President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan use a big stick and knife—each labeled “publicity of contributions” respectively—to kill the “corporations” goose. Herman Ridder and George Rumsey Sheldon each hold money bags. The United States Capitol building is in the background.
Comments and Context
The remarkable cartoons of W. A. Carson — detailed, informed, always in bright colors — were major attraction of the Utica, New York, weekly Saturday Globe. Invariably on the front page, above the fold, and centered under the paper’s masthead, his cartoons were more incisive than editorial cartoons reflecting current events, yet hewed to an independent stance. The Globe was a regional paper that desired to serve readers of all persuasions.
In this cartoon, in fact, it is well-nigh impossible to gauge the cartoonist’s personal point of view. After a period in American politics, though Muckrakers’ exposures and congressional hearings, and especially heated during the previous four years, both political parties committed themselves to electoral reform.