Feeding wild bears–Yellowstone Park
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Bears
The twin cubs–Yellowstone Park
Feeding the bear–Yellowstone Park
A park bear-Yellowstone Park
Colorized postcard showing a close-up of a bear at Yellowstone National Park. The number designation on the front indicates the postcard is part of a series.
Collection
Creation Date
Unknown
News and notes
This section of the journal covers twelve topics including a brief report on the 1998 annual meeting which saw the conferring of the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal to former President George Bush and his wife Barbara Bush. It also highlights a revival of the play Bully! starring actor John Davidson, the results of a survey of historians rating twentieth-century presidents, and the opening of an exhibition on Theodore Roosevelt at the National Portrait Gallery. “News and Notes” also discusses whether Roosevelt believed in the legend of a Sasquatch or Bigfoot creature, relays news from the The Friends of Sagamore Hill cooperating association, and notes the launching of a Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) website. The section closes with a listing of the members of the executive committee of the TRA along with the members of the Board of Trustees classes of 1999, 2000, and 2001, and with a text box indicating that this issue of the journal is dedicated to P. James Roosevelt.
Five photographs of President Bush at the annual meeting appear in the section.
News and Notes……..
This edition of “News and Notes” highlights some of the ceremonies marking the 125th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s birth. It details some of the content and arguments put forth in Paul Schullery’s American Bears: Selections from the Writings of Theodore Roosevelt, provides a report on the donations and finances of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) for fiscal year 1982, and reviews a colloquium on historic preservation held at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. The column also covers Roosevelt birthday celebrations in Buffalo, New York, and Tampa, Florida, the annual meeting of the committee overseeing the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University, and the TRA Public Speaking Contest for the New York public high schools. The column concludes with a notice about the Centennial of Medora, North Dakota.
A photograph of Selwa Roosevelt and the logo of the Medora, North Dakota, Centennial appear in the column.
Collection
President Roosevelt, addressing the Groton Preparatory School: “Now, boys, don’t be molly-coddles”
President Roosevelt points at a sign that reads, “The Strenuous Life: bears I have met, boxing lessons I have taken, what I know about fencing, mountain lions I have devoured, what I know about jiu jitsu, band men from the Bad Lands I have met, powder I have smelt.” Six boys, including one holding “The Strenuous Life,” look at teacher Roosevelt. Caption: President Roosevelt, addressing the Groton Preparatory School: “Now, boys, don’t be molly-coddles.”
Collection
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Creation Date
1904-05-28
The bear has one, too
President Roosevelt and a bear labeled “Russia” look at one another. Roosevelt holds a “protest agains the Kishineff massacres” while the bear holds up a “protest against lynching in the United States.”
Comments and Context
As President Theodore Roosevelt and his Administration sought means effectively to protest the pogrom in Kishinev, Moldova — where Tsarist forces killed almost fifty Jews and injured hundreds — he was acutely aware of a wave of lynchings in the United States, and his obligation to respond… and, perhaps, address the similarities.
Of course, the national Administration did not sanction nor encourage lynching, but state governments did, and so did some prominent politicians, like Senator Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman of South Carolina.
Cartoon in the Washington Post
President Roosevelt looks at a large bear labeled “Russia” dressed in military attire. Roosevelt holds a protest behind his back.
Comments and Context
The context of this cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman, halfway through his tenure at the Washington Post (1896-1907, after which he became a Washington fixture, drawing for the Star) is the Kishinev Massacre by Tsarist forces in Moldova. Almost fifty Jews were killed, and hundreds injured in what the world regarded in horror as a pogrom.
The cartoon makes no reference to the massacre (unless the keeper of the White House scrapbook carelessly excised it) or, in, fact any event, issue, or personality. Typically for a Berryman cartoon, it purported to illustrate a situation or headline, with no specific criticism or advocacy.
Under the trees at Oyster Bay
President Roosevelt talks on the phone as he sweats profusely. A boy puts a telegram on his desk that reads, “Telegram: Pres. Roosevelt: ‘Bears on the run in Druid Hill Park: Killed one Monday.’ Police Sergt. Smith. Baltimore.” Secretary of War Elihu Root is followed by “department clerks,” bearing “important business” papers. In another section of the trees are “Hoi polloi with cameras and curiosity.” Finally, a group of “office seekers with recommendations and hopes” walk toward Roosevelt. Caption: The president is enjoying a much needed rest.
