“The ugly duckling!”

Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, Secretary of State Elihu Root, Secretary of War William H. Taft, and Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon — all depicted like chickens — and a large mother hen labeled “Roosevelt’s policies” squawk at a duck depicting Philander C. Knox in the pool of “states’ rights.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

If Philander C. Knox was not an ugly duckling in the Republican Party of his day, his close relationship with Theodore Roosevelt made him an odd duck in Roosevelt’s circle.

In fact Knox was the quintessential establishment Republican — conservative, tied to corporate interests, “Old Guard.” As a lawyer he helped draft the enabling papers whereby Carnegie Steel was acquired by J. P. Morgan. Later in his career, under President William H. Taft, he was an architect of “Dollar Diplomacy,” and frankly contended that American capitalists and corporations should have a determinative role in the formation of foreign policy.

Yet, as Attorney General (agreeing to remain in the cabinet at Roosevelt’s request after President William McKinley was assassinated) he pursued the new president’s agenda, for instance bringing suit against the Northern Securities Company, and other anti-trust actions. In this sense he shared the praise that Roosevelt accorded Elihu Root, another legal mind whose personal views were less “reformist” than the president — excellent attorneys who served their clients, in these cases the president and the nation.

Nevertheless, Knox (like Root) had a sense of humor and a comfortable relationship with the president to tweak him at times, for instance when he advised Roosevelt “not to let the acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone be tainted by legality.” In similar fashion, the president once wished aloud to a senator that he desired a legal mind like his in the cabinet. The senator, surprised, reminded Roosevelt that he had two of the best legal minds and Constitutional scholars already in the cabinet — Knox and Root. “Yes,” Roosevelt supposedly replied, “but they don’t agree with me.”

It was in that regard that cartoonist Kessler likely depicted Knox as an “ugly duckling” apart from Roosevelt and other presidential aspirants: Knox the conservative was less of a federal-powers advocate of the day, when the Executive branch increased its sway, and the Regulatory State was born. (On the other hand, putative nominees like Joseph Gurney Cannon at least were closer to state’s rights doctrines than was Roosevelt.)

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-27

Creator(s)

Kessler, Camillus

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