Your TR Source
Scrapbook containing an array of newspaper clippings of articles and photographs relating to the 1912 presidential campaign of Theodore Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
1912
A small man labeled “Consumer” is badly bruised after running between two rows of Native Americans labeled “Provision Trust, Ice Trust, Fuel Trust, Butter & Egg Trust, Clothing Trust, [and] Copper Trust” who have beaten him with a sack of “Self Rising Flour” and a “Sugar Cured” ham, a coal scuttle, bundle of wood, a “Gas Meter,” ice tongs, eggs, copper coins, and a bolt of cloth with boots, socks, and gloves attached. Caption: And every year he votes as though he liked it.
“Running the gauntlet,” the practice and etymology of which go back to ancient Greece but became widespread in many world societies in the seventeenth century, provided the starkly visual metaphor for cartoonist Will Crawford in this double-page cartoon. In fact it was a common practice in Sweden, on sailing ships, and as a literary metaphor seemingly before Native American tribes adopted it.
The practice is a punishment traditionally viewed as milder and less dishonorable than flogging or stocks. The accused has to pass through a line of peers on each side who beat him with objects.
A tall man labeled “Consumer” serves as the May pole to a group of chubby girls labeled “Steel Trust, Lumber Trust, Sugar Trust, Wool Trust, [and] Glove Trust” who are winding ribbons labeled “Schedule” around him. He is standing beneath cherry blossoms which spell “Puck.”
In a fox hunting scene, a man labeled “Special Privilege” rides on a horse labeled “Congress” through “The People’s Field” labeled “Trade, Individualism, Enterprise, [and] Opportunity.” He is following several dogs labeled “Land Trust, Oil Trust, Coal, Metal Trust, Lumber Trust, [and] Franchise Grabber” in pursuit of a fox labeled “Natural Resource.”
The telling aspect of this cartoon by Udo J. Keppler is that a bloated hunter, “Special Privilege” is in pursuit of the fox labeled “Natural Resources,” and that he rides a horse representing Congress.
A man representing big business exhorts two men labeled “Trusts” to test their strength by hitting a peg shaped like a man labeled “Consumer” with a large mallet labeled “Tariff.” Joseph Gurney Cannon is standing to the left, pointing a baton at the consumer, showing the man with the mallet where to strike. The top of the tower, where the bell hangs, is labeled “Profits.” The U.S. Capitol is just beyond the trees, in the background. Caption: The harder you hit it, the higher it goes.
In this depiction of every carnival’s test-of-strength device, the generic bloated characters representing trusts encourage each other to pound the consumer so as to win prizes: higher profits.
In a battle, at a breach in the “Tariff Wall,” “Trusts, Monopoly, [and] Stand Pat” forces are being led by a king labeled “American Protective Tariff League.” They are repelling invaders fighting for “Fair Trade” and “Honest Revision.” Caption: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more / Or close the wall up with our Standpat dead!”
Carl Hassmann, Puck‘s imported cartoonist not yet returned to Vienna, had drawn a similar cartoon a couple years previously. His earlier center-spread cartoon showed similar knights of the Middle Ages marching forth to do battle with opponents representing corruption and privilege. Unlike that cartoon, which enumerated honorable combatants by caricatures and the journals they wrote and drew for, this cartoon depicts an actual battle royal, battlements breached, and virtually no recognizable faces, or any faces.
In the center of a circus ring are nine rotund figures representing trusts, high tariffs, and political graft, who are balancing on the shoulders of one consumer. A tenth figure, the “coal strike,” prepares to join in. President Taft watches, seated beside a giant sheep labeled “Schedule K.” New York Senator Elihu Root watches from the other side of the ring. In the foreground, Theodore Roosevelt leads a procession of six supporters, while “Gov. Osborn” has just left the queue and is climbing on the “Taft Band Wagon.” Inscribed below is the line, “7 little governors all in a mix one got cold feet and then there were six.”
