Sherman, J. S. (James Schoolcraft), 1855-1912

William H. Taft shares commentary on William Allen White’s letter with President Roosevelt. In his upcoming speech, Taft does not address the “negro question” but plans to do so later. Taft enjoyed the speeches of Secretary of State Elihu Root and Representative J. S. Sherman. In a postscript, Taft believes in the necessity of renominating Governor Charles Evans Hughes. He shares misgivings about his election prospects and wants to give speeches in several states.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-08-20

An examination of contenders for the 1908 Republican presidential nominee, including a number of “favorite sons” and President Roosevelt, who has said he will not run again. However, popular opinion is strong for a “second elected term,” and Roosevelt does not have the right to select who will be president – only the people, who want him to carry on his unfinished work, can decide.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-13

The second assembly district of Oneida County passes resolutions in support of Republican Party principles, President Roosevelt, Governor Odell, and Representative Sherman.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-03

George H. Lynch expresses concern that Oneida County in New York may support candidates who are Democrats.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-03-08

President Roosevelt has contributed his dollar to Republican National Congressional Committee, responding to an initiative from Chairman J. S. Sherman to help raise funds for the Committee. Attached to the newspaper article is a pre-addressed envelope for sending in donations.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-01

“The Battle Now Is On” supports William H. Taft and J. S. Sherman in the presidential election.

Collection

Dr. Danny O. Crew Theodore Roosevelt Sheet Music Collection

Creation Date

1908

Republican Party song music for the 1908 presidential election. The cover features an illustration of the Republican ticket, William H. Taft and J. S. Sherman. Only a portion of the songbook is included.

Collection

Dr. Danny O. Crew Theodore Roosevelt Sheet Music Collection

Creation Date

1908

A Chinese play is being acted on a small stage with Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich offering two small doll-like figures labeled “Small Dealer” and “Consumer” to a dragon labeled “High Protection” manned by two men labeled “Special Privilege” and “Graft.” J. S. Sherman, John Dalzell, and Sereno E. Payne play musical instruments on the left side of the stage. On the back of the stage is a Buddha icon labeled “Greed.” In the foreground, at the foot of the stage, are Chinese men labeled “Lumber Trust, Paper Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Beef Trust.” On the far right, beneath a sign that states “Box Reserved for Amer. Protective Tariff League,” is a Chinese man labeled “Chas A. Moore” holding a tray with two small figures labeled “First Voter.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Like a Chinese Play, It Goes On Forever” is an abecedarian and awkward variation on “trusts bad, politicians subservient, consumers powerless” themes. Cartoonist Frank A. Nankivell, who had lived part of career in Japan, had a difficult job in approximating Asian pictograph lettering, and he relied on stereotypes of culture and attire for the cartoon.

An oversized, bloated man labeled “Protected Monopoly” receives a blood transfusion from Uncle Sam who is being attended to by (left to right) Vice President J. S. Sherman; Senator Nelson W. Aldrich (Rhode Island); Representative Sereno Elisha Payne (New York); and Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. Sherman stands on the left, on a stepladder, taking the pulse of the “Protected Monopoly.” Caption: “Uncle Sam–They say he needs it, but he doesn’t look sick to me.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The subject of the cartoon is the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, the first upward revision of rates since 1897; and which proved massively unpopular with voters, particularly farmers. The Republican tariff was so unpopular that the party suffered major defeats in the 1910 midterm elections. President William H. Taft attempted to ameliorate the perennial tariff woes by drafting reciprocity treaties with many countries, but even the difficult Canadian negotiations could not please the angry consumers and disaffected voters.

Uncle Sam, as Rip Van Winkle, wakes up next to his broken rifle labeled “Competition.” Joseph Gurney Cannon, wearing colonial dress, stands before him, offering him a flagon of “Stand Pat Schnapps.” Sitting on a rock in the background is J. S. Sherman holding up a flagon as well. Caption: “No more of that, thank you. I’m awake.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

This handsome cartoon cover of Puck weeks into the Taft presidency and sixty-first Congress, illustrates the assumption of Old Guard Republican Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon that years have passed, as per the Rip Van Winkle legend, and that Uncle Sam may awaken to life as it was before Theodore Roosevelt. “Stand Pat” conservative policies of high tariffs and a free hand for big business are Cannon’s presumptive “good old days.”

A runaway pig labeled “The Tariff Issue” drags Joseph Gurney Cannon behind it. They are being chased by John Dalzell, Nelson W. Aldrich, Sereno Elisha Payne, and J. S. Sherman. An overturned cart labeled “Steel Trust” has spilled its contents of steel railroad rails. Andrew Carnegie, wearing a kilt, stands next to the cart waving his hat and gesturing to the congressmen. In the background is a large crowd, some in pursuit, and the U.S. Capitol.

comments and context

Comments and Context

After the Republican party’s sweeping victory in the 1908 elections, the major goal of the party establishment, after the oath-taking of William H. Taft, seemed to be the passage of a tariff bill. It had been a decade since the last revision of import duties (the Dingley Act of 1897), and the tariff was a hot topic in the campaign.

Uncle Sam, in the guise of the hero Siegfried, sits on the shore of a river, surrounded by President Roosevelt, Republican presidential candidate William H. Taft, and Republican vice presidential candidate James H. Sherman dressed as Rhine Maidens. They try to coax Uncle Sam into giving them the ring, which symbolizes the power of the presidency. In the background, William Jennings Bryan, Democratic candidate for the presidency, as Brunhilde, Siegfried’s lover in the opera, awakens to see the Republicans warning Uncle Sam of the doom that will follow if he does not turn over the presidency. To the right, standing close to the river bank, an American eagle holds a music book in his hand marked “Bird Motif–O-Say Can You See.” The words of this motif are intended to wake up Bryan to what is happening between Roosevelt and Taft while he sleeps.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Published a month before election day in 1908. Another cartoon in the series in Life Magazine, The Teddysey, depicting Roosevelt’s life and career via mythological allusions. The series later was collected in book form. 

Roosevelt and Taft stand at the head of an elephant (representing the G.O.P) saddled with two chairs. While the president’s chair has a sign on it noting that it is reserved, the vice president’s chair is vacant. Roosevelt pulls on the elephant’s trunk attempting to move it while Taft looks on. Charles Evans Hughes sits in the window of a building labeled “Governor’s Office, Albany.” Timothy L. Woodruff holds a ladder through a street floor window with a sign on it reading “It might taper down to Tim.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1908-01-30

This vignette cartoon depicts ways to protect President William H. Taft from the weather, the public, and from poisoning and other possible assassination methods. The “Reason,” the cartoon states, is Vice President J. S. Sherman. Caption: The only high protection that Puck stands for.

comments and context

Comments and Context

This theme-and-variations cartoon in Puck, at this time a rough monthly standard feature, appeared a month after the election of William H. Taft to the presidency and almost three months before his inauguration.

On a winter’s night a small figure labeled “Consumer” sings a Christmas carol at the bottom of the steps to a large federal building. Standing on the steps, a large, bloated man labeled “Special Privilege,” along with Joseph Gurney Cannon, J. S. Sherman, and others, present a formidable barrier to the sad and complaint-filled tidings of the meek caroler. The carol begins, “Confound you, merry gentlemen! Will nothing you dismay? Won’t you revise the tariff until the Judgment Day?”

comments and context

Comments and Context

“Waits” were part of an ancient profession once common in medieval and Renaissance Europe and England. Evolving from street musicians to salaried ensembles of pipers and singers, waits roamed the streets to provide entertainment, warnings and announcements, greetings, and ceremonial music at events. In Germany the waits were called stadtpfeifers (town pipers) and sometimes were installed in towers throughout towns, providing what later generations would know as background music during daily activities.

A troop of soldiers wearing red coats, some labeled “Clothing Trust, Franchise Grabber, Food Trust, [and] Land Trust,” march past Daniel Chester French’s sculpture, “The Minute Man.” Among the soldiers are Nelson W. Aldrich wearing a miter and carrying a flag decorated with an emblem of a crowned hand pointing thumb-down in a squashing gesture, John Dalzell, J. S. Sherman, and Sereno Elisha Payne. Joseph Gurney Cannon is pictured kissing the boot of a fat officer labeled “Privilege” riding on a horse. In the background, more red coats are ransacking “The American Home” and tearing down the American flag.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Udo J. Keppler’s Fourth of July cartoon was a scathing indictment of the American economy, 1909, and specifically a gallery of politicians and business leaders he portrayed as dismissive of patriots and patriotism.

A group of men, scoffers, labeled “Tillman, Elkins, Penrose, Crane, Lodge, Depew, Gallinger, Aldrich, [and] Sherman” watch four men labeled “Cummins, Dolliver, Gore, [and] La Follette” construct an ark labeled “Principle.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-07-28

A chef labeled “Special Privilege” holds a large platter on which rests a huge turkey with the face of Theodore Roosevelt. He is about to place the platter on a table around which sit several men labeled “Cannon, Rockefeller, Archbold, Haskell, Payne, Dalzell, Elkins, Sherman, Foraker, Harrimen, Day, Rogers” and Nelson W. Aldrich.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The “Teddy-Turk” cartoon by Udo J. Keppler in Puck was the magazine’s strongest — in fact one of its only — comments on the election just concluded.

President Taft balances a cone of papers, labeled “Administration” and showing the Republican elephant, on his nose. Struggling to get in the cone is “Ballinger” while already inside are “Elkins, Hitchcock, Wickersham, C. Taft, Crane, Dalzell, Cannon, Payne (holding on to a large question mark labeled “Tariff”), Aldrich, [and] Sherman.” Rolled-up papers in the cone are labeled “Standpat Legislation” and “Cost of Living Investigation.” Also in the cone, a dog labeled “Regulars” and a cat labeled “Insurgents” are fighting.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-08-31

Theodore Roosevelt is pictured as an evangelist preaching from “My Policies” in a tent with “Sherman, Cannon, Aldrich, Ballinger, Aldridge, Barnes, [and] Woodruff” sitting on the left, and “Depew, Lodge, [and] Odell” sitting on the right. “Crane”, who had been sitting on the right, has gotten up and is walking out. “Beveridge” is standing in the back at the entrance to the tent, and Dr. Abbott is next to Roosevelt, playing a piano. Across the tent hangs a banner that states, “Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour, but look out for the 8th of November.” Caption: And the sinners who won’t be saved.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1910-09-07