Uncle Joe returns

Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon stands on a platform with a suitcase that has a “Panama” label waving as he looks ahead and sees two men fighting, an elephant and an “Ananias cup.” The words “willful untruth,” “$5,000,000.00 conspiracy fund,” “You coughed up everything,” “deliberate untruth,” “brainstorm,” and “blame it on Loeb” appears from the kerfuffle.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Between the fifty-ninth and sixtieth Congresses — in both of which he served as Speaker of the House — “Uncle Joe” Cannon embarked on a tour of the Caribbean and Panama. It was highly unusual that a member of Congress at that time would undertake an independent diplomatic or fact-finding mission. It was widely assumed, or at least speculated, that Cannon was burnishing credentials and doing homework for a planned presidential campaign in 1908.

In fact it was only an exotic vacation to some friendly environs, as revealed by the Speaker upon his return, when he shared toys and trinkets for his grandchildren with eager reporters. He treated their interest as a joke, and indeed despite frequent suppositions that he aspired to the presidency, he seemed content to wield comparable power in public affairs from the Speaker’s chair.

Cartoonist Jack H. Smith had fun with the gaggle of kerfuffles in Washington, not implying that Cannon would have been responsible or able in some way to keep a lid on controversies, but many tempests in the capital’s teapot boiled up during his absence. A guide to some disputes he identified: President Roosevelt boxing with Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, “untruths” among the verbiage employed by the president against Edward Henry Harriman, “Ananias Cup” — Roosevelt’s metaphorical trophy for men he branded as liars, named for the First-Century Christian who lied to the Apostles about tithing. (Foraker’s opponent, in Smith’s crude drawing, might well be the portly William Howard Taft, the fellow Ohioan against whom Foraker contended for the 1908 presidential nomination; although Roosevelt had his own spat with Foraker over the Brownsville Affair involving the cashiered regiment of soldiers in Texas.) The “Five Million Dollar Conspiracy Fund” was an alleged fundraising goal of Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania, railroad magnate Harriman, and others, to oppose Roosevelt policies in the upcoming party platform, and to support the former Roosevelt cabinet member Philander C. Knox to those ends (Knox disavowed knowledge and participation in the scheme). The plan, if it ever were real, unraveled when a drunken speech at a banquet divulged all the details.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-04-09

Creator(s)

Smith, Jack H., -1935

Language

English

Period

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

Repository

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

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