The poor man’s candidate
President Theodore Roosevelt stands on a reviewing stand, holding hat in raised right hand as a large group of capitalists, industrialists, and financiers wearing the tattered clothing of tramps, march past the stand. Some carry placards with such statements as: “Irrigate the Trusts,” “No place to go but the Waldorf,” “We want the earth,” “Free quick lunches,” “Pity the poor banker,” “Dividends or we perish.” At the front of the group, J. P. Morgan carries a wooden bucket labeled “The full water pail.” Caption: “Aggregated wealth largely represented among Parker’s Supporters”–New York Tribune.
Comments and Context
It might be said now, as it was in 1904, that the Republican Party is the home of the wealthy class, industrialists, and plutocrats. And then as now, cartoonists have fed that stereotype. Also then as now, major figures of Wall Street have supported the Democratic Party in great numbers, whether from agreement on social and political issues or frank self-interest.
