Fools and jesters

A court jester entertains a young woman wearing a crown on her head, sitting on a large stone bench.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Carl Hassmann, whose work at Puck virtually consisted of two themes — dark and brooding disasters that threatened domestic or international peace; or poster-like decorative or frivolous designs. Puck‘s 1906 Easter cover was assigned to Hassmann, the Viennese immigrant, and he produced a variant on Puck‘s traditional Lenten themes of suppressed social abandonment, or Easter’s notice that social strictures were loosed (never a religious subtext).

A large bull labeled “Beef Trust,” wearing a crown, sits on its haunches, with its front hooves crushing a “Cattle Raiser” and a “Consumer.” A jester labeled “Anti-Trust Laws” is flogging it with two bags or balloons labeled “Fines” attached to a stick. Caption: “There, you bad, wicked Beef Trust! Take that!!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Some of the major political battles of 1905-06 were pressed by President Roosevelt, and some issues came to a head; of course the political confrontations were engaged in synergistic fashion to varying degrees. One of the most intractable of issues concerned the Beef Trust, meat-packing monopolies, and pure food and drug matters: everything from manipulated prices of meat to adulterated canned food and drugs. These issues were all related, and exacerbated by “muckraking” writing by Upton Sinclair (the meat industry), Samuel Hopkins Adams (medicines and drugs), and others.

Puck massages the scalp of a deranged-looking Richard Olney who is sitting on a bench in a padded cell in the “Hopeless ward for incurables” and holding a rattle of William Jennings Bryan as a jester. On the floor are loose papers, one labeled “Olney’s letter indorsing [sic] Bryan.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Richard Olney had served as Attorney General in the second administration  of Grover Cleveland, and embodied the President’s conservative stands on Sound Money, “dangerous” unions and strikes, and regulation of monopolies if done in order to protect them. He also served Cleveland as Secretary of State, and some of his views on hemispheric affairs foreshadowed the Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine promulgated a decade later by President Theodore Roosevelt. Given this background — and as a prominent corporate and railroad lawyer, Puck was surprised that Olney supported William Jennings Bryan in the latter’s second run for the presidency.

Uncle Sam dances through a minefield of political issues, such as “Catholic Demands for part of School Funds,” “Single Tax Fad,” “Populism,” “Prohibition Foolishness,” “Women’s Rights Nonsense,” and the “Free Silver Mania,” which all have strings attached leading back to a bishop, a woman, a temperance man, and a “Silverite.” Caption: Uncle Sam–Let ’em amuse themselves; – but they can’t take me in!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-04-03

David B. Hill appears as a jackass wearing a coat with a ribbon that states “I am a Democrat,” standing on rocks, kicking at the moon, which shows the face of Grover Cleveland. Puck and a group of citizens are laughing at him.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-05-23

A man, possibly Joseph Pulitzer, dressed as a jester and holding papers labeled “Income Tax Law,” stands before a woman labeled “Democracy” sitting in a chair labeled “Congress.” “Democracy” holds a quill pen in her hand and appears to be pondering whether to sign the bill. In the background, a man with a ballot box for a head and with one finger raised tells her not to sign the bill.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-02-07

William Randolph Hearst, as a jester, tosses newspapers with headlines such as “Appeals to Passion, Venom, Sensationalism, Attacks on Honest Officials, Strife, Distorted News, Personal Grievance, [and] Misrepresentation” to a crowd of eager readers, among them an anarchist assassinating a politician speaking from a platform draped with American flags. On the left, men labeled “Man who buys the comic supplement for the kids, Businessman, Gullible Reformer, Advertiser, [and] Decent Citizen” carry bags of money that they dump into Hearst’s printing press. Includes note: “The time is at hand when these journalistic scoundrels have got to stop or get out, and I am ready now to do my share to that end. They are absolutely without souls. If decent people would refuse to look at such newspapers the whole thing would right itself at once. The journalism of New York City has been dragged to the lowest depths of degradation. The grossest railleries and libels, instead of honest statements and fair discussion, have gone unchecked.”– From Mayor Gaynor’s letter published in the New York Evening Post. Caption: Those who feed it and those whom it feeds.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-10-12

Print shows a vignette cartoon with scenes of colonial men and women working at domestic and blue collar chores and jobs, leading to a scene with upper class women, each clutching an approved “Family Tree.” At center is a poem of four stanzas describing the pride that the upper class take in their ancestors, working men and women though they may have been. The final stanza encourages the “farmers’ wives who tend the Western garden rows” not to despair, because they may yet find themselves to be “some blue-bloods forebears, too.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-09-27

