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Is It Only a Shadow?
The energy and dynamism that Theodore Roosevelt brought to public life, in every stage of his reform career, made him one of the most written-about and caricatured people in the late nineteenth century.
This 1898 cartoon, published on the eve of Roosevelt's election as governor of New York, was an apt prediction of his ultimate destiny. President McKinley and his chief adviser, Mark Hanna, both proponents of such Republican Party doctrines as support for big business, did not share Roosevelt's spirit of independence and social reform; they stand on the balcony looking perplexed, and view Roosevelt's shadow encroaching upon the grounds of the White House with anxiety. Similarly, Thomas Platt, New York's powerful party boss and U.S. senator, warned, "If he [Roosevelt] becomes Governor of New York, sooner or later, with his personality, he will have to be President of the United States."
Grant E. Hamilton, 1898 |