Expenditures, Public

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James A. Tawney

President Roosevelt sends Representative Tawney and the House Committee on Appropriations some thoughts concerning appropriations to pay the traveling expenses of presidents. Roosevelt does not believe the salary of the presidency should be raised, but advocates for a special fund to pay for things like state dinners and traveling expenses. As is, a wealthy president may be able to afford trips across the country, but a president of moderate means would be more restricted in the visits he is able to afford. While railroads are frequently interested in providing travel for presidents free of charge because of the benefits it brings them, Roosevelt does not believe such an arrangement is proper.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-12

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to William B. Allison

President Roosevelt sends Senator Allison and the Senate Committee on Appropriations some thoughts concerning appropriations to pay the traveling expenses of presidents. Roosevelt does not believe the salary of the presidency should be raised, but advocates for a special fund to pay for things like state dinners and traveling expenses. As is, a wealthy president may be able to afford trips across the country, but a president of moderate means would be more restricted in the visits he is able to afford. While railroads are frequently interested in providing travel for presidents free of charge because of the benefits it brings them, Roosevelt does not believe such an arrangement is proper.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-12

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to C. Grant La Farge

President Roosevelt was pleased to see C. Grant La Farge’s wife, Florence, recently. He approves of the inscriptions for the tablets and asks La Farge to let him know about the cost soon, as he hopes to have them paid for before the appropriations for the year lapse.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-01

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Ethan Allen Hitchcock

President Roosevelt is dissatisfied with the condition of things in Alaska, as set out by Lieutenant George Thornton Emmons’s recent report. He asks Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock to work to increase the funds appropriated for the operation of schools and orphanages by lobbying in the committee dealing with the sundry civil bill. Because Congress gave Hitchcock, as Secretary of the Interior, the duty to provide services for the Native Americans in Alaska, Roosevelt believes “Congress should now have officially placed before them, as strongly as we know how to place it, the fact that we expect them to give you provision to enable you to make good for these poor people.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-04-23

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George Edmund Foss

President Roosevelt was delighted to see that United States Representative Foss, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, has provided for the building of one large battleship. Roosevelt believes that as long as the government has only authorized the construction of one battleship, it should be the best sort of battleship that can be built.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-03-28

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to William H. Taft

President Roosevelt would like the administration to respond to statements made in the Star by L. W. Ferguson, a locomotive engineer in Panama. Secretary of War Taft should get Chief Engineer John F. Stevens and Isthmian Canal Commission President Theodore P. Shonts to answer the statements in detail.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-03-05

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Adna Romanza Chaffee

President Roosevelt informs General Chaffee that he is not to spend his own money while attending the French army maneuvers, and directs him to credit all expenditures for reasonable entertaining to the government.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-07-03

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George B. McClellan

President Roosevelt sends New York Mayor George B. McClellan a self-explanatory letter. He feels that the position taken is proper, and that Congress should not be asked to appropriate money for both the Fulton celebration and the Jamestown Ter-centennial Exposition. He wonders if the Fulton celebration could be postponed, or combined with the Jamestown exposition.

Comments and Context

The Fulton Celebration was originally planned to take place in 1907 and celebrate the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton beginning steam navigation on the Hudson River. It would later be postponed to 1909 and combined with a celebration of the 300th anniversary of the discovery of the Hudson River by Henry Hudson.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Nicholas Murray Butler

President Roosevelt tells Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, that he wishes Professor John William Burgess would share his opinion about the right of the Senate to amend a treaty. Roosevelt decries those who claim the Senate can modify a treaty, or that the president can veto line items in an appropriation bill. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-02-18

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyman Abbott

President Roosevelt thanks Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, for the letter and editorial on Native American education. However, he disagrees with Abbott on various points. In particular, he finds the analogy between Native American trust funds and government funds for white citizens misleading.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-02-12

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to William H. Taft

President Roosevelt instructs Secretary of War Taft that under the Isthmian Canal Commission, Dr. William Crawford Gorgas should receive a $10,000 salary. He does not understand Admiral John Grimes Walker’s wish to leave the “useless and expensive” office of the Panama Railroad in New York, while at the same time seeking to economize the medical service improperly.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-01-09

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to William H. Taft

The information given by Assistant Adjutant General Hall has become an attack upon the expenditures of the War Department. President Roosevelt suggests that only the head of the department should answer questions, not the officers answering phone calls.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-26

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James A. Hemenway

President Roosevelt apologizes to James A. Hemenway, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for the House of Representatives, for the appropriations for the White House presented by Colonel T. W. Symons, Commissioner of Public Buildings. Roosevelt has explained to Symons that he must first submit appropriation proposals to himself or William Loeb.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-03-29

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Lawrence F. Abbott

President Roosevelt comments on false stories that have appeared in the press regarding executive spending. He defends the expansion of the White House as being necessary and the cost of the tennis court as trivial. There was no “personal naval review” that used public money and Roosevelt has used the government yachts, Mayflower and Sylph, sparingly. The yachts are also not exclusive to the president and are used by other government officials. Finally, entertainment at the White House is paid personally by Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-03-14

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to John Hay

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Secretary of War Elihu Root are against any delay by the British in the Alaska boundary negotiations. President Roosevelt does not want the dispute pending during the presidential campaign and, if necessary, is willing to get Congressional appropriations in order to “run the line ourselves.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-29

Letter from Ben B. Lindsey to Theodore Roosevelt

Judge Lindsey provides an update on his conflict with the Humane Society that he believes is unconstitutionally receiving state appropriations. He has decided that the best course of action is to take up the matter with the next legislature.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-10-26

Letter from Fred L. Seely to Theodore Roosevelt

Fred L. Seely inquires if Charles D. Walcott has explained to Theodore Roosevelt that progress is being made in Congress on funding for the Roosevelt Collection donated to the National Museum of Natural History.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-05-29

Letter from William H. Taft to Theodore Roosevelt

President-Elect Taft advises President Roosevelt to veto the bill in response to Congress’s refusal to put the Census Bureau under the Civil Service Act. Taft believes that vetoing it will help to put an end to the “pernicious spoils system.” Taft reports that Representative Joseph R. Foraker claims Taft and Roosevelt have taken money from an emergency fund unlawfully and has requested that they make their expenditures public. Taft details the expenditures he has made over the past four years from the fund, most of which covered his travel expenses. Taft reasons it may not be in the best interest of the public to reveal all of the expenditures, but recognizes that failure to do so would “create such a row.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-13

Memorandum from George B. Davis to James Franklin Bell

Judge-Advocate General Davis sends Army Chief of Staff Bell a memorandum stating that his opinion regarding the proposition made by William Gibboney Baldwin and Herbert J. Browne was given orally to then-Secretary of War William H. Taft. In order for President Roosevelt to obtain some information necessary for him to provide to the Senate, he had to employ Browne and Baldwin, which Davis believed was provided for in an act of Congress setting aside an “emergency fund to meet unforeseen contingencies.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-12-17

Letter from Charles E. Magoon to Theodore Roosevelt

Provisional Governor of Cuba Magoon discusses with President Roosevelt the necessity of issuing government bonds in Cuba to fund the continuation of sanitation and public works as initiated by the provisional government.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-08-31