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In a cancelled letter, President Roosevelt tells Francis Lynde Stetson that although he cannot be present at the meeting of the Cleveland Memorial Committee, he supports their cause. He recounts his relationship with Grover Cleveland and believes that his memory should be honored.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-09
President Roosevelt asks if it is possible to give Frances Folsom Cleveland, the widow of former President Grover Cleveland, a pension. James A. Garfield and William McKinley both served in the army but their widows received a pension based more on their service as president. Roosevelt would like a similar arrangement for Cleveland.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-04
President Roosevelt discusses the election prospects in various states. In particular he discusses the conditions in Ohio and New York, where “underground forces” are working against William H. Taft. However, Roosevelt believes that they will pull through and win the election. He believes that Charles Evans Hughes will win his election in New York as well. Roosevelt is glad that Senator Lodge is going on the stump. Hughes, Lodge, and Senator Albert J. Beveridge are the speakers who are most in demand.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-10-21
Through a series of excerpts from personal letters, President Roosevelt refutes reports in The New York Sun and Harper’s Weekly that Grover Cleveland had never been offered a position on the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. President Roosevelt argues that in fact Cleveland was offered the position and accepted it, and describes the details of the incident.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-08-06
President Roosevelt is pleased that Richard Watson Gilder approves of his naming of the Cleveland National Forest after President Grover Cleveland.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-20
President Roosevelt tells Francis Folsom Cleveland, President Grover Cleveland’s widow, that he has recently had the honor of signing a proclamation changing the name of the San Jacinto National Forest to the Cleveland National Forest. Roosevelt reviews how that forest first came to be reserved for conservation purposes by President Cleveland and praises his foresight in recognizing the importance of conservation.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-13
President Roosevelt comments on an article that George Horace Lorimer recently published in The Saturday Evening Post, which commented on America’s Envoys Extraordinary. Roosevelt thinks that the article had some good points, but wishes that the article did not also misrepresent several other facts. He acknowledges that there have been some people in the past who have not been fit for their positions, but maintains that ambassadors and envoys currently appointed are by and large good men who are qualified for their positions.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-06-26
President Roosevelt was shocked by Frances Folsom Cleveland’s telegram, and sends his sympathies, along with those of his wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. Roosevelt asks when the funeral is going to be, and says that if it is on Thursday, Friday, or Sunday he will be able to attend, but has a prior engagement on Saturday that he cannot break.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-06-24
President Roosevelt has received the various newspaper clippings and editorials that William Dudley Foulke has sent him. He is not concerned with the editorial from the Evening Post, as it is not an important paper, and thinks that it is disingenuous in its support of Charles Evans Hughes. Many of people who Hughes appoints are involved in politics, as are many of Roosevelt’s. Several other papers are similarly dishonest in how they frame their criticisms, and Roosevelt is reluctant to address these statements, especially since, to his mind, he has addressed the issue several years ago in his orders to the Civil Service Commission.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-02-12
President Roosevelt tells William Dudley Foulke that the statement that he has tried to influence the presidential nomination through appointments to state offices is false and malicious. Roosevelt provides a detailed account of appointments he has made in various states as a rebuttal to this accusation. Because there are so many local offices, Roosevelt frequently relies on input from senators, and tries to put the best people in office. The newspapers that have accused him of showing favoritism have either ignored the facts or chosen to not seek them out. Roosevelt gives a particularly thorough look at the appointments he has made in Ohio, the home state of Secretary of War William H. Taft.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-02-07
President Roosevelt thanks Henry Van Dyke for the copy of Days Off and is pleased that it is dedicated to former president Grover Cleveland. He looks forward to reading it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-09
President Roosevelt provides Richard Henry Dana with his thoughts and details on the case surrounding Archie Dovell Sanders, a New York civil servant who refuses to stop his political activity while in office.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-11-02
President Roosevelt describes to Mark Sullivan the considerations that have gone into his selections for federal judgeships. Roosevelt reviews his appointments in detail, noting that some were made at the request of the local organization and some against their wishes. The goal in each case was to appoint someone “of the high character, the good sense, the trained legal ability, and the necessary broad-mindedness of spirit…essential to a good judge.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-13
President Roosevelt responds to a letter from his friend John Milliken Parker. Roosevelt remarks on Parker’s “hysterical tone” suggesting that “increase of rape” and the “relations of the races” has anything to do with Roosevelt’s friendship with Booker T. Washington. Roosevelt does not believe he needs to speak to the press as Parker suggests and gives many examples when he expounded his beliefs on the matter of race relations.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10-03
President Roosevelt agrees with Secretary of War Taft that Culver C. Sniffen should be appointed Paymaster General and asks Taft to notify General Fred C. Ainsworth. He approves of Taft’s proposed travel arrangements for the Panama trip and is “extremely pleased” that Taft sent his speech to the Maine Committee to be reviewed by Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon or Representative Charles E. Littlefield. He sympathizes with Helen Herron Taft’s views of William Jennings Bryan. In a postscript, Roosevelt advices sending men to Cuba at once as “we cannot afford to neglect any chance of learning the situation down there.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-09-04
President Roosevelt hopes that Lyman Abbott makes it clear in his editorial that he disapproves of several corporations acting in the Rocky Mountains, and remarks that people often have difficulty understanding that it is imperative for people to “disprove equally of the murderous lawlessness of labor unions which degenerate into thugism of the Molly McGuire kind, and of the practically as arrogant and greedy lawlessness of quite as noxious a type shown by certain big corporations.” Roosevelt considers it important to be against lawlessness wherever and whenever it is found. He compares his actions with those of several other figures, and says that while former president Grover Cleveland acted both against corporations and labor unions, William Jennings Bryan and Senator Robert M. La Follette refuse to attack labor.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-01
President Roosevelt introduces the Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States to the bearer of the letter, Juliet Lamont, whose husband, Daniel Scott Lamont, was Secretary of War under President Grover Cleveland. He asks that Lamont be shown all proper official courtesy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-26
President Roosevelt informs General Wood that he mentioned to Oscar Straus that Wood had told him that former president Grover Cleveland expressed regret about vetoing the immigration bill. Straus then called on Cleveland, who denied having said such a thing. Roosevelt asks Wood for the facts of the case for his own information.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-05
President Roosevelt tells Cardinal Gibbons that he never entirely agreed with President Grover Cleveland about a message, and that he is not familiar with all the provisions of the Gardner Bill. Roosevelt has set out his own attitude toward immigration in several speeches, which he sends to Gibbons.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-08
After talking with George Horace Lorimer, President Roosevelt went back and read The Plum Tree through all the way, after previously having read only half of it. The ending of the book reconciles Roosevelt to many of the problems he had with it throughout, but he still holds many issues with the book which he lays out for Lorimer. The author, David Graham Phillips, falls into the trap of overstating the sort of corruption that is present in politics, and while Roosevelt freely admits that corruption is present–which, he points out, he is working against–there are also many good people working in politics as well. In a postscript of several days later, Roosevelt comments on several of Phillips’s articles on the Senate, in which he acts similarly by taking “certain facts that are true in themselves, and […] ignoring utterly a very much large mass of facts that are just as true and just as important.” Roosevelt criticizes Phillips for working with William Randolph Hearst to achieve notoriety.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-05-12