Rich people

On behalf of Theodore Roosevelt, his secretary apologizes to Noah A. Travis for being unable to approach his wealthy friends about the matter Travis brings to his attention. Roosevelt makes it a point not to request favors from such people, as he cannot grant favors in return. He hopes Travis understands, though Roosevelt deeply sympathizes with the position Travis is in.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-10-24

Emma Wasson asks Theodore Roosevelt to speak a word to someone he knows with enough wealth to easily provide herself and her husband, Levi C. Wasson, with financial help. After a career as a successful dentist, her husband lost everything and became paralyzed. Wasson now cares for her husband and hopes someone like Andrew Carnegie might give them enough money to start over.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-10-24

President Roosevelt agrees with mining executive John Campbell Greenway. In his recent Provincetown speech, he reaffirmed the position taken in his “undesirable citizens” letter. In a postscript, Roosevelt thanks Greenway for taking an interest in Ted Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-23

This article praises President Theodore Roosevelt for his conservationist efforts, and as a result, protecting western forest lands from politicians such as Senator Charles William Fulton of Oregon and Senator Weldon Brinton Heyburn of Idaho. Rich men with interests in the timber industry claim that they oppose forest reserves for the sake of poor settlers needing land, but the forest reserves do not negatively impact settlers.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-03-06

Paul Morton believes President Roosevelt’s position is that neither labor nor capital should dominate the White House, but both should be treated with “exact justice.” Morton assures E. P. Ripley that Roosevelt is not against anyone who happens to be rich, but he does believe that many large fortunes in the country have been achieved in unfair ways and that a rich man should not be able to dodge responsibilities or be given special privileges because of his wealth.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-31

A haughty, well-dressed woman sits in the middle of a ballroom, holding a paper that states “Society hence-forth will strive to attract brains, not mere vulgar wealth. –A leader of Alleged Society.” Around her are animal acts, gambling tables, men eating on horseback, people with small animals, and a monkey, wearing clothing, squatting on the floor eating off china. Caption: Puck — Madam, you can attract neither brains nor decency to society with this miserable outfit.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The “400” was the term given to the cream of American society, unconsciously bestowed by Ward McAllister, the unofficial arbiter of social events in Manhattan and Newport in the 1880s, and coined because of the capacity at one ball’s location. For social aspirants it became a term of ambition; for a growing class of moralistic conservatives — for instance, Theodore Roosevelt, who considered the playgrounds of the rich to be vulgar — and to the socially conscious and the poor, the activities of the 400 was something to disdain.

An artist offers a painting for purchase to a wealthy woman who has no real appreciation for “Art.” Caption: The Artist — It would be such an honor to have you buy my picture! / Mrs. Gotrox — Well, I’ll have my connaisseur look at it, but I don’t know when he can come. I’m buying so much Art just now that my connaisseur is frightfully busy!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1903-02-25

A huge J.P. Morgan carries a cornucopia filled with railroads, ships, telegraph lines, and steel rails as examples of the broad range of industry he controls. As he strides forward, the German emperor and the King of Great Britain are brushed aside. Caption: The modern trust king brings dismay to the old kings of Europe.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This might seem to be an odd cartoon for a periodical that had run anti-monopoly cartoons since its inception in the late 1870s and anti-trust cartoons with more frequency in the years preceding this cartoon, but Puck, and many reforming journals — almost all except the most radical Populist and Socialist publications — occasionally granted the trusts some of their due: sometimes lower consumer prices, jobs from expanding industries, American dominance in world trade. A few months prior to this cartoon by Kepple, J. P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Company had been sued as a monopoly by Theodore Roosevelt’s Justice Department. But at the time of this double-page spread in Puck, Morgan returned to financial machinations and formed the International Mercantile Merchant Marine Company in an effort to monopolize transatlantic shipping lines, which might account for the preponderance of ships in Morgan’s cornucopia. The banker was camera shy because of his reluctance to be “captured” with his red and warty nose due to rosacea. However in 1902 the famed photographer induced Morgan to sit for a portrait, and likely retouched the nose; so in this year the public finally saw J. P. Morgan in full, and this might be how Keppler achieved such a good likeness.

A wealthy old man rides in an automobile driven by his chauffeur. They are racing through the countryside during a cross-country auto race and have struck several pedestrians who are not used to encountering automobiles on country roads. Caption: Owner (to Chauffeur) — Don’t stop! It only costs about ten dollars apiece to run them down. I must break the record even if it costs a hundred!

comments and context

Comments and Context

The automobile, a new-fangled toy of the rich in 1902 when Pughe’s cartoon appeared, was a luxury such that “normal” transportation as we know it today was not its main function; joy rides and extravagant excursions were. Only in Detroit and Cleveland, major centers of auto manufacturing, were autos common and driven by owners, not chauffeurs for the most part. In 1900, 20 miles per hour was considered excessive and dangerous, and a decade later 40 miles per hour was likewise regarded. At the time of Pughe’s cartoon, America knew no such things as stop signs, warning signs or signals, traffic lights, traffic cops, drivers’ licenses, lane markings, brake lights, windshield wipers, or speed limits. “Turtle turns” (cars flipped over) and fatalities, usually pedestrians including many children, were not uncommon.

Mr. and Mrs. Newrich and their daughter consult with a man who is using “Burke’s Peerage” to trace the lineage of a prospective son-in-law. Caption: Mrs. Newrich — You say Lord Naryared’s family only goes back to Charles II. / The Heraldic Expert — Yes; to Charles II. / Papa Newrich — Great Scott! Judging from what he owes I thought he must go back to William the Conqueror!

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Comments and Context

This Nankivell cartoon is on the contemporary mania of the rich, and especially the nouveau riche, to lust after, and sometimes “purchase” titles of nobility and royal lineage before marriages were arranged. A popular theme of cartoons was that phony titles were as common as the bankrupt estates of suitors.

A young man asks his girlfriend’s father for her hand in marriage. Caption: Cholly — Mr. Jones, I want your daughter; – our mutual love is as strong and tumultuous as the rapids of Niagara. / Mr. Jones — Well, have you got a “barrel” big enough for two?

comments and context

Comments and Context

Nankivell’s cartoon is a big target, satirizing multiple groups and attitudes of the day. The joke about having a “big enough barrel” refers to a slang term of the day: one’s fortune is a “barrel.” The depiction of the girl’s father shows him to be a parvenu; in the era of prosperity, there were many nouveau riche families aspiring to enter high society. Finally, while almost gratuitous, the aspiring bridegroom is a diminutive effeminate boyfriend. It then was common of cartoonists to portray American girls as pretty and assertive (like the Gibson Girl), and many of their suitors as sissies or impoverished foreigners.

A customs official ushers a titled member of the nobility on board a steamer, as a wealthy American woman, with thoughts of a royal wedding, holds up a bag full of money. Caption: Deport the vagrant nobleman as we deport other vagrants.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This theme — American heiresses chasing foreign nobles, even if they lacked estates but owned pedigrees — was a popular complaint and a frequent theme in literature and cartoons at this time. Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson Girl society figures) decried this tendency, even as he married into the Astor clan.

Illustration shows four scenes related to New York City residents: in the upper left, “August in Madison Ave.” showing the well-to-do leaving town to beat the summer heat; in the upper right, “August in Mulligan Alley” showing the working class suffering from the summer heat; in the lower left, “The ‘better element’ in his element” showing wealthy men relaxing in comfort at the shore; and in the lower right, “The ward politician making ‘dives’ popular” showing a local politician handing out free tickets to mothers and children at popular middle class beaches and amusement parks. Caption: Why the “better element” never happens to get a popular vote in New York City.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon is an example of social commentary by Puck, though it is frankly gentle in the days of Naturalism in literature and exposes of the slums, when Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives excited public controversy. The book by Riis, an ally of Theodore Roosevelt, resulted in reforms and regulations easing the plight of the urban poor. Neither the milieu of the Malefactors of Great Wealth, nor the street urchins, are depicted here in extremis, but the ministrations of political organizations and police groups are lauded. 

Theodore Roosevelt apologizes for being unable to fulfill William Low’s request. He is “not a rich man,” but is doing all he can for charity.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-01-06

President Roosevelt forwards his son Kermit Roosevelt a note he received from Endicott Peabody which he believes shows that Kermit’s decision has raised him in his estimation. The situation with meat packers has been “perfectly crazy,” and has engendered a large amount of resistance from rich industrialists. Roosevelt comments that while the capitalists who first made big fortunes were disagreeable, they nevertheless had “tremendous energy and a great deal of cold clear-sightedness,” which is lacking from their descendants. The present Congress has achieved a great deal, and Roosevelt believes that it is one of the most productive he has had since becoming president.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-13

President Roosevelt is glad that Brander Matthews liked a recent speech he gave. Roosevelt appreciated the anecdote about William Vernon Harcourt that Matthews shared, and believes that it expresses his attitude as well, saying that he, “[does] not like the yellow rich!”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-04-23

President Roosevelt agrees with Stanford Newel that the very rich are intriguing together against the Roosevelt administration to support other Democratic candidates.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-05-27

James H. Hyslop thanks Theodore Roosevelt for replying to his letter and appreciates the situation. It is unfortunate that such a policy toward the wealthy has to be adopted. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-09

Ambassador Reid writes to Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt a “letter of indiscretions” about English society life and the state of affairs in Europe. First, he reflects upon the precarious and sad position of the German Emperor William II, who keeps making blunders and “plunging from one extravagance to another” in hopes of making people forget about his last mistake by making new ones. Reid fears that some mistakes, like his asking France to apologize for a matter when he had already agreed to arbitration, could lead to war in Europe. Reid also updates Roosevelt about Walter Spencer Morgan Burns’s drinking problem, and the controversy surrounding the separation of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill and Consuelo Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill. King Edward VII has banned the Marlboroughs from Court until they live together again, but the Duchess is refusing to reconcile. Mrs. Reid’s private secretary, Helen Rogers, is recovering from surgery to remove her appendix. Reid has discussed having an American or Anglo-American Exhibition in a year or two, at the White City in Chicago. Mrs. Reid will be sailing in December to visit her father, but Reid cannot go because the State Department issued a circular instructing all Ambassadors to remain at their posts and not take further leaves of absence.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-12

Baltimore Postmaster W. Hall Harris tells William Loeb that he has found out that Harriet M. Beckwith’s late husband, John D. Murchison, reportedly lived in Charleston, South Carolina. Beckwith may have had “considerable holdings of land” in the Adirondacks, and she may have sold some of this land to John D. Rockefeller.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-12