Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821

In a speech reprinted by The Erie Railroad Employees’ Magazine, Martin W. Littleton comments on Theodore Roosevelt’s boundless confidence and self-assurance, saying that “he has never encountered a structure of authority which he would not change; a form of government which he would not alter; a society which he would not transform.” In traveling across Europe, Littleton speculates that Roosevelt contemplated both Frederick II, King of Prussia, and Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and thought that he could have done better.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03

E. J. Ellerston finds it illogical to compare Theodore Roosevelt’s return from Africa to that of Napoleon from Elba.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-11-29

President Roosevelt sits on a horse holding a “presidential boom” paper as he looks at the Great Sphinx which features the winking head of Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna. The sphinx also holds a large paper that reads, “presidential boom.” Caption: The sphinx—also Napoleon. —F. Opper in New York American, with apologies to J. L. Gerome. (Copyright by W. R. Hearst).

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-11-29

Atlanta Mayor James T. Woodward, recently defeated for reelection, is dressed like Napoleon I and wears a bicorne with the label of “Woodward.”

Comments and Context

This cartoon was clipped from the Atlanta Georgian and News and pasted in the scrapbooks of political cartoons kept by the White House during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Those clippings allowed Roosevelt to gauge public sentiment and to anticipate policy formation. It may be presumed he enjoyed cartoons too.

The vast majority of the clippings have Roosevelt as a figure, or otherwise comment on a vital issue he would address; the drawings seldom dealt with issues or personalities that were of very local, or transitory, import. This example seems to have slipped past the typically astute attention of the staffer.

William Dudley Foulke describes and praises President Roosevelt’s character, and declares that “all these things fit him better than any man living to be President of a young, vigorous, great and flourishing Republic.” This essay is accompanied by a portrait of Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-09

Theodore Roosevelt visits the memorial of French Emperor Napoleon I.

Collection

Massachusetts Historical Society

Creation Date

1910

Speaking to an overflow assembly of persons celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Presbyterian Home Missions, President Roosevelt remarks on the expansion of the nation, materially and spiritually. He notes that the churches are necessary to the nation’s advancement, ensuring that the forces of evil that arise with industrialization are countered by forces for good.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-05-20

At center, Uncle Sam and President Cleveland shake hands, with a portrait of Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii, in the background. The surrounding vignettes feature a cast of characters, identified or referred to in the text as “Croker,” “Parkhurst,” and “Tammany” reform, “Iago Manley” and “Othello Reed,” “Peffer, Lease, Dana, Pulitzer, [and] Depew,” Harrison sitting in his over-sized top hat, and Thomas Collier Platt turning a crank that manipulates George R. “Malby” as “Speaker” of the New York State Assembly, David B. Hill sitting in an over-sized “Senatorial Chair N.Y. State,” and “McKinley” dressed as Napoleon I, riding a “War Tariff” rocking horse. Each scene includes “Valentine” text, such as this for “Peffer” and “Lease,” each holding papers labeled “Speech”: “From bleeding Kansas’s wind-swept plains, / Where whiskers take the place of brains, / You come with all your verbose strength / Of speeches of unending length. / Here, take the hint Puck gives – resign! / Let Mary be your Valentine”; and this for McKinley: “McKinley Bill! McKinley Bill! / Why do you ride that hobby still? / The cause of pool, combine and trust, / And idle mill-wheels red with rust. / Mistaken Man! We’ll never pine / For you to be our Valentine.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-02-14

William McKinley is depicted as Napoleon I, wearing the hat, coat, and sword in the style of Napoleon, standing on a pedestal labeled “Protection,” with a tiny wreath labeled “From Southern Friends” lying on the base. On the left, a large female figure wearing a striped dress stands on a platform next to a pedestal labeled “Trilby Craze.” A group of people place wreaths of “Adoration” at her feet. Caption: Napoleon McKinley–Say, what’s the matter with those blooming jays? Don’t they know there’s a Napoleonic revival now going on?

