Uncle Sam (Symbolic character)

President Roosevelt stands next to Uncle Sam who is sitting on a stool in a “U.S. Custom House.” Roosevelt has his left hand on Sam’s right arm and is gesturing to the left, toward a customs official who is inspecting the bags of a Filipino man just inside a door labeled “Philippines” and “Prohibitive Tariff.” The door is locked and barred by “Seventy-Five per cent of Dingley Rates.” In the background, a woman exits through a door labeled “Cuba” and “Reciprocity” and a man exits through a door labeled “Porto Rico” and “Free Trade.” Caption: President Roosevelt–You’ve been fair to the other two. Now, keep faith with this one.

comments and context

Comments and Context

In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, different tariff duties and trade policies were imposed on America’s new territorial possessions. Given their retention, this was logical because they each had different histories, geography, economies, and levels of sophistication. One of the prices of empire was dealing with the inevitable complications. Cuba, with a relatively mature infrastructure and major industry, sugar, received more consideration from Washington than did the rather unsophisticated island of Porto Rico (as it was then spelled). The Philippine Islands were a special case for several reasons: they were the farthest of the new lands from the continental United States, the population was the most resistant to American occupation, and as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the war, Spain received trade conditions equal to those of the United States. William Howard Taft, a federal judge who had been Theodore Roosevelt’s friend since he was United State Solicitor-General under Benjamin Harrison when Roosevelt was head of the Civil Service Commission, served as governor-general of the Philippines from 1901-1903, and tried to effect what historian Michael Cullinane has called the “Filipino-American collaborative empire,” characteristically seeking middle ground. Manila was represented by two representatives in Washington (the other possessions got one each), and strong arguments were made for favorable trade considerations. Pughe’s cartoon dates from the time when relatively harsh tariffs were imposed on the Philippines. Ultimately Roosevelt achieved Congress’s approval for nearly full reciprocity on each nation’s goods.

Uncle Sam hugs a youthful John Bull, with firecrackers on both sides and a remarque below showing a Revolutionary War soldier sending the British and the British Lion back to England.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1902-07-02

Uncle Sam, holding a firecracker, tries to reassure a concerned-looking female figure with wings labeled “Peace” that all the noise she hears is for the celebration of the Fourth of July. Celebrating with Uncle Sam are several figures labeled “Alaska, New York, Texas, Mass., Hawaii, Porto Rico, North, South.” One disgruntled figure labeled “Philippine” is climbing over a wall. An African American is sitting near Uncle Sam. Some are lighting strings of firecrackers, “Texas” is shooting guns, and “Mass.” is firing a cannon in celebration. The “Philippine” climbs over a wall, the only disgruntled child in the group. The U.S. Capitol building is in the background and a dove with olive branch hovers over the figure of “Peace.” Caption: Uncle Sam–It’s all right! There’s no fighting! The noise you hear is just my family celebrating!

comments and context

Comments and Context

Since the founding of the United States, its enlargement and expansion of territories was relatively gradual and organic. Texas, Alaska, and even the recent annexation of Hawaii were slow-paced compared to the “population explosion” depicted by Keppler in this cartoon. Puck Magazine consistently approved.

William II, German Emperor, pushes a statue of “Frederick the Great” seated on horseback, behind a female figure labeled “‘Cassandra’ Stephens,” who is approaching Uncle Sam sitting on the U.S. Capitol Building. “Cassandra” represents a public personage named Stephens, nicknamed in the cartoon for the Greek goddess with the gift of prophecy.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The statue of Frederick the Great was one of Germany’s gestures associated with the American visit of Prince Henry, the Kaiser’s brother, in 1902. The legendary leader was an ancestor of Kaiser Wilhelm and Prince Henry. The equestrian statue originally was placed in front of Roosevelt Hall at the Army War College in Washington, D.C. Because of sensibilities during two World Wars, as well as the relocation of the War College itself, the statue has also stood at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and its current location at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The figure “Stephens” in Pughe’s cartoon is lost to history.

