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Senator Bourne hopes all is well with William Loeb and his family. He asks Loeb to deliver the enclosed letter to President Roosevelt personally. Bourne invites Loeb to play golf.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-08-08
The Oyster Bay Baseball Club is in need of money. If President Roosevelt were to contribute money to the club, he would be held in the highest estimation of generosity.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-07-10
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1871 to December 1878. Notable events include the Roosevelt family’s trip to Europe and Egypt, Roosevelt’s entrance to Harvard, the death of Theodore “Thee” Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s trip to Maine, and Roosevelt meeting Alice Hathaway Lee.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Postcard featuring a political cartoon of President Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, and William H. Taft playing baseball. The postcard shows Roosevelt, the catcher, and Taft, the pitcher, teaming up against Bryan, the batter. The postcard references Bryan’s failed attempts at becoming president, and foresees another loss in the 1908 election. A handwritten note on the reverse compares Sylvester Rucker’s run for mayor to that of Bryan.
1908
![[Roosevelt at hom]e plate to knock out a home run](https://theodorerooseveltcenter.s3.amazonaws.com/TRC/LC/thumbnails/476/0600/Crop476-0600/0696b-a.jpg)
President Roosevelt stands at the “Presidency” plate on a baseball diamond, holding a bat labeled “Honest & Upright Government.” David B. Hill is poised to pitch him a “Tricky Politics” ball. “Gray,” William Jennings Bryan, and Grover Cleveland are in the outfield, while “Williams, Captain” talks with catcher Alton B. Parker. August Belmont, as bat boy, carries a “$” bag of bats labeled “Trusts” and “Interest.” Behind Roosevelt in the dugout are his teammates, Chauncey M. Depew, Albert J. Beveridge, Joseph Gurney Cannon, John Hay, George B. Cortelyou, “Black,” and vice-presidential candidate Charles W. Fairbanks. In the stands in the background are kings and other interested fans.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-08
President Roosevelt hits a baseball with Illinois Representative Robert R. Hitt’s face on it over the “vice presidential fence.” Caption: Teddy: I guess that’s a safe hit.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-05-18
“Miss Propriety” teaches President Roosevelt, who sits on a chair with a baseball bat and ball” the “rules and precedents for nice little boys.” Roosevelt longingly looks toward “the national political championship series” outside with cries of “Hurrah for Taft!” and “Go it Bryan!” Caption: Miss Propriety–Theodore, are you listening?
Cartoonist Jay N. “Ding” Darling was reliably friendly to Theodore Roosevelt throughout his career. In this cartoon Ding explained to readers the traditional role of presidents during campaigns of their eventual successors, and he found humor in Roosevelt’s preternatural patience and frustration as the raucous campaign proceeded across the field.
William H. Taft is the catcher as he catches a ball “from T.R.” William Jennings Bryan swings and misses the pitched ball at the plate. The crowd has various responses: “Oh! Rotten,” “Whoof!!!” “Did Haskell touch 2nd,” “Aw go back t’ the bush league,” and “Who d’ye think y’are? Mike Donlin?”
The baseball setting in this cartoon by Floyd W. Triggs during the 1908 campaign features a memorable caricature of Democratic candidate Bryan missing the ball presumably pitched by President Roosevelt; at least the dark ball in the mitt of catcher William H. Taft, the Republican candidate, is labelled “from T.R.”
In this detailed cartoon, a variety of individuals try to figure out if Oklahoma Governor Charles Nathaniel Haskell—who has run off—touched second base, which has a container of “oil” on it. Uncle Sam stands in the center of the diamond and says, “It’s a draw.” A large group of people congregate just off the first-base line, including William H. Taft, Samuel Gompers, William Jennings Bryan, Norman Edward Mack, William Loeb, President Roosevelt, William F. Sheehan, Alton B. Parker, and George von Lengerke Meyer. A variety of people are around the field: Charles Francis Murphy, Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes, New York Lieutenant Governor Lewis S. Chanler, William James Conners, and Patrick Henry McCarren. John D. Rockefeller, John D. Archbold, Henry Huttleston Rogers, and James Roscoe Day all watch from the side. In another section of the audience, the Democratic donkey and Republican elephant fight. A handwritten note is included: “Mr. President: This is so good I have to send it to you.”
