Your TR Source
Caspar Whitney shares his plan to write about the “naturalist fakirs” in The Outing with President Roosevelt, and asks Roosevelt about his experience as a naturalist for the article. Whitney also asks for information regarding John Burroughs’s experience as a naturalist.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-07-03
John Burroughs sends a copy of the paper he referred to in his last letter to Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt will be able to suggest some additions. In Lyman Abbott’s reply to Burroughs’ letter to The Outlook, Abbott kept his ground in the “nature faker” controversy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-28
John Burroughs is glad that President Roosevelt has decided that his sighting of a passenger pigeon was correct. Burroughs recently investigated another sighting and concluded that a large flock of passenger pigeons had been seen. He has written to The Outlook regarding the legitimate use of imagination in nature writing. Burroughs directs Roosevelt to several periodicals where he comments on William J. Long and the nature fakers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-13
John Burroughs writes to Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, to defend the remarks Theodore Roosevelt made about the “nature faker” controversy. Abbott wrote an editorial saying that Roosevelt made a “too sharp distinction between fiction and fact.” Burroughs believes that there is “a legitimate and an illegitimate use of the imagination in writing human history.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-11
John M. Phillips sends President Roosevelt an article by R. M. Norboe, and is pleased Roosevelt has taken on the “fake” natural history writers like William J. Long.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-08
George R. Smith relates a story to President Roosevelt in which a pack of wolves killed a deer in much the same way as William J. Long reported, creating controversy between him and Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-06-02
Reverend William J. Long has written an article for the Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick about small deer. Clark would like to write a response calling Roosevelt an authority on game mammals. He will be leaving for St. Lawrence and is hoping to spend some time in nature away from the Nature Fakers controversy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-31
George Shiras informs William Loeb that he has sent a lengthy letter to President Roosevelt expressing his views on William J. Long’s “splenetic attack” on Roosevelt in the newspapers during the nature fakers controversy. Shiras believes Roosevelt should ignore Long.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-30
John Burroughs believes President Roosevelt’s account of seeing passenger pigeons in Virginia. He suggests that a trustworthy local attempt to obtain a specimen or having Dr. Merriam send someone to investigate. Burroughs continues to fight William J. Long and the nature fakers. Several pretend interviews with Burroughs have appeared in the newspapers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-30
William T. Hornaday sends President Roosevelt information on works by W. J. Long. Long is a known writer on natural history, with his works used in schools. Hornaday claims the observations Long makes about the Baltimore orioles are fake, and presents a letter from witness F. G. Leslie. Hornaday also lists other naturalists who have condemned Long.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-29
Editor John O’Hara Cosgrave surrenders the rights from Everybody’s Magazine in order to see its contents published in a book on the Nature Fakers controversy. He looks forward to the book. He would like President Roosevelt to know that the writer Owen Wister will be covering the overspending scandal in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Cosgrave hopes Wister can adequately cover the topic.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-28
Stephen S. Jones describes how a pack of wolves attacks a horse. The pack nips at a horse’s legs until the horse falls over and then a wolf attacks at the horse’s chest.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-24
John Burroughs thanks President Roosevelt for his letter and is delighted that Roosevelt spoke candidly to William J. Long’s publisher. He wishes the general public and especially Long’s readers could see these remarks. Criticizing Long’s ideas on wolves, Burroughs notes that he will not read Long’s “preposterous book” and remarks that others view Long as “a notorious liar,” too. Burroughs’ book, Ways of Nature, will be out in October and he will send a copy to Roosevelt. Burroughs read the recently published account of Roosevelt’s bear hunt and found it “full of meat for the naturalist as well as for the sportsman.” In particular, Roosevelt’s description of human traits in animals resonated with Burroughs’ own observations.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-30
George H. Locke sends President Roosevelt the first copy his firm is issuing of the book Northern Trails by William J. Long. Locke feels sure that Roosevelt will enjoy the book because “it smells of the wood-smoke at twilight and its music is the yelp of the wolf and the konk of the wild goose,” and he knows of Roosevelt’s appreciation for the “western life.” The third page is a list scrawled in Roosevelt’s hand with items seemingly unrelated to Locke’s letter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-20
President Roosevelt gives the naturalist John Burroughs some of his thoughts related to the “nature fakers” controversy. Roosevelt says that he believes that some animals do teach their young lessons, but he cautions against assigning human emotions to animals, and he warns Burroughs that writers such as William J. Long too often exaggerate what animal behaviors they have witnessed.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1905-05-29
Gary Rice examines how the press covered Theodore Roosevelt’s 1909-1910 African safari. Rice stresses that Roosevelt wanted to severely restrict journalists’ access to his safari because the former president had signed contracts to publish his own articles and books, and he wanted to control what was written. Rice also notes that the press extensively covered Roosevelt’s preparations for the trip, and he highlights a scandal that erupted when a French journalist published an unauthorized story about Roosevelt during the safari. Roosevelt later relented and allowed American reporters Robert W. Foran and Warrington Dawson to file reports from Africa.
Rice notes that much of the coverage of the safari dealt with the number of animals Roosevelt had killed, and it stoked debates about the ethics of Roosevelt’s hunting. Rice concludes that Roosevelt’s safari and its coverage provided him with “an even bigger, more favorable public image.” Three photographs of Roosevelt in Africa appear in the article.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1996
Two books undergo scrutiny in this edition of the “Book Reviews” section while ten others are mentioned in a “Book Notes” subsection that lists recently released or reissued titles. Elizabeth E. Roosevelt reviews Richard H. Collin’s Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean and gives a brief overview of each of the work’s four sections, praising the book for its portraits of key players involved in the various diplomatic tussles of the Roosevelt administration in the Caribbean basin. The review is followed by seven excerpts from Collin’s book, ranging from a single sentence to short paragraphs. Donald F. Kirkpatrick reviews Ralph H. Lutts’s The Nature Fakers which chronicles Theodore Roosevelt’s fight with William J. Long and other nature writers who attributed human traits to animals.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1991
Roosevelt, Elizabeth E.; Collin, Richard H.; Kirkpatrick, Donald F.; Unknown
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
Harper’s Weekly cover shows Theodore Roosevelt holding a bowling bowl labeled “Nomination 1908.” A sign above the pins reads “Favorite Sons.” Pins are labeled with the names of the following states: Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. Another sign lists people that are warned off the premises. Jack London is one of those individuals.
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
1907-06-01
Governor Roosevelt suggests that Anna Roosevelt Cowles host a dinner or breakfast with a given list of guests so that he can show the writer Frederic Harrison some attention. Roosevelt believes that Harrison will be in town from March 3 through March 5. As President McKinley is being inaugurated on March 4, Roosevelt states that date will not work.
1901-02-23