Your TR Source
The writer of the article draws parallels between corruption and graft in politics and the corrupt practices that allow big businesses to accumulate and control most of the money in the country. The article quotes heavily from an article in Everybody’s Magazine by Lincoln Steffens that criticizes the few rich businessmen who control most of the capital of the country.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-02-10
People opposing the efforts of Tammany Hall to “rob” New York City of $200,000,000 in the construction of a new subway are invited to a rally tonight at 8:00 p.m.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909
President Roosevelt celebrates his forty-ninth birthday with a variety of friends. In the upper left hand corner at the piano are New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes and Thomas Fortune Ryan singing, “Oh let us be joyful.” Booker T. Washington tells Henry Watterson, “Henry, I hope you’ll come down and visit me at Tuskegee.” Senator Joseph Benson Foraker says to Secretary of War William H. Taft, “I heard a good story today, Will.” Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon and Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks look at a picture of George Washington, and Fairbanks says, “That picture makes me sad. It reminds me of cherries.” William Randolph Hearst, James Roscoe Day, and Secretary of State Elihu Root look at a book of “Snapshots in New York.” William Jennings Bryan and Grover Cleveland play a game of checkers, and Bryan says, “After you, Grover.” J. Pierpont Morgan watches over the game with his hand on Bryan’s back. Henry Huttleston Rogers, F. Augustus Heinze, and Thomas William Lawson sit together. Lawson says, “Rogers, my boy, you must come over to Boston and visit me.” John D. Rockefeller points at Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s chest while President Roosevelt presents a bouquet to James J. Hill as William J. Long looks on. Finally, James T. Harahan, Edward Henry Harriman, and Stuyvesant Fish read “Snap Shots Along the Illinois Central.” Harriman remarks, “Very nice album, Stuyvesant, is it not?”
There are contexts behind this cartoon by John T. McCutcheon of The Chicago Tribune that might not be apparent to modern researchers. The first is somewhat evident by reading the dialog balloons between figures in the pairings or clusters. Almost appropriate for an April Fool’s cartoon instead of something closer to Halloween is the ironic juxtaposition in every case — political opponents or business rivals exchanging niceties. In fact, insights might be gained by reading the nature of their “about-face” encounters.
Paul Morgan sits on Thomas Fortune Ryan’s lap while Herbert H. Vreeland sits in a “T. F. R.” box. Caption: Mr. Ryan, the ventriloquist—Now, Paul, speak up for the policy-holders! Paul—I accept this position on the understanding that I have an absolutely free hand.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-06-12
On the left side, Alton B. Parker stands in the front while David B. Hill, Patrick Henry McCarren, Thomas Taggart, and August Belmont are in the back. Caption: July: (veiled) Hist! Keep the push in the background. The people may get wise! On the right side, Hill, McCarren, Taggart, and Belmont stand in the front while Parker stands in the back. Caption: October: (unveiled): The people are wise. We might as well admit we are it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-28
The New York Times has heard on good authority that President Roosevelt has made a contract to become an associate editor of The Outlook after he retires from the presidency. It has been announced that Roosevelt has signed an exclusive contract with Charles Scribner’s Sons to publish his account of hunting big game in Africa. The author of the article speculates that Roosevelt may be intending to travel to the Congo Free State to report on stories of cruelty in the rubber trade there.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-10-19
Frederick A. Sawyer, secretary of The Newspaper Magazine Co., informs President Roosevelt of Adolph Edwards’ slanderous booklet, “The Roosevelt Panic of 1907.” Sawyer believes capitalists and financiers inspired the booklet to discredit Roosevelt’s administration. Furious, he hired writers to produce a manuscript refuting the booklet’s claims. Sawyer appreciates suggestions for further action in the matter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-15
Moses C. Wetmore and Norman E. Mack carry a shoulder pole labeled “For Contributions” from which hangs a tiny bag. They explain to William Jennings Bryan, as Moses, seated with Henry Watterson, John W. Kern, and Alton B. Parker around him, that there is very little money flowing into the Democratic campaign coffers. Standing on the left are Thomas F. Ryan and Perry Belmont. Caption: And they returned after forty days, and they said unto Moses: “Surely it is a land flowing with milk and honey, but there is nothing doing in collections.”
