Tillman, Benjamin R. (Benjamin Ryan), 1847-1918

In the upper left, there is a “coat of arms.” There is a gloved hand holding a lantern above a banner that reads, “I turn on the dark lantern.” Underneath is a masked, bearded face and a big stick breaking a pitchfork. The coat of arms says, “All men are liars.” In the upper right, Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker holds a President Roosevelt doll. Caption: Foraker takes his turn. On the bottom, South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman uses his pitchfork to remove the lid of the “White House” pot. Caption: Tillman threatens to lift the lid.

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-13

South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman holds an open knapsack and a pitchfork as President Roosevelt holds up a trophy: “Oregon land correspondence.”

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-14

President Roosevelt is teaching in a schoolroom of chaos as President-elect William H. Taft opens the “Congress” door. The “House Resentment Committee” throws items at the president who holds his big stick. There are two notes on the blackboard: “Our teacher is no good. B. T.” and “Do we love our Teacher?” Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker and South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman fold paper airplanes while Maine Senator Eugene Hale tries to take a “naval appropriations” stick. Caption: Getting square with the old teacher.

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-14

President Roosevelt and Senator “Pitchfork” Benjamin R. Tillman, identifiable by their footwear, Rough Rider leggings and a farmer’s hobnail boots, are buried underneath a pile of trash as they hold up “the big stick” and a pitchfork. Various scraps of paper have words on them: “liar,” “thief,” “fraud,” and “spite work.”

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-14

President Roosevelt wears his “imperialism” crown and holds his “big stick” as he bounces down the bumps labelled “liars,” “Secret Service,” and “Tillman” of the “Sixtieth Congress.”

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-18

South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman covers his eyes with his left hand and holds up a broken pitchfork in his right as he stands on a pedestal. Caption: Posed by Senator Tillman–Suggested to President Roosevelt’s New Art Commission.

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-21

Alton B. Parker—if elected president—sits with his would-be cabinet: “Thomas Taggart, Postmaster General,” “John Sharpe Williams, Attorney General,” “‘Bathhouse John,’ Secretary of Interior,” “William H. Devery, Secretary of Agriculture,” “Patrick H. M’Carren, Secretary of War,” “David B. Hill, Secretary of State,” “August Belmont, Secretary of Treasury,” and “Benjamin R. Tillman, Secretary of Navy.” Caption: The possible cabinet of white-winged souls who would get a job on Democratic success.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-26

Creator(s)

Davenport, Homer, 1867-1912

Clipping of an article about Senate proceedings regarding the Interstate Commerce Commission and Senator Benjamin R. Tillman and Senator Shelby M. Cullom’s options towards it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-25

Creator(s)

Unknown

In the wake of President Roosevelt’s dinner with Booker T. Washington, this newspaper article criticizes a cartoon depicting Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt sharing a table with Washington. The author of the piece believes that Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt is to be respected, and that including her as a political target in this has “gone beyond all bounds and their work is not a question of politics, but a question of common decency.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-29

Creator(s)

Unknown

Senator Benjamin R. Tillman of North Carolina says no Southern gentleman will now share a table with President Roosevelt because he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. This is a sentiment shared among many Southern politicians, which is concerning. That Black people are treated extremely unfairly in the South is well-known and understood, but the public is supposed to believe that they are treated this way because they are disproportionately criminal. The response by Southern leaders to Washington’s dinner with Roosevelt show that this is not actually the issue at hand, rather that racism is. By degrading others, these men degrade themselves.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-04

Creator(s)

Unknown

James Kimble Vardaman takes issue with Ray Stannard Baker’s recent article on “The Negro in Politics” in American Magazine. Baker “pretends” to quote Vardaman, Benjamin R. Tillman, Jeff Davis, and Hoke Smith, but has not correctly quoted anything they have said. Based on a conversation he had with Baker when he was governor, Vardaman believes that “the stupid little scribbler” is not interested in finding out the truth, but in “giving the educated negro’s side of the question.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-05-30

Creator(s)

Vardaman, James Kimble, 1861-1930

The Senate Committee on Naval Affairs interviews a number of naval officers on some alleged defects in the construction of several battleships now being built. Chief among these concerns are the questions of the placement of the armor belt, the positions of the guns, and the design of the hoists to provide the turrets with ammunition.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-03-21

Creator(s)

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Naval Affairs

The Congressional Record reports a portion of a conversation between several senators regarding railroad grant lands owned by the Northern Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads. Congress granted the railroads lands with the condition that they would sell them to settlers, but the companies have not been holding up their end of the bargain. The Department of Justice is taking the matter under investigation.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-01-31

Creator(s)

United States. Congress

Senator Charles William Fulton, of Oregon, proposes an amendment authorizing and instructing Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte to begin suits in Oregon relating to the present land grant cases. While Bonaparte may have already had the authority to do this without such a resolution, passing such a resolution assuages some of the worries of the Justice Department regarding its ability to prosecute such suits. Debate on this resolution centered around whether such a resolution was necessary, and around some of the facts of the land grant cases.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-18

Creator(s)

United States. Congress

This portion of the Congressional Record reports proceedings of the United States Senate in which Senator Benjamin R. Tillman calls attention to a circular going around that is using his name to spread a land grant scheme. Tillman wants to publicize this fraud so that people are not drawn in by it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-02-19

Creator(s)

United States. Congress. Senate

This report notes actions taken by Senator Benjamin R. Tillman regarding western land grants. Tillman introduced a resolution calling on President Roosevelt to communicate with the Senate, but failed to specify particular areas of land he was concerned with. Senator Charles William Fulton later reported a substitute resolution, which specifies the areas in question. Relevant pages of the Congressional Record containing remarks by Tillman and Fulton are noted for reference purposes.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-04

Creator(s)

Unknown

This document, marked “Exhibit A,” advertises the purchasing of timber land in Western Oregon. The St. Paul and Pacific Timber Syndicate claims to have attracted the interest of Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, who will help lend weight to the lawsuit against the Southern Oregon Company, which it claims currently holds the land illegally. By sending the St. Paul and Pacific Timber Syndicate an application and $200, the syndicate promises that it will be able to secure a quarter section valued at at least $5000 for the applicant. A map showing the area of the land in question is also included.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-04

Creator(s)

St. Paul and Pacific Timber Syndicate

Senator Gallinger replies to President Roosevelt’s note with an assurance that he intends to push for William Crum’s confirmation as U.S. Collector of Customs.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-03-09

Creator(s)

Gallinger, Jacob H. (Jacob Harold), 1837-1918

Two figures stand above the “senatorial pool” armed with fishing equipment. Theodore Roosevelt holds a large pole with a can labeled “bait amendments” by his side. Next to him, holding a pitchfork with a net strung in it, is the figure of Benjamin Tillman, a democratic senator from South Carolina. In the pool are a number of creatures, including a frog labeled “statehood bill,” a fish labeled “Santo Domingo,” a crocodile labeled “Philippine tariff bill,” and a large turtle with the head of a steam locomotive labeled “the railroad rate bill.” Roosevelt’s fishing pole has hooked under the lip of this turtle’s shell.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1906-02-25

Creator(s)

Rogers, W. A. (William Allen), 1854-1931

A group of men, scoffers, labeled “Tillman, Elkins, Penrose, Crane, Lodge, Depew, Gallinger, Aldrich, [and] Sherman” watch four men labeled “Cummins, Dolliver, Gore, [and] La Follette” construct an ark labeled “Principle.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1909-07-28

Creator(s)

Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956