He’s good enough for them

Uncle Sam and President Roosevelt hold up their hands in support of William H. Taft.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Homer Davenport was one of America’s greatest political cartoonists, and in the front rank of the first generation of newspaper cartoonists, as the profession broke away from exclusive appearances in magazines.

For William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers in San Francisco and New York he drew powerful (often brutal and seldom “fair”) attacks on Republicans William McKinley, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, and Theodore Roosevelt. He also created the icon of the Trust, a frightening, soulless and slave-driving monster. For his efforts he was a favorite of Hearst, then a radical who distributed Davenport’s cartoons throughout his own chain of newspapers and any Democratic paper that would have them.

By 1904, however, Davenport left Hearst’s employ. A biographer states that the cartoonist had come to admire Theodore Roosevelt and could no longer be induced to draw cartoons attacking him. Indeed the cartoonist and the president even became friends; and when Davenport became interested in importing and breeding rare white Arabian stallions, Roosevelt assisted with onerous red tape.

He switched his home base to the New York Mail and Express, which printed his cartoons in the metropolis and syndicated them around the country. (This example from 1908 was clipped from the Tacoma City Times and pasted in the president’s White House scrapbook.)

Almost immediately after leaving Hearst, Davenport drew the most important political cartoon of the 1904 election, and one of the most famous in American history: “He’s Good Enough For Me,” Uncle Sam with his hand on President Roosevelt’s shoulder. It was printed on uncountable posters, buttons, advertisements, and postcards.

The simple, iconic cartoon was so effective that Davenport returned to it, for variations. In 1910 he drew it in the form of Uncle Sam greeting Roosevelt’s return from Africa and Europe; in early 1912 he again drew Uncle Sam endorsing Roosevelt, for the presidency that year. Many other cartoonists drew many other versions, most notably Robert Carter in 1916 — this time with heroic Roosevelt’s hand on Uncle Sam’s shoulder — hoping for Roosevelt’s nomination that year by the Republicans.

In 1908, Davenport spun his own variation, with a similar title, showing a beaming President Roosevelt as Uncle Sam and candidate William H. Taft march ahead together.

Davenport’s drawing style was always labored. He seldom avoided intricate cross-hatching, which was sometimes employed to substitute for realistic details or anatomical accuracy. He occasionally drew brilliant caricatures, but often relied on silver-print tracing of photographs, as with Roosevelt’s face in this cartoon; and then attached those likeness to awkwardly rendered bodies. An observer in the Review of Reviews magazine noted of Davenport that his “lack of technical training is at times apparent in his work. If the drawing sometimes seems crude, the idea is always apparent and the effect strong.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-10-14

Creator(s)

Davenport, Homer, 1867-1912

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