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President Roosevelt has not read the book Joseph H. Coit refers to, but from excerpts believes it is “absurd sensationalism.” He notes that while Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle called attention to “a few” problems, overall it was “absurdly false,” and Sinclair does more harm than good.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-01
President Roosevelt is sure that after reflection John A. Sleicher will come to the conclusion that William Jennings Bryan can be defeated by politicians other than Roosevelt. He thanks Sleicher for showing him the nice cartoon, and returns it as requested. Roosevelt clarifies to Sleicher that, regarding the matter of meat packers, he never quoted Upton Sinclair, and if the meat packers had been content to allow Congress to pass legislation quietly they would have avoided the negative publicity that has resulted.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-12
President Roosevelt is surprised that Charles I. Hudson would suggest that Roosevelt had taken Upton Sinclair’s statements as evidence of wrongdoing by people or corporations without supporting evidence, and says that he made no such unsupported statements.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-05
President Roosevelt had recently finished Owen Wister’s book Lady Baltimore, and sends Wister his thoughts and criticisms of the work. While he enjoyed the story, Roosevelt believes the book is unfairly critical of northerners and uncritical of southerners. Similarly, Roosevelt points out that while the book lauds the past at the expense of the present, there are many examples of violence, brutality, greed, and other vices in the past. Roosevelt also remarks on the status of African-Americans, and while he agrees with Wister in certain regards, believes the work has gone too far in the racist stereotypes. He hopes that Wister will be able to visit him soon. In a postscript, Roosevelt mentions a number of other books he has read or is reading that similarly make readers “feel that there is no use of trying to reform anything because everything is so rotten that the whole social structure should either be let alone or destroyed.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-27
President Roosevelt asks Commissioner of Labor Neill if he has seen the specific statements that Upton Sinclair made in a recent article in Everybody’s Magazine, and requests that he investigate them.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-27
President Roosevelt warns Secretary of Agriculture Wilson to be careful of further leaks from his department regarding the governmental investigations into beef packers. Roosevelt believes that the department should announce that the report is merely a preliminary one, as he is also unsatisfied by its current state. At present, it does not give any clear, definite answers, and Roosevelt has submitted it to Commissioner of Labor Charles Patrick Neill for revision and further development.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-11
President Roosevelt sends Commissioner Neill of the Department of Commerce of Labor a self-explanatory letter from he received from Upton Sinclair, and instructs him to report about the condition of workers, as well as diseased meats.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-09
President Roosevelt tells Secretary of Agriculture Wilson that based on Attorney General William H. Moody’s experience with the beef trust people, Roosevelt believes that they will stop at little to stop an ordinary investigation. He would like a “first-class man” to meet with Upton Sinclair, get the names of his witnesses, and then work in the industry. The man’s identity should be kept secret, and Wilson should not make an appointment without consulting Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-03-12
John A. Sleicher writes President Roosevelt about Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Sleicher thought it did not represent what he saw when he toured the plant with the owner.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-11
Arthur John Giles, Secretary of the Federation of Grocers’ Associations of the United Kingdom, explains British worries over the panic concerning American canned meat. Giles refers to the panic caused by Upton Sinclair’s examination of the meatpacking industry, The Jungle. He tells Roosevelt that the Associations are passing a resolution to provide some assurances to the British people, and he would appreciate support from Roosevelt or his ambassador in Great Britain.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-03
Hamlin Garland praises President Roosevelt’s efforts to take on the oil and beef industries. Garland assures Roosevelt that he is doing the right thing in breaking up monopolies. As a man who espouses the free trade philosophy, Garland wishes Roosevelt would stay another four years, but does not oppose William Jennings Bryan in the upcoming election. Many others, including Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, and more also approve of Roosevelt. Garland has been received very well by Ambassador Whitelaw Reid and saw Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, at an event recently.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-06-16
The Times-Dispatch reports on the need for governmental inspection of meat and meat packing plants. While previously companies boasted about their quality control, the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and governmental investigations ordered by President Roosevelt have shown the truth to this falsehood. Such revelations have hurt the ability of American meat to be sold on the world market, thereby necessitating legislation allowing for government inspection.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-05-31
James Wilson states Upton Sinclair’s staff gave out many dispatches related to the meat packing industry in order to promote Sinclair’s book.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-12
Secretary of Agriculture Wilson regrets that information about the department’s investigation of beef packers in Chicago seems to have been leaked to the press. Wilson assures President Roosevelt that he will ascertain whether any of his employees had anything to do with it, although he also notes that the Chicago Tribune article contains errors and large portions of it may have been based on guess work.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-11
Upton Sinclair inquires about a report in the Chicago Tribune that President Roosevelt has called off the meat packing investigation Sinclair requested because Roosevelt believes Sinclair “shamelessly lied” to him. Sinclair asks if Roosevelt has truly called off the investigation.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-11
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.
Howard A. Sobel asserts that President Roosevelt condemned some of the radical journalists of the early twentieth century in his 1906 speech “The Man With the Muckrake” because he believed that their efforts only produced anger and division and did not promote constructive reforms achieved through the political process. Sobel stresses that Roosevelt believed in steady, gradual reforms that would address wrongs and curb public anger that could lead to class divisions and anarchy. Sobel argues that Roosevelt’s approach to reform can be seen in his biographies of Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Hart Benton.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1975
A highlighted article in Leslie’s Weekly notes the support President Roosevelt is receiving for renomination in 1908 in spite of his protestations against running for another term. Other articles on the page include criticism of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge for joining the outcry against the meat-packing industry and an evaluation of the election of 1860 which saw Abraham Lincoln come to the presidency. On the verso is the cover image of a nearly finished battleship.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-07-12
Frank Nelson Doubleday is letting President Roosevelt know that they have succeeded in having Upton Sinclair revise his book and he thinks that the book has a good influence on the packers. Doubleday specifically mentions that they are asking Sinclair to cut what Roosevelt refers to as a “ridiculous socialistic rant” at the end of the book.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-03-23
President Roosevelt has had meetings with journalists looking to expose public graft and corruption, but has become frustrated with them because of their “unbridled license and unfair denunciation” of many people in public office which has failed to have any merit. Roosevelt is expected to speak out against these sorts of accusations at his Decoration Day speech to the Army and Navy Union at Norfolk, Virginia. The author expects Roosevelt to speak regarding his own belief that most people are honest, and to challenge the writers who have attacked people in public office, despite the fact that his own administration has not been the target of these journalists.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-04-07