Your TR Source
Millard J. Bloomer thanks Theodore Roosevelt for his letter declining the invitation to the Citizen’s Peace Banquet. Bloomer explains his own beliefs around world peace as well as his understanding of the purpose of the banquet. Bloomer appreciates Roosevelt’s caution and will be wary of any request to act contrary to his convictions
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-13
Emma Wasson asks Theodore Roosevelt to speak a word to someone he knows with enough wealth to easily provide herself and her husband, Levi C. Wasson, with financial help. After a career as a successful dentist, her husband lost everything and became paralyzed. Wasson now cares for her husband and hopes someone like Andrew Carnegie might give them enough money to start over.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-24
Charles Richard Van Hise speaks of the nuances present in monopolies and unrestricted competition in the American economy. Van Hise gives the railroads system as an example of successful use of commissions with no price competition. His thesis proposes there can be great economic advantage to maintain a concentration of industry and therefore those corporations should not be broken up by enforcing the Sherman Act. Instead, commissions should be created to determine prices and Van Hise provides a list of powers these commissions should have and how to achieve success.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-11-09
President Roosevelt tells Ambassador Reid that he has heard from Andrew Carnegie, who heard from members of the British parliament, who heard from the British ambassador to Germany, who heard from Emperor William II that he is building Germany’s navy up against the United States. This story “did not impress [Roosevelt] in the least.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-10
President Roosevelt assures Emperor William II that he does not believe the rumors that the German Empire is building their fleet against the United States. He hears of such rumors on a regular basis against all countries, and they will never cause “more than good-natured amusement.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-08
President Roosevelt sends a check to Melville Weston Fuller for the amount of the Nobel Prize and associated paperwork. He has given a few related letters to Oscar S. Straus. When Fuller has a plan, Roosevelt would like to talk it over with him.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-04
Vahan Cardashian writes to Andrew D. White expressing his concerns about the persecution Armenians are facing under the Turkish government and his fears the violence will escalate. He hopes White will be one of several other prominent men to form a committee that will weild their power to advocate for Armenian rights.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-12
Effie M. Record has just been elected as President of the National Auxiliary, Spanish War Veterans and is writing to Theodore Roosevelt to request help obtaining donations from wealthy Americans to meet the needs of the organization. Record provides many statistics and financial details.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-03
Helen Bartlett write The Outlook asking for someone to explain how to pronounce the names of Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-13
Ambassador Reid sends President Roosevelt an editorial from the London Times in reference to Roosevelt’s letter to the peace meeting and the British criticisms of Andrew Carnegie. He also sends a clipping by the American correspondent of the London Standard regarding Edward Henry Harriman and the “moneyed combination against you.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-19
Senator Lodge thanks President Roosevelt for his sympathy during the final illness and approaching death of his sister-in-law, Louisa Minot Davis Luce. Lodge has just read Roosevelt’s letter and Elihu Root’s speech to the peace meeting, and he finds both “entirely admirable.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-16
Hermann Speck von Sternburg sends President Roosevelt a memorandum on Viscount Edward Grey of Fallodon about navies and part of an article written by Andrew Carnegie regarding the growth of Royal Navy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-14
Emperor William II thanks President Roosevelt for a letter which had confirmed William’s assumption that Roosevelt had not believed lies about the Germans which had been told to Andrew Carnegie in London. William states that the rapid rise of Germany and the United States should inevitably cause envy and create enemies among other nations, but that this should bring the two countries closer together. He expresses pleasure that his ambassador to America, Baron Hermann Speck von Sternburg, found favor from the Roosevelt Administration, and expressed his own pleasure with the delegates of America’s recent tariff commission to Germany. He introduces two German officials soon visiting America, and tells Roosevelt that he is sending him a volume of water color paintings of Frederick the Great by German painter Adoph Menzel.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-06
Nicholas Murray Butler updates President Roosevelt on the progress being made to establish the Association for International Conciliation, with funding from Andrew Carnegie. The peace work of the association is to be done as quietly as possible and in accordance with the wishes of Roosevelt and Secretary of State Elihu Root. In addition, Butler offers Roosevelt his support in regard to the Brownsville affair and encourages Roosevelt to keep up a “stiff front” to the “Senate oligarchy.” Butler also shares his observations regarding how railroad officials are trying to make the new railroad rate law unpopular, but concludes that, despite challenges, the law will succeed in the end.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-21
Albert Shaw, editor of the magazine Review of Reviews, informs President Roosevelt that William T. Stead, editor of the English Review of Reviews, is visiting the United States as a guest of Andrew Carnegie in order to attend Carnegie’s peace conference. Shaw thinks that Roosevelt may wish to speak with Stead, and says that even though Stead is an advocate for peace, he does not lack in practical sense.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-06
Ambassador Reid traces the origins of a story that President Roosevelt heard. Reid does not think the story could have come from the British Ambassador at Berlin, Frank Cavendish Lascelles. Reid has looked over the correspondence Roosevelt sent to see if there is anything in Roosevelt’s letter or the Emperor’s which could do harm if known to the King.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-12
Nicholas Murray Butler tells President Roosevelt about the League for International Conciliation, organized by Senator Estournelles de Constant of France. Butler hopes that Roosevelt’s Nobel Prize fund might support this group, or at least not work in opposition to it. Butler is in charge of organizing American membership in the organization, has already arranged a conference with Andrew Carnegie and Congressman Richard Bartholdt, and reports that there is enthusiasm from many different people within the United States. He encloses a list of the membership in the League thus far.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-11
John Hay returns a letter from Andrew Carnegie to President Roosevelt. Hay denies congratulating Carnegie as the Senate did not accept the amendments of the first canal treaty and prophecy by Carnegie was not fortunate after all.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-02-07
Brander Matthews and his wife, Ada Harland, enjoyed their dinner at the White House. He encloses the drawing they spoke of and asks if he may send a copy of his book to President Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-10
Industrialist Andrew Carnegie, peace advocate and sponsor of the upcoming International Peace Congress at the Hague, holds a shepherd’s hook labeled “Peace Congress” and reaches up to grab the “naval program” horn dangling from a moon featuring President Roosevelt’s likeness.
Andrew Carnegie had been persuaded to be the principal supporter of the Second International Peace Conference at Hague, set for October 1907. Since the first conference in that Dutch city, nominally convened at the invitation of Russia even as it planned its own military buildups, Carnegie had sold his steel and related enterprises, and became arguably the world’s richest man. With that increased fortune, and more time to himself, the canny Scots-American pursued interests from simplified spelling to establishing “free libraries” to promote peace.