Corruption

Print shows Uncle Sam, John Bull, and a crowd of spectators looking at seven French military officers standing and sitting in stocks. The latter are labeled “Zurlinden, Du Paty de Clam, Gonse, Roget, Mercier, Boisdeffre, [and] Esterhazy.” These officers were responsible for the conviction, and re-conviction, of Alfred Dreyfus for the charge of treason (he was ultimately exonerated).

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-10-18

Print shows an interior view of the office at a charitable organization. A bloated manager sits at a desk with his feet on top. In the background, several men hold open a large money bag to catch money flowing from a large cornucopia labeled “Charity.” The money goes down a chute “For Salaries, Office Rent, and Miscellaneous Expenses.” A couple pennies spill from a smaller chute into a basket “For Actual Relief of the Poor.”

Caption: Too often its benefits go to the organizers.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney hands a boat labeled “Dolphin” to James G. Blaine who shies away, refusing to accept it. In the background, John Roach, a contractor, who built the ship “Dolphin,” is crying because the Cleveland administration has voided his contract. Caption: Secretary Whitney – “Here, Mr. Blaine, this was evidently built in the expectation of your election. We have no use for it.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-05-20

William C. Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, insists that John Roach, a contractor, accompany him on a test cruise before the Navy can sign off on the contract and accept delivery of the ship “Dolphin.” Roach, holding a piece of paper that states “Bill for Constructing the Dispatch Boat ‘Dolphin’ –J. Roach,” steps back in fear and does not accept Whitney’s offer. Caption: Secretary Whitney – “I can’t accept your ship until we have tried her again. Step on board, sir. ” / J. R. – “Step on board! No, sir, never! My life is entirely too valuable to the nation. Cut down the bill, and call it square!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-04-01

Russell Sage, Jay Gould, and Cyrus W. Field, as the Three Musketeers, stand on Wall Street with their swords raised in support of James Gillespie Blaine as the Republican presidential candidate. Sage’s sword is labeled “Put-and-Call Gambler,” Gould’s sword is labeled “Railroad Wrecker,” and Field’s sword is labeled “Elevated R. R. Grabber.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-06-18

At a dinner party is presidential candidate James Gillespie Blaine, who is trying to cover himself with pages of the New York Tribune, and by his side, vice-presidential candidate John A. Logan. Seated around a table set with “Pension Pie, Monopoly Stew, [and] Star Route Shortcake” are James W. Husted, Chancey M. Depew, Powell Clayton, Joseph Medill, Stephen W. Dorsey, Thomas J. Brady, a man identified as “Elkins,” William H. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Cyrus W. Field, Whitelaw Reid on his feet, John Roach, and Robert G. Ingersoll fleeing with a bone labeled “Star Route Spoils.” Blaine wears an “Anti-Sunstroke Cabbage Leaf” on his head, to which is attached a quill pen labeled “Gail Hamilton.” Projected onto a wall at the far end of the room are the words “Republican Revolt,” which has frightened everyone in the room.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-06-18

A man labeled “Republican War Record” stands in a pond labeled “Republican Corruption Water,” yelling to an Irishman wearing a hat labeled “Democracy,” gathering up the Republican’s clothing labeled “Tariff Reform, Free Canal, [and] Reduction Tax,” and a top hat labeled “Civil Service Reform” which he has placed on top of his own hat. His own tattered clothes are patched with “Ignorance, Poverty, Stupidity, Bourbonism, [and] Secession Record.” Caption: Republican “Hey, what can I do without them?” Democracy “What have you done with them – only cast them off!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-08-02

Print shows newspaper editors Charles A. Dana, James G. Bennett, Carl Schurz, Henry Watterson, George W. Curtis, and Whitelaw Reid, as well as Puck, with a fleet of paper gunboats labeled “N.Y. Times, N.Y. Sun, N.Y. Herald, Ev. Post, Puck, Brooklyn Eagle, Courier-Journal, Harpers, Phila Times, Mail, [and] N.Y. Tribune.” The fleet is firing cannons, “ink” bottles, and pens, bombarding a fortress flying a flag labeled “Plunder,” where the walls are comprised of paper bundles labeled “Bills, Jobs, Bargains, Corrupt Bills, [and] Logrolling.” The fortress is defended by “Robeson Bey” standing at center with a bandage labeled “Record” around his head, “Keifer” and “Jones,” with John A. Logan labeled “306,” James D. Cameron, David Davis, John Sherman, and others. Cannonballs burst among them labeled “Criticism, Censure, [and] Condemnation.” The fortress cannons are labeled “River & Harbor Bill $20,000,000, Pension Arrears $103,962,300, Monitor Job, Public Buildings, Mileage Steal, [and] Mississippi Levee.” Within the fortress are the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Treasury labeled “Ammunition House.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-08-02

