TLS, one page, 8.5 x 11, February 27, 1901. Letter to famed cartoonist Frederick B. Opper at the New York Journal. In full: “I am really much obliged to you for the copy of the book. No inconsiderable portion of the pictures are already in my possession, as we have collected them industriously. I shall always keep the book as a memento of the last campaign. But really, you belong on our side!” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope. In very good condition, with light soiling, several separations along fragile intersecting mailing folds, one fold through a single letter of the signature (which is a shade or two light), and some mirroring of type.
During the 1900 presidential campaign, William Randolph Hearst and other prominent publishers mounted a heated campaign against the McKinley administration’s alleged support of business trusts, at the expense, they claimed, of the common man. Frederick Opper’s wildly popular cartoon series, “Willie and Teddy” and “Wille and His Papa,” featured unflattering portrayals of McKinley and vice president Teddy Roosevelt as small children ruled by “Papa” -- the trusts.
Less than seven months after this letter, McKinley was shot and killed by a young man inflamed by the wave of rhetoric against the administration. A Hearst colleague used the good-natured correspondence between Roosevelt and Opper to deflect widespread accusations that cartoons and editorials had been chiefly responsible for McKinley’s assassination. In an article in the New York Journal (precursor of the New York Times) of October 31, 1905, when Hearst was running for Mayor of New York City, Chief Editorial Writer Arthur Brisbane addressed a group of Presbyterian ministers: “Just before Mr. McKinley met his death Mr. Opper, the artist, received a letter from Mr. Roosevelt...who commended him for his funny work...and asked for a set of them.”
This letter thanks Opper for fulfilling this request, referring humorously to McKinley and Roosevelt’s 1900 re-election campaign. A few months later Teddy would be sworn in as president under the dark pall of the assassination, while Opper’s “pictures” would become infamous as the cartoons that killed a president. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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