This past Monday (plus coming next Monday), we have examples from city-based Local Vanity Cartoon Books circa 1904-1920s, wherein cartoonists from that town’s newspaper(s), were hired to depict members of the local business aristocracy. Today, for the Wall Street Frauds series, we’re concentrating examples involving bankers, real estate agents, and stock brokers.

Let us note that none of the people whose caricatures are shown below — to my knowledge — engaged in any financial frauds. Not that I’ve really dug to find out. What is of interest here, is the attitudes revealed in the pictures and accompanying words.

George J. Gould, below left, from the 1904 collection Men of Affairs - The (New York) Evening Mail, was the son of Jay Gould - who is shown below right from C.M. Coolidge‘s late 1800s trade card set, Every Man Rides His Own Hobby. The elder Gould absolutely was known for shady stock dealings, and was the prime target of cartoons concerning Wall Street frauds, circa 1870s-1880s.

Click on any picture, to see an enlarged version.

Another son, and his infamous father. William Vanderbilt, Jr. , left, also from his depiction in the 1904 NYC-based Men of Affairs, while William Vanderbilt (Sr.), right, is shown from the same C.M. Coolidge trade card set. Vanderbilt Senior was also a frequent target of the cartoon periodicals, for his stock manipulations, and callous attitude to public safety versus costs, in the railroads he owned, appearing frequently in the same cartoons with Jay Gould.

Left-to-right below, bankers: W. Waldo Merrill, appearing properly aristocratic, from the 1905 Bostonians As We See ‘Em; Joseph E. Otis, from the 1904 Illinoisans As We See ‘Em, advising to “Bring your money to me, before someone else gets it”; and August Zinsser, Jr, ready to lead a posse, from the 1911 Them As Is Because (NYC).

Next, the following group of real estate agents are convinced not only that the entire Earth is theirs to sell, but so, too, the Moon and several neighboring planets! Left-to-right: George F. Meacham, from Cartoons and Caricatures of Seattle Citizens, 1906; and Thomas J. Hampton and W.I. Hollingsworth, both from Southern Californians (i.e., Los Angeles) As We See ‘Em, 1905.

Another Real Estate agent selling the Moon — George Black, 1905, from Southern Californians As We See ‘Em; followed by fellow Southern Californian Frank R. Strong, who cranks the values of his properties up and up…; and, last, George A. Virtue, 1906, from Cartoons and Caricatures of Seattle Citizens, ignoring customers.

And finally, we come to the stock brokers: Robert Dowling (from Men of Affairs) believes he is a magical wizard with stocks; Walter Levy (Them As Is Because) gambles with stocks; and, C.W. Macquoid (same book) believes he is an emperor.

Broker John A Maher (Them As Is Because), informs us that if the Market slumps, you will never catch him — up comes his motor car, and off he goes! J. Harvey McCarthy (Southern Californians) already has his car packed with stocks, bonds, and cash, ready to make his getaway. While J. J. Doran’s caricature (also from Southern Californians) contains in the background a use of the word “stocks”, that we’d perhaps like to see applied to Wall Street more often!

Click here to find both the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Series Refrain: Bank frauds and Wall Street swindles, resulting in economic ruin for everyone else, were regular and frequent occurrences prior to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s institution of laws designed to prevent further Great Depressions. These regulations worked until, starting in the 1980s, conservatives began dismantling those protections, stating that we’d be better off with an unfettered and unregulated market, free to do whatever it wants. Wall Street firms swore at that time, that they’d learned the lessons of the Great Depression, and could be trusted to not engage in dangerous practices.

Bull****!

If there is one lesson from the various economic collapses throughout history, it’s that human greed is eternal. There will always be selfish fools, who grab for themselves without care for the damage they inflict on others.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform AsWeSeeEm