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-04-24

A scruffy man labeled “Russia” carries a rope and attempts to set a ladder against a pillar labeled “Supremacy” topped with a statue of “Britannia.” At the base of the pillar is a pile of fallen statues labeled “Alexander, Napoleon, Charles V, Charles the Great, [and] Caesar.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-07-20

President Roosevelt speaks to the Grand Lodge of the State of Pennsylvania on the 150-year anniversary of the initiation of George Washington as a Freemason. He hails the Masons’ commitment to the equality and brotherhood of its members, as well as the ideals of self-respect and self-help. He also speaks of the qualities of a number of “great men” who he calls heroes because of their commitment to other people and their nation as a whole over their own selves. Roosevelt comments on the book The Simple Life by Charles Wagner, and wishes it could be circulated around the whole country because of the values it discusses. He urges each member of the audience to carry forward the spirit of brotherhood he has with his fellow Masons into the wider nation.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-11-05

Julius Caesar or a Roman centurion, in the background, tumbles off a pillar of stones labeled “Rome, Etruria, Britain, Asia, [and] Africa.” In the middle distance, on a bit of land labeled “France,” Napoleon I is shown tumbling off a pillar of stones labeled “Egypt, Italy, Spain, Holland, Austria, Prussia, [and] Russia” and falling toward a rocky island labeled “St. Helena.” In the foreground, John Bull is standing atop a pillar of stones labeled “Scotland, Ireland, Malta, Gibraltar, India, Australia, Cyprus, Egypt, [and] Soudan [sic]” on a bit of land labeled “England.” The stones are propped up by various types of weapons, with the top two stones supported by a steamship, though the top stone “Soudan” appears about to fall off.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-03-25

Ferdinand Ward, as Napoleon I, sits on a pile of stones labeled “Ludlow St. St. Helena” in the middle of a river with the New York City skyline behind him. Some of the signs on buildings state “I don’t know Ferdinand Ward,” “His name is familiar, but I can’t place him,” “I never had anything to do with Ward,” and “Never heard of Ward.” Caption: The friends of his “flush” days don’t care to know him now.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-10-21

A visitors’ gallery at the 2nd Peace Conference at the Hague shows tyrants, invaders, and conquerors seated, including: Frederik II, Oliver Cromwell, Ramses, William I, Hannibal, Attila the Hun, Alexander the Great, Richard the Lion Hearted, Caesar, Saladin, Napoleon I, Charlemagne, and Theodorick. They are all laughing.

Comments and Context

The Second International Peace Congress at the Hague — considered the last and most idealistic act of United States Secretary of State John Hay before he died in 1905 —  might have died stillborn because most nations of the civilized world were arming and re-arming at alarming rates at the time. Even the world’s most prominent peace advocate, Andrew Carnegie, who financed many of the conference’s expenses, had sold massive quantities of armor-plate and steel that was clearly to be used for battleships and weapons.

A dizzying number of treaties and secret agreements between powers in the decade before the actual outbreak of the Great War (and smaller regional wars, for instance in the Balkans and in geographical vacuums caused by the disintegration of Russia and Austria) all masked the universal arms build-ups — or so their rulers thought.

Theodore Roosevelt, on his way to the “Hall of Fame,” passes between two rows of kings, emperors, military leaders, statesmen, and others, including, on the left, “Alexander, Nimrod, Caesar, Joshua, Solomon, Moses,” and possibly Ramses I, King of Egypt; and on the right, “Wellington, Washington, Napoleon I, Frederick the Great, Cromwell, Shakespere [sic], Luther,” and two unidentified kings, possibly William I and Richard I, kings of England.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-09-04

Theodore Roosevelt, as Napoleon I, returns from political exile. He stands before French troops under the command of President Taft, who is riding the Republican elephant. They carry banners labeled “Republican Delegates, Federal Job Holders, [and] The Old Guard.” One soldier among them is labeled “Hitchcock.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-03-06

The New York Sun asserts that the Republican nomination will go to President Roosevelt and that it has been his express intention to be elected to the presidency since he first took office following the assassination of President McKinley. The editorial describes Roosevelt as a politician who has disarmed all of his enemies by winning the public’s confidence, a feat he accomplished by “harrying the trusts,” “bringing wealth to its knees,” and putting organized labor “above the law and above the Constitution.” The editorial concludes by comparing Roosevelt to Germany’s William II and France’s Napoleon in his impact on the masses.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-04-22

French Ensor Chadwick is convinced that the United States government needs to issue a manifesto on the necessity of putting an end to the horrors in Cuba and demand that Spain leave the island. Such action should be taken immediately. Chadwick discusses how easy it would be to assault Havanna.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1898-03-24