Print shows Jay Gould, William H. Vanderbilt, Cyrus W. Field, Russell Sage, and John Roach riding in a carriage past a crowd of laborers labeled “Knights of Labor” and “Pittsburg Free Strikers” who are watching a man labeled “Workingman” trying to climb a “Greased” pole carrying a child on his back and with a woman and child hanging from his belt. The pole is greased with “Monopoly Grease,” at the top are “Higher Wages, Bread, Tobacco, Wine, [and] Ham.” The view from the pole shows factories in the middle distance and the “Roach Monopolist Ship Builder” facility in the background.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-06-21

Several rogues, including Jay Gould labeled “R. Road Monopolist,” William H. Vanderbilt labeled “Corporations,” Cyrus W. Field labeled “Telegraph Monopoly,” Russell Sage(?) labeled “Stock Jobbing,” and George M. Robeson labeled “Congress,” rob a “Tax Payer” of his “Income” (Robeson/Congress strangling him with “Unjust Tax”). In the right foreground the tools and “Cloth” the “Tax Payer” needs are “Taxed” as others help themselves to his “Products of Honest Labor.” Vanderbilt directs some carrying bags labeled “Plunder” and “Gains” up steps labeled “Tax Steals, Land Grants, Friendly Judges, Lobbyism, [and] Public Apathy” that lead to a large building labeled “Castle Monopoly” atop a mountain. In the background, on the right, are buildings labeled “Manufactory Closed [and] Foundry Closed” and other industrial buildings “Closed.” A chain labeled “Protection” blocks the harbor, preventing ships with products for export from departing.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-06-14

African American men stand in a group. One, standing at center, is wearing a hat labeled “Judge Whitewashed,” and the others are wearing hats labeled “Whitewasher No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, No. 6, No. 7, and Whitewasher No. 8.” They are standing in front of a cabin labeled “Capitol at Albany.” The eight whitewashers gesture toward the central figure. Caption: “He hain’t seen nuffin o’ yer chickens – he’s as innercent as we is!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-06-07

Print shows a vignette cartoon with a carriage at center in which Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Cyrus W. Field, and William H. Vanderbilt are riding with large money bags; the wheels are labeled “Corporations” and “Monopoly.” The carriage is driven by an eagle dressed like Uncle Sam wearing a top hat labeled “1882” and carrying a whip labeled “Revenue Tariff.” The carriage is pulled by an “Underpaid Workman,” a “Starving Laborer,” a “War Widow,” a “Sewing Girl,” an “Old Merchant,” a “Poor Clerk,” and a “Cripple,”among others, with ropes labeled “Tax.” The surrounding vignettes show scenes of corruption, misfortune, presidential office seekers, Valley Forge, and “Charitable Institutions for the poor and unfortunate” from “Maine” to “California” showing buildings labeled “Poor House” and “Jail.” Featured in these vignettes are such figures as Chester Alan Arthur, George M. Robeson, Samuel J. Tilden, Roscoe Conkling, John Kelly, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin F. Butler, and Joseph W. Keifer, as well as “Honest Labor, Patriotism, [and] Integrity.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Members of the 47th Congress carry on their shoulders large money bags labeled “Surplus $150,000,000” and “Appropriations,” and a sign that states, “No large appropriations for the Navy whilst Robeson is mixed up with it.” At the lead are three men, one dressed in armor labeled “Folger” carrying a sword labeled “Trust” and a shield labeled “Integrity,” another carrying a large ledger labeled “Chandler Navy Department,” and the third carrying a paper that states “Sen. Harris’s Exposure of Robeson.” John Sherman and John A. Logan are among the congressmen that follow. They are walking past George M. Robeson as an ogre sitting on a pile of skeletal remains of ships with skulls as figureheads and labeled “U.S.N.,” at the entrance to a cave labeled “Naval Committee.” Robeson is biting his fingernails. A notice at the entrance to the cave states, “$180,000,000 squandered and stolen during Robeson’s management of the Navy 1868-76.” Caption: “…He is, by reason of age, also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at Appropriations as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-05-03

John Kelly stands at the far end of a room, as Charles Dickens’s character Fagin, wearing a robe with a “Tammany Fund” money bag in a pocket. He is rubbing his hands together as a show of satisfaction. In the center of the room hangs an effigy labeled “N.Y. Tax-Payer” with three men labeled “Register, County Clerk, [and] Sheriff” who are learning to be pickpockets and have their hands in pockets filled with money. A notice hangs on the wall on the left, “Graduates of this School are sure to make from $50,000 to $80,000 a Year.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-02-06

