Ring Master Roosevelt: “I think we would have a better show if we didn’t have that white elephant”

President Roosevelt stands in front of the Republican elephant and looks at Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna. To the right of the Republican elephant is a white elephant—”Post Office scandal.” Caption: Ring Master Roosevelt: “I think we would have a better show if we didn’t have that white elephant.”

Comments and Context

Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna was by no means the only, or major, political figure tainted by the burgeoning Post Office scandal in 1903. Yet the cartoon depicts him for two reasons: he was implicated in revelations about his seeking favors (postal distribution deals and rebates of charges) dating back to 1900; and at the time of this cartoon’s publican he was chairman of the Republican National Committee. Any scandals, of course, could redound on the party (Roosevelt himself was never implicated, although many Republican office-holders and bureaucrats were).

The cartoon is notable as a very early example of Gorge McManus’s work. He drew his first awkward cartoons — note the insertion of a photograph instead of a caricature for Roosevelt’s face — for the St. Louis Republic, a Democrat paper, and evidently was noticed by the paper’s major Democrat rival, the Post-Dispatch. McManus was hired… to draw, however, for its publisher’s New York City outlet, Joseph Pulitzer’s World.

McManus thereafter devoted himself to comic strips, creating an array of popular series, including one of the first daily strips in American newspapers, The Newlyweds. He achieved such popularity that he was persuaded to switch papers and draw for William Randolph Hearst’s New York American and his chain of papers (cartooning staffs routinely were raided by rival publishers at the time). Among McManus’s creations for Hearst was the classic Bringing Up Father, a major success that he drew until his death in 1954.       

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-27

Creator(s)

McManus, George, 1884-1954

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