Your TR Source
President Roosevelt appreciates Professor Davenport’s article in The Outlook. Roosevelt believes that he has dealt fairly with labor unions, although sometimes he has acted to keep them in check.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-07-13
President Roosevelt is glad to hear more about Senator Knox’s address at Yale, especially his reference to the Girondists. He wants people to understand that “to be moderate does not mean to be timid.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-24
President Roosevelt expresses his concern about Senator William Edgar Borah’s alleged connections to timber stealing and the potential impact on the Haywood-Moyer murder trial.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-08
President Roosevelt sends photographs of him jumping a horse to United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom Reid. He directs Reid to present the photographs to King Edward VII if he would like them. Roosevelt comments on the newspaper clippings that Reid sent, noting he was surprised at how Englishmen responded to Robert Bond’s criticism of New Newfoundland’s status in the British Empire, given their response to the proposed discriminatory legislation against Japanese students in California. Lately, Roosevelt has been most interested by his “encounter with the ultra labor men and socialists over the Moyer-Haywood-Debs matter.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-15
President Roosevelt liked John Campbell Greenway’s letter and sent it to Secretary of War William H. Taft. Roosevelt asks if Greenway has seen his letters in response to the Moyer-Haywood affair.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-07
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-07
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
Pringle, John Dunbar, 1854-1922
English
President Roosevelt responds to a letter from William Henry Jackson, sent on behalf of the Cook County Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Conference. Jackson had taken exception to an earlier letter in which Roosevelt had referred to several people, including Charles H. Moyer and Big Bill Haywood, as “undesirable citizens.” Roosevelt stands by his description of Moyer, Haywood, and Eugene V. Debs as undesirable citizens, although he assures Jackson that his statement was not an attempt to influence the outcome of the trial of Moyer and Haywood for the murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-22
President Roosevelt comments on and advises Kermit Roosevelt on his athletic abilities and pursuits. He is “up to my ears in work,” which includes dictating speeches. Archibald “Archie” Roosevelt commented that it seems Roosevelt is currently under attack more than at previous times. Roosevelt felt it best to “attack aggressively and fearlessly” in his letter to the Moyer-Haywood Defense Association. He finds comfort in having Secretary of War William H. Taft and Secretary of State Elihu Root with him and hopes Taft will be nominated for president.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-23
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-25
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919
Bonaparte, Charles J. (Charles Joseph), 1851-1921
English
President Roosevelt is glad that Associate Justice Harlan liked his letter on the Moyer and Haywood matter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-25
President Roosevelt asks Senator Lodge to review his speeches, and states that it is best to attack “Hearstism” and “Moranism” without naming anyone. For Roosevelt is aiming his criticism “more at agitators, at corrupt or sinister or foolish visionaries, at reckless slanders in the newspapers and magazines, and at preachers of social unrest and discontent,” rather than any political movement as a whole, because he sees that all matters, of labor or capital, should be met fairly. Roosevelt also shares his thoughts about Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes and the upcoming election for governor of New York.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10-16
President Roosevelt is concerned over the accusations made by Edward Henry Harriman, a prominent railroad executive, particularly a “wilful untruth” concerning a request to raise money for the Republican party during the 1904 presidential campaign. Roosevelt tells Representative Sherman that he believes the dispute with Harriman stems from a dissatisfaction with regulations made on interstate commerce, particularly affecting railroads. Harriman is also disappointed that Roosevelt failed to appoint Senator Chauncey M. Depew as Ambassador to France as he had requested, and refuses to support the Republican party as long as Roosevelt’s policies dominate.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-10-08
President Roosevelt comments on the ongoing furor surrounding the trials of Charles H. Moyer and Big Bill Haywood, looking down on he support they are receiving from socialists and anarchists from across the country. He reflects that he has had an odd presidency, and that “a goodly number of the things I have done which i regard as most important will probably never see the light and will be known to only a few people,” including the situation in Idaho, the Russo-Japanese peace negotiations, the Algeciras conference, and the Alaska boundary dispute.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-10
President Roosevelt asks Lyman Abbott to look over an article by Philip Battell Stewart to consider it for publication in The Outlook. If he decides to publish it, Roosevelt asks Abbott to not use Stewart’s name, as he fears being that it could put him in danger of an assassination attempt by the Western Federation of Miners. He would like to see Abbott in Washington, D.C., sometime to discuss matters that have come up in Congress.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-16
President Roosevelt tells Calvin Cobb that he appreciates what Idaho Governor Frank Robert Gooding is trying to do in trying to bring the murderers of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg to justice. Roosevelt believes that the Western Federation of Miners has been conducting a reign of terror on many Rocky Mountain states, and recognizes the risk that Gooding is in in trying to prosecute them. While Charles S. Moyer and Big Bill Haywood deserve a fair trial, Roosevelt believes that their “black record of wrong-doing” should get them no sympathy. He hopes, however, that Gooding will act against both the Western Federation of Miners on the one hand and the corporations on the other, and not fall into the errors of former Colorado Governor James Hamilton Peabody.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-16
President Roosevelt emphasizes that he wrote to Lyman Abbott because he trusts the Outlook more than other periodicals, listing a number of other problems and biases he sees in other prominent periodicals. Roosevelt thinks they should make it clear that “we war on the evil of human nature, whether shown in the labor man or the capitalist,” and illustrates this statement by describing how he is fighting both against capitalist organizations in enforcing government inspection of meat packing plants, as well as fighting labor unions in his prosecution of Charles H. Moyer and Big Bill Haywood, who have been accused of the assassination of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho. Both sides, in their respective cases, claim to want justice while working to prevent it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-18
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
President Roosevelt thanks Outlook publisher Lawrence F. Abbott for the letter, and reiterates that in working to produce reform and reduce the size of the largest fortunes, he wants to set out explicit steps and avoid vague language. He also wants to make sure that it is clear that he does not encourage “what is wicked among the labor people,” referencing “the hundreds of murders perpetrated under the foulest and most infamous circumstances by the members of the Western Federation of Miners,” which he considers Big Bill Haywood and Charles H. Moyer guilty of. While it is possible to go too far in the enforcement of order, Roosevelt considers it worse to encourage crime.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-28
President Roosevelt responds to Outlook editor Lyman Abbott’s comments on the sections of Roosevelt’s recent “muck-rake speech” dealing with the inheritance tax. Roosevelt did not mean to suggest that such a tax would be the only measure necessary to deal with the amassing of large fortunes, but wished to bring attention to the fact that it would help. He believes that a progressive income tax would also be good, but feels that it is harder to frame such a measure, while modifying the tariff would have a minimal effect on such fortunes. Roosevelt is puzzled by Abbott’s comments about taxing land, and asks if he is trying to revive the theories of Henry George, or if he is referring to something else. Regardless, Roosevelt feels the language is too vague to be useful, while he was trying to bring attention to specific measures that could be accomplished. He was surprised the portion of his speech dealing with labor leaders has received little attention; while he feels that the amassing of great fortunes is harmful to the United States, so too is the sort of violence resulting from “unhealthy sentimentality and morbid class consciousness” like that of socialist leader Eugene V. Debs.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-23
President Roosevelt agrees with Edward Smith’s characterization of labor leaders Charles H. Moyer and Big Bill Haywood. He cautions, however, that society must not fall into error, and in the trial of Moyer and Haywood for the murder of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho, they must be judged on whether they committed the murder, not “whether they are infamous creatures.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-03-23