Above, the front cover of the September 26th, 1896 issue of Up-To-Date. Titled Man and Master, it depicts Corporate Power dictating to workers how they should vote. Art by Champe.

Beneath, The Vote That Elects Our President — being the signature in a checkbook, given by the wealthy/corporations, to fund the political campaign they favor — by artist Robert Minor, Jr.. Originally published June 7th, 1924, in The Daily Worker, and scanned here from its reprinting in the 1926 book Red Cartoons. The “notice” written on the side of the desk, is a quote from capitalist J.P. Morgan.

(Doubtful? Watch the last five minutes of the most recent episode of the History Channel’s The Men Who Built America series. It shows J.P. Morgan and other monopolists, getting together to “buy the Presidency” for the Republican Party & William McKinley, in order to stop William Jennings Bryan, and his calls for anti-trust legislation, to halt the increasing abuses against workers and strangling of the free-market, which pure, unregulated Capitalism leads to. These final five minutes are obviously set up for the next set of episodes (which will run post-Election), and promise to get into the Progressive Movement backlash against the Trusts’ abuses.)

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Above, pages from the November 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine, questioning where Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party was getting its funding — especially because T.R. had been claiming he was not funded by corporate monopolies/trusts.

Art above by Charles “Doc” Winner, Fred C. Nash, James R. Blessington, Charles MaCauley, John T. McCutcheon, Robert Carter, Luther D. Bradley, and Ole May.

Above, The Pet of the Monopolists, depicting President Ulysses S. Grant as a “Champion Receiver” of money from the monopolists of the day. With art by James Wales, this was the rear cover cartoon on the March 30th, 1881 issue of Puck magazine.

Below, President Benjamin Harrison, shown in miniature next to the large and fat monopolies, who were writing legislation for him, as he sits back and looks on. Titled “Me and My Partner”, with art by Charles Jay Taylor, this cartoon appeared on the front cover of the December 25th, 1889 issue of Puck.

Above & below, more from the November 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine.

Above, a page on elected Republicans officials, in 1912 under Senate Investigations for accepting bribes from Wall Street/trusts. Art by W.A. Ireland, Cole, Charles Lewis Bartholomew (“Bart”), and H.R. Manz.

Beneath, our “Closing Jabs” at corporate money in our politics. With cartoonists Tige Reynolds, Phil Porter, William Charles Morris, Bradley, Robert Satterfield, and James H. Donahey.

Above, Grundy’s Map of the Senate?, by Daniel Fitzpatrick, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and reprinted soon after in the May 1930 issue of American Review of Reviews, depicting senators organized not by state, but by the industries which have bought them.

Beneath, Johnny Morgan Plays the Organ, from the front page of the January 13th, 1879 (New York) Daily Graphic. It shows (if you click to enlarge it) monopolist William H. Vanderbilt in total control of the New York State legislature, playing the representatives via an organ, pushing buttons labeled “Pass”, “Amend”, “No”, “Aye”, “Postpone”, and “Adjourn”. Telegraph wires from the organ plug into the legislators’ heads, their insides replaced with machinery — rendering them legislative robots under Vanderbilt’s control!

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

ElectionComics UpToDateMag NyDailyGraphic NYPuck Billy Ireland C.J. Taylor