A man labeled “Candidate for Senate,” holding wads of cash, stands in front of a sign that states “Sale of seats to the United States Senate has been prohibited.” Nearby the “Senatorial Box Office” has been boarded up and locked with a sign indicating “Closed.” Uncle Sam, as a police officer with a night stick labeled “Public Opinion,” is directing the man to the new entrance to the Senate, which is marked by the presence of a “Ballot Box” and a man labeled “Voter” standing next to the box. Caption: Uncle Sam — This way, Sir.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A slow but steady advocacy of Civil-Service reformers since the 1870s had been the abolition of the Constitutional method of electing senators to the United States Senate; that is, by votes of each state’s legislature, and not popular votes of each state’s citizens. The movement gained adherents, less from the logic of the situation, and more because elevation to Senate often had become a corrupt scheme of influence, bribes, and payoffs. In 1909, Illinois Republican Representative William Lorimer was appointed to one of the state’s senate seats by the legislature, and immediate charges of vote-buying were raised. In 1912 the United States Senate accepted a report of findings and denied Lorimer his seat 10 years after this cartoon’s advocacy. As perhaps the “final straw,” within a year three-fifths of the country’s states ratified the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution providing for the direct election of senators. Today, there is a movement among libertarians to restore the Constitutional Framers’ view that congresspeople and senators need to have distinctive methods of representation.

A young woman wearing a hat labeled “Cuba” stands, with her arms crossed, trying to decide which of three paths to choose. The first path, labeled “Reciprocity,” leads to an angry “Beet Sugar Senator” who is offering “No Tariff Concessions.” The second path, labeled “Cuban Loan,” leads to Uncle Sam offering the “Platt Amendment.” The third path leads to the U.S. Capitol and “Annexation.” None of the paths look promising to her. Caption: Events are fast limiting her to one path.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Despite a wide array of nuances, concessions, and amendments at this time and over subsequent decades, the choices Cuba faced are generally well-depicted in Keppler’s cartoon. Generally, Cuba chose the middle path of those shown. In the aftermath of Spain’s defeat by America and Cuban insurrectionists, annexation was never a serious option, although Cuba’s first president Tomas Estrada Palma actually had favored annexation at one point. The sugar trust in the United States (traditional sugar-beet growers and industries) objected to the provision in the Platt Amendment that generously opened, and even granted preference to, Cuban cane sugar in the United States market. The Platt Amendment (named for Senator Orville H. Platt, R-CT and not, as widely assumed, after New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt) required Cuba to accept provisions that granted the United States de facto sovereignty over the island, and control of prerogatives otherwise enjoyed by free nations. Many of these were, however, modified through the years, and generally so in 1934. But the granting of a permanent military facility at Guantanamo Bay remained.

Throngs of people with wads of money in their hands make their way to the gambling casino at Saratoga, New York. Uncle Sam stands to the right, thumbs in his suspenders, boasting about having the largest gambling facility in the world. Caption: Uncle Sam — Biggest trade, biggest trusts, biggest buildings, biggest machinery, and now I’ve got the biggest gambling joint. Well, say!

comments and context

Comments and Context

Saratoga, upper New York state’s site of health-water springs and high society’s genteel racing track, was transformed by the addition of casinos and gaming parlors. Cartoonist Ehrhart cast a sarcastic eye on the questionable “improvements,” depicting Uncle Sam as a sharpie drawing every element of the public to its gates.

A young boy labeled “Venezuela” complains to Uncle Sam about the presence of a German battleship. Uncle Sam explains to him that the Monroe Doctrine will protect him from violence, but that he still must pay his “honest debts.” Caption: Venezuela — Better mind your Monroe Doctrine! That German is making trouble. / Uncle Sam — The Monroe Doctrine will keep you from being kidnapped, Sonny; but it won’t help you get out of your honest debts.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Keppler’s cartoon is a textbook illustration of the factors leading to President Roosevelt’s formulation of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Several countries in the Western Hemisphere incurred the ire of European nations due mainly to infractions of normal trade and commerce practices. These frictions also threatened to stoke colonial ambitions. No country was more troublesome than Venezuela, which defaulted on debts with nations and individuals in Germany, England, and Italy. This cartoon appeared the first week of 1902, but things came to a head a year later, in early 1903, when the three nations in concert threatened a blockade of Venezuelan ports and extracting debt payments. Roosevelt’s Corollary was, a year in advance, perfectly summed up by Uncle Sam in this cartoon. 

An angry Uncle Sam holds up a lantern labeled “Congressional Legislation” to illuminate a rotund man wearing a crown labeled “Trusts” and a robe decorated with dollar signs. The man has a ring with many keys hanging from a cord around his waist, and he is sitting on a stack of books that are labeled “Day Book, Ledger, Entry Book, Stock Book, [and] Cash Book.” He has his right hand on an open book. All the books are locked with padlocks. Caption: Uncle Sam — You’re a powerful big man, and you have your uses. But if you’re honest why do you hide in the dark? – Open up those books!

comments and context

Comments and Context

Pughe’s cartoon is on a theme that often had been visited by cartoonists and editorial writers for decades in criticism of the trusts and monopolies: publicity. Reformers knew that the glare of public scrutiny would accelerate the demise, or at least the more onerous practices, of rapacious business combinations. The seeds planted by critics bore fruit in the century’s first decade from new unlikely sources — the presidency, under Theodore Roosevelt, and the “Muckrakers” (by coincidence, Roosevelt’s term) who, in print of both fiction and exposes, eviscerated the corruption and venality of monopolists. 

