Your TR Source
Theodore Roosevelt writes to Frances Kellor about politics. He does not understand why Herman A. Metz objected, but feels “each objects to whatever the other side does, good or bad.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-02-26
President Roosevelt would be pleased by Nicholas Murray Butler’s plan to have Roosevelt nominated as a senator after his term as president is over, but worries it would cause opposition to the ticket from both Thomas Collier Platt and Benjamin B. Odell.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-05-31
Secretary of War Taft encloses his a letter from his friend Charles Dewey Hilles that indicates that Senator Joseph Benson Foraker is preparing an attack on the administration.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-01-17
British Foreign Secretary Grey informs President Roosevelt that Ambassador H. Mortimer Durand will be replaced, and while he understands Roosevelt’s desire to have Arthur Lee in his place, that is politically impossible. Temporarily, Esmé Howard will be sent to Washington as Councillor to the Embassy. Grey appreciated Roosevelt’s explanation of his telegram to German Emperor William after the Portsmouth Peace. Grey explains that his foreign policy is not anti-German, but to be independent he feels it necessary to strengthen the entente with France and come to an agreement with Russia. Grey believes that his generation has had enough of war, and the British people feel a special bond with the United States. Grey hopes the dispute between Canada and the United States over Newfoundland will soon be settled. He also adds that many in Great Britain are upset over reports of slavery and plunder in the Belgian Congo.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-04
Governor Higgins writes to President Roosevelt regarding Charles Rufus Skinner. Higgins empathizes with Skinner’s situation and would offer him a position if he had one available. He also thanks Roosevelt for advice concerning opposition to his administration. Higgins uses John Milton’s Paradise Lost as a metaphor for his political experiences.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-01-11
Uncle Sam holds a shovel as he faces a number of rocks in Panama: “opposition,” “Dem. opposition,” and “R.R. lobby opposition.” Caption: “Well, I’m here at last, but it’s a tough road!”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-02-25
The writer celebrates the civility between Senator Mark Hanna and President Theodore Roosevelt as evidenced by the last notes the two exchanged before Hanna’s death. The author compares their relationship to other instances where civility triumphed over partisan politics.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-03-05
Governor Roosevelt is in the midst of a violent altercation. Dressed in his trademark Rough Riders uniform, a book narrating his Cuban adventures is strapped around his chest and a bandage labeled “Iron” is on his cheek. As Roosevelt shoots at a fleeing man and at a rabbit disappearing down a hole, he is thrown off his balance by an exploding bomb called “Altgeld’s reply to the St. Paul speech,” and is hit with a brick labeled “From Colonel Bacon.” Off to the side, Governor John Peter Altgeld prepares to throw another bomb.
At the moment there is little known about the creator of this original cartoon. It is decidedly denigrating to Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, and deals with a controversy that arose in 1900. Roosevelt was Governor of New York and as such reviewed court-martial charges against soldiers in the Seventy-First regiment, New York Volunteers, at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Alexander S. Bacon, a National Guard colonel who had not served in Cuba, was retained as their counsel. In the course of a public-relations campaign he leveled charges about Roosevelt’s actions on the field, imputing cowardice. Bacon wrote a book, The Seventy-First at San Juan, that strongly disputed Roosevelt’s claims, such as encountering a trench filled with Spaniards. All the soldiers ultimately lost their court-martial appeals. Roosevelt was Governor of New York when this cartoon was drawn, but is in Rough Rider garb because of the wartime controversy. The radical and anti-Imperialist Governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld, is depicted favorably. Roosevelt’s best-selling book The Rough Riders here has the title Alone in Cuba, as famously parodied by humorist Finley Peter Dunne (“Mr. Dooley”).
Henry Ward Beecher, as Gulliver, holds on his knee a small building labeled “Plymouth Church” and reaches his left hand out, in a friendly gesture, toward a crowd of “Liliputians” who are scampering about, some with ropes labeled “Partisan Rope, Caucus Rope, [and] Political Slavery,” others with signs that state “Down with him. He defeated Blaine!!, No freedom Allowed in Politics, [and] Edict of Ostracism.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1885-01-07
A large group of politicians, newspaper editors, Tammany Hall bosses, and others are dressed as Native Americans. One carries a banner that shows a crude drawing of the Tammany tiger labeled “Flathead Tribe.” The group is on a long march in opposition to President Cleveland’s civil service reform agenda. In the upper left corner is the “Blainiac Reservation” and in the opposite corner is Cleveland and his cabinet laying tracks for the “Reform R. R.,” keeping ahead of the “Administration Construction Train.” In the foreground, Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks is leading the Democratic donkey labeled “Bourbonism,” carrying two baskets, one with “Old Ideas” and the other labeled “The Perennial Pappooses” holding Charles A. Dana and Benjamin F. Butler. Standing just to the right is John Kelly carrying Philip H. Dugro in a cradleboard.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1885-08-12
The anti-Roosevelt Republican faction has won the election in the Fifth Congressional District in Louisville. This increases the number of delegates who will cast their vote for Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna rather than President Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-02-01
William M. Catron informs President Roosevelt that the Congressional Candidate of the eleventh district of Kentucky, Whiteside Godfrey Hunter, and other Kentucky politicians plan to launch a presidential effort in support of Marcus Alonzo Hanna. Catron suggests Roosevelt consult with John Watson Yerkes of Kentucky.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-11-18