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A farmer and a laborer visit a “Savings Bank.” The farmer, who looks prosperous, is depositing money; while the laborer, who looks depressed, is making a withdrawal. Caption: The farmer is all right, – but the laborer is finding that it costs him more money to live.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-09-15
A police officer holds Oscar L. Baldwin, cashier at the Mechanics’ National Bank in Newark, by the shoulder while Baldwin, using “Speculation Soap Suds,” blows a soap bubble labeled “500,000 Paid in Capital” and “Surplus Fund $400,000” that drips money into a top hat in front of many old men labeled “Bank Director” and investors entering on the right, in the background. At his feet are papers labeled “Cooked Statement.” Puck gestures toward the old men and suggests the police officer consider arresting them as well. Caption: Puck to Representative of the Law–“You have got the thief – now take the men who let him steal the money of the trusting depositors.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1881-11-09
A diminutive William Jennings Bryan stands on a street before two gigantic men representing labor and business, waving a red flag labeled “Repudiation” and a paper that states, “We demand that the Savings of Labor, Life Insurance Policies, and Business Obligations in general shall be Paid in Fifty Cent Dollars.” Caption: Labor and business must stand together to protect their interests […].
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1896-08-19
An oversized man labeled “Promoter” sits atop a ticker tape machine, holding a large butterfly net into which a throng of investors fly. Some labeled “Broker, Merchant, [and] Banker” are tossing money in exchange for balloons labeled “Sash and Door Combine Stock, American Beet Sugar Co., Distillery and Warehouse Co. Stock, American Caramel Co., Auto-Truck Co. Stock, Print Cloth pool Stock, Chicago Milk Co., Knit Goods Co. Stock, [and] International Silver Co.” One balloon labeled “Inflated Industrial” has burst. Caption: With reference to these large combinations of capital which are now forming, my own judgment is that the danger is not so much to the community at large as it is to the people who are induced to put their money into the purchase of the stock.–Attorney-General Griggs.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1899-04-26
A man, probably Charles S. Mellen, stands amid a crowd of angry investors who have lost their savings and investments due to mismanagement of the New Haven Railroad. Caption: This cartoon appeared in PUCK at the time of the life-insurance scandal. Still more applicable is it to the former “High-Finance” Looter of the New Haven Railway system.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1913-12-31
Print shows New York State Supreme Court justice Theodoric R. Westbrook wearing the white robe of Justice and his head mostly bound with cloth. The balance scale of justice sits at his feet, and he hands a crowbar, or “jimmy,” labeled “By Order of the Court,” to a masked man. Another man, in the background, is using a similar bar to pry open doors labeled “Broken, Assets, Stockholders Money, [and] Policy Holders Money.” Next to Westbrook is a container labeled “Court Orders” filled with crowbars. His left hand rests on a piece of paper that states “Supreme Court – Decisions by Everybody’s Friend – Westbrook.” Caption: How the receivers get at the assets of “busted” insurance companies.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1882-05-24
Print shows William H. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Russell Sage and James R. Keene checking ticker tape connected to a large straight-edge razor labeled “Wade in & Butcher’em” and “This Indicator Rises & Falls with Stocks” with a bear and a bull and several money bags labeled “$” balanced on the back of the blade; below, draped over the handle are many investors reaching for bundles of “Pacific Mail, Western Union, [and] Erie” stocks, the blade is poised to drop. In the background another group of investors labeled “The Lambs Brigade” are headed into the “N.Y. Stock Exchange”.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1881-09-07
A large old tree grows at the edge of a body of water, with Albany, New York, on the right, and the U.S. Capitol on the left, in the background. Hanging from the branches are many coins with “$” and a few blossoms labeled “Bribes for Legislation, Bribes for Lawyers, Bribes for Judges, Bribes for Editors, [and] Bribes for Congress.” Telegraph lines are tangled in the branches, and the face of Jay Gould is formed by limbs and branches at center. The bodies of several people lay among the debris beneath the tree. Roscoe Conkling is slumped against a row of buildings. “Westbro[?]” has expired over the same row of buildings. A skull labeled “Jim Fisk” lies next to “Whitelaw Reid.” Ulysses S. Grant, at center, is labeled “Black Friday.” Beneath a railroad is the body of a woman labeled “Stockholder.” Against the trunk of the tree is a man labeled “Stockholder E.R.R.” who looks a little like Cornelius Vanderbilt, and on the right is Alonzo Cornell labeled “Blind Pool.” All appear to have succumbed to greed through the machinations of Jay Gould. Caption: “This tree … was said to be so exceedingly poisonous that no one could even approach it without certain death.” Zell’s Encyclopedia.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1882-08-30
On the left, anxious businessmen are gathered around a ticker tape machine, reading the ticker tape. On the right, anxious gamblers are gathered around a roulette wheel, awaiting the outcome. Caption: If it is legal to gamble in Wall Street, why isn’t it legal to gamble in the West Forties?
