Japan

In the first vignette, a Japanese man holding a camera sees the Washington Monument and says, “I’ll snap this shot tower” while another Japanese man takes a picture of German Emperor William II saying, “Ah, a snap!” In the second vignette, a Japanese man takes a picture of the White House, “This may come in handy.” In the third vignette, a Japanese man draws a picture of a trolley car and says, “Hist!” In the fourth vignette, a Japanese man takes a picture of President Roosevelt as he pushes a plow, “Ha! A new engine of war!” In the fifth vignette, a Japanese man draws a picture of a trolley and a car on a torn up road, “I never saw such a sight before! Some new method of blocking a forward movement I suppose.” In the middle of the cartoon, a man labeled “American jingo” reads the “yellow journal” with the headline, “Japs posed for war! Spies everywhere!”

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Comments and Context

In this commentary-cartoon by Clifford Kennedy Berryman, the focus is not on suspicious activities by Japanese immigrants and visitors, but mocking the paranoia of nativists at the time and, specifically, the frenzy whipped up by the “Yellow Press” (a name applied to sensationalist newspapers, nothing related to racial stereotypes).

President Roosevelt tells Secretary of War William H. Taft, who is dressed in traditional Japanese attire and holds an olive branch, “Taft, I guess you had better make a short Japanese trip” as he points out the window at explosions going off in Japan.

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Comments and Context

San Francisco-area politicians, newspapers, and agitators had long resented the presence of the Japanese in their midst. Japanese workers arrived in the United States since the 1870s (when Tokyo ended its isolationist emigration policies) and, generally speaking, unlike Chinese field workers and railroad laborers who tended to return home, many Japanese intended to become American citizens.

President Roosevelt and Uncle Sam stand on the shore of the ocean. In Roosevelt’s pocket is a handle labeled, “lately discovered,” and Uncle Sam says, “Just a squall, Ted,” as they look out on the “Japanese jingoism” waves.

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Comments and Context

President Roosevelt had long been troubled by the ugliness surrounding Japanese immigration in California, specially around San Francisco. He opposed prejudice and violence; he resented the agitation of politicians and newspaper publishers like William Randolph Hearst (of the San Francisco Examiner), and worried about the malign effects on America’s foreign policy and role in Pacific affairs.

President Roosevelt holds back a fighting Uncle Sam and a Japanese man. Caption: “Gently, guys! And don’t you think about my peace prize?”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-16

President Roosevelt holding his “big stick” and San Francisco Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz in his arms steps up on a platform, “Conquest of California.” In the background are other figurines of Roosevelt: “San Juan Hill,” “Russian Jap Peace,” and “Anti-race Suicide.”

Comments and Context

T. S. Sullivant was one of the great American cartoonists of his time, active mostly between the 1890s and his death in 1926. His specialties were animal subjects and ethnic themes. Between roughly 1904 and 1909, he was employed by William Randolph Hearst, principally to draw daily political cartoons. The drawings often were cartoon masterpieces, but unlike his earlier and subsequent work for magazines and color supplements — both rare enough today — are virtually inaccessible to scholars due to the scarcity of newspaper files.

This commentary by Sullivant is one example. It is mildly critical of Roosevelt — for instance, the inevitable Rough Rider outfit is inappropriate except for one cited accomplishment — but notes a few of the substantial achievements of a life that indeed was busy.

The California delegation on the Japanese question include San Francisco Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz and San Francisco Board of Education secretary in 1907 Elmore C. Leffingwell.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-02-15

A woman, “Peace,” crowns President Roosevelt, who is already wearing an enormous “Nobel Peace Prize” and holding his big stick, with a laurel wreath. On the ground are three laurel wreaths beside a paper that reads, “Amicable adjustment of Japanese question.”

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Comments and Context

C. R. Macauley, over his long cartooning career, was seldom complimentary toward Theodore Roosevelt. He drew this cartoon for the semi-official organ of the national Democrat Party, the New York World; in 1912 he was even the official, salaried cartoonist for the press office of the Democratic National Committee.

The Japanese flag of the Imperial Navy with a Japanese man’s head in the center appears on the horizon of the ocean.

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Comments and Context

It evidently was not only West Coast newspapers, like the sensationalist San Francisco Examiner of William Randolph Hearst, that provoked anti-Japanese sentiment at the turn of the century. A cartoonist named Robert Isbell, plugging a hole at the Washington Post left by the departure of Clifford Kennedy Berryman for the crosstown Star, trafficked in xenophobic alarums about the “Yellow Peril.”

President Roosevelt and Eugene E. Schmitz stand hidden on the side of a mountain near a sign that reads, “To Japanese settlement.”

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Comments and Context

This cartoon by Jack H. Smith in the reliably pro-Roosevelt Washington Herald addresses the president’s persistent efforts to diffuse, if not mediate, the ugly tensions in San Francisco engendered by Japanese immigrants: their growing presence, their role in business and social life, and the prejudice they suffered. Japanese were persecuted; there were efforts to exclude further immigration. A regulation advanced by local newspapers and politicians that kept Japanese students from public schools

President Roosevelt ploughs through a variety of drifts: “tariff revision drift,” “swollen fortune drift,” “railroad drift,” “Standard Oil drift,” “Senate drift,” “Jap. drift,” and “canal drift.” In the background the Republican elephant cries, “Help!” stuck underneath a drift.

