Your TR Source
President Roosevelt plays cards with “Big Chief Sentiment” who holds four enormous playing cards that read, “Third Term.” Roosevelt has several smaller cards on his pant leg.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04
A man holds five playing cards with faces of American politicians on them: Missouri Governor Joseph Wingate Folk, Wisconsin Governor Robert M. La Follette, President Roosevelt, Secretary of State John Hay, and Illinois Governor Charles Samuel Deneen.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-30
President Roosevelt sits at a table with an elephant and a donkey playing cards. Roosevelt hands one card to the elephant, which is sweating. On the wall is a sign that reads, “The square-deal club.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-12
The Russian Bear eyes a house of cards. Each card is labeled a different country, “England, France, Germany, Japan, U.S., Austria, China, Italy, [and] Turkey”, and the king on each card bears some facial characteristics of the ruler of the country, including Uncle Sam. A dove of “Peace” has landed on top of the cards. The bear’s right paw and claws are touching the “Japan” card.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1904-01-20
The Republican elephant labeled “G.O.P.” sits on a stool with the U.S. Capitol and the White House within view. He is holding with his trunk a playing card with Theodore Roosevelt on it and has a tray of playing cards on his lap which show Roosevelt as the king and/or say “Roosevelt.” He is playing the card game “solitaire.”
The joy in the face of the Republican elephant in Pughe’s cartoon is, if anything, understated. In 1903 the fortunes of the Republican Party, and of President Roosevelt, were high. Peace, prosperity, and an engaging young president whose vitality mirrored the expanding nation, combined for an “era of good feeling” not experienced by the United States since the 1840s.
If the young president had any rivals for his party’s renomination in the year following this cartoon, that challenge was deftly eliminated two months prior. Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio harbored presidential ambitions; his protege was the late president, William McKinley. But Ohio’s other Republican senator, Joseph B. Foraker, was a bitter rival of Hanna. At the party’s routine convention in May 1903, Foraker introduced a surprise motion endorsing Roosevelt’s renomination a year earlier than dictated by precedence.
Hanna was in a bind: to vote in favor would damage his own plans; to oppose would be seen as disloyal. Wanting to abstain, he wired the president saying that he was sure Roosevelt “would understand.” The wily Roosevelt wired back publicly, calmly replying that whoever supported his administration would vote Yes; those who opposed would “naturally” vote No. Hanna was in a corner, his presidential ambitions trumped.
There were no other major rivals to President Roosevelt, and as fate would have it, Hanna died roughly six months subsequent to Pughe’s cartoon.
A Chinese man and Uncle Sam hold up a variety of cards. The Chinese man has several “boycott” cards while Uncle Sam is about to throw down an “exclusion of all Chinamen” card. President Roosevelt enters the room holding “a Square Deal deck” with the following cards: “Chinese merchants,” “Chinese educators may enter the U.S.,” “Chinese students admitted,” and “liberal observation [of] laws.” Caption: Roosevelt—”Come, now, gentlemen; it is time to throw aside that worn-out deck and try one which will give both of you a square deal.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-07
Thomas Taggart sleeps with his feet resting on a large drum. He is dressed in a suit made of playing cards.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08-29
August Belmont directs choir music in a church full of dollar signs. The choir includes David B. Hill, Patrick Henry McCarren, Thomas Taggart, Grover Cleveland, and James H. Eckels, all dressed in ladies’ attire except Taggart who wears a suit of playing cards.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08-09
At a poker table, Uncle Sam holds a hand of “Roosevelt prosperity” cards and a large stack of chips. John Bull, “Germany,” and “France” have smaller stacks.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-14
President Roosevelt holds a hand of cards that reads “Secret Service reports” as he looks at the cards labeled “resolution” in front of men labeled the “House” and the “Senate.” The former asks, “What you got?” and the latter says, “Think I’ll take a look.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-18
Voters watch as August Belmont points to an illustration of Alton B. Parker who wears a “trusts” chain around his chest on the side of a circus tent. Verbiage reads, “The Democratic giant guarantees to break the chain by chest expansion.” In Parker’s hands are two weights, “sound money” and “clean politics.” Similarly, Henry Gassaway Davis holds a barrel that reads, “millions for the purification of politics. Not.” Verbiage around him reads, “The Hercules of West Virginia.” David B. Hill sits by a “ballot box” and holds a paper that reads, “After this performance, I shall retire from the show business. D. B. Hill.” Several men hide in the tent, including Parker, who holds a “political graft” weight; Thomas Taggart, who holds “gambling trust magnate” cards; Davis, who holds a “West Va. Coal Trust price” rock; Grover Cleveland; and Arthur P. Gorman.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-15
An African-American man holds two hands of playing cards. One hand includes cards that feature the faces of President Roosevelt, Chair of the Republican National Committee George B. Cortelyou, J. Pierpont Morgan, Charles W. Fairbanks, New York Governor Benjamin B. Odell, and New York Lieutenant Governor Frank Wayland Higgins. The other hand includes cards that feature the faces of Patrick Henry McCarren, Charles Francis Murphy, William Jennings Bryan, David B. Hill, Alton B. Parker, and Henry Gassaway Davis.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10
Round celluloid campaign pin with black and white portrait of Theodore Roosevelt and a playing card motif. Four playing cards and a fifth card with Roosevelt’s likeness are being held by a left hand. Prosperity, protection, expansion, and sound money are written on the cards. The edge of the pin has the slogan “Stand Pat!”
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
1900
The Queen of Hearts on a playing card, with the face of a woman, possibly Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, is holding in her hands a man wearing a tuxedo and top hat.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1914-03-28