Comments and Context
Walter Bradford drew this cartoon in his best emulation of a John T. McCutcheon theme and various figures. It would seem to suggest a major point, perhaps about office-seekers, or the particular demands of Secretary of War Elihu Root, or frustrations borne of news about a the shooting of a bear (an occasional pastime of President Theodore Roosevelt) not long after the incident that gave birth to the Teddy Bear legend.
In fact it was a garden-variety, summer-vacation cartoon, merely illustrating Roosevelt’s possible distractions at a time when presidents, and most of official Washington, tried to enjoy leisure. The cable about the bear has no more interest than a local reference to an incident in Druid Hill Park, in Baltimore, home to Bradford’s newspaper.
The bear—”Why not refer your little difficulty, gentlemen, to my court of arbitration at The Hague?”
Secretary of State John Hay and President Roosevelt argue with one another over a scroll of paper labeled “Kishinev Massacre protest.” A bear labeled “Russia” stands in the doorway. Caption: The bear—”Why not refer your little difficulty, gentlemen, to my court of arbitration at The Hague?”
Comments and Context
The general revulsion against the Kishinev Massacre in Moldova, at the hands of Tsar Nicholas’s Cossacks — a reported forty-nine deaths and six hundred in juries — was shared by President Theodore Roosevelt. That it was part of a series of repressive acts against ethnic minorities in Russian provinces, and democratic activities, did not mitigate the demands for reprisals against the Russian Court.
American Jews were understandably outraged by the pogrom, and pressured the government to, at least, register a diplomatic protest. Roosevelt was informed by the American ambassador at St. Petersburg that Russia would, formally, not “receive” such a protest — an act of diplomatic impertinence that offended the president.
The President’s trip–as Brer’ Bear sees it
Brer Bear looks at a panther and another bear. Caption: The bear–The president just wants to see us and we just want to see the president–I don’t see as our case needs to go to The Hague.
Comments and Context
This cartoon by “Bart,” reprinted in an Ohio newspaper from the Minneapolis Journal, has significance beyond its tepid humor. It appeared in the middle of a very long presidential “swing” through the upper Midwest and Plains, vast parks and American wilderness, and major addresses to be delivered in the Pacific Northwest. Eventually he proceeded to California, Kansas towns like Salina, Nebraska, the Grand Canyon, attending Cheyenne, Wyoming’s Pioneer Days, and through Illinois to Washington. Mixing business and pleasure, President Roosevelt also had an eye on exposing himself to the public in advance in the next year’s presidential election.
Having just reacquainted himself with the Badlands of his cattle ranching days, including speeches in Dickinson and Medora, North Dakota, on the day this cartoon appeared Roosevelt entered Yellowstone Park. The bears’ discussion presumably addresses the president’s touring, and not hunting, agenda — atypical for the nation’s most famous hunter.
Treed!
President Roosevelt holds a rifle and aims at a “presidential aspirations” apple in an “Ohio” tree that a bear–Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna–happens to be in. Hanna says, “Don’t shoot! I’ll come down.” There is a sign in the background: “Private grounds. Keep off!” Caption: The president’s got a bear at last.
Comments and Context
This political cartoon by Walter R. Bradford was drawn early in his career, after drawing humorous panels for Life Magazine, and become a frequent contributor to Socialist publications. In Baltimore he also drew for the International Syndicate, which distributed his cartoons to radical outlets.
The genesis of this cartoon was the recent capitulation by Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna, who was obliged by circumstances engineered by his in-state Republican rival Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, to issue an early endorsement of President Roosevelt’s reelection, or, by declining, to appear as a party mutineer.
Chop with care
“Congress” uses a “resolutions” hatchet to attempt to cut into “the president’s message” tree stump. Hiding in the stump is a bear in the shape of President Roosevelt.
