Pressure groups--Political activity

Gifford Pinchot reflects on the conservation record of the Woodrow Wilson administration in this open letter. Pinchot believes that because Wilson refused to take sides, or took the wrong side, the question of the people winning in the Shields and Myers waterpower bills and the Phelan oil bill is questionable. It is not possible to compromise with men who would use public resources for private profit.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1916-09-20

Edgar E. Clark informs William Loeb that while in Chicago, he spoke in support of Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon to “some of our boys in Cannon’s district” and reminded them that legislators must refrain from becoming the tools of special interests. Clark hopes to continue these conversations in his further travels in the West.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-09-29

Representative Burton apprises President Roosevelt of a rise in progressive sentiment in Ohio that is being hampered by the coercive efforts of federal office holders to re-elect Senators Joseph Benson Foraker and Charles Dick. Those endorsing the senators give the impression that they have Roosevelt’s support. They have attempted to strong-arm county officials into obtaining delegates friendly to Dick, an action that drew at least one official’s resignation in protest. Burton entreats Roosevelt to make a public statement that he does not back one faction over the other, a neutral stance also adopted by Governor Andrew L. Harris.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-09-07

Form from the American Protective Tariff League requesting the name and contact information of an individual that will vote for the first time in 1904. The league plans on sending these individuals literature on protection and the tariff.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-07-07

Print shows a large frog labeled “La Ligue Patriotique” and “Paul Déroulède” sitting on a lily pad labeled “Anti-Semitism”; standing on the shore is a man, wearing a phrygian cap and holding a paper that states “Vive La Republique,” watching the frog explode.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-03-22

An old woman labeled “Monopoly Tariff” sits next to an old shoe labeled “Special Privilege,” around which a number of children are playing. The children all represent a “Trust” and are labeled “Tool, Steel, Copper, Lumber, Sugar, Rubber, Beef, Coal, Tobacco, Clothing, Watch, Leather, Paper, [and] Linen.” Caption: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, / Whose progeny here are presented by Pughe. / She petted and pampered and coddled the brats, / And guarded her brood from the bad Democrats.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Puck‘s turn on the traditional nursery rhyme could have been published a quarter-century earlier — and was, in variant forms — so standard were the realities and criticisms, with allowance for satirical hyperbole, through the years. In 1908 the trusts surely were in retreat, or at least defensive mode, thanks to awakened public attitudes, revelations by muckraking journalists, and the effect of governmental lawsuits, regulations, and legislation.