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Benjamin Ide Wheeler sends a lengthy excerpt from a letter written by Professor Mezes, a Democrat living in Texas. Mezes states the South will change its allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party due to changes President Roosevelt has made in the Republican Party.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-07
Thomas E. Watson, William Randolph Hearst, and William Jennings Bryan push a wagon full of bricks—”free silver,” “government ownership,” “anti-imperialism,” and “populism”—on a rocky road. It is driven by a donkey that sits down and says, “I must sit down on this push.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-27
Several articles from the Commercial Advertiser are highlighted. They discuss the “terrible” precedent that President Roosevelt set by inviting the African American educator Booker T. Washington to dinner, and criticize Congress for its conduct during the most recent legislative session.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-03-04
This advertisement for a subscription package for both the New York World and the Citizen announces the impartiality of the World in covering the upcoming elections.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08-27
William Jennings Bryan, as Moses, beams rays of “Radicalism” and “Conservatism,” and holds his own version of the Ten Commandments. Among the small group of followers in the background are James K. Jones and Tom Loftin Johnson.
On August 30, 1906, the twice-rebuffed Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan ended the months of speculation about his intentions for 1908. He and surrogates, since he returned from a lengthy world tour, and teased — albeit with little subtlety — about his habitual ambition to be president.
Puck, as a professor, shows a slide of the germs infecting the Democratic Party. Shown are William Jennings Bryan labeled “Bryanism,” William Randolph Hearst who is labeled “Yellow Journalism,” a man labeled “Anarchism” and an old man labeled “Populism,” and a firebrand labeled “Platforms” with flames labeled “Chicago” and “Kansas City.” “Free Riot” and “Free Silver” also appear among the germs on the slide. Caption: Puck — Gentlemen, we have here the most dangerous germs in the body politic.
Puck prided itself on being independent, but had generally supported Democrats since its founding in 1876. Around the time of this cartoon, with the 1904 Democratic presidential nominating convention weeks away, the magazine proved its partisan bona fides — at this time a conservative streak of democracy — by offering avuncular advice by a magic-lantern lecture.
William Jennings Bryan rides on a horse fashioned out of “The Commoner” newspapers, through a town, announcing that representatives of the reorganized Democratic Party were coming, drawing out old men brandishing weapons labeled “Populism, 16 to 1, Free Riot” and a drum labeled “Dead Issues.” An old man leans out a window waving a flag that states “Free Silver or Bust.” Includes verse based on “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
In the weeks preceding the 1904 Democratic National Convention in St. Louis, the two-time presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, staged an all-out effort for another nomination, or, at the very least, to argue for the nomination of a candidate whose subscribed to Bryan’s perennial platform planks — free silver, anti-expansion, etc. He spoke across America and also used the columns of his popular newspaper The Commoner, edited by his brother Charles.
William Jennings Bryan, his hat falling to the ground and with one foot braced against a water trough, tries to pull a donkey labeled “Democracy” to the trough where the water is labeled “Bryanism,” the trough is labeled “Kansas City Platform,” and the pump is labeled “Populism.”
This simple cartoon by Joseph Keppler encapsulates the situation the Democratic Party found itself in between the presidential elections of 1900 and 1908. Very simply, William Jennings Bryan, the young Nebraska congressman, had dominated the party and its councils since his “Cross of Gold” speech electrified the nominating convention in 1896 and catapulted him into the presidential candidacy. The force of his personality, and his startling agenda of Populist reforms, likely played equal roles in his leadership.
William Jennings Bryan, as a parrot, chatters at an old woman labeled “Democratic Party.” He is perched on a stand labeled “Dead Issues” with a food dish labeled “Populism,” and squawking “The Moral Issue!! Free Silver!! Kansas City Platform!! [and] 16 to 1.”
The clear message of this cartoon by Pughe, Puck‘s go-to animal artist in most cases, is that William Jennings Bryan, Populist firebrand who stormed the Democrat Party in 1896 and held it in thrall for eight years, had clearly worn out his welcome, especially after two failed presidential runs.
A man, probably Perry Belmont, labeled “New Democracy,” wears a hat with plume labeled “1904” and holds a crossbow labeled “Jeffersonian Principles.” William Jennings Bryan sits on the Democratic donkey, speaking and gesticulating wildly with his hands. His hat labeled “Populism” hangs on a post on which is a note that states “Please Bow. W.J.B.”
Perry Belmont and his brother August H. Belmont, Jr., seldom were more than behind-the-scenes brokers in the Democratic Party. Their father, August Belmont, Senior (nee August Shoenberg in Germany and originally the American representative of the Rothschild banking interests) likewise was a quiet influence, although he had served as Chairman of the Democrat Party. In 1901 the Belmont brothers went public with criticism of William Jennings Bryan and the Populist influence on their party. Perry, likely Dalrymple’s subject, is wearing a feather labeled “1904,” but he never had electoral ambitions of his own: his public criticism at this time was focused on the fortunes of the national Democratic Party, specifically the 1904 presidential election. At this time there were movements of reform aimed at the self-described reformers in the Democratic Party, Bryanites and former Populists. At the time of this cartoon, Seth Low resigned as president of Columbia University to run for New York City mayor on the Citizens Union (Fusion) ticket, and attracted anti-Tammany Democrat support in his victory.
