Thanet, Octave, 1850-1934

President Roosevelt writes Richard Watson Gilder a lengthy refutation of an article in the Evening Post in which William Garrott Brown misconstrues his actions in the Republican Party. Namely, Brown accuses Roosevelt of neglecting Republicans in the South and of doing a poