New Year’s Day editorial cartoons often reflect their time. Here are Fort Worth Telegram cartoons for New Year’s Day of 1905-1908:
1905: After Venezuela defaulted on debts to European investors in 1902, England, Italy, and Germany blockaded Venezuela. President Teddy Roosevelt warned President Castro of Venezuela that America’s Monroe Doctrine did not exempt Latin American nations from punishment for wrongdoing and that the United States had the right to exercise “an international police power” in Latin America.
1906: America was roaring—or at least chugging—into the automobile age. Four years earlier bicycle dealer Henry Cromer had become Fort Worth’s first motorist when he bought a Rambler “gas machine.” In 1904 the city council had established a speed limit of ten miles per hour.
1907: Panther City looked back on civic progress in the old year, including the addition of one railroad and six miles of streetcar track.
1908: Vaudeville was all the rage at local theaters such as the Majestic and the Lyric.
