Your TR Source
Jacob A. Riis thanks President Roosevelt for his telegram, and prays that God will help Roosevelt win the election. Riis asks Roosevelt if he remembers Riis writing to him from Missouri last winter, stating that he believed Missouri would vote in favor of Republicans. Despite the influence of the Colliers, he believes that will still be the case.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-04
A statement, possibly a memorandum meant for President Roosevelt, regarding the gubernatorial election in Missouri, which became embroiled in public relations issues involving Roosevelt, in part due to the publishing of an exchange of letters. Roosevelt is quoted explaining his attempts to remain distant, despite the fact that editors are hounding him and will print more with or without his involvement.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-04
President Roosevelt complains to his friend Albert Shaw, editor of the American Review of Reviews, that both his and Shaw’s views regarding political figures in Missouri are being misrepresented by Peter Fenelon Collier and Robert J. Collier in their publication Collier’s Weekly. Shaw sent a letter to the Colliers, and they have made false claims regarding its contents. Roosevelt says he will tell the Colliers not to publish or make any further allusion to said letter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-22
Theodore Roosevelt encloses several letters for Mark Sullivan to review. In the postscript, Roosevelt discusses a reactionary court decision in Idaho and asks Sullivan if Collier’s might be able to do an investigative report on the case. Roosevelt ends the letter by asking Sullivan if he could arrange a social event with several other Collier’s associates and their wives.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-12-04
President Roosevelt sends Mark Sullivan a copy of his manuscript, which he says he would be glad to have presented to Robert J. Collier as a Christmas present. The manuscript is typed, with some handwritten changes, and has Roosevelt’s signature. He may make some further small changes, but does not think they will be important. After writing the letter, Roosevelt mentions having discovered his first draft and encloses the document.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-16
President Roosevelt thanks Norman Hapgood for the letter, and asks him to visit next fall to discuss certain political matters, perhaps along with Robert J. Collier and Mark Sullivan. Roosevelt is glad that Hapgood liked Roosevelt’s letter to Rudolph Spreckels. Roosevelt originally wrote a private note, but it was too frank, so he wrote another letter for publication.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-06
Rudolph Forster invites Justice Moody to look over a letter President Roosevelt has written to Robert J. Collier and return it at his convenience.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-10-27
President Roosevelt finds “a rather grim satisfaction” in seeing Henry Beach Needham’s movement misjudged in the papers, having been in the same position. However, he thinks the movement has “great possibilities for good.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-09-24
President Roosevelt refutes a claim by Norman Hapgood regarding his supposed interference in the 1904 Missouri gubernatorial election where he said that one candidate was “a better man” than the other. Roosevelt quotes the text of several letters written in connection to this issue to back up his claim that he did not say this, and that his actual sentiment was misinterpreted. This misinterpretation, Roosevelt suggests, was part of an effort to influence the election in Missouri against Roosevelt’s presidential campaign.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-17
After receiving letters from Albert Shaw and his secretary, President Roosevelt believes the misunderstanding about his statements regarding Missouri gubernatorial candidates Joseph Wingate Folk and Cyrus Packard Walbridge was due to a “mere matter of terminology.” Ultimately, Roosevelt is tired of answering “all kinds of people on all kinds of subjects about which they really have no right to information.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-27
President Roosevelt asks Albert Shaw to send him a copy of the letter he sent to Missouri, which has possibly been misconstrued by Collier’s as saying Roosevelt believed Cyrus Packard Walbridge to be a better man than Joseph Wingate Folk.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-25
President Roosevelt sends Albert Shaw a copy of his response to Robert J. Collier, regarding the letter supposedly written by Shaw about the candidates for the Missouri governorship. Roosevelt tells Shaw that even though he never saw a copy of that letter, he knows Shaw did not say Roosevelt “thought Walbridge a better man than Folk.” Roosevelt will ask Collier not to print or allude to the letter, as it would be “idiotic to do so.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-22
When the election is over, Theodore Roosevelt would like to see Peter Fenelon Collier’s son and explain what editorials did Roosevelt injustice.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-13
William Loeb writes to Robert Bridges to inform him that he has received the royalty payments, and President Roosevelt is satisfied with the arrangements for Robert Joseph Collier’s edition. Roosevelt wishes to meet with Bridges sometime in Washington.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-12-21
Nicholas Longworth expresses to Theodore Roosevelt his concern over recent news that Roosevelt has accepted an invitation to dine with Robert J. Collier. He inquires if there is any foundation for the story, and explains that Collier “is the vilest muckraking sheet in the country,” having criticized both President Taft and Longworth himself. Longworth also worries that a letter from Roosevelt has fallen into the hands of some publication, as he has not received it a week after it was sent.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-05-29
Governor Willson of Kentucky praises the speech President Roosevelt recently gave at the Abraham Lincoln celebration in Kentucky, and relates the enthusiasm that Kentuckians have for Roosevelt. Willson regrets that he did not get a chance to present Andrew Cowan, his wife Anna G. Cowan, and Emilie Todd Helm, half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln, to Roosevelt. Willson and his wife Mary are coming to the inauguration, and will stay with Associate Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan a few days beforehand.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-15
Medill McCormick is sorry that he will not be able to see President Roosevelt at Washington, D.C., before leaving on his vacation, and so writes to him instead. McCormick suggests that Roosevelt consider writing an article calling attention to the dangers that threaten the independence of the press, including demagogues and outside pressures from advertisers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-01-05
Mark Sullivan thanks President Roosevelt for the surprise he gave him in sending the second draft of an upcoming address. Sullivan is sure that the speech will one day be regarded as of high a quality as Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and has shown it–in confidence–to Norman Hapgood, editor of Collier’s Weekly, who agrees about the high quality of the address. Sullivan would like to play up the speech at the time it is made, giving it a special printing in Collier’s, and would like to discuss this idea with Roosevelt further. He wishes Roosevelt and his family a very pleasant Christmas.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-22
Mark Sullivan asks President Roosevelt if there is any chance he could impose on him for the original draft of Roosevelt’s upcoming speech to the Lincoln Farm Association to give as a Christmas present to Robert J. Collier. Sullivan completely understands if such a thing is impossible, but was trying to think of a gift he could give to Collier that Collier could not simply buy himself.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-15
Albert Shaw reports that Robert Collier is conferring with his father, and they will do all they can to get additional volumes of President Roosevelt’s state papers and addresses published without delay. Collier seemed unsure of copy and editing, and Shaw had believed that the material was already in their hands.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-23