Securities industry

President Roosevelt regrets missing Nicholas Murray Butler, as they have much to discuss. Roosevelt has feared an economic recession because of the recklessness of the financial sector and it is now coming to pass. He is certain that the newspapers entrenched on Wall Street will need to accept that his policies are here to stay, even once he leaves office. The President is concerned that so many of the richest Americans ally themselves with corrupt interests, and himself favors the common people over the dishonest elites. He believes that the Republicans should put off revising the tariff until after the next general election.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-20

President Roosevelt asks Albert Shaw to reproduce a cartoon from Puck. As Roosevelt has no plans to hold another position in public office, the upset on Wall Street will have no lasting effect on him, but he comments on the related press coverage. The New York Sun has tried to disparage the Great White Fleet, but Roosevelt is certain Shaw understands that the fleet’s journey is necessary. Roosevelt asks Shaw to lunch with Mark Twain and Frank Nelson Doubleday on Friday the 13th.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-03

President Roosevelt is entertained by the editorial James Speyer sent in which he is accused of lawlessness for his behavior towards the railroads. The Sun is a tool used by Wall Street, and Roosevelt feel that those who run it would rather have chaos than law, and would rather rig the system than get ahead on merit.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-30

President Roosevelt describes his recent trip to Provincetown to his son Kermit Roosevelt, including his speech, a banquet, and meeting “five hundred Gloucester fishermen.” Roosevelt feels Kermit’s trip with the cavalry “was such a fine thing.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-21

President Roosevelt gives Leslie M. Shaw, president of the Carnegie Trust Company, permission to publish the letters. However, he suggests omitting the last paragraph of one as many on Wall Street will not agree with it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-19

In addition to Henry Lee Higginson’s letter, President Roosevelt received many communications from individuals and businesses concerned about the economic downfall and panic. Roosevelt mostly agrees with Higginson, but is confused by some of his points. Roosevelt thinks the global economic circumstances have little to do with any action by his administration.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-12

President Roosevelt tells Brooks Adams that he doubts the community agreed with his position regarding the 25^th infantry, who are the African American soldiers involved in the recent episode at Fort Brown in Brownsville, Texas. Roosevelt also believes that Senator Joseph Benson Foraker has been representing Wall Street in attacking the president related to the Brownsville affair.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-22

Senator Bourne hopes William Loeb enjoys his upcoming camping trip. He submits if Loeb had followed his advice, it could have prevented the public furor and blaming of President Roosevelt “for every epidemic or visitation of providence.” Bourne requests Loeb deliver the enclosed letter to President Roosevelt. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-21

A large President Roosevelt has several small men jumping on his top hat: “Chancellor Day,” “Justice Brewer,” and “Ex-Senator Spooner.” “Wall Street’ collapsed on the brim of his hat and says, “I’m ‘most dead!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This clever cartoon from the political-cartoon phase of A. D. Condo’s long career displays a seldom-recognized aspect of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, specifically concerning the possibility that he might have yielded to public pressure and accepted another nomination in 1908.

Uncle Sam eyes “Wall St.,” J. Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller holding up a large “financial panic” rock. The man labeled Wall St. says, “It’s o.k. We have it safe.” President Roosevelt also looks on, holding a bear under his right arm and a rifle in his left hand.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-10-24

William Loeb holds “Speech No. 1 Canton” in his left hand and a barrel in his right hand labeled “six speeches for western delivery.” Several men look on, including “Wall Street,” J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Edward Henry Harriman. Morgan says, “Oh, for a look in.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

President Roosevelt’s private secretary William Loeb advanced from taking dictation and handling White House correspondence to managing logistics and sometimes, at the end of Roosevelt’s term, interacting with officials and politicians

President Roosevelt holds a rifle on his right shoulder and a bag labeled “off to Louisiana” and walks away from four bears hiding behind a “Wall Street” sign.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A fascinating, and historically valuable, aspect of political cartoons, beyond their insights into contemporaneous events they address, is how the better cartoonists could be prescient — presenting and forecasting important trends, movements, and forces.

