Your TR Source
Marie Sassone, on behalf of the Christian Endeavor Society of the Cuyler Presbyterian Church, asks Theodore Roosevelt if he would be able to come to their meeting on Monday evening and speak about some kind of topic related to Africa.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09
J. Hampton Moore invites Theodore Roosevelt to attend the Fourth Annual Convention of the Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association in Richmond, Virginia, and encourages him to speak in support of inland waterways.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-14
Joseph Barondess invites Theodore Roosevelt to attend and speak at the dedication of the David Kessler Second Avenue Theatre, highlighting its significance as the first major theater for Jewish drama and its philanthropic purpose.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-14
Octavia K. Young asks Theodore Roosevelt to speak at a missionary convention in Indianapolis, and offers to cover travel expenses and provide an honorarium. Young also invites Mrs. Roosevelt and hopes he will mention mission work in Africa.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-12
Silas McBee tells Theodore Roosevelt he spoke about Roosevelt’s public life, praised his Outlook article, enclosed an advance proof and Senator Lodge’s letter, and noted an item on Sir Horace’s work in Ireland.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-12
James S. Heberling asks Theodore Roosevelt to speak at the celebration of Founder’s Day in October.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-12
John T. Cotner asks Theodore Roosevelt to deliver a lecture in Lima, Ohio, on behalf of the citizens and the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, offering the use of Memorial Hall and stating that his visit would be considered a great honor.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-12
Harvey L. Simmonds asks Theodore Roosevelt to support Fisk University by recommending it to potential donors, speaking to influential philanthropists, and visiting the school to address the students.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-12
William H. Cooke asks Theodore Roosevelt to speak in Wichita, Kansas, for Traveling Men’s Day during the city’s Fall Festivities.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-11
Theodore Newton Vail invites Theodore Roosevelt to speak at a statewide Columbus Day celebration in Austin, Texas, on October 12, 1911, organized by the Knights of Columbus and supported by the Texas Legislature.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-11
Roy A. Haynes asks Theodore Roosevelt to attend and speak at the Hillsboro Chautauqua during the week of August 12–18, 1912, highlighting the event’s role in promoting public thinking in rural communities and noting Hillsboro’s historic significance and past distinguished speakers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-11
Frederick V. Fisher sends Theodore Roosevelt a program from the first session of the Utah Chautauqua and expresses regret that Roosevelt could not participate. He invites Roosevelt to speak at the next session in July 1912, assuring him of a warm welcome. Fisher also references his recent Outlook article on the Mormon situation, noting both criticism from church authorities and support from local Utah residents.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-11
John Barber White expresses to Theodore Roosevelt his hope that he will speak at the Third National Conservation Congress in Kansas City, referencing a letter he sent to Bernard Nadal Baker and noting Baker’s involvement on the committee. White offers to arrange a special day for Roosevelt and consult with him on the program.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-09
John W. Vrooman praises President Roosevelt for his style of governance and both his public and private behaviors, referencing Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Webster. Vrooman recounts a speech in which he described the President as someone with a “big heart, big brain, and big purpose, who stands today the central figure of the civilized world.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-01-30
President Roosevelt stands at a flag-draped podium on the right, pointing to two men on the left, each with a foot on a female figure labeled “Law” lying on the ground. One man has papers labeled “Dishonest Corporations” and the other has papers labeled “Union Tyranny” and notes extending from his pockets labeled “Bribe” and “Graft.” On the front of the podium at which Roosevelt stands is a quotation: “If alive to their true interests, rich and poor alike will set their faces like flint against the spirit which seeks personal advantage by overriding the laws, without regard to whether this spirit shows itself in the form of bodily violence by one set of men or in the form of vulpine cunning by another set of men.” – President Roosevelt’s Speech, Sept. 7.
Theodore Roosevelt, before during, and after his presidency was consistent on issues of the day — remarkably so, in that without citation of time and place, historians can be challenged to attribute many of his pronouncements as being from his twenties or then end of his life.
The remarks quoted in Keppler’s cartoon can have no truer application of this considerate of Roosevelt’s policies. He opposed unfair dominance in society at large, or in local controversies, by either labor or capital from their status alone. He consistently held that favor to, say, the middle class, implied prejudice against other strata in society. Roosevelt frequently stated that the sin of envy is as sinful as that of greed.
Consequently this cartoon by Keppler illustrates a portion of President Roosevelt’s speech on the subject, delivered on September 7, 1903. It also encapsulates Roosevelt’s larger view of public policy over his entire career. The drawing, employing the tools of cartoon iconography — dollar signs; scowls; extravagant attire — cements the point.
President Roosevelt sits at a desk that is overwhelmed with papers requiring his immediate attention. Reaching through the stacks of paper is a large hand labeled “Public Receptions.” Caption: How long shall the senseless hand-shaking custom take our busiest citizen from his real duties?
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1902-02-05
William Jennings Bryan plays a drum labeled “Populism” while standing on a hatch labeled “Chicago Platform” on a ship that is going up in flames and billowing clouds of dark smoke labeled “Defeat 1896” and “Defeat 1900.” His hat is labeled “Free Silver” and a broken strap on the drum states “16 to 1.” Caption: The boy stood on the burning deck / From which all Democrats had fled; / The flames that lit the battle’s wreck / Shone ’round him o’er the dead. (Mr. Bryan says he is still standing on the Chicago Platform. – Roanoke, Va., speech).
A seemingly minor detail in this cartoon and caption is dispositive about the positions and popularity of William Jennings Bryan in 1901. Dalrymple calls upon famous lines from an otherwise-forgotten poem by a relatively obscure British poet of the 1820s, Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Casabianca. “The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone ’round him near the dead.” The first line. in Dalrymple’s time and ours, has lived as an allusion: people who are too blind, or blindly dedicated, to realize the destruction inherent in their stubbornness. The main point might be found in Bryan’s reference to the “Chicago Platform.” He had twice lost the presidency, soundly, yet it was not the recent (1900) platform to which he clung, but the five-year-old “Cross of Gold,” free-silver fever that overtook the 1896 Democrat convention. Had he learned a political lesson? By 1904 he quietly had softened his myopic attention to Populist economics, but, on the other hand, did not receive a third nomination.
Theodore Roosevelt thanks William G. Dwight for the invitation to speak. However, he receives many similar requests and cannot accept them as they drain his time.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-01-13
Theodore Roosevelt thanks Colin K. Urquhart for the invitation to speak. However, he receives many similar requests and cannot accept them as they drain his time.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-01-11