William Jennings Bryan plays a drum labeled “Populism” while standing on a hatch labeled “Chicago Platform” on a ship that is going up in flames and billowing clouds of dark smoke labeled “Defeat 1896” and “Defeat 1900.” His hat is labeled “Free Silver” and a broken strap on the drum states “16 to 1.” Caption: The boy stood on the burning deck / From which all Democrats had fled; / The flames that lit the battle’s wreck / Shone ’round him o’er the dead. (Mr. Bryan says he is still standing on the Chicago Platform. – Roanoke, Va., speech).
A seemingly minor detail in this cartoon and caption is dispositive about the positions and popularity of William Jennings Bryan in 1901. Dalrymple calls upon famous lines from an otherwise-forgotten poem by a relatively obscure British poet of the 1820s, Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Casabianca. “The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone ’round him near the dead.” The first line. in Dalrymple’s time and ours, has lived as an allusion: people who are too blind, or blindly dedicated, to realize the destruction inherent in their stubbornness. The main point might be found in Bryan’s reference to the “Chicago Platform.” He had twice lost the presidency, soundly, yet it was not the recent (1900) platform to which he clung, but the five-year-old “Cross of Gold,” free-silver fever that overtook the 1896 Democrat convention. Had he learned a political lesson? By 1904 he quietly had softened his myopic attention to Populist economics, but, on the other hand, did not receive a third nomination.
William Jennings Bryan, with a prosthesis labeled “Anti-Expansion” attached to the knee on his right leg, which is labeled “16 to 1,” walks with the aid of a wooden cane labeled “Populism.” In his left hand, he carries a small receptacle labeled “votes.”
This cartoon is brilliant in its simplicity and iconography. Cartoonist Keppler executes a masterful caricature of a morose Democrat Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. The issue on which he was defeated four years earlier is the lame limb labeled with the slogan of Free Silver, 16 To 1. The prosthesis, 1900’s thematic hope of the Democrats, is a weak crutch labeled “anti-expansion.” Bryan had volunteered and was named a Colonel in the Nebraska National Guard during the Spanish-American War, so even those views were suspect. In a final touch, the cartoonist replaced the beggar’s tin cup with a traditional ballot box of the day.
William Jennings Bryan leads a donkey labeled “Dem” carrying a heavy load, including the “Democratic Platform” strewn with bunting, boxes labeled “Anti-expansion,” “Anti-trust,” and “Free riot,” two bars of silver labeled “16 to 1” and “Free silver,” a millstone labeled “Populism,” and a bomb labeled “Dynamite.” They are about to enter a large ear horn or trumpet labeled “To the White House,” which is visible in the background.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1900-07-18
William Jennings Bryan, standing in the “Presidential Sea,” pulls on a rope tied to a shipwreck labeled “Democracy” which was “Stranded 1896” on rocks labeled “16 to 1,” “Bryanism,” and “Bourbonism,” while a bearded old man labeled “Populist,” wearing overalls, is trying to help, using a large hook to pull the ship off the rocks.
In a cartoon that was about as sympathetic to Williams Jennings Bryan as Puck could muster, “the Commoner’s” plight is depicted abstractly, except for the silent irony that one of the rocks on which the Democratix Party foundered in the previous campaign was “Bryanism” itself. In fact, the situation pictured in J. S. Pughe’s cartoon was prophetic. The renominated candidate was trounced by President McKinley and the Republicans.
Theodore Roosevelt remarks to Charles Dwight Willard how similar his beliefs are to Willard’s article “Who is going to do it?” and hopes to share the article with Samuel Gompers when they lunch. Roosevelt discusses the recent decision by the Supreme Court declaring the Workmen’s Compensation Acts unconstitutional and his desire to remove all those from the bench who voted against it. Roosevelt is pleased by Willard’s comments on his relationships with “plain people” and describes his time on the ranch as his happiest.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-20
President Roosevelt takes exception to Clarence H. Esty’s criticism of his administration and policies. Roosevelt states that thus far no one has pointed out to him a single policy or action that should not have been done. The issues stem not from his administration, but the problems the administration is attempting to eliminate.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-03-15
President Roosevelt thanks Howard Allen Bridgman for his recent editorial, both because he personally enjoyed it and because he thinks it sets out important facts. Roosevelt comments that there is a danger in trying to work between the excesses of populism and demagoguery on one hand, and the real abuses and wrongs that have been committed by businesses and the wealthy on the other. Roosevelt compares the two sides to the French nobility and the leaders of the French Revolution, both of which went to very dangerous and damaging excesses.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-14
Keith Carlson argues that Theodore Roosevelt’s four volume history The Winning of the West retains little value as a historical work and that its importance stems from the insights it grants into the “deeply held personal and political views” of its author. Carlson discusses Roosevelt’s commentary on William Jennings Bryan and Populism, his views on the treatment of Native Americans, and his relationship with the historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Carlson asserts that The Winning of the West is a valuable and under appreciated source of information about Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1994-1995
George Judson King is quoted as having given a speech in which he related a story about Abraham Lincoln speaking regarding the initiative and referendum, predicting that eventually every state in the union will have those rights, leading to true government by the people. King is additionally quoted as relating conversations he had with Swiss politician Ludwig Forrer regarding why Switzerland adopted direct legislation. William Allen White’s book, The old order changeth, speaks to many similar questions, and can be purchased from the Woodbury Book Co., of Danville, Illinois.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-02-24
Alton B. Parker tries to drive a cart with a Democratic donkey, a Tammany tiger, and a populist goat. A “Sagamore” steamer and a “Rosemount” farm house are in the background.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08-21