Reed, John, 1887-1920

Theodore Roosevelt is much obliged to French Ambassador Jusserand for his two letters, the first one of which he has sent to John Reed. Roosevelt is familiar with Joseph Bédier’s “striking” pamphlet, and he is glad that Jusserand liked his recent article in Metropolitan. Roosevelt is not pleased about Senator Beveridge’s letters from Germany. As to what Jusserand said about Uncle Sam having no friends, Roosevelt does not believe that Uncle Sam is entitled to have friends “so long as his government representatives carry neutrality to the point of being neutral between right and wrong.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1915-03-29

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Theodore Roosevelt is concerned by what he has learned from Carl Hovey. Roosevelt tends to believe John Reed’s letter and debates how Ambassador J. J. Jusserand should proceed in the matter. The controversy involves Robert Steel Dunn being at the front as a neutral war correspondent. Dunn fired two shots from the German trenches into the French trenches.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1915-03-13

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Theodore Roosevelt has met with John Reed and believes that Reed is remorseful for firing a rifle on the front lines. Reed simply shot into the night and it is practically impossible that anyone was hit. Ethically, Roosevelt believes that Reed’s actions are pardonable. Practically, Reed cannot now be given permission to visit the French front lines. Roosevelt regrets that nothing else can be done as the writing and drawings of Reed and Boardman Robinson would have been valuable. He was touched by Reed’s description of the French suffering under German rule. At Reed’s request, Roosevelt asks that the full case be placed before the French government for their consideration. He also asks if there would be any French objections against Reed being a war correspondent in Russia.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1915-03-15

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

The “Book Reviews” section features three essays. In “‘The Negatives Are the Score the Prints Are the Performance,” Chris Foster examines Side Trips: The Photography of Sumner W. Matteson, 1898-1908. Foster looks at the development of photography equipment, especially Kodak cameras, notes the various locations in the American West, Mexico, and Cuba that Matteson documented, and pays particular attention to Matteson’s photographs of Native Americans and their culture. A photograph of a buffalo, a copy of which Matteson sent to President Theodore Roosevelt, accompanies the review and is the only illustration in the section.

In “A Tribute to George E. Mowry,” John Robert Greene reviews Reform and the Reformer in the Progressive Era.” Greene examines each of the essays in this tribute to George E. Mowry, a historian of the Progressive age, and finds a number of them disappointing, but he reserves special praise for an essay that provides an overview of Mowry’s career and for the transcript of an interview with Mowry from 1980.

John A. Gable reviews Peggy and Harold Samuels’s Frederic Remington: A Biography in “Remington’s West.” Gable notes the importance of Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister to forming Americans’ view of the frontier West, and he catalogs many of Remington’s illustrations, paintings, and sculptures, some of which belonged to Roosevelt. Gable pushes back against some of the criticism that the Samuels compile against Remington, and he notes Roosevelt’s admiration for the artist.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal