Your TR Source
John Allison examines Richard Olney’s article on the constitutionality of the United States Congress delegating control of railroad operations and rates to a commission.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-10
President Roosevelt found Senator Lodge’s letter to Richard Olney to convey a true mastery of language. Enclosed are letters that will allow for a full understanding of the scandal concerning Laura A. Hull Morris, and Roosevelt will also have information for Lodge about the Brownsville incident. Roosevelt has just given William Sturgis Bigelow the first of the five dollar gold pieces.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-10-01
President Roosevelt responds to William Jennings Bryan’s public letter by comparing Bryan’s platform with those of the current administration and of William H. Taft’s campaign. Roosevelt lists the cases that have been brought against the trusts, the railroads, and the shippers under his administration. He explains his actions in relation to the panic of 1907, outlines the reasons the trust magnates will support Bryan, and defends his actions related to campaign funding. Roosevelt critiques Bryan’s defense of Oklahoma Governor Charles Nathan Haskell by reiterating the extent of his corruption, and determines that it reflects directly on Bryan.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-09-27
Notes on the regulation of transportation commerce and related legislation with respect to the Constitution and how it has been interpreted.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-10
Alton B. Parker, David B. Hill, John Sharp Williams, Arthur P. Groman, Richard Olney, and Grover Cleveland ride on a camel labeled “Reorganization” crossing the “Desert of Bryanism.” William Jennings Bryan tries to hold back the camel by the tail, and William Randolph Hearst tries to prevent Bryan from being pulled along toward an “Oasis” labeled “Sane Democracy.”
Starting around 1902, Puck assayed the Democratic field of possible presidential candidates to run against the incumbent, President Roosevelt. The pack of conservative, “Bourbon,” and “Gold” Democrats — opponents of William Jennings Bryan and a third nomination by him or a follower (such as publisher William Randolph Hearst) — usually included the same faces, reflecting the national political machinations.
Shown here are those players, with the addition of John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, Democrat leader of the United States House of Representatives. Judge Alton Brooks Parker, a dark horse significantly placed by cartoonist Pughe at the front of the camel riders, was subtly boosted by party insiders. David B. Hill was a former New York governor and senator; Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland had returned to the United States Senate and was the party’s chairman. Richard Olney, former Secretary of State, once harbored presidential ambitions himself, but at this time was futilely urging his onetime mentor, Grover Cleveland, to run for president a fourth time, for a third term.
President Roosevelt sits on a fence on a hill, flying a kite labeled “Popularity.” Below are several potential Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom are having difficulty flying their kites. From left to right are William Jennings Bryan labeled “W.J.B.” holding a bellows labeled “Moral Issue” and blowing on his tattered kite labeled “1896” and “1900” with ribbons on the tail labeled “Free Silver, Populism, Anti-imperialism, [and] Free Riot.” Next is David B. Hill holding a kite labeled “Parker Boom,” then Charles Francis Murphy holding a kite under his arm labeled “McClellan Boom,” followed by Grover Cleveland, then Richard Olney holding the string to a kite labeled “Past Record” lying on the ground, with ribbons labeled “1884” and “1892,” “Tariff Reform, Independent Vote, [and] Personal Popularity,” and then Arthur P. Gorman whose kite is tangled on a tree branch labeled “Panama Blunder.” In the center is a little yellow child labeled “Willie” who is all tangled up in his own kite string. The kite, lying on the ground, is labeled “Yellow Journalism” and the string spells “McKinley Slanders.”
This cartoon is a simple and accurate portrayal of the political situation as the United States entered the presidential campaign of 1904. The Democratic field was divided among several weak candidates, and harbored a fear that a third nomination of William Jennings Bryan would result in a third substantial defeat at the polls. And President Roosevelt, as the incumbent, seemed sure of victory as enjoyed widespread popularity in the country and could boast of many policy victories.
A key to the Democratic figures will explain the nature of the potential candidates and their status as nominating conventions approached.
President Roosevelt appears as a dog in the “Republican Kennels,” with his trainer Mark “Hanna.” In the “Democratic Kennels,” an old woman labeled “Dem. Party” pats Alton B. “Parker” on the head and offers him a biscuit labeled “Political Sanity.” Other Democratic dogs George “Gray,” Richard “Olney,” David B. “Hill,” and Arthur P. “Gorman” labeled “Senatorial Leadership” and “Panama Issue” are kenneled nearby. Hanging on the wall is a picture of “Cleveland” with ribbons labeled “1884” and “1892,” and in the lower left is a cage labeled “Distemper” with William Jennings Bryan as a dog bandaged with “1896” and “1900” sitting inside before a small dish labeled “Free Silver.” In the center is a small dog labeled “Yellow Journalism Willie Hearst.”
This cartoon appeared in Puck in the second week of February 1904 — five months before the actual Democrat Party presidential nominating convention. Pughe’s cartoon of a dog show mirrored Puck Magazine’s editorial desires, as per the depictions, dignified or mocking, of possibles candidates; and the nature of the labels. Also the expressions of the dogs in the kennel show reliably reflect the confidence of the various candidates. Further, the kind attentions to the otherwise obscure New York Judge Alton Brooks Parker — the eventual nominee, pushed by back-bench conservative Democrats — by the old spinster representing the Democratic Party, is prescient.
Pughe’s cartoon indicates that old-fashioned politics had that year’s presidential nomination foreordained.
An elderly woman labeled “Democracy” stands next to a trunk labeled “Old Issues” and with a tag that states “To the White House.” Standing at the curb are several cab drivers labeled “Parker, Olney, Johnson, Shepard, Gorman, [and] Watterson” hoping to pick up a fare, and two other drivers labeled “Cleveland” and “Bryan” sitting on their carriages. Cleveland does not appear interested, though Bryan, on his cab labeled “16 to 1,” holding up his hat, calls out above the others.
Political cartoons, when well designed, not only present issues and events clearly, but also convey subtexts, background information, and nuances that speak to readers of their time, and to subsequent students of history.
Puck‘s cartoons frequently checked all those boxes. This double-spread by Pughe can be read as a portrayal of the fact that several Democrats vied for the attention of the national party, and jockeyed for the presidential nomination in 1904. Just so.
An old woman labeled “Democratic Party” stands in the “Democratic Intelligence Bureau” managed by “J.K. Jones” who is sitting behind a desk. She is “looking for help” and taking a good look at several prospective candidates, from left: David B. Hill “No objection to dirty work,” William Jennings Bryan “Used to waiting,” Richard Olney “Old but regular,” Edward M. Shepard “Will do anything,” Alton B. Parker “Neat and quiet,” and Arthur P. Gorman “Willing and obliging.”
A common theme of the time among political cartoonists, even Democrat cartoonists, is the weak field of national candidates. In Pughe’s variation, this Puck cartoon pictures the old-maid Democrat lady looking for household help — a presidential candidate for the following year.
The employment bureau is presided over by James Kimbrough Jones, chairman of the party; and the cartoonist is sarcastic in varying degrees about the politicians-as-housemaids, as per their resumes. William Jennings Bryan had failed twice before; Former New York governor and senator David Bennett Hill’s taint of machine politics is noted; Richard Olney, Secretary of State in President Grover Cleveland’s second administration, is a “regular” Gold Democrat, but had no experience as a politician; Edward M. Shepard was a New York gadfly, sometime reformer, sometime Bryan supporter; and Maryland’s Arthur Pue Gorman, in his second stint as senator, was a perennial presidential aspirant, and still “willing.”
William Jennings Bryan, wearing the pope’s tiara and holding a scepter labeled “16 to 1,” jumps up and down and stamps his feet in anger, as six men labeled “Cleveland, Whitney, Hill, Gorman, Parker, [and] Olney” stand to the left, laughing.
Pughe’s cartoon appeared shortly after the mid-term elections of 1902, during which the Democratic Party did not fare well, due in part to the popularity of the new president, Theodore Roosevelt, the continuing prosperity in the country, largely unabated since 1897, and what might be termed a fatigue with William Jennings Bryan. The “Commoner” had been the party’s presidential candidate in 1896 and 1900 and lost badly. His harping on the “16 to 1” free-silver coinage issue was growing thin.
Significant in Pughe’s cartoon is the fact that traditional and “Gold Democrats” are mocking Bryan, and they represented only half the party: there were still elected leaders, and journals, who were in Bryan’s camp. And of the skeptics in the cartoon, the only plausible presidential candidates were Grover Cleveland, who had run three times beginning in 1884, and was retired from two stints in the White House; and David Bennett Hill, a perennial aspirant and former governor and senator from New York. That is to say that Bryan was not only a leader, but he filled a power-vacuum in the party.
An old woman labeled “Democratic Party” turns a wheelbarrow to dump politicians labeled “Bryan, Olney, Gorman, Hill, Shepard, [and] Johnson” into a sandpit labeled the “Democratic Dumping Ground” where only the feet of other, previously discarded, Democrats are visible.
What makes this cartoon particularly interesting to students of history is that the cartoonist Pughe was not criticizing Democrats from “across the aisle” or from an adversarial point of view. Puck Magazine was Democratic, and beseeched its own leaders, or moss-bound leaders of recent years, to clean house. Except for Grover Cleveland, there had been no Democratic president since before the Civil War. It is interesting that the cartoonist did not even label the politicians’ issues that failed to excite voters (free trade, bimetallism, anti-expansion), suggesting the leaders themselves had worn out their welcomes. Even Tom Johnson, reform mayor of Cleveland, is among the deplorables in Pughe’s cartoon.
Several men, identified as “Hill, Jones, Olney, Clark, Bailey, Shepard, Watterson, [and] Lamont,” carry planks of lumber which are identified as Democratic policies from previous election platforms and proposed new planks. As they construct the new “Democratic Platform,” Puck points to a plank they have forgotten, “Tariff Reform,” which sits on a platform in the background on the right. In the background on the left stands William Jennings “Bryan” holding a “Free Silver” plank of rotten wood. Caption: Puck — You are neglecting the only plank you ever did win with, – and the only one you ever can win with!
Ever since President Grover Cleveland devoted his Annual Message to downward tariff revision (and the result of high tariffs, government surpluses, which Cleveland regarded as immoral) the Democratic Party was generally the party of low tariffs and free trade. Former Speaker of the House Samuel J Randall was one Democrat who generally favored high tariffs. But the implied point of Keppler’s cartoon is not that the Democratic Party cooled on the issue of tariff rates, but that “new” issues like anti-imperialism and standard positions on civil service reform provided the middle ground between the hoary populism of William Jennings Bryan and the tired arguments for tariff reductions could attract voters. Generally, they did not: the Democrats would lose the 1904 presidential election, to Theodore Roosevelt, by record margins.
Puck massages the scalp of a deranged-looking Richard Olney who is sitting on a bench in a padded cell in the “Hopeless ward for incurables” and holding a rattle of William Jennings Bryan as a jester. On the floor are loose papers, one labeled “Olney’s letter indorsing [sic] Bryan.”
Richard Olney had served as Attorney General in the second administration of Grover Cleveland, and embodied the President’s conservative stands on Sound Money, “dangerous” unions and strikes, and regulation of monopolies if done in order to protect them. He also served Cleveland as Secretary of State, and some of his views on hemispheric affairs foreshadowed the Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine promulgated a decade later by President Theodore Roosevelt. Given this background — and as a prominent corporate and railroad lawyer, Puck was surprised that Olney supported William Jennings Bryan in the latter’s second run for the presidency.
Illustration shows two views of William Jennings Bryan sitting at a desk working on his campaign principles. The lower scene shows Bryan preparing for the 1896 presidential election. To the right are Carl Schurz, Henry Watterson, William Bourke Cockran, Richard Olney, and David B. Hill, all in disagreement with Bryan, each holding a sheet of paper disclaiming his principles. In the upper scene, Bryan has crossed out 1896 and replaced it with 1900, adhering to, and remaining consistent with, his earlier principles. To the right are the same five disclaimers. This time they bow to Bryan and offer only one comment: “We do not believe you will do what you promise to do, and we admire you because we think you are insincere. Hill, Olney, Cockran, Watterson, Schurz.”
Cartoonist Dalrymple engages in hyperbole — the mother’s milk of many political cartoonists — in characterizing the positions of William Jennings Bryan as presidential candidate in 1896 (e.g., “Down with the Supreme Court”). Yet he was right to depict that fact that Bryan had changed few of his positions four years later when he was re-nominated. His in-house Democratic dissenters of 1896 indeed supported him in 1900 when this cartoon was published week before the election. In fact, three factors had changed: Bryan adopted a severe anti-Imperialist stance that attracted new adherents, his “radical” prescriptions of 1896 slowly were becoming palatable to voters, and four years out of office (“in the wilderness”) had Democrats yearning to support the only candidate in the race. Beyond the characterization of Bryan’s positions, the cartoonist’s point of view is reinforced by his caricature of the candidate — scruffy hair, needing a shave, a rough farmer’s hat.
Cartoon showing Puck holding an artist’s palette and brushes, with a box of paints at his feet, gesturing toward a portrait of Richard Olney, labeled “Straight Democracy.” Caption: Puck. — Here is an able Democrat, a rational Expansionist and a Sound-Money man! Why not nominate such a man rather than a discredited mountebank?
Despite its assertion of independent politics, Puck was with few exceptions a supporter of the Democratic party. It was one of many Democrat journals that disdained William Jennings Bryan. It ridiculed Bryan and populist Democrats when he ran in 1896 and 1900 and even in 1904, when he did not secure the Democrat nomination. Here the magazine — through its cartoon “spokesman,” the figure of Puck — forwarded the name of Richard Olney, a conservative Democrat who had been Cleveland’s Secretary of State and was a “Gold Democrat” in favor of sound money, generally a Republican stance. Puck‘s nomination went unheeded, and Bryan was nominated for the second of his three Presidential runs.
Although his wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, will not be able to see Bishop William Lawrence on her way to Groton, President Roosevelt would like to come by Lawrence’s home if he will allow it. Roosevelt asks if Lawrence remembers his critique of Harvard University President Charles William Eliot, who has recently endorsed Representative Samuel W. McCall. McCall, like Richard Olney, is attempting to embarrass the administration without regard to the welfare of the nation, Roosevelt says.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-06
President Roosevelt wishes John Allison’s article could be published. While Roosevelt believes that former Attorney General Richard Olney is an exceptional man, he is “one of the most extreme pro-corporation men in the entire country,” and Roosevelt believes his article was merely for the benefit of “ultra-reactionaries among the great financiers.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-10-10
President Roosevelt describes to Lyman Abbott a recent meeting with Episcopal bishops and clergy, including two African Americans. The two men were received without incident, and Roosevelt finds it odd that he could have these men in the White House without a problem but inspires controversy for dining with Booker T. Washington or appointing an African American in the South. While President, Roosevelt does not recall ever scolding the South, but he feels it would be worse to “let them think that they were blameless.” He also notes that Senator Arthur P. Gorman of Maryland is campaigning “largely on the race issue,” even distributing a campaign button depicting Roosevelt dining with Washington. Gorman has also denounced Roosevelt as “against the business interests,” which leads Roosevelt to believe that the Rockefellers back Gorman as they do mayoral candidate George B. McClellan in New York.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-10-29
President Roosevelt has convinced Secretary of the Navy William H. Moody, Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw, and Senator Joseph Benson Foraker to campaign in Massachusetts. Roosevelt also encourages the Massachusetts Republicans not to go on the defensive but aggressively attack the Democrats, especially Richard Olney and Gaston.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-10-20
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt asks Judge Francis C. Lowell if outgoing Assistant Secretary of State William Woodville Rockhill can be awarded an honorary degree from Harvard University. Roosevelt considers Rockhill the best assistant secretary of state and recalls that Rockhill explored Tibet, China, for which he received a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1897-04-30