Comments and Context
Perry James Carter was a political cartoonist who was known and beloved in the upper Midwest in his, and evidently was content to stay put, in the manner of the great Billy Ireland ( Columbus Dispatch) who said that his ambition was not to break into the New York market but continue to be accepted in Chillicothe (Ohio). Albert Shaw, who wrote cartoon histories of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, said Carter’s work was “of higher average merit than those of any other cartoonist at home or abroad.”
Treed!
President Roosevelt holds onto a branch as he eyes a “third term” bear higher up on his branch.
Comments and Context
Theodore Roosevelt, the famous sportsman, pictured in a desperate situation one-on-one with a bear — the hunted, not the hunter. Seldom in a cartoon, or in life, mostly, was Roosevelt in such a situation as depicted by cartoonist C. R. Macauley.
What will he do at the end of the canyon?
A “third term” bear chases President Roosevelt into the “national convention 1908” canyon.
Comments and Context
Cartoonists of the day, when pairing Theodore Roosevelt and bears, usually depicted bears as getting the worst of encounters; or, perhaps, shown as cuddly prototypical teddy bears of the stuffed variety. But Claude Maybell of the Democratic Brooklyn Eagle, routinely a cartoonist of mundane concepts, here broke molds of the craft and his own limitations.
Wall-st. bear: “He certainly is a great hunter!”
President Roosevelt holds a rifle on his right shoulder and a bag labeled “off to Louisiana” and walks away from four bears hiding behind a “Wall Street” sign.
Comments and Context
A fascinating, and historically valuable, aspect of political cartoons, beyond their insights into contemporaneous events they address, is how the better cartoonists could be prescient — presenting and forecasting important trends, movements, and forces.
Strange news from Oyster Bay
Three secret service men and a bull dog quietly walk away from a house on Oyster Bay saying, “Hush!” “Don’t make a noise, he’s asleep!” “Sh-h-h-h!! He’s sleeping” and “He is asleep!” Inside the house the following noises are made: “Z-z-z-z!! Bzzz! Z-z-zoch!! Z-z-z! B-z! B-z-zip! Bz-z!” Caption: “‘A live bear has taken up his home in the woods on Sagamore Hill, and in the early hours this morning he paid a visit to the home of President Roosevelt. Secret service men hastily organized a hunting party. The hunt lasted until 6 o’clock. The bear got away. It is the belief that it has been living here for several days.’ — Extracts From a News Item From Oyster Bay.”
Comments and Context
Cartoonist Ralph Wilder, the stylistic disciple of John T. McCutcheon in Chicago, humorously illustrated a news item on a slow-news day in the mid-August of President Roosevelt’s long vacation in Oyster Bay. If a bear was in the vicinity, and did in fact escape the notice of the nation’s most famous bear hunter, Wilder confused the issue by drawing bear tracks that look like human footprints.
“He doesn’t study us; he only hunts us.”
President Roosevelt is on the hunt as a bear, a sheep labeled “the weakling,” and a rhinoceros labeled “new finance” run away while an octopus wrapped in a tree and a bull stay out of the way. In the background is a “muck rake” and a goat labeled “E.H.H.” on a mountain, “reserved for scape-goats.”
Comments and Context
W. A. Rogers is a singular figure in American political cartooning. He never was a facile cartoonist or caricaturist, and his concepts seldom were persuasive; that is, the cartoons only mildly attacked or supported men and movements. For the most part he was more an editorial cartoonist, illustrating events and situations rather than attempting persuasion. This is one reason his cartoons illustrate more reference works today than many of his fellows. Yet he was highly regarded in his day, and worked for years at Harper’s Weekly and the New York Herald, substantial publications.
Merely another nature fake
A bear labeled “Taft,” a wolf labeled “Fairbanks,” a fox labeled “Cortelyou,” and a cat labeled “Knox” chase a “Republican nomination” bunny into the “T.R.” tent. Beside the tent is a gun, a “big stick,” and a cowboy hat.
Comments and Context
The redoubtable T. S. Sullivant, a cartoonist admired by contemporaries and later generations of cartoon scholars, hit closer with his trademark depiction of animals than the concept of this cartoon. The political-cartooning portion of his career, roughly 1904-1910, was devoted to the daily editorial pages of newspapers in the Hearst chain. Those newspapers have been insufficiently preserved and studied, and therefore Sullivant’s work of these years largely is unknown.