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John B. Leaman writes to The Outlook for the address of The United Stores Association. He also asks for a suggestion or opinion to be written about how to handle the issue of farm produce, consumers being lied to, and unnecessary middlemen.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-04
Six cowboys, one labeled “Coal Trust” and another labeled “Miner’s Union,” all carry handguns which they are using to force a diminutive man labeled “Small Consumer” to dance.
In the cliched situation of uncountable cowboy tales, where the greenhorn is made to “dance” as bullies fire at his feet, the cartoonist’s iconic Little Man — labelled here “Small Consumer” — jumps for his life. Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler addresses no specific bill but rather general situation of the trusts’ control of many aspects of everyday life.
An angry capitalist labeled “Commercial Trust” confronts an angry laborer labeled “Labor Trust” holding a club labeled “Strike.” Between them is a diminutive man labeled “Consumer” on his knees, possibly praying for a favorable resolution. Caption: The consumer suffers when these two trusts fall out.
There is a substantial back-story to this cartoon. Keppler’s drawing depicts a matter that likely was on the mind of every reader: the increasing labor strife in America. He posed the possible incidence of societal distress, and the cartoon sets the theoretical stage for intervention from an unprecedented source: the Chief Executive. For several years labor strife had been growing more common, and more violent. Both trusts and unions were consolidating their growth and power. In 1901, in New York City, the mishandling of its monopoly by the Ice Trust posed a real threat as a heat wave loomed. In May of 1902, a month before Keppler’s cartoon was printed, the miners in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite region struck for higher wages, shorter hours, and the right to organize under the United Mine Workers. The mine owners (J. P. Morgan at the top of the “chain”) were represented by a railroad manager, George Baer. The workers were represented by John Mitchell. President Roosevelt did intervene, against advice of his Attorney General and others, including Republican leaders who feared that the party would be associated with any sort of negative outcomes. In a labyrinthine series of councils, initiatives, negotiations (including with Morgan), proposals and threats, and even a serious injury to his his leg in a carriage accident, Roosevelt cudgeled and cajoled the parties — he was immensely frustrated with the owners who sat on a large supply of coal in reserve — a compromise was reached, and production resumed in October. A winter heating crisis was averted. Miners received a 10 per cent raise in hourly pay, their workdays were reduced from 10 to nine hours per day, and union recognition was not agreed to at the time. Roosevelt scored another personal victory, only a year after assuming office, and displaying skills of foresight and persuasion, and placed another cornerstone in the establishment of presidential power, not dictating but wisely intervening.
An oversized Uncle Sam invites a horde of foreign citizens running up from the docks labeled “Foreign Trade” to shop at “The World’s Department Store. The Best Goods for the Least Money.” In the background, across the Atlantic Ocean, are John Bull and other angry rulers of European nations. Caption: Uncle Sam (to protesting rivals). — What are you going to do about it?
The “Department Store” is a cartooning metaphor for the manufactured and agricultural goods of the United States attracting world trade. The McKinley prosperity, years of bumper crops, and an expanding manufacturing segment combined for a for an era of good feeling and American commercial supremacy. “What are you going to do about it?” was a phrase that had currency at the time, most famously in another context as a challenge by “Boss” Tweed of Tammany Hall when his activities were threatened with exposure.
In the interior of “The Killem’ Quick Pharmacy,” an elderly man, the pharmacist, dispenses a “Bracer” to a crowd of eager consumers, while a young girl secures a bottle of “Soothing Syrup.” On the counter are bottles and packets of “Arsenic, Strychnine, Antipyrin, Nerve Stimulant, Opium, Cocaine” and “The Needle.” Signs on the wall state “Open all night” and “Prescriptions carefully compounded.” The saloon keeper leans against a column. Caption: Saloon Keeper. — The kind of drunkard I make is going out of fashion. I can’t begin to compete with this fellow.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1900-10-10
On behalf of Theodore Roosevelt, his secretary informs William B. Clarkson that the paragraph Clarkson quotes does not accurately represent Roosevelt’s words. A full account of Roosevelt’s words regarding farmers, wage workers, and middlemen is provided by his secretary, who took down the remarks. Roosevelt believes in a high standard of wages and paying those who work, but does not want to pay men who do nothing as middlemen.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-12
Irving Fisher asks Theodore Roosevelt if they can meet in the office of Outlook Magazine on Monday to discuss Roosevelt possibly writing an editorial concerning opponents of Pure Food Law campaigning to withdraw support for the National Bureau of Health.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-02
President William H. Taft, as a young boy, kneels on the arm of a rocking chair and leans over to put his arms around the shoulders of an elderly woman, labeled “Ultimate Consumer,” who is knitting a large sock.