Frequently political cartoons have a subtext related news events, gossip about figures being caricatured, and the shadowy realm of the interests and agendas of publishers. All these factors were play in the genre scene composed by cartoonist Thomas E. Powers, nominally about Oklahoma Governor Charles Nathaniel Haskell.
Haskell was also Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, with financial responsibilities in the presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan. “Touching second base” or not, as the oil can with Standard Oil’s dollar sign, sits on the base that Haskell clearly avoids, is the nub of the cartoon.
A number of Republican and Democratic politicians play a game of baseball while large crowds look on. President Roosevelt is the pitcher while Charles W. Fairbanks is the catcher. The “voter” stands at the “White House” home base while Alton B. Parker tries to run to home base. Thomas Taggart tells Parker, “Get ready to slide, Judge.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-09-11
President Roosevelt updates Archibald B. Roosevelt on the activities of the family, in particular Quentin’s baseball playing and an Easter egg hunt. Roosevelt is glad that Quentin has taken up baseball, because he is “altogether too soft.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-19
This film includes brief shots of Japanese Prime Minister Nobosuke Kishi throwing out a pitch at Yankee Stadium and planting cherry trees at Sagamore Hill with Theodore Roosevelt Association President Oscar S. Straus. Following these is an interview with Kishi regarding his experiences during a trip through the United States and the differences between the United States and Japan.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1957
James W. Bentley is attempting to organize a baseball team to take on the Capitol baseball club. Judge John Thomas McDonough has resigned from the Supreme Court of the Philippines. It is rumored that President Roosevelt wants McDonough to run on the New York state ticket next fall.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-06-07
Dessie Gray Bair informs her mother, Anna Matilda Bair, that she will be home on Thursday. The front of the postcard features the Cracker Jack bears playing baseball. One bear holds a bat in preparation to hit a baseball and the other stands as catcher using a box of Cracker Jack as a mitt. Number twelve in a series of sixteen cards that were sent for free to anyone who mailed in ten sides from Cracker Jack boxes or ten cents in “silver or stamps.”
1908-04-07
Image of a teddy bear standing on first base, holding a baseball bat, with a caption below reading “Here’s for a home run.”
1924
Postcard with black and white cartoon drawing of Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft dressed as baseball players with Uncle Sam in the middle. Uncle Sam is pointing at Roosevelt with the title above, “Back Up; You’ve Batted Twice,” referring to Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential campaign.
1911-1912
Walter F. Carter admires John Campbell Greenway’s military service. He reminisces about their college days, updates Greenway on their friends, and offers to send a care package. Carter is very eager to see Greenway when he is back on American soil.
1898-07-24
Black and white cartoon drawing features Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft dressed as baseball players with Uncle Sam in the middle. Uncle Sam is pointing at Roosevelt with the title above, “Back Upl You’ve Batted Twice,” referring to Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential campaign. Postcard has been used and is postmarked Detroit, Michigan, on October 22, 1912, and Highgate, Ontario, on October 23, 1912. Message is illegible.
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
1912
A baseball game between the “Ultimate Consumer A. C. [Athletic Club]” and the “Monopoly Giants” is underway. A “Giants” ballplayer is sliding head-first into a base and is being tagged out by a “Consumer” ballplayer with a ball labeled “Tariff Reduction.” Although the base runner has not even reached the base, the umpire labeled “Congress” calls the base runner, who winks and points at the umpire, safe. Caption: “He’s safe!”
“Safe” has a double meaning. Besides the baseball context, the Congress–represented by a caricature of Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, author of the Payne-Aldrich Act, which raised tariff rates–made things safe for trusts (monopolies), in the eyes of Puck Magazine.
Print shows at center, Uncle Sam as a policeman attempting to stop a bullfight, calling it a “brutal and degrading sport.” Vignettes surrounding the main image show a “Six Day Bicycle Race” with exhausted riders trying to continue, a “Foot-Ball” game with one football player jumping on another as medical staff carry off an injured player, “Pigeon Shooting,” “Prize Fighting” where the crowd cheers as a boxer gets knocked down, and a “Base-Ball” game where a baseball player is “Assaulting the Umpire” with a bat.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1899-07-12