Dynamite

President Roosevelt rolls up a “message to the Senate and House of Representatives” “guaranteed to make a noise when opened.” A teddy bear stares as Roosevelt rolls up two sticks of dynamite and an “alarm clock” as Maurice Latta heads toward the United States Capitol building.

comments and context

Comments and Context

As the weeks counted down to the Republican National Convention, the practical perception of President Roosevelt as a lame duck accelerated. However, he would be president for a full ten months after this cartoon’s publication, and no one should have expected a man like Roosevelt to slow down in activities, or controversies.

President Roosevelt lights a “Taft boom” stick of dynamite outside of the “White House.” Beside him are previously lit sticks of dynamite: “Fairbanks boom,” “Shaw boom,” “Root boom,” and “Cannon boom.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-22

Charles O’Brien expresses his admiration for Theodore Roosevelt’s public writings on the “dynamite outrage.”

Comments and Context

The “dynamite outrage” referenced here is the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910, as well as the broader “dynamite conspiracy” which was uncovered in the aftermath. The bombing, carried out by a member of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, destroyed the building, killing 21 employees and injuring over 100 more.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

The Washington Post reprints selections from Theodore Roosevelt’s Outlook editorial “Murder is Murder,” in which he denounces the labor leaders who came to the defense of the Los Angeles Times dynamiters.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-05-05

Creator(s)

Unknown

President Roosevelt goes to light a “Post Office scandal” stick of dynamite as three men—New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt, Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna, and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Stanley Quay—tell him to stop. Meanwhile, “Miss Democracy” looks on while Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker rides in on a fire wagon. Caption: Chorus from the doorway: “Don’t do it, Teddy! It is dangerous!”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-07-03

In the first vignette, Postmaster General Henry C. Payne points at a “Post Office scandal” stick of dynamite and says, “Aw! — It’s only a squib” as Perry S. Heath and August W. Machen look on. In the second vignette, the stick of dynamite explodes, sending Payne, Machen, and Heath flying.

Comments and Context

Henry Clay Payne served as President Theodore Roosevelt’s Postmaster General. Regarded by history as an undistinguished appointment, Payne was a railroad and streetcar entrepreneur from Milwaukee whose activities both benefited the city’s expansion and leisure opportunities for the working poor, and, somewhat typically of the day, was less than generous with workers’ pay and conditions. In the Roosevelt cabinet he was a loyal Republican organizer — Postmasters General still dispensed patronage in large measure — and largely was a functionary.

In early 1904 he assumed the additional duties of Chairman of the Republican National Committee upon the death of Marcus Alonzo Hanna. He resigned that portfolio after four months in favor of George B. Cortelyou. 

“Congress” holds a club, a pistol, a hatchet, and a knife with a box of dynamite behind him as he looks at a picture of “our next ex-president”–Theodore Roosevelt. Caption: The question, “What shall be done with our ex-Presidents?” is bein[g] discussed in Congress.

comments and context

Comments and Context

As Theodore Roosevelt was only fifty years old upon his imminent retirement; and as he famously was a strenuous polymath and cognoscente, there was much speculation, not the least among editorial writers and political cartoonists, “What shall we do with our ex-president?” The question occurred to Roosevelt too, and history knows his many subsequent pursuits, commencing with the African safari.

A man whose offer of marriage has been rejected, and who is now determined to kill himself as a means of ending his suffering, is sitting in a chair with two handguns aimed at his chest, mounted on the arms of the chair, facing a cannon. Beneath him are “Dynamite Cartridges,” and overhead is a large rock labeled “500 lb. weight.” A tube from his mouth extends to a container of “Poison,” two straight-edge razors are aimed at this throat, and a “Charcoal” burner spews carbon monoxide fumes. The letter from his girlfriend is on the floor next to the chair. It states, “Dear George, I can not marry you. Carri.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-02-07

Print shows a man labeled “Organized Labor” climbing the steps to a building labeled “Law, Prosperity, [and] Order,” when a bomb labeled “Dynamite Argument” explodes in his face.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-08-30

“Britannia” stands on the left, holding “Concessions to Ireland,” and “Hibernia” stands on the right in a militant pose. Between them is a nasty looking man with two “Dynamite” bombs slung over his shoulders.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-06-11

Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa swings like a gorilla from an American flag and drops dynamite bombs on England.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-03-19

A large cannon labeled “Violence” explodes out the back end, catching John J. McNamara, James B. McNamara, Samuel Gompers, and possibly Clarence Darrow in the blast. Two large cannon shells labeled “Murder” and “Dynamiting” lie on the ground on the left.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-12-27

At center, Samuel Gompers stands on a platform, pointing to a sign with a whip labeled “Expulsion.” The sign states “To Organized Labor / Defend your persecuted brethren. Put up, or lose your union card.” He is holding a hat into which union members, entering from the left, are depositing money. To the right, behind Gompers, the money, in the form of “Dynamite,” drops through a hole in the top of the hat to the platform where union thugs grab it. Beyond them are explosions labeled “Organized Murder.” Caption: What went into it and what came out of it.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-02-07