Your TR Source
Alton B. Parker and Henry Gassaway Davis hold sheet music and sing two contradictory songs about protectionism and free trade to Uncle Sam. Caption: Special engagement of Alton and Gassaway, the celebrated team of musical daologueists.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-09-29
Walter F. Carter admires John Campbell Greenway’s military service. He reminisces about their college days, updates Greenway on their friends, and offers to send a care package. Carter is very eager to see Greenway when he is back on American soil.
1898-07-24
Associate Justice Hughes and President Roosevelt walk along a railroad track dressed in rags. Roosevelt plays a banjo and sings, “I love the cows and chickens.” A nonplussed local resident says, “Might fix ’em up a mess of bread an’ lassas Ma.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1916
A man labeled “Pension Fraud” holds fists full of money and stands on a stage, singing, with two musicians on the left and the “U.S. Treasury” in the background. Includes text of the song – “Now I’ve got my pension, I’m a gent!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-05-23
Benjamin Harrison plays the “Communists’ Chorus” on a large pipe organ, with “Tom Reed” and “McKinley” singing along. All are wearing liberty caps. Includes text of the chorus, which laments, “The Wilson Bill your present thought engages; / We must bring the whole thing up short with a jerk. / The Government has got to pay the wages / Of every man who doesn’t care to work!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-03-07
Puck sits on a sofa next to a young woman. They are holding a book labeled “Christmas Carol” and singing.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1893-12-06
Cuban General Máximo Gómez sits on a horse, listening to an eagle perched on the U.S. Capitol building singing “the song of freedom.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1898-05-11
Puck conducts a group of singers on a stage as they sing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Among the singers are “Palmer, Buckner, Johnson, Levering, Watson, Bryan, Sewall, Mrs. Lease, McKinley, [and] Hobart.” Mary E. Lease is dressed as Columbia holding an American flag. Caption: Puck–Now, then, altogether! – “The Star Spangled Banner, oh long may it wave / O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1896-11-11
An attractive young woman wearing a green swimsuit sits on a beach where a lobster has come to the surface with a banjo to serenade her.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1914-06-20
Four elderly men wearing Masonic uniforms stand between the Masonic pillars labeled “Boaz” and “Jachin” that look like barber poles. The men are performing a song and dance routine. Caption: When one’s a Mason, However snide, / He must aprons place on And collars wide. / Then he’ll pass from “Labor” – Which is swopping grips, / With his “brother” neighbor, To “Refreshment” – nips. Conspirators’ Chorus in “la Fille de Mme. Angot” – New Version.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1882-06-14
Theodore Roosevelt is enjoying the hunting expedition with Elliott Roosevelt, although the hunting has been poor. Elliott is very popular with the farmers and hunters. Roosevelt provides a summary of the “motley crew” they are staying with.
1880-08-25
Theodore Roosevelt appears as “Mikado Roosevelt” with a large cast of characters standing behind him: “Pish Tush Root,” “Landis,” “Pooh Bah Taft,” “Burroughs,” “Heney,” “Cortelyou,” “Steffens,” “La Follette,” “Folk,” “Garfield,” “Riis,” “Loeb,” and “Koko Bonaparte,” who is holding a large sword labeled “Department of Justice.” John D. Rockefeller labeled “Flim-Flam Business,” and Edward Henry Harriman labeled “Flim Flam Finance,” are kneeling on the stage awaiting execution. Caption: “My object all sublime / I shall achieve in time — / To let the punishment fit the crime — / The punishment fit the crime. — / And make each prisoner pent / Unwillingly represent / A source of infinite merriment, / Of infinite merriment.”
Cartoonists in Puck and rival magazine like Judge and Life, as well as newspaper political cartoonists, frequently turned to operas, mythology, and Shakespeare for metaphorical and allegorical setting for their cartoons. Despite their current popularity, the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan seldom inspired the cartoonists to parody.
J. S. Pughe of Puck made an exception in the first week of January, 1908. In a rather tortured casting of political reformers and Muckraking journalists as characters from The Mikado, they dance as two condemned men (behind the costumes, John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil; and railroad baron Edward Henry Harriman) nervously await their fate.
The “G.O.P.” elephant holds a tambourine labeled “Stand Patism” and hands out free baskets labeled “Tariff Graft” containing a turkey, duck, or chicken to ragged figures labeled “Coal Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Wool Trust.” A long line of trust figures await their turn. Joseph Gurney Cannon, Nelson W. Aldrich, Joseph Benson Foraker, and Leslie M. Shaw appear in women’s clothing as the “Republican Salvation Army” singers, singing “There are no flies on Dingley.” A man labeled “Protected Monopoly” stands in the foreground, at the edge of the platform. Caption: Distribution of Christmas goodies by the Republican Salvation Army.
Politics occasionally did intrude in holiday issues of Puck as this centerspread cartoon by J. S. Pughe attests. The Salvation Army was a relatively new force in 1906, but there had been urban missions and soup kitchens in lower Manhattan for generations. Pughe’s venue is a larger auditorium than might have been typical of a Salvationist Christmas food charity, but other stereotypes are there: music with a tambourine, female singers with bonnets sharing their sermons in song.
The cartoonist’s attacks are seen in the graphic subtleties: an obscure “small dealer” — that is, an individual entrepreneur — squeezed between two angry trust magnates; a fancy spat and shoe peeking from under a mogul’s pant-leg; similar kid glove and diamond jewelry on the “downtrodden”; and the hymn praising Dingley. Three leading Republican senators, and Treasury Secretary Leslie M. Shaw bleat the gospel of high tariffs.
Theodore Roosevelt writes his sister Anna Roosevelt about one of the help, Sophie, mixing up his clothes with Elliot’s and Father’s and the food they have been eating. Roosevelt went to a dinner and a picnic and some other friends came over and sang.
1876-05-14
Theodore Roosevelt writes his sister Anna Roosevelt about how horrible his examinations seem and his horse is finally well. He describes a picnic and a moonlight drive. Corneil and Hill came to church to sing.
1875-06-23
President Roosevelt surrounded by children. Title from item. #4 of 4 photos taken.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-04-10
President Roosevelt surrounded by children. Title from item. #3 of 4 photos taken.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-04-10
A group of children who sang for President Roosevelt. Title from item.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-04-10
President Roosevelt surrounded by children. Title is from item. #1 of 4 photos taken.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-04-10
President Roosevelt surrounded by children. Title from item. #2 of 4 photos taken.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-04-10