Your TR Source
In response to Thomas Robins’s interesting letter, Theodore Roosevelt expresses his opinion that corrupt and lawless labor leaders and capitalists are at the heart of the issue. He does not hesitate to oppose both labor and capital when either goes wrong.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-01-11
Charles H. Kramer laments mistreatment, inequity, and the corrupting power of money in society to Theodore Roosevelt. Kramer wishes Roosevelt had been the presidential nominee in 1908 and hopes that he will be president again in the future.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-19
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1892 to December 1898. Notable events include the death of Elliott Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt is appointed New York City Police Commissioner, his tenure as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the Spanish-American War, and Roosevelt’s gubernatorial campaign.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1884 to December 1891. Notable events include the deaths of Alice Lee Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s time on his ranch, the completion of Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Edith Kermit Carow, Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt’s birth, the “Great-Dieup” of cattle in North Dakota, and the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt between January 1879 to December 1883. Notable events include Theodore Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Alice Hathaway Lee, his appointment to the New York State Legislature, and his first visit and buffalo hunt in North Dakota.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
The Houston Chronicle comments on a pair of Texas-related items. The first of these, the involvement of Senator Joseph W. Bailey in keeping Senator William Lorimer in the Senate, notes Lorimer’s political alliance with Bailey in opposition to Canadian reciprocity, and mentions the political corruption and bribery Lorimer has been accused of which led to his election. The second looks at the creation of the Rice Institute, which was created using funds provided for in the will of William Marsh Rice. While construction of the institution is taking a long time, it is being built for the future, and will be a great place of learning.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-02
President Roosevelt rolls up his sleeves as he looks at a pile of “U. S. Post Office Department” clothing that reeks of “scandal,” “corruption,” and “fraud.” The washtub is labeled “White House,” and the washboard is the “administration.” On the shelf, and in the president’s hand, is “strenuous soap.”
Thanks in part to reforms initiated by Theodore Roosevelt, both as Civil Service Commission in the 1880s and ’90s, and as president, the Post Office gradually diminished its status as an institution of patronage and corruption as much as mail delivery. At one time every postmaster in every town, and other officials, were political appointees who depended upon victorious politicians who dispensed favors… and could be depended upon, in turn, to financially support their party benefactors.
For generations this system was a way of life in American politics; and the Postmaster General was in a way the most powerful figure in a president’s cabinet.
Five men attempt to push the “$5,000,000.00 corruption fund” rock off a hill onto President Roosevelt who is riding a horse underneath.
In April of 1907, there was much Washington buzz around the next year’s presidential campaign, and talk around the nation about President Roosevelt’s successor — perhaps it would Roosevelt himself, his favored candidate William H. Taft, or other Republican aspirants; and whether William Jennings Bryan would be nominated a third time by the Democratic Party. All this in addition to the Wall Street Panic, the ongoing Panama Canal construction, West Coast immigration problems, and much else.
The San Francisco Bulletin publishes a statement from attorney Charles Stetson Wheeler, in which Wheeler criticizes defense attorneys who try to win cases on technicalities and set “traps” for lawyers and judges to get higher courts to offer their clients new trials. These attorneys try to prolong trials, slow down the courts, and are thus obstructing justice. In particular, the attorneys for the “graft trials” in San Francisco are doing this, and turning public opinion against those who are trying to hold their clients accountable. Wheeler asserts that such attorneys should be punished.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-15
Syracuse University Chancellor James Roscoe Day takes exception to an editorial called “The Scandal-Mongering Epoch” which stated that he “strikes no sympathetic chord in the Methodist Church” when he reflects upon the limits of presidential power. Day outlines several of his reflections that he believes should align with Methodist values and decries the role of the press in contributing to the current national mood.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906
Charles Hedges submits a fourth petition to President Roosevelt asserting that Roosevelt’s November 30, 1903 memorandum falsely stated that he was indicted for fraud or theft. Hedges pleads with Roosevelt to take action to clear his name. If Roosevelt does not, Hedges threatens to sue him for libel.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-30
President Roosevelt writes to Postmaster General Meyer about the prospect of promoting Edward M. Morgan to head of the New York City Post Office. Roosevelt received a secret report about Morgan “of the most damning character.” Had he known about this report sooner, Roosevelt would have removed Morgan from the service altogether. Morgan has evidently “seen the error of his ways” and is “an efficient man of good sense,” but Roosevelt will not promote him unless the position cannot be filled from the outside.
Massachusetts Historical Society
1907-07-18
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 man labeled “Consumer,” tied to a bed with cords labeled “Graft Tariff,” watches as a pendulum labeled “Cost of Living” with a sharp blade affixed to the bottom swings over his body, coming closer to cutting him in half. Caption: “The pit and the pendulum,” by Edgar Allan Poe, tells of a victim of the Spanish Inquisition doomed to watch a knife-like pendulum that swung nearer and nearer to his heart.
The father of cartoonist Udo J. Keppler (Joseph Keppler, founder of Puck) borrowed from a memorable work of Edgar Allan Poe in 1889 — The Raven. In that famous cartoonist, a diminutive President Benjamin Harrison shrank at his desk in a darkened office as the ominous “raven,” his political rival James Gillespie Blaine, hovered overhead, uttering “Nevermore” about Harrison’s chances of renomination.
