Gambling

A rotund Uncle Sam with “Belmont’s tips” in his back pocket looks at a shorter Uncle Sam that has a “guide to Taggart’s gambling resorts” in his back pocket. On the ground is a “ballot box” that is “stuffed to order.” Caption: In yesterday’s cartoon I showed the three Uncle Sams—the farmer, the merchant and the laboring man—who will elect Roosevelt. To-day’s cartoon shows the two Uncle Sams who are opposed to Roosevelt.— Homer Davenport.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-08-03

In the first cartoon, William Lorimer holds up some cash and tells Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, “Betcha million you’re wrong, Joe!” Caption: He will bet on the Speaker’s decisions. In the second cartoon, Lorimer holds up cash as he watches President Roosevelt play tennis and says, “Betcha million he misses the ball!” Caption: A fine chance to wager a few on Teddy’s game. In the third cartoon, Lorimer plays crap with two men and says, “Fade you for a million!” Caption: What a chance on the crap games!” In the fourth cartoon, Lorimer looks at a horse race from the dome of the United States Capitol and says, “Fifty million on Azelina!” Caption: He can see the Bennings races from the dome of the Capitol. In the fifth cartoon, Lorimer points to an umbrella a man is holding and says, “Betcha million it don’t rain today!” Caption: Betting on the weather.

Comments and Context

Ferdinand G. Long, who drew for several newspapers in the United States and England, but most regularly for the New York World (where he created Sunday and daily strips including the seminal Mr. Peewee) drew this daily political genre-cartoon for the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph in 1908. Unfortunately its title was clipped off by the scrapbook compiler at Theodore Roosevelt’s White House. The Telegraph (1864-1918) was a minor newspaper but with an Associated Press franchise, the reason that publisher Cyrus Herman Kotzschmar Curtis purchased it, then killed it, in 1918.

The five vignettes, without the cartoon’s published caption, appear to address William Lorimer, the corrupt Republican United States congressman from Illinois. He was a notorious gambler and reputed influence-peddler and briber. When associate was later asked about charges against Lorimer, he said that he supposed “a million dollars,” spread around, would not have changed an election’s outcome. In fact Lorimer would be elected United State senator — by the state legislature; in the days before direct election of senators — and was subsequently expelled from the senate for having bribed his way into office.

Michael P. Bolan summarizes the reports he has gathered from acquaintances regarding George W. Lieberth, a recently appointed collector of internal revenue. Lieberth is reported to have often drunk, gambled, and engaged in bribery. A closing memorandum has contradictory statements that support Lieberth as an honorable man.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901-11-25

A high-stakes poker game is being played by Uncle Sam, German Emperor William II, Japanese Emperor Meiji, Emile Loubet of France, and King of Great Britain Edward VII. The emperor of Japan is raising the bid by one battleship. Caption: Japan — I see your cruisers and raise you a dreadnought!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-09-22

At center, a capitalist sits on money bags labeled “Insurance Money” and leans against several papers labeled “New Policy.” He is gambling with the Grim Reaper, while all around them disasters are happening. A panic-stricken crowd flees a burning theater, a hotel and a tenement building are on fire, a side-wheeler steam ship has exploded, an ocean liner sinks, and a railroad train has crashed. At each of these disasters is a notice that states “Heavily Insured.” Caption: Too Enterprising American Capitalist – Keep up the game! I can lose nothing – I’m heavily insured.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-01-24

At left, on the sidewalk outside a gambling room labeled “Monopoly Club Shades,” James G. Blaine and Benjamin F. Butler corner a “Workingman” and try to steer him into the gaming room. On the right, sitting around a table with playing cards, are Russell Sage, William Walter Phelps, George M. Robeson, Jay Gould, and John Roach, and standing is Cyrus W. Field. On a shelf is a bust of William H. Vanderbilt beneath a sign that states “The Public Be D–” and notices that state “No Straight Flushes in this House” and “This is a Bluff Game – No Limit.” On either side of the bust are boxes of “Brag Chips” and “Bluster Cards.” Caption: Hungry Ben – “How are you, Mr. Workingman? What! – don’t you remember me? Why, I’m your old friend! Say – just you let me put you onto a nice little scheme-” Workingman “No, sirree! I’ve been there before.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-08-20

A woman wearing a red dress, holding money, stands between the “Health Department Bureau of Licences and Inspection” and an opening in a wall labeled “Graft.” In a cut-away showing the scene behind the “Graft,” the man (probably a plainclothes officer) who collects the money through the opening in the wall is passing money to a uniformed officer, who in turn passes the money to a large hand (probably that of a politician) entering the frame from above. It is a wild scene with a woman lying on a table, the body of a man stabbed to death beneath the table, a man rolling dice, others drinking, and a shooting taking place in the background. While the woman in red hesitates, the implication is that she has no choice but to pay the graft. Caption: She is here. Man is responsible for her. His laws against her and her traffic but afford opportunity for police extortion. You know this. You may wince at the idea of “regulation,” but is not regulation preferable to the vilest forms of graft? Of two evils, must the greater be chosen?

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1913-01-15

A man labeled “Stock Manipulation,” wearing top hat and tuxedo, rests one hand on a deck of “Marked Cards” and the other on a stack of gambling chips next to “Loaded Dice” and a wheel labeled “Brace Roulette.” The playing table is labeled “Wall Str[eet].” Behind him are money bags and papers labeled “Fiduciary Funds, Treasury Deposits, Other Peoples’ Money, Bank Loans, [and] Pools.” Standing in the foreground and looking up at the man is a diminutive man holding his “Savings” behind his back.

Comments and Context

As Puck Magazine evolved or matured, it grew more radical. This generally was within the drift of the major parties and the public, as reflected in political platforms and editorial opinion. A component of its commentaries were rejection of the corruption and malign political influence of big business, monopolies, and those whom President Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth” with inordinate influence on politics and the economy.

This cover cartoon reflects the magazine’s attitude, and the frequent critique of owner and chief cartoonist Udo J. Keppler. To analyze the cartoon, and appreciate its subtleties, the reader must recognize that Keppler was not only contrasting the relative sizes of the “Stock Manipulator” and the small investor; that visual comparison is rudimentary for a cartoonist.

On the left, anxious businessmen are gathered around a ticker tape machine, reading the ticker tape. On the right, anxious gamblers are gathered around a roulette wheel, awaiting the outcome. Caption: If it is legal to gamble in Wall Street, why isn’t it legal to gamble in the West Forties?

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-08-28

A woman labeled “Blue Law Enforcement” stands on the shore of the ocean, using a broom labeled “Raids on Gambling Houses” to sweep puddles labeled “Police Graft” and “Gambling House Profits” back into the ocean as a wave labeled “The Tendency of Man to Gamble” rolls toward shore. Caption: Municipal Reformer — I’ll push this ocean back if it takes me a thousand years!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-08-21

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

Vignettes show the activities of stock exchanges and gambling on sporting events on ocean liners once they are equipped for wireless transmission.

Comments and Context

“Coming events cast their shadows before…” or perhaps their sounds and static. There were many experiments with the electronic transmission of sound going back to Thomas Edison’s early inventions; and many versions of wireless telegraphy and communications by radio waves between hilltops and even over the Atlantic Ocean before Guglielmo Marconi perfected wireless communication. In between and subsequently there were many scientists and many experiments to perfect communication, and entertainment “over the air.”

Many of the advances, and public displays took place in 1906, especially at the hands of Reginald Fessenden. As these seemingly magical occupied the feature sections of newspapers and breathless stories in magazines, Puck magazine, as usual, was on track to do its cartoon commentary. S. D. Ehrhart drew predictable jokes about the humorous logical extensions of wireless communications at sea.

Throngs of people with wads of money in their hands make their way to the gambling casino at Saratoga, New York. Uncle Sam stands to the right, thumbs in his suspenders, boasting about having the largest gambling facility in the world. Caption: Uncle Sam — Biggest trade, biggest trusts, biggest buildings, biggest machinery, and now I’ve got the biggest gambling joint. Well, say!

Comments and Context

Saratoga, upper New York state’s site of health-water springs and high society’s genteel racing track, was transformed by the addition of casinos and gaming parlors. Cartoonist Ehrhart cast a sarcastic eye on the questionable “improvements,” depicting Uncle Sam as a sharpie drawing every element of the public to its gates.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

A short story with handwritten corrections and additions, telling the tale of an aspiring gambler on his way to Chicago when he gets pulled into a poker game with bigger stakes than he thought. The back of the last page has a scribbled note and a title for a new story “Sweet Tale,” not started.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

Unknown

A large red devil turns the crank of a large wheel decorated with scenes of gambling and with male and female figures labeled “Reformers,” “Citizen’s Committee,” “Women’s League,” and “Salvation,” as well as police officers hanging onto the wheel as it spins.

Comments and Context

Published just after Easter, this Puck cartoon visited a frequent theme of cartoonists, as well as clergy and reformers, especially during the Lenten season, about sinful habits, and how society could ameliorate the unfortunate results of wanton behavior. Easter sermons predictably made headlines in these times. 

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

A young couple, wearing formal evening dress at a fashionable card party, discuss whether the card game “euchre” is gambling, with men and women playing cards at tables in the background. Caption: He. — Some clergymen denounce progressive euchre as gambling. She. — I think they’re horrid! He. — But I think it is gambling. She. — I think you’re horrid!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-04-24

The spirits of alcoholism, opium dens, prostitution, gambling, and street crime, as well as the figure of Death, issue from a tenement house. Caption: Not only an evil in itself, but the vice, crime and disease it breeds invade the homes of rich and poor alike.

Comments and Context

This cartoon, effective in its simplicity, is an example of Puck‘s drift, similar to many magazines and newspapers of the day, from partisanship to social criticism. Its counterpart in literature was Naturalism, which was a focus on the uglier aspects of urban life (caused in part by unprecedented numbers of immigrants; 1900-1910 was the highest number of foreign arrivals) and what Theodore Roosevelt would call Social and Industrial Injustice.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

If Theodore Roosevelt had known of Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall’s bet he would have forbidden Weigall from taking such heavy odds. Governor Wilson could not be beaten as his nomination satisfied all sections of the Democratic Party. However, Roosevelt does not regret the campaign as they fought for a “higher ideal.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-11-08

There is a difference of opinion on whether Theodore Roosevelt’s supporters bolted the Republican National Convention. Taft partisans support this accusation. However, from the viewpoint of a Roosevelt supporter, the convention was illegally constituted and Roosevelt’s delegates left to hold a convention of legally elected delegates. With this in mind, his secretary suggests that Dickerson McAfee and his friends call their bet off.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-10-03

President Roosevelt jokes to former New York Governor Frank Swett Black that “evidently that Clinton County man will have to buy his own clothes this year!” Roosevelt comments that Black seems to have been the only one who anticipated the extent to which Roosevelt would have success in the recent presidential election. He would like for Black to visit soon.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-09