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John St. Loe Strachey writes to President Roosevelt on a variety of topics including Roosevelt’s daughter’s upcoming marriage, the current state of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the current state of the Senate of the United States, and his personal opinion of Edward Grey.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-01-29
The Houston Chronicle comments on a pair of Texas-related items. The first of these, the involvement of Senator Joseph W. Bailey in keeping Senator William Lorimer in the Senate, notes Lorimer’s political alliance with Bailey in opposition to Canadian reciprocity, and mentions the political corruption and bribery Lorimer has been accused of which led to his election. The second looks at the creation of the Rice Institute, which was created using funds provided for in the will of William Marsh Rice. While construction of the institution is taking a long time, it is being built for the future, and will be a great place of learning.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-02
F. Norton Goddard assures President Roosevelt that there was no conflict of opinion regarding the decision not to nominate a candidate in the New York 12th Congressional District. Goddard knows Roosevelt did not want to interfere in the matter, and reassures him that his opinion was not a factor in declining to nominate a candidate at this time.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-02-05
Representative Greenway will be unable to accept her appointment to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission until she understands the obligations. Greenway has considerable responsibilities in her role as a representative from Arizona and she is not given much margin for outside privileges.
1934-06-07
Representative Greenway suggests that W. L. Moad write to Gladys Lytle, at Greenway’s office in Washington, D.C., about his trouble. She hopes to help.
1934-08-09
Several congressmen labeled “Gardner, Champ Clark, De Armond, Sulzer, Goldfogle, Ollie James, Fitzgerald, [and] Burton Harrison” and others are engaged in a brawl on the floor of the House of Representatives. In the background, Sereno E. Payne is addressing the Speaker of the House, Joseph Gurney Cannon.
As the sixty-first Congress was seated in March 1909 the Democrat Party had reason to feel confident about their future in the House of Representatives. The party still was in the distinct minority, but a growing restlessness in the electorate presaged political changes; more and more Republican representatives declared themselves anti-Establishment Insurgents likely to resist the House’s Old Guard; and the popular Theodore Roosevelt would be abroad for more than a year, his Republican influence absent from politics.
Vignettes show a “nervous congressman” suspecting everyone he meets to be a spy investigating him. Everyone he sees (a female companion, a “waiter,” “his constituents,” a “friend,” and a woman pushing an infant in a stroller) is carrying handguns and handcuffs, and he refuses the return of a loan for fear that it is “marked money.” A picture of Marcus Alonzo Hanna hangs on the wall of his congressional office. At night a demon that looks like Theodore Roosevelt torments his sleep.
The United States Secret Service, created by detective Allen Pinkerton during the Civil War, initially was formed with the charge to protect the president. Its role expanded to investigate land frauds and track counterfeit money, and other random duties.
A Chinese play is being acted on a small stage with Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich offering two small doll-like figures labeled “Small Dealer” and “Consumer” to a dragon labeled “High Protection” manned by two men labeled “Special Privilege” and “Graft.” J. S. Sherman, John Dalzell, and Sereno E. Payne play musical instruments on the left side of the stage. On the back of the stage is a Buddha icon labeled “Greed.” In the foreground, at the foot of the stage, are Chinese men labeled “Lumber Trust, Paper Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Beef Trust.” On the far right, beneath a sign that states “Box Reserved for Amer. Protective Tariff League,” is a Chinese man labeled “Chas A. Moore” holding a tray with two small figures labeled “First Voter.”
“Like a Chinese Play, It Goes On Forever” is an abecedarian and awkward variation on “trusts bad, politicians subservient, consumers powerless” themes. Cartoonist Frank A. Nankivell, who had lived part of career in Japan, had a difficult job in approximating Asian pictograph lettering, and he relied on stereotypes of culture and attire for the cartoon.
President William H. Taft, as Saint Patrick, wears a miter with the spectacles and grin of Theodore Roosevelt on it. Carrying Roosevelt’s big stick wrapped in “His Policies,” he strides ashore toward lizards, snakes, and frogs labeled “Aldrich, Cannon, Rockefeller, Harriman, Land Grafter, Ship Subsidy, Beef Trust, [and] ‘Preserved’ Food.”
Barely weeks into his Administration, President William H. Taft is in Puck Magazine’s honeymoon phase, depicted in the cover cartoon by L. M. Glackens as a Saint Patrick who legendarily drove snakes from Ireland. Taft, caricatured as almost thin — anyway, not of the roly-poly corpulence in campaign cartoons — and earnestly about good deeds.