Cartoonist Thomas E. Powers was attacking the Republican administration’s alleged loyalty to trusts in general, and to “Schedule K” of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, a controversial provision that was generous to the American wool industry. The context of this cartoon, syndicated throughout the Hearst newspaper chain, was the Republicans’ traditional “protection” of American industries through a series of tariff regulations through the decades beginning in 1890. In fact, President Taft’s administration prosecuted more monopolies in four years than President Roosevelt’s did in seven and a half years. “Schedule K” of the 1910 Payne-Aldrich Act was viewed as a showcase of schedules against the importation of wool and wool products, noxious in the eyes of free-trade advocates and Democrats generally. Governor Chase Osborn, Republican of Michigan, jumps on the “Taft Band Wagon,” deserting his troops. He was one of the “Seven Governors,” Republicans who urged Roosevelt to run against President Taft for the 1912 nomination. Powers assumed too much, because Osborn, although he was publicly concerned that party disunity was counterproductive, and even was tempted to support Democrat Woodrow Wilson, ultimately campaigned for the Progressive ticket in the general election.
A Chinese play is being acted on a small stage with Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nelson W. Aldrich offering two small doll-like figures labeled “Small Dealer” and “Consumer” to a dragon labeled “High Protection” manned by two men labeled “Special Privilege” and “Graft.” J. S. Sherman, John Dalzell, and Sereno E. Payne play musical instruments on the left side of the stage. On the back of the stage is a Buddha icon labeled “Greed.” In the foreground, at the foot of the stage, are Chinese men labeled “Lumber Trust, Paper Trust, Steel Trust, [and] Beef Trust.” On the far right, beneath a sign that states “Box Reserved for Amer. Protective Tariff League,” is a Chinese man labeled “Chas A. Moore” holding a tray with two small figures labeled “First Voter.”
“Like a Chinese Play, It Goes On Forever” is an abecedarian and awkward variation on “trusts bad, politicians subservient, consumers powerless” themes. Cartoonist Frank A. Nankivell, who had lived part of career in Japan, had a difficult job in approximating Asian pictograph lettering, and he relied on stereotypes of culture and attire for the cartoon.
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.
An oversized, bloated man labeled “Protected Monopoly” receives a blood transfusion from Uncle Sam who is being attended to by (left to right) Vice President J. S. Sherman; Senator Nelson W. Aldrich (Rhode Island); Representative Sereno Elisha Payne (New York); and Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. Sherman stands on the left, on a stepladder, taking the pulse of the “Protected Monopoly.” Caption: “Uncle Sam–They say he needs it, but he doesn’t look sick to me.”
The subject of the cartoon is the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, the first upward revision of rates since 1897; and which proved massively unpopular with voters, particularly farmers. The Republican tariff was so unpopular that the party suffered major defeats in the 1910 midterm elections. President William H. Taft attempted to ameliorate the perennial tariff woes by drafting reciprocity treaties with many countries, but even the difficult Canadian negotiations could not please the angry consumers and disaffected voters.
Uncle Sam, as Rip Van Winkle, wakes up next to his broken rifle labeled “Competition.” Joseph Gurney Cannon, wearing colonial dress, stands before him, offering him a flagon of “Stand Pat Schnapps.” Sitting on a rock in the background is J. S. Sherman holding up a flagon as well. Caption: “No more of that, thank you. I’m awake.”
This handsome cartoon cover of Puck weeks into the Taft presidency and sixty-first Congress, illustrates the assumption of Old Guard Republican Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon that years have passed, as per the Rip Van Winkle legend, and that Uncle Sam may awaken to life as it was before Theodore Roosevelt. “Stand Pat” conservative policies of high tariffs and a free hand for big business are Cannon’s presumptive “good old days.”
This cartoon shows Theodore Roosevelt posing in the aftermath of a bear hunt. One of the bears, which he has shot and killed, has “bad trusts” written on it. On the other bear, which he has tied up with a leash labeled “restraint” is still alive and has “good trusts” written on it. In the background there is a sign reading “White House,” and a third small bear toting a large sack with feet poking out of it. This refers to Theodore Roosevelt’s “trust busting” efforts during his presidency.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1907
William H. Taft offers a spoonful of “Square Revision” to an over-sized child labeled “Infant Industries,” telling her that if she does not take the medicine, the “Free Trade” bug-a-boo will get her. Hanging on the wall above is a sign that states, “An ounce of revision is worth a pound of cure.”
The advice of President-Elect William H. Taft to American monopolies — that a reasonable downward revision of tariff duties on imported goods would forestall the more radical adoption of free trade or virtual abolition of tariffs — was never tested. When the sixty-first Congress took its seats in March of 1909 it immediately set about a severe increase in duties. This was not expected by the electorate, generally, nor by Taft, who bore much of the criticism.
A runaway pig labeled “The Tariff Issue” drags Joseph Gurney Cannon behind it. They are being chased by John Dalzell, Nelson W. Aldrich, Sereno Elisha Payne, and J. S. Sherman. An overturned cart labeled “Steel Trust” has spilled its contents of steel railroad rails. Andrew Carnegie, wearing a kilt, stands next to the cart waving his hat and gesturing to the congressmen. In the background is a large crowd, some in pursuit, and the U.S. Capitol.
After the Republican party’s sweeping victory in the 1908 elections, the major goal of the party establishment, after the oath-taking of William H. Taft, seemed to be the passage of a tariff bill. It had been a decade since the last revision of import duties (the Dingley Act of 1897), and the tariff was a hot topic in the campaign.
William L. Wilson stands in the street outside the White House, holding open a large carpet bag labeled “Wilson’s Free List” which contains papers labeled “Free Wool.” He has an umbrella labeled “Income Tax” under his left arm. Sitting next to him on the street is the donkey labeled “Dem. Party” that he had been riding. Several men, four of them identified as “Gorman, Brice, McPherson, [and] Faulkner,” have robbed him of papers labeled “Free Iron, Free Sugar, Free Lumber, [and] Free Coal” and are walking up the street toward the U.S. Capitol, visible in the background. Caption: “Gee whiz! And it’s a wonder they left that!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-06-06
A doubtful Uncle Sam watches as two horses pass on a racetrack headed for the start of the race. On the first horse labeled “Wilson Bill” is jockey William L. Wilson wearing a ribbon labeled “Tariff Reform.” Several bandages encircle the horse’s legs, tail, and neck labeled “Senate Amendments, Concessions to Collar and Cuff Trust, Concessions to Sugar Trust, Concessions to Coal Trust, Favors to Lead Trust, [and] Favors to Iron Trust.” On the second horse labeled “McKinley Bill” is jockey William McKinley wearing a ribbon labeled “Protection.” Caption: Uncle Sam–Neither one of these animals is good for anything; – they say there’s a new horse being trained, called “Free Trade,” that will beat ’em both!
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-06-20
William L. Wilson appears as a nurse feeding “Infant Industries” from a large bowl labeled “Tariff Reform.” Entering through a door in the background is William McKinley, also as a nurse, carrying a bottle of “Protection Pap.” Caption: The Discharged Nurse (peevishly)–Dear me! It grieves me to death to see how that child’s wasting away since they changed its food!
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-10-16
An old woman labeled “G.O.P.” sits on a throne with her arms around two men labeled “Monopolist” and “Fraudulent Pension Grabber” who are winking at the viewer. Caption: Mrs. G.O.P. – “These are my jewels!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-04-25
A bloated man labeled “Trusts” holds a gold mining pan holding large gold nuggets, drawn from a stream labeled “Dingley Tariff.” The stream is flowing from the U.S. Capitol building.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-08-25
This vignette cartoon depicts how economies of scale determine public opinion. For instance, “no. 9” shows a handful of criminals robbing a citizen on the street. The criminals are considered “desperate and dangerous highwaymen.” In “no. 10,” however, three men labeled “Trust” have Uncle Sam at gunpoint and are “robbing the whole country by the tariff,” yet they “are ‘great industrial and financial magnates.'”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-08-25