President Roosevelt serves soup from the “U.S. Treasury” pot with a patch labeled “deficit” and says “D-e-e-lighted.” A man labeled “Wall St.” with wispy hair shaped like a dollar sign coming out of his head holds a bowl up to Roosevelt.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Usually when cartoonists and their papers were hostile toward President Roosevelt– as the otherwise-forgotten N. Eingen of the Woman’s National Daily were — they depicted him as the supplicant or vassal of Wall Street. Corporate moguls, trust masters, and robber barons routinely were portrayed as masters, and politicians the servants.

President Roosevelt rides with Uncle Sam in a car labeled “prosperity” that is leaving the “Hard Times Cop” on a bicycle in the dust. Beside the bicycle is a turtle labeled “Wall Street” that asks, “Do you think we’ll catch him?” The road is named “G.O.P. Pike.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Kirk L. Russell and the Washington Post, perhaps caught flat-footed by the Wall Street Panic (or perhaps expressing belief that the stock-market downturn would be short-lived), presented an endorsement of the Roosevelt Administration and confidence in the economy.

Armed with a big stick, President Roosevelt plays poker with “Bear” and “Bull” on a table labeled “Wall Street,” saying “It’s a square deal, boys!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Maurice Ketten, who had a long and modest but distinguished career as a cartoonist of social subjects, life’s dilemmas, and daily panel serials of suburban and domestic situations, did not draw political cartoons for long, and this attempt might explain the course set for him by his editors at the New York Evening World.

President Roosevelt throws a “message” that explodes underneath a “Standard Oil” company octopus that holds a “never touched me!” paper. The explosion sends several bears and two lambs flying. “Stocks” bulls look over “The Street” wall to see what is happening. Commissioner of Corporations at the Department of Commerce and Labor James Rudolph Garfield also watches around a corner of the wall.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-07

President Roosevelt drags a Republican elephant, to which Chair of the Republican National Committee George B. Cortelyou and Cornelius Newton Bliss and bags of money are chained, toward “Wall Street.” A “yellow dog fund” follows behind. Several lambs look out a window and point at the sight.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-09-25

President Roosevelt congratulates Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte for his speech at Chicago, which showed his fair enforcement of the law. His attackers use the press and their wealth to recruit powerful people, like college presidents and corrupt judges, to their side at the cost of the “plain people.” These attackers know that developments like the Hepburn Rate Law, the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and protections for workers have been effective against moneyed interests and criminals, but they are often lawyers or editors who answer to the corporations. The individual men to whom he refers are, however, merely puppets, and the true issue should be taken with the offenders who stand behind them and control enormous wealth. He and Bonaparte are not responsible for the economic panic, but are striving for the right “in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-12-23

Theodore Roosevelt attempts to answer Alfred Borden’s questions, but admits that it is somewhat difficult to do so without seeming to be rude or condescending, as they seem to be fairly basic questions. He explains that, while President, he did not attempt to deal with the Tariff question because he was focused on a number of other topics he considered more important, and he worried that by splitting his efforts further, he would achieve less. Regarding his relations with Senator William Lorimer and Ohio political boss George Barnsdale Cox, Roosevelt explains that when he did not know anything about Lorimer, he treated him just as he did Cox, with both being political bosses of their respective states. Once the scandal surrounding Lorimer began to be exposed as he assumed a position in the legislature, it necessarily had to change how Roosevelt related to him. Finally, Roosevelt denies having ever painted the entirety of Wall Street as dishonest men, and maintains that he has always been in favor of the honest businessman. He hopes, in answering Borden, he did not hurt his feelings, but strove to write candidly and honestly answer his questions.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1910-11-02

Theodore Roosevelt answers the three questions Alfred Borden posed regarding his political record. Roosevelt did not deal with the question of the tariff because he was attempting to take care of the trusts, does not feel that the cases of William Lorimer and George Barnsdale Cox are in any way comparable, and has not generalized the entirety of Wall Street as dishonest in any speech he has made. After making these points, Roosevelt writes more candidly in a postscript, criticizing Borden’s points as being ridiculous, and saying that if he took the time to find out the facts he would realize this.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1910-10-29

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919