Aldrich, Nelson W. (Nelson Wilmarth), 1841-1915

A large man labeled “Monopoly,” standing behind a panel and reaching around with his right arm, holds a diminutive figure labeled “Aldrich.” Aldrich is pointing to an image labeled, “What will happen if the Tariff [crossed-out] Currency [added] Bill is passed,” that has been projected onto the panel and shows a lean wolf prowling among the ruins of industrial buildings, banks, and homes. Uncle Sam, sitting in the foreground, his attention drawn by Aldrich, ponders the image. Caption: The Man Behind – He fell for it for twenty years on the tariff; maybe we can work it on the currency.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-11-05

Joseph Gurney Cannon hands a shoe labeled “Stand Pat” to J. S. Sherman, who is shining shoes labeled “Conservatism, Reactionary, Special Privileges, [and] Vested Interests.” Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, peers through an open door.

Comments and Context

During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, immense shifts of public opinion occurred throughout America. On myriad issues — trusts, corruption, reform, foreign policy — their were titanic changes in all classes and all parts of the country. It was a time of major changes in the economy, in immigration, in socialization, in manners and morals, and whether Roosevelt managed the fluid attitudes of America, or was propelled by them himself, is a question whose answer likely is “a combination of both,” yet the president was proud that he anticipated aspects of potential social unrest and acted in ways that prevented them from becoming crises.

Society might have changed in may ways, but in corners of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, Roosevelt dealt with limits to his persuasion. “Reactionaries” and “Stand-Patters” stood their ground on matters like high tariffs and conservation, only reluctantly yielding to Roosevelt’s reforms. Their numbers were decreasing, as “insurgents” in the House and rebellious reformers in the Senate grew in numbers.

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.

Several Republicans with presidential aspirations and/or delegates to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, and a young boy holding a pillow labeled “Stand-Pat Press,” stand around “Stand-Pat” King Canute on the seashore with cliffs at their back, as he commands the rising tide of “Tariff Revision.”

Comments and Context

Samuel Ehrhart returned to Puck’s political-cartoon pages with a standard use of the King Canute legend, frequently employed by cartoonists; it was a misuse, actually, because the real story of Canute is not that the king tried to command the waves to recede, but to illustrate to his court that his powers were not unlimited.

In any event Ehrhart had a chance to reconnect Puck with partisanship, as it had been addressing generic issues with force but without regard to party positions or specific personalities to this point in the 1908 campaign. In this cartoon, the king is a generic figure but his retinue is, exclusively, high-tariff Republican proponents from the Senate and House.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, Theodore Roosevelt is passing the pike of “Policies” to William H. Taft, as “The New Mahout,” sitting on the “G.O.P.” elephant. Seen through the left lens of Roosevelt’s spectacles, labeled “Before Taft is Nominated,” are James J. Hill, J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas Fortune Ryan, John D. Rockefeller, Edward Henry Harriman, Joseph Gurney Cannon, Joseph Benson Foraker, and Nelson W. Aldrich looking very somber. Seen through the right lens labeled “After Taft is Nominated,” the same group is cheering. In the lower right, Roosevelt refuses another curtain call. On the lower left he offers “Taft Bitters” to a cowboy. Across the bottom is Roosevelt’s familiar toothy grin.

Comments and Context

Forsaking harsh criticism of the Republican Party, or President Roosevelt or the imminent nominee William H. Taft, the nominally Democratic magazine Puck instead had it cartoonist L. M. Glackens devote this Convention Issue’s centerspread drawings to topical humor and light commentary.

Cleverly framing the genre cartoons in a motif of Roosevelt’s trademark pince-nez spectacles and toothy grin, Glackens perhaps subconsciously wished to hold on to cartoon icons as long as possible before Roosevelt retired.

Moses, holding the Ten Commandments, is confronted by an angry mob of capitalists, businessmen, and politicians, some shaking their fists at him. Caption: Chorus of “Conservatives” – Dangerous, socialistic, un-American doctrines!

Comments and Context

This powerful indictment of endemic corruption at the upper levels of American society was drawn by Udo J, Keppler, whose father Joseph (founder and chief cartoonist of Puck) had addressed the same issues with classic drawing like They Can’t Stand the Light, showing United States Senators shrinking from spotlights in the dark. But his son’s cartoon — of this evergreen subject — encompassed more than political corruption.

