Newspapers

The President of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, the Marquis de Morès, writes to Theodore Roosevelt while in a jail cell awaiting trial for murder. He claims Joe Ferris is responsible for getting him indicted and he has read newspaper accounts of Roosevelt fighting with Morès. Morès wants to know if Roosevelt is responsible for the accounts in the paper because he thought Roosevelt was his friend.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1885-09-03

Theodore Roosevelt responds to a letter from the Marquis de Morès, in which he asked if Roosevelt was his friend or enemy after reading press reports about their quarreling. Roosevelt replies that he most emphatically is not Mores enemy and if the last part of Morès’ letter was a threat, he is always on hand to hold himself accountable for anything he has done.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1885-09

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt writes to Avery De Lano Andrews about a recent newspaper article. Roosevelt still has controversy with Andrew D. Parker, calling him a “scoundrel” and a “coward.”

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1897-05-28

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt writes to Avery De Lano Andrews about police department business involving John McCullagh and Andrew D. Parker. Roosevelt still supports McCullagh. Roosevelt also comments on a recent editorial that appeared in the Evening Post.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1897-08-28

Governor Roosevelt writes to Avery De Lano Andrews about a report that Andrews is to have published in the newspaper. Roosevelt recently met with General McCoskry Butt and discussed the camp of instruction for non-commissioned officers. 

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1899-05-01

Theodore Roosevelt writes to John Callan O’Laughlin about a controversy regarding the Catholic religion. Roosevelt advises O’Laughlin to write an article to be published in a Catholic newspaper.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1910-07-05

Theodore Roosevelt writes to John Callan O’Laughlin declining to write a letter for publication in the newspaper.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1910-10-03

Theodore Roosevelt writes to John Callan O’Laughlin about writing to Albert J. Beveridge regarding the William Lorimer incident. Roosevelt has informed The Outlook magazine about his opinion on the matter and hopes that it will publish an article on the subject.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1910-12-23

Theodore Roosevelt is submitting another editorial to The Outlook regarding the William Lorimer case.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1910-12-28

Theodore Roosevelt writes to John Callan O’Laughlin regarding an article Roosevelt recently wrote for the Outlook.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1912-01-03

Theodore Roosevelt discusses a recent article written by Lincoln Steffens. Roosevelt strongly disagrees with the article’s content. Roosevelt would like Medill McCormick at the publicity bureau in Washington to advise Roosevelt on the matter.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1912-02-12

An unidentified man sits in a chair in a cell at Sing Sing Prison. He has changed out of his prison uniform into a business suit, and is doling out money by the scoopful in return for “Bogus Securities” and “Bogus Collateral.” Chutes of money pour into his cell through windows labeled “Cashier, Vice-Pres., [and] President.” Sticking out of a back pocket is the “Star of Hope,” the Sing Sing Prison bulletin. Caption: A washday convenience for frenzied banks.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The maximum-security prison Sing Sing, in Ossining-on-the-Hudson, 40 miles north of New York City, was built in 1825. Eighty years later its security was as secure as its physical plant: there was a porous ability of inmates to interact with the outside world, and its physical plant and sanitation were in scandalous disrepair. A state commission in 1905 reported on these conditions and implicated political parties (particularly New York’s Tammany Hall / Democratic machine) as well as various levels of New York state bureaucracy.

A large group of citizens read the latest news of a stock boom and rush off to the stockbroker to purchase the hot commodity. In the background, the corporate monopolist [“Trust Magnate”] is seen paying off the newspaper editor with shares of the stock. Caption: The promoter waters the stock, the newspaper booms it (for a consideration) and the silly public buys it – after which the water is squeezed out.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Pughe’s critique of a dirty collaboration between corporate money was true enough: many newspapers were considered frank mouthpieces for industries or even individual companies. The practice was widespread, however; magazines also operated in similar fashion. A decade later, Harper’s Weekly was subsidized by Standard Oil; and Puck itself, late in its life, was funded by the Democratic Party; and in related fashion, or intent, newspaper publishers and editors sometimes were given ambassadorships as “plums.”

Illustration showing a large hand labeled “LAW” holding up by the collar newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, with view of New York City in the background. Caption: Why not make a clean job of it while we’re at it?

comments and context

Comments and Context

This cartoon’s title probably also refers to the aggressive urban clean-up campaigns inaugurated in 1894 under George E. Waring, reform mayor William L. Strong’s Sanitation Commissioner — a post he first offered to Theodore Roosevelt. Waring’s squads of street-cleaners were dubbed “White Wings.” Cartoon subjects Pulitzer and Hearst were publishers of, respectively, the World, and the Journal and the American in New York City. Dalrymple played on the papers’ names by titling them the Whirl and the Infernal. They were the largest-circulation papers in New York as well as in the nation, and their rivalry gave birth to the Sunday comic supplements, whose character the Yellow Kid, variously the star of each paper, gave rise to the term “Yellow Journalism.” The publishers each helped to foment the Spanish-American war, adding Cuban atrocity stories to their routine urban sensationalism. Ironically, in 1917, when Puck was failing, William Randolph Hearst purchased the magazine from Udo J. Keppler, son of its founder. 

On behalf of Theodore Roosevelt, his secretary thanks John M. Leach for the copy of Leach’s letter to Chancellor Day. He also compliments Leach on a poem he had published in the Philadelphia North American.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-09-04

Theodore Roosevelt thanks J. A. Lindell for sending him a copy of a paper. Roosevelt found it very entertaining.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-09-04

Theodore Roosevelt appreciates the letter and book from Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorff, who he regrets not seeing more in Africa. Roosevelt finds Bronsart von Schellendorff’s proposal interesting, but is far too busy to look into the matter at this time.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-08-13

Theodore Roosevelt expresses frustration concerning conflicting advice in a letter to Chicago Tribune editor and owner, Robert R. McCormick.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-07-08

Theodore Roosevelt tells George L. Berry that he knows nothing of “that matter” and doubts whether Medill McCormick has any say at the Chicago Tribune, but he will take up the matter with McCormick at once.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-06-11

Theodore Roosevelt thanks Rudolph Gaar Leeds for Leeds “influential” and “unwavering support” for the campaign in The Indianapolis Sun. Roosevelt would like to meet with Leeds should Leeds come to New York.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-06-08