Cabinet measurements of 1901 made public

President Roosevelt looks on as members of his 1906 cabinet laugh at papers with the heading, “Storer.” One chair is empty, and there are pictures on the wall of Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith, Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long, Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage, and Attorney General Philander C. Knox, all from 1901.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This political cartoon by Clifford Kennedy Berryman, with its typically awkward depictions of public figures, addresses not the general composition of President Roosevelt’s cabinet, although it was within a week of this cartoon that Oscar S. Strauss succeeded George B. Cortelyou as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the latter moving to the Treasure portfolio.

It rather has to do with the denouement of a protracted and embarrassing contretemps between Roosevelt and erstwhile friends and political sponsors, Bellamy and Maria Longworth Storer of Cincinnati. The wealthy Storers of Cincinnati, friends of William H. Taft of their city, had a home in Washington, D.C., where they hosted friends like Taft when he was President Benjamin Harrison’s Solicitor General. They attached themselves to Taft’s friend Theodore Roosevelt, too, when he became Civil Service Commissioner in 1889.

Roosevelt, though financially comfortable, faced a challenge if he had to maintain two homes, one in Oyster Bay, Long Island, for a growing family. The Storers offered their Washington home to the Roosevelts. As a gift during his tenure, Roosevelt could not accept and even was embarrassed by general terms from the Storers. The couple maintained a cordial relationship in subsequent years.

Friends as they were, when Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency in 1901 they not very subtly sought a return on their investment. Seeking a cabinet secretary’s seat for Bellamy (the denial of which prompted the references to “1901” in Berryman’s cartoon), they ultimately settled for a bone, a diplomatic posting to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Not satisfied, the ambitious and super-Catholic Maria lobbied President to, in turn, lobby the Vatican for a cardinal’s hat for her favored Catholic prelate back in the United States. Roosevelt considered the request — which continued with increased pressure — highly improper in every way, as well as impractical. Maria persisted; the president instructed her to cease, she went public with her expectations; Roosevelt instructed Bellamy, informally and then by formal diplomatic channels, to muzzle his wife. The last two White House communications actually were ignored by the Storers. Roosevelt, properly incensed, removed Storer from his post.

Maria yet persisted — now in a vendetta against Roosevelt. The couple went public about the affair, and published years’ worth of correspondence designed more to show their largesse and Roosevelt’s supposed ingratitude than his hostility to the Church. What was an annoyance and a time-consuming embarrassment turned out to be a public humiliation of the Storers as spiteful and petty (and virtually illiterate letter-writers).

The controversy, and its happy denouement, ended in 1906, commemorated by cartoonist Berryman. There were collateral victims, so to speak, of the Storers’ presumptuous scheming: besides their history with Taft, they were blood-relations of Theodore Roosevelt’s new son-in-law, Representative Nicholas Longworth of their Congressional district.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-13

Creator(s)

Berryman, Clifford Kennedy, 1869-1949

Language

English

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Page Count

1

Production Method

Printed

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