Swindlers and swindling

A man described as “America’s greatest Pecksniff,” an allusion to Dickens’ character Seth Pecksniff in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit, stands, full-length, facing slightly right, holding a paper that states “The Widow & Orphan Pump” which shows a pump spewing money into a trough. Likenesses of Pecksniff appear in the background as a bust statue, a painting, and a silhouette. Caption: “There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen; all is peace; a holy calm pervades me.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The beatific expression on the face of New York Senator Chauncey M. Depew, and the quotation from Charles Dickens’ humorous novel Martin Chuzzlewit — spoken by the hypocrite Seth Pecksniff — mask the irony of Depew’s situation, and the venom in cartoonist Keppler’s drawing.

At center a valentine card features President Roosevelt as Cupid. Around the outside are other valentines featuring two European leaders, American industrial and political figures, a Russian admiral, a writer identified only as “Tom,” and a Wall Street con artist.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Whether it was a cartoonist’s creative crutch every year, or readers’ happy expectations, the easy formula of imaginary Valentine’s Day cards for political figures was a frequent feature in Puck and other satirical weeklies of the day. Frederick Burr Opper drew many of these over his years at Puck in the 1880s and ’90s.

A man labelled “Trust Promoter” wakes up from a nightmare that shows a criminal labeled “Miller” and “520 per cent” breaking stones in a prison.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Anticipating the “pyramid scheme” of Carlo Ponzi that attracted investors by promising windfall dividends — but urged investors to roll over their “profits” and only made payments from new investments — the Franklin Syndicate of William F. Miller of Brooklyn began when a gullible man invested ten dollars. In months Miller raked in thousands of dollars a day, witnesses noting piles of cash in closets and desks of his offices.

In a series of vignettes, a rural family arrives in the city to stay at the “Walledoff,” a fashionable hotel [the unsophisticated rural man’s pronunciation of “Waldorf”]. The patriarch of the family repeatedly mistakes each encounter for something grander than its appearance.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-01-30

President Roosevelt writes Philip Battell Stewart privately about Herbert J. Hagerman. He did not previously believe that there was anything against Hagerman’s personal honesty, but now thinks that the evidence suggests that he was involved with trying to swindle the government. Roosevelt forwards a letter from Secretary of the Interior James Rudolph Garfield that sets forth some of the case.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-01-17

President Roosevelt asks that editor and publisher Robert J. Collier treat this letter with confidentiality. Roosevelt thinks Cyrus Packard Walbridge is the better candidate for Missouri Governor than Joseph Wingate Folk, although he has never said so publicly. Any comments made by William Allen White about Roosevelt changing his opinion of Folk are “arrant nonsense.” Folk had compromised his potential by appearing on the ticket with “boodlers” (those who obtain money dishonestly). It should be assumed that the president does not intervene in state matters, but if he did, he would support his party, not a Democratic candidate.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-20

John E. Lyall vehemently condemns the message he received in response to his previous letter, explaining that he expected better from Theodore Roosevelt and his secretary. He compares a lack of interest and care in his case—in which he was swindled by a company that advertised in The Outlook some years prior to Roosevelt’s tenure at the magazine—to the federal government giving up on its citizens with a simple statement of “I am very sorry.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-06-01

John E. Lyall writes to Theodore Roosevelt on a matter relating to advertising in The Outlook. He explains that over seven years prior, he attempted to invest a few hundred dollars in a coal mining company advertised in The Outlook, only to find that the company was a scam. He implores Roosevelt to make the situation right, even if he was not involved in The Outlook at the time of the incident. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-05-29

Edward F. Piggott asks Theodore Roosevelt if he knows Rudolf van Baron, who claimed to have done business with Roosevelt. Piggott describes how six years ago, he lent “almost every dollar” to van Baron, a Hollander who had trouble getting his fortune into the United States. Van Baron has since died, leaving Piggott in his will, although his vault cannot be located.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-01-25

