Sensationalism in journalism

President Roosevelt sends an editorial for Attorney General Bonaparte to comment on, as well as a rough draft of his speech for the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, which he asks Bonaparte to read and comment upon as soon as possible. Roosevelt discusses the railroad rate case in North Carolina, bemoaning the “yellow press” coverage of the situation. In the matter of the case against Idaho Senator William Edgar Borah, Roosevelt agrees with Bonaparte and the action that must be taken, but feels obligated to meet with Borah’s representatives.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-02

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt sends Secretary of State Root several enclosures regarding escalating tensions with Japan. Roosevelt says Senator Eugene Hale, who has opposed repairs to the American fleet, will not be allowed to dictate the movements of the fleet, and Roosevelt believes it is useless to communicate with him. In a postscript, Roosevelt proposes a suit against officials in San Francisco who refuse to grant business licenses to Japanese immigrants, and says that though he does not expect war with Japan, he does not believe the United States could hold Manila if war did break out. Roosevelt laments the “yellow press” in Japan is just as bad as in America.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-31

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt thanks Ambassador White for the clipping he recently sent and for hosting Admiral Charles H. Stockton in Paris. Roosevelt is anxious for the Great White Fleet to travel to the Pacific Ocean, because while he wants Japan to know he has nothing but friendly intentions, he also wants them to know he is not afraid of them. Roosevelt wishes Congress would provide adequate housing for American ambassadors abroad, but is afraid it will take some time to accomplish it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-30

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt sends Secretary of State Root an article from the London Times, and wonders if the United States should intervene in Venezuela if it does not pay its debts, as decided by the International Peace Conference at the Hague. Roosevelt says he supposes they should decline to meet with the Korean mission if they come to the United States. In a postscript, Roosevelt encloses a copy of the Tokyo Puck, lamenting its sensationalism. Secretary of War William H. Taft is planning a trip to the Philippines, and Roosevelt asks Root’s thoughts on Taft stopping in Siberia or Japan on the way.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-29

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt is glad Melville Elijah Stone of the Associated Press is sending a man to Tokyo to gain information on the “real design” of Japanese statesmen and to prevent aggravation of existing tensions between the two countries. While the crimes against Japanese immigrants in San Francisco and sensationalist press coverage of these crimes are “outrageous,” Roosevelt says they do not give Japan the justification for hostile actions against the United States. Roosevelt asks if Stone is a friend of Senator Eugene Hale, and if so, requests that Stone explain to Hale that his actions to thwart funding for the Navy do not keep the peace, but threaten it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-26

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Theodore Roosevelt thanks Ford A. Carpenter for the letter but denies being associated with any “yellow journal” and is bothered that Carpenter did not name the journal. Except for the articles he writes for the Wheeler syndicate, Roosevelt’s statements are free to print for every periodical.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1914-12-17

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt is glad to hear that David Gray’s eyes are improving and looks forward to the results of his renewed work. Roosevelt believes Gray would have enjoyed going on Roosevelt’s recent 98-mile ride, and agrees that action against “the yellow press” is important.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-01-20

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt liked the paper in which John St. Loe Strachey criticized the current state of journalism, especially regarding sensationalism and the yellow press.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-04-11

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

J. W. Clayton informs the editor of the New York Press that for years he has been an admirer of The Press for serving the public with no other interest but he recently has had to turn to yellow journalism for the truth regarding an article about an address by Theodore Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-10-21

Creator(s)

Clayton, J. W.

J. Beggs writes to Theodore Roosevelt to inform Roosevelt his plan, which they discussed at a prior meeting, to curb the yellow press is falling into place and he is only awaiting a response from John Wanamaker to proceed. Beggs says he will advise Roosevelt as soon as he hears back from Wanamaker.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-06-08

Creator(s)

Beggs, J

United States Ambassador Reid believes that American yellow journalism, buoyed by free and instantaneous communication, has influenced foreign editorials of American affairs, especially those of the English. He has enclosed a few editorials and cartoons both “unfriendly” and friendly that President Roosevelt might find interesting. Reid describes a situation resulting in the “droll embarrassment of our German friends” involving a candid interview with German Emperor William II published in the Daily Dispatch. The authenticity of the interview was questioned, with the Dispatch insisting on the legitimacy. The matter required Councillor of the German Embassy Ferdinand Carl von Stumm to leave the hunting trip he was on with Reid to manage the ensuing “mess.” Reid thinks von Stumm will be blamed for incident. He concludes by describing how British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey is being criticized in the papers for making a “one-sided bargain” that benefits the United States over England in the art commercial market.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-12-07

Creator(s)

Reid, Whitelaw, 1837-1912

Senator Bourne believes conflict with Japan is likely in the future. He hopes President Roosevelt will send the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific as it will accomplish much regarding foreign policy. His wife, Lillian Elizabeth Wyatt Bourne, recently visited Japan. He includes a lengthy excerpt from one of her letters in which she provides social commentary on the Japanese.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-09

Creator(s)

Bourne, Jonathan, 1855-1940

John Albert Macy’s editorial in volume 24 of The Bookman. Starting with the current use of the word “yellow” to describe bad newspapers, Macy extends the metaphor to describe other types of journalism according to a chromatic scheme. Includes a handwritten note that says “Dear Cabot, This is good. T. R.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-10-29

Creator(s)

Macy, John Albert, 1877-1932

Hector M. Hitchings urges President Roosevelt to have Secretary of War Taft speak at the meeting of the West Side Republican Club in support of Charles Evans Hughes’s candidacy for Governor of New York. While Republicans think Hughes will be elected by a heavy majority, no one is able to accurately gauge the sentiment of that class of people who make up a large bulk of the state. Hitchings thinks having the influence and bearing of Taft at the meeting will combat support for William Randolph Hearst.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-10-24

Creator(s)

Hitchings, Hector M. (Hector Morison), 1856-1926

A newspaper owner, possibly Joseph Pulitzer, sits in a chair in his office next to an open safe where “Profits” are spilling out onto the floor. Outside this scene are many newspaper reporters for the “Daily Splurge” rushing to the office to toss their stories onto the printing press, including “A Week as a Tramp!! Wild and Exciting Experiences of a Daily Splurge Reporter,” “A Reporter of the Daily Splurge Spends a Thrilling Week in an Asylum!” “An Organ Grinder’s Life,” “Life in Sing Sing – a Splurge Reporter in Disguise,” “Divorce Court Details,” “Private Scandal,” “A Night Around Town” by a woman reporter “in Men’s Attire,” life on the streets “As a Flower Girl,” “Thrilling Exposé,” “How beggars are treated on 5th Ave. by Fanny Fake,” and “High Spiced Sensation.” A notice hanging on the wall of the office states, “The Motto of the Daily Splurge – Morality and a High Sense of Duty.” Caption: He combines high-sounding professions with high-spiced sensations, and reaps a golden profit thereby.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1894-03-07

Creator(s)

Opper, Frederick Burr, 1857-1937

A bespectacled man wearing a top hat and overcoat stands in the street, holding a book titled “Old Sleuth the Detective.” Near him, young children are reading the newspapers labeled “Daily Scandal Monger,” “Morning Cyclone of Crime,” “Daily Rot, Daily Scooper, [and] Morning Scavenger.” Behind are newsstands labeled “All the Sensation Papers” and “Don’t Fail to Buy the Sunday Slop Bucket,” with headlines such as “How to Poison a Whole City,” “Murder,” and “Crime.” Caption: Dime Novel Writer–And they used to say that my books were bad for young peoples’ morals!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1897-03-17

Creator(s)

Ehrhart, S. D. (Samuel D.), approximately 1862-1937

A band of street musicians is comprised of yellow journalism newspaper editors/publishers. Two men are playing “The War Wave” on horns labeled Daily Sensation (Joseph Pulitzer) and Morning Exciter (possibly James Gordon Bennett, Jr.). A man (possibly Charles A. Dana) is playing a tune labeled “Rumblings of War” on a bass drum labeled Daily Brawler. Two other men are playing tunes labeled “War Talk” and “War News.” A man with one hand over his right ear is standing at the entrance to a building labeled “Business Interests” and “Commerce and Manufactures”; with his left hand he gestures toward the musicians to stop or move on.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1896-03-25

Creator(s)

Pughe, J. S. (John S.), 1870-1909

Print shows General Nelson A. Miles, oversized, sitting at a desk, holding in his left hand a book titled “How to Become President [by] Gen. Miles.” Around him are many newspaper reporters and photographers, representing such newspapers as “The Yellow Yawp, Daily Whoop, The Scare, The Blow, Morning Bluff, Daily Slush [and] Staats Klatsch [with a reporter that looks like Oswald Ottendorfer].” On the wall in the background is a telephone labeled “To the Administration” that is covered with cobwebs.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-03-15

Creator(s)

Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956

General Elwell S. Otis, wearing a military uniform and holding papers labeled “Plans of Campaign,” is confronted by a swarm of press reporters as mosquitoes labeled “Yellow Journalist.” One of the reporters is holding a paper that states, “If you don’t let us run this business, we’ll run you out.” Several of the mosquitoes at bottom have gotten caught on a fly-paper labeled “Press Censorship.” Caption: General Otis–If it wasn’t for that “tanglefoot” fly-paper those insects would pester the life out of me!

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-08-16

Creator(s)

Dalrymple, Louis, 1866-1905

Theodore Roosevelt, wearing a military uniform with the Japanese Imperial seal on the hat and holding a rifle, stands behind the “Park Row Earth Works,” as two rolled-up newspapers labeled “Sun” and “World” with rifles charge the earthworks. The background shows the war flag of the Japanese Imperial Army. Caption: “The war talk is due entirely to newspapers, which seek to increase their sales, and which for political reasons attack the Government.”–Taft at Tokio.

comments and context

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1907-10-23