Your TR Source
Author John Adams Thayer wants to publish a popular edition of his book including quotations from well-known readers. He hopes to quote a private letter from Theodore Roosevelt wherein Roosevelt express enjoyment of the book.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-10
Theodore Roosevelt thanks Madison Julius Cawein for sending a volume of his poems and hopes Cawein has not left out any of Roosevelt’s favorites. Roosevelt also appreciates that William Dean Howells wrote the volume’s introduction and sends regards to Cawein’s wife.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-06
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 Brander Matthews for the puzzle and would like him to bring Mark Twain and William Howells down to Washington, D.C., for lunch.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-02-27
Vice President Roosevelt is unsure how to advise Winthrop Murray Crane. He knows of a hunter in Wyoming who has hunted mountain lions during the winter and he has dogs. If Crane’s son would like to spend the winter further south, there is a man with hunting dogs near Meeker, Colorado, although that area’s climate is as severe as that of Wyoming. Roosevelt wants to talk with Crane about what has happened in several states.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1901-09-10
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt enjoyed Arlo Bates’s recent volume of essays recommended to him by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. He is pleased to say that he is doing just as Bates advises regarding reading material for his children. Roosevelt appreciates Bates’s discussions on various “decadent” authors. However, he always feels like “putting in a plea” for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1897-09-29
Edward William Bok understands that Theodore Roosevelt needs to be careful about writing for periodicals other than The Outlook. However, he feels his request will not violate Roosevelt’s commitment. Bok wants to awaken interest in appreciating good pictures by having prominent individuals discuss their favorite pictures to be published with a recreation of the image. He lists the other individuals he has asked for a contribution. The enclosed check is merely an expression of appreciation.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-11-03
Walter Pulitzer announces his journal, Satire, and asks Theodore Roosevelt to contribute an article.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-08-22
Senator Lodge discusses a number of topics regarding the late Secretary of State John Hay. Lodge bemoans the editing of a publication of Hay’s letters, claiming that Hay was “one of the best if not the best letter writer of his time,” but the publication does not do him justice. He reminisces on the many men of letters he has known in his life, and believes that Hay was the most “brilliant, humorous, sympathetic, [and] witty” among them. Lodge holds more criticism for Hay in his role as a secretary of state, discussing how Hay bungled multiple treaties, took credit for accomplishments that were not his own, and formed poor relations with the Senate.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-14
Andrew Dickson White discusses the political turmoil in Russia and the problems Russians cause in the United States and abroad. White thinks it wise that Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine, has avoided involvement with Maxim Gorky, and he wishes that Mark Twain and William Dean Howells had done the same.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-18
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1884 to December 1891. Notable events include the deaths of Alice Lee Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s time on his ranch, the completion of Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Edith Kermit Carow, Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt’s birth, the “Great-Dieup” of cattle in North Dakota, and the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Moore, Robert J. (Robert John), 1956-; Theodore Roosevelt Association
Aloysius A. Norton asserts that Theodore Roosevelt “did not study Zen; he lived it.” Roosevelt’s total immersion in the task at hand, accepting of the circumstances in which he found himself, and his childlike nature all speak to his living a life of Zen.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1982
In the “Book Notes” column, Frederick W. Marks reviews William M. Gibson’s Theodore Roosevelt Among the Humorists and John A. Gable reviews Aloysius A. Norton’s Theodore Roosevelt. Marks criticizes Gibson for accepting the judgments of Theodore Roosevelt put forward by humorists such as Mark Twain, and he argues that Gibson, as a literature professor, is not qualified to make evaluations of Roosevelt’s diplomacy. Gable praises Norton’s study of Roosevelt as a writer, and his main criticism is that the book is too short to provide a thorough analysis of all of Roosevelt’s works. Marks and Gable contend that Roosevelt’s image continues to suffer from persistent stereotypes.
A picture of Roosevelt reading accompanies the article.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1981
John A. Gable provides brief reviews of three books on Theodore Roosevelt and quotes other reviews about Sylvia Jukes Morris’s biography of Edith Kermit Roosevelt. He reviews A. A. Norton’s Theodore Roosevelt, which evaluates Roosevelt as a writer; William M. Gibson’s Theodore Roosevelt Among the Humorists, which looks at Roosevelt’s relationship with William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Finley Peter Dunne; and Thomas G. Dyer’s Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1981
Theodore Roosevelt regrets he will be unable to attend the meeting in honor of William Dean Howells. Roosevelt was influenced by Howells’ writings and sees him as an important part of American literature.
1917-02-28
Responding to an inquiry about President Roosevelt’s membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Brander Matthews writes that he does not have any information about the president’s membership, but he hopes that he continues it. The National Institute includes many of the leading artists, composers, and writers in the nation, according to Matthews. Included in the membership are William Dean Howells, Edmund Clarence Stedman, George Washington Cable, Richard Watson Gilder, and Hamlin Garland. The group holds two or three meetings a year.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-04-26
Brander Matthews encloses a puzzle, noting that President Roosevelt’s daughter may want it for the family archives. He thinks that Roosevelt’s handling of the Schley-Sampson controversy “hit the nail on the head.” Matthews wishes that Roosevelt could join him for lunch on Friday in New York with, among others, Mark Twain and William Dean Howells.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-02-26
Henry Cabot Lodge praises Theodore Roosevelt’s work and his latest book and shares reviews of his own work on George Washington.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1889-07-15