Locomotives

Victor Howard Metcalf provides President Roosevelt with a series of correspondences regarding an immigration inspector, George C. Triick, who was accused of mistreating Mr. Chow Tszchi, a Chinese dignitary. The department agrees that the Government should provide the utmost courtesy to Chinese people but notes issues in proving citizenship or defining who could be classified as a Chinese laborer. Chinese merchants, teachers, students and bankers are welcome, but not laborers with falsified Chinese papers pretending to be of a higher class. A treaty written in 1904 sought to deal with falsified records but the Chinese thought it was too strict. Metcalf notes any concerns of harshness in the enforcement of exclusionary laws is necessary to combat those trying to skirt the system.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-06-07

President Roosevelt holds a hot gridiron and runs after Senator Joseph Benson Foraker who is escaping through the Senate door. Meanwhile, Edward Henry Harriman runs toward a train to escape Roosevelt.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Albert J. Taylor of the Los Angeles Times (about whom little is known; he was overshadowed by fellow art staffers like George Herriman, future creator of Krazy Kat) managed several clever puns in one cartoon frame when he addressed the imbroglio at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington D.C.

President Roosevelt gives “Mae Wood”—the “cruel one”—and “Omaha” a wide berth as he walks back with his gun and “Skip.” In the background is a train filled with “bears,” “wild cats,” and “lions.” 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-05

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

Several Democratic Party leaders ride on a train together, including August Belmont, Patrick Henry McCarren, David B. Hill, Charles Francis Murphy, Henry Gassaway Davis, Thomas Taggart, William F. Sheehan, and William Jennings Bryan. Alton B. Parker wears several bandages, including a “$50,000 law job from Belmont” around his head and a “Solid South” bandage on his hand.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-09

Alton B. Parker and Henry Gassaway Davis operate a “St. Louis platform” handcar as a “Republican express” locomotive with President Roosevelt’s face on the front advances toward them.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-29

Colorized postcard showing a train traveling through the Royal Gorge on tracks next to the Arkansas River. The moon is visible in the cloudy sky. Text on the reverse of the postcard discusses and praises the eight-mile trip through the Royal Gorge via train.

Collection

Charles C. Myers Collection

Creation Date

Unknown

Photograph of a locomotive, surrounded by smaller photographs of various signals and signal positions.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-02-04

President Roosevelt rides a train on the “black/white” line that is headed toward a “social equality” break in the tracks.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09

Alton B. Parker and David B. Hill with a “peanuts” feather sit in the conductor’s car of the “Belmont Never Git There Line.” Henry Gassaway Davis stands in a car with a “Davis bar’l $40,000,000” and operates the brake.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-08

A number of President Roosevelts sit on the train as one Roosevelt wearing a “Republican Natl Convention” sash steps off and greets a woman with a large hat labeled “Chicago.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-19

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

A Democratic donkey frantically attempts to divert the “Republican presidential nomination” train from its course heading “to Roosevelt.” A raccoon runs up to him, “Hey! You don’t work on this line!”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-11-25

A “Roosevelt Ltd” locomotive appears around a bend while traveling on a set of railroad tracks that lead “to nomination.” Crouched in the foreground behind a rock, J. Pierpont Morgan has placed a large log labeled, “The Sun New York,” on the tracks and holds back a bulldog—”Wall Street.” Caption: Mr. Morgan—”I guess that will derail it, all right.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-08-15

President Roosevelt rides on a train that is full of items: “grizzly cub,” “petrified pumpkin from Dakota,” “redwood log from California,” and a barrel “from Colorado Springs.” The box of “ostrich eggs” falls off as they head “to Pittsburgh 10 miles.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Walter R. Bradford, at this point in his career, was almost exclusively a humor cartoonist; even his political cartoons like “Homeward Bound” were sillier than they were partisan. At the time he also drew gag cartoons for Life magazine, and a Sunday comic page ridiculing revolutionaries, Fitzboomski the Anarchist. Ironically, Bradford would evolve into a cartoonist for radical causes in radical journals like Appeal To Reason and the International Syndicate of Baltimore.

President Roosevelt attempts to climb the “1904 second term” train with Uncle Sam as the conductor. A large “Wall St.” bear growls in his face.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This Boston Traveler political cartoon looked ahead to the 1904 presidential election and correctly forecast that Wall Street was generally unhappy with President Theodore Roosevelt’s reforms and trust-busting initiatives. The landmark and iconic anti-trust case, United State vs Northern Securities, was before the Supreme Court but would not be decided until early in 1904.

President Roosevelt arrives at the “New Union Station, Washington,” along with William Loeb. The latter is carrying Roosevelt’s “Big Stick,” on which is hanging a cage enclosing the dove of “Peace.” He also bears a shovel labeled “Panama Troubles,” a bag full of “Mistakes,” “Slips,” “Errors,” and “Department Scandals,” and a rifle. The new station, in the background, is the United States Capitol, with a “Tariff Wall” and a large man labeled “The Trusts Stand Pat” atop the dome.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-10-01

Theodore Roosevelt and several other men sit and stand around the front of a train engine in Africa. Roosevelt’s African safari lasted from March 1909 until 1910, and he and his expedition crew collected about 11,400 animal specimens for the Smithsonian. They also hunted big game during the trip.

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1909

The Roosevelt bears board a train. Number 2 in a series of postcards depicting scenes from Seymour Eaton’s “Roosevelt Bears” books.

Collection

Fritz R. Gordner Collection

Creation Date

1907

President Cleveland, a railroad engineer, drives a locomotive labeled “Administration R.R.” that is roaring out of a tunnel labeled “Business Depression Tunnel,” and knocking out of the way legislators who are placing “Dilatory Admendments” and “Teller’s Dilatory Tactics” on the tracks, trying to derail the train. Among the legislators are Francis M. Cockrell, James Z. George, James L. Pugh, William A. Peffer, George G. Vest, James D. Cameron, William M. Stewart, Henry M. Teller, John P. Jones, and Edward O. Wolcott.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1893-10-11