Jacob A. Riis asks William Loeb to tell President Roosevelt that he will not bother him with a Danish case again, as the man, Johnson, lied to him. He feels foolish, but thinks he should keep the incident on file in case other people attack the president’s “fair play,” which Johnson had mentioned.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-18

George Scarborough, a special agent for the Department of Justice, has discovered that newspapers have no scruples about selling fake ads for “get rich quick” schemes. Scarborough would like to arrest the newspaper ad sellers as well as those buying the ads, but “men higher up” in Washington think that this is going too far.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-02

A devil wearing a business suit holds a fire brand labeled “Arson” in one hand and a large knife labeled “Murder” in the other. He is accepting a payment for $10,000 from a hand labeled “Vast Sums on Uninvestigated Risks.” The hand extends from a “Fire Insurance” company with a motto that states, “We Insure Everything and Anybody” on the corner of the building. Caption: The big insurance companies, by carelessness in their selection of agents, adjusters and risks, place a premium on crime.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-11-20

Print shows Puck talking to a veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic and gesturing toward a shark in the background wearing a military uniform, holding a gaff, and standing on the steps of the “Pension Agency” where a sign hangs that states “Pensions for Everybody. Apply Early. War Record Immaterial.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-08-09

Print shows a lawyer taking papers that state “Fake Lawsuit for Damages” from a bag labeled “A Shyster” in a courtroom. As he turns toward the bench, he sees the judge point to a paper hanging from the bench that states, “Notice: To insure against the bringing of frivolous or blackmailing suits, lawyers will hereafter be held responsible for the costs of all the suits brought by them.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-07-19

A police officer holds Oscar L. Baldwin, cashier at the Mechanics’ National Bank in Newark, by the shoulder while Baldwin, using “Speculation Soap Suds,” blows a soap bubble labeled “500,000 Paid in Capital” and “Surplus Fund $400,000” that drips money into a top hat in front of many old men labeled “Bank Director” and investors entering on the right, in the background. At his feet are papers labeled “Cooked Statement.” Puck gestures toward the old men and suggests the police officer consider arresting them as well. Caption: Puck to Representative of the Law–“You have got the thief – now take the men who let him steal the money of the trusting depositors.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1881-11-09

A parade includes “Workers” who work hard at swindling honest working people of their hard earned money, as well as many gullible people easily duped while looking for an easy path to riches. Caption: Parade of the real “workers” of America.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-09-01

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

Jay Gould is drowning in “Watered Stocks” certificates, some labeled “Watered W.U.T.” and “Watered Wabash,” at the bottom of the steps to Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City. William H. Vanderbilt sits at the top of the steps, on a large bag labeled “$40,000,000 U.S. Bonds” and “Vanderbilt.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-06-04

Print shows a ship labeled “Wrecked Corporation” and “Insurance Co. Bankrupt” that has wrecked on rocks with a darkened lighthouse labeled “Trust” and “Justice” nearby. The light has been snuffed by “Judge” and “Corruption.” Victims of the wreck, some clinging to the ship, others in the water, are labeled “Policy Holder” and “Pillaged Policy Holder.” A rope from the ship to shore is held by a “Receiver,” a “Lawyer,” and a “Shore Shark,” and is coiled around a money bag labeled “Fee.” Another “Lawyer,” using a gaff, reaches for a barrel labeled “Fees” that bobs in the water near the ship. Standing near the lighthouse is a man labeled “Referee” who is holding a pan labeled “False Beacon” that spews illuminated smoke labeled “By Order of the Court.” The man burns papers labeled “Waste, Outrageous Extravagance, Extortion, [and] Cost.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-03-15

Puck carries a “Petition – To the 48th Congress” at the head of a long procession of well-dressed businessmen who want Congress to enact a “Good Bankruptcy Law” that would identify fraudulent conveyances to a “Preferred Creditor” and hold swindlers accountable. They march down “Relations Row” past buildings that are labeled “Grandfather Preferred, Brother Preferred, 19th Cousin Preferred, Uncle Preferred, Sister Preferred, [and] Brother in Law.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-11-14