Welcome back again, to a look at the days when Mr. & Mrs. America decided to flirt with threeways! Above, voters and Uncle Sam alike, find themselves tangled and rope bound with major Party Animals, the Democratic Donkey, Republican Elephant, and Progressive Party Bull Moose. Art by Bronstrup, Doc Hirer Finch, Harry J. Westerman, and John Campbell Cory.

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

Below, Presidential candidates Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and William Howard Taft, all attempting to cozy up to newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. Lower left, Hearst pictured as the cartoon character he once published — the Yellow Kid. Lower right, two views of Woodrow Wilson. Art by Tige Reynolds, O’Loughlin, and Charles Lewis Bartholomew (“Bart”).

Above & below — from the September 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine (as this entire post is) — William Jennings Bryan dogging T.R. Bryan was playing a similar role to Bill Clinton now, as the elder Democratic statesman, attacking Wilson’s opponent. Cartoons above, are by W.A. Ireland, and John Campbell Cory; below, by Bronstrup, Charles Bowers and Wilson of the Kansas City Post.

Above, W.A. Ireland again, taking a simultaneous swipe at both T.R., and the Socialist Party. (That’s the actual Socialist Party — whose candidates were much better known than now, and received a far larger vote, thanks to how the ruling Plutocracy and its abuses, resulted in wider radicalization of workers.

Below, a page on Senator Robert La Follette, who was indignant at Teddy Roosevelt having claimed the Republican Progressive banner that La Follette felt was his. Both Westerman and Bowers appear again below, as well as William Kemp Starrett.

Above & below, still more on the Socialist Party, by Cy Hungerford and Nate Collier (above), and Ryan Walker (below).

Doug Wheeler

ElectionComics T.R. Billy Ireland