Uncloaked

President Roosevelt uses “the spear that knows no brother” to take the “respectability” cloak off a “stock market gambler.” Caption: “There is no moral difference between gambling at cards or in lotteries or on the race track and gambling in the stock market.” –President Roosevelt’s Message.

comments and context

Comments and Context

On January 31, 1908, the day before this cartoon’s publication, President Roosevelt delivered to Congress what he considered one of the most important messages of his presidency. In those days it was not accepted practice for Chief Executives to address Congress in person — even for the Annual Message, today called the State Of the Union Address — and therefore this message was delivered, printed, and distributed to the press and public.

Roosevelt’s relations with the leaders of the Senate, despite them being from his own party, were soured to the extent that some messages were virtually ignored, or not read to the chamber. Roosevelt had approximately two months left of his incumbency, and the old guard was in open revolt against the reformer in the White House, his widespread national support to the contrary notwithstanding.

The president, however, devoted more attention to the address than he did to routine state papers — which was usually a great deal of care, preparation, and counsel. In equal parts he determined to summarize the substantial work and achievements of his seven and a half years in office; and to chart a course for the nation in subsequent years. The message, therefore, was longer than most, and addressed topics like workers’ injury-compensation legislation, further railroad regulation, and corporation oversight.

He took pains specifically to criticize stock-market speculation and practices of bankers, speculators, and “malefactors of great wealth” for moral turpitude. It was the not first time he aimed at moguls, but his words were sharpened in the immediate aftermath of the Wall Street Panic only months before. Roosevelt was not looking for scapegoats, as his criticisms and calls for reform had predated the Panic.

Cartoonist P. B. McCord provided an illustration of the president’s remarks, more than a traditional political cartoon. He emphasized Roosevelt’s criticism by depicting the stock market “gambler” in the flashy outfit of a cheap card-shark, relieved of his cloak of respectability by Roosevelt and his “sword that knows no brother,” via the words of the message.

That sword provides a little-remembered fact about Roosevelt. Posterity knows well his virtual compendium of colorful words and phrases — some invented, some popularized, all to illustrate points and vivify his policies. Bully Pulpit, Big Stick, Nature Fakers, Muckrakers, Mollycoddles, and indeed “Malefactors of Great Wealth” itself, were colorful terms that carried his earnest messages, and are still associated with him.

Yet “the sword that knows no brother” was a phrase frequently used by Roosevelt, and used in turn by cartoonists, editorial writers, and politicians during his lifetime and thereafter. It was meant by Roosevelt to mean a point of urgency and integrity, to aggressively be driven home. It has the redolence and flavor of an Old Testament allusion or utterance from a Greek epic or Shakespearean play; but it evidently was fresh from Roosevelt’s fertile resources.

In press and public it had currency as people described an action by Roosevelt; it served as a visual or rhetorical metaphor (as with the Big Stick), and was, predictably, occasionally turned to satirical effect. One such incident was recorded in the “tell-all” book about some of the barbs exchanged at annual Gridiron Club dinners — a predecessor of White House Correspondents’ dinners where inside jokes and political jesting was common.

In the 1915 book Gridiron Nights by Arthur Wallace Dunn, there was a record of a skit that touched on Roosevelt’s failed presidential campaign on the Bull Moose ticket. A speaker described the election as a fierce battle, in which Representative Nicholas Longworth, husband of Roosevelt’s daughter Alice, lost his reelection campaign as a Republican who did not endorse his father-in-law. After the battle had subsided, the speaker said, Longworth was among the casualties. How did that happen? “The Sword That Knows No Brother failed to recognize its son-in-law,” the speaker joked.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-01

Creator(s)

McCord, P. B., 1870-1908

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