The younger Keppler visited Poe for darker imagery, more personal and threatening to readers. Reprising a recent thematic preoccupation, an average consumer was gravely threatened by the “graft tariffs” (imposition of duties for trust magnates’ fortunes and special interests).
A man labeled “Graft Politics” pays, with his left hand, a tramp labeled “Floater” at the end of a line of tramps outside a polling place, while with his right hand he attempts to keep a woman from listening to “women’s suffrage talk” because her “place is in the home, caring for the children.” Vignettes show women and children working in sweatshops and factories, living in tenement housing, and children taking care of younger children and being arrested. Caption: “No; they might disturb the existing order of things.”
A full dozen years before women would be able to vote in presidential elections (some states already had equal-rights statutes), Puck went on the record for women’s suffrage. It was not the first time the magazine endorsed the concept, but S. D. Ehrhart’s cartoon was simple and forceful.
Cartoon signs and symbols were replete: vignettes showed women in subservient positions in society; an iconic chain surrounded the image of a beleaguered mother in a tenement; a chain of disreputable men accepted bribes outside a polling place; the man representing “graft politics” looked, on first glance, respectable. Moreover, images depicted men in unsavory activities.
lllustration shows an oversized man labeled “capital,” sitting on a throne, holding a large cake labeled “Tariff Graft;” a smaller man labeled “Labor” is standing next to him, holding a loaf of bread labeled “Wages.” Caption: “If they take away my cake, I’ll take away your bread.”
The allegory drawn by Puck‘s chief political cartoonist Udo J. Keppler stated well the soft form of blackmail — at least in terms of oft-repeated predictions — by big business to the pressure of middle-class citizens and workers that import tariffs be lowered. Business argued that high tariffs were insulation against foreign goods, and that American factories and farms could thrive thereby. A growing chorus of reformers complained that the policy allowed business freedom to set prices arbitrarily — usually higher at consumer levels — and stifled the “unseen hand of the market” where supply and demand would bring justice to prices and wages.
Keppler’s cartoon went, as cartoons can best do, beyond theories and even data, and depicted business (capital) as hoarding a magnificent portion of sweet desserts (labeled not merely as “tariffs” but as “tariff graft”) while a worker holds on to a lone loaf of plain bread.
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.
Infrequently caricatured through the years, or mentioned in histories, is the “power behind the throne” figure on the right, Charles A. Moore. A member of the Ohio Society and president of the American Protective Tariff League, Moore was an early advocate of William McKinley’s career and worked largely behind the scenes to advance McKinley’s career as congressman, governor, and president; and Moore was a vital associate of McKinley amanuensis Mark Hanna.
Theodore Roosevelt as Sherlock Holmes peaks through a keyhole in a door labeled “Congress.” Uncle Sam, as Watson, stands behind him, and a man labeled “Special Privilege” is looking through a window at the top of the door. Caption: Sherlock Holmes–Something devilish has been going on here, Watson!
At the time of this cartoon America was caught up in a Sherlock Holmes frenzy. The popularity of the original tales in England’s Strand Magazine overtook creator Arthur Conan Doyle to such an extent that, despite its commercial success, he killed the famous detective. Even so, public disappointment and clamor for more stories persuaded Doyle to revive the series. So, in the Strand and in America’s Collier’s Magazine, Doyle recounted “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” and the sleuth’s miraculous survival of a death struggle with Professor Moriarty.
Book collections, a successful stage success starring William Gillette, and countless parodies followed. Inevitably, perhaps, Puck cast President Roosevelt as Sherlock Holmes. With Uncle Sam as Doctor Watson, the outgoing president fixes upon Congress as the den of lawlessness, with a figure labeled “Special Privilege” watching nervously from the transom.
A large flaming hand labeled “Guilt” emerges from dark clouds pointing to a man’s downfall. Institutions labeled “Business Reputation, Financial Standing, Social Position, Respectability, [and] Church Membership” that he has worked to build up crumble, as lightning bolts labeled “Public Enlightenment,” revealing his corrupt practices, strike them. Caption: The old-time defenses no longer defend him.
“The Man Highest Up” illustrates Puck‘s evolution from focusing on parties and politicians to systemic ills and injustices in America.
Stopping short of labeling the accusatory hand of the “man higher up” as the Deity, the assignment of guilt asserts that the Hand of Justice is at play. Again without naming specific malefactors, cartoonist Udo J. Keppler’s characterization of the man behind the desk is an indictment of a type among business moguls.
A devil wearing a business suit holds a fire brand labeled “Arson” in one hand and a large knife labeled “Murder” in the other. He is accepting a payment for $10,000 from a hand labeled “Vast Sums on Uninvestigated Risks.” The hand extends from a “Fire Insurance” company with a motto that states, “We Insure Everything and Anybody” on the corner of the building. Caption: The big insurance companies, by carelessness in their selection of agents, adjusters and risks, place a premium on crime.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-11-20