Cartoon

President Roosevelt holds hands with a woman clad in the Stars and Stripes. There is a paper on the ground that says, “Africa–$1 per word.” Caption: By-O, Baby Bunting,/Teddy’s goin’ hunting,/To get a nice, big lion skin/To wrap his stern ambition in./Although we balk at nature fakes,/From mouth to mouth it’s flyin’;/The biggest game he’ll ever take’s/The literary lion.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon was composed by an anonymous cartoonist (who declined to caricature President Roosevelt, although application of a photograph is not jarring), or perhaps the signature was sublimated in the montage.

The poetry is less accomplished than the president’s aborted drawn likeness, but its purport was to tweak Roosevelt, as other cartoonists were doing, on the prospect of a post-presidential vocation as a writer. Indeed it was exactly to be Roosevelt’s primary activity and source of income in the decade after he left the White House — in midst of safaris and explorations, campaigns and controversies — and actually a substantial calling. Before he left for Africa he had arranged with Charles Scribner’s Sons to write magazines articles and a book about that trip.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-02

Creator(s)

Unknown

Language

English

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Repository

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

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