The rake’s progress

A group of men identified as “Land Grafter, Politician, Special Privilege, Timber Grafter, Mineral Grafter, Public Utilities, Corporation Lawyer, [and] Tariff Grafter” sit around a table getting Uncle Sam drunk on “Stand Pat Dope” mixed with a drink from a large punch bowl labeled “Our Natural Resources.” They are smoking “Vanity Perfectos” and two men, “Land Grafter” and “Timber Grafter,” are working together to pick Uncle Sam’s watch from his pocket. In the lower left corner, Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich are pouring the “Stand Pat Dope” into his drink. Caption: “For he’s a jolly good fellow!”

Comments and Context

Almost week after week, in the pages of his magazine Puck, Udo J. Keppler proved himself as one of the great political cartoonists of his time. As Puck was aging and gradually losing circulation, his influence waned, yet that neither diminished the brilliance or force of his cartoons, nor the value of his work to future researchers.

The value of political cartoon is often weighed by what it “says” but does not picture — the difficult construction of subtexts and implied statements — as much as what is obvious, and made more obvious with labels, captions, and tags.

In this cartoon, for instance, it is to be noted that Keppler was among reformers and Muckraking journalists who realized immediately that trusts were challenged and dissolved, and blatant corruption was checked by laws, courts, and public opinion — but that graft shifted to other platforms.

Since the high-water mark of exposures and prosecutions and legal actions against trust magnates (most actively in 1906), large-scale and audacious corruption turned its attention to what the reformers called “grifting.” Targets were often public lands and resources, and corrupt businesses found ways to “play the system,” find loopholes in federal land grants and national conservation efforts, and hide behind false companies and foundations. “Grifters,” cartoonists called them.

Two important distinctions should also be notices. All the “bad actors” but two small figures are generic plutocrats. The politicians are the Speaker of the House and and the “boss” of the United States Senate — Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich, respectively — and as leaders and Republicans were as culpable as any in abetting grifting schemes. But for the most part, it is the “system,” not individual politicians, who Keppler singles out.

Another note for history to notice: as with many cartoons of the Roosevelt years, when political cartoonists praised the policies and practices of the federal government, they invariably chose Roosevelt himself to praise, to depict in a good light. When the government was to be criticized, or shown as guilty of missteps, cartoonists often depicted Uncle Sam, not the president, as here.

This general tendency was not attributable to partisanship. Puck, for instance, was generally Democratic in its sympathies and support through the years. This tendency said as much as the policies of President Roosevelt as it did any fair-mindedness of opinion journals.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1908-07-08

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