Croker, Richard, 1843-1922

President Roosevelt is pleased to be of assistance to William Dudley Foulke. Roosevelt is having a difficult time getting Governor Charles Evans Hughes renominated in New York, as Hughes has insulted working politicians for positive press from The Evening Post and its crowd and now requires outside interference to succeed. People have accused Roosevelt of having dictated the nomination of William H. Taft for president, but Roosevelt says that he has been working harder for Hughes than he did for Taft.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-09-14

Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker, as a pirate, nails a new figurehead labeled “McClellan” to the bow of a ship labeled “Tammany.” The old figurehead labeled “Van Wyck” lies on the ground.

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Comments and Context

If there is a historical flaw in Joseph Keppler’s cartoon, it is not that the Tammany ship (of the corrupt Democratic organization typically controlling New York City) found it facile to change the figureheads — mayors who were pliant to the will of the Tammany “boss.” Since Boss Tweed and John Kelly and Richard Croker, it had been so for decades.

A large octopus with the face of Richard Croker sits on top of “N.Y. City Hall” with its tentacles labeled “Tax Department, Fire Dept., Garbage Contract Job, Ramapo Job, Blackmail, Building Dept., Ice Trust, [and] Dock Dept.” A sign on City Hall states “‘For my own pocket all the time.’ R. Croker”

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Comments and Context

Richard Croker was the “boss” of Tammany Hall, the New York City Democratic organization, and thus the virtual boss of New York politics. Croker, the successor to Boss Tweed and John Kelly held sway despite occasional and short-lived reform waves, largely by an entrenched system — as an octopus using all of its tentacles — and persuasive control of immigrants. Croker was an Irish immigrant, and at the time of this cartoon, betook his immense ill-gotten wealth to Ireland and England, where he lived in splendor, raised racing horses, and controlled New York as an absentee. Times caught up with him, however: election losses, several scandals such as mismanaging New York’s Ice trust during a heat wave, and another reform wave (the Citizens Union, a taste for fusion tickets of honest citizens, and crusaders like Seth Low, former mayor of Brooklyn and shortly after this cartoon mayor of the consolidated New York City) forced his timely retirement from politics.

Two Irish housewives are visiting. One is sitting in a chair, holding an infant, and with a young boy standing next to her, smoking a cigar. They are discussing the boy’s desire to work for Richard Croker, a Tammany Hall boss. Caption: Mrs. Grogan. — Little Patsy siz phwhin he grows up he wants ter git a job workin’ fer Dick Croker. Mrs. Hogan. — Doin’ phwhat? Mrs. Grogan. — Either mayor or jockey; – he don’t care phwhich!

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Comments and Context

Behind the wonderful drawing by Rose O’Neill, who created the iconic Kewpie Doll a decade after this cartoon’s publication, and stagey Irish dialect is a political fact of which most readers would have been aware: “Boss” Croker of New York City’s corrupt Democratic machine Tammany Hall was also a breeder of thoroughbred race horses. Many Tammany politicians, from ward-heelers to mayors were, like Croker himself, rough Irish immigrants.

Richard Croker, as the Tammany Tiger dressed as a cardinal in England, receives long distance news about an explosive “Tammany Investigation” in New York. Caption: Croker Wolsey. — I have touched the highest point of all my greatness, / And, from that full meridian of my glory, / I haste now to my setting. I shall fall / Like a bright exhalation in the evening, / And no man see me more. [Shakespeare, Henry VIII, act 3, scene 2].

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Comments and Context

The “boss” of Tammany Hall, the corrupt Democratic machine in New York City at this time was Richard Croker. Irish-born, he returned to Great Britain and Ireland at the time of this cartoon when things went against his plans and control in New York. He fought with the national party about support of William Jennings Bryan, his involvement, including stock kickbacks, with the Ice Trust as a blistering summer heat-wave struck, and loss of his iron grip of precincts, all paved his retreat. Nominally he looked after stables of prized race horses, and he ran his affairs by cable, but soon retired from politics when investigations were launched. The cardinal’s cassock and other vestments are to maintain the relevance of the Shakespearean analogy; Croker was a Protestant until shortly before his death.  

