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Alton B. Parker leans against an “Esopus” haystack with “Vermont” mountains in the background. A “safe and sane” horn is at his feet. “32,000 Republican plurality” lightning strikes in the sky.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-09-08
A large flaming hand labeled “Guilt” emerges from dark clouds pointing to a man’s downfall. Institutions labeled “Business Reputation, Financial Standing, Social Position, Respectability, [and] Church Membership” that he has worked to build up crumble, as lightning bolts labeled “Public Enlightenment,” revealing his corrupt practices, strike them. Caption: The old-time defenses no longer defend him.
“The Man Highest Up” illustrates Puck‘s evolution from focusing on parties and politicians to systemic ills and injustices in America.
Stopping short of labeling the accusatory hand of the “man higher up” as the Deity, the assignment of guilt asserts that the Hand of Justice is at play. Again without naming specific malefactors, cartoonist Udo J. Keppler’s characterization of the man behind the desk is an indictment of a type among business moguls.
The angry countenance of Father Knickerbocker looks down from storm clouds on a flood that has broken up “Tammany Hall” with the Tammany Tiger sitting on a partial building labeled “Tammany” and a group of Natives sitting on a ladder resting against the other half of the building labeled “Hall.” Other Natives are treading water. A bolt of lightning is labeled “Popular Condemnation.” Among those depicted as Natives are Richard Croker, Roswell P. Flower, William B. Cockran, James J. Martin, and Hugh J. Grant. Also shown are Charles A. Dana, Edward Murphy Jr., and George B. McClellan, and the top hat of John J. Scannell.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-05-09
Benjamin Harrison sits atop a chimney, holding rods with metal tips. Several other rods are tied to his body and his hat. He hopes to get struck by a lightning bolt labeled “Republican Presidential Nomination” during an electrical storm. The rods are labeled “Jingo Record, G.A.R. War Record, Grandson of his Grandfather, Reciprocity, Grandfather’s Hat, Vigorous Foreign Policy, A Cheap Coat Makes a Cheap Man, [and] Paternalism.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-08-29
Eros (or Cupid) labeled “Arbitration” and Psyche labeled “Peace” cover their heads with a cloth labeled “Peace Congress” and flee from a storm labeled “War.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1899-11-22
William Jennings Bryan and Samuel Gompers, looking worried, fly in a hot air balloon labeled “Labor Vote.” They are caught in an electrical storm with lightning labeled “Revolt” and are being driven by winds to an uncertain fate.
Samuel Gompers, the immigrant cigar maker who formed the American Federation of Labor and guided the organized-movement for decades, stamped his personality and views on the role of unions in American life. He generally was conservative, at least beating back, often, radicalism within and without his AFL “large tent.” He sometimes supported Republicans, and Democrats, and usually kept his union non-partisan. He supported the Spanish-American War and immigrant-exclusion acts and American intervention into World War I when many unionists were Socialists and opposed intervention.
In 1908, however, he began the AFL’s drift to be a reliable supporter of the Democratic Party. Partly this was due to the strong platform plank, pushed by candidate William Jennings Bryan, against the injunction in labor disputes. Gompers and his union endorsed a presidential candidate for the first, and not last, time.