Nursie shows off baby

President Roosevelt looks on as Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich holds a “currency bill” baby with a “business interest” toy in its hand. Aldrich says, “Isn’t he cunning?”

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Isn’t he cunning?” In fact, President Roosevelt’s answer to this cartoon representation’s question might have been “breathtaking.” But since the Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, leader of the Senate and Republican reactionary, is the nanny, it would be assumed that Roosevelt would have a cautious reaction.

The Wall Street Panic, during which the stock market lost fifty per cent of its value, was only a few months old. It largely was solved — or settled, avoiding a larger economic depression — by Aldrich’s ally J. P. Morgan, and Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasure, George B. Cortelyou. The president, for whom economics was never a strong suit nor interesting topic, was indeed cautious in endorsing legislation being prepared by Aldrich.

Senator Aldrich’s proposals carried forward the philosophy of the Administration’s financial experts (including Cortelyou’s predecessor Philander C. Knox) and were meant to accelerate a closer relationship between the federal government and the banking system. In two ways a radical paradigm shift was taking place, and Roosevelt’s tepid endorsement might have had their origins in the fact that events were overtaking his own policy prescriptions, not a frequent nor comfortable position for the assertive Roosevelt.

The first notable aspect is that a larger governmental role in the economy — first steps toward planning some aspects — started to close an ironic circle, with moneyed interests and socialists finding common ground. The second notable aspect is that the fallout, or accelerated proposals, after the Panic lived long afterward. Aldrich pushed his currency reform proposals, insurgents and progressives in Congress added banking and monetary policies to their agendas, Aldrich and others, for instance at the famously secretive Jekyll Island conference, conspired to overhaul the American economic system — leading to the Federal Reserve System and Constitutional amendment; various programs of Woodrow Wilson’s “New Freedoms” program, and even the New Deal’s tighter control of the American economy.

Roosevelt, depicted as uncomfortable in this cartoon, was indeed unsure about the direction of “reforms” in the hands of people like Aldrich. Indeed, he would noticeably have little to say about the Federal Reserve System when it was created a few years in the future. He did, however, recognize duplicity when he saw it, and there was much he judged culpable among the wealthy industrialists and bankers. It is interesting to note how restrained he was in explaining his views in several letters to the Boston financial figure Henry Lee Higginson when the latter remonstrated over the president’s reform efforts. Higginson was a relative of Roosevelt’s first wife Alice. It is possible that his soft and patient tone might have been sharper but for that connection.

The cartoonist for the North American drawing was Walter Hugh McDougall, a pivotal figure in American cartooning history, and whose life slightly intertwined with Roosevelt’s. As a boy of Roosevelt’s precise age, he occasionally played games in Oyster Bay with “Teedie” and relatives when that Long Island town was still a remote vacation spot of New Yorkers. In 1884 McDougall drew cartoons for the New York World that were extremely influential in the president election of Grover Cleveland and the defeat of James G. Blaine; commentators linked such cartoons and young Roosevelt’s notable hesitancy to endorse Blaine, as factors in the tight election result.

McDougall, remaining with Joseph Pulitzer’s World, drew some of the very first color cartoons in American newspapers. Thereafter he produced political cartoons for many newspapers, early Sunday strips with many characters like Peck’s Bad Boy and the Wizard of Oz, and freelance humor cartoons and children’s stories. Usually a Democrat in his advocacies, this cartoon was draw for Edwin A. Valkenburg’s Philadelphia North American, a staunch progressive organ supportive of Roosevelt.

McDougall began his memoirs with an article in the first issue of H. L. Mencken’s American Mercury magazine, continued and published the following year (1925) in the book This Is the Life!

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-15

Creator(s)

McDougall, Walter Hugh, 1858-1938

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