Bears

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. 

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

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

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

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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. 

“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

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.”

A photograph and caption show the skin of a bear that was shot in Africa that is ten feet long and six feet wide.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-08

Postcard from the “Busy bear” series highlighting Saturday as a day for mending clothes. Reverse of the postcard is stamped with an advertisement from the 1909 Indiana State Fair.

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1909

Postcard with color illustration of two teddy bears looking towards the ocean with beach buckets and shovels in hand. “What are the wild waves saying” is printed on the left side of the card. On the reverse, the sender asks her cousin, “how would you like to take a stroll with us?”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1908-09-03

Postcard featuring a color illustration of two teddy bears building a sandcastle on a beach. Above the image is printed “Having a nice time.” On the reverse of the card, the sender asks her cousin if he would like to join such a crowd.

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1908-09-03

Postcard titled “Busy bears on Friday.” A color image shows two bears baking in a kitchen.

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907-08

Forest green postcard featuring a white illustration of an adult-sized teddy bear and a cub walking to church. Postcard is titled “Sunday.”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907-08-11

Forest green postcard featuring a white illustration of an adult-sized teddy bear and a cub washing laundry. Postcard is titled “Monday.”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907-08-11

Forest green postcard featuring a white illustration of an adult-sized teddy bear mending clothes while a cub plays on the floor. Postcard is titled “Wednesday.”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907-08-14

Forest green postcard featuring a white illustration of an adult-sized teddy bear preparing an apple pie while a cub looks on. Postcard is titled “Thursday.”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907-08-04

Forest green postcard featuring a white illustration of an adult-sized teddy bear and cub cleaning a home. The postcard is titled “Friday.”

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907-08-16