With a strangely sinister smile on his face, the lad representing the new president, William H. Taft, almost overwhelms his Granny in her rocking chair. She represents the consumer, a class that was continually pictured as worried about the possibility of a rise in the cost of living.
A baseball game between the “Ultimate Consumer A. C. [Athletic Club]” and the “Monopoly Giants” is underway. A “Giants” ballplayer is sliding head-first into a base and is being tagged out by a “Consumer” ballplayer with a ball labeled “Tariff Reduction.” Although the base runner has not even reached the base, the umpire labeled “Congress” calls the base runner, who winks and points at the umpire, safe. Caption: “He’s safe!”
“Safe” has a double meaning. Besides the baseball context, the Congress–represented by a caricature of Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, author of the Payne-Aldrich Act, which raised tariff rates–made things safe for trusts (monopolies), in the eyes of Puck Magazine.
A small man labeled “Consumer” is badly bruised after running between two rows of Native Americans labeled “Provision Trust, Ice Trust, Fuel Trust, Butter & Egg Trust, Clothing Trust, [and] Copper Trust” who have beaten him with a sack of “Self Rising Flour” and a “Sugar Cured” ham, a coal scuttle, bundle of wood, a “Gas Meter,” ice tongs, eggs, copper coins, and a bolt of cloth with boots, socks, and gloves attached. Caption: And every year he votes as though he liked it.
“Running the gauntlet,” the practice and etymology of which go back to ancient Greece but became widespread in many world societies in the seventeenth century, provided the starkly visual metaphor for cartoonist Will Crawford in this double-page cartoon. In fact it was a common practice in Sweden, on sailing ships, and as a literary metaphor seemingly before Native American tribes adopted it.
The practice is a punishment traditionally viewed as milder and less dishonorable than flogging or stocks. The accused has to pass through a line of peers on each side who beat him with objects.
A man representing big business exhorts two men labeled “Trusts” to test their strength by hitting a peg shaped like a man labeled “Consumer” with a large mallet labeled “Tariff.” Joseph Gurney Cannon is standing to the left, pointing a baton at the consumer, showing the man with the mallet where to strike. The top of the tower, where the bell hangs, is labeled “Profits.” The U.S. Capitol is just beyond the trees, in the background. Caption: The harder you hit it, the higher it goes.
In this depiction of every carnival’s test-of-strength device, the generic bloated characters representing trusts encourage each other to pound the consumer so as to win prizes: higher profits.
A tall man labeled “Consumer” serves as the May pole to a group of chubby girls labeled “Steel Trust, Lumber Trust, Sugar Trust, Wool Trust, [and] Glove Trust” who are winding ribbons labeled “Schedule” around him. He is standing beneath cherry blossoms which spell “Puck.”
Seldom missing the opportunity to employ a pun, the issue marking May Day, the international workers’ day, Puck created a neologism in the caption to Albert Levering’s cartoon: “A Maypolitical Party.”
Liberty strides forward, carrying a flaming torch labeled “Revolution” and an American flag, and wearing a phrygian cap with tricolor cockade. She crushes underfoot a scepter and a crown labeled “Plutocracy.” In the background, buildings are burning. Caption: If the tariff farce is continued many years longer.
The April 28, 1909 issue of Puck perfectly illustrated the dichotomy — not quite schizophrenia — between the magazine’s dual courses from this period until its demise as a political-cartoon weekly in 1914. The front-cover cartoon was a general observation about the average consumer’s dreams and expectations of a lower cost of living, and the role of the new president, William H. Taft, in that likelihood.
President William H. Taft sits on a tree branch labeled “Cost of Living,” which bends lower under his weight, above a smiling man labeled “Consumer” lying on the ground dreaming of the commercial products that soon will be within his reach.
