Judge — December 8, 1900 — page 2: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Boy That Did the Business" This political cartoon satirizes William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign. The figure on the left represents Bryan as a boy, depicted as a shady businessman or charlatan, literally "doing business" by selling what appears to be fraudulent goods labeled "FREE SILVER" to an older, gullible man (likely representing the American public or Democratic Party voters). The satire mocks Bryan's central campaign platform—free coinage of silver—as a deceptive scheme. Republican Judge magazine presents Bryan as a con artist exploiting voters' economic anxieties with promises he cannot deliver. The cartoon's title suggests Bryan's youthful inexperience and untrustworthiness made him dangerous to the nation's interests.