A group of men identified as “Land Grafter, Politician, Special Privilege, Timber Grafter, Mineral Grafter, Public Utilities, Corporation Lawyer, [and] Tariff Grafter” sit around a table getting Uncle Sam drunk on “Stand Pat Dope” mixed with a drink from a large punch bowl labeled “Our Natural Resources.” They are smoking “Vanity Perfectos” and two men, “Land Grafter” and “Timber Grafter,” are working together to pick Uncle Sam’s watch from his pocket. In the lower left corner, Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich are pouring the “Stand Pat Dope” into his drink. Caption: “For he’s a jolly good fellow!”
Comments and Context
Almost week after week, in the pages of his magazine Puck, Udo J. Keppler proved himself as one of the great political cartoonists of his time. As Puck was aging and gradually losing circulation, his influence waned, yet that neither diminished the brilliance or force of his cartoons, nor the value of his work to future researchers.
The value of political cartoon is often weighed by what it “says” but does not picture — the difficult construction of subtexts and implied statements — as much as what is obvious, and made more obvious with labels, captions, and tags.