An oversized, bloated man labeled “Protected Monopoly” receives a blood transfusion from Uncle Sam who is being attended to by (left to right) Vice President J. S. Sherman; Senator Nelson W. Aldrich (Rhode Island); Representative Sereno Elisha Payne (New York); and Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. Sherman stands on the left, on a stepladder, taking the pulse of the “Protected Monopoly.” Caption: “Uncle Sam–They say he needs it, but he doesn’t look sick to me.”
The subject of the cartoon is the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, the first upward revision of rates since 1897; and which proved massively unpopular with voters, particularly farmers. The Republican tariff was so unpopular that the party suffered major defeats in the 1910 midterm elections. President William H. Taft attempted to ameliorate the perennial tariff woes by drafting reciprocity treaties with many countries, but even the difficult Canadian negotiations could not please the angry consumers and disaffected voters.
Joseph Gurney Cannon, holding a rifle, stands with John Dalzell and Nelson W. Aldrich, operating a moonshine still at the opening to a cave in a wilderness area. A retort is connected to a barrel labeled “‘Still’ Legislation.” On a rock in the foreground is a shadow of a bust portrait in profile of Theodore Roosevelt. Caption: Or, the mooonshiners of Capitol Hill.
This January 1909 cartoon — published in advance of President Roosevelt’s presidential retirement in March — nevertheless showed the influences still held by the president, a check on then schemes of Old Guard leadership in Congress.
Thomas Collier Platt waves his top hat while riding on the back of a bucking donkey. The donkey is labeled “Tribune” and has the face of Whitelaw Reid, and is in the ring at the “G.O.P. Circus.” Among those in the audience is Chauncey M. Depew.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1896-02-05
A group of legislators meet at night, but are threatened by the specter of President Roosevelt, wielding his “Big Stick.” Caption: Will it fall? …
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1898-1907
A runaway pig labeled “The Tariff Issue” drags Joseph Gurney Cannon behind it. They are being chased by John Dalzell, Nelson W. Aldrich, Sereno Elisha Payne, and J. S. Sherman. An overturned cart labeled “Steel Trust” has spilled its contents of steel railroad rails. Andrew Carnegie, wearing a kilt, stands next to the cart waving his hat and gesturing to the congressmen. In the background is a large crowd, some in pursuit, and the U.S. Capitol.
After the Republican party’s sweeping victory in the 1908 elections, the major goal of the party establishment, after the oath-taking of William H. Taft, seemed to be the passage of a tariff bill. It had been a decade since the last revision of import duties (the Dingley Act of 1897), and the tariff was a hot topic in the campaign.
Members of the U.S. Senate look down on five diminutive members seated in the front. They are identified as “Hill Repudiated by New York,” “Murphy Repudiated by New York,” “Gorman Repudiated by Maryland,” “Brice Repudiated by Ohio,” and “Smith Repudiated by New Jersey.” Among the senators present are Adlai E. Stevenson, William M. Stewart, George F. Hoar, Charles A. Boutelle, John Sherman, Daniel W. Voorhees, William E. Chandler, John M. Palmer, Justin S. Morrill, John P. Jones, Matthew S. Quay, and William A. Peffer.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-12-11
President Grover Cleveland stands on the floor of the House of Representatives, among congressmen, many dressed as natives, holding a large book labeled “Sound Money Message.” Caption: The missionary is all right; but the heathen are terribly hard to convert.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-12-18
President Cleveland drives a stagecoach carrying a female passenger labeled “National Credit” and a trunk labeled “Gold Reserve.” The horse team is labeled “Firmness” and “Common Sense.” A pack of dogs is trying to rattle the horses. The dogs are identified as “Dana, Pulitzer, Frye, Bland, Sickles, Peffer, Reed, Boutelle, Wolcott, Pugh, Stewart, Jones, Morgan, Teller, [and] Lodge.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-03-13
Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed holds a gavel and “Tariff Legislation.” While he is seated at the Speaker’s desk, he is mindful of a large man wearing a business suit, labeled “Protectionist,” sitting behind him.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1896-01-22
The U.S. Senate chamber is reduced to pandemonium when a Senate Page announces the unexpected arrival of “Investigators Lexow and Goff.” Among the senators scrambling for cover are Arthur P. Gorman, Matthew S. Quay, Calvin S. Brice, Edward Murphy Jr., and George F. Hoar. Caption: The awful scene that would ensue if investigators Lexow and Goff should unexpectedly appear in the U.S. Senate chambers.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-06-27
A hand labeled “Fifty-Third Congress” holds a frying pan labeled “Democracy” in which is a man labeled “Democrat.” The pan is being held over an open fire labeled “Republicanism,” which is consuming logs labeled “Extravagant Appropriations, Pension Frauds, [and] McKinleyism.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-07-04