“The Pleasure Is All Mine!”

This cartoon depicts William Jennings Bryan's reaction to the Presidential election of 1904. When Judge Alton B. Parker, a Democrat, lost the election to the incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, fellow Democrat Bryan should have felt disappointed. But in this cartoon, printed two days after the election, Bryan is shown gloating as Parker and the Democratic Party collapse in shambles. The figures in the midst of the wreckage represent Parker's conservative backers, who had temporarily seized control over the Democratic Party. Bryan had lost the Democratic nomination to Parker, and his pleasure comes from seeing the defeat of his former competitor and the likelihood that the Bryan faction would regain control of the party.