Your TR Source
Robert MacKay Cadell informs Theodore Roosevelt he plans to visit New York and hopes the two of them can talk about Liberia. Cadell also wants William H. Taft’s opinion, but only after hearing Roosevelt’s views first. Cadell invites Roosevelt to visit Scotland anytime.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-03
Editor Albert Shaw holds himself responsible for everything that appears in his magazine, The American Monthly Review of Reviews, but says that he was absent when Dr. John J. Cronin’s article, “The Doctor in the Public School,” was approved. He agrees that the paragraph about race suicide should not have been published.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-04-06
Senator Albert J. Beveridge requests the number of African Americans President Roosevelt has appointed during his presidency, as well as a short account of the three or four “bitter fights that have been made against him on account of some of these appointments.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-20
Judge Speer provides historical justification for President Roosevelt’s actions in the Brownsville affair, involving the mass dishonorable discharge of African American soldiers, citing George Washington’s similar discharge of rowdy troops. Speer also mentions the Raid on Deerfield during Queen Anne’s War and the siege of Magdeburg during the Thirty Years’ War. Speer disagrees with Senator Tillman’s assessment that Roosevelt “lynched” the discharged soldiers, as did the editorial boards of several prominent Georgia newspapers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-01-14
William Morrow asks Assistant Attorney General McReynolds to convince President Roosevelt to tour the South. Morrow does not believe that Roosevelt is advocating social equality with African Americans. Morrow claims that he and others happily associate with African Americans without the question of social equality being raised.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-09
Governor Vardaman angrily criticizes President Roosevelt for taking action against the white citizens of Indianola, Mississippi, after they forced black postmaster Minnie M. Geddings Cox to resign from her post.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-01-10
Racist poem likely in response to President Roosevelt hosting Booker T. Washington at the White House. A caption with the article states, “Publications like this show something of what is the matter with Missouri.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902
In this excerpt from a paper read at a recent meeting, George N. Tillman, a Southern Republican, comments on the personal popularity of President Roosevelt which helped him win re-election to the presidency, overcoming people’s concern that he might act rashly on various matters. Tillman then discusses the relations between the races, and asserts that Roosevelt surely does not intend that blacks and whites should intermingle socially, as he “is blue blood himself, with a Southern strain.” Tillman argues for uplift of blacks through education, without social interaction and intermarriage, which means the “ruin of both races.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-05
The article summarizes reactions to President Roosevelt’s success in the recent national election as published in newspapers from cities in the South. This clipping was mailed from New York City by Nicholas Murray Butler, who identified the newspaper as The Globe.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-15
This article discusses a quote from Henry S. Barker, a prominent African American in Washington, who lauds how African Americans were treated at the Republican Convention and says that if Theodore Roosevelt is elected president, African Americans will demand that Booker T. Washington be the Republican candidate for vice president in 1908. The article says that Democrats will resent the “threat” made in the letter and that the South should stand together for white supremacy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-07-28
Theodore Roosevelt asks Harry Pratt Judson, president of the University of Chicago, to look over the manuscript, Military Morale of Nations and Races, written by Captain Charles Young, “the only officer in the United States Army who is a colored man.” Roosevelt praises Young as an excellent officer with scholarly aptitude. Roosevelt feels Young’s manuscript ought to be published and hopes the University of Chicago Press will consider it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-27
President Roosevelt received Governor Gillett’s letter. He is very concerned about the rumor that California will ban Japanese children from attending public school. This would be “most offensive” and unconstitutional, and Roosevelt wonders if the bill can be stopped by vote in the legislature.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-04
President Roosevelt agrees with William Kent, and outlines the foreign policy stance he believes the United States should follow in its relationship with Japan. Roosevelt has come to see the matter of Japanese workers immigrating to the United States as “a race question.” He believes that Japanese citizens should not be permitted to settle permanently in America. However, Roosevelt does not want to provoke a war by offending the “sensitive” Japanese government and population. Current legislation in California and Nevada banning Japanese children from public schools frustrates him, because it is offensive to Japan and does not prevent immigration. Roosevelt wants to forbid Japanese immigration while treating the Japanese government politely and continuing to build up the American navy. He seconds Kent’s view that Japanese laborers should not work on Hawaiian sugar plantations. Roosevelt would prefer to send laborers from Spain, Portugal, or Italy, who could become naturalized United States citizens.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-04
President Roosevelt agrees with Frederic Remington that Japanese immigration to America should be prevented. However, he is frustrated by certain politicians like California’s Senator George C. Perkins who are trying to implement policies that insult the Japanese government and do nothing to prevent immigration. Roosevelt is working towards a solution that will preserve peaceful relations with Japan.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-07
President Roosevelt has received Secretary of War Wright’s letter and Mr. Brown’s report on the Brownsville Affair. Roosevelt concurs with Wright that this report does not need to be sent to Congress. Roosevelt observes that the report uses the testimony of “the colored men themselves” to establish that it was “colored soldiers” who were responsible for the shootings. In particular, the report’s findings make it clear to Roosevelt that Mingo Sanders should not be reinstated. This material will be made available to the board making decisions about reinstatement if the Senate legislation on the matter passes, and to the president if the board approves any reinstatements.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-07
President Roosevelt advises Senator Knox, who will be president-elect William H. Taft’s secretary of state, on the importance and fragility of the relationship between the United States and Japan. Roosevelt explains why he believes that there is a real possibility that Japan will declare war on the United States, although this is by no means certain. Currently, many Americans are pursuing ineffectual and offensive strategies in an effort to prevent Japanese immigration to the United States. Roosevelt supports their goal but not their means. In Hawaii, meanwhile, Roosevelt disapproves of sugar planters encouraging large numbers of settlers from China and Japan to come work on their plantations. Roosevelt feels that the settlement of Hawaii by individuals from Southern Europe should be encouraged. His more general policy is threefold. He wants the government to prevent Japanese citizens from settling in America, while treating Japan “so courteously that she will not be offended more than necessary,” and building up the navy as a preventative measure. Although the value of this policy should be self-evident, Americans “are shortsighted and have short memories.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-08
President Roosevelt has received the tables of census data from William Sidney Rossiter, which he thinks are “rather melancholy.” He believes they suggest that by the middle of the century, the population of the “civilized races” will have stopped increasing. However, he notes that it is possible that by then the country will have been “aroused to the moral side of the matter,” and that trend will have changed.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-19
President Roosevelt outlines and refutes the falsehoods in Alfred Holt Stone’s Studies in the American Race Problem. He tells John Graham Brooks that he judges a work’s reliability by seeing what it says about a subject he is familiar with, and then deciding if he can trust it on things that he does not know as much about. He explains that Stone is spreading falsehoods about the so-called “referee” system in the Southern states, especially Mississippi. Roosevelt points out that the practice was common with presidents before him, and that it is necessary in areas where the Republican party does not have a strong enough presence to provide good appointees to positions. He also discusses his handling of the case of African American postmistress Minnie M. Geddings Cox, who was forced by an angry mob to resign her position and leave town.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-11-13
President Roosevelt agrees that Andrew Dickson White’s suggestion may become necessary, but is also ready to confront Japan on the matter of Japanese immigration and foreign workers on the American Pacific Coast. Roosevelt believes that there “is no difference between American and Japanese gentlemen and scholars,” but acknowledges that American workers are angered “to the point of madness.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-04
President Roosevelt confidentially tells Walter D. Mansfield that relations with Japan are being damaged by the prejudiced actions in California, which are producing corresponding feelings in Japan.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-07