things.
Keppler, in his cover cartoon, saw things Phillips’s way, and close behind the series’s launch. For decades Puck had criticized the United States Senate, often with force and veiled accusations. The “ugly duckling” masquerading with pretty peacock feathers could well have been an illustration, an object lesson, in the Treason of the Senate installments.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1906-02-21
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:
The ugly duckling. [February 21, 1906]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278489. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956. The ugly duckling. [21 Feb. 1906]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. May 7, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278489.
APA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956., [1906, February 21]. The ugly duckling.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278489.
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. May 7, 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.
