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Thomas E. Watson, William Randolph Hearst, and William Jennings Bryan push a wagon full of bricks—”free silver,” “government ownership,” “anti-imperialism,” and “populism”—on a rocky road. It is driven by a donkey that sits down and says, “I must sit down on this push.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-27
A photograph of a turned over wagon taken while Eleanor Butler Alexander was on vacation in and around Yellowstone Park with her mother Grace Green Alexander.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1908-1909
A man identified as Jeffery and a woman identified as Barnhardt operate the chuck wagon at the wild horse roundup at Peaceful Valley Ranch in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
1954-05-01
William Jennings Bryan, as a farmer, drives a wagon packed high with farm produce labeled “Popularity” past a signpost labeled “to 1908 Market.” The wagon is drawn by a diminutive donkey struggling to pull the weight. Caption: Can he keep his vegetables fresh till he gets there?
William Jennings Bryan let the country know he had returned from a world tour in late 1906, just in time to rescue America and run for president again two years hence. The sarcasm redolent in that sentence was prominent in Puck‘s treatment of the Commoner’s broad hints, and it was a skeptical reaction shared by many journals, even supposed Democratic organs like Puck and even many Democrats, but the party had few other potential leaders of national stature.
Man lifting a pot with a hooked rod.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1905-09-12
Two men behind the back of a wagon
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1905-09-12
Civil War soldiers sit on the rocks of Mason’s Island, later called Theodore Roosevelt Island, watching a Georgetown ferry transport wagons and horses across the Potomac River. One man is fishing. The Alexandria Aqueduct Bridge is visible in the background in its second incarnation as a canal and roadway.
Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial
1864
Civil war soldiers sit on the rocks of Mason’s Island, later called Theodore Roosevelt Island, watching a Georgetown ferry transport wagons and horses across the Potomac River. One man is fishing. The Alexandria Aqueduct Bridge is visible in the background in its second incarnation as a canal and roadway.
Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial
1864
William Loeb informs Frederick A. Lane that President Roosevelt accepts his offer to trade his old wagon for a new one. Loeb instructs Lane to ship it to Oyster Bay and asks what to do with the old wagon.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-16
Quentin Roosevelt is enjoying the Studebaker wagon. President Roosevelt used an “old Studebaker plains schooner” on his ranch and he is still using Studebaker vehicles, though of a very different type.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-26
Photograph showing the Wetherill Trading Post in Kayenta, Arizona. The post features two buildings and two tents, and a horseshoeing station. Several wagons, horses, and men can be seen throughout the photograph in the foreground and rock outcroppings are prominent in the background.
1913
Postcard showing President Roosevelt viewing The Old Oregon Trail Monument Expedition covered wagon. Roosevelt is speaking to Ezra Meeker, the man responsible for the expedition, and other men are standing around the pair. Text on the reverse comments on Roosevelt’s interest in and support for erecting of monuments along the Oregon Trail.
1907
Postcard showing The Old Oregon Trail Monument Expedition covered wagon and oxen in Washington D.C following Ezra Meeker’s trip from Washington state. Full-body portraits of President Roosevelt and Meeker have been placed to the left of the wagon. Several other people and a dog are standing around the wagon. Text on the reverse notes Roosevelt’s support for monuments along the Oregon Trail and a pending congressional bill to complete the work.
1907
A number of men are in a wagon driven by a donkey. General Nelson Appleton Miles looks backward while the trusts hold Alton B. Parker in his lamp. August Belmont and David B. Hill are up front directing the donkey. A Tammany tiger sits beside Parker.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-07-21
President Roosevelt recklessly drives the Republican elephant forward, hauling the “Panama or Bust” wagon. A “Panama Republic” infant sits beside him and drinks from a “$10,000,000 for right of way” bottle. The wagon bounces over several rocks in the road as it travels, including: “precedent,” “Colombian protest,” “international law,” and “treaty.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-11-22
The “administration band wagon” that New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt is riding in gets stuck in the “Post Office scandal” mud as President Roosevelt urges the Republican elephant on. Postmaster General Henry C. Payne holds a shovel and Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna tries to push the wagon forward. Meanwhile, a Democratic donkey looks on.
During the unfolding Post Office scandal of 1903, partisan Democrat papers attempted to affix blame, or at least guilt by association, to the Republican Party and the Roosevelt Administration. Most observers, however, knew that scandals, favoritism, and even bribery were endemic to the Postal Service since the founding of the Republic, and were especially rife since the Gilded Age, the post-Civil War years.
The revelations of corruption in 1903 largely were related to personnel and activities that antedated the Roosevelt Administration. An iconic cartoon of the era was a double page in Puck, the Democrat weekly, commending Roosevelt’s house-cleaning of the Post Office, astride a charging Republican elephant.
President Roosevelt drives the G. O. P. elephant who is attached to the “Washington or Bust” wagon. They are headed toward “renomination 1 mile” and followed by “Wall St.” and “Hanna.” Caption: “Across the Continent came the ox-drawn, white-topped wagons bearing the pioneers * * * * who entered into this country to possess it.”–President Roosevelt’s speech at Portland, Oregon.
The dateline on this cartoon, clipped and pasted into the White House cartoon scrapbook, makes for confusion, as it was typeset “1901.” Yet May 23 fell on a Saturday that year, and President Roosevelt was indeed on a speaking tour of the Pacific Northwest.
Photograph of the University of California mail wagon stopped outside of the office of Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-08-26
The Transportation Day parade passes the Fine Arts Building during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1904
Commissioner Roosevelt stands in the back of a police wagon, brandishing a police baton that reads “T. Roosevelt, Able Reformer.” Mayor Strong directs the wagon to the symbolic figure of New York City, who is being beaten by two thugs whose clubs are labeled “Dem. Boss” and “Rep. Boss.” A cherub, acting as a paperboy, sells copies of the Washington Post in front of the U.S. Capitol announcing Roosevelt’s resignation from the Civil Service Commission. Caption: “Our own Theodore turns his back on Washington and takes a seat in Mayor Strong’s “Hurry-Up Wagon” as one of the finest.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-05-03