Lasso

President Roosevelt sits in a chair as three cowboys ride horses behind him, each one carrying a lasso with a different word. The first reads, “we want,” the second reads, “Teddy,” and the third reads, “another term.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Life Magazine’s cover cartoon by William Henry Walker took its title from the recent best-seller by Jack London — the author’s most popular novel. Not a “nature faking” book as Roosevelt then criticized, it told the plausible story of Buck, a dog in the Yukon.

A “trusts” man with a “R.R. Rebates interests” paper in his back pocket rides Uncle Sam. President Roosevelt throws a “legislation” lasso toward the man.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09-25

President Roosevelt holds a valentine that depicts the “Senate” trying to lasso Roosevelt who holds an “etiquette on international arbitration” scroll. The words on the valentine say, “There’s no use tryin’ to lasso us with a great big whoop and a lot o’fuss with our rope in the air we charge for fair and we’re never afraid of the ‘big stick’ scare.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-02-14

President Roosevelt rides an elephant and tries to lasso a number of locomotives: “freight lines,” “rebate system,” and “Beef Trust Refrigerating Line Car Co.” A “small shipper” man lies on the ground.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-25

Photograph of a rawhide riata made by Ranger Barney and used as a traffic controller in the Maltese Cross Ranch Cabin in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1967-03-02

President Roosevelt stands on top of an elephant and throws a lasso. Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, Indiana Senator Charles W. Fairbanks, and Illinois Senator Shelby M. Cullum try to escape the lasso.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-05-18

President Roosevelt tries to lasso a donkey with an anthropomorphized face wearing a papal mitre. Caption: “It won’t hold, Mr. Rough-Rider! He’ll be absolved from it!”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-05-21

President Roosevelt rides a “popularity” horse and jumps a “1st term” rock over a gap to a “2nd term” rock. Alton B. Parker attempts to lasso Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-07-02

President Roosevelt attempts to lasso the “Hanna delegates” train driven by Perry S. Heath.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-01-17

President Roosevelt drives a car with a cage that has four men in it in the back while a man in a striped shirt with a lasso and a revolver rides on the front. Caption: President Roosevelt has had so many adventures with cranks that he travels now only in an automobile with cell attachment, in which the cranks are accommodated.—(Ulk.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-11-15

President Roosevelt holds a “nomination 1904” lasso labeled with a number of states, which he swings toward the “White House.” He rides a horse carrying “skins” of various animals, a bag of “Hanna’s scalp,” and two revolvers: “personal popularity” and “presidential power.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The great cartoonist Charles Green Bush consistently portrayed Theodore Roosevelt in Rough Rider uniform, or cowboy garb, as many cartoonists did. In this cartoon the outfit, the hunter with his catches and lasso, were even more appropriate because the context was the president’s return from an extended swing through the Northern plains, the Pacific Northwest, and the Midwest. He fulfilled an elaborate speaking schedule, but also visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, visited his beloved Badlands, and was guest of honor at Cheyenne’s famed Pioneer Days.