“There they blow”
Subject(s): Bryan, William Jennings, 1860-1925, Harpoons, Hearst, William Randolph, 1863-1951, Presidents--Elections, Taft, William H. (William Howard), 1857-1930, Whales, Whaling
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William Randolph Hearst holds a harpoon labeled “Independence League” in a small boat labeled “The Comic Supplement” with two cartoon characters in pursuit of two whales that have the faces of William Jennings Bryan and William H. Taft.
Comments and Context
After the virtual takeover of the Democratic Party in 1896 by the restive Populist Party and its hybrid politician William Jennings Bryan, there were few candidates as radical as Bryan, beyond former Populists like Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, or Socialists like Eugene V. Debs. One figure who could be more radical on some issues, and was variously a boon and a nettle to Bryan and radical Democrats was New York newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.
Hearst parlayed his father’s fortune (silver mines and other mineral and land investments) to support the Free-Silver candidacy of Bryan in 1896, virtually the only big-city newspaper or chain to do so; and immediately became a major Democrat oracle. As Hearst added newspapers across American to his chain, he added political ambition. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives (1903-1907), but failed in attempts to be president of the United States (1904) and governor of New York (1906). He and his papers uneasily supported Bryan through these years, including upon Bryan’s return from a worldwide tour in 1906, when the latter’s continual presidential aspirations were in doubt. Hearst likely had the most support in the party, after Bryan; but when Bryan announced his determination to run a third time for the White House, Hearst shed his ambiguous support of Bryan. Hearst had also resented the fact that Bryan exhibited scant support in Hearst’s previous failed campaigns.
So in 1908 Hearst “went off the reservation” and formed a third party — decidedly and publicly effecting a political divorce from Bryan and the Democrats. He declared that he himself would be a candidate for public office again, but he established the Independence Party.
That the party was doomed to fail was never in doubt, but Hearst thought it important to make a statement, and to be a thorn in the Democrats’ side. Until his death in 1952 Hearst remained a nominal Democrat — but very frequently also remained as a thorn in the side of Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, the League of Nations, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New Deal and various Democratic positions.
His Independence Party’s presidential candidate in 1908 was Thomas Higsbee of Massachusetts, a business who had tangled with Standard Oil. John D. Rockefeller and his oil trust were prominent punching bags of reformers at the time — executives under indictment; governmental calls for dissolution — and Hearst’s party could fairly be called an anti-Standard Oil movement.
In the middle of the campaign, the Hearst papers — “yellow journals” that muckraked with the most crusading of the magazines — exposed two politicians who had taken bribes from Standard Oil: Republican Senator Joseph Benson Foraker of Ohio and Democratic Governor Charles Nathaniel Haskell of Oklahoma. Foraker apologized and was condemned by President Roosevelt; but Haskell was recalcitrant, and was not criticized by candidate Bryan, further cementing Hearst’s enmity.
As the Quixotic whaler caricatured in the L. M. Glackens cover cartoon cartoon in Puck, Hearst directs his “crew,” who are stars of his famous Sunday comic supplements — Der Captain, from The Katzenjammer Kids; and Happy Hooligan. Among his many dreams and substantial accomplishments in American popular culture, the birth and nurture of the comic strip and comic supplements are among the most enduring. And they were tempting fodder for cartoonists who sought easy targets for trivialization of political ambitions.
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1908-08-19
Creator(s)
Glackens, L. M. (Louis M.), 1866-1933
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:
“There they blow”. [August 19, 1908]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o287098. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Glackens, L. M. (Louis M.), 1866-1933. “There they blow”. [19 Aug. 1908]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. February 19, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o287098.
APA:
Glackens, L. M. (Louis M.), 1866-1933., [1908, August 19]. “There they blow”.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o287098.
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 19, 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.
