Republican elephant (Symbolic character) |

Cartoon in the Washington Herald

President Roosevelt uses his patented “Roosevelt invigorator” with “necessary measures,” “anti-injunction,” “anti-trust,” and “currency legislation” to blow into the mouth of a “Do Nothing 60th Congress” elephant costume that appears to be on Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon who says, “A storm must be brewing.” Roosevelt’s big stick lies on the ground with the United States Capitol building in the background.

Comments and Context

Joseph Harry Cunningham in the Washington Herald almost anticipated a Rube Goldberg invention, in those eponymous cartoon panels with complicated mechanisms that required patient study and ultimately accomplished little. In this political cartoon President Roosevelt works the bellows to inflate an elephant costume with Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon inside.

They do say that Auntie wanted a new one this year, but William wouldn’t let her have it

William H. Taft sits beside a well-dressed Republican elephant who says, “Poor girl! She’s been making over that same old hat ever since I can remember.” William Jennings Bryan sits beside an older lady labeled “democracy” and “Bryanism,” who says, “Gra-cious! Now aren’t those new styles just the limit!” Bryan scowls and says, “Fierce!”

Comments and Context

Jay N. “Ding” Darling’s drawing style was starting to mature at the time this cartoon was published, but his concepts were clever and incisive from the start.

A peep into the future

A Republican elephant dressed as a palmist supposedly reads William H. Taft’s hands but actually reads President Roosevelt’s hands and says, “I see by the lines in your hand Mr. Taft that you will be the Republican nominee for president.” In a handwritten addition to the cartoon, John M. Woll writes, “I hope to God the above reading will come true.”

Comments and Context

At first glance this political cartoon by William P. Canfield would seem to suggest that the bona fides of William H. Taft would be identical to the policies of Theodore Roosevelt, and that both men were happy to be so identified. Actually the cartoonist was suggesting, as many cartoonists and editorial writers did, that President Roosevelt fully intended to be the nominee in 1908 — hoping all along to be drafted, or using his endorsed favorite, Secretary of War Taft, as a stalking horse.

A helping hand

President Roosevelt holds a large document labeled “Roosevelt policies” as an elephant sits against a tree in the background. House Minority Leader John Sharp Williams holds a donkey and says, “If you mount isn’t on the job, try mine.”

Comments and Context

The day after a major message was transmitted to Congress by President Roosevelt, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives endorsed “most” of Roosevelt’s legislative proposals. Representative John Sharp Williams of Mississippi accurately is pictured in Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s cartoon (the suggestion that the president would switch parties is cartoonists’ license); and a major story on this same day addressed Williams’ admiration of the president’s program.

Cartoon in the Washington Herald

President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan sit in an “our policies” wagon with boxes labeled “speeches W. J. B.” and “messages T. R.” The wagon is drawn by an elephant and a donkey. In a much smaller wagon, Arkansas Senator Jeff Davis is riding in “the inspirer” wagon drawn by a dog. He says, “Hooray!”

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Joseph Harry Cunningham looked ahead to the 1908 presidential nominating conventions and elections with the observation that President Roosevelt (who had declaimed interest in succeeding himself) and twice-defeated Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan shared increasingly similar views on some issues. The observation was not rare among cartoonists, but the amity depicted between the two men was certainly exaggerated.

Nice big apple for the elephant, but he doesn’t seem to want it

President Roosevelt holds a large apple that looks like like Secretary of War William H. Taft to the mouth of the “G.O.P.” elephant.

Comments and Context

A very early Brooklyn Daily Eagle cartoon by Nelson Harding — who would remain with the paper for more than two decades, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial cartooning in 1927 and 1928, still the only cartoonist to win in consecutive years.

Change cars!

Secretary of War William H. Taft departs a ship with a variety of luggage labeled “Taft U.S.A.” and walks toward a “G.O.P.” elephant equipped with a seat for him. President Roosevelt holds the elephant.

