Rubbish
Legislators drop bills labeled “Bluff Legislation, The Original Trust Buster, Combination Crusher, [and] Anti-Trust Bill” into a barrel labeled “Receptacle for Anti-Trust Bills” before entering a building labeled “Congress.” They have chosen to hope for reform without having to take action. In the background, a trash-collector is dumping another barrel labeled “Receptacle for Anti-Trust Bills” into a cart.
Comments and Context
Cartoonist Ehrhart’s cynicism is seen not in the discarded bills and their grand-sounding titles, but the indifference with which the ostentatiously dressed lawmakers toss them away. The rich, by implication, were in league with monopolists and were insincere trust-busters. Things were changing in America; only a decade earlier, few politicians even pretended to be anti-monopolists.