Socialism

Lee C. Spooner believes Americans share the sentiment that poverty can and must be abolished and proposes how this can be accomplished, primarily by turning competition into cooperation. He argues that the laborers are the enemy of the republic, as they either turn to crime or revolution. To feel the responsibility of citizenship, the laborer must first own property. Spooner proposes they be granted a one-acre, suburban tract of land with a house through a federal initiative. Next, the prohibition of liquor will prevent laborers from wasting their earnings. Instead, they can then invest their earnings in federally regulated trusts. This redistribution of wealth will bring “socialism by purchase” and the end of poverty.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-04-19

Charles J. Kluser asks the Outlook Company to share the enclosed circular with Theodore Roosevelt as it may please him to see he is quoted and it caused an uproar among the local socialists. Several Socialist newspapers, including Appeal to Reason, New York Call, Miners Magazine, and Revolt, reprinted Kluser’s circular and criticized both the Kluser and Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-18

Newspaper clipping quoting Theodore Roosevelt regarding competition in business. Roosevelt also reminds conservatives that the unfair methods used by businessmen have created more discontent than the rhetoric of all the socialist orators put together, a point which was underlined by a reader.

Comments and Context

This clipping comes from a letter by Fred L. King in which the author states he wants Roosevelt to know he is a “live case” to prove Roosevelt’s points are correct. The phrase quoted can also be attributed to Roosevelt in multiple newspapers.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

From a paper on socialism, this excerpt states how Theodore Roosevelt saw the danger of a strong socialist party, but also understood the party had grown from real discontent. Roosevelt effectively ended the movement by addressing the issues that drove people toward socialism, and acted as a president for all the people,

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-11-22

President Roosevelt appreciates Ambassador Egan’s letter and what he says about socialism and the information about Rennell Rodd. Roosevelt informs Egan that he has contacted the British Embassy and will invite Rodd to dine at the White House.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1908-09-07

President Roosevelt sends Ambassador Egan his speech and writes that he wishes he could study the “socialistic movement” in Denmark. Roosevelt compares socialism in the United States with that in Scandinavia. He also inquires if Egan knows Rennell Rodd and mentions that Secretary of War William H. Taft is likely to win the upcoming election.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1908-08-05

Commentary on politics, social conditions, and religion.

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

1911

In this article, Dr. Frank Crane promotes democracy over socialism. 

Collection

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Creation Date

1914

President Roosevelt has received praise for Minister to Denmark Maurice Francis Egan, along with John Wallace Riddle and David Jayne Hill, from Nicholas Butler Murray. Roosevelt is confused by the rates of depression and tendency toward socialism in Denmark, a country of farmers. Mississippi is the most agricultural state in the United States, and Roosevelt concludes that although there are many great Mississippians, a mixture of farmers and townsfolk is the best population to have.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-10-05

President Roosevelt thanks John St. Loe Strachey for his letter and comments that both of them agree with the great questions between Great Britain and the United States. Roosevelt worries about the rise of socialism in Britain. He also discusses issues of immigration, particularly comparing the race riots in Vancouver, Canada, with those in San Francisco, California.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-09

President Roosevelt thanks O. M. Nilson for the letter and feels it “shows exactly the far-sighted patriotism upon which the prosperity of this country must rest.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-08-15

Franklin P. Davis encloses an article that he hopes Theodore Roosevelt will publish in The Outlook or provide criticism on. Davis recently read about a speech by President William H. Taft on socialism and does not know much about the topic, but firmly believes the concepts of home, God, Sabbath, and Church are important.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

This memorandum states that President Roosevelt desires to send the next volume of his speeches to John St. Loe Strachey in England. The volume will be marked where Roosevelt mentions socialism.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-11

Thomas B. Stuart analyzes the “class struggle” aspects of the Big Bill Haywood case. Stuart discusses the case as it relates to legal ethics and the court system in Colorado.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-03

Paul Morton sends President Roosevelt an extract of a letter from Edward Payson Ripley, the President of the Atchison Railroad. Ripley believes that Roosevelt may have contributed to the country’s false idea of “the aims and methods of the railroads.” Ripley believes the “Socialistic tendency” will become more bitter when prosperity ends and hopes that Roosevelt can do something to “stop the clamor he has raised.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-31

John Graham Brooks relates to President Roosevelt a conversation he had at one of the recent meetings of Economic Clubs from all over the New England area. At the Portland, Maine, meeting, the leader of the Massachusetts socialists criticized Roosevelt and his policies. The gentleman claimed that Roosevelt was “embarrassing,” criticized his “new attitude on taxation and coal lands,” and added that the socialists hope a “safe man” becomes his successor.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-23

George von Lengerke Meyer had believed that revolution in Russia was improbable, but events of the past week have altered conditions. There have been strikes, the disturbances in Lodz, and the arousing by the socialists. Also, there is a general dissatisfaction among the people over the last mobilization.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-07-03

William H. Taft stands with a gavel in his hand as the delegates select President Roosevelt as the nominee. In the audience are Secretary of State Elihu Root, Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw, Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, and New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes. A balloon in the top right-hand corner shows William Jennings Bryan and William Randolph Hearst holding signs that read, “Gov’t Ownership” and “Socialism” respectively as they step on Minnesota Governor John Albert Johnson.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Whether cartoonist Tyler McWhorter drew this cartoon as a prophecy or a hopeful dream, it was another cartoonist’s speculation on whether President Roosevelt would break his pledge of Election Night 1904 that he would not allow his name to be put into nomination in 1908. With its long caption, it also might have been an illustration for an article, or part of series. In any event the St. Paul Dispatch drawing was pasted in the White scrapbook, and presumably seen by the president.

A group of young American men argue among themselves at an outdoor cafe overlooking the construction of the Tower of Babel in the background. Caption: Confusion of ideas among the young American builders.

comments and context

Comments and Context

The year 1906 arguably represents a turning-point in the evolution of socialism in the United States. At the very least it came face-to-face with Marxian ideas as a casual lodestar or as an intellectual imperative. Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?, a now-obscure book written by a German sociologist, Werner Sombart, had a profound effect on groups of radicals previously barely connected except by vague complaints.

A ship labeled “Republic,” flying a banner labeled “U.S.A.,” navigates storm-tossed seas with a whirlpool labeled “Socialism” and cliffs labeled “Plutocracy” nearby.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler depicts a loose version of the Scylla and Charybdis of Greek mythology. Its usual application meaning is an intractable dilemma, the “lesser of two evils,” a Hobson’s Choice, or, most recently a catch-22. In mythology it was the unavoidable course between a whirlpool and rough cliffs or a rationalized monster in the stones.