Judge — November 2, 1901 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Game of Politics" (Judge, November 2, 1901) This satirical cartoon depicts four figures in a political game: **"HIGH"** (left): Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President, wanting to kill the Tammany Hall political machine in New York City. **"LOW"** (center): A candidate for NYC Mayor representing good government reform. **"JACK"** (right): Boss Croker of Tammany Hall (a powerful Democratic political organization in New York), shown as a caricature smoking a pipe, who "jumps into American politics for revenge only." **"THE GAME"** (right, small figure): A tiger representing the goal—to eliminate Tammany Hall's corrupt city government. The cartoon frames this as a card game where Roosevelt, reformers, and Croker compete over control of New York politics. Tammany Hall was infamous for machine politics and corruption in the Gilded Age.