Making things hum

In the first cartoon, President Roosevelt looks at a sagging doll labeled “the campaign” and says, “Positively anaemic. I must some life into it!!” In the second cartoon, Roosevelt has an “idea”: “Eureka! I’ll try a little Roosevelt oxygen. The very thing.” In the third cartoon, Roosevelt grabs a bucket and runs into the room: “We shall see, what we shall see!” In the fourth cartoon, Roosevelt uses a syringe to pump oxygen into the doll’s arm. The doll responds, “Huh?” as Roosevelt says, “in a ‘minnit’!” In the fifth cartoon, the doll jumps out of the chair as Roosevelt uses a stool to protect himself: “Dee-lighted!! Perfectly corking time!!” Caption: “The campaign has been dead. I wanted to put some life into it.” –President Roosevelt.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The quotation that forms the title, or caption, of the political cartoon by Oscar C. Chopin is like a cartoon itself; that is, a sentiment imputed to President Roosevelt, not a literal quotation. If he never said it or committed it to print, there were few doubts that the words characterized his thoughts. Most observers thought the 1908 presidential campaign was moribund, and Roosevelt’s desire to enliven it reflected his well-known impulses, but also served his concerns that candidate William H. Taft’s lassitude might snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The sequence reflecting Roosevelt’s desperate machinations are humorous and, given the hyperbolic nature of cartoonists’ license, fairly close to reality. The president did not have to concoct schemes or serums or inventions, however, after William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers broke the prototypical Muckraking scandal of Standard Oil’s influence peddling and political bribes. The Archbold Letters (correspondence between the trust’s president and various politicians) were inflammatory on their own, but when William Jennings Bryan defended his party’s treasurer, Charles Nathaniel Haskell, despite damning documentary evidence of corruption, Roosevelt jumped into a daily campaign that had been transformed by colorful controversy.

Bryan soon asked for his associate’s resignation and leveled charges at Roosevelt, which also withered in the sunlight of the president’s savage defense. That the Taft campaign was vivified largely without Taft’s participation was rather typical of his amiable personality and his inexperience at retail politics.

Chopin displayed humor and inventive conceptualization in this cartoon. The St. Louis native had moved to San Francisco to draw for Hearst’s Examiner shortly after the famous earthquake two years earlier. Unlike many of the famous Hearst cartoonists who gained national fame after the publisher transferred them to New York, Chopin drew all of his career in California, for some years also on Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-09-24

Creator(s)

Chopin, Oscar C. (Oscar Charles), 1873-1932

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