Phillips, David Graham, 1867-1911 Archives

Letter from Henry Cabot Lodge to Theodore Roosevelt

Senator Lodge shares some of a letter from Secretary of the Immigration Commission, Morton E. Crane, in which Crane discusses the positive feelings of the citizens of London toward President Roosevelt’s economic policies, as well as the friendship between Indiana Senator Albert J. Beveridge and David Graham Phillips, author of The Treason of the Senate. Lodge also shares segments from Baron F. A. Channing’s essay on the Union, which Roosevelt may want to quote.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-02

Creator(s)

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 1850-1924

Letter from Albert J. Beveridge to Theodore Roosevelt

Senator Beveridge satirically describes to President Roosevelt the scene after Senator Joseph Benson Foraker was unusually “nervy” in response to Roosevelt’s address, most likely at the Gridiron Club Dinner at the New Willard Hotel. Beveridge points to the irony in journalist David Graham Phillips’s and Senator William Lorimer’s attack on his own comments about Foraker.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-01-27

Creator(s)

Beveridge, Albert J. (Albert Jeremiah), 1862-1927

Letter from Alfred Henry Lewis to Theodore Roosevelt

Alfred Henry Lewis lets President Roosevelt know that he arranged for journalist David Graham Phillips to be at the same dining event as Roosevelt, and Phillips is eagerly looking forward to meeting Roosevelt. In confidence, Lewis also shares some amusing remarks Phillips has made about various prominent personalities in Washington, D.C.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-01-24

Creator(s)

Lewis, Alfred Henry, 1857-1914

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Kermit Roosevelt

President Roosevelt writes his son Kermit about how long he thinks Congress will be in session and the status of some of his bills. Roosevelt says that despite attacks from various groups and people, he has done a good job of getting his legislation through. He also adds that his ankle is still preventing him from exercising.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1906-06-17

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Kermit Roosevelt

President Roosevelt will see his son, Kermit Roosevelt, around the Fourth of July, but does not believe he will be able to get away before then because of the schedule of Congress. Roosevelt has not been able to exercise much because of an injured ankle, but has put in plenty of work on various pieces of legislation. He remarks that the presidency is certainly a place to learn to keep his temper, as he is frequently attacked from every side of the political spectrum.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-17

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyman Abbott

President Roosevelt emphasizes that he wrote to Lyman Abbott because he trusts the Outlook more than other periodicals, listing a number of other problems and biases he sees in other prominent periodicals. Roosevelt thinks they should make it clear that “we war on the evil of human nature, whether shown in the labor man or the capitalist,” and illustrates this statement by describing how he is fighting both against capitalist organizations in enforcing government inspection of meat packing plants, as well as fighting labor unions in his prosecution of Charles H. Moyer and Big Bill Haywood, who have been accused of the assassination of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho. Both sides, in their respective cases, claim to want justice while working to prevent it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-18

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Finley Peter Dunne

President Roosevelt sends Finley Peter Dunne three cheers, and asks him to come visit soon. Roosevelt remarks that at some point he must “have a serious talk with you about some of your present associates,” such as William Randolph Hearst or David Graham Phillips. Roosevelt wishes that “the men who profess to be most sensitive about evil conditions in public life and in the business world would themselves refrain from at least those grosser forms of wrong-doing which range from slander of what is decent to the advertisement, and therefore support, of what is indecent.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-06-18

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George Horace Lorimer

After talking with George Horace Lorimer, President Roosevelt went back and read The Plum Tree through all the way, after previously having read only half of it. The ending of the book reconciles Roosevelt to many of the problems he had with it throughout, but he still holds many issues with the book which he lays out for Lorimer. The author, David Graham Phillips, falls into the trap of overstating the sort of corruption that is present in politics, and while Roosevelt freely admits that corruption is present–which, he points out, he is working against–there are also many good people working in politics as well. In a postscript of several days later, Roosevelt comments on several of Phillips’s articles on the Senate, in which he acts similarly by taking “certain facts that are true in themselves, and […] ignoring utterly a very much large mass of facts that are just as true and just as important.” Roosevelt criticizes Phillips for working with William Randolph Hearst to achieve notoriety.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-12

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Owen Wister

President Roosevelt had recently finished Owen Wister’s book Lady Baltimore, and sends Wister his thoughts and criticisms of the work. While he enjoyed the story, Roosevelt believes the book is unfairly critical of northerners and uncritical of southerners. Similarly, Roosevelt points out that while the book lauds the past at the expense of the present, there are many examples of violence, brutality, greed, and other vices in the past. Roosevelt also remarks on the status of African-Americans, and while he agrees with Wister in certain regards, believes the work has gone too far in the racist stereotypes. He hopes that Wister will be able to visit him soon. In a postscript, Roosevelt mentions a number of other books he has read or is reading that similarly make readers “feel that there is no use of trying to reform anything because everything is so rotten that the whole social structure should either be let alone or destroyed.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-04-27

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to John Brisben Walker

President Roosevelt will meet John Brisben Walker to discuss “the causes which work to the disadvantage of the people” in the government, but does not want to be quoted either directly or indirectly. He adds that the “most potent” cause that disadvantages the public is the way that certain writers and journalists write about the causes.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-02-05

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Roosevelt after muck rake men

President Roosevelt has had meetings with journalists looking to expose public graft and corruption, but has become frustrated with them because of their “unbridled license and unfair denunciation” of many people in public office which has failed to have any merit. Roosevelt is expected to speak out against these sorts of accusations at his Decoration Day speech to the Army and Navy Union at Norfolk, Virginia. The author expects Roosevelt to speak regarding his own belief that most people are honest, and to challenge the writers who have attacked people in public office, despite the fact that his own administration has not been the target of these journalists.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-04-07

Creator(s)

Raymond