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President Roosevelt is at the front of the pack in a bicycle race that includes Secretary of State Elihu Root, Woodrow Wilson, former U. S. Minister to Austria-Hungary Bellamy Storer, Senator Isidor Rayner, Perry Belmont, and Secretary of War William H. Taft.
Comments and Context
The awkward but popular artist W. A. Rogers was a longtime book illustrator and political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, Life, and the New York Herald. This cartoon, from the end of 1906, depicts a wide assortment of figures in the news, apparently associated only by their prominence in momentary headlines — and therefore vying with President Roosevelt for headlines.
In the symbolic bicycle race (as these sporting events were becoming popular with fans) Roosevelt seems angry with Elihu Root, but in real life they were the best of friends (the famous Root was one of the endorsers of young Roosevelt’s entry into politics in 1881) and Root served as Secretary of State under President Roosevelt. Root was widely discussed at the end of 1906 for his advocacy, as yet theoretical, of radical reforms. So, however, was Roosevelt, who was glad to share the criticism that erupted.
The embarrassing kerfuffle with Bellamy and Maria Storer, erstwhile patrons of Roosevelt whose reluctant appointment of Bellamy to a diplomatic post in Vienna was seized upon by them as an opportunity to pursue their private ends. Roosevelt, after many efforts to constrain them, dismissed Bellamy from the diplomatic corps; the couple’s public whining embarrassed them, rather than the president. The affair was still fresh when this cartoon was published — showing Storer on the outside track, behind Roosevelt and other celebrities of the moment.
Neither were the other cyclists serious threats to Roosevelt’s leading position in the race for public prominence; least of all Secretary of War William H. Taft, at the rear, but the corpulent Taft, shy about the spotlight, was assured of a sort of victory: Roosevelt had anointed Taft as his favored presidential successor.
A face that will interest researchers is that of Woodrow Wilson, drawn by Rogers as close behind Root in the “Prominence Sweepstakes.” Wilson was then president of Princeton University, but had pushed himself into the news, even if the presidency seemed a remote dream. He was a published historian; the editor of Harper’s Weekly magazine, George Brinton McClellan Harvey, openly promoted him for a political career. Wilson was engaged in reforms in Princeton’s academic structure and student life (losing his battles with the Board and alumni), and attracted attention in 1906 with a speech to the Democratic Party’s Jefferson Day dinner wherein he paid lukewarm obeisance to Jefferson and broke with conservative Democrats on future policies.
At first consideration of the cartoon and its caption, readers might assume a connection with the popular phrase “23 Skidoo” that arose around this time. But “hoodoo” was a term of putative African, Creole, Caribbean superstitious mixed origin, related to “voodoo,” meaning bad luck or hidden danger — the “Hoodoo Corner” being a dangerous turn or moment in race tracks.
The number “23” on Storer’s back, and on the stands, also has obscure origins in several phrases, similar to “Hoodoo” and its coupling with “23 Skidoo” (one popular legend cites the winds that whipped around the Flatiron Building on Manhattan’s Twenty-Third Street, and a warning to ladies and their skirts). But in many races, beginning in British horse-race tradition, twenty-three post positions were the maximum in a race, and therefore its assignment was the most challenging to contestants. The writer George Ade so claimed in a Washington Post interview, October 22, 1899.
Theodore Roosevelt, in life or in cartoon allegory, routinely won any competition for attention.
Collection
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Creation Date
1906-12-16
Creator(s)
Rogers, W. A. (William Allen), 1854-1931
Language
English
Period
U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)
Page Count
1
Production Method
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:
The hoodoo corner. [December 16, 1906]. Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o301381. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Rogers, W. A. (William Allen), 1854-1931. The hoodoo corner. [16 Dec. 1906]. Image.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. February 13, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o301381.
APA:
Rogers, W. A. (William Allen), 1854-1931., [1906, December 16]. The hoodoo corner.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o301381.
Cite this Collection
Chicago:
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-manuscript-division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. February 13, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-manuscript-division.
APA:
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-manuscript-division.