Comments and Context

This cartoon was published only a week after President Roosevelt’s decisive letter declaiming any interest in the 1908 nomination of the Republican Party. In 1904 he firmly announced that under no circumstance would accept another consecutive term, and yet speculation, doubts, and rumors persisted. Would he relent, and bow to public pressure, as a still popular figure? Could he be drafted?

Uncle Mark will need a political life saver next

A Republican elephant and Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker sit in an “Ohio Rep. Convention” boat as Foraker says, “Get into the boat!” Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna holds a broom as he points toward a “Roosevelt sentiment” wave. Hanna says, “We’d better sweep it to one side at present.”

Comments and Context

Inspired by the legend of King Canute and his efforts to sweep back the tide, cartoonist Charles M. Payne drew a typically handsome and politically prescient portrayal of the advance run-up to the 1904 Republican presidential convention.

In training

President Roosevelt and the Republican elephant stand at the dock of the “G.O.P. Boat Club” as they watch Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, Secretary of War William H. Taft, Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, Philander C. Knox, Leslie M. Shaw, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, and Secretary of State Elihu Root try to row a boat.

Comments and Context

Cartoons like Clifford Kennedy Berryman’s “In Training,” typical of many during his long career in Washington, D. C., were closer to illustrated observations, reflecting current events, not attempting to criticize or persuade, than to classic political cartoons. They were editorial cartoons, not at all partisan, merely addressing political realities.

Down in old Virginia

President Roosevelt and the Republican elephant sit relaxed in hammocks with Roosevelt reading a quotation from Plutarch: “Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.”

Comments and Context

The Washington Herald‘s Jack H. Smith employed a graphic meme that was an easy fallback for some political cartoonists, or an occasional specialty of some editorial cartoonists: illustrating a headline or general state of affairs rather than advocating a point of view or persuading readers through attacks or encomia.

The presidential Glen Echo

President Roosevelt flies down the road driving an automobile with William H. Taft in the backseat. To the left side of the car the Republican elephant tries to keep up. There is a sign, “the presidential Glen Echo,” in the foreground and the White House and the Washington Monument in the background. Senator Joseph Benson Foraker holds up a watch and cries, “In the name of the speed limit, slack up.” Caption: Town Marshal Foraker: “Stop! in the name of the law.”

Comments and Context

Contemporary news stories, and even local geography, inform this cartoon by Jack Smith of the staunchly Republican journal, the Washington Herald.

The rider bigger than his mount

A large President Roosevelt sits atop a very small elephant. Caption: Elephant– “I never felt so small before in all my life.”

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Trist Wood’s presentation of the relative positions of President Roosevelt and the Republican Party in 1907 is brilliant in its simplicity.

Explaining it

Uncle Sam holds a paper that reads, “Harriman raised $200,000 campaign fund for Roosevelt in 1904” and asks President Roosevelt, “Well, what have you got to say for yourself?” Roosevelt, clutching a bag of money and holding a G.O.P. elephant on a string, says, “It’s a ‘deliberate’ and ‘willful’ untruth!”

Comments and Context

Among the bitterest anti-Roosevelt agitators of the day were The Woman’s National Daily and its cartoonist known to history only as N. Eingen. The large-circulation paper was the brainchild of the St. Louis-area entrepreneur Edward Gardner Lewis, one of several enterprises spun off the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Lewis might indeed have had political differences with the president, but friction arose when the Administration pursued Lewis for infractions of postal and banking regulations.

Uncle Joe returns

Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon stands on a platform with a suitcase that has a “Panama” label waving as he looks ahead and sees two men fighting, an elephant and an “Ananias cup.” The words “willful untruth,” “$5,000,000.00 conspiracy fund,” “You coughed up everything,” “deliberate untruth,” “brainstorm,” and “blame it on Loeb” appears from the kerfuffle.

Comments and Context

Between the fifty-ninth and sixtieth Congresses — in both of which he served as Speaker of the House — “Uncle Joe” Cannon embarked on a tour of the Caribbean and Panama. It was highly unusual that a member of Congress at that time would undertake an independent diplomatic or fact-finding mission. It was widely assumed, or at least speculated, that Cannon was burnishing credentials and doing homework for a planned presidential campaign in 1908.

