Reform movement

In a letter to his eldest son, Theodore Roosevelt, President Roosevelt provides examples from European and American history in which the forces of reactionaries and agitators have clashed. Roosevelt argues that the United States faces challenges from both groups, and he says that the nation must pursue a course of conservative reform to implement needed changes in order to stave off revolutionary movements and violence.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1908-11-20

A woman labeled “Democracy,” carrying a satchel with papers labeled “Free Trade,” is lamenting being turned out of her home into a shower of torn paper labeled “Protection Sentiment.” The door of “Meh own home” is labeled “Southern Senator.”

Comments and Context

Instead of Shakespeare or the Bible, Puck turned for a cartoon inspiration to contemporary, cheap stage melodramas in this cartoon by Udo J. Keppler. The over-dramatic daughter, turned away from her family home in the midst of a paper-blizzard, bemoans her fate.

Behind the allegory was the political situation. The Democratic Party, for more than a generation the party of low tariffs and free trade, somewhat unexpectedly, as debates for a new tariff bill began in the sixty-first Congress, faced defections from its traditional orthodoxy.

A baseball game between the “Ultimate Consumer A. C. [Athletic Club]” and the “Monopoly Giants” is underway. A “Giants” ballplayer is sliding head-first into a base and is being tagged out by a “Consumer” ballplayer with a ball labeled “Tariff Reduction.” Although the base runner has not even reached the base, the umpire labeled “Congress” calls the base runner, who winks and points at the umpire, safe. Caption: “He’s safe!”

Comments and Context

“Safe” has a double meaning. Besides the baseball context, the Congress–represented by a caricature of Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, author of the Payne-Aldrich Act, which raised tariff rates–made things safe for trusts (monopolies), in the eyes of Puck Magazine.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

A man labeled “Consumer,” tied to a bed with cords labeled “Graft Tariff,” watches as a pendulum labeled “Cost of Living” with a sharp blade affixed to the bottom swings over his body, coming closer to cutting him in half. Caption: “The pit and the pendulum,” by Edgar Allan Poe, tells of a victim of the Spanish Inquisition doomed to watch a knife-like pendulum that swung nearer and nearer to his heart.

Comments and Context

The father of cartoonist Udo J. Keppler (Joseph Keppler, founder of Puck) borrowed from a memorable work of Edgar Allan Poe in 1889 — The Raven. In that famous cartoonist, a diminutive President Benjamin Harrison shrank at his desk in a darkened office as the ominous “raven,” his political rival James Gillespie Blaine, hovered overhead, uttering “Nevermore” about Harrison’s chances of renomination.

The younger Keppler visited Poe for darker imagery, more personal and threatening to readers. Reprising a recent thematic preoccupation, an average consumer was gravely threatened by the “graft tariffs” (imposition of duties for trust magnates’ fortunes and special interests).

The Spirit of the Forest talks to Uncle Sam, pointing to denuded hillsides as a result of the tariffs on the import of lumber and wood pulp. Caption: The Spirit of the Forest.–Will you wait until then to admit lumber free?

Comments and Context

To twenty-first century eyes, this drawing by Udo J. Keppler presents a magnificent vista; Keppler, an outdoorsman and eventually man of the West and honorary member of Indian tribes, likely regretted a landscape bereft of trees and vegetation. Under the misty foreground cloud he pictured lumber trucks with logs.

His father, Joseph Keppler, had drawn a similar double-page cartoon in Puck in 1881 — the Spirit of the Forest beseeching loggers to stop their lumber harvesting, predicting runoffs and floods. Almost three decades later, the same Spirit of the Forest made a similar plea.

Liberty strides forward, carrying a flaming torch labeled “Revolution” and an American flag, and wearing a phrygian cap with tricolor cockade. She crushes underfoot a scepter and a crown labeled “Plutocracy.” In the background, buildings are burning. Caption: If the tariff farce is continued many years longer.

