Life — October 27, 1904 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Hazing at the Big Stick University" This political cartoon satirizes President Theodore Roosevelt's "Big Stick" foreign policy through a university hazing metaphor. The cartoon shows G.O.P. (Republican) Preparatory School students hazing an outsider labeled "Tar," representing a target of Roosevelt's interventionist policies. The joke conflates Roosevelt's aggressive diplomatic approach—famously expressed as "speak softly and carry a big stick"—with fraternity hazing rituals. The "jolly students" tar and feather the victim while the institution profits from the chaos, satirizing how Roosevelt's muscular foreign policy, while presented as righteous, actually caused disruption and harm under the guise of American superiority and strength.