Your TR Source
On behalf of Theodore Roosevelt, his secretary asks Henry Squire what happened to the two rifles he loaned for exhibition.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-04-21
President Roosevelt congratulates Lieutenant Rothrock on winning the national individual match. A great responsibility for protecting the country falls on citizen soldiers like Rothrock. Even though rifles are not used in service, possessing such expert knowledge of shooting is crucial for instructing others.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-09-26
President Roosevelt congratulates Lieutenant Harris on his victory in the Military Rifle Championship. Although Roosevelt has also written to the two other winners, Harris’s high aggregate displays a superior excellence. Roosevelt believes all officers should be able to shoot with a rifle, especially infantry and cavalry officers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-09-26
Theodore Roosevelt will loan the Kit Carson’s rifle that Roosevelt received from General Beale for use in the exhibit and reserves the right to take back the item if he wishes. Roosevelt is also willing to let George Bird Grinnell use his buckskin shirt for the exhibit temporarily.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-07-19
James Andrew Drain writes to President Roosevelt as president of the National Rifle Association. Drain shares his goals for the organization, which include the promotion of rifle practice. Drain would like Roosevelt to become a lifetime member of the NRA and to send a letter suitable for publication that endorses the objects and purposes of the Association.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-16
Assistant Secretary of State Loomis encloses a copy of a letter from Mulai Ali acknowledging rifles that were given to Ali and his brothers in recognition of their services in securing the release of Ion Hanford Perdicaris.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-06-12
George E. Hodson is shipping President Roosevelt a Winchester rifle Model ’86 at the request of Nathaniel Henchman Davis.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-05-19
A scarecrow in a corn field, labeled “Nomination,” is fashioned out of pieces of cloth labeled with the names of several states: “Indiana, Illinois, Mass., Mich., Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, West Virginia, [and] New Jersey.” It wears a sash labeled “Repudiation.” Standing in the background is a farmer wearing a hat labeled “Democracy” and carrying a rifle labeled “Nat’l. Convention.” A crow labeled “Bryan,” with the face of William Jennings Bryan, is sitting on a fence, eyeing the corn field. Caption: The Democratic Farmer — If that doesn’t keep him out, I’ve got something here that’ll fix him.
Pughe’s clever cartoon (and brilliant caricature) proved prescient, less than a year before the 1904 Democrat presidential nominating convention. The party (labeled “Democracy”) is depicted, in rare form, by a farmer rather than a donkey or animal form. His weapon to keep the crow Bryan from his field — if the ragtag scarecrow-of-states failed to repel the crow, is a shotgun labeled “National Convention.”
Indeed in 1904 it would be conservative back-benchers who stifled another move to nominate Bryan another (third) time, and they engineered the nomination of the obscure Judge Alton Brooks Parker. And a platform was adopted that moved the party away from Bryan’s economic views and populist proposals.
An elephant labeled G.O.P. holds a double-barrel shotgun in its trunk, pointed toward itself. The barrels are labeled “Trust Issue Tariff Reform” and “1904.”
Likely without knowing it, Puck and cartoonist J. S. Pughe exactly pictured the conscious policy of President Theodore Roosevelt. For a generation, the political parties had tinkered with the tariff and import duties. Seeking to please various segments of industry, or farming interests, or interest groups with their own agendas, the tariff had become a bugaboo that often turned and “bit” the parties passing new laws and rates.
Roosevelt was disinclined to do any such thing; besides, the economy was healthy and there seemed no need to threaten a rosy electoral prospect of the Republican Party. Finally, Roosevelt admitted to largely being flummoxed by economic matters, and was loathe to engage in such debates.
Reproduction of a photograph of the Marquis de Morès from an interpretive exhibit in the South Unit visitor center of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
1882-1890
President Roosevelt, holding rifle, while mounted on horse.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1905-04-22
Members of the United States Colored Troops at Port Hudson, Louisiana. The men stand in uniform clutching their rifles.
Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial
1863
Theodore Roosevelt needs a license for his firearms and assumes he needs to apply with the Secretary of State. He asks Edward Lazansky for a license for himself, Kermit Roosevelt, Archibald B. Roosevelt, James Amos, and Charles Les.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-15
Theodore Roosevelt writes Henry C. Squires about the double-barreled Holland .450 and Springfield rifles sent to Squires for cleaning eight months ago. Roosevelt has been inconvenienced and asks that Squires send the rifles “back at once.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-25
President Roosevelt requests the enclosed letter be given to R. J. Cunninghame, whom Frederick Courteney Selous has hired to manage his caravan in Africa. Cunninghame should be given anything he wants from Newland, Tarlton & Company.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-01-31
President Roosevelt writes Edward North Buxton about several points regarding his upcoming safari in Africa. In particular, he discusses what to use to boil water, his physical condition and skill with a rifle, and whether or not it is a good idea to bring his son Kermit with him.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-01-05
Theodore Roosevelt asks Major-General Wood to help Emerson Hough purchase a modern Springfield Armory rifle.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1916-06-30
Theodore Roosevelt expresses to author and journalist Irving Bacheller his relief to hear another American criticize President Woodrow Wilson and his brand of preparedness. He predicts the army will be ill-prepared compared to other armies, using the metaphor of muzzle-loading muskets going up against high-powered rifles. According to Roosevelt, Wilson’s efforts at preparedness fall very short, especially considering American men, women, and children continue to be murdered while at sea.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1916-02-07
Theodore Roosevelt supports George Wood Wingate’s plan for an organization in America supporting rifle shooting, like the groups in Switzerland, Great Britain, Argentina, Chile and elsewhere.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-10-05
Theodore Roosevelt writes an endorsement of James Drain to Jean Jules Jusserand. Drain is a man of “great efficiency and high character.” He specializes in rifle-shooting and ordinance supplies, and Roosevelt finds him “honest and trustworthy.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-02-23