From the Financial Panic of 1873, with cover art by Frank Bellew, this (New York) Daily Graphic cover — September 24, 2025 — depicts four leading Wall Street Stock Manipulators & Monopolists, as a four-faced monstrous “Croesus“. Croesus was king of Lydia (a Greek province) from 560 to 546 B.C., who became a figure of myth renowned for his wealth. (Nineteenth century readers, without film or television to distract them, were far more informed regarding such Classical references, and would have understood the meaning; expressions such as “Rich as Croesus” were at the time current.)

Click on below picture, to see an enlarged version.

A close-up on the monster, shows the faces of Russell Sage (top left), William Vanderbilt (top center), and Jay Gould(bottom). I don’t know who the top right figure is. The public of 1873 needed no identifications.

To the bottom right of the monster, is seen a watering can, labeled “Aqua Impura for Watering Stocks”. Watering Stocks referred to the practice of artificially inflating or over-valuing stocks by deceptive means — sound familiar, Complex Derivative Traders??? A prior cartoon in this series — Wall Street Fishing for Suckers Near the Maelstrom (Judge magazine, January 14, 2026) depicts Gould, Sage, Vanderbilt, and others, fishing from a stream, with speculators caught in a whirlpool along with such labels as “Watered Stocks”, “Worthless Stocks”, and “Rotten Securities”.

Above and behind the giant, to the left, is seen a double-action stock pump, whereby the monster is fed cash, regardless of whether the Bull or the Bear is pushing down (i.e., the monopolists make money, regardless which direction the stock market goes).

To the top right, are seen common investors, crying to the monopolists to “Give Me Points.” I particularly like the pupil-less investor, praying to the monster, in blind faith!

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

BellewSr

NYDailyGraphic