Roosevelt bears make a Christmas visit

The distinctive teddy bears make a visit to Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, who is dressed up in Christmas pajamas. There is a picture on the wall that says, “Yours Truly Dick” along with a toy soldier with the numbers “23 + 2” on it.

comments and context

Comments and Context

When cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman of the Washington Post drew an innocent observational cartoon about President Roosevelt refusing to shoot a captured bear on a Mississippi hunt, the subsequent fame of the drawing resulted in Berryman (and other cartoonists) adopting a little bear as a “mascot” in their drawings, and the creation of the plush-toy Teddy Bear still beloved by thousands of children.

Berryman often fell back on depicting a swarm of bears either delighting or tormenting political figures — here, at the expense of Senator Joseph Benson Foraker. This Christmas day cartoon commemorates the Brownsville Incident of the previous year. Near an Army base in south Texas, a bartender was killed and a policeman wounded in an incident whose further details are obscure even today. Members of an all-black regiment, the twenty-fifth, were suspected in the incident, but when no one came forward with any sort of report of the evening, Roosevelt discharged the entire one hundred sixty-seven man regiment. Controversy ensued.

Ohio Senator Foraker, a Republican who had clashed with Roosevelt since the latter’s Civil-Service Commissioner days in the 1880s; and was an intra-party rival of Marcus Alonzo Hanna and William Howard Taft, made a public crusade of defending the black soldiers. There were ugly confrontations between Roosevelt and Foraker, most memorable at the putatively closed-door Gridiron Dinner of journalists and politicians. As late as the Richard Nixon Administration, the regiment received pardons and, mostly, posthumous honorable discharges.

Berryman’s limited abilities as a caricaturist are evident in his technique, common with some artists, of copying a realistic face onto a smaller body in a humorous setting. Here, the child’s pajamas are supposed to be funny (as he is dismayed by romping reminders of Roosevelt instead of other toys); but a lone black toy soldier in the foreground bears the legend 23+2. Presumably that is a joke — 23 for “23 Skidoo” (skat!) and the extra two forming 25, for the twenty-fifth regiment.

After he left the Post, Berryman spent the majority of his career drawing for the Washington Star.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-25

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