Above, the cover from Homer Davenport‘s 1900 cartoon collection, The Dollar or the Man?. Depicted are Uncle Sam and the common people, engaged in a tug-of-war against Republican National Chairman & Corporate Stooge, Mark Hanna (shown wearing a coat made of “$”-signs), and a the giant, brutish goliaths that Davenport typically used to symbolize the corporate monopolies/”trusts”. From back in a time when Wall Street / Corporate money could basically buy elections and government, and the people were struggling to get that under control.

Oh, right! — our right-wing Supreme Court threw out all those reforms, basically returning us to the year 1900 and before…

Click on the cartoons above & below, to view them in greater detail.

Above, in plate 4 from The Dollar or the Man?, “Say, little girl — give us those pennies. We are your friends.”, we see Hanna and the Corporations, trying to get the final pennies from the Poor.

In plate 8, above, the Corporations and their ally, the Republican Party in the form of RNC Chairman Hanna, have demoted Uncle Sam to the job of window washer:

“Is the old man reconciled to his job yet?” “No. He complains of the long hours and the poor board.” “Tell him there are a million people ready to take his place, and that in another year there will be a million more.”.

Above, plate 21:

Large Fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite ‘em; Small fleas have lesser fleas, And so ad infinitum!

The “fleas” shown are J.D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Russell Sage, and Mark Hanna.

In “Say, Mark, they won’t leave anything of that but holes!” — plate 40 — Hanna & the Trusts laugh on, as President William McKinley, and his Vice-President, Teddy Roosevelt, shoot up the Declaration of Independence.

To find prior episodes of this series,click on The Dollar or the Man? And, to find earlier posts concerning financial reforms in general, click here.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform T.R.