Richard Croker, looking pleased with himself, holds a large knife labeled “Tammany Vote” behind his back. Hobbling down the road in the background is a wounded William Jennings Bryan.

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“Boss” Richard Croker was perhaps the most coarse of Tammany Hall’s leaders through the years. He was likely as corrupt as any of the Democrat power-brokers in that role, and none were were more brutal. He survived a trial for killing a man, and typically made millions of dollars from salaries that officially were meager. In 1900 he had little enthusiasm for William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential candidate, yet dutifully supported the ticket. Tammany’s candidates vastly outperformed Bryan, somehow, in the city’s wards. In the few subsequent years Tammany candidates fared less well, and Croker moved to Ireland, the land of his birth. By that time he parlayed his successful business of breeding racehorses, scoring notable victories in England, Ireland, and the United States. This cartoon depicts the wealthy Croker, attired in pretentious garb with Irish touches, holding a knife of a treacherous “ally,”as the wounded Bryan limps into the sunset.

Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker, inflated like a hot air balloon, wears a medallion showing the Tammany Tiger and a laurel wreath with a ribbon labeled “Kansas City Convention.” Running up behind him is David B. Hill carrying a spear labeled “N.Y. State Democracy.” The title is a quotation from the Bible: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

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Comments and Context

For many decades, following the Civil War, the Democratic Party in New York State was split into factions — usually two, sometimes more. Copperheads (Southern sympathizers) and Union Democrats, Tammany Hall grafters and honest Upstate Democrats, city (New York) vs. rural. Occasional Reform Democrats (Samuel J. Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Abram S. Hewitt) vs. Tammany Hall and/or David B. Hill, governor and Presidential aspirant. In 1900, the reformer and radical William Jennings Bryan was renominated for the Presidency by the Democrats and cast his lot with the Tammany faction in New York instead of the bloc led by Hill, who was by then a former governor and former senator. But, as this cartoon suggests, Hill was as much concerned with New York inter-party rivalries as he was the national campaign.

Richard Croker, dressed in formal wear and wearing a sash labeled “Tammany,” proclaims that he/Tammany supports William Jennings Bryan for president while, behind his back, he slips a vote for William McKinley into the pot labeled “Nov. Election.”

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Comments and Context

This cartoon attacks Tammany Hall Boss Richard Croker for alleged hypocrisy. He endorsed Democrat William Jennings Bryan for President in 1900 but secretly favored Republican William McKinley’s reelection. Croker, if he had any economic views, was for “sound money” and the McKinley prosperity. Tammany candidates outpaced Bryan’s vote tally in New York City in 1896 and increased its margins in 1900, carrying the city despite the Republicans carrying the state. Yet Croker, through the 1900 campaign, softened his routine praise of Bryan, and suspended making predictions at all. Despite the profiles of Tammany Hall members, and his own scruffy appearance (his gray-striped beard invited cartoonists’ depictions as the Tammany Tiger itself), Croker was a prosperous figure who bred racehorses. He was perhaps comfortable with President McKinley, yet always towing the Democrat line.

New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck is drowning in a sea of ice blocks labeled “Ice Trust.” Richard Croker, holding a life preserver labeled “Tammany Machine Power,” is swimming toward him. Caption: Help me, Cassius, or I sink!

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Judge Robert Anderson Van Wyck was easy to portray as a “clean” politician — old-line New York family; sitting judge — but as a Tammany puppet he was as corrupt as other Democratic mayors of the era in New York City. This cartoon delineates complicated political “currents” of the day, but also illustrates the fact that average readers were quite literate, perhaps more so than those of the twenty-first century. Politics: Tammany allowed the American Ice Company a monopoly in the city of New York. Boss Richard Croker and Mayor Van Wyck profited from stock kickbacks. When a heat wave threatened New York, a scandal erupted which threatened Van Wyck’s standing. The subtext: In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Cassius recounted to Brutus how he had persuaded Caesar to swim the stormy Tiber River, but Caesar feared drowning and called out for help. The point of Cassius’s story was that Caesar could be manipulated and also was less than omnipotent. This cartoon portrays Van Wyck as being manipulated by Tammany and vulnerable politically.

Cartoon showing Richard Croker, leader of New York City’s Democrat machine Tammany Hall, as a laborer carrying a block of ice labeled “Ice Trust” and a sheet of paper “N.Y Dock privileges;” he cries out, “Stop thief,” while himself being pursued by an angry mob of citizens.

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Richard Croker, the boss of New York City’s corrupt Democratic machine Tammany Hall, ruled his domain so strongly that he even lived away from New York for three years — in England, where the Irish-born politician raised racehorses on an estate — controlling events through cables and assistants. However, in 1900 the city was in a crisis, a heat wave where ice prices doubled. The poor suffered, but the commodity was in the hands of one supplier, the American Ice Company, owned by Charles Morse. Among Croker’s emoluments were “gifts” of stock in the ice company, more properly the “ice trust,” or monopoly. The public was outraged, especially as Croker tried to hide behind criticism of trusts in general. He eventually quit politics, succeeded at Tammany Hall by Charles F. Murphy.

Puck points to a group portrait of Matthew Quay, standing on the left, Richard Croker, seated in center, and Senator Platt, standing on the right — political bosses of, respectively, Pennsylvania, New York City’s Tammany Hall, and New York State. Puck sarcastically asks Yale president Arthur Twining Hadley why these gentlemen do not measure up to his ideals for politicians.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1900-01-24

President Roosevelt will be pleased to attend the gathering that Robert J. Collier proposes, but requests that it be a lunch. He wants to spend time with his wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, before his upcoming African safari. Roosevelt does not care for two of the guests, Charles M. Harvey and Richard Croker, but thinks it would be foolish to refuse to meet either man.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-12-02

President Roosevelt was pleased with the letter from Gordon Russell. He feels that Russell clearly understands what he is trying to do, and especially appreciates what Russell said about the moral aspects of his work. He discusses the results of the election. Roosevelt thinks the way to raise the “ideals of the masses” is not to simply point out the wrong, but to especially point out “a safe and proper remedy.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-16

President Roosevelt was very interested in the comments made by Richard Croker and found Robert Barnwell Roosevelt’s letter valuable. He invites his uncle and his family to visit Washington, D.C.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901-10-31

William Dudley Foulke tells Elliot H. Goodwin that he is always in favor of investigation of improper use of patronage, but thinks that the suggestion to investigate the use of patronage in favor of William H. Taft, as suggested by the Indianapolis News, does not make sense. Foulke also tells Goodwin about some of the proceedings of a recent Indiana Civil Service Reform Association meeting.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-22

Richard O. Weber examines Theodore Roosevelt’s term as Governor of New York, emphasizing his efforts at reform, rooting out corruption, and protecting natural resources. Weber focuses on Roosevelt’s foes in these varied efforts, Thomas Collier Platt, the Republican boss of New York, and the Democratic political machine Tammany Hall. Weber highlights Roosevelt’s call for civil service, election, and police reforms, and he notes that some of Roosevelt’s initiatives were later implemented by Governor Benjamin B. Odell. 

Two photographs of Roosevelt appear in the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Edward Renehan praises John A. Corry’s A Rough Ride to Albany: Teddy Runs for Governor because it illuminates one of the few episodes in Theodore Roosevelt’s life that has not been thoroughly studied. Renehan touches on some of the key players in New York state politics and notes that Roosevelt, despite his recently won fame as a Rough Rider, barely prevailed in the 1898 contest. A photograph of Roosevelt speaking from a flag-draped platform appears in the review. 

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2001

Charles. W. McMurran returned from a trip to Palm Beach, where he interviewed Richard Croker about the New York Senatorial situation. McMurran notes that wealthy New Yorkers are likely to live in Florida or California during the winter. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03-25

Henry White reports information he has learned since returning to London that might provide insight into the prospects of President Roosevelt’s renomination and reelection. Josiah Quincy reported that the Democrats do not feel they have a chance of winning. Craig W. Wadsworth also learned that Democrats do not believe that they will win. White delivered Roosevelt’s messages to various people. He also says that the sentiment on Wall Street regarding Roosevelt has changed, and that his nomination now seems more likely.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-02-05

Songbook supporting the Republican presidential campaign of 1900.

Collection

Dr. Danny O. Crew Theodore Roosevelt Sheet Music Collection

Creation Date

1900