Mr. Willet essays an adventure as happy hooligan with vastly similar results

In the first section of this cartoon, President Roosevelt hits a woman labeled the “Republican side of Congress” with his “Secret Service” message big stick. He says, “I’ll teach you that I’m boss here.” In the second section, the woman takes her “rebuke” broom and hits Roosevelt on the head. She says, “You’ll hit a lady, will you?” New York Representative William F. Willett watches from the doorway and says, “De lady needs help.” In the third cartoon, Roosevelt goes to hit the woman with his big stick again, saying, “I’ll fix you for that.” Willett punches Roosevelt in the face: “Gargoyle, unhand dat lady.” In the fourth cartoon, the woman holds a broom and watches Willett with stars around his head. She says, “Wretch, how dare you interfere in a little family affair.” Willett says, “Dat’s like a woman all right.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The Boston Record provided posterity with a facet of the explosive Secret Service controversy between President Roosevelt and the Congress of the United States. What began as a presidential request that Congress expand the charter, duties, and budget of the Secret Service beyond protecting the president and chasing counterfeiters. Changing conditions in American life required a federal agency that could conduct investigations. Congress summarily refused Roosevelt’s request — actually the proposal and dismissal became a virtual cycle — and there was an escalation of earnest rhetoric, intemperance, imputations of corrupt motives, insults, and finally, in Congress, interminable angry debates and a resolution of censure.

As long as this controversy lasted — months — cartoonists wrung every seeming nuance from the dispute, from comical to the realm of Constitutional crisis. But Representative William F. Willett, Democrat of New York, provided another sidelight, and it was in fact colorful evidence of how poisoned the well of Congress was at the controversy’s height.

Among angry speeches and motions on the floor of the House, Willett attacked Roosevelt in terms so personal and extreme that he was ordered to sit down. The House promptly voted 126 to 78 against allowing him to continue. Subsequently the House expunged the speech from the Congressional Record for “language improper and in violation of the privileges of debate.”

Willet’s words therefore are obscured, but cartoonist Louis R. Linscott — in a parodical adaptation of a typical episode in the Happy Hooligan comic strip — graphically preserved the situation. Congress and the president somehow were satisfied with the intensity of their spat, but, like the hapless hobo, his intervention backfired.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-12

Creator(s)

Linscott, Louis R. (Louis Roscoe), 1876-1966

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