The Supreme Court having thrown Campaign Reform laws back one hundred years or more, we take a look at the influence of corporate money on elections, one century past, via the the editorial cartoons found in the September 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine.

Above, the front cover, with inset cartoon by Harry J. Westerman.

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

Below, Woodrow Wilson‘s refusal of Corporate money, depending instead on donations from individuals (whether he actually kept to that, I do not know). Cartoons by James E. Murphy, Charles Lewis Bartholomew (“Bart”), John Campbell Cory, Frank Michael Spangler, Alfred West Brewerton, and others.

Above, the Standard Oil Company attempting to bribe Teddy Roosevelt. From The Political Campaign of 1912 in Cartoons by Nelson Harding.

Below, cartoons by Camillus Kessler, Herbert H. Perry, and Robert Minor, Jr., accusing T.R. and the Progressive/Bull Moose Party of accepting corporate/trust money.

Beneath, cartoons by Charles MaCauley and others, showing President Taft vetoing bills that corporations wanted him to veto, with Congress sometimes overiding those vetoes.

Above, by Ryan Walker pictures a court ruled by money.

Below, a final page of corporate control. By Harry J. Westerman, Robert Minor, Jr., and others — including Favors Always for the Few, depicting John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and the Corporate Trusts in general, riding atop the G.O.P. Elephant, which feeds them from a picnic basket labeled “Privilege”, while crushing the crowd of common workers beneath it feet.

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 Financial Reform T.R. J.E. Murphy William Howard Taft James E. Murphy