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President Roosevelt requests to meet with James Sullivan Clarkson and further discuss Sullivan’s opinion on William Loeb, party politics in Ohio and Iowa, and the press’s position on the President’s re-election campaign. The President specifically criticizes Gunton’s Magazine.
1903-05-27
An unidentified individual gives journalist Frank Andrew Munsey his opinion on Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 campaign against William H. Taft.
1912-04-26
![Theodore Roosevelt seated at his desk in the Outlook office [1914?]](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/theodorerooseveltcenter/TRC/Video/Video_Thumbnail.JPG)
Theodore Roosevelt works at his desk in the New York City office of The Outlook, a small but influential weekly journal of opinion for which he became a special contributing editor early in 1909.
Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound
1914
President Roosevelt tells Brooks Adams that his letter pleased him and he would like to meet with Adams before he finishes his message. He wants to put in one or two ideas from Adams’s Atlantic Monthly article.
1901-09-27
President Roosevelt writes to Joseph Bucklin Bishop to discuss several articles in the press. He also informs Bishop that Judge McLaughlin will not be able to attend the Judicial Reception and lunch.
1905-01-02
President Roosevelt writes a personal and private letter to the editors of The Outlook criticizing their support of naturalist writer “Mr. Long,” whom Roosevelt asserts is a fraud. Roosevelt believes that integrity in naturalist writing must be upheld to the same standards as that of other literature and provides several examples from Long’s writing that are fabricated accounts.
1907-07-03
William Randolph Hearst paints a donkey yellow from a bucket of paint labeled “Riot & Rottenness.” He holds the donkey by a bridle labeled “Dem. State Machine.” A dog, with the countenance of Hearst’s able amanuensis Arthur Brisbane, plays Buster’s dog Tige in this cartoon.
Once the Yellow Journalist publisher and New York congressman William Randolph Hearst declared his interest in the 1906 gubernatorial contest as a Democrat, Udo J. Keppler and his Puck magazine fired weekly salvos against him.
Hearst had his power and influence and years of radical advocacies behind him, but he also had a record of scandal, sensationalism, and (in the view of Theodore Roosevelt and others) virtual sedition in his papers. Keppler was shared Roosevelt’s opinion.
William Randolph Hearst, as “Tarquinius Hearst” carrying a stick labeled “Yellow Journalism,” sneaks into the “New York State Democracy.”
Puck magazine and its owner and chief cartoonist Udo J. Keppler traditionally borrowed from classical literature and opera for contextual motifs. This cover cartoon, however, required some knowledge of the minor Shakespearian canon.
The allusion is not a play by Shakespeare but a poem — actually the lengthy prelude to a poem, The Rape of Lucrece; it followed Shakespeare’s slightly better-know poem Venus and Adonis. The event memorialized by the poet is one of love, lust, power, intrigue, and death. Sextus Tarquinius, a prominent Roman soldier, sneaks into the bedchamber of Lucrece, the beautiful wife of his friend Collatine of Rome’s ruling family.
Alton B. Parker, David B. Hill, John Sharp Williams, Arthur P. Groman, Richard Olney, and Grover Cleveland ride on a camel labeled “Reorganization” crossing the “Desert of Bryanism.” William Jennings Bryan tries to hold back the camel by the tail, and William Randolph Hearst tries to prevent Bryan from being pulled along toward an “Oasis” labeled “Sane Democracy.”
Starting around 1902, Puck assayed the Democratic field of possible presidential candidates to run against the incumbent, President Roosevelt. The pack of conservative, “Bourbon,” and “Gold” Democrats — opponents of William Jennings Bryan and a third nomination by him or a follower (such as publisher William Randolph Hearst) — usually included the same faces, reflecting the national political machinations.
Shown here are those players, with the addition of John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, Democrat leader of the United States House of Representatives. Judge Alton Brooks Parker, a dark horse significantly placed by cartoonist Pughe at the front of the camel riders, was subtly boosted by party insiders. David B. Hill was a former New York governor and senator; Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland had returned to the United States Senate and was the party’s chairman. Richard Olney, former Secretary of State, once harbored presidential ambitions himself, but at this time was futilely urging his onetime mentor, Grover Cleveland, to run for president a fourth time, for a third term.
Typewritten manuscript with handwritten edits and additions by Theodore Roosevelt. The article discusses the state of journalism in the United States and why The Outlook is exemplary, in Roosevelt’s opinion. Editorial for The Outlook, March 6, 1909.
1909-03-05
William Jennings Bryan, holding a pitcher labeled “The Commoner,” pours water labeled “Editorials” into a paper crown labeled “McKinley’s Crown,” which is filled with holes and leaking water everywhere. The caption reads, “The Bryan Crown — It Won’t Hold Water.”
In the year this cartoon was drawn, William Jennings Bryan, having lost two successive presidential campaigns, and with his anti-Imperialist views roundly rejected by Americans, retreated to two major pursuits: speeches on the Chautauqua circuit and launching a magazine that would keep his views before the public. The Commoner started publication in 1901, from Bryan’s home base of Nebraska, with the assistance of his brother Charles, later a governor of Nebraska and a vice-presidential candidate. The magazine, which was dismissed by Keppler in this Puck cover cartoon, had a healthy circulation for two decades.
A devilish-looking man holding an ink-tipped quill labeled “French Press” stands on a pedestal labeled “Paris,” gleefully kicking up his left foot labeled “Insults” toward the British Lion, in the background, who is engaged in war in the Transvaal. Behind the “French Press” is a press spewing “Venomous Articles” and “Spite Cartoons.” Caption: French Press–Me kick at the British Lion? Boo! Who’s afraid? Fashodia [sic] is avenged!
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1900-01-03
Some newspapers have been offered a story that President Roosevelt will look into the case of Florence Elizabeth Maybrick, who is in jail for murdering her husband, and potentially have her released. A handwritten note says that David S. Barry of the New York Sun has asked about this.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1901-11-16
Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary directs Albert W. Harris to three articles Roosevelt has written in The Outlook about the initiative, referendum, and recall of judges. They hope the articles contain the information Harris needs.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-01-26
Theodore Roosevelt asks Madeline Z. Doty to send him more facts about the Childrens Courts. When Doty reads his article on the rights and duties of men and women, he does not think she will find it too offensive.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-01-26
Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary directs J. Curtis Ballard to read the article Roosevelt wrote on July 29 1911 about the initiative and referendum.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-01-25
Theodore Roosevelt confesses his regret that Arthur H. Samuels is no longer in journalism, but acknowledges it is for the best. He invites Samuels to visit the next time he is in New York to discuss politics, journalism, and the social systems in colleges, namely Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-26
Theodore Roosevelt thanks George Rumsey Sheldon for the letter. He is also interested in Sheldon’s opinion on what is being reported, since Roosevelt never said what is being published. He believes the press are greater scoundrels than bad politicians.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-26
Theodore Roosevelt tells Albert Shaw that he said exactly what Roosevelt wanted said in the article.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-23
Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary refers Keating Ransone to an article in the January 21, 1911 issue of The Outlook, for Roosevelt’s position on the initiatives and referendums.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-12-23