Lens of public opinion

President Roosevelt looks at three men from the “lens of public opinion.” William Jennings Bryan says, “The president is carrying out all my ideas.” Representative William Sulzer says, “The president has taken up my policies.” William Alfred Peffer says, “The president is going in the right direction.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Joseph Harry Cunningham depicts President Roosevelt and three maverick politicians sizing each other up. The optics — literally, an absurd use of chart-graphics as might be found in textbooks — are rather absurd, and hardly relevant to the point of the drawing. Relevance to medical breakthroughs in optometry did not serve to elucidate the cartoon’s theme.

Its theme was this, as the politicians assayed each other: the second half of Roosevelt’s second term was the apogee of his reform agendas and progressive policies. Cartoonists and citizens noted his initiatives and proposals, of course. And so did politicians. There were Democrats, a bit tired of their perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who openly hinted that Roosevelt would be welcome in the Democrat Party.

Bryan himself wondered at Roosevelt’s “conversions,” and over proposals like a federal income tax and a federal tax on inheritance, the president might have been ahead of Bryan’s positions. William Sulzer, a Democratic congressman at the time, entertained reformist ideas, and went on to be elected mayor of New York City with the support of Tammany Hall in 1912, reject Tammany Hall’s participation in government, suffer impeachment as a consequence, and continue, somewhat successfully, in politics as a Republican and a Progressive. The third figure, William Alfred Peffer of Kansas, was a Republican turned Populist, elected to the Senate from Kansas.

All three figures, therefore, were reformers characterized as mavericks, regarding the president as, perhaps, one of their own kind.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-17

Creator(s)

Cunningham, Joseph Harry, 1865-1946

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