Comments and Context

The April 28, 1909 issue of Puck perfectly illustrated the dichotomy — not quite schizophrenia — between the magazine’s dual courses from this period until its demise as a political-cartoon weekly in 1914. The front-cover cartoon was a general observation about the average consumer’s dreams and expectations of a lower cost of living, and the role of the new president, William H. Taft, in that likelihood.

Puck‘s chief political cartoonist, Udo J. Keppler, however, used the center pages to launch a broadside of almost revolutionary fervor… in fact, forecasting a revolution in America if essential policies continued unchanged.

William H. Taft offers a spoonful of “Square Revision” to an over-sized child labeled “Infant Industries,” telling her that if she does not take the medicine, the “Free Trade” bug-a-boo will get her. Hanging on the wall above is a sign that states, “An ounce of revision is worth a pound of cure.”

Comments and Context

The advice of President-Elect William H. Taft to American monopolies — that a reasonable downward revision of tariff duties on imported goods would forestall the more radical adoption of free trade or virtual abolition of tariffs — was never tested. When the sixty-first Congress took its seats in March of 1909 it immediately set about a severe increase in duties. This was not expected by the electorate, generally, nor by Taft, who bore much of the criticism.

Taft’s advice, as pictured by cartoonist Udo J. Keppler, was as much strategy as economics. Forestalling disaster (at least Free Trade was seen so by Republican establishment members) by threatening its imminence often is an effective course, but in Keppler’s view, doomed to fail because the industries once reliant on “protective” tariffs had grown fat and obstreperous.

A runaway pig labeled “The Tariff Issue” drags Joseph Gurney Cannon behind it. They are being chased by John Dalzell, Nelson W. Aldrich, Sereno Elisha Payne, and J. S. Sherman. An overturned cart labeled “Steel Trust” has spilled its contents of steel railroad rails. Andrew Carnegie, wearing a kilt, stands next to the cart waving his hat and gesturing to the congressmen. In the background is a large crowd, some in pursuit, and the U.S. Capitol.

Comments and Context

After the Republican party’s sweeping victory in the 1908 elections, the major goal of the party establishment, after the oath-taking of William H. Taft, seemed to be the passage of a tariff bill. It had been a decade since the last revision of import duties (the Dingley Act of 1897), and the tariff was a hot topic in the campaign.

By general consensus, the public desired and expected lower rates, with the assumption that lower prices in markets would result. But the “hungry” managers of a proposed tariff bill in the Republican Congress were comprised of men whose careers were devoted to higher rates and “protected” industries and monopolies.

On a winter’s night a small figure labeled “Consumer” sings a Christmas carol at the bottom of the steps to a large federal building. Standing on the steps, a large, bloated man labeled “Special Privilege,” along with Joseph Gurney Cannon, J. S. Sherman, and others, present a formidable barrier to the sad and complaint-filled tidings of the meek caroler. The carol begins, “Confound you, merry gentlemen! Will nothing you dismay? Won’t you revise the tariff until the Judgment Day?”

Comments and Context

“Waits” were part of an ancient profession once common in medieval and Renaissance Europe and England. Evolving from street musicians to salaried ensembles of pipers and singers, waits roamed the streets to provide entertainment, warnings and announcements, greetings, and ceremonial music at events. In Germany the waits were called stadtpfeifers (town pipers) and sometimes were installed in towers throughout towns, providing what later generations would know as background music during daily activities.

Eventually in England they were disbanded, but the tradition lived on though Christmas carolers; hence the otherwise confusing term “Carols of the Waits.” Puck, almost every Christmas, used the scenes as bases for a political cartoon — politicians disfavored by the White House, or defeated opponents, inn the cold, plaintively singing.

A St. Bernard rescue dog, with a blanket labeled “Tariff Reform” strapped to its back and a small barrel labeled “The Wilson Tariff Bill” under its chin, approaches a man labeled “Labor” caught in snow drifts labeled “McKinley Tariff.” Nearby, Grover Cleveland, as a monk with a hand to his ear, responds to the dog’s bark. At the top of a hill, in the background, is the U.S. Capitol.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-01-10

President Cleveland appears as an explorer, with cabinet members John G. Carlisle and Walter Q. Gresham, in a jungle, where they have come across a band of monkeys labeled “D. Hill, C. Dana, W. Reid, Blackburn, Vest, Jones, Pugh, Foraker, Wolcott, Teller, Morgan, Peffer, [and] Stewart.” Caption: Pioneer Cleveland is bound to carry political enlightenment forward, even if the simian statesmen don’t like it.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1893-11-22

Senators labeled “Stewart, Peffer, Vest, Jones, Teller, [and] Wolcott” are being thrown out of windows in a building labeled “U.S. Senate” by laborers and other citizens. Papers labeled “Anti-Repeal Drivel” and “Obstructionist Nonsense” have been thrown out with them. Caption: What a pity this is only a fancy sketch!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1893-11-01

A large, bloated man labeled “Tariff-made Monopoly,” holds a small dish labeled “Dingley Schedule,” and asks Uncle Sam, standing next to a large fireplace with a large cauldron labeled “Protection,” for another helping. Caption: Representative Sereno E. Payne, who will have charge of the Tariff bill on the floor of the House, does not know whether the people declared for radical or moderate revision of the Tariff on election day.–The Sun.

Comments and Context

Udo J. Keppler’s cover cartoon provides a brilliant historical legacy in that it succinctly illustrated a vital and unsettled political issue of the day; but it also represents the virtual seeds of a controversial situation that helped undo the Taft Administration.

Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon’s appointment of Representative Sereno Elisha Payne to manage a new tariff bill — all financial legislation Constitutionally originates in the House — set off alarms to those who expected lower rates and duties. Payne was a notable Protectionist.

A gladiator labeled “Sound Money,” holding a sword labeled “Currency Reform,” stands over a fallen gladiator labeled “Free Silver” who appeals to the crowd for mercy, but instead receives the thumbs-down gesture.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-12-07

A hand labeled “Republican Party” pours champagne from a bottle labeled “Tariff Revision” into a glass held by another hand labeled “Protected Interests.” Two hands labeled “Consumer” are holding an empty glass.

Comments and Context

The theme of Udo J. Keppler’s cartoon — that tariffs imposed and maintained for purposes of revenue or protection of fledgling industries against cheaper foreign imports were chimeras — was as old as the American Industrial Revolution. In the critiques of low-tariff and free-trade proponents, imports saddled with tariff duties should have resulted in lower prices of domestically produced goods.

This theory seldom was realized, and that is the point of Keppler’s cartoon, one of scores of cartooning analogies through the decades. The prosperous arms of the Republican Party and the “protected” industries, especially compared to the smaller, middle-class consumer’s supplication, reinforces Keppler’s point. Even the position of the hand and the bottle — perhaps teasing the consumer that the pouring would come in his direction — is an additional message.

A streetcar labeled “Republican Protection Line” and “Congress 47” rounds a curve with a crowd of men standing on the rear platform. Among them is the conductor labeled “Keifer” and Frank Hiscock. Uncle Sam, holding a basket with papers labeled “Silver Problem, Pension Reform, Our Navy, Civil Service, [and] Int. Revenue Reform,” stands beside the tracks, shaking his umbrella at the passing car as Keifer tells him to “take the next car.” With Uncle Sam are a young child labeled “Anti-Monopoly” and a young woman holding an infant labeled “Tariff Reform.” The next car on the tracks is labeled “Democratic Puzzle-Line” and “48,” which is being pulled by a tired-looking donkey.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-03-07

Joseph Gurney Cannon hands a shoe labeled “Stand Pat” to J. S. Sherman, who is shining shoes labeled “Conservatism, Reactionary, Special Privileges, [and] Vested Interests.” Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, peers through an open door.

Comments and Context

During the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, immense shifts of public opinion occurred throughout America. On myriad issues — trusts, corruption, reform, foreign policy — their were titanic changes in all classes and all parts of the country. It was a time of major changes in the economy, in immigration, in socialization, in manners and morals, and whether Roosevelt managed the fluid attitudes of America, or was propelled by them himself, is a question whose answer likely is “a combination of both,” yet the president was proud that he anticipated aspects of potential social unrest and acted in ways that prevented them from becoming crises.

Society might have changed in may ways, but in corners of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, Roosevelt dealt with limits to his persuasion. “Reactionaries” and “Stand-Patters” stood their ground on matters like high tariffs and conservation, only reluctantly yielding to Roosevelt’s reforms. Their numbers were decreasing, as “insurgents” in the House and rebellious reformers in the Senate grew in numbers.

Several Republicans with presidential aspirations and/or delegates to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, and a young boy holding a pillow labeled “Stand-Pat Press,” stand around “Stand-Pat” King Canute on the seashore with cliffs at their back, as he commands the rising tide of “Tariff Revision.”

Comments and Context

Samuel Ehrhart returned to Puck’s political-cartoon pages with a standard use of the King Canute legend, frequently employed by cartoonists; it was a misuse, actually, because the real story of Canute is not that the king tried to command the waves to recede, but to illustrate to his court that his powers were not unlimited.

In any event Ehrhart had a chance to reconnect Puck with partisanship, as it had been addressing generic issues with force but without regard to party positions or specific personalities to this point in the 1908 campaign. In this cartoon, the king is a generic figure but his retinue is, exclusively, high-tariff Republican proponents from the Senate and House.

Uncle Sam tries to get the attention of Joseph Gurney Cannon who is talking with Sereno E. Payne in the House chamber, as a large hand labeled “The Big Interests” wearing “Stand Pat” cufflinks, appears from above with its thumb extended as though to squash Cannon. Caption: He can’t get the speaker’s eye.

Comments and Context

Udo J. Keppler’s cartoon is a brutal indictment of Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. The chamber is mostly empty but for a few members lounging or in lassitude; and the Speaker merely chatting at the chair, not conducting the people’s business.

Uncle Sam is referred to as “Leader of the Minority,” a cynical reference to the pecking order in Cannon’s House — virtually a private domain that he operated as wished. Reforms curtailing his powers and prerogatives would come in 1910, but at the time of this cartoon, mid-1908, Cannon was king of his castle and, in Keppler’s view, the country could be ignored.

A wagon drawn by a single donkey labeled “American Consumer” chases a carrot labeled “Promised Tariff Reform” dangling from a stick held by the wagon driver labeled “Republican Congress.” The wagon is transporting a bunch of bloated old men, each representing a “Trust” and labeled “Steel, Copper, Lumber, Sugar, Beef, Coal, Tobacco, Clothing, Watch, Leather, [and] Paper.” They are members of the “Stand Pat Club,” some waving “Stand Pat” pennants. One man holds a drum that states, “The tariff will be revised when public welfare demands it.”

Comments and Context

There had not been a major revision of tariff schedules since the Dingley Act of 1897 as American politics approached the 1908 presidential campaign. A decade seemed like a long time to many people — especially to businesses and trusts who benefited from “protection.” High duties on imported products contributed to general revenue, but also enabled American manufacturers and farmers to compete against foreign competition.

“Free Traders” argued that artificially inflated prices hurt consumers. Tariff exponents argues that healthy American business — no longer “infant industries,” as per the original theories — employed more Americans. A growing number of industries were healthy enough to export their goods (the years of the Roosevelt Administration were the first time that America was a net exporter, the world’s largest trading entity) and were hurt by retaliatory tariffs in foreign markets.