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Comments and Context

“Drift” was a word that made its way into President Roosevelt’s speeches and articles, reflecting his concern that events might slip out of control in areas of public life where he had influence. Whether it was reform to forestall revolution, or urgent conservation measures to prevent the spoil of natural beauty and resources, or similar palliatives, Roosevelt always seemed concerned with anticipating possible over-reactions to challenges and problems in society.

President Roosevelt tours Asia with tracts in his hand and his bag labeled, “T. Roosevelt U. S. A.” and a “big stick” under his arm. He is followed by men holding hymnals as foreigners run away. Minarets and Mount Fuji can be seen in the distance. Caption: “Is this to be President Roosevelt’s future? To tour the Orient with the big stick and blaze the way for American missionaries.”

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Comments and Context

The background of this cartoon has to do with more than President Roosevelt’s declaration, made on election night of 1904, that he would not seek a consecutive term after the one to which he had just been elected, but his agreement to be a regular post-presidency contributor to The Outlook, a weekly Christian magazine of opinion and news, was generally known.

President Roosevelt takes a big stick labeled “Japanese question” and hits “San Francisco” with it. Caption: “Another earthquake.”

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Comments and Context

Fortunately or unfortunately, the tragedy of the San Francisco earthquake provided cartoonists opportunities to employ the event as a reference-point for drawings that addressed other matters. But it is what cartoonists do — deal in the relatable; and after more than a century, the earthquake provides talking-points in politics and other fields.

A man labeled “California” and a man labeled “Jap” fight over a picnic basket full of food labeled “Public Schools,” threatening to capsize their boat. Uncle Sam looks on, holding a fishing pole that has three fish on it, says, “Quit it! Quit it!”

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Comments and Context

Anti-Japanese prejudice in California was so rife at this time, that the state attempted to exclude Japanese immigrants from public schools. It was a public and ugly controversy, spearheaded by, among others, San Francisco publisher William Randolph Hearst. He fanned the flames of prejudice through cartoons — more effective with his readers than printed editorials — once showing a Japanese schoolboy hiding plans to invade the West Coast in his textbook.

A “California Congressman” pokes a beehive labeled “Trouble with Japan,” out of which angry bees are attacking the congressman.

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Comments and Context

This cartoon illustrates a fractious problem of President Roosevelt’s second term, the persistent and sometimes ugly anti-Asian prejudice on the West Coast — mostly in California; mostly aimed at Japanese immigrants, more than other “Orientals.”

One man angrily gestures at another man labeled “Japan” standing on a platform with a club labeled “The Sign of the Big Stick” hanging over head. Caption: “San Francisco: Just wait ’till I get you outside!”

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Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

A large President Roosevelt stands in front of a fire with a bag labeled “Arbitration Fund” and wording on the front that says, “Nobel Peace Prize Award to President for His Work in Promoting Peace Between Russia and Japan. $37.127.00.” Roosevelt carries a club labeled “Big Stick” with an attached olive branch across his back and looks on to two sleeping men labeled “Capitalist” and “Wage Earner.” Both men are holding daggers. There are two stockings on the hearth labeled “Labor” and “Capital.”

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Comments and Context

Cartoonist P. B. McCord engaged in hyperbolic wishes in this pre-Christmas cartoon. The back-story was President Roosevelt’s announcement that he would not keep for himself the monetary award associated with the Nobel Prize for Peace. He proposed that the fund be in escrow and used toward the establishment of an agency — or some mechanism — that would promote industrial peace in the United States.

In the first section, Russian Emperor Nicholas II and Japanese Emperor Meiji come to President Roosevelt, saying, “We cannot agree on peace terms. Roosevelt responds, “What?” In the second section, Roosevelt knocks their heads together and says, “Well—suppose you get together and try again—” In the third section, Nicholas II and Meiji have stars around their heads as they look as a paper that reads, “Russo-Japan Peace Terms.” Roosevelt stands in the doorway with his “big stick” and says, “—And I’ll give you just 15 minutes to sign those papers—”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09

President Roosevelt looks at a Japanese leopard and a Russian bear. Caption: “Gentlemen, thank you for the trust you have placed in me and I consider myself highly recommended for the future. You see that you were served better and more promptly here than by my competitors in The Hague.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09-05

President Roosevelt holds an American flag with a tag that reads, “let us have peace,” on the globe. The Japanese and Russian flags can also be seen. Caption: The flag of peace: Roosevelt unfurls it over the world.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09

A caricatured, dark-skinned President Roosevelt takes several bites out of a “strenuous politics” watermelon outside of the United States Capitol building. There are a variety of phrases on the watermelon: “peace terms for Russia & Japan,” “no war taxes in times of peace,” “square deals,” “honesty in politics,” “uniting the North & South,” “ousting the political grafters,” and “anti-trust crusade.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09-02