Capitalists and financiers

President Roosevelt tells Charles S. Mellen in confidence that he may appoint Judge Walter Chadwick Noyes for the circuit court judge position in Connecticut, even though he has a higher opinion of lawyer John K. Beach. Judges, Roosevelt believes, especially federal judges, should be “the judge for everyone.” They should be able to sympathize with the labor faction and capitalists alike. Unfortunately the judges in New York do not understand the labor side. Roosevelt hopes to meet Noyes soon and see if he holds these qualities.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-31

President Roosevelt rebukes David Scull, a trustee of Bryn Mawr College, for his ignorance in blaming the recent economic fluctuations on Roosevelt’s “action in enforcing the law against wealthy wrong-doers.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-16

Paul Morton expresses concern about the possibility of the Interstate Commerce Commission being negatively influenced by “public clamor” and carrying its investigation beyond legal limits. Morton argues what is needed now is not further exposure, but the opportunity for the business community to adjust to new business methods and practices. Otherwise, Morton fears that financiers will become so worried over the danger of their private affairs being exposed, that it will be difficult to finance the needs of the railroads, which will retard the growth of American commerce and the development of the country.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-01-21

“The investor” sits in a tree holding onto a bag of money while President Roosevelt grabs “the sheep’s clothing” off the “financial wolf” at the base of the tree.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Who is scaring whom? The investor with his money-bag is up a tree, but President Roosevelt intervenes in the cartoon by Payne, revealing a wolf under sheep’s clothing — a “financial” wolf.

President Roosevelt writes to Joseph Bucklin Bishop to thank him for his letter and comments on a line about Wall Street financiers that particularly amused him.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1907-06-15

President Roosevelt writes to Joseph Bucklin Bishop to discuss meeting with Secretary of War William H. Taft and Henry Clay Frick. Roosevelt says he is unsure of Frick’s position on the railroad rate matter and he has asked Senator Philander C. Knox to come down in hopes of communicating with Frick through Knox. Roosevelt also mentions that, according to William Loeb, the Washington Post will not be sold.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1905-06-08

President Roosevelt writes to Joseph Bucklin Bishop about the establishment of General Hubbard’s Thomas H. business in Panama.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1904-01-17

President Roosevelt asks Joseph Bucklin Bishop to ask General Thomas H. Hubbard about his plans for a financial agency in Panama.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1904-01-20

President Roosevelt thanks Joseph Bucklin Bishop for his letter explaining General Thomas H. Hubbard’s desire to have his international bank appointed as the fiscal agent for the Government of Panama. Roosevelt asks Bishop to tell Hubbard that he will discuss the matter with Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1904-01-22

President Roosevelt approves of how Joseph Bucklin Bishop handled a letter from William H. Taft. He also mentions that he heard about an interaction between Bishop and John J. McCook. Roosevelt discusses the views of Congress and big financiers on currency reform and sends Bishop a copy of a letter he sent to the Senators from Oregon.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1903-08-23

President Roosevelt thanks Joseph Bucklin Bishop for his editorials and encloses a copy of a speech he gave in Springfield. Roosevelt comments on his position towards labor and capital.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1903-06-06

President Roosevelt informs Joseph Bucklin Bishop that he will speak with Edward Van Ingen. He also asks Bishop to write to Henry Clay Frick.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1903-07-24

Prisoners engage in various recreations while incarcerated at Sing Sing for white collar crime. Caption: For the benefit of our grafting financiers whose health breaks down from exposure.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon by J. S. Pughe was not inspired by the coddling of prisoners, a putative situation that is charged, or confirmed, in cycles. Sing Sing Prison was a periodic site that, perhaps due to its 40-mile proximity up the Hudson River from the media center New York City, was alternately scorned or praised by reformers for its conditions.

John D. Rockefeller, dressed up as Uncle Sam, admires himself in a mirror. Uncle Sam is sitting on the left in his underclothes with an eagle perched next to him. A much larger eagle labeled “Aldrich” is perched on a large “Oil” can to the right of Rockefeller.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Good cartoons, serving contemporary readers as they addressed current issues, or readers of future generations seeking to understand the past, usually require few captions. Captions are not necessarily crutches, but occasionally a pictorial presentation can stand on its own. This Frank A. Nankivell cartoon is in that category: Iconic.

