The vision of Joan of New Hampshire

Senator Jacob H. Gallinger appears as a Dutch girl praying to the angelic spirit of Marcus Alonzo Hanna holding a ship labeled “Ship Subsidy.” Caption: From the gallery of privilege and graft.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Simple cartoons, well executed, are excellent windows to the past, even if, sometimes streamlined, they are windows metaphorically somewhat jammed. This Udo J. Keppler cartoon is an example of both clear presentation and voluminous details with which contemporary readers would have been familiar.

It is to be understood, primarily, that subsidies of American ocean ships was a major topic of the times, and a roiling controversy in 1906 (and before) even as a crowded agenda of reform legislation and regulatory reforms occupied Washington’s attention.

The attention paid, often behind the scenes, by President Roosevelt, is one of the best indicators of his ability to focus and his skill in applying diplomacy within domestic politics.

Shipbuilding — not merely its subsidies — was a long-standing and divisive matter in the United States. It was part of an economic debate, and crossed swords with railroad interests. As tons of metals were required, state and regional interests, represented by politicians, made for strange alliances and splits. Ohio and Pennsylvania, for instance, were interested to sell their resources and gain prominence. Ports likewise sought preeminence: Portsmouth Naval Yard (actually in Kittery, Maine), Cleveland, and Philadelphia chief among them. The military and merchant marine interests needed seats at the table. Considerations of trade and tariffs complicated matters. For instance, in 1906 Secretary of State Elihu Root held successful preliminary talks to increase ocean-based trade with South American states, only to have the failure of a shipbuilding subsidy bill cripple progress in America’s construction program. As with opposition to the Panama Canal, railroad interests often stymied work to increase the building of merchant ships.

Beyond these matters, just as politics made strange bedfellows, issues could precipitate bedfellows falling to the floor. New Hampshire’s two Republican senators, usually allies, were bitter rivals to be the leaders of their state’s shipbuilding activity, a major source of revenue and influence: William E. Chandler, who had been Secretary of the Navy under Chester A. Arthur, and Jacob H. Gallinger, who is pictured in this cartoon and who would be, in a few years, the Senate’s Pro Tem.

There were players outside the Senate, too, who always played their part. J. P. Morgan, after acquiring the steel works of Andrew Carnegie and others, wanted to expand further and become king of transatlantic sea trade, both passenger and shipping. So Morgan was an interested party, and had senators to manipulate, as usual. But the controversies, some listed above, were so intractable that Morgan eventually despaired of congressional subsidies and bought British construction concerns and ocean lines instead. Ghosts of past politicians — like Mark Alonzo Hanna who represented shipbuilders in Cleveland (decades later, the site and source of George Steinbrenner’s fortune) still held sway. Hanna had allied himself with New Hampshire’s interests as a port.

Roosevelt expended Herculean efforts to get a shipbuilding subsidy bill passed. In addition to the changing alliances and loyalties previously cited, he had to negotiate with Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon and individual House members, each with their own interests. There were times the House passed a subsidy bill the senate failed to take up, and vice-versa. And subsidy bills would bounce between different committees who claimed jurisdiction — trade, military, even Post Office appropriations.

Over his long service in the Senate, Jacob H. Gallinger chaired the Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, and the Merchant Marine Commission.

Keppler in his cartoon sarcastically referred to the legend of Joan of Arc and at least one of her visions; and added a cynical view to the shipbuilding subsidy’s resolution, not joyful but rather characterizing it as “privilege and graft.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1906-12-26

Creator(s)

Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956

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