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Thomas Collier Platt, with his young bride, passes through the gates to the “Oldboys’ Hymeneal Paradise” where they are greeted by a “Reception Committee” of several old men labeled “Depew, Potter, Dewey, Flagler, [and] Woodford” and their young wives.
President William H. Taft, as a young boy, kneels on the arm of a rocking chair and leans over to put his arms around the shoulders of an elderly woman, labeled “Ultimate Consumer,” who is knitting a large sock.
With a strangely sinister smile on his face, the lad representing the new president, William H. Taft, almost overwhelms his Granny in her rocking chair. She represents the consumer, a class that was continually pictured as worried about the possibility of a rise in the cost of living.
Citizens loudly celebrate the fourth of July with rifles and firecrackers. Standing at center is an elderly woman wearing a banner that states, “Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noises.”
Puck‘s busy and humorous Fourth of July cover — properly in red, white, and blue — was a Bruegel-like birds-eye view of a town square in 1776. Every area of the drawing tells it own story, and the humor is in the excellent cartoon of L. M. Glackens making occasional references to contemporary life in America — announcement of a baseball game; a Prohibition-style crank as a busybody; a newsboy hawking an “Extra” edition of the daily paper.
An old woman sits in a chair with a parrot labeled “Infant Industries” perched next to her and a cat playing beside her chair with a ball of yarn labeled “Dingley Yarn.” Sitting on a stool at her feet is a boy labeled “Young Republican.” The parrot squawks “Polly Wants Protection.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1899-01-11
President Roosevelt, as little Lord Fauntleroy, helps elderly Uncle Sam, bloated by “Overcapitalization” and a bandaged right foot labeled “Wall Street,” walk with a cane. Caption: “Lean on me, Grandpa.”
Udo J. Keppler, in Puck, relies on an extremely popular book (and stage play) of the day for a metaphorical context. His front-page cartoon refers to a famous scene in the 1886 children’s novel Little Lord Fauntleroy in which the privileged young scion nobly offers his shoulder to his infirm grandfather.