Uncle Remus at the White House!
Joel Chandler Harris tells President Roosevelt, “You see–It’s this way about a rabbit–” In Harris’s pocket is the “Story of the Dog Flash.” By Roosevelt’s chair is the book, “Nature Faking by T. Roosevelt,” and behind his chair are two men: “fakir” and “nature fakir.” There are mounted animals: a bear, a moose, a raccoon, a deer, and a mouse. They say, “What’s that?” “Gee whiz!” “Did you hear what that man said?” “The biggest one I ever heard” and “You don’t say so!” respectively. In the foreground is a turtle that says, “I’m a nature fakir myself!”
Comments and Context
Theodore Roosevelt was exceedingly taken with the writings of Joel Chandler Harris, an editor of the Atlanta Constitution who was active in Southern journalism and literature from the Civil War days until just after the turn of the century. Roosevelt’s mother was from Roswell, Georgia (her childhood plantation was believed to be the model for Tara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind) and he often referred to himself as a Southerner (and as a New Yorker, which he was; and also a man of the West, which he was). The president also at times was especially solicitous of writers and editors whose opinions held sway. Harris’s editorials were distributed throughout the South; political satirist Finley Peter Dunne (“Mr. Dooley”) was another writer to whom Roosevelt displayed deference.