By 1909 the covers, and most of the color and black-and-white artwork, in Puck was of a higher level than in immediately preceding years. Udo J. Keppler, chief cartoonist and son of the magazine’s founder, improved in conception and execution. The emergence and stylistic maturity of L. M. Glackens contributed to the improvements; and the work of of new artists like Carl Hassmann (a brief stint), Will Crawford, Gordon Grant, Albert Levering, and Art Young made the period one of Puck‘s brightest.
A Chinese play is being acted on a small stage with Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich offering two small doll-like figures labeled “Small Dealer” and “Consumer” to a dragon labeled “High Protection” manned by two men labeled “Special Privilege” and “Graft.” J. S. Sherman, John Dalzell, and Sereno E. Payne play musical instruments on the left side of the stage. On the back of the stage is a Buddha icon labeled “Greed.” In the foreground, at the foot of the stage, are Chinese men labeled “Lumber Trust, Paper Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Beef Trust.” On the far right, beneath a sign that states “Box Reserved for Amer. Protective Tariff League,” is a Chinese man labeled “Chas A. Moore” holding a tray with two small figures labeled “First Voter.”
“Like a Chinese Play, It Goes On Forever” is an abecedarian and awkward variation on “trusts bad, politicians subservient, consumers powerless” themes. Cartoonist Frank A. Nankivell, who had lived part of career in Japan, had a difficult job in approximating Asian pictograph lettering, and he relied on stereotypes of culture and attire for the cartoon.
In the center of a circus ring are nine rotund figures representing trusts, high tariffs, and political graft, who are balancing on the shoulders of one consumer. A tenth figure, the “coal strike,” prepares to join in. President Taft watches, seated beside a giant sheep labeled “Schedule K.” New York Senator Elihu Root watches from the other side of the ring. In the foreground, Theodore Roosevelt leads a procession of six supporters, while “Gov. Osborn” has just left the queue and is climbing on the “Taft Band Wagon.” Inscribed below is the line, “7 little governors all in a mix one got cold feet and then there were six.”
Cartoonist Thomas E. Powers was attacking the Republican administration’s alleged loyalty to trusts in general, and to “Schedule K” of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, a controversial provision that was generous to the American wool industry. The context of this cartoon, syndicated throughout the Hearst newspaper chain, was the Republicans’ traditional “protection” of American industries through a series of tariff regulations through the decades beginning in 1890. In fact, President Taft’s administration prosecuted more monopolies in four years than President Roosevelt’s did in seven and a half years. “Schedule K” of the 1910 Payne-Aldrich Act was viewed as a showcase of schedules against the importation of wool and wool products, noxious in the eyes of free-trade advocates and Democrats generally. Governor Chase Osborn, Republican of Michigan, jumps on the “Taft Band Wagon,” deserting his troops. He was one of the “Seven Governors,” Republicans who urged Roosevelt to run against President Taft for the 1912 nomination. Powers assumed too much, because Osborn, although he was publicly concerned that party disunity was counterproductive, and even was tempted to support Democrat Woodrow Wilson, ultimately campaigned for the Progressive ticket in the general election.
Vignettes depict a craze for marathon running. One scene shows a consumer shackled to a “Graft Tariff” ball losing a race to a fabricated figure labeled “Cost of Living.” Another scene shows Charles W. Fairbanks losing to a shrouded figure labeled “Oblivion.”
The modern Olympic games, reviving athletic competitions of ancient Greece, commenced in 1896. In the first of the modern “Summer Games,” held in Athens, 12 nations were represented by 240 athletes competing in 43 events. All were amateurs and independents except for a Hungarian national team.
The Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant are depicted in a stable eating hay. They both turn to look at a small goat labeled “Consumers’ Party” that has just arrived to join them in the stable.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-07-28
A group of dejected young women sit at the beach with a mannequin labeled “Cost of Living.” The mannequin is dressed in the symbols of a lady’s needs, including white gloves, a fan, and the tools of home-making, as well as two tags labeled “Rent” and “Taxes.” Young men are standing nearby, pondering the group of women, but fearing the chaperone. Caption: “If you haven’t any money, you needn’t come around.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-07-21
This cartoon shows Nelson W. Aldrich as the master of the hunt throwing the twisted body of a man labeled “Consumer” to a pack of hunting dogs labeled “Lumber Trust, Fuel Trust, Clothing Trust, [and] Food Trust.” The caption reads, “Throwing the carcase [sic] to the pack.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-07-21