Uncle Sam sits in a chair with three putti or cupids handing him valentine cards that state “Assistance and Sympathy during the Spanish-American War.” The cards have come from “England,” “Germany,” and “Russia.” Caption: Uncle Sam — I didn’t know I had so many friends till I won that fight!

comments and context

Comments and Context

European Colonial powers were happier with a weak Spain administering a far-flung and shaky empire than a strong United States joining the ranks of imperialism. After the American victory in the Spanish-American War, those powers sought to cozy up to the new member of the colonial club, as it were. 

Uncle Sam, John Bull, and “Japan” as dogs stand in an open doorway, the door labeled “China Trade.” Caption: The way to keep the door open is not to let it be closed.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The situation depicted in this cartoon uncharacteristically does not reflect reality, as many contemporary political cartoons do. As the Boxer Rebellion ended, the eight Colonial powers alternately saved face and withdrew from China, but also committed harsh atrocities and imposed punitive penalties and reparations on the Chinese. There were no actual guarantors of the peace, or aftermath, although Russia and Japan, largely due to propinquity, assumed dominant status in certain regions, thus inviting friction that erupted into the Russo-Japanese War a few years subsequent. Some nations received lands and ports as part of reparations, such as Great Britain with Hong Kong. Under Theodore Roosevelt, the United States claimed no land, and the scheduled reparation payments paid by the Chinese Dynasty were transferred in full to Chinese students studying in the United States, and who intended to return to China.

Puck rides in a small automobile labeled “1877-1902,” passing a reviewing stand where Uncle Sam and Columbia greet him. The background is filled with the cast of characters from 25 years of cartoons. Caption: Puck passes the 25th yearstone amid the plaudits of his creations.

comments and context

Comments and Context

A cartoon from the 25th anniversary issue of Puck provides a profile of its humorous contents (not the political cartoons) over the quarter-century, and a taste of American society, and what Americans found funny at that time. The figures of Puck and Uncle Sam and Columbia were draw by Joseph (Udo Joseph, Jr.) Keppler, and the onlookers by J. S. Pughe. The cheering gallery is comprised largely of the stereotypes, ethnic characters, and stock figures that populated the social humor of the weekly. Among them the lazy delivery boy, the portly cop, the dandy black, a society “dude,” a cowboy, a German immigrant, the “photography “fiend,” the “bunco artist” and his rural victim, an “emancipated woman,” a domestic servant, a precocious child, an Irish immigrant, a “between engagements” actor, a tramp, a Jewish and a Chinese immigrant, a golfer, and assorted animals. These figures form a perfect picture of figures that seem politically incorrect today, but were subjects of good-natured humorous commentary in the day.

A young woman labeled “Cuba” turns away from Uncle Sam who is offering her a plate labeled “Reduction of Tariff on Cuban Sugar” with an egg labeled 20% on it. In the background a man labeled “American Sugar Grower” is enraged because he feels the egg is larger than it should be. Caption: Cuba — Only this little egg for me? / Sugar Planter — All that big egg for her?

comments and context

Comments and Context

In the years subsequent to the Spanish-American War, the United States betook itself of separate policies for each of its new colonies. Its role in Cuba can be contrasted with Puerto Rico, where long-term territorial ties were assumed from the start, and the Philippines, where insurrectionists fought any continuing presence of the United States. Cuban freedom fighters were used to agitating for freedom, and the island’s businesses were developed enough to reasonably assert independence. The United States had to navigate between these legitimate desires, and Cuba’s major export crop, sugar; and the demands of America’s powerful sugar lobby. The egg in the cartoon’s symbolism is a seasonal icon.

Uncle Sam is in a tree, chased there by the Russian Bear which is standing at the base of the tree. Uncle Sam has dropped his rifle labeled “U.S. Duty on Russian Sugar.” Caption: Uncle Sam (to Russia). — Don’t shoot! I’ll come down!

comments and context

Comments and Context

It might seem odd in our times that around 1900 one of the most controversial and contested commodities in the world was sugar. Perhaps it is even more of a surprise that Russia was a major sugar producer. Sugar’s uses might be clear, but it is a fact that much of the world’s sugar at the time was derived from not just from sugar cane, but also from sugar beets, beetroot, and other plants, and honey. Many countries had complicated systems of export penalties and incentives, depending on harvests, as well as assessed penalties for exports and bounties for production. Russia had rules more complicated than those of most countries, but it heavily relied on income from sugar exports. When the United States, in a position figuratively to be smothered in Cuban cane sugar after the Spanish-American War, sought to renegotiate details of its sugar trade, the Russian Empire was not happy.