Two well-dressed men labeled “High Finance” and “Big Business” are startled by the throng of petty criminals, some labeled “Card Sharp, Safe Cracker, Second Story Man, [and] Flat Robber,” who push their way ahead to a building labeled “Anything Incorporated and No Questions Asked.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Udo J. Keppler addressed less the riff-raff class of criminals depicted in the drawings, and more the “white-collar” criminals similar to the two shocked businessmen at the lower right, and the types referred to in the caption.

J. S. Sherman collects $1 donations for the Republican Party at a fund raising event in a theater. Theodore Roosevelt and Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon can be seen in the audience. “Behind the scenes” are J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry Huttleston Rogers, and Edward Henry Harriman pouring coins from large money bags into “The Dough Barrel.” Caption: But the real work of financing the campaign will, as usual, be done behind the scenes.

comments and context

Comments and Context

J. S. Sherman was a long-serving member of the House of Representatives from New York — twenty years total with a four-year hiatus in the middle of the stretch — first elected in 1886. Despite his long service, he never held a position of power or significant committee assignment higher than Indian Affairs. Nevertheless, the affable “Sunny Jim” asserted behind-the-scenes influence and he was adept at conciliation and compromise.

Nelson Aldrich sits on a throne as king of the “U.S. Senate,” with a diminutive Theodore Roosevelt kneeling before him bearing the “President’s Message.” Around them senators are reading ticker tape or enjoying the success of their investments. The surrounding vignettes show Chauncey M. Depew as a doorman welcoming a man labeled “The Trusts” into the “U.S. Senate”; John D. Rockefeller sitting at a desk pouring over “Reports” and “Expenditures”; Charles W. Fairbanks as an office boy stopping Uncle Sam at the top of the stairs demanding who he needs to see and why; and two men stuffing papers labeled “Esch-Townsend Rate Bill, Tariff Legislation, House Bill” and others into a trash can. Caption: Formerly known as the Upper House of Congress.

comments and context

Comments and Context

With only the political cartoonist’s traditional “license” to exaggerate, cartoonist J. S. Pughe fairly depicted the state of affairs regarding the United States Senate in 1905.

Thomas Fortune Ryan, J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Edward Henry Harriman appear as sheikhs listening to a diminutive Grover Cleveland, labeled “Insurance Arbiter,” standing at a desk, shaking a stick at them. Caption: What shall we do with our ex-president? – Anything but this.

comments and context

Comments and Context

During the major news focus on the 1905 investigations into the insurance industry by the Armstrong Committee (soon known as the Hughes investigations), and the resulting imbroglios of scandals, resignations, and pledges of reforms, there were calls for outside, independent watchdogs over the industry.

John D. Rockefeller, as Belshazzar, sits on a throne above a group of capitalists and politicians enjoying a feast of such dishes as “Draw Back Bon-Bons, Fruits of Monopoly, [and] Rebate Plums.” The festivities are interrupted by a hand appearing from above holding “The Big Stick” and writing the words “Rate Legislation.” Caption: “And the King saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the King’s countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him.” [Daniel 5:5-6]

comments and context

Comments and Context

Belshazzar’s Feast is the account in Daniel about a mysterious hand appearing as if from heaven, writing a moral warning on the wall during a feast of the Babylonian king and a thousand of his followers. The words on the wall were, in Hebrew, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” roughly interpreted as “God has numbered the days of your kingdom… You have been judged and found wanting;” and “Your kingdom will be divided.”

Eight men and one woman are seated or standing around a table. Each is identified with a Cabinet position: J.P. Morgan as “Sec’y Navy,” Thomas W. Lawson as “Sec’y War,” Thomas F. Ryan as “Att’y Gen’l,” James J. Hill as “Sec’y Int,” James H. Hyde as “Sec’y Com. and Lab.”, Russell Sage as “Sec’y Agric,” Henrietta “Hetty” Green as “Post Mistress Gen’l,” Andrew Carnegie as “Sec’y State,” and John D. Rockefeller as “Sec’y Treas.” Setting on the table is a statue labeled “Golden Calf,” and hanging on the wall are portraits of “Midas” and “Croesus.” On the far left is a ticker tape machine. Caption: “There is not in my Cabinet one man to whom it is not a financial disadvantage to stay in the Cabinet.”–President Roosevelt at Asbury Park.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Joseph Keppler, Junior, is more of an ad hominem attack on personalities than Puck was used to make. There is no political or policy subtext, either about the Roosevelt cabinet as the president is quoted describing. Nor were any of the moguls at the table imminent appointees. This is merely having fun (except for the obvious venom in the depictions) with Roosevelt’s statement about the financial status of his department secretaries.