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1912-08-28
An elderly man, John R. Walsh, is being assailed from all sides by people who have been defrauded by his misappropriation of funds from their savings and investments. Caption: Cursed by those whose savings he has squandered and whose trust he has betrayed.
John R. Walsh, an Irish immigrant active in Chicago, is at the center of this Carl Hassmann cartoon. Typically dramatic and apocalyptic, his portrayal such that he might be considered one of American history’s notable villains. Yet he is barely remembered, and might be categorized as an entrepreneur who continually struggled and mismanaged his multitude of dreams.
Around the time of the cartoon, three Chicago banks founded by Walsh had failed. According to Walsh and his family, the businessman covered all losses, with no detriment to depositors; Puck, and the courts, disagreed. Walsh was sentenced to a lengthy sentence in Leavenworth, chiefly for the crime of “borrowing” funds from his own banks. The 1907 financial panic ended his ability to shuffle accounts. Before that, Walsh invested in a small railroad, which also failed. He had built the line in order to make his Indiana mines profitable; they also failed. (Subsequent owners profited from their deposits of limestone.) Walsh’s initial businesses in America were the Western News chain of newsstands, which he sold at a loss to an Eastern syndicate, and the Chicago Herald newspaper, which after his management merged with the Times and William Randolph Hearst’s American.
J. Pierpont Morgan, as a strong man at a circus, attempts to inflate a balloon labeled “Steel Stock” with a pump labeled “Enormous Earnings.” In the background is a crowd of people, some holding papers labeled “Steel Stock.” Caption: A strong man, a strong pump; but no sigh of a rise.
Sometimes the stock manipulation and monopolist’s control of values backfired. The machinations of J. P. Morgan after his acquisition of smaller steel companies if he might have failed to acquire United States Steel from Andrew Carnegie, and then his top-heavy position in the steel market after Carnegie did sell to Morgan, was the subject of editorial and political commentary at the time that he over-extended his resources. If so, Morgan’s challenges soon were overcome, and not as serious as Pughe’s cartoon suggests.
An elderly German American man, with one hand pointing to his head and the other pointing to a coin bank labeled “Savings Bank” on a table, winks to reinforce that he thinks his investments in the “U.S. Bonds” protruding from his vest and his savings are wise decisions. On the left is a poster showing a bust portrait of President William McKinley labeled “Expansion” and captioned “Gold Standard and Sound Money,” and on the right is a poster showing a bust portrait of William Jennings Bryan labeled “Anti-Expansion” and captioned “Repudiation and 16 to 1.”
The readership of Puck was reliably and generally regarded as German-American, above any other affiliation. It began as a German-language weekly and still published a German edition when this cartoon was published. Usually Democratic in its political views, except in years that William Jennings Bryan was not a candidate, this cartoon posed a question but strongly implied the answer: wise, thrifty, and sober German-Americans would support President William McKinley (as Puck did, editorially, that year.)
President Roosevelt was glad to read what his son, Theodore Roosevelt, wrote about his brother Kermit Roosevelt. He sympathizes with Ted’s opinion about work, and says that he will eventually reach the point where he can have both work and leisure, but agrees that having only leisure would be worse than only work. Roosevelt had received a copy of Wind in the Willows, but had not read it yet. He plans to do so now, based on Ted’s recommendation. Roosevelt’s schedule is as busy as ever, both with his usual presidential work, as well as his preparations for his safari and the lectures he will be giving abroad. Roosevelt hopes to be able to save the money he makes by writing after leaving the presidency to help his children until they are all able to earn their own livings.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-03, 1908-12-06
President Roosevelt is pleased with Douglas Robinson’s report on his accounts, which show he has saved a lot in the last year. He also acknowledges the difficulty of Robinson’s work and looks forward to seeing him and Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-01-10
M. E. Perry encloses a copy of The Pass-Book, a magazine designed to teach young people “the importance of thrift.” Perry asks Theodore Roosevelt to write a few words supporting the publication and encouraging young men and women to save. He also offered to send Roosevelt more copies, if he wants.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-11