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President Roosevelt shakes Uncle Sam’s hand just outside the “White House” door. Uncle Sam holds three rolled up papers—”Miller scandal,” “Isthmian canal question,” and “Interior Department”—as well as a “P.O. Scandal” mailbag. Caption: Home from his vacation and ready for work—and there’s plenty in sight!
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-10-04
This cartoon summarizes a number of important political events in 1903, including presidential and vice presidential aspirations, the Panama Canal, Tammany Hall, equal rights, and the Post Office scandal. President Roosevelt is in the center with his gun in his hands and his foot on a dead “graft” bear.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-11
President Roosevelt charges up a hill toward several men behind “postal frauds” barriers while the “Democratic press” sits in a tree.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-01
President Roosevelt holds a sword in a man’s stomach as a Democratic donkey attaches a paper that says “blame” to his clothing. At the man’s feet is a paper that reads, “Postal frauds: born during Cleveland Administration—discovered and destroyed by Roosevelt Administration.” A raccoon gestures at Roosevelt and the donkey and says, “Now wouldn’t that jar you?”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-02
President Roosevelt and Assistant Postmaster General Joseph L. Bristow go to throw a bag of “post office rascals” into the water. Perry S. Heath holds a lifesaver that reads “statute of limitations” and a “P.O. scandals” bag as he sits on a post in the water.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-02
A Republican elephant wears a “postal scandal” jacket, and the words “Grafting Old Party” can be seen underneath. Uncle Sam holds up a prison uniform with ball and chain handcuffs at his feet.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-01
This collection of cartoons addresses presidential candidates for the 1904 election season, Cuban reciprocity, industrial trusts, and the Post Office scandal.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-06
President Roosevelt holds four men in his hands—”bribery,” “P.O. frauds,” “land grafter,” and “naturalization grafter”—and walks them toward the door of the jail.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-07
President Roosevelt holds a “Civil Service Reform” paper as he stands on a platform. Behind him a man holds a “U.S. Postmaster General” axe and is about to decapitate a woman labeled “post distribution.” She leans on “Delaware,” and her hands are tied by “objectionable and obnoxious” rope. Meanwhile, John Edward Charles O’Sullivan Addicks—”the gas man”—holds a “spoils” basket, preparing to collect the postmistress’s head.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-09-11
President Roosevelt and Postmaster General Henry C. Payne attempt to scrub the stains of the “Post Office scandal” off the Republican elephant in a tent labeled “G. O. P. The Sacred White Elephant Show.” A “Department of Publicity” megaphone sits on a table outside of the tent.
The United States Postal Service was traditionally identified with politics — and the basest exercise of politics, as local postmasters and other officials were regarded, and rewarded, as political functionaries more than experts in postal matters. Thousands of jobs were dispensed after elections, and thousands of officials were removed according to parties winning national elections. The opportunities for corruption were multiplied when expanded services, new delivery routes, and proposals for rural delivery were discussed.
There had been major scandals, and calls for reform through the years; and there were gradual reforms. For instance, when Theodore Roosevelt was Commissioner of Civil Service under Presidents Harrison and Cleveland, he succeeded in prosecuting corruption, and expanding merit-based appointments.
President Roosevelt goes to light a “Post Office scandal” stick of dynamite as three men—New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt, Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna, and Pennsylvania Senator Matthew Stanley Quay—tell him to stop. Meanwhile, “Miss Democracy” looks on while Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker rides in on a fire wagon. Caption: Chorus from the doorway: “Don’t do it, Teddy! It is dangerous!”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-07-03
President Roosevelt walks toward the White House while struggling under the weight of an old man on his shoulders. The old man wears a “P. O. scandal” satchel and drinks from a “graft” canteen.
Cartoonist Stewart in his characterization of President Theodore Roosevelt’s persistent burden, the Post Office scandal of 1903, chose the legend of Sinbad’s fifth voyage of seven recounted in the ancient Arabian collection of tales One Thousand Nights and a Night.
In the legend, Sinbad told of the time he was shipwrecked (a common origin of all the tales) and saddled with a long-legged fiend, the “Old man Of the Sea,” who required that Sinbad carry him hither and yon. By trickery, also a common device, Sinbad kills the Old man and returns to the sea himself.
A woman holding a “Mother Jones” sign and a “labor problem” pitchfork rides a Republican elephant that rings the doorbell at President Roosevelt’s gate at Sagamore Hill. A sign reads, “Sagamore Hill: Positively no admission, except by invitation. T. R.” There are various signs attached to the elephant: “Ohio sandstone ring,” “postal scandal,” “Littauer glove scandal,” and “custom house frauds.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-07-29
President Roosevelt holds up a glove—”glove contract scandal”—and a mailbag—”postal scandal” that seep out “Littaeur” and “Payne” respectively.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-07-31
President Roosevelt uses an axe to cut down the “postal inquiry” tree. He is surrounded by a forest of trees: “League island improvements,” “Alaskan boundary,” “Turkey,” “Finance,” “Panama Canal,” and “Trusts.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-09-04
President Roosevelt pulls at a “free rural postal delivery” snake comprised of mailbags tightening around a Republican elephant. The snake is labeled as “fraud” and lets out “hot air.”
Universal delivery of mail was envisioned by Benjamin Franklin; much debated through the decades’ seriously proposed in the 1897s; tentatively introduced in 1896; and largely — but not universally — was implemented in 1902. “Rural Free Delivery service is no longer in the experimental stage; it has become fixed policy,” President Theodore Roosevelt declared in his Annual Address in December of 1902.
The practice however, was not universal, nor without many complications, nor even welcomed by the whole country.
A snake with the label of “free rural postal delivery” breathes “scandal” and comes after Postmaster General Henry C. Payne, Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna, and New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt.
At the time of Charles Green Bush’s cartoon, there were at least two scandals roiling the Post Office. The department’s attorney general, who served in various capacities since the Administration of President Rutherford Birchard Hayes and was infirm and partially paralyzed, was taken advantage of by corrupt subordinates and assorted members of Congress.
Also at the time, the department was under pressure to implement Rural Free Delivery, a long-debated concept that forever was embroiled in conflicts of politics, budgetary challenges, and so forth — and not the least, corruption and incipient corruption.
Uncle Sam stands beside President Roosevelt and points to the “Post Office Scandal U. S. Mail” punching bag. On the ground are dumbbells, a barbell, and Indian clubs—”vigor” and “energy.”
This cartoon was clipped from the Memphis Commercial Appeal for the White House cartoon scrapbook, but it originally appeared in the New York Herald, drawn by their longtime staff cartoonist William Allen Rogers.
In a way it was atypical for a Rogers cartoon, half of which were not political cartoons but editorial cartoons illustrating current events. The inspiration for this cartoon was the breaking Post Office scandal. Long brewing ands widely rumored, it unfolded as a multi-faceted web of corruption, favors, and bribery. It was largely under the watch of a longtime department bureaucrat, a former Congressman whose subsequent career included a stint as Postmaster General and many other offices. At the time of this scandal’s exposure he was “on watch,” but not able to watch — ancient, partly paralyzed, and blind — unaware of corruption around him.
President Roosevelt rides a horse and directs Postmaster General Henry C. Payne riding on an “investigation” Republican elephant to go higher to the “postal frauds” mountain. In the background is a large star with the label of “Star Route frauds.”
The “Star Route Frauds” were a series of corrupt arrangements and bribes connected to the nation Post Office department awarding mail route contracts and exclusive rights, especially in the West and South. Primary or favored routes were rated by stars; hence the nickname.
The assignment of postal-delivery contracts, whether to contracted parties, or because proximity to routes could prove lucrative, was an invitation to corruption and bribery in America’s Gilded Age. Star Route frauds were uncovered in the Grant and Hayes Administrations; and as the Republican Party had a long grip on the federal government, it was a challenge for Republicans to investigate Republicans.
President Roosevelt hangs on to Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna who grips another man, presumably Postmaster general Henry C. Payne, who grabs the Republican elephant currently drowning in the flood of the “Post Office scandal” water outside of the “White House.”
The Post Office scandal of 1903 actually was a gaggle of scandals — corruption, bribery, influence-peddling, and political favoritism — that long predated the year it erupted. In the typical manner of such political maelstroms, many officials, including those who cooperated with each and otherwise were bitter rivals, were involved.
When President Theodore Roosevelt took a measure of the scandals’ reach — so wide-reaching that it included the wife of the department’s attorney general breaking into his office and safe, to steal a bundle of documents — he was characteristically strenuous in cleaning house. Yet the web of political connections affected his actions. He appointed two men who subsequently became cabinet-level aides in the Administration, James Garfield and Charles Bonaparte.