Your TR Source
President Roosevelt appreciated Eleanora Kissel Kinnicutt’s letter and was greatly interested in everything she said.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-07-25
John A. Dowie appears as a wizard at center, offering salvation and other products to gullible customers. The surrounding vignettes show various types of “people,” such as “The working people”, downtrodden and depressed, who are tricked into following the “Walking Delegate,” his pockets overflowing with money, and “The get-rich-quick people” who anxiously purchase bogus stocks and securities. There are those who have their palms read and those who believe they can build their own homes, as well as those who show off their castles with a huge “Mortgage.”
This Ehrhart montage of thematic cartoons (that was becoming a popular, or at least common, feature in the magazine) is a caustic commentary of human nature: serving “people” as the putative motive of scammers and swindlers; and the inevitable gullibility of people in general.
“The Idle Stork” has little to do as the upper class chooses not to have children, whereas “The Strenuous Stork” is being worked to death by a population explosion among the lower class.
As is the case in the 21st century, the birth rate among American whites and “old stock” declined at the turn of the last century. There is a double-reference to Theodore Roosevelt in Ehrhart’s cartoon. The first is the very theme and the caption. One of the president’s extracurricular campaigns was to preach against low birth rates, small families, willful sterility, what he called “race suicide.” He believed that all families, not only Anglo-Saxons in the United States, should be large; that increasing the family lines and “being fruitful and multiplying” was incumbent on healthy citizens. He sent letters of congratulation to parents of large families when he learned of them. In turn, a number of children during Roosevelt’s presidency were named Theodore.
Mr. and Mrs. Newrich and their daughter consult with a man who is using “Burke’s Peerage” to trace the lineage of a prospective son-in-law. Caption: Mrs. Newrich — You say Lord Naryared’s family only goes back to Charles II. / The Heraldic Expert — Yes; to Charles II. / Papa Newrich — Great Scott! Judging from what he owes I thought he must go back to William the Conqueror!
This Nankivell cartoon is on the contemporary mania of the rich, and especially the nouveau riche, to lust after, and sometimes “purchase” titles of nobility and royal lineage before marriages were arranged. A popular theme of cartoons was that phony titles were as common as the bankrupt estates of suitors.
A Jewish family is getting ready to attend the theater. Caption: Mrs. Bernstein (getting ready for the theatre) I see dere vas a real fire-engine in dis blay. / Bernstein (sulkily) Den I von’t go. / Mrs. Bernstein But it eggsblodes on der vay to der fire. / Bernstein (merrily) Hurry up, dear! Ve may be too late!
There are two subtexts to this cartoon. First, there were a fair number of theater fires on Broadway in this period. Shoddy construction and materials were to blame; as theater owners (part of a meme of the day — a stereotype that the Theater Trust was populated by Jews) improved safety conditions, many stage curtains actually carried the Legend “Asbestos,” to assure patrons that some items were fireproof. The other backstory of the cartoon by O’Neill, once again trafficking in Jewish stereotypes, is the accents found in the caption and the frequently employed cliche that Jewish business owners engaged in arson to collect on insurance policies.
A larger-than-life-sized African American man labeled “Head Waiter” stands at the entrance to the “Dining Room,” receiving a tip from a well-to-do man standing at the head of a long line of patrons of “The Um – Te – Ump Summer Hotel.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1901-06-05
Illustration shows four scenes related to New York City residents: in the upper left, “August in Madison Ave.” showing the well-to-do leaving town to beat the summer heat; in the upper right, “August in Mulligan Alley” showing the working class suffering from the summer heat; in the lower left, “The ‘better element’ in his element” showing wealthy men relaxing in comfort at the shore; and in the lower right, “The ward politician making ‘dives’ popular” showing a local politician handing out free tickets to mothers and children at popular middle class beaches and amusement parks. Caption: Why the “better element” never happens to get a popular vote in New York City.
This cartoon is an example of social commentary by Puck, though it is frankly gentle in the days of Naturalism in literature and exposes of the slums, when Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives excited public controversy. The book by Riis, an ally of Theodore Roosevelt, resulted in reforms and regulations easing the plight of the urban poor. Neither the milieu of the Malefactors of Great Wealth, nor the street urchins, are depicted here in extremis, but the ministrations of political organizations and police groups are lauded.
