Peace movements

President Roosevelt thanks John St. Loe Strachey for sending him the interesting letter from Colonel Arthur Williamson Alsager Pollock. Roosevelt agrees with everything that Pollock says, but is doubtful whether such military preparedness and training could be implemented in the United States, as he already has trouble securing support for marksmanship training in the National Guard from Congress or the general population. Roosevelt is concerned about the weakness of the United States Army. While Roosevelt is “sincerely anxious for peace and [has] a sincere horror of war,” he has contempt for pacifist and anti-imperialist agitators who speak out against having a strong army and navy.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-18

President Roosevelt thanks Benjamin Franklin Trueblood for the the copy of the resolutions passed by the American Peace Society.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-20

President Roosevelt writes to Bishop William Fraser McDowell that he was impressed with his recent sermon and Roosevelt will strive to retain McDowell’s respect. Roosevelt thanks Bishop McDowell and others in the Methodist Episcopal River Rock Conference for their endorsement of Roosevelt’s involvement in the peace conference.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-10-11

Senator Lodges’ resolution will leave the arbitration treaties with “nothing but language and machinery.” He tried and failed to prevent public debate on the treaties. He also supports Theodore Roosevelt’s silence in the face of statements from the Taft administration.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-01-17

Dean Rogers of Yale Law School has been speaking out on the Russian arbitration treaty and described the Senate as silly. In reality, the Senate saved the situation for President Taft because Taft would have had to veto the House resolution. The clergy and peace associations have frightened several Senators but Senator Lodge expects that a ratification resolution will be part of the treaty.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-27

Senator Lodge enjoyed Theodore Roosevelt’s letter to Mr. Bloomer. He has been receiving “extraordinary” letters regarding the arbitration treaties–sentimental letters from clergy and self-interested letters from businessmen. Lodge does not expect the treaties to pass without some sort of ratifying resolution. The difficulties with the treaties started with a “loose speech” from President Taft followed by a “loose treaty” crafted without consulting the Senate. Taft then blamed the Senate, leading to division within the Republican Party and damage to the cause of peace.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-21

Arthur F. Young, an undergraduate student, sends Theodore Roosevelt his oration on international peace, which expresses the opinion of the majority of the collegiate body.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-11

John Temple Graves invites Theodore Roosevelt to attend the upcoming Peace Banquet. Roosevelt’s attendance will ensure it is successful.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-08

Peder O. Evensen believes President William H. Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox need to “press the peace plan to European nations”; otherwise, they “shall forget their promises.” He is certain that war between European nations will occur. Evensen comments on the “standpatters” and their dishonorable reliance on the nation having money rather than armaments. 

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-30

Joseph P. O’Mahony thanks Theodore Roosevelt for defending American interests in a recent article on international peace. He recalls a warning from President Harrison about arbitration and criticizes President Taft, praising Roosevelt’s strong stance.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-08

Hermann Schoenfeld praises and exalts Theodore Roosevelt. He and Count Maximilian Von Seckendorff are conducting the American correspondence for the Wolff Telegraphisches Bureau and have had the pleasure of translating and commenting on Roosevelt’s words since January.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-27

Sinclair Lewis asks Theodore Roosevelt to provide a note to James Brown Scott approving the application to the Carnegie Peace Fund to bring British peace poet Alfred Noyes on a lecture tour of the United States.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-04-22

Cyrus H. Street sends Theodore Roosevelt a pamphlet of his promoting the peace movement, and asks for his endorsement of the plan it details.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03-27

Theodore Marburg invites Theodore Roosevelt to preside at a session of the Third National Peace Congress and make an address. Marburg explains the aim of the congress to be the settlement of international disputes without recourse to war, and highlights some facts about the previous similar congresses held.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03-01

Oscar S. Straus briefly tells Theodore Roosevelt about his recent experience speaking at the Peace Banquet. When he mentioned Roosevelt’s name, the assembled participants applauded. Straus regrets that he differs in opinion from Roosevelt regarding arbitration treaties, but felt that it “would have been false to [his] training under [Roosevelt] to have abandoned the position which [he] regarded as right.” Straus hopes to see Roosevelt soon, but has not come to see him yet out of respect for Roosevelt’s schedule.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-01-04

Creator(s)

Straus, Oscar S. (Oscar Solomon), 1850-1926

In a letter to an unspecified party, Columbia University President Butler speaks about how organizer of the Association for International Conciliation baron Paul-Henri-Benjamin Balluet Estournelles de Constant has requested Butler’s help organizing public relations in regards to the agency. He states that it is particularly desirable for the American representatives at the upcoming Hague Conference to be able to rely upon “instructed and sympathetic public opinion.” Butler asks for the recipient’s opinion on who should be asked to join a related committee.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-05

Acting Secretary of State Adee writes to Benjamin F. Barnes, acting secretary to the President, enclosing a copy of a dispatch telling who will make up the Japanese Peace Commission for the discussions between Japan and Russia.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-07-27

Blank petition including both a protest by the Lucretia Mott Children’s Peace Band, and room for signatures. The organization protests against a white-bordered flag of the United States being used as a Peace Flag, and asks that if the national government authorize a Peace Flag, it create one that all nations “would in time accept as International and Universal.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-03-10

List of unknown origin titled “American Members of the League for International Conciliation,” enclosed with a letter created by Nobel Prize winner Nicholas Murray Butler. Andrew Carnegie and Andrew D. White are listed as “Honorary Presidents,” 12 people are listed under “Council of Direction,” and 46 people are listed as “Members.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-05

A quoted passage from Charles Dickens’s “Proposals for Amusing Posterity” muses about the possibility of combative people forming a “Society for Declaiming about Peace,” where by highlighting the horrors of war they convince their own nation to arm themselves in order to prevent being attacked. Dickens says that this would be “the very best joke we could hope to have in our whole Complete Jest-Book for Posterity.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-03-02