“Whereat I was much cast down”

President Roosevelt leans against a tree with a rifle smoking in his hands looking dejected as a goat labeled “Harriman” bounds away. Caption: “Whereat I was much cast down.” — T. R., “Hunting Big Game.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Occasionally Theodore Roosevelt’s breeding and education opened him up to public jesting, not quite ridicule. When he dressed as a fancy “dude” and spoke with an affected accent in the New York Assembly, it was a subject of jest on the floor and in cartoons. As a rancher joining his cowboys during a cattle stampede, he urged others to “hasten forward quickly there,” and so forth.

The prolific writer occasionally employed such “elegantisms.” One that was current in his day, virtually forgotten today, is a phrase from one of Roosevelt’s hunting collections. In recounting an unsuccessful chasing of prey, he wrote “…whereat I was much cast down.” It was not the parlance of rough-hewn hunters around a campfire.

Cartoonist W. A. Rogers, formerly of Harper’s Weekly but at this time the daily political cartoonist of the New York Herald, imagined a moment of in Roosevelt’s pursuit of railroad monopolist Edward Henry Harriman, the target of presidential ire at this time. The robber baron avoided jail, to be sure, but suffered some real criticism and epithets at the hand of Roosevelt.

The president did not exactly secure Harriman’s hide, and he probably “was much cast down” as a consequence, or so imagined Rogers.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-09

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

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