Puck Magazine’s artists, and many cartoonists of the era, frequently relied on Biblical analogies and stories as contexts for their drawings; and mythology, operatic narratives, legends, and Shakespeare as well. “The Return of the Scouts,” with Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan as Moses, is based on the Book of Numbers, Chapter 13.
Without precise Biblical analogy, the political point and visual humor in Udo J. Keppler’s cartoon arises from the exaggerated shock of Bryan and his fellow wanderers in the desert when they behold the spies Caleb and Joshua bearing a minuscule moneybag on a mighty pole.
William Jennings Bryan as Orpheus, singing and playing a lyre labeled “Harmony,” attracts a motley group of wild animals identified as: G. Gray, Kern, Folk, Gompers, McCarren, Mitchell, Hearst, Guffey, Watterson, Stone, Eliot, Williams, T. Johnson, Belmont, Sullivan, Pulitzer, Conners, Ryan, Parker, Murphy, and Johnson. One unidentified animal, similar to Williams, sits in a large tree, crawling through the branches above Bryan. Caption: Orpheus Bryan and the Democratic beasts.
Orpheus was not in the underworld, but cartoonist Udo J. Keppler made the dismal swamp seem almost as pleasant in this loosely constructed allegory. The portly and unheroic-looking William Jennings Bryan had a heroic task, nonetheless, to tame the various and potentially deadly creatures.
The cast of unruly beasts pictured by Keppler is indeed a reminder of the composition of the Democratic Party of the day — not merely elements of the North and the South trying to reconcile ancient animosities.
At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, Theodore Roosevelt is passing the pike of “Policies” to William H. Taft, as “The New Mahout,” sitting on the “G.O.P.” elephant. Seen through the left lens of Roosevelt’s spectacles, labeled “Before Taft is Nominated,” are James J. Hill, J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas Fortune Ryan, John D. Rockefeller, Edward Henry Harriman, Joseph Gurney Cannon, Joseph Benson Foraker, and Nelson W. Aldrich looking very somber. Seen through the right lens labeled “After Taft is Nominated,” the same group is cheering. In the lower right, Roosevelt refuses another curtain call. On the lower left he offers “Taft Bitters” to a cowboy. Across the bottom is Roosevelt’s familiar toothy grin.
Forsaking harsh criticism of the Republican Party, or President Roosevelt or the imminent nominee William H. Taft, the nominally Democratic magazine Puck instead had it cartoonist L. M. Glackens devote this Convention Issue’s centerspread drawings to topical humor and light commentary.
Cleverly framing the genre cartoons in a motif of Roosevelt’s trademark pince-nez spectacles and toothy grin, Glackens perhaps subconsciously wished to hold on to cartoon icons as long as possible before Roosevelt retired.
Moses, holding the Ten Commandments, is confronted by an angry mob of capitalists, businessmen, and politicians, some shaking their fists at him. Caption: Chorus of “Conservatives” – Dangerous, socialistic, un-American doctrines!
This powerful indictment of endemic corruption at the upper levels of American society was drawn by Udo J, Keppler, whose father Joseph (founder and chief cartoonist of Puck) had addressed the same issues with classic drawing like They Can’t Stand the Light, showing United States Senators shrinking from spotlights in the dark. But his son’s cartoon — of this evergreen subject — encompassed more than political corruption.
In fact only four of the major, identified figures are national politicians; the majority are business leaders, a magazine editor, and even a university president. Keppler unwittingly reinforced the view that lawlessness and compromised morality had spread throughout American life.
President Roosevelt believes Secretary of the Navy Paul Morton was unfairly attacked and wishes him well. Roosevelt looks forward to discussing the Russian-Japanese situation with Anna Roosevelt Cowles.
1905-06-25
Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin is being performed. At center, William Jennings Bryan appears in the role of Lohengrin, Knight of the Swan, who has just arrived, to the delight of “Miss Democracy,” standing on the left, in the role of Elsa, and to the chagrin of Perry Belmont and Thomas Fortune Ryan, standing on the right, who are playing the roles of Friedrich of Telramund and his wife Ortrud. James K. Jones plays the role of the King, seated on a throne on the left beneath a shield labeled “Jefferson.” A large supporting cast appears on each side.
