The Agitator

A stout ward-boss type in top hat and frock coat dominates the center, one fist raised, umbrella planted like a scepter, mid-harangue before a police-court or union-hall bench. To his left, a sardonic young man sits with legs crossed, smirking at the performance; behind him a lounger dozes under a bowler. At the raised desk, a white-haired magistrate reads indifferently, bottles at his elbow. Right, another figure hunches away, unimpressed. Gibson's title caption makes the orator's speech self-defeating: the man thundering against despotism is the despotism — a stock Tammany Hall or labor-demagogue joke. The satire targets the pompous machine politician who manufactures grievance for personal power.