Wall Street Buys the Elections: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons #109
Above, the front cover of the September 26th, 1896 issue of Up-To-Date. Titled Man and Master, it depicts Corporate Power dictating to workers how they should vote. Art by Champe. Beneath, The Vote That Elects Our President — being the signature in a checkbook, given by the wealthy/corporations, to fund the political campaign they favor [...]
Regulation as Wall Street Pretends to See it: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons #99
The wealthy crying that any laws restricting their reckless financial gambling (i.e., what gave us both the First and current Second Great Depressions), and doing anything they want to the benefit of their personal selves when it works — and to the harm of everyone else when it doesn’t — is “Socialist Tyranny”, is hardly [...]
James Blaine’s “Tattooed-Man”, June 18th, 1884: The Writing on the Wall
Above, by Puck magazine founder & artist, Joseph Keppler, Sr., The Writing on the Wall. On stage & shrinking from the light of the words “Republican Revolt” on the backwall, are 1884 Republican Presidential nominee James G. Blaine, as the Tattooed Man, and his Vice-Presidential running mate. Blaine — well known nationally for his corruption [...]
Why Not Let Them Have It All?: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons #98
Today, appropriate to this week’s Republican National Convention, with a born-into-riches millionaire Wall Streeter as the G.O.P. Presidential nominee, calling for still more tax breaks for most wealthy, paid for on the backs of everyone else, we have the Frederick Burr Opper cartoon, Let Them Have It All, and Be Done With It!. Appearing in [...]
James G. Blaine’s Olympus of Corruption & Tattooed Man Revue
In 1884, the Republican Party nominee for President was former Speaker of the House James Blaine. Blaine was the equivalent of today’s Newt Gingrich — known for his lies, corruption, and immorality. His nomination resulted in Republicans’ first post-Civil War loss of the Presidency. To hilight why Blaine shouldn’t become President, Puck magazine’s artists produced [...]
The Monopoly Missionaries & the Wicked Island: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons, Part 70
WARNING: The below 19th century cartoon contains racist imagery. The above cartoon, depicting stock market manipulators/”Monopoly Missionaries” Cyrus Field (holding oar), Jay Gould (mid-boat), and William H. Vanderbilt (bow), weeping at how their good works are unappreciated by the Masses — who are shown as (the 19th century racist depiction of) “inferior savages”. This illustration [...]
W.H. Vanderbilt as Santa Claus: Episode 11, C.J. Taylor’s 1881-82 William Vanderbilt Comic Strips
What better way to celebrate Christmas, than with one of the Nineteenth Century’s real Scrooges — monopolist & stock market manipulator William H. Vanderbilt — performing a hostile corporate takeover of the North Pole, and displacing that red-suited socialist Santa Claus with a Kringle who understands how the “free”-market is better when controlled, manipulated, and [...]
A.B. Frost, 1879: Cornelius to William Vanderbilt, “One Railroad was Enough for Me”
For the front page of the January 27, 2026 (New York) Daily Graphic, artist Arthur Burdett Frost depicted William H. Vanderbilt as a one-man band, playing multiple railroads simultaneously, while the ghost of his father, Cornelius, demands of him, “William! One railroad was enough for me! You are playing too many tunes!” William inherited the beginnings of [...]
Chronique Scandaleuse: Vanderbilt Will Case, 1878
‘Tis the Season to resume the series of cartoons on William H. Vanderbilt that we ran this past Summer, and put on hiatus during the Fall. (Specifically why “‘Tis the Season“, will become apparent the middle of next week.) Today’s entry comes from the September 25th, 1878 issue of Puck magazine. The subject involves the legal battle [...]
“The Public be Damned!”, Part 3
On October 18th, 1882, the same day as Charles Taylor’s & the (New York) Daily Graphic’s second shot at William H. Vanderbilt for his “The Public be Damned!” comment, Puck magazine took aim on its front cover via the below cartoon by Frederick Burr Opper. Unlike their competitors, Puck didn’t hold back, actually printing the word “damned” [...]