A young woman and a harlequin both hold glasses of wine. A man next to them holds a bottle of wine.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1914-08-22

Ulysses S. Grant as a king sits on a throne, surrounded by his courtiers, identified as Rev. J. P. Newman, Henry Ward Beecher, Roscoe Conkling, Jay Gould, George W. Childs, William Belknap, G. Jones, Senator John P. Jones, Simon Cameron, James Donald Cameron, James D. Fish, John A. Logan, T. C. Platt, George M. Robeson, [and] Joseph W. Keifer.” The unidentified man standing behind Logan may be Ferdinand Ward. At center is a large cushion covered with coins labeled “$150,000,000 Surplus – Result of Over-Taxation.” In the background is a standard that states “Glory to the Ex-Decoy for Grant & Ward.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-05-21

Roscoe Conkling appears as a court jester during proceedings in “Surrogate’s Court – Hoyt Will Case.” Papers extending from his pocket state “There’s Millions in it” and “Fee.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-04-23

Samuel S. Cox, as a court jester, is booted off a podium by a man sitting in the “Speaker’s Chair” in a congressional chamber, and is about to land on the floor. Cox is holding a stick with balloons attached labeled “Jokes, Witticisms, [and] Sarcasm,” and a book “by S. S. Cox” titled “Why We Laugh” (possibly the new and enlarged 1880 edition of his book first published in 1876) drops to the floor next to him. In the upper right, looking on approvingly, are members of Congress, Allen G. Thurman and Lucius Q. C. Lamar among them.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-12-05

The spirits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln look at a throne draped with an American flag beneath a sign that states, “This coming term will end the first hundred years of the American presidency. Shall the century begun with Washington at the head of government end in disgrace with James G. Blaine in that sacred chair?” Below is Blaine, tattooed with scandals and frightened by the shades of past presidents, his hat labeled “Corruption” falling off, with his foot on the first step toward the presidency. Leaning against his back is Jay Gould holding a paper that states “Four Supreme Court judges to be appointed by the next president.” Also behind Blaine, on his hands and knees, is Stephen W. Dorsey, next to a paper on the floor that states, “Honesty No Requisite for the Presidency (Blaine’s Theory).” On the right stands Benjamin F. Butler as a court jester labeled “Barcain with Blaine.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-10-29

The ghost of Winfield Scott Hancock sits on a throne in a banquet hall. Samuel J. Tilden pushes a frightened Charles A. Dana, as Macbeth, toward Hancock. Dana makes wild statements while waving around a note for $5000.00. A chalice has fallen to the floor, spilling “Harmony.” Samuel S. Cox, as a court jester, sits on the floor next to the throne with “S.S. Cox’s Joke Book” at his knee. The room is filled with courtiers, among them Thomas A. Hendricks, Grover Cleveland who has fallen backwards onto John Kelly, Thomas F. Bayard, Samuel J. Randall, David Davis, Henry Watterson, Abram S. Hewitt, Hubert O. Thompson, George Hoadly, and Benjamin F. Butler. All seem to be sitting in judgment of Dana. Caption: MacBeth-Dana–“Never shake thy gory locks at me! I’ll bet you Five Thousand Dollars thou canst not say I did it!!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-08-29

Illustration shows a beautiful young woman, full-length portrait, facing front, dressed as a harlequin.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1914-11-07

Three monks, Whitelaw Reid, James G. Blaine, and John Logan, walk a few steps ahead of a band of merry revelers composed of Puck, Puck’s figure for the “Independent” party, President Cleveland labeled “Reformed Bourbon” with a woman on the right labeled “North” and a woman on the left labeled “South,” and an African American man. Reid carries a sack labeled “Bloody Shirt” and “Irreconcilable Editorials” and Logan is reading “Paradise Lost.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-07-08

Uncle Sam, wearing royal robes and a crown, sits on a throne. At his feet is a court jester labeled “Andy” sitting with his legs crossed and holding a short staff with two balls attached labeled “Bluff” and “Guff.” Nearby is a book titled “Skibo Joke Book.” Caption: Sometimes his prattle becomes a trifle wearing.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-12-18

A jester pours dice in the shape of men and women from a cup labeled “The Rail Roads” onto a topographical map. “Travel number” is written in the lower-right corner.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1911-06-14