Your TR Source
President Roosevelt urges Secretary of War Root to have the Surgeon General investigate the publication of reports by surgeons in the Philippines about state regulation of prostitution and other topics.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-03-15
Charles C. Bull writes to Theodore Roosevelt about progress on the Panama Canal construction, which he says is going well. He states his opinion that though he opposes “white slaves traffic,” as by law women cannot be brought across country lines for “immoral” purposes, he says there is a problem in Panama where there are too many canal workers and too few prostitutes, and the prostitutes that are there have venereal diseases. Bull thinks there needs to be a way to bring (specifically white) prostitutes who have freely chosen the vocation to Panama and to have better health monitoring. He discusses San Francisco politics and greater U.S. politics, stating he will not support William H. Taft and he does not think the Republican Party will do well the next couple of terms, so he hopes the Democratic Party runs a presidential candidate he does not dislike too much so he does not have to vote Socialist. Lastly, he believes part of the Panama Canal construction area is not well fortified and is vulnerable to potential attack.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-10-14
The spirits of alcoholism, opium dens, prostitution, gambling, and street crime, as well as the figure of Death, issue from a tenement house. Caption: Not only an evil in itself, but the vice, crime and disease it breeds invade the homes of rich and poor alike.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1901-03-20
Theodore Roosevelt does not remember ever having visited nor ordered any man to visit different states investigating prostitution. The Chicago report of white slave traffic is against some of the measures that Roosevelt knows George M. Frink supports.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-05-26
President Roosevelt instructs Secretary of War Taft to revoke the promotion of Field Artillery officer Clarence Northrup Jones on the grounds of both his physical condition and his moral conduct. He asks for another investigation into Jones’s conduct.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-13
President Roosevelt thanks Ambassador Reid for some clippings he has sent, and says that he finds Sydney Brooks’ criticisms of American policy in the Philippines to be expected, but finds the current situation preferable to the British administration of Malaysia. Roosevelt also finds the distinctions drawn by The London Times between treatments of Japanese workers at the hands of Americans and Australians to “have a certain comic side.” Roosevelt cannot say what Secretary of War William H. Taft will do, but he hopes Taft will come directly home after traveling through Russia.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-10-25
Victor Mironko informs Judge Joseph F. Mulqueen that he is being threatened by a group of “white slave traders” due to his knowledge of their buying and selling of young girls nationally and internationally into prostitution. He has contacted several officials who have done nothing. Mironko wants to share his information with Mulqueen or a grand jury.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-08-25
Engebret H. Sund greatly admires Theodore Roosevelt and hopes he will be elected as president. He heard that during his administration, Roosevelt instituted an investigation into the social conditions of Chicago, Illinois, which reported 100,000 female prostitutes. Sund hopes Roosevelt has time to give more information on this.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-08-18
J. Ernest Paxson shares several anecdotes that he feel serve as examples disagreeing with Theodore Roosevelt’s recent editorial in the Outlook on “White Slavery.” Several women Paxson interacted with seemed to be in poor circumstances through their own choices, and did not take offers of help to remove them from their situation. He also comments briefly on socialists.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-16
George K. Frink asks Theodore Roosevelt his opinion of the Municipal Clinic in San Francisco. The clinic medically examines and segregates prostitutes.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-05-15
Roy T. Wilkes knows “something of the white slave traders and moon shine business,” and would like to speak to Theodore Roosevelt about it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-25
William R. Harr has investigated the charges against United States Attorney Robert W. Breckons that have been brought by E. W. Thwing, and gives Attorney General Bonaparte a thorough report of his findings. Harr addresses both Breckons’s personal character and his professional involvements and associations. Harr concludes that while he believes Breckons has worked efficiently and well, “his desire to serve his friends and increase his fortune has led him into a number of acts of questionable propriety and into some of unquestionable impropriety.” Harr understands from Breckons that he does not plan to stay in his position much longer, as the workload has increased to such a degree as to prevent additional private practice, which is necessary to supplement the income from the government position due to the high cost of living in Hawaii.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-12-01
Senator Lodge returns some letters from Prescott F. Hall to President Roosevelt and reports on his findings regarding Hall’s allegations. Lodge’s Commision on Immigration found that appeal reversals did not increase under Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar S. Straus. Lodge has found no proof that Leslie M. Shaw’s personal views have affected governmental operations. Lodge has visited Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and can find no evidence of what Hall alleges. Lodge found evidence of immigration enforcement corruption in California, but believes it has been remedied. In Chicago, Lodge found evidence of police corruption in enforcing laws against prostitution. In the southern states, Lodge has found problems with nepotism. Lodge emphasizes that it will take a great deal of time to collect evidence and create reports of his investigations. Lodge is pleased to hear of President Roosevelt’s African safari plans, but warns him to be careful of flies carrying sleeping sickness. He writes about the impressive dike engineering in the Netherlands, and of a book by Maurice Maeterlinck he believes the Roosevelts will enjoy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-07-26
Maria Lydia Winkler unsuccessfully tried to arrange a meeting with President Roosevelt through the German embassy, but was encouraged by Commissioner General of Immigration Frank P. Sargent to contact Roosevelt through William Loeb. She shares an invitation of the German National Committee for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic to organize a similar committee in the United States and join the international congress. Many social purity societies in the United States have expressed their support for the plan, and Winkler hopes that a representative of the Bureau of Immigration would be allowed to be connected with the movement.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-31
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1884 to December 1891. Notable events include the deaths of Alice Lee Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s time on his ranch, the completion of Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Edith Kermit Carow, Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt’s birth, the “Great-Dieup” of cattle in North Dakota, and the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Moore, Robert J. (Robert John), 1956-; Theodore Roosevelt Association
In her draft of a speech in response to her trial on The Woman Rebel dissemination, Margaret Sanger discusses social problems and the manner in which birth control can address these issues and help the working class. Sanger critiques anti-obscenity laws and the notion of birth control education as pornography. She asks whether former President Roosevelt is truly moral for encouraging large families and she is immoral for encouraging small families. Sanger also addresses the charge that her article concerning an assassination attempt incited murder. She includes quotations from well-known ancient orators and writers and also from Roosevelt, claiming that if these writings on assassination are not accused of inciting murder, she should not be accused of such either.
The Margaret Sanger Papers Project
1916-01
Theodore Roosevelt returns to Edith Wyatt a manuscript about the exploitation of women, “the saddest, and most perplexing, problem we have to face.” He laments that merely abolishing brothels and professional prostitution is not adequate, as evidenced in Sweden and in Vermont, where there is “lamentably widespread sexual immorality, and self-sale of the most callous kind” by women raised in respectable homes. Roosevelt comments that he was taught that chastity was as much the duty of the man as the woman. He abhors excusing the man and letting the blame fall on women. Roosevelt hopes to help through organizations such as the Salvation Army.
1912-12-15
On the left, a “New York Police” officer accepts money from a woman’s hand extending from a window labeled “N.Y. Den.” At right, a man labeled “U.S. Senate” accepts “Stock” from a hand extending from a window labeled “Trusts.” Both men are leaning on a solid pedestal labeled with a large “$” and the word “Protection.”
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1894-08-01
Many young women try to find space on a raft labeled “Living Wages” in a stormy sea labeled “Sea of Want” that is infested with sharks labeled “Prostitution” and “Disease.” A ship labeled “The Home” sails away in the background beneath storm clouds labeled “Misfortune.” Caption: While there are more applicants than jobs the working-girls’ grim struggle will continue.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1913-04-09
A woman wearing a red dress, holding money, stands between the “Health Department Bureau of Licences and Inspection” and an opening in a wall labeled “Graft.” In a cut-away showing the scene behind the “Graft,” the man (probably a plainclothes officer) who collects the money through the opening in the wall is passing money to a uniformed officer, who in turn passes the money to a large hand (probably that of a politician) entering the frame from above. It is a wild scene with a woman lying on a table, the body of a man stabbed to death beneath the table, a man rolling dice, others drinking, and a shooting taking place in the background. While the woman in red hesitates, the implication is that she has no choice but to pay the graft. Caption: She is here. Man is responsible for her. His laws against her and her traffic but afford opportunity for police extortion. You know this. You may wince at the idea of “regulation,” but is not regulation preferable to the vilest forms of graft? Of two evils, must the greater be chosen?
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1913-01-15