Through its life, and especially in its early years, Puck assumed its readership was familiar with classical references, especially German operas (the magazine originally was a German-language weekly, and published a German edition for many years).
Nonetheless, the general public largely was familiar with the legend of Parsifal, his son Lohengrin, and such mythical figures. Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin frequently was performed and — in the famous jest of humorist Bill Nye, “the music of Wagner is not as bad as it sounds.”
Thomas Fortune Ryan, J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Edward Henry Harriman appear as sheikhs listening to a diminutive Grover Cleveland, labeled “Insurance Arbiter,” standing at a desk, shaking a stick at them. Caption: What shall we do with our ex-president? – Anything but this.
During the major news focus on the 1905 investigations into the insurance industry by the Armstrong Committee (soon known as the Hughes investigations), and the resulting imbroglios of scandals, resignations, and pledges of reforms, there were calls for outside, independent watchdogs over the industry.
During the investigations, and subsequently, the name of former president Grover Cleveland was floated. He had been retired from elective politics for nearly a decade, and was widely esteemed as a paragon of integrity — even bearing the nickname of “ugly honest.” President Roosevelt, a Republican had proposed the Democrat Cleveland to serve on a panel to address problems arising from the Anthracite Coal Strike in 1902.
President Roosevelt tells Lieutenant Governor Ellyson that he has just received the book with the reproduction of some historic portraits in it, and asks Ellyson to pass along his thanks to Thomas Fortune Ryan, who had donated the portraits for the 300th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown. Roosevelt thinks that the book was well worth doing, and has been done in just the right way.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-01-05
President Roosevelt outlines and refutes the falsehoods in Alfred Holt Stone’s Studies in the American Race Problem. He tells John Graham Brooks that he judges a work’s reliability by seeing what it says about a subject he is familiar with, and then deciding if he can trust it on things that he does not know as much about. He explains that Stone is spreading falsehoods about the so-called “referee” system in the Southern states, especially Mississippi. Roosevelt points out that the practice was common with presidents before him, and that it is necessary in areas where the Republican party does not have a strong enough presence to provide good appointees to positions. He also discusses his handling of the case of African American postmistress Minnie M. Geddings Cox, who was forced by an angry mob to resign her position and leave town.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-13
President Roosevelt agrees with Kermit Roosevelt about the book Martin Chuzzlewit, and criticizes Charles Dickens’s character and inability to see the positive traits of America and Americans, which led to such great men as Abraham Lincoln. He concedes, however, that some of the negative characteristics that Dickens’s characters portray do persist in some Americans, including Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, William Randolph Hearst, and John D. Rockefeller. Roosevelt enjoyed a recent visit from Kermit’s older brother, Theodore Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-02-29
President Roosevelt diagnoses the root cause of the current financial crisis as the public’s lack of confidence caused by the revelations of corrupt practices among several prominent businessmen. In fact, Roosevelt believes such a crisis was inevitable in light of dishonest business practices, and that his policies merely exposed them sooner than expected. Despite this, Roosevelt cannot regret his decisions and can only resolve to do what he can to restore confidence.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-16
President Roosevelt agrees with Attorney General Bonaparte on the appointment of Assistant Attorney General Marsden C. Burch in the Idaho land fraud case. On the New Mexico issue, Roosevelt details Attorney General William H. H. Llewellyn’s rise as an attorney. In light of Judge James H. Beatty’s letter, Roosevelt feels there is no need to be involved. Although Roosevelt does not trust rumors, it does seem based on recent behavior that Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis may be suffering a breakdown. In a post script, Roosevelt comments on William Randolph Hearst’s recent supposed sympathy toward Bonaparte after his siding with Wall Street. In Roosevelt’s view, the recurrent rumor about Bonaparte resigning to appease financiers has actually shown the public that Bonaparte alarms those who are corrupt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-08-31
President Roosevelt congratulates Senator Lodge on his speech, as well as one from former Governor of Massachusetts John Lewis Bates. Roosevelt recently gave a speech in Harrisburg, and although he would not denounce his opponents by name, he calls out the “demagogs” and “agitators.” Roosevelt is concerned that the “corporation men” are swayed to vote for the Democratic candidates, believing the Republican party is likely to impose government regulations opposed to their interests.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10-08