Gargoyles

In the first section of this cartoon, President Roosevelt hits a woman labeled the “Republican side of Congress” with his “Secret Service” message big stick. He says, “I’ll teach you that I’m boss here.” In the second section, the woman takes her “rebuke” broom and hits Roosevelt on the head. She says, “You’ll hit a lady, will you?” New York Representative William F. Willett watches from the doorway and says, “De lady needs help.” In the third cartoon, Roosevelt goes to hit the woman with his big stick again, saying, “I’ll fix you for that.” Willett punches Roosevelt in the face: “Gargoyle, unhand dat lady.” In the fourth cartoon, the woman holds a broom and watches Willett with stars around his head. She says, “Wretch, how dare you interfere in a little family affair.” Willett says, “Dat’s like a woman all right.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The Boston Record provided posterity with a facet of the explosive Secret Service controversy between President Roosevelt and the Congress of the United States. What began as a presidential request that Congress expand the charter, duties, and budget of the Secret Service beyond protecting the president and chasing counterfeiters. Changing conditions in American life required a federal agency that could conduct investigations. Congress summarily refused Roosevelt’s request — actually the proposal and dismissal became a virtual cycle — and there was an escalation of earnest rhetoric, intemperance, imputations of corrupt motives, insults, and finally, in Congress, interminable angry debates and a resolution of censure.

President Roosevelt holds a hammer and chisel and is surrounded by gargoyles labeled “muck raker,” “member Ananias Club,” “milksop,” “mollycoddle,” “nature faker,” “undesirable citizen,” and “malefactor of great wealth.”

Comments and Context

With only weeks remaining in Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, cartoonists turned documentary if not nostalgic, and drew summations of the Roosevelt years. Clifford Berryman was always to be more the editorial cartoonist, and a political cartoonist — that is, he generally portrayed events in the headlines, and declined to engage in attacks or persuasion — and here he surveyed the targets of Roosevelt’s ire in famous disputes.

The cartoonist might have called these figures trophies, but “gargoyles” tilted to the president’s view that some of his opponents were indeed odious. But Gargoyles were in the news, because a Democrat Representative, William Willett of New York City, excoriated the president in a floor speech, calling him a “grinning gargoyle.” For this and other billingsgate, the Democrat Congressman was censured by a  126 to 78 vote, and the speech expunged from the Congressional Record. 

President Roosevelt looks up words in the dictionary and reads, “polyglot,” “hay tedder,” and “gargoyle.” Roosevelt’s big stick is beside his chair, and Representative William F. Willett’s speech is on the ground.

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Turn about” might have been foul play in President Roosevelt’s eyes after the New York City Congressman William F. Willett delivered an intemperate attack on the president from the floor. Members’ remarks so delivered are considered privileged — free from punitive action — however, even during the bitter Secret Service dispute, Willett’s language was so offensive that the House voted to censure him and expunge the speech from the Congressional Record, by a vote of 126 to 78.