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Edward G. Riggs discusses wagers that he would like to collect. He reminds President Roosevelt that Roosevelt owes him a “big red apple.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08-11
A Republican elephant holds an “postal irregularities” apple to its mouth as a Democratic donkey looks on and salivates.
Clifford K. Berryman betrayed a partisan tilt, or least agreement with a Republican of view in this political cartoon that addressed the burgeoning Post Office scandal.
There was a passage in Mark Twain’s book Tom Sawyer Abroad — “There’s plenty of boys that will come hankering and groveling around you when you’ve got an apple and beg the core off of you; but when they’ve got one, and you beg for the core and remind them how you give them a core one time, they say thank you ‘most to death, but there ain’t a-going to be no core” — that, if not original with Twain, was popularized by him and was used in countless ways over succeeding generations. It was a clever to indicate that a party had no willingness to share.
President Roosevelt climbs a wall to reach for the “presidential nomination” apple as Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna grabs his foot. Caption: Hanna: Hold on there, Teddy, I want that. You’re young and can wait.
History often forgets that the several times that vice presidents ascended to the presidency upon the death of their predecessors, there was no general assumption that the successor automatically deserved consideration as a candidate in the next cycle. In fact the contrary was the case, because vice presidents were often afterthoughts on tickets, chosen for geographical balance or political obligations.
Theodore Roosevelt desperately did not want to be known his “His Accidency” in his era, or by posterity. Of course he was well on his way to break precedent; he was widely popular, and was widely acknowledged as such by political insiders, not only by the public.
Four men labeled “Tracy, Saxton, Morton, [and] Schieren” appear as children fighting to be the first to get up a ladder labeled “Rep. Nomination” and reach a large apple labeled “New York Governorship.” Caption: The boy that gets the ladder is the boy that gets the apple.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-07-18
Uncle Sam, wearing a sombrero, stands beneath an apple tree where the apples are labeled “Hawaii, Canada, Cuba, [and] Central America,” with a large basket to catch the apples when they fall. Apples labeled “Louisiana, Texas, California, Alaska, [and] Florida” are already in the basket. Caption: Uncle Sam–I ain’t in a hurry; – it’ll drop into my basket when it gets ripe!
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-01-13
The illustration shows a bust portrait of a woman, facing slightly left, next to a “pippin” apple; a woman admired.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1914-10-31
Theodore Roosevelt requests that Dora and Thomas Watkins answer his letter. He would like Watkins to send some sweet crackers and promises to send some apples. Roosevelt feeds three cats and four dogs every day. He recollects that Watkins will be visiting on his birthday.
1868-09-03