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A number of Republican and Democratic politicians play a game of baseball while large crowds look on. President Roosevelt is the pitcher while Charles W. Fairbanks is the catcher. The “voter” stands at the “White House” home base while Alton B. Parker tries to run to home base. Thomas Taggart tells Parker, “Get ready to slide, Judge.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-09-11
Alton B. Parker sits at a desk and reads a letter reading “My Dear Alton, so far there IS NOT much doing here.” He is surrounded by “returns” from Maine, Arkansas, Oregon, and Vermont detailing poll numbers in those states.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-09-13
A list of how each Senator voted for a lock canal.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906
This newspaper article lists the states in which President Roosevelt had a plurality of at least two to one votes to Alton B. Parker. In Vermont, the votes for Roosevelt were four times greater than the votes for Parker. The writer observes the majority of the two to one states were in the West.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-12
Representative Porter informs the Republicans of Niagara County that Republican caucuses will be held throughout the county on September 17, 1907. Porter encourages them to retain control of political affairs in their own hands and not to give it up to the machine bosses. He specifically mentions membership in the County Committee and urges Republican constituents to elect people who believe in “clean politics.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-09-12
An exemplary ballot of the Republican Party for the presidential primary of April 30, 1912, issued by the Taft League of Massachusetts. The ballot includes names of candidates as well as instructions for casting a vote.
Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation
1912-04-30
An article critiques the assumptions made by Deputy Commissioner of Immigration Joe Murray that he “discovered” Theodore Roosevelt. Because of this relationship Murray believed he should be a delegate to the National Republican Convention, even though President Roosevelt had said he wanted no federal officials elected as delegate to the convention.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-04-05
W. P. Brown writes to President Roosevelt about Kansas City officeholders threatening him over votes for delegates.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-03-14
Senator Fairbanks reports that the delegates elected at the first district meeting are instructed for President Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-02-16
Theodore Roosevelt responds to Mary Bowditch Forbes’s letter that there are pacifist women just as much as there are pacifist men. Sometimes women can also vote better than the men, but it still comes down to leadership.
Massachusetts Historical Society
1917-01-04
Color postcard with image of a man holding two crying infants, with a third in a crib and a home in disarray. The caption below reads, “The Much-Married See poor papa with footsteps unsteady, He says “marriage is a failure” already; The kids loudly roar As he walks the floor, And you bet he won’t vote for Teddy!”
1901-1907
Text of Theodore Roosevelt’s speech on suffrage delivered at Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, on August 30, 1912, supporting equal suffrage for men and women.
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
1912-08-30
A man labeled “Graft Politics” pays, with his left hand, a tramp labeled “Floater” at the end of a line of tramps outside a polling place, while with his right hand he attempts to keep a woman from listening to “women’s suffrage talk” because her “place is in the home, caring for the children.” Vignettes show women and children working in sweatshops and factories, living in tenement housing, and children taking care of younger children and being arrested. Caption: “No; they might disturb the existing order of things.”
A full dozen years before women would be able to vote in presidential elections (some states already had equal-rights statutes), Puck went on the record for women’s suffrage. It was not the first time the magazine endorsed the concept, but S. D. Ehrhart’s cartoon was simple and forceful.
Poles labeled “Wilson Wins” blow in the wind, knocking over Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1916
The article details the testimonies before the Board of Elections against U.S. Marshal Vivian J. Fagin on the charges of violently assaulting Charles A. McCarthy while at the election polls.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-09
Theodore Roosevelt declines an invitation to attend a meeting where William Jennings Bryan will be addressing Christian voters.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1916-06-05
A woman is denied the opportunity to vote because she is wearing a dress and a hat that are too wide for the narrow booths labeled, “Ballots must be prepared in these booths.” A policeman is standing on the left, and, in the background, election officials are standing over the ballot box for “Election District No. 13.” Caption: How can she vote, when the fashions are so wide, and the voting booths are so narrow?
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-06-06
A man labeled “Bossism” carries weapons labeled “False Count,” “Fraudulent Registration,” “Intimidation,” and “Deals.” Behind him are two policemen labeled “Independent Democrat” and “Independent Republican,” who are keeping an eye on him. They each carry a billy club labeled “Votes.” Caption: “Dere ain’t no more show for me, since dem two big policemen come on de beat!”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1893-12-20
Uncle Sam stands on a platform next to a ballot box where three men are casting their votes. One man is labeled “Loyalist” and is voting for the “Monarch”; the other two are casting votes for “Autonomy” and the “Republic.” In the crowd, at the base of the platform, are the flag of Cuban independence labeled “Republic,” a flag labeled “Autonomy,” and the flag of Spain labeled “Monarchy.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1898-05-04
A man labeled “Average voter” stands between two fields, trying to decide which one he should choose. On the left is the “Democratic Lot” showing “Bryan’s Financial Fallacies, Schemes, Dreams, [and] Instability”; “Opposition to a Sound Banking System”; “Inexperience”; “Obstructive Policies”; “Tariff Reform”; “Jefferson’s Ideals”; “Low Leaders [Thomas] Taggart, Fingy [William J. Connors], Hinky Dink [Michael Kenna]”; Anti-Everything”; “Sectionalism”; and “Croak and Kick Statesmanship.” On the right is the “Republican Lot” showing “Past Prosperity” and “Constructive Policies” among “Arrogant Rule [Joseph Cannon], Extravagance, Tariff Graft, Parasite Plutocracy, Special Privilege, Swollen Fortunes, Pension Graft, Foraker Type of Statesman, [and as a snake] Wall Street.” Caption: The Democratic lot – Better soil / The Republican lot – a more alluring field.
“A Question of Courage” was a remarkable cartoon to run in a prominent and usually partisan political journal. Puck, traditional Democrat-leaning, had been ambiguous during the 1908 presidential campaign, declining to be firmer in its tilt toward Republican candidate William H. Taft or utterly disapproving of Democrat William Jennings Bryan.