There’ll be no core

A Republican elephant holds an “postal irregularities” apple to its mouth as a Democratic donkey looks on and salivates.

Comments and Context

Clifford K. Berryman betrayed a partisan tilt, or least agreement with a Republican of view in this political cartoon that addressed the burgeoning Post Office scandal. 

There was a passage in Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer Abroad — “There’s plenty of boys that will come hankering and groveling around you when you’ve got an apple and beg the core off of you; but when they’ve got one, and you beg for the core and remind them how you give them a core one time, they say thank you ‘most to death, but there ain’t a-going to be no core” — that, if not original with Twain, was popularized by him and was used in countless ways over succeeding generations. It was a clever to indicate that a party had no willingness to share.

Such was the case with the Republican elephant in Berryman’s cartoon about the rapidly spreading Post Office scandal in 1903. The Administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, which had inherited the passel of revelations, acted as quickly and decisively as it could… at least in the perception of Democrats who might have hoped to gain political capital.    

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-22

Creator(s)

Berryman, Clifford Kennedy, 1869-1949

Language

English

Period

U.S. President – 1st Term (September 1901-February 1905)

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