Stock exchanges

President Roosevelt defends his business policies, including: the creation of the Department of Commerce, the ending of the Anthracite Coal Strike, and bringing suit against the Northern Securities Company. Roosevelt has heard a lot of “dishonest nonsense” from wealthy men that should know that Wall Street’s troubles come from “watering of stocks” and speculation, not any action taken by the government. Roosevelt wants to do what is right for the business world and what is right for the world of labor.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-08-13

President Roosevelt appreciates the letter from Judge Cohen. He is sorry Cohen has been affected by the fall in prices on Wall Street.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-04

L. E. Minot asks for Theodore Roosevelt’s support for the creation of a stock market surrounding the buying and selling of meat. Minot proposes a plan that involves securing agreements with cattle ranchers and other suppliers, as well as establishing suitable stock yards and packing houses. The goal is for this stock exchange to impact the entire country, and give rural districts access to farther markets. In addition to Roosevelt, Minot has sent this proposal to many leading figures such as the Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson and politicians such as Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-08-31

Zachariah Lamar Cobb sends Theodore Roosevelt the report of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the two Water Users’ Associations of the Rio Grande project. During the meeting, Cobb and his associates fought a scheme under the guise of organizing a power company. To prevent this and other “vicious” speculative schemes, Cobb argues the necessity of amending the law.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03-30

Henry Lee Higginson recently heard Theodore Roosevelt speak, and offers his thoughts on the speech. He largely agrees with Roosevelt’s views, but offers his own opinion on Roosevelt’s point about the presumed honesty of small businessmen, and explains his own views on how he would like the public to view corporations. Higginson wishes people could see that corporations are also run by people, and can be instruments of good, even while he admits that government supervision of them is not bad. In a long postscript, Higginson continues elaborating on a number of topics, including how standards of products have changed for the better, railroad rebates, and how people’s upbringing can shape how they interact with the world.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-02-25

Albert R. Delmont has been trying to compile the details of the matter concerning the manipulation of the New York Stock Exchange by capitalists. He does not want the “‘sleuths’ employed by the manipulators of Wall Street” to know of his interview with Theodore Roosevelt. Therefore, he proposes a meeting in Oyster Bay would be more discreet.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1910-08-15

Ambassador Griscom wants President Roosevelt to know that his address from Indianapolis has been well received in England and throughout Europe. Griscom has attached an article from the London Times as well as a French language, Italian paper called Journal d’Italie. After a long period of bitterness and personal criticism, the Journal has become significantly more optimistic in its views of the United States. Griscom attributes this entirely to Roosevelt’s speech.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-03

Henry Lee Higginson returns letters from Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou and of Professor F. W. Taussig. Higginson asserts that Taussig is not a reliable source from whom to understand the opinion of the business community. He believes the extent of the depression in the stock market was great, but he does not regard it as a matter of consequence to the speculative market. Such corrections are to be expected. However, the railroads are hesitant to build more track until the future legislation and its effect on rates is understood.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-05-04

Ludwig Nissen suggests that Secretary of the Treasury Shaw make an effort to stop newspapers from discrediting the economic policies of the administration. Nissen tells Shaw that newspapers should give him more credit for helping businessmen, rather than portraying him as helping speculators.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-10-24

Two men walk down Wall Street wearing hunting attire and holding guns and bags labeled “Democratic campaign fund” and “Republican campaign fund” respectively. Bulls and bears run away while a sheep with a top hat and an “immune” bow winks.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-08-10

Republican National Committee Chairman George B. Cortelyou holds a cup and parades a Republican elephant down Wall Street as bulls and bears run away.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-29

George Brinton McClellan Harvey, editor of the North American Review, has returned from Europe and reports on the feeling about the United States there. President Roosevelt is extremely popular because he has “dealt a staggering blow” to American business interests abroad and to financial markets, capital investments, and the railroads at home. Harvey believes it will take years for American businesses to recover.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-28

A series of newspaper articles warn about a bear market during the Ides of March on Wall Street.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-05-22

Secretary of the Treasury Shaw notifies President Roosevelt that call money has been commanding a high rate of interest for nearly two weeks, but it dropped significantly today. Shaw encloses a letter he gave out, and tells Roosevelt that he believes this is evidence of a manipulated market.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-09-07

An oversized man labeled “Promoter” sits atop a ticker tape machine, holding a large butterfly net into which a throng of investors fly. Some labeled “Broker, Merchant, [and] Banker” are tossing money in exchange for balloons labeled “Sash and Door Combine Stock, American Beet Sugar Co., Distillery and Warehouse Co. Stock, American Caramel Co., Auto-Truck Co. Stock, Print Cloth pool Stock, Chicago Milk Co., Knit Goods Co. Stock, [and] International Silver Co.” One balloon labeled “Inflated Industrial” has burst. Caption: With reference to these large combinations of capital which are now forming, my own judgment is that the danger is not so much to the community at large as it is to the people who are induced to put their money into the purchase of the stock.–Attorney-General Griggs.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-04-26

An outlandishly dressed tour guide at a museum explains an exhibit showing a ticker tape machine to an equally outlandishly dressed couple touring the museum. Caption: Museum Attendant (in 1925) — These instruments, known as stock-tickers, were in use in Wall Street up to the year 1914. They were abandoned when the public got out of the market, and they are now very rare.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1914-01-07

Print shows William H. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Russell Sage and James R. Keene checking ticker tape connected to a large straight-edge razor labeled “Wade in & Butcher’em” and “This Indicator Rises & Falls with Stocks” with a bear and a bull and several money bags labeled “$” balanced on the back of the blade; below, draped over the handle are many investors reaching for bundles of “Pacific Mail, Western Union, [and] Erie” stocks, the blade is poised to drop. In the background another group of investors labeled “The Lambs Brigade” are headed into the “N.Y. Stock Exchange”.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1881-09-07

A siren wearing a scarf labeled “Get Rich Quick” sits on a rock ledge labeled “Margin Gambling” and plays a lyre labeled “Stock Market” with strings labeled “Erie, Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, U.S. Steel, Amal. Copper, American Ice, Brooklyn R.T., Reading, [and] Inter. Met.” On rocks below is a wrecked ship labeled “Exploited Bank” and on nearby rocks are the bodies of victims.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site

Creation Date

1908-02-19

President Roosevelt, as little Lord Fauntleroy, helps elderly Uncle Sam, bloated by “Overcapitalization” and a bandaged right foot labeled “Wall Street,” walk with a cane. Caption: “Lean on me, Grandpa.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Udo J. Keppler, in Puck, relies on an extremely popular book (and stage play) of the day for a metaphorical context. His front-page cartoon refers to a famous scene in the 1886 children’s novel Little Lord Fauntleroy in which the privileged young scion nobly offers his shoulder to his infirm grandfather.

The Democratic donkey labeled “Democratic Party” sits among papers that state “The Trusts are to Blame,” “Harriman is to Blame,” “Wall Street is to Blame,” “High Finance is to Blame,” “Roosevelt is to Blame / Roosevelt is Not to Blame,” “Overcapitalization is to Blame,” “The Rail-Roads are to Blame,” [and] “Crooked Business is to Blame.” Many are blamed, but no one will accept the responsibility for the panic of 1907.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The dispositive point of J. S. Pughe’s cover cartoon in Puck addressing the aftermath of the Wall Street Panic, is found in the attire and attitude of the Democrat donkey. He looks more like a jackass than a donkey, and the papers strewn about him are deflections about the Panic’s cause, the Panic’s fault, the Panic’s blame.