Uncle Remus at the White House!

Joel Chandler Harris tells President Roosevelt, “You see–It’s this way about a rabbit–” In Harris’s pocket is the “Story of the Dog Flash.” By Roosevelt’s chair is the book, “Nature Faking by T. Roosevelt,” and behind his chair are two men: “fakir” and “nature fakir.” There are mounted animals: a bear, a moose, a raccoon, a deer, and a mouse. They say, “What’s that?” “Gee whiz!” “Did you hear what that man said?” “The biggest one I ever heard” and “You don’t say so!” respectively. In the foreground is a turtle that says, “I’m a nature fakir myself!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

Theodore Roosevelt was exceedingly taken with the writings of Joel Chandler Harris, an editor of the Atlanta Constitution who was active in Southern journalism and literature from the Civil War days until just after the turn of the century. Roosevelt’s mother was from Roswell, Georgia (her childhood plantation was believed to be the model for Tara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind) and he often referred to himself as a Southerner (and as a New Yorker, which he was; and also a man of the West, which he was). The president also at times was especially solicitous of writers and editors whose opinions held sway. Harris’s editorials were distributed throughout the South; political satirist Finley Peter Dunne (“Mr. Dooley”) was another writer to whom Roosevelt displayed deference.

Roosevelt, as the case with many people who appealed to the polymath president, was invited to the White House, and cartoon Lewis Crumley Gregg — of Harris’s own newspaper — found delight in imagining their meeting. He found especial irony, not without foundation, that Roosevelt’s recent controversial criticisms of “nature fakers” flavored their meeting.

The president had joined with naturalist John Burroughs to criticize a literary fad of the day — fiction for adults and children that imposed human characteristic and sentient gifts on animal heroes of books and articles. Roosevelt was a notable naturalist himself, much published, and decried the false portraits and cloying sentimentality.

It was easy, although surprisingly rare among critics, to wonder how Roosevelt could have been comfortable, even laudatory in print, with books like Harris’s Uncle Remus stories of rural animals like Bre’r Rabbit and Bre’r Fox; and of the cast of woodland creatures in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In the Willows, which he adored.

Roosevelt’s distinction was clear, although not definitive enough to deter barbs like cartoonist Gregg: The Aesopian tradition was strong and legitimate, but books like Wild Animals I Have Met and (perhaps) stories like Jack London’s trafficked in fake anthropology cum manifestations.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-11-19

Creator(s)

Gregg, Lewis Crumley, 1880-1957

Language

English

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Page Count

1

Production Method

Printed

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation