Bull rings

Uncle Sam, as a matador, wipes the blood off his sword after dispatching a bull labeled “Beef Trust” in a bullring with a portly man labeled “Monopoly” anxiously leaning over the wall.

comments and context

Comments and Context

In 1902, on the heels of filing an anti-trust action against the Northern Securities Company, President Roosevelt instructed his attorney general, Philander C. Knox, to bring a similar suit against the six largest meat processing and packing companies in the United States. It was claimed that they colluded, fixed prices, and stifled outside competition.

Print shows Chester A. Arthur riding the Republican elephant tossed high in the air in a “Political Arena.” The elephant is patched with scandals labeled “Credit Mobilier, Collusion with Monopolies, Back Pay Grab, Third Termism, Whiskey Ring, Navy Ring, [and] Dorsey ‘Soap’ 1880.” Below, on the floor of the arena, Samuel J. Tilden is sitting backwards on a donkey labeled “Incurable” and Puck’s Independent Party figure is riding a bucking bull, its horns labeled “Anti-Monopoly” and “Tariff Reform.” Puck applauds from a viewing stand on the right; sitting in the grandstand at left are Ulysses S. Grant, Cyrus W. Field, Rutherford B. Hayes, Thomas F. Bayard, Winfield Scott Hancock, Benjamin F. Butler, Adams, David Davis, Allen G. Thurman, William M. Evarts, Abram S. Hewitt, George F. Edmunds, Wayne MacVeagh, and George B. McClellan. Caption: Puck presents another prophetic cartoon – and the sooner it is realized the better.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-04-19