Uncle Sam, labeled “Trade Balance,” carries a large tray with many food products that constitute American agricultural exports. Seated around an L-shaped table are representatives from nations around the world, including “China, Asia, Africa, Russia, Germany, England, Spain, France, Austria, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Servia, [and] Norway.” Each is demanding food. A sign on the wall states “Cafe Yankee – If you don’t see what you want call for it.” John Bull, representing “England,” sits at the head of the table, holding a long list labeled “Bill of Fare – U.S. Restaurant.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The “McKinley Prosperity” included several years of bumper crops, the expansion of manufacturing, mining, and a population base (including record immigration that fed employment needs), and placed the United States in the forefront of world trade, commerce, and exports. Puck celebrated this moment in American history.

Uncle Sam sits at a table with 10 figures, three of which are unidentified, the others showing the attributes of the rulers of Russia (Nicholas II), England (Edward VII), Germany (William II), Japan (Meiji, Emperor of Japan), Italy (Victor Emmanuel III), Austria (Franz Joseph I), and France (Emile Loubet), representing the eight nation alliance. A large tray of fruit labeled “Chinese Indemnity” is on the table. Hanging above the table by a thin string is an enormous sword labeled “Awakening of China.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

The world powers who suffered financial, diplomatic, personnel, and moral setbacks at the hands of the Boxer movement in China, withdrew from activism in China around the time of this cartoon. In formal terms, the combined troops of colonial powers defeated Boxer elements, but the truth is represented by the fact that these powers virtually abandoned their positions in the Celestial City and throughout the country. A “face saving” aspect against China was the demand for indemnities for the losses sustained by the allied powers. This cartoon presents a new spin on the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over world politics by the awakening of a sleeping giant, China.

Uncle Sam holds up a balance scale with “Labor” on the left and “Capital” on the right. When the two are balanced the scale points toward “Prosperity,” and when uneven the scale points toward “Depression.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-09-18

Uncle Sam, as a large rooster, stands among several small free-ranging chicks labeled “Argentine Republic, Guatemala, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Salvador, Peru, [and] Hayti [sic].” Confined to a “European Coop” labeled “Monroe Doctrine” are five roosters labeled “Russia, England, France, Germany, [and] Italy.” Caption: Europe — You’re not the only rooster in South America! Uncle Sam — I was aware of that when I cooped you up!

comments and context

Comments and Context

The ancient Monroe Doctrine was articulated in 1823, in President James Monroe’s Annual Message. Actually formulated and written by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, it warned world powers to cease imperialist meddling in the Western hemisphere, while promising no interference from the United States in existing European colonies. President Roosevelt, in his own Annual Message of 1904, added teeth in what came to be called the “Roosevelt Corollary To the Monroe Doctrine.” Fresh on the heels of Great Britain and Germany attempting to collect debts from Venezuela by military threats, Roosevelt asserted that when necessary, the United States would act as a stern middleman, for instance, forcing South American countries to live up to international obligations, but it would not allow foreign powers to seek colonial advantages in such disputes.

A bloated Uncle Sam labeled “Balance of Trade” sits on one side of a scale labeled “Commerce of the World,” outweighing the group of nations on the other side of the scale, “Greece, Spain, China, Russia, Mexico, Africa, Germany, France, England, Turkey, Japan, [and] Asia.” Caption: Uncle Sam’s balance of trade is now the largest favorable balance any nation has ever had in its foreign trade.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1901-03-13

John Bull stands up to his knees in a morass labeled “Boer War £16,000,000 yearly,” and Uncle Sam steps through a similar morass labeled “Philippine War $80,000,000 yearly.”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Dalrymple strangely drew Uncle Sam and Joan Bull with smiles, but in fact these foreign-policy challenges were more than just financial drains. Moral challenges, fatalities, and seemingly hopeless solutions faced the two nations. From 1899 to 1902, when the Boers ultimately surrendered, and the Transvaal and Orange Free State were merged as constituents of the British Empire, the Boers (farmers) waged strong guerrilla campaigns, and the British accelerated their brutal responses. It was Britain’s longest war, lasting between 1815 and 1914, sustaining 22,000 deaths; and almost 50,000 casualties on the South African side, 15,000 of them were black. The United States’ suppression of the Filipino insurrection was nominally ended in 1902, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed an amnesty, but pockets of resistance and sometimes brutal American responses festered almost behind the scenes for years.