Your TR Source
President Roosevelt awaits Kermit’s decision whether to stay at Groton School for his final year. Roosevelt, Edith, and Ethel sailed down to Hampton Roads for Decoration Day. Roosevelt gave a speech at Hampton Institute. Roosevelt also mentions riding the new horse and the slow pace of Congress, and urges Kermit to read Thomas Carlyle.
1906-06-04
Theodore Roosevelt would like the American people to see the effort, resolution, and self-sacrifice that is happening in Great Britain. He believes that Mary Augusta Arnold Ward is the perfect person to write such an article.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-12-27
Theodore Roosevelt is ashamed that such an editorial could be written by an American. Roosevelt thinks the writer has a base and sordid soul, and captures precisely the position that Thomas Carlyle and many of his countrymen took as regards the American Civil War.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-10-15
President Roosevelt was recently reading a volume of John Morley’s work Critical Miscellanies, and wished to write to him about a number of the issues he raises, and critiques several other historians and works of history. Roosevelt pivots to talking about the recent election in the United States as he identifies it as having taken place under circumstances similar to those identified by Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay–with a recent financial panic and a demagogue opposing William H. Taft–but because of the moral superiority of the Republican party, Taft became president-elect. Roosevelt believes that foolish optimism can get in the way of sane optimism, but also believes that there is cause to hope in the future. He would like to see Morley when he visits England in 1910.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-01
Thorwald A. A. Siegfriedt believes Theodore Roosevelt favors the initiative more than he admits. Relatedly, he asks Roosevelt’s opinion on the notion that “private property in bare land” is the same as “private property in things created by men” and its relationship to the government functioning for the few instead of the commonwealth.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04-28
Cecil Spring Rice was delighted with Theodore Roosevelt’s letter and pleased with his remarks about India. He will stop bothering Roosevelt about sleeping sickness, but reminds him to listen to the locals’ advice and take the simple and necessary precautions against the tsetse flies. It would be wise for him to be cautious as many things need to be done and Roosevelt is the only one that can do them. Spring Rice comments on European relations and the strength of force Germany and Austria have over Europe. He wonders what Roosevelt thinks of the American tariff bill and hopes he has a “glorious time” on his safari.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-04-02
George Otto Trevelyan believes that President Roosevelt must be happier with the results of the United States election than he was in 1865 when he was first elected to Parliament. He thinks Roosevelt’s trip to Africa is a “splendid idea” and hopes that Roosevelt will visit in 1910 when he is in England. Trevelyan discusses his current writing projects, and notes that he thinks it is easier to get a literal sense of the tragic poets when they are translated in prose, rather than verse. Trevelyan will enclose a copy of a speech he gave at a publishers’ dinner.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-17
Florence Bayard Lockwood La Farge tells President Roosevelt her thoughts on a variety of books she has read recently. Notably she read and enjoyed George Macaulay Trevelyan’s Garibaldi’s Defense of Rome and Herbert W. Paul’s Life of Froude. She has also read Jane Addams’ book The New Ideals of Peace, and enjoyed Horace Plunkett’s book on Ireland. Her husband C. Grant La Farge has been “splendidly” handling the new arrangements following the death of George Lewis Heins.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-01-28
Ambassador Reid sends an addition to “the bundle of gossip” he recently sent to Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, noting that this dispatch is a bit more serious and more likely to interest President Roosevelt with his description of a number of political events, in addition to more social fare.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-08-01
The Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal presents a 1905 booklet, Theodore Roosevelt, written by the French scholar Leon Bazalgette and translated by Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris. Bazalgette composed the booklet as an “examination of the works of Theodore Roosevelt,” and he divides Roosevelt’s books into three categories: history, politics, and nature. Bazalgette examines numerous works in each category, and he explains how the books and writings reflect the thoughts and beliefs of Roosevelt. Bazalgette asserts that Roosevelt’s time in the West as a cowboy was the most important period of his life, and he admits that he likes Roosevelt’s writings from and about this period and place the best. Bazalgette quotes extensively from Roosevelt’s western trilogy, and he highlights passages Roosevelt wrote about bird songs.
The translation of the booklet is followed by a brief biography of Bazalgette written by Morris, along with a list of Roosevelt books cited by Bazalgette. Two text boxes at the conclusion of the work list the mission and vision statements of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) along with a listing of its social media platforms.
Wallace Finley Dailey presents an exhibit, “Roosevelt Reading: The Pigskin Library, 1909-1910,” that opened at Harvard University in September 2003. Dailey provides an introduction to the exhibit which consists of photographs, excerpts of letters, and illustrations of the numerous pigskin bound volumes that Theodore Roosevelt took with him on his African safari. The exhibit is divided into three parts: “Classics and the Continent,” History and Romance,” and “Americans.” Many of the book illustrations have captions taken from letters or articles written by Roosevelt that comment on the book and its author.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
2013
Transcript of a speech given by George Otto Trevelyan at a bookseller’s dinner. Trevelyan discusses many matters relating to bookselling, book buying, and publishing. He also discusses his reminiscences with various literary figures and reflects on the relationship between literature and politics.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-10-17
In his article for Ladies’ Home Journal, Theodore Roosevelt describes the benefits of reading and provides advice on how to get people of any age interested in reading “serious literature.” Roosevelt elaborates on his reading habits and book selection processes, which stem from both his current mood and educational desires.
1915-04
George Otto Trevelyan was “greatly stirred and fired” by President Roosevelt’s last letter. He reports on the achievements of his children, and discusses reading and education. Trevelyan notes that Henry James visits his family every year.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-02-10