Your TR Source
Ada Brace Hall expresses to Theodore Roosevelt her concerns about the high cost of living and its impact on middle-class families.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-11
A large group of happy animals gather around a sign that states “Meeting to thank the Meat Trust for raising prices.” A bull stands on a platform, addressing the gathering. Caption: The Orator — Let us give thanks, my friends, to the noble Meat Trust for putting up prices. In Europe the laborer has meat once a week. Here he has been eating it three times a day. The higher we come the longer we live.
What appears to be a light Aesopian jest cuts to the main argument of low-tariff advocates and free-traders. Cartoonist Pughe illustrates the dilemma inherent in “protective” high tariffs on foreign, imported goods. Industries, and presumably their workers, benefited from cheap foreign imports having duties imposed. But when domestic industries and agricultural/farming interests were thereby “protected,” they often felt free to raise their prices, to the ultimate disadvantage of the consumer.
On behalf of Theodore Roosevelt, his secretary informs William B. Clarkson that the paragraph Clarkson quotes does not accurately represent Roosevelt’s words. A full account of Roosevelt’s words regarding farmers, wage workers, and middlemen is provided by his secretary, who took down the remarks. Roosevelt believes in a high standard of wages and paying those who work, but does not want to pay men who do nothing as middlemen.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-12
At top left is “The Spirit of ’76,” showing a family about to sit down to tea, as boxes of tea are visible through a window in the back of the room, floating in Boston Harbor. The father, who has just entered, states: “Away with that tea or you’re no daughter of mine! Not a drop in this house until the hateful tax is taken off!” At bottom right is “The Spiritless 1907,” showing a family sitting at the dinner table where the grandfather is about to carve the beef. He states: “Ain’t it a shame the prices they charge for beef. But we’ve got to have it, Trust or no Trust.” At the bottom left, disgruntled patrons exit a “Market,” counting their change.
Cartoons in journals like Puck (and since, in the field) primarily have been partisan, political, or somewhere in the middle and to varying degrees of intensity, “commentary.” The commentary can be humorous, as S. D. Ehrhart’s once were, or more biting and incisive, as his became. This was generally true of his fellow cartoonists at the time, and magazines like Puck‘s rival Life always tended toward the social-commentary mode.
A large cornucopia labeled “Cold Storage Warehouse” stores a significant amount of farm produce, creating an artificial shortage, in an effort to drive up the price of food in the marketplace. A group of people stand outside the locked door labeled “Closed for Higher Prices,” while, in the background, farm produce is being delivered from both sides for cold storage.
The downside of prosperity, such as was enjoyed during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, was a byproduct of human nature: sometimes retail prices rose not because of higher demand or better production standards, but because retailers — often the “middlemen” — could manipulate prices.