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President Roosevelt updates Archibald B. Roosevelt on family matters. Quentin Roosevelt brought a snake back to Washington, D.C., from Oyster Bay and has been allowed to borrow three more from a local pet store. He is showing them to everyone, including Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte and a number of Congressmen who are off-put by the animals.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-09-27
President Roosevelt sits atop a “judiciary” bear as the “administration” bear holds a “big stick” and the “House” and “Senate” bears look on. A snake labeled “corporate influence” slithers underneath the judiciary bear.
Cartoonist Joseph Harry Cunningham, never in the first rank of his cartooning contemporaries, drew this cartoon of President Roosevelt in the Louisiana canebrakes, only after the president emerged from the Louisiana canebrakes after two weeks of hunting black bears, and resumed his speaking tour.
Theodore Roosevelt, as the infant Hercules, fights large snakes with the heads of Nelson W. Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller.
Once again Puck harkened back to classical mythology for a cartoon inspiration. In fact from its first days in the mid-1870s the magazine required of its readers a basic familiarity with mythology, opera, and Shakespeare, for its frequent allusions.
William Jennings Bryan is a large snake labeled “Populist Party” entwined around a donkey labeled “Democratic Party.” The snake is about to swallow the donkey.
Despite the Populist Party being a shadow of its once-disruptive self in 1900, and no longer an influence on American party politics, largely the result of its own success, principally the dominance of its ally William Jennings Bryan, Puck strongly makes the point that Populist principles had subsumed the traditional identity and positions of the Democratic Party.
President Roosevelt thanks Harris Dickson for the letter. He hopes that Leo Shields can produce the stinging snake he claims to have caught, but Roosevelt is doubtful.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-17
The snake man turned up, but the snake did not actually have a sting. Theodore Roosevelt lets C. Hart Merriam know that Charles D. Walcott closed with his offer and that Congress will not have to give any funds.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-06
President Roosevelt confirms receipt of a letter from Harris Dickson, and tells him to bring the stinging snake to Oyster Bay quickly, as it would be a tremendous scientific advance if it is genuine.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-06-19
Raymond Lee Ditmars recalls that one of Theodore Roosevelt’s sons was interested in a fang tie pin he wore recently, and promised to send him a mounted snake fang when he could. He recently was able to acquire a fang, and sends it to Roosevelt, along with facts about its provenance.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-27
Harris Dickson tells President Roosevelt that their mutual friend Leo Shields appears to still be of the opinion that he found a stinging snake. Dickson knows that from Shields’s persistence, if there is a stinging snake somewhere in the swamps, he will find it. Dickson is now in North Carolina.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-12
Harris Dickson sadly writes to President Roosevelt to report that the snake that Leo Shields caught, claiming it had a stinger, does not have a sting. Raymond Lee Ditmars classified the specimen as a farancia abacura (commonly known as a mud snake), and Dickson directs Roosevelt what page of a book to find a picture of it on. He says he is afraid their friend Shields “is a nature fakir, although he means well.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-06-26
Harris Dickson informs President Roosevelt that he recently stayed with Leo Shields, who claims to have caught and killed a stinging snake. As Roosevelt does not believe such an animal exists, Shields has given Dickson the preserved animal to show to Roosevelt in order to prove that he is not a “nature fakir.” Dickson will be in Washington, D.C. on June 21 or 22, and would be happy to either send Roosevelt the snake or stop by in person.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-06-17
President Roosevelt pulls at a “free rural postal delivery” snake comprised of mailbags tightening around a Republican elephant. The snake is labeled as “fraud” and lets out “hot air.”
Universal delivery of mail was envisioned by Benjamin Franklin; much debated through the decades’ seriously proposed in the 1897s; tentatively introduced in 1896; and largely — but not universally — was implemented in 1902. “Rural Free Delivery service is no longer in the experimental stage; it has become fixed policy,” President Theodore Roosevelt declared in his Annual Address in December of 1902.
The practice however, was not universal, nor without many complications, nor even welcomed by the whole country.
A lion reaches out to claw President Roosevelt as he types on a typewriter. Beside him is a “dictionary,” a gun, and a boy reading a “natural history” book. A snake looks at the boy.
In mid-1908, the American public focused its attention on new items in the headlines. As per usual, they often centered on President Roosevelt as had been the case for the seven years of his administration, and during other positions he held. In some venues he seemed larger than the entire Spanish-American War; and the romance of the American West — much of what the public knew of it — was synonymous with Roosevelt.
President Roosevelt has his big stick at his feet and holds out his hands toward a snake, a lion, a tiger, a giraffe, a rhino, and a monkey. The “G.O.P.” elephant says, “He hypnotized me.”
The Washington Herald’s Joseph Harry Cunningham paid subtle compliments to President Roosevelt in this cartoon that was published precisely a week before the Republican National Convention would convene in Chicago. Presidents did not attend their parties’ conventions in those times, nor did candidates unless they were nominated in last-minute stampedes or compromises.
President William H. Taft, as Saint Patrick, wears a miter with the spectacles and grin of Theodore Roosevelt on it. Carrying Roosevelt’s big stick wrapped in “His Policies,” he strides ashore toward lizards, snakes, and frogs labeled “Aldrich, Cannon, Rockefeller, Harriman, Land Grafter, Ship Subsidy, Beef Trust, [and] ‘Preserved’ Food.”
Barely weeks into his Administration, President William H. Taft is in Puck Magazine’s honeymoon phase, depicted in the cover cartoon by L. M. Glackens as a Saint Patrick who legendarily drove snakes from Ireland. Taft, caricatured as almost thin — anyway, not of the roly-poly corpulence in campaign cartoons — and earnestly about good deeds.
Mayor William L. Strong is depicted as St. Patrick standing outside “N.Y. City Hall,” holding a long crosier labeled “Power to Remove,” driving away snakes and frogs labeled “Tammany Office-Holder, Tammany Heeler, Office-Holder with a ‘Pull,’ Tammany-ite, [and] Heeler.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-03-20
Marie-Francois-Sadi Carnot lies in state after being assassinated by an Italian anarchist. In the right foreground, a female figure holding a sword labeled “Law and Order” is stepping on a large snake labeled “Anarchism.” A wreath resting against the sarcophagus is labeled “Sympathy and Respect of the Civilized World.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-07-11
A female figure with a shield labeled “Tolerance” and a sword labeled “Knowledge” uses a cord labeled “Equality” to hold back a large snake labeled “Freedom Worship Bill” that has ensnared a young child wearing a hat labeled “S of Refuge.” “Randalls Island” House of Refuge is in the background.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1885-02-11
Print shows John Kelly as the serpent labeled “Tammany” in the Garden of Eden offering an apple labeled “Harmony” from a tree labeled “Bossism” to “H.O. Thompson,” as Adam, labeled “County Democracy” and Alexander V. “Davidson,” as Eve, labeled “Irving Hall” who holds out his hand to take the apple.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1883-09-19
Theodore Roosevelt, wearing a hat, neckerchief, and rough (possibly hunting) clothes, holds a large snake by the tail. Several tents are visible in the background.
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
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