Those troublesome Indiana “Beveridges”

In the first cartoon, a “Beveridge” bottle with a label “not to be uncorked” sits on a shelf labeled “Republican National Committee.” An animal points down at it saying, “They certn’y have missed a treat.” Roosevelt goes to pour another bottle labeled “Burrows” into the “temporary chairmanship” goblet and says, “Ugh!! They’ve opened the wrong bottle.” In the second cartoon, Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks looks at a goblet and says, “Buttermilk for my beverage.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Ole May made two unconnected points in this drawing — except for the puns on the name of Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana — both in reference to the news of the week.

As the Republican National Convention was being organized and but weeks away, the question of who would be temporary chairman was still open. The position was more than ceremonial; that person greets delegates, makes the keynote speech, and confirms matters of organization. The permanent chair, ironically, usually is little more than a presiding officer. One of Theodore Roosevelt’s first splashes on the national scene was his successful fight, as a 25-year-old virtual unknown, to have John Roy Lynch, a black Mississippian, named as temporary chair of the 1884 Republican National Convention.

Roosevelt was retiring from the presidency. Whether he was sincere about that decision, or whether he would yield to public pressure and accept another nomination, were hot topics every day since his declination in 1904 — yet he was determined to affect the course of the convention — and the Republican Party — until the last moment. Such was his nature, it could be said, but in many ways elements within the party were in virtual open revolt against the president, his policies, and his legacy. Thus there was an active tug-of-war beneath the surface of Republican politics of the day.

A major flash-point was the temporary chair, as a symbol of the factions’ strength, and as a real guiding hand in the unfolding convention activities. At the time, the delegates had more power, and until the last minutes, than delegates in subsequent times — for instance, the vice-presidential choice.

There was pressure within the party to name an Old Guard figure — that is, a relatively anti-Roosevelt partisan — and backing for a colorless figurehead devolved upon Senator Julius C. Burrows of Michigan. His political career began as a campaigner for Abraham Lincoln, and he quietly rose through the ranks of the House and Senate to heights of bland anonymity and reactionary power. For months, President Roosevelt quietly but persistently lobbied against Burrows, for instance in letters to National Committee Chair Harry S. New (letter of March 6, 1908) and Henry Cabot Lodge (June 15) and others.

Roosevelt argued that other names were more deserving, more strategically sound, more representative of party policies, all to no avail. Potential willing candidates like Charles Evans Hughes simply did not press their own cases; and the president’s favored suggestion, Senator Beveridge, faced too much opposition, both as a progressive, and within his own state (for instance, from “Stand-Patter” Charles W. Fairbanks, the vice president). 

In the end, Roosevelt lost this battle, and Burrows was named. Typically, the president did not retire from the field of battle, and successfully lobbied for Burrows’s keynote address to sublimate its opposition to Roosevelt’s favored rural postal reforms, among other points of contention.

In the second panel of May’s cartoon, he uses the internal friction between Indianans Fairbanks and Beveridge to make a visual pun. Fairbanks was a notable prohibitionist. Inevitable in the cartoons of Pittsburgh cartoonists of the time (including Will DeBeck and Charles M. Payne), a raccoon mascot offers commentary in a corner of the cartoon.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-05-20

Creator(s)

May, Ole, 1873-1920

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