The Bosses of the Senate

Joseph Keppler's color lithograph for Puck, January 23, 1889, fills the back of the Senate chamber with towering, top-hatted moneybags, each one a trust, looming over the small senators at their desks while the public gallery's entrance stands shut. It is the Gilded Age in one picture, and it has never really left the classroom, turning up in textbooks whenever monopoly and political money come up. The target is a system rather than a party, which is why it still lands: change the labels on the bags and it could run this week. Look at the scale above all, since the whole argument is in how big the bosses are and how small the lawmakers look beneath them.