Your TR Source
President Roosevelt defends his description of Thomas Paine, and tells Elbert Hubbard that what he has disclosed is not for publication.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-22
President Roosevelt writes to Owen Wister about Thomas Paine. Roosevelt says he should not have referred to Paine as an atheist as Paine admitted the existence of an unknown God, although he denied there was a Christian God. Roosevelt notes that Paine did not leave his bed for several weeks and so “a swine in a sty was physically clean by comparison.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1901-09-25
Theodore Roosevelt writes a private letter to Henry Truro Bray advising Bray. Roosevelt recounts a visit Gouvenier Morris made to Thomas Paine, when Paine was ill and refusing to get out of bed.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1916-02-04
The Independent Religious Society advertises several upcoming lectures, and provides a program for the lecture of February 26, 1911 by Mangasar M. Mangasarian. Additionally included in the pamphlet is a letter from Mangasarian to Jacob A. Riis. While Mangasarian praises Riis’s defense of Theodore Roosevelt, he criticizes Riis’s language, as well as Roosevelt’s criticism of Thomas Paine. The final page advertises a number of publications by Mangasarian.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-02-26
Gutzon Borglum outlines the original philosophy and purpose behind the selection of the figures for Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
1936-05-13
Four men sit quietly beneath a shelf of “Books of Religious Reference” in a hall in a museum. A small crowd is gathered before them. Further along the hall, another group of four men sits quietly beneath a shelf of “Books of Scientific Reference.” Part of the display, labeled “Geography,” shows an owl perched on an open book labeled “Kosmos” and a man standing next to a globe. Further still along the hall, a man is lecturing to a large gathering in a section labeled “Chemistry.” Portraits of Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Benedictus de Spinoza, and Thomas Paine hang from the vaulted archways above.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1883-01-10
A number of historical figures enjoy the pleasant atmosphere of “Sheol” after suffering the flames of Hell. At left is a dejected Devil sitting beneath a sign that states, “This Business is Removed to Sheol, Opposite.” Among those ferried across the river by “Charon” are “Hypatia, Fanny Elssler, Voltaire, Frederick [the] Great, Socrates, J. Offenbach, Darwin, J. S. Mill, Rousseau, George Sand, Galileo, Jefferson, Th. Paine, Goethe, [and] H. Heine.” Caption: According to the new version of the Old Testament, many respectable people who have been writhing in the old fashioned Hell will have to be transferred to the pleasant watering-place known as “Sheol.” This is Puck’s notion of the evolution of Hell to Sheol.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1885-05-27
W. J. Dutton asks as a “matter of justice” that President Roosevelt correct future editions of his biography of Gouverneur Morris by removing the description of Thomas Paine as being a “filthy little atheist.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-01-29
Philip G. Peabody complains about a passage President Roosevelt wrote that referred to Thomas Paine as a “dirty little Atheist.” In a note to Roosevelt, Owen Wister states that he has no idea what Peabody is talking about and will not respond.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1901-09-22