Seeing the old year out
A group of formally-dressed men gather around a table for a banquet, as an old man labeled “Lost Reputation” departs and a cherub labeled “1906” arrives.
Comments and Context
This is not a random group of men at a New Year’s banquet pictured by Joseph Keppler Jr. At year’s end, the double-page cartoon in Puck is another comment on the consequential news event that was the long-running and far-reaching New York State investigations into the insurance industry.
All the morose diners are members of the major insurance companies exposed for various misdeeds, or politicians who did their bidding. Notable are New York Senator Chauncey M. Depew, a willing go-between from the Equitable offices to the Senate (his paper, “a few remarks,” refers to his alternate career as an after-dinner speaker and raconteur; he even wrote two books about humorous speeches); Richard A. McCurdy, president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company; George Walbridge Perkins, wincing in front of the fireplace, a board member of the Equitable and right-hand man to J. P. Morgan, a major funder and adviser to the Progressive Party 1912-1916, and prominent in the Rockefeller-led Palisades Park Commission and Lamont science enterprises; John A. McCall, president of the New York Life Insurance Company; James H. Hyde, the prissy playboy heir to the Equitable Life fortune, who was embroiled in a society scandal at this time; Benjamin B. Odell, recently retired New York governor, basically honest but tarred by his party’s involvement with the insurance trust; Andrew Hamilton, who was what today we would call a lobbyist for the insurance industry, who was “untouchable” in Europe during the inquest, but making a surprise appearance and impassioned defense of his friend McCall; and New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt, the “Easy Boss” in control of state politics for two decades. In the rear, commiserating (maybe trying to escape?) are Francis Hendricks, the New York State Commissioner of Insurance, who opened this can of worms by calling for investigations; and James W. Alexander, the president of Equitable.