Print shows Jay Gould bowling on Wall Street using bowling balls labeled “Private Press, General Unscrupulousness, False Reports, [and] Trickery” to knock down pins labeled “Banker, Small Operator, Speculator, Stock Dabbler, Broker, Inexperienced Investor, Capitalist, [and] Curb Stone Broker.” At the right is a slate showing Gould’s holdings in various railroads, “Western Union, Missouri Pacific, Manhattan ‘L’, Wabash, New York Metr. ‘L’, [and] Wabash Preferred” totaling “53,000,000.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-03-29

Print shows a ship labeled “Wrecked Corporation” and “Insurance Co. Bankrupt” that has wrecked on rocks with a darkened lighthouse labeled “Trust” and “Justice” nearby. The light has been snuffed by “Judge” and “Corruption.” Victims of the wreck, some clinging to the ship, others in the water, are labeled “Policy Holder” and “Pillaged Policy Holder.” A rope from the ship to shore is held by a “Receiver,” a “Lawyer,” and a “Shore Shark,” and is coiled around a money bag labeled “Fee.” Another “Lawyer,” using a gaff, reaches for a barrel labeled “Fees” that bobs in the water near the ship. Standing near the lighthouse is a man labeled “Referee” who is holding a pan labeled “False Beacon” that spews illuminated smoke labeled “By Order of the Court.” The man burns papers labeled “Waste, Outrageous Extravagance, Extortion, [and] Cost.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-03-15

Print shows a pack of hyenas labeled “N. Y. Commercial, N. Y. Sun, N. Y. Herald, Washtn. Post, The Rosecrans Letters, [and] 306” crowded around a sepulchral monument to James A. Garfield labeled “Fame.” Those hyenas labeled “306” are pulling on a rope that spells “Slander” tied to the top of the monument. A lightning bolt labeled “Public Contempt” has severed the rope, spilling the hyenas into an abyss labeled “Oblivion.” The number “306” represents the number of delegates who supported Ulysses S. Grant for a third term at the 1880 Republican Convention.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-03-22

Print shows John A. Logan wearing a military uniform with plumed hat labeled “Anti-Arthur” and carrying a large sword labeled “Pension Swindle,” walking across a bridge comprised of three monkeys with the faces of Roscoe Conkling, Ulysses S. Grant, and James G. Blaine. Blaine hugs a tree labeled “Old Time Popularity,” Grant forms the middle link, and Conkling grips the U.S. Capitol building with his feet. There is a coconut labeled “Cocoanut Presidency” on top of the Capitol dome.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-12-26

Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich, dressed as a frontiersman labeled “Licensed Trader,” offer trinkets labeled “Pauper-Competition Scare, Steady-Work Yarn, Prosperity-For-All Bluff, Campaign Promises, Protection-For-Labor Josh, [and] Good-Crops-Due-to-Tariff Bluff,” to men dressed as Natives, getting in return furs and skins labeled “Graft-for-Monopoly, Right-of-the-Few-to-Tax-the-Many, Opportunities-to-Increase-the-Cost-of-Living, [and] Privilege-to-Levy-Tribute-on-the-American-Home.” Caption: How pleasant it is to get something for nothing from the simple children of Republican nature!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-01-26

Grover Cleveland, as Hercules carrying a large club labeled “Honest Legislation,” encounters a group of troublemakers along the “Administration Road” to “Success” seen in the distant background. Among the problems to be dealt with are a “Rotten Navy” represented by a two-headed hydra labeled “Robeson” and “Roach” holding a club labeled “Lobby,” an old man labeled “Mormonism” with many wives dangling from his belt, Jay Gould labeled “Land Grabber” holding a club labeled “Monopoly” and carrying a sack with papers labeled “R. R. Land Grab, U. Pacific Land Grab, [and] Land Grab,” a stereotypical Jewish man wearing a top hat labeled “Bankrupt” and holding papers labeled “List of Preferred Creditors,” a vulture labeled “High Tariff” and “Over-Production” sitting next to the prostrate body of a man whose hat, labeled “Labor,” has fallen on a nearby rock, and two men, one labeled “Cuba” holding a paper that states “Please Help a Poor Man with a Treaty” and the other labeled “Mexico” holding a paper that states “Please Help Poor Mexico with a Treaty,” a snake labeled “Silver Swindle” among the rocks, and a man in the background labeled “To the Victor Belong the Spoils” holding a club.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-02-18