Theodore Roosevelt asserts that the argument John F. Twombly made in his letter has nothing to do with the matter, which should have been clear from Roosevelt’s article. The birth rate, Roosevelt insists, actually decreases in proportion to the rising status of the population.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04-24
Theodore Roosevelt is pleased that Walker T. Sumner has been appointed a bishop as many people in high positions lose touch with ordinary people.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1914-10-02
President Roosevelt extends through Charles Hitchcock Sherrill his congratulations to Delta Kappa Epsilon on the occasion of their sixty-second annual banquet. He notes that fraternities such as D.K.E. are important in uniting men across class.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-07
President Roosevelt takes issue with Ray Stannard Baker’s recent article in American Magazine. He states that Senators Benjamin R. Tillman and Jeff Davis, and Mississippi Governor James Kimble Vardaman do not represent championship of the Many over the Few on principle, but rather are motivated by self-interest. Roosevelt states that the conflict of race runs deeper than other divisions. He asserts that he is “a democrat of the democrats” and fights equally against the privileged and the mob.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-06-03
Clara Cahill Park wrote a story aiming to show “that it does’nt [sic] do comfortably brought up children any harm to association with occasional wifs and strays.” Park asks Theodore Roosevelt to read the story and offer his opinion regarding her theory about “the Open Door in Families.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-29
Eleonora Kissel Kinnicutt thanks President Roosevelt for the letter of introduction, which has helped her in studying statistics regarding the national health system in Germany, her “special study subject.” She finds that in Great Britain there is no centralized health system, and a liberal member of Parliament told her Britain looks to the United States to lead the way. Kinnicutt has been working to have Southwark Cathedral present a gift to Harvard Chapel, in acknowledgement of the restoration work done by Harvard graduates and stained glass window donated by American Ambassador Joseph Hodges Choate. A friend told Kinnicutt and amusing story about Andrew Carnegie and Emperor William II of Germany. Kinnicutt remarks on the democratization of social mobility in England.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-07-15
As Provisional Governor of Cuba, Taft says that he feels honored to take part in exercises at the University of Havana and acknowledges that the attention of the world is “directed toward the tropics, and movement toward popular government.” Although he and President Roosevelt regret that American intervention in Cuba is necessary, he assures Cubans that “the United States is not an exploiting nation”—that the United States wants to foster democracy in Cuba. In Taft’s mind, the difficulties of the Cuban people stem from being trained “to look to somebody else for the responsibility of government.” Rather, all classes of people must become involved in politics and fostering business in Cuba.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10-01
Ambassador Meyer writes to President Roosevelt describing a crisis situation in Russia and a need for reform. Meyer mentions that he is sending Roosevelt a report and other documents concerning the matter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-05-01
President Roosevelt speaks to a crowd in Barstow on his first stop in California. He remarks that as he travels across the country, he is struck by the unity of all Americans, regardless of occupation or location.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-05-07
President Roosevelt addresses the citizens of Kansas City, thanking them for their greeting. He discusses his command during the Spanish-American war and compares it to the Civil War. Roosevelt discusses the lessons learned from soldiers on character, brotherhood, and citizenship. He also discusses current problems facing the country after industrial development, including labor relations, class relations, and law.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-05-01
Levi P. Morton walks with a cane, holding a “Check Book,” with his left arm around a standard that states, “Down with the iniquitous Democratic Party!! It has the impudence to tax prosperity instead of poverty!!” Thomas Collier Platt has his right hand on the standard and is pointing to himself.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-10-17
A larger-than-life-sized William McKinley campaigns on a street among a “Miner, Merchant, Mechanic [and his family], Farmer [with basket of corn labeled “Low Prices”], Banker, [and a] Manufacturer.” Along the street are “Closed” factories, a house with a “Mortgage,” an “Auction Sale” at the “General Store,” and money loaned at low interest rates at the “Bank.” McKinley has a paper labeled “Promises” tucked into a pocket of his vest and he is carrying a handful of balloons labeled “Prosperity for the Manufacturer, Prosperity for the Mechanic, Prosperity for the Merchant, Prosperity for the Miner, Prosperity for the Banker, Prosperity for the Laborer, [and] Prosperity for the Farmer.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1896-07-15
A democratic approach to the mingling of social classes is depicted with vignettes showing the rich buying their clothes from “honest merchants” regardless how poorly they will fit, eating at “plain oyster-houses, like the masses,” riding in crude horse-drawn wagons rather than fine carriages and coaches, spending time at local “social organizations of the humble,” participating in barn dances, and attending “simple variety shows” where their diamonds will provide as much entertainment for the lower classes as the vaudeville show. Caption: They must give up their purse-proud extravagance, and get right down to democratic simplicity.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-02-24