Untiled. [Progressive Fallacies]

This cartoon (an early variation of one that was published on March 18, 1912) depicts Theodore Roosevelt as an opera singer who wins the favor of “Miss Insurgency” (the Insurgent Republicans) spewing forth a program that Berryman sarcastically terms “Progressive Fallacies.” Roosevelt’s political agenda became increasingly radical during his presidential campaign. Relegated to the background of the cartoon, the dejected radical Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette, who considered Roosevelt “a progressive only in words,” watches in disgust–probably brooding over the disloyalty of the progressive Republicans who, in his estimation, had abandoned him for a less rigorously devoted reformer. Berryman significantly softened the cartoon before publication: Roosevelt’s “song,” to give one example, is characterized by the satiric, but less pejorative title “Progress Sweet Progress” in the published version.