In fact only four of the major, identified figures are national politicians; the majority are business leaders, a magazine editor, and even a university president. Keppler unwittingly reinforced the view that lawlessness and compromised morality had spread throughout American life.

A group of Republicans try to push, pull, and coax the “G.O.P.” elephant to jump a hurdle on a race course. William B. Allison stands on the far side of the hurdle. Philander C. Knox is pulling the elephant’s trunk. William P. Frye, Nelson W. Aldrich, Stephen B. Elkins, Joseph Gurney Cannon, and Eugene Hale are pushing the elephant, which is being ridden by a plump man labeled “Stand Pat,” wielding a whip. The hurdle has four bars, the lowest labeled “Cost of Living 1896,” the next “Cost of Living 1900,” then “Cost of Living 1904,” and the highest “Cost of Living 1908.”

Comments and Context

The “High Cost of Living” has been a perennial bugaboo of politicians and icon of cartoonists through the years. In the administration of Woodrow Wilson, and especially in the two years following the Armistice ending World War I, the issue was paramount. It often was manifested by an impossibly tall and thin dour character.

In any period of price inflation, and especially by the party out of power at the moment, the cost of living was a tempting issue.

A group of senators (labeled Aldrich, Frye, Spooner, Penrose, Tillman, Bailey, Foraker, and Elkins) dressed as Native Americans perform a war dance around a totem pole with the face of President Theodore Roosevelt carved at the top. A drum labeled “The Press” is in the foreground while “Tom” and “Chauncey” stand in the background. Caption: Recent despatches from the Washington reservation report that the Senator Indians are again on the war path.

Comments and Context

Udo J. Keppler — after his father’s death known as Joseph Keppler, Junior — was an owner and chief cartoonist on Puck magazine. Rather neglected by history, and not as celebrated as his father, he arguably was the better artist, and a potent editorialist. During the first decade of the century, while the venerable Puck went downhill in circulation, the political viewpoints of Keppler and his staff evolved from conservative Democrat to Rooseveltian reformist to insurgent to radical-progressive.

This cartoon is more observational than tendentious, but allowed the artist to display his utter mastery of anatomy, as well as his affinity for Native American customs and lore. He and another Puck cartoonist, Will Crawford, developed an interest in Indian tribes and their status. Keppler became an advocate before his retirement around 1915, until his death in 1956. He was active with the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Nation, who named him an honorary chief. So this cartoon was informed by, and by no means ridiculed, Indian rites.

The “Tariff Reform” ship is mired in a sea of ice, around which are many glaciers in the shape of the heads of Joseph Gurney Cannon, Leslie M. Shaw, Nelson W. Aldrich, and Joseph Benson Foraker. Other glaciers are labeled “Trust” and “Monopoly.” The “Philippine Free Trade” ship has wrecked on a large block of ice labeled “Protected Trust” and only the hull remains. Survivors from “Tariff Reform” drag a sled labeled “Mass. Revisionists” up a mountain labeled “Stand Pat,” toward a rainbow labeled “Fair Trade.”

Comments and Context

One cartoon can pack a lot of history and details of a vital historical controversy. In this case, cartoonist J. S. Pughe addressed the progress of (or challenges to) tariff reform, which had been a burning political issue for more than a generation in the United States.

Since the Civil War and America’s subsequent Industrial Revolution, northern states and the Republican Party generally favored high tariffs on imported goods. This morphed somewhat into arguments that “infant industries” be protected. There were geographical and partisan defections from the sides of the issue, which contributed to the frustrating course of rate schedules and reform efforts. In 1888, President Grover Cleveland devoted his entire Annual Message (the only single-theme in the history of State of the Union  messages) to the Treasury surplus and its major source, high tariffs. Cleveland considered government surpluses immoral.

A man labeled “Protected Monopoly” lies on a bench in an Egyptian temple next to a large bloody sword labeled “Closed Mills” with which three man, labeled “Labor,” have been slain. Each lies next to papers labeled “No Orders the Prices Come Down, Cancelled Orders, [and] Consumer Balks.” At one end of the temple are the faces of “Sherman, Aldrich, [and] Payne.” In the distance are factories.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-02-15

Joseph Gurney Cannon leads a procession including Nelson W. Aldrich, Joseph Benson Foraker, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Leslie M. Shaw who are carrying the golden ark of the Dingley Tariff, with figures labeled “Trust, Infant Industries, [and] Protected Monopoly” bowing as it passes.

Comments and Context

Approximately a decade had passed since the last major revision of tariffs in the United States, when Puck Magazine published this scathing cartoon by Udo J. Keppler. It depicted the sacrosanct regard for high tariffs among Republicans and industrialists (trusts), and specifically the inviolability of the Dingley rates. Those schedules took effect in 1897 after a major Depression during the second Cleveland administration, and prosperity returned, punctuated by good weather, record crop yields, the war with Spain, and a presidential assassination. The five years of President Roosevelt saw unprecedented prosperity.

To an extent high tariff rates were responsible, but not in the minds of powerful Republicans. In Keppler’s drawing, the kneeling figures are generic, and those bearing the ark of the covenant all are senators, excerpt for Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, and Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw.

The “G.O.P.” elephant holds a tambourine labeled “Stand Patism” and hands out free baskets labeled “Tariff Graft” containing a turkey, duck, or chicken to ragged figures labeled “Coal Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Wool Trust.” A long line of trust figures await their turn. Joseph Gurney Cannon, Nelson W. Aldrich, Joseph Benson Foraker, and Leslie M. Shaw appear in women’s clothing as the “Republican Salvation Army” singers, singing “There are no flies on Dingley.” A man labeled “Protected Monopoly” stands in the foreground, at the edge of the platform. Caption: Distribution of Christmas goodies by the Republican Salvation Army.

Comments and Context

Politics occasionally did intrude in holiday issues of Puck as this centerspread cartoon by J. S. Pughe attests. The Salvation Army was a relatively new force in 1906, but there had been urban missions and soup kitchens in lower Manhattan for generations. Pughe’s venue is a larger auditorium than might have been typical of a Salvationist Christmas food charity, but other stereotypes are there: music with a tambourine, female singers with bonnets sharing their sermons in song.

The cartoonist’s attacks are seen in the graphic subtleties: an obscure “small dealer” — that is, an individual entrepreneur — squeezed between two angry trust magnates; a fancy spat and shoe peeking from under a mogul’s pant-leg; similar kid glove and diamond jewelry on the “downtrodden”; and the hymn praising Dingley. Three leading Republican senators, and Treasury Secretary Leslie M. Shaw bleat the gospel of high tariffs.

An analysis of the arguments for and against Cuban Reciprocity made by various Senators.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-12

President Roosevelt asks Joseph Bucklin Bishop to give his opinion about Roosevelt’s policies and actions. He comments on speeches that he has given and the reactions of various members of Congress. Roosevelt goes on to discuss the tariff question and provides his opinions on the matter. He also mentions the reaction of the press to his response to labor issues surrounding the Union Pacific Railroad.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1903-04-27

President Roosevelt writes to his son Kermit to tell him that after reading his letter, Edith is okay with inviting Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ferguson to travel abroad with the family. Nick and Alice returned from their honeymoon trip and Ethel is now moved into Alice’s room. Cousin Sheffield Cowles has the measles and Roosevelt is going to visit although his eye is bothering him. Roosevelt says that he has been working very hard and has a hard time with passing the rate bill, the Philippine tariff bill, and some of his nominations in the Senate. Archie and Quentin went to a dog show.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1906-03-04

Nelson W.Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller appear as dark-skinned men wearing skirts labeled “Gold Dust.” Aldrich stands on top of a replica of a building labeled “Stock Exchange” and holds up a replica of the U.S. Capitol building. Rockefeller stands on the ground next to him, holding up an oil can labeled “Standard Oil” and a wallet stuffed with money. Uncle Sam stands to the left, in the foreground, stroking his beard, with a concerned look on his face. Caption: (You might as well, Uncle. They’ll do it, anyway.)

Comments and Context

The seemingly curious depiction of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller as little native boys is explained by the background of the cartoon. This was a parody of the popular, now obscure, brand of cleansing powder, Gold Dust Cleanser. Cartoonist J. S. Pughe clearly thought that calling the Senator and the tycoon “twins” was dispositive — and the implication presented by the word “gold.” The composition of the drawing is taken straight from a Gold Dust magazine advertisement drawn by E. W. Kemble, an occasional Puck cartoonist.

The title of the cartoon is a rare bit of resignation in Puck. It is cynicism at the fevered height of the Insurgent, pre-Progressive Era.

A large man labeled “Big Shipper” appears as a blacksmith holding a diminutive man labeled “Small shipper” on an anvil labeled “The Rail Road” and striking it with a hammer labeled “Rebates.” On the floor at his feet is a pile of coins labeled “Illegitimate Profits,” and eager schoolchildren (Nelson W. Aldrich, Chauncey M. Depew, Thomas Collier Platt, and others) gather at the entryway hoping to “catch the burning sparks that fly like chaff from the threshing floor.” Includes verse.

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Udo J. Keppler appeared only two weeks before the passage of the Hepburn Act, the long-awaited, intensely contentious, law that granted the Interstate Commerce Commission power to review and cap railroad rates; extending regulatory jurisdiction over lines and competition; and eliminated rebates and free passes. The Hepburn Act technically was a group of amendments to the toothless Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.

Its passage revolutionized fairer commerce and let small railroads establish themselves and compete, especially in under-served areas of the United States, which in turn spurred further development of the continent’s farming and small manufacturing activities.

Theodore Roosevelt, as the infant Hercules, fights large snakes with the heads of Nelson W. Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller.

Comments and Context

Once again Puck harkened back to classical mythology for a cartoon inspiration. In fact from its first days in the mid-1870s the magazine required of its readers a basic familiarity with mythology, opera, and Shakespeare, for its frequent allusions.

The significance of Frank A. Nankivell’s cover cartoon goes beyond an assumption that readers knew about the story of Hercules. There are no labels, going against the norm for cartoons of this era. Readers would be expected to recognize President Roosevelt, but researchers of subsequent times will note that neither Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island (the Senate’s powerful boss) nor Standard Oil’s John D. Rockefeller, are identified. Their faces were familiar to all, and so were the relative positions of power and friction among the three.

Nelson W. Aldrich appears as a large spider on a cobweb labeled “Senate Committee Room” spread between the U.S. Capitol and a “Standard Oil” tower, on which several flies labeled “Anti-Trust Bill, Free Alcohol Bill, House Bill, Philippine Tariff Bill, [and] Legislation Needed” have landed.

Comments and Context

Nelson W. Aldrich was not the most senior member of the United States Senate, but by wily tactics, ability, and connections he clearly was the most powerful in the Republican-dominated Upper House during the administration of President Roosevelt. From his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee he managed to affect virtually every piece of legislation that passed (or did not) through the Senate.

That power, regarded by many politicians as sinister, is reflected in this cartoon by J. S. Pughe. “Where bills went to die” was a lament of Democrats and insurgent (reformist) Republicans. Yet Aldrich was a different kind of Reactionary, or “Stand-Patter,” or Old Guard stalwart, as borne out by his record subsequent to the time of this cartoon. For instance, he co-sponsored the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1910, which reinforced high duties and was soundly rejected by some commercial interests, in the end, as well as voters: subservience to trusts that backfired on his party. After the Panic of 1907, he helped create a commission that studied, long-term, currency reform.

President Roosevelt stands on one side of a scaffold, holding a large sculpted arm with a huge stick labeled “The Big Stick” for placement on a large sculpture of a female figure labeled “Inter-State Commerce Laws.” On the other side of the scaffold is a man labeled “The Rail Road” directing Nelson W. Aldrich, Stephen B. Elkins, and Joseph Benson Foraker to use instead a much smaller arm labeled “Delay” and “Fines.” Caption: A difference of opinion as to what will fit the lady.

Comments and Context

J. S. Pughe’s cartoon is one of the cleverer uses of the Big Stick as an icon during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. The depiction of four men against his lone self is also a fair representation of the opposition Roosevelt faced.

There were mighty forces opposed to railroad rate legislation, and more than railroad interests: there were many trusts and related industries that profited from the railroads’ power to control rates and routes, to favor or destroy small competitors. In fact some members of House of Representatives advocated more extreme measures than the president thought just (or, more, practical to get through Congress). Of course the senatorial Old Guard, here represented by Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, Joseph Benson Foraker of Ohio — virtually a constant thorn in Roosevelt’s side — and Stephen B. Elkins of West Virginia; all them under the watchful eye of their boss, a railroad magnate. They easily handle a small statue’s arm, with harmless balloons inn its hands.