The correct answer is Roosevelt was willing to use force to promote American interest overseas.
Indeed, the cartoon is a direct reference to the Algeciras Conference of 1906 in the context of the First Moroccan Crisis. France’s influence in the Sultanate was ever increasing and since Germany was hostile to France it decided to publicly express support for the Sultan of Morocco in order to undermine France’s influence. The sultan, encouraged by Germany decided to organize the conference in order to invite competing world powers to Algeciras in order to get their proposals for several political reforms in order to strengthen his own position as ruler of the country. Germany was expecting that the US would support it since it wanted to present its initiatives as an effort to promote the sovereignty of Morocco as an independent nation and thought that since America pretended to be a anti-colonialistic power it would support Germany.
However, Roosevelt instead sent a military fleet of 8 powerful American warships to the Mediterranean, showing Germany that the US would actually support France and its allies (Great Britain, Italy, Russia and Spain). The elephants are meant to not only represent these American ships but to allude to the ancient history of Northern Africa, when Hannibal, the Northern African general used militarized elephants to attack the Roman Empire. Roosevelt is thus likened to Hannibal.
The reason why the words “big stick” are written on the large club is that Roosevelt used what he called Big Stick Diplomacy (“Speak Softly but Carry a Big Stick”). What that means is that his method was always to try and negotiate with foreign powers in peaceful diplomatic terms but always in a position of military strength. Such military strength was a thinly veiled threat that should hostilities arise he had the means to attack or retaliate very easily. Sending those warships showed the Germans that if they decided to declare war on France and its allies, America would support them and thus it was in its best interest to accept their terms. The reason why he supported France was that the US were allies both of Britain and France strengthening their position also strengthened the position of the US in Europe.
