Police

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1899-07-17

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Recipient

Roe, Charles Francis, 1848-1922

Postcard featuring the statement, “I Suppose if I Vote for Roosevelt I Can Stick Around on My Job”. The word Roosevelt is in a large red and green pennant flag on the left side of the postcard and a cartoon drawing of a police officer is on the right. On the reverse is a handwritten note to Henry Losier that states “Solid ‘Bull Moose’ Here. Get Busy Henry!”.

Comments and Context

The postcard was most likely produced in 1912 during the presidential campaign in which Theodore Roosevelt would run as a member of the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt would lose the election to Woodrow Wilson.

Collection

America

President Roosevelt requests Secretary of the Interior Garfield personally look into the matter of the highwayman in Yellowstone National Park and its implications on future policing of the park.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-09-08

President Roosevelt thanks Allen W. Thurman for the letter and for the clipping containing Representative William Jennings Bryan’s comments on the president’s recent speech. Roosevelt feels that the Navy keeps the peace globally the same way that police keep the peace in local matters.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-08

Oliver Conklin asks Theodore Roosevelt if he can secure a position in a police force in Oyster Bay. Conklin has experience as a special officer in Boro Park and thinks his expertise would be useful.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-10-09

Theodore A. H. Dulfer thanks Theodore Roosevelt for the kind treatment he received from the police department.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-18

Governor Swettenham thanks Admiral Davis for his offer of assistance to Jamaica after the earthquake, but asks that he reembark all sailors and soldiers that he had landed in an effort to provide relief. Swettenham believes that the situation is no longer a question of humanity, but of convenience, and thinks that the present police force in Kingston will be enough to maintain the peace.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-01-18

Secret Service Agent Connell recounts his experience of the “Mrs. Minor Morris incident,” when Laura A. Hull Morris entered the White House and demanded to speak with President Roosevelt before being escorted from the premises.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906

Newspaper article reporting that President Roosevelt’s chauffeur was twice stopped for speeding while driving Roosevelt and son, Ted, to Great Falls, Virginia. The police gave the chauffeur a warning, but a Washington, D.C. civic association would have him prosecuted further.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-06-28

In the first cartoon, a newsboy carries a daily paper that reads, “1905: amount embezzled for speculation this year: $6,520,000,” and President Roosevelt says “Wake up” to a policeman. In the second cartoon, a newsboy carries a daily paper that reads, “1906: amount embezzled for speculation this year: $7,481,000,” and Roosevelt says, “Wake up” to a policeman. In the third cartoon, a newsboy carries a daily paper that reads, “1907: amount embezzled for speculation this year: $41,458,000,” and Roosevelt says, “Get busy.” In the fourth cartoon, Roosevelt watches as the policeman marches toward several men who say, “Now see what you’ve done,” “You talked too loud,” and “You’re disturbing capital.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon by John T. McCutcheon in the Chicago Tribune illustrates a situation that was believed in some quarters and charged from others, that President Roosevelt’s criticisms of abuses in corporate America and the banking system contributed to the recent Wall Street panic. Roosevelt accepted with equanimity that such would be the case, and wrote to many friends that he accepted the accusations philosophically.

President Roosevelt rides with Uncle Sam in a car labeled “prosperity” that is leaving the “Hard Times Cop” on a bicycle in the dust. Beside the bicycle is a turtle labeled “Wall Street” that asks, “Do you think we’ll catch him?” The road is named “G.O.P. Pike.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Kirk L. Russell and the Washington Post, perhaps caught flat-footed by the Wall Street Panic (or perhaps expressing belief that the stock-market downturn would be short-lived), presented an endorsement of the Roosevelt Administration and confidence in the economy.

Theodore Roosevelt writes about the merits of the New York Police, not only their improvement over the years but also specific policemen and events in which they were involved.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

1897-10

A game of chess is being played on the “[Depar]tment of Police” board, between a hand labeled “Political Pull” showing a cufflink labeled “Brass Check” and a hand labeled “Reform.” Some of the squares are labeled “Race Track, Suburbs, White Lights, Gambling District, Goatville, Financial District, Tenderloin, Red Light District, Lonely Beat, [and] Hell’s Kitchen.” The chess pieces are police officers, some in plainclothes, labeled “Crooked Captain, Inspector, Sleuth, ‘Fixed’ Captain, Honest Captain, Grafting Captain, Honest Inspector, Plainclothes Man, [and] Sergeant.”

Comments and Context

A dozen years before this cartoon — when Theodore Roosevelt had assumed his position as president of the Board of Police Commissioners in New York City, and continuing through his tenure — corruption among the police ranks was rife. Startling revelations mostly were instigated by the municipal reformer Reverend C. H. Parkhurst, followed by a 10,000 page report by the Lexow Committee (chaired by state senator Clarence Lexow) exposing countless abuses by the Lexow Committee.

These scandals fueled the voters’ revolt that led to the election of the reform mayor William Lafeyette Strong; and his reformist administration in turn was fueled by prosecution of abuses. These reforms, and many others, were the assignment of the new commissioner, Roosevelt. He and his recalcitrant fellow board members (two of the four commissioners continually resisted his measures) addressed police bribery and protection schemes, merit promotions, and such.

Police officers stand guard as guests enter the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City for the wedding of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Eleanor Butler Alexander.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-06-20

Theodore Roosevelt and Quentin Roosevelt arrive at the wedding of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Eleanor Butler Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt shakes the hand of a police officer.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-06-20

The German Embassy writes a memorandum regarding a situation in Morocco. They mention European control of Morocco’s armed forces, open door policy, and distributing mandates among minor powers.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-23

Private Jacob P. Frech describes his involvement in removing Laura A. Hull Morris from the White House. Frech claims that Morris was uncooperative, even kicking him in the groin. A witness claims that the guards used a reasonable amount of force considering the manner in which Morris protested her removal, calling her a “large, strong woman.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-19

Chief Sylvester encloses a list and description of arrests from February 1903 to December 1905 that involved women with questionable mental states.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-01-19

Thomas Collier Platt and Cornelius Newton Bliss, as police officers, receive “Hush Money” at the door of an “Insurance Co.” from Richard A. McCurdy. Standing in the window of the building are James H. Hyde, Francis Hendricks, and John A. McCall, among others. An insert labeled “Tenderloin Dive” shows police officers accepting a bribe.

Comments and Context

In the Muckraking Era, the public became aware of the odious similarities, first exposed in critiques during the Gilded Age of the 1870s and subsequently, between street crime of the “Other Half” and corruption among the cream of society. Keppler’s cartoon depicts that situation with almost textbook clarity.

The immediate context was the recent insurance industry investigation by a committee of the New York State Assembly, spearheaded most prominently by counsel Charles Evans Hughes. Although many of the shocking exposes were related to the Equitable Life Assurance Society, in this cartoon the dispenser of bribes at the door is Richard A. McCurdy, president of the Mutual Life Insurance Company. Mutual was an older company but similar in its blatant transgressions as perceived by the public, for instance, larding its corporate board with trust magnates and prominent politicians. McCurdy also served as president of the Bell Telephone Company.

In a courtroom, a prisoner and a police officer stand before a judge. The prisoner is explaining to the judge why he assaulted another person. Caption: Judge — You admit you sand-bagged the man. Have you any excuse? / Prisoner — Yes, yer Honor. De sand-bag wuz me own property and J.P. Morgan says a man has de right ter do wot he pleases wit’ his own property.

Comments and Context

In this cover cartoon, ostensibly a simple gag about a tramp, arrested for assault, grasping for a mitigating excuse by quoting J. P. Morgan, Puck cannot resist making a point about the negative aspects of the prominent mogul’s philosophy. “Logical extensions” should be questioned, Ehrhart stated via this cartoon.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs