“Git out!”

President Roosevelt peeks out of the “President’s Office / Army Affairs” at an old woman labeled the “meddlesome Senate.” She holds a bag: “Brownsville.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon by J. H. “Hal” Donahey carried a direct observation about the current political situation, but also spoke to a larger subtext that contemporary readers would understand, but posterity would not, immediately.

The sign “Army Affairs” and the old maid’s bag labelled “Brownsville” refers to the controversy about a melee purportedly involving a regiment of Army soldiers stationed near Brownsville, Texas, and nighttime violence in which a bartender was killed and another man wounded. Suspicions fell on the soldiers who were present, all of whom were black. The president asked for confessions, or, failing that, information about guilty parties. When no soldier offered any response, the president dishonorably discharged the regiment. That Roosevelt likely would have rendered the same justice with any soldiers, regardless of race, mattered little to critics, some black leaders, and Senator Joseph Benson Foraker of Ohio, who took up the soldiers’ cause. Foraker did so assiduously, for a long time, and in an almost personal manner against Roosevelt.

Speeches and hearings in the Senate persisted or, in Foraker’s hands, they were threatened. Hence the president’s angry exasperation as pictured by Donahey, almost two years after the incident.

The subtext of the cartoon also has to do with the president and the Senate, in a larger sense. In late March, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a Special Message to Congress. This was different from his Constitutionally mandated Annual Report (now called the State of the Union) of late December 1907 — more detailed in analysis of the nation’s needs, more specific regarding remedies, and more urgent than the annual message.

Roosevelt considered the speech an important clarion-call to action. But the Senate seemed deaf, and stirred itself to inaction. After two months the president blasted the “do-nothing” Congress, trying also to rally public support, and this was all in the mind of Donahey and his readers. The Senate could fiddle with the old Brownsville incident while it ignored his agenda.

Donahey’s drawing style was maturing at this time, to trademark elements of his cartoons, and aspects that inspired many of his contemporaries. He seldom used crayon for shading, as many of his fellow cartoonists were starting to do; rather his loose pen lines — often making background shading that provided backdrops, and unified the parts of the composition — floated as a stage backdrop might do. Donahey regularly enhanced his already excellent caricatures of the president with a T and an R in the spectacles. Spare touches of the pen gave texture to the porch and ground, filling an otherwise spare drawing. And, subtly, the thrusting angle of Roosevelt’s face, as much as the bared teeth, indicate his mood. And that is further reinforced by the surprised, backward tilt of the old maid. Only a few political cartoonists drew daily lessons, virtually, in composition and graphic conceptions. Among the few at this time were Jay N. “Ding” Darling, Charles Green Bush, Homer Davenport, and Frederick Burr Opper. J. H. Donahey was also at the head of this class.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-05-11

Creator(s)

Donahey, J. H. (James Harrison), 1875-1949

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