Above, The Worship of Wealth, from My Sketch Book, an 1834 to 1836 published collection of George Cruikshank cartoons. Depicting the Slaves of Mammon (which was well understood in that day, to mean the Worshippers/Slaves of Property, Wealth, and Greed).

Click on the above & below cartoons, to make them large enough to read.

Below, New Light in the Temple by Daniel Fitzpatrick, published originally in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and reprinted soon after in the February 1934 issue of American Review of Reviews. We see a praying business man, worshipping his idol (the Golden Calf/Wall Street Bull). The words written on the pedestal — “The business of the United States is business” — refers to a speech made by Republican President Calvin Coolidge, whose policies both helped create the First Great Depression, and are the same basic policies being touted by current Republican Tea Party Presidential candidates as the solution to our current Great Depression II (which Republicans also created).

Finally, beneath, we have a re-presentation of another George Cruikshank cartoon — Tremendous Sacrifice! — depicting the sweat shop labor behind how cheap clothing is made available to shoppers. Published originally in 1846, in Our Own Times (this example was scanned from its reprinting half a century later, in the November 1893 issue of Picture Magazine).

To find prior episodes of this series,click on Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons. And, to find earlier posts concerning financial reforms in general, click here.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform