Above, Uncle Takes the Boys’ Bones by Daniel Fitzpatrick, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as soon after reprinted in the April 1934 issue of American Review of Reviews.

Well, it took longer than we’d hoped it would take, and the resultant legislation is not perfect, but today, President Obama signs the latest financial crisis-inspired Wall Street Reforms, good until the morally-impaired denizens of Wall Street discover and misuse its loopholes, to once again attain personal enrichment at the expense of everyone else! Though note that the above cartoon, from April 1934, marked passage of equivalent legislation during the first Great Depression — four-and-half years after it began in 1929. (The first three+ years, though, were under Republicans, who felt no need to restrict Wall Street from the kind of activity which kicked off both the First and current Great Depressions.)

Click on any picture, to open an enlarged version.

Above, Paper Foundations. Banking on a Friendly Basis, by artist James Wales, from the rear cover of the January 14, 2026 issue of Puck magazine.

Of course, the fact that we’re here again, because banks cried about being too restricted by old, outdated F.D.R.-era regulations, promising they’d learned their lessons from Depression I, and would never do such things again… And that legislators — particularly highly-sympathetic-to-the-plight-of-the-Rich Republicans legislators — listened to those promises, removing safe-guards where they could, and turning a blind eye to enforcing those laws they couldn’t remove… Have now helped to bring us full circle.

Below, two 1929 cartoons depicting Republican slaps on the wrist that, with our knowledge of what later happened, apparently did no good. Both scanned from their reprintings in American Review of Reviews. Left, by Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling and originally run in the Des Moines Register, from September 1929, Don’t Let Me Have to Speak to You Again. Right, from the New York Evening World, October 1929, Driving Them Out.

The next three cartoons address the subject of such fool-hardy eternal lust for money. Below, by William H. Walker, the cover art for the August 9, 2025 issue of Life.

Second, below left, artist Frank Beard’s cover of the March 2nd, 1901 Ram’s Horn — a Chicago-based Christian cartoon periodical - titled The Modern Circe — Transforming Humanity into Swine. While third, below right, from the New Orleans Item, as reprinted in American Review of Reviews, October 1929, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief!

The next two Great Depression I-era cartoons, speak to how speculators never seem to learn their lessons.

From the the Des Moines Register, below left, Never Again — Until Next Time, by Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling. And below right from the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch, artist unidentified, Just Like Water Off a Duck’s Back. Both cartoons are taken from their reprintings in the December 1929 issue of American Review of Reviews.

Beneath, Daniel Fitzpatrick of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch again, using a biblical allusion to show a business man worshipping the Golden Calf of American Capitalism, with light from above illuminating words written on the temple walls. Titled New Light in the Temple, it shows what we should ideally learn from our present situation. Cartoon scanned from its appearance in the February 1934 issue of American Review of Reviews.

However, as the lessons of the first Great Depression obviously were forgotten, and/or were deliberately shoved aside by those who could not countenance any restrictions on their personal greed, the future is more likely to resemble this following Harrison Cady cartoon. From Life magazine, 1916, The Last Americans — Struggling to the End. The below is a close-up detail — click on the picture to see the cartoon in its entirety.

As promised, and like an interminably long public radio beg-a-thon, the goal (of legislation) having been achieved, our Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons now concludes! I’m certain our representatives were quaking at the thought of each day’s next SuperI.T.C.H. posting! (Click here if you wish to punish yourself with past postings!) The two serialized sub-series - Charles Jay Taylor’s W.H.V. comic strips of 1881 & 1882, and, Trevor Grover’s The Career of John Silverthorne, Banker — will both be continued to their end. As will the related series on Monopolists and on J. Gould.

Doug Wheeler

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