The “Gridiron club”

President Roosevelt holds a hot gridiron and runs after Senator Joseph Benson Foraker who is escaping through the Senate door. Meanwhile, Edward Henry Harriman runs toward a train to escape Roosevelt.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Albert J. Taylor of the Los Angeles Times (about whom little is known; he was overshadowed by fellow art staffers like George Herriman, future creator of Krazy Kat) managed several clever puns in one cartoon frame when he addressed the imbroglio at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington D.C.

The club was a traditional gathering of politicians and journalists, and once a year they gathered for what a later generation would call a “roast,” off the record and full of humor.

The January 1907 dinner was full or acrimony more than humor, however, when President Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Joseph B. Foraker (R-Ohio) exchanged recriminations over Roosevelt’s dismissal of black troops after a murder incident near their barracks in Brownsville, Texas.

In the cartoon, Roosevelt wields a literal gridiron, red-hot and menacing; and the cartoonist calls it a “club,” a play upon Roosevelt’s famed “Big Stick.” Significant in the cartoon is the hurried and grateful escape of Edward H. Harriman — onto one of the railroad baron’s own cars — because at the time the routine recipient of Roosevelt’s wrath was Harriman, not Foraker. In exchanges over trust policy, railroad rates, and monopolistic practices, Roosevelt grew so vituperative as to brand Harriman an “undesirable citizen.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-02

Creator(s)

Taylor, Albert J. (Albert Jean), 1868-1927

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