Your TR Source
Theodore Roosevelt, as the infant Hercules, fights large snakes with the heads of Nelson W. Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller.
Once again Puck harkened back to classical mythology for a cartoon inspiration. In fact from its first days in the mid-1870s the magazine required of its readers a basic familiarity with mythology, opera, and Shakespeare, for its frequent allusions.
Theodore Roosevelt, as Hercules, wears a lion skin and holds a sword. He faces a nine-headed hydra, with each head identified as that of a senator. The hydra’s tail is labeled “U.S. Senate.”
In an earlier time, such as when this cartoon in Puck appeared, average people were conversant with elements of Western intellectual heritage like Greek mythology. The contextual background of this political cartoon by J. S Pughe might have been evident to many readers in 1905. In one of ancient Athens’ most durable myths, the Second Task of Hercules was to conquer the multi-headed monster Hydra.
Arthur Hamilton Lee writes to President Roosevelt about the president’s impending retirement and hopes that it will not impact Anglo-American relations significantly when another man takes office. Lee is distressed about how the papers in New York are covering Roosevelt, as if his character is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He hopes the president continues to shine light in dark places of the securities industry so that scandals will be brought to light. Lee ends his letter requesting that Roosevelt sit for a painter, Fülöp László, for two to three hours and believes that Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt will agree.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-12-13
Edmund Morris argues that “the more one analyzes Theodore Roosevelt in the harsh light of historical research, the more authentic an American hero he becomes.” Morris looks at different episodes in Roosevelt’s life, such as his service during the Spanish-American War, to make his case, and he compares Roosevelt’s life to heroic figures from mythology and literature such as Hercules, Beowulf, and King Lear.
Homer Davenport’s famous cartoon, “He’s good enough for me,” featuring Uncle Sam and Theodore Roosevelt is on the first page of the article.
Perry Heath carries Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna on his back toward the “White House.” A “Roosevelt barrier” stands in between them and the White House.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-01-15
Grover Cleveland, as Hercules carrying a large club labeled “Honest Legislation,” encounters a group of troublemakers along the “Administration Road” to “Success” seen in the distant background. Among the problems to be dealt with are a “Rotten Navy” represented by a two-headed hydra labeled “Robeson” and “Roach” holding a club labeled “Lobby,” an old man labeled “Mormonism” with many wives dangling from his belt, Jay Gould labeled “Land Grabber” holding a club labeled “Monopoly” and carrying a sack with papers labeled “R. R. Land Grab, U. Pacific Land Grab, [and] Land Grab,” a stereotypical Jewish man wearing a top hat labeled “Bankrupt” and holding papers labeled “List of Preferred Creditors,” a vulture labeled “High Tariff” and “Over-Production” sitting next to the prostrate body of a man whose hat, labeled “Labor,” has fallen on a nearby rock, and two men, one labeled “Cuba” holding a paper that states “Please Help a Poor Man with a Treaty” and the other labeled “Mexico” holding a paper that states “Please Help Poor Mexico with a Treaty,” a snake labeled “Silver Swindle” among the rocks, and a man in the background labeled “To the Victor Belong the Spoils” holding a club.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1885-02-18
James Gillespie Blaine is pictured as Apollo playing a lyre labeled “N. Y. Tribune” fashioned from the body of Whitelaw Reid, before a gathering of the gods on Olympus. Among those present are Cyrus W. Field as Mercury, George M. Robeson as Neptune, Charles A. Dana as Minerva, Jay Gould as Zeus, Thomas Collier Platt, Robert Green Ingersoll, and Rutherford B. Hayes as angels, Chauncey Depew, W. H. Vanderbilt as Pluto, Russell Sage, William W. Phelps, John Roach as Vulcan, Stephen B. Elkins as Dionysus, Joseph Warren Keifer as Hercules, John Alexander Logan as Mars, Benjamin F. Butler as Venus, Stephen Wallace Dorsey and Thomas Jefferson Brady as putti, and John Kelly as an owl.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1884-10-08