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A sickly looking dove is caught in a birdcage fashioned from rifles and swords, with “Powder” kegs at the ends of a perch labeled “Peace Conference,” and topped with the flags of “England, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Russia, Spain, [and] U.S.” Caption: “Caged.”
Comments and Context
The second Hague Peace Conference — formally, the International Tribunal on Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land — was generally regarded as a bust before it began a few months subsequent to Puck‘s cover cartoon.
The “call” for the conference had been a last act, idealistic but futile, of United States Secretary of State John Hay just before he died in 1905. The other main instigator was Imperial Russia, whose Czar Nicholas II had been bled dry by the Russo-Japanese War, whose treasury and armaments were dry, and whose many peoples were restive, if not revolution-minded. Nicholas’s fellow monarchs — many of them blood relatives — were not fooled by his fig-leaf desire for a confab, but most countries had their own motives for attending. Peace was not a prime motive, in most cases.
The underwriter for much of the conference might have been as forlorn as the dove in J. S. Pughe’s cartoon. Andrew Carnegie, then the richest man in the world after J. P. Morgan’s acquisition of the steel empire, was a lifelong pacifist, and found many ways to spend many dollars. He was aware of behind-the-scenes machinations of uniformed monarchs, but braved on. Neither was he deterred by charges of hypocrisy by those who noted that much of his steel business had profited by massive production of battleship armor and steel for weaponry.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1907-05-29
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
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:
Caged. [May 29, 1907]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o285751. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Pughe, J. S. (John S.), 1870-1909. Caged. [29 May. 1907]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 26, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o285751.
APA:
Pughe, J. S. (John S.), 1870-1909., [1907, May 29]. Caged.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o285751.
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.
