"Cuba's Choice" (Puck cover, 3 September 1902)
A woman with a hat marked 'Cuba' stands with arms crossed at a fork of three roads: 'Reciprocity' leading to an angry 'Beet Sugar Senator', 'Cuban Loan' leading to Uncle Sam holding the 'Platt Amendment', and a road to the Capitol marked 'Annexation'. The tell: three signposts set the options, and the caption says events are 'fast limiting her to one path.'
Puck ran this cover on 3 September 1902, after Cuba had become nominally independent in May under the Platt Amendment. A woman in a hat marked 'Cuba' stands with arms crossed at a fork of three roads: 'Reciprocity' leads to an angry 'Beet Sugar Senator', 'Cuban Loan' to Uncle Sam holding the 'Platt Amendment', and a third to the Capitol marked 'Annexation'. False dilemma is the tagged technique: three signposts set the options, and the caption says events are 'fast limiting her to one path.'
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- September 3, 1902
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Puck (Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Theodore Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Empire and colonialism, Economy and finance
- Event
- US Occupation of Cuba
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, retrieved October 10, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (published 1902, before 1931); LoC: no known restrictions on publication
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LCCN 2010652150. "Cuba's Choice" (Puck cover, 3 September 1902)