The White House tennis club

An elephant holds a tennis rule book that reads, “Love 40–The Deuce,” and thinks, “Every evidence of a dangerous game.”

Comments and Context

President Andrew Jackson convened his informal “Kitchen Cabinet,” a term used more by political opponents for executive branch meetings apart from the regular confabs after the scandal-rumor events of the Peggy Eaton Affair. Eventually it came to mean presidential informal advisers, separate from cabinet secretaries. Often, such a circle has provided expert, dispassionate, and private counsel.

The modern St. Patrick

President Roosevelt uses his big stick to cast various reptiles into the water: “land grabber,” “spoils,” “mollycoddle,” “Brownsville,” “graft,” “rebate,” “swollen fortune,” and “Bellamy.” In the background stands an elephant about to hit a toad with a cane, “Watch me.”

Comments and Context

Some cartoonists are grateful for “crutches” like regular holidays as hooks on which to hang their cartoon concepts — convenient inspirations on which to affix common themes or current events.

The tie that binds

J. Pierpont Morgan and Edward Henry Harriman stand on the side of the “Square Deal” labeled “railway interests” while President Roosevelt stands on the other side, “public interests.” In the foreground is an elephant holding a ruler labeled, “Square Deal” and a book entitled, “How to Square a Circle.”

Comments and Context

President Roosevelt was a voluble leader who had a gift for colorful and memorable phrases. He often encapsulated a concept or policy in a pithy word or phrase, as with “race suicide” or “malefactors of great wealth”; or by bestowing labels that would universally resonate, like his “bull moose” remarks when he renewed his electoral ambitions. “Bully” and “Dee-lighted” were words instantly and permanently associated with his personality.

Another Delaware case

Uncle Sam drives President Roosevelt in a horse-drawn carriage labeled “3rd Term” at a fast speed while an elephant races by.

Comments and Context

The Washington Herald‘s cartoonist Jack H. Smith drew a typically challenging cartoon in 1907, maybe as obscure to contemporary readers as to those a century later. The challenge is not to expect yet another reference to President Roosevelt’s declination to be a candidate in 1908, predictably questioned by cartoonists, but why the president is in the sulky (here, a carriage, with Uncle Sam at the reins) if he is unwilling to race toward a renomination. The gait is faster than a harness race, but logical horses had left the gate, so to speak; and the racing elephant utilized Smith’s cartooning “mascot” rather than implying that the Republican Party was ahead of the plans of Uncle Sam, or Roosevelt, perhaps.

Uncle Joe heads to Panama

Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon with a cigar in his mouth holds a folded up umbrella and a suitcase labeled “Uncle Joe” with a paper, “The Show Me,” walking toward “Panama.” Behind him is an elephant also with a cigar in its mouth. On the ground are footprints of others: President Roosevelt, Uncle Sam, and Secretary of War William H. Taft.

Comments and Context

Joseph Gurney Cannon was one of the most colorful, flinty, and dictatorial Speakers of the House, a position he held from 1903-1911. He was touted as a Republican presidential aspirant for 1908, but he sometimes averred that he had more power as Speaker than any president could wield; yet his name was frequently discussed in the gaggle of hopefuls, very likely to enhance his influence and prestige as a Favorite Son of Illinois.

He’ll not quit his job

Uncle Sam, wearing boots (one that says “Army” and the other that says “Navy”), marches forward with a shovel and a pail toward “Panama.” Beside him is an elephant holding a shovel. President Roosevelt is in the distance away from Panama waving a white paper.

Comments and Context

In the last week of February 1907 President Roosevelt held White Houses conferences with Theodore P. Shonts, Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) and Secretary of War William H. Taft over progress on the Panama Canal’s construction. After some challenges and delays, many caused by the necessity to choose between precise routes, health matters, and festering personnel problems, pathways of both geographical and organization natures were in place.