Your TR Source
President Roosevelt writes to his son Kermit and describes his trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he gave a speech that he says caused the Stock Market to go down a few points. Roosevelt also attended a banquet with Gloucester fisherman.
1907-08-21
Investors are drowning in rough seas labeled “Wall Street” and “Speculation,” and a top hat labeled “Ingenuous Investor” is caught in a whirlpool labeled “Iron and Steel Trust.”
The story behind this cartoon was one of longer and more serious complication than a short-lived panic, actually the first Wall Street “panic,” as opposed to actual economic depressions. It was a case of wealthy financiers struggling, and small companies and individual investors getting crushed as they wrestled. James J. Hill, the railroad magnate, partnered with J. P. Morgan for regional rail monopoly in the United States northwest, but were countered by financier Jacob Schiff and Edward H. Harriman, who by circumstance of acquisitions was a railroad baron himself, controlling the Union Pacific. Harriman attempted a stock raid, weakening the position of smaller railroads, leading to sell-offs, failures, and a general Wall Street panic, the first of its kind. When the dust settled, Hill, Morgan, and Harriman agreed to combine and form the Northern Securities Company. The ugly effects of the 1901 panic, as much as “bigness” of the Northern Securities Company itself, is what led to the Roosevelt Administration’s anti-trust suit the following year, a fact infrequently noted by history.
John A. Gable opens this edition of “News and Notes” by quoting from the notice placed in the New York Timesby the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) upon the death of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. He notes the recent work of biographers, historians, and journalists on Theodore Roosevelt, and he details some of his work as Executive Director of the TRA, giving lectures to high school students, taping a cable television program on Roosevelt, and conducting tours of Youngs Cemetery and Sagamore Hill. Gable highlights the support of the Pizza Hut restaurant chain for the Roosevelt Genealogical Project.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1980
A man labeled “Stock Manipulation,” wearing top hat and tuxedo, rests one hand on a deck of “Marked Cards” and the other on a stack of gambling chips next to “Loaded Dice” and a wheel labeled “Brace Roulette.” The playing table is labeled “Wall Str[eet].” Behind him are money bags and papers labeled “Fiduciary Funds, Treasury Deposits, Other Peoples’ Money, Bank Loans, [and] Pools.” Standing in the foreground and looking up at the man is a diminutive man holding his “Savings” behind his back.
As Puck Magazine evolved or matured, it grew more radical. This generally was within the drift of the major parties and the public, as reflected in political platforms and editorial opinion. A component of its commentaries were rejection of the corruption and malign political influence of big business, monopolies, and those whom President Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth” with inordinate influence on politics and the economy.
On the left, anxious businessmen are gathered around a ticker tape machine, reading the ticker tape. On the right, anxious gamblers are gathered around a roulette wheel, awaiting the outcome. Caption: If it is legal to gamble in Wall Street, why isn’t it legal to gamble in the West Forties?
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1912-08-28