Mayors

President Roosevelt initially finds it hard to advise Representative Burton on whether he should campaign for mayor of Cleveland. As a representative, Burton’s knowledge and leadership are difficult to replace. However, these same qualities make him an ideal public servant, especially when “our democratic system has come nearest to breaking down in our cities.” Roosevelt, therefore, advises Burton to campaign for the mayoralty.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-30

President Roosevelt is interested in the matter of the mayor. However, his involvement in a local matter may be resented by others.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901-09-24

Ambassador Griscom informs President Roosevelt that he can soon expect to receive a one-of-a-kind sword from the people of Sendai, Japan. Griscom mentions that Reverend D. B. Schneder is on his way to America with the sword. Griscom encourages Roosevelt to send a letter to the Sendai mayor in return for the gift.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-06-21

A depressed old man wearing formal clothing sits on the sidewalk on small railroad cars labeled “Street Railways.” In his pocket is a paper labeled “Expiring Franchises” and protruding from a bag another paper labeled “Leases.” A bundle at his feet is labeled “Boodle.” Mayor of Chicago, Edward F. Dunne, is standing in the background with a broom.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This brilliant cartoon by Joseph Keppler Junior — in composition, simplicity, and humor the kind of work that enabled some readers to forget his cartoonist father — would be dispositive if published two years later. That is, the reform mayor of Chicago, Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne, is shown with the broom of reform and a crooked political boss sadly confronts his disenfranchisement from control of municipal utilities, fares, and contracts.

Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker, as a pirate, nails a new figurehead labeled “McClellan” to the bow of a ship labeled “Tammany.” The old figurehead labeled “Van Wyck” lies on the ground.

comments and context

Comments and Context

If there is a historical flaw in Joseph Keppler’s cartoon, it is not that the Tammany ship (of the corrupt Democratic organization typically controlling New York City) found it facile to change the figureheads — mayors who were pliant to the will of the Tammany “boss.” Since Boss Tweed and John Kelly and Richard Croker, it had been so for decades.

New York Mayor Seth Low directs the bombardment of a Tammany Hall bunker flying a flag labeled “Tammany Graft.” Several men, among them former President Grover Cleveland, and Charles V. Fornes, pass shells labeled “Clean record, Capable administration, [and] Just return for taxes” for an “Anti-Tammany” howitzer. They are behind a sand-bag bunker labeled “Honest Government” and are flying the flag of “Municipal Reform.” Caption: “That ammunition fits our gun only.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Regulars and Irregulars” — cartoonist Keppler illustrated the “fusion” aspect of Mayor Seth Low’s New York City administration.In 1901 Low had been elected as a Reform Republican and Fusion candidate, on the Citizen’s Union ticket.

New York City mayor Seth Low, as a lion tamer holding a whip, stands next to the Tammany Tiger which is bound in ribbons labeled “Civic Honesty, Fusion, Decent Government, Municipal Reforms, [and] Local Improvements.” Standing in the background is Charles F. Murphy, Tammany Hall boss, holding a large pair of scissors labeled “Election 1903.” Later in the year, Low would lose the election for mayor to George B. McClellan Jr.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Seth Low was identified with reform and efficient administration his whole career, as mayor of Brooklyn, mayor New York City (Brooklyn and the City merged in 1897 as “Greater New York”), and as president of Columbia University. His political activities were allied with the Republican Party and various reform groups like the Fusion Party and the Citizens Union.

At center, New York City Mayor Seth Low sits in a chair reading from a long list of his “Plans for this Week” to a group of reporters. In the vignettes to the right and left, someone is reading from a similar list of announcements, demands, changes to duties, new automobile laws, or simply stating, as in the case of the “Cuban tariff,” a businessman reads “My policy is greed, deceit, dishonor and broken pledges.” The readings take place in the Police Department, in the home of a henpecked husband, in the boarding house, in a kitchen ruled by a servant, in an automobile stopped before a group of country dwellers, and before a Cuban peasant growing sugarcane.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Seth Low had served two terms as Mayor of Brooklyn before its merger with Greater New York City in 1897, and also as President of Columbia University. In all of his works and writings he was recognized as one of the nation’s prominent reformers. As a Republican and Independent, he was ally of Theodore Roosevelt in municipal politics. In 1902, aided by disorganization and fresh scandals within the Democratic Tammany Hall organization, Low ran for mayor on the Citizens Union and Republican tickets and won an impressive victory. Ehrhart’s cartoon makes light of Low’s top-to-bottom reform of municipal government: open contract bidding, publicity of agencies’ activities, posted salaries of civic employees, bureaucrat accountability, reforms of the Board of Aldermen, and what we today call “transparency.” With two years, Democrats and Tammany Hall reorganized, and Low lost his re-election bid in 1904.

Seth Low, possibly as Odysseus, raises a sword labeled “Nonpartisanship” to strike a sea monster labeled “Misrule,” as a woman labeled “Greater New York,” standing on rocks and chained to a rock labeled “Tammany,” tries to get away from the monster.

comments and context

Comments and Context

For a season the New York City municipal election profiled in this cartoon was a “perfect storm” for reformers. The corrupt Democratic “machine” was in decline, its “boss” Richard Croker foolishly having retired to his native Ireland to run the city from afar. Tammany lost local elections and was enmeshed in more scandals than usual. New York City had recently consolidated with the City of New York (hence the label “Greater New York”) and Seth Low, shown here wielding a sword, had been a reforming mayor of Brooklyn who now sought the mayoralty on a Citizens Union ticket. When the Republicans endorsed the independent candidate, he won handily. Two years later, Tammany, having licked its wounds, defeated him by running George B. McLellan, Jr., son of the Civil War general.

New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck is drowning in a sea of ice blocks labeled “Ice Trust.” Richard Croker, holding a life preserver labeled “Tammany Machine Power,” is swimming toward him. Caption: Help me, Cassius, or I sink!

comments and context

Comments and Context

Judge Robert Anderson Van Wyck was easy to portray as a “clean” politician — old-line New York family; sitting judge — but as a Tammany puppet he was as corrupt as other Democratic mayors of the era in New York City. This cartoon delineates complicated political “currents” of the day, but also illustrates the fact that average readers were quite literate, perhaps more so than those of the twenty-first century. Politics: Tammany allowed the American Ice Company a monopoly in the city of New York. Boss Richard Croker and Mayor Van Wyck profited from stock kickbacks. When a heat wave threatened New York, a scandal erupted which threatened Van Wyck’s standing. The subtext: In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Cassius recounted to Brutus how he had persuaded Caesar to swim the stormy Tiber River, but Caesar feared drowning and called out for help. The point of Cassius’s story was that Caesar could be manipulated and also was less than omnipotent. This cartoon portrays Van Wyck as being manipulated by Tammany and vulnerable politically.

Theodore Roosevelt declines the invitation from Mayor John P. Kiggins to include Vancouver, Washington, in his western states tour.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-02-16

Theodore Roosevelt informs Raymond B. Fosdick that he has recommended two individuals for the position in question. Since the mayor did not appoint either man, Roosevelt feels no good would come from making yet another suggestion.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1915-10-25

Theodore Roosevelt prefers not to confer about politics at this time. He believes it would be useless to discuss issues such as the mayoralty of Chicago.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1914-11-23

President Roosevelt was touched by the compliment that William Bayard Cutting paid him. Roosevelt agrees with Bayard that the President of the United States could afford to take on a mayoralty, and says that he personally can afford to take any office which he could do good work for the people. Roosevelt does not believe, however, that the job that Bayard mentioned is one that he could do good work in.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-12-12

Rudolph Forster relays a message from President Roosevelt in the absence of his personal secretary William Loeb, telling professor Benjamin Ide Wheeler that Roosevelt looks forward to the visit from Mayor of San Francisco Eugene E. Schmitz.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-10-03

President Roosevelt believes that “even such a rabbit” as New York City mayor George B. McClellan will be able to “do the decent and courteous thing” following the election regarding the British squadron. In a postscript, he instructs Secretary of the Navy Bonaparte to tell Admiral R. B. Bradford to stop any revolution on Santo Domingo. He also discusses the problem of “the submarine business,” and endorses Bonaparte’s disagreeing with his superior and expert subordinate. However, Roosevelt is concerned that pay discrepancies may cause qualified and desirable men to leave their positions.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09-04

President Roosevelt believes that Seth Low’s renomination as Republican mayoral candidate of New York City is inevitable and, under the circumstances, it is probably the wisest choice.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-08-01

President of the University of California Wheeler clarifies for Theodore Roosevelt how the socialist mayoral candidate, J. Stitt Wilson, won in Berkeley.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-04-05

Edward Webster Bemis, former Superintendent of Cleveland Water Works, sends Theodore Roosevelt a reprint of his article with an editorial comment. He knows Roosevelt receives a lot to read but hopes he will review his statement on the New York City water department and the improvement made.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-02-20

The Mayors’ National Society would like to name Theodore Roosevelt as an honorary member because they mistakenly believe that he was once mayor of New York City.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-11-11