Beggars

Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna, wearing a sign “Please help the poor,” and J.P. Morgan, carrying a model ship labeled “Leyland S.S. Lines,” stand at the end of a pier with the “Ship Yard” behind them. They hold out their hats, one labeled “For a shipping subsidy,” to Uncle Sam standing in front of the U.S. Treasury. An enormous ocean-going steamship, flying a banner “American built ships,” floats offshore in the distance. Caption: Uncle Sam. — You are already building up a monopoly without help; – why should I pay you a subsidy?

comments and context

Comments and Context

Dalrymple’s cartoon states well the widespread opposition to shipbuilding subsidies. Political rivalries, even within his own Republican Party, resulted in frustrations for Senator Hanna, who lobbied for Cleveland manufacturers. A rising tide of anti-monopoly sentiment likewise frustrated J. P. Morgan in his goal to dominate another business sector. The “McKinley Prosperity,” including bumper crops producing materials the world desired, encouraged efforts to increase American maritime trade and ships to convey goods to the world, and return with raw and manufactured goods. Public sentiment recognized that shipbuilders were doing quite well without government handouts. Morgan, always on the lookout for handouts if he could secure them, eventually, with complicated commercial and legal machinations, allied his interests with English firms and received subsidies from the British government. Included in his efforts was the cooperation of Bruce Ismay, later a survivor and vilified figure in the Titanic disaster, and the purchase of the White Star Line, which built the Titanic.

William Jennings Bryan, with a prosthesis labeled “Anti-Expansion” attached to the knee on his right leg, which is labeled “16 to 1,” walks with the aid of a wooden cane labeled “Populism.” In his left hand, he carries a small receptacle labeled “votes.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon is brilliant in its simplicity and iconography. Cartoonist Keppler executes a masterful caricature of a morose Democrat Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. The issue on which he was defeated four years earlier is the lame limb labeled with the slogan of Free Silver, 16 To 1. The prosthesis, 1900’s thematic hope of the Democrats, is a weak crutch labeled “anti-expansion.” Bryan had volunteered and was named a Colonel in the Nebraska National Guard during the Spanish-American War, so even those views were suspect. In a final touch, the cartoonist replaced the beggar’s tin cup with a traditional ballot box of the day.

Waves of veterans march through a memorial arch on “Decoration Day,” carrying banners that state, “We will continue to save the country, so long as there is a dollar in the Treasury” and “Army of Pensioners.” On the right, Uncle Sam is wearing tattered clothes and sits on a step with the U.S. Capitol in the background. He is holding out his hat labeled “Deficit” and a sign that states “I Am Busted.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-05-29

A fat man labeled “Monopoly” feasts on a large piece of meat labeled “Alaska Natural Resources” while a beggar labeled “American Homesteader” lies at his feet asking only for the morsels that fall from the table. Caption: “Fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-11-16

John Logan, labeled “New Leader” of the Republican Party, the “party of Reform and Puritee,” holds a paper that states “Logan Speec[h] at Boston July 1885.” He is standing in the street between the White House and the U.S. Treasury, leading a chorus of tramps identified as “J. Gould, Field, Mahone, Roach, Riddleberger, T. Platt, Ex leader [James G. Blaine], Robeson, Keifer, Chandler, Brady, [and] Dorsey,” and an unidentified blind man who looks like Benjamin F. Butler. Some carry battered hand-pails labeled “Empty Hopes.” On the United States Treasury building is a sign, “Notice No Tramps,” and on the White House, where President Cleveland is leaning out a window, is another sign that states “No Tramps Admitted.” Uncle Sam, as a policeman, is leaning against the wall.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-07-15