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The article grapples with the paradox of President William H. Taft’s loyalties and personal ethics. Taft appears to be honorable, but influences from his brother Charles Phelps Taft and others are hindering his ability to carry out the Progressive promises that elected him. The advisors are the cause of many of the scandals in the administration.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-19
Secretary of Commerce and Labor George B. Cortelyou sits and reads a “Catalogue of young vice-presidential timber” as Nebraska Representative E. J. Burkett, Minnesota Representative James A. Tawney, Illinois Representative William A. Rodenberg, Iowa Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, Iowa Representative Robert G. Cousins, and Indiana Representative Charles B. Landis look over the fence at Cortelyou. President Roosevelt watches from the “White House.” Caption: Chairman (elect) Cortelyou—Don’t all speak at once, gentlemen.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-05-29
Several senators—West Virginia Senator Nathan Bay Scott, Iowa Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, Michigan Senator Julius C. Burrows, Pennsylvania Senator Boies Penrose, and Montana Senator Thomas Henry Carter—all white wash Benjamin F. Barnes. President Roosevelt holds the “big stick” and says, “Thicken your white wash and get to work, you clumsy Senate fellows” while South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman looks on and says, “Shame on you ind your ‘master.'”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-29
A number of men are in a “railroad rate bill” train car, including President Roosevelt, Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, West Virginia Senator Stephen B. Elkins, Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, Iowa Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, Pennsylvania Senator Philander C. Knox, Texas Senator Joseph W. Bailey, Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, and Wisconsin Senator John C. Spooner. Some of them hold “amendment” cards. Caption: Engineer Roosevelt—”Who’s running this train, anyhow?”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-03-24
Various prominent citizens including, President Roosevelt and multiple senators, justices, and cabinet members, state their support of endowing a department of political science in Western Reserve University in memory of the late Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-01-27
In this article for Ladies’ Home Journal, William Jennings Bryan explains why he continues to give public lectures despite his governmental position as the Secretary of State.
1915-04
A group of men, scoffers, labeled “Tillman, Elkins, Penrose, Crane, Lodge, Depew, Gallinger, Aldrich, [and] Sherman” watch four men labeled “Cummins, Dolliver, Gore, [and] La Follette” construct an ark labeled “Principle.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-07-28
Supporters of a “Square Tariff Deal,” carried in an ark by “Folk, Clark, Gore, Harmon, [and] Beveridge,” march on Jericho, blowing ram-horns labeled “The Voice of the People” causing the walls of Jericho labeled “Graft Tariff” and “Standpat Republicanism” to crumble. Among those marching are “Bacon, Borah, Bristow, Clapp, Dolliver, La Follette, [and] Wilson” and on horseback “Cummins.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1910-10-05
President William H. Taft speaks from the back of a railroad caboose to a large crowd of skeptical mid-westerners that also includes Jonathan P. Dolliver, Robert M. La Follette, and Albert Baird Cummins. One man is holding a sign that states, “We’re from Missouri also Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Dakota & Iowa. Show us!” Taft is holding papers behind his back that state, “Notes for speech how new tariff will benefit the West.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-09-15
President Taft struggles to conduct an orchestra composed of two groups of musicians. On the left, playing the “Eastern Conservatism” on stringed instruments, are “Root, Crane, Smoot, Depew, Aldrich, [and] Gallinger.” On the right, playing the “Western Conservatism” on horns and percussion instruments, are “Knute Nelson, Dolliver, Cummins, Clapp, Bristow, [and] La Follette.” Caption: Pity the poor leader of the Washington Symphony Orchestra.
President Taft, as a railroad brakeman, stands atop a freight car labeled “Administration Route.” He is waving to a woman labeled “Reactionary Politics” driving an automobile. The train is headed for a tunnel labeled “Revolt of the West.” Above the train is a bar labeled “Insurgent Movement” from which strips of rope are hanging, labeled “Burkett, Beveridge, Brown, Nelson, Clapp, Cummins, Dolliver, Bristow, [and] La Follette,” an insurgent group of senators who broke with Taft’s policies. Includes note: “A telltale is a bar to which strips of leather or rope are attached to warn brakemen on freight trains when they are approaching a bridge or a tunnel.” Caption: But there is still time to duck.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-11-17
Lyman Abbott draws Theodore Roosevelt’s attention to an item in The Globe which might amuse Roosevelt and William H. Taft. Abbott also discusses an amendment to the Dolliver bill which Judge Taft approves.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-02-09
C. L. Davidson responds to a letter published by Kansas Senator Chester I. Long regarding the Dolliver Bill, Hepburn Act, and decisions regarding the Interstate Commerce Commission and railroad rates, and how these decisions will affect Wichita, Kansas.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-01-25
Senator Lodge thanks President Roosevelt for the photograph and comments on a speech that Senator Dolliver made recently.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-05-19
Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver asks that President Roosevelt write a letter to be delivered at Senator Knute Nelson’s sixtieth birthday party.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-31
Text of the speeches delivered by Senator Jonathan P. Dolliver, Senator Chauncey M. Depew, Senator Thomas Henry Carter, and Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker at the 1904 Republican National Convention.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-06-23
On the Senate floor, several Senators engage in a free-for-all around a signpost labeled “Rail Road Interests.” Watching the melee from the “Visitors’ Gallery” is Joseph R. Burton.
J. S. Pughe’s center-spread cartoon in Puck, 1906, is a reversal of many cartoons drawn through the years (most memorably by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler’s 1889 gallery of moneybags, “Bosses of the Senate.” Pughe’s variation was to draw the floor of the Senate ripped out, and the well reconfigured as the floor of a stock exchange.
New York Senator Chauncey M. Depew is portrayed as a pliant errand-boy, presumably to corporate masters, and a gaggle of senators, most prominently Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, pile on each other at the “Railroad Interests” station. Senators hasten to make inquiries with trusts, or receive instructions from them; indeed at the time many politicians in Washington frankly presented themselves as serving the corporate interests in their states.
Theodore Roosevelt cannot ask Andrew Carnegie to see John Firman Coar. He has only asked Carnegie to see people on a few specific occasions when he did not feel that he could refuse. Roosevelt adds that even in the cases where he has gotten people access to Carnegie, nothing has resulted from the meetings.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-02-03
Theodore Roosevelt believes Senator Jonathan Dolliver and Representative William Hepburn both played significant roles in creating the Act referenced in a previous letter. Roosevelt says Dolliver had as much to do with its passage as anybody in Congress, and without him, it would not have passed through the Senate.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1914-10-02
President Roosevelt sends the letter to William H. Taft for corrections. He has also sent copies to Representatives J. S. Sherman and William Brown McKinley, Republican Committee Chairman Frank H. Hitchcock, and Secretary of State Elihu Root for comments. Roosevelt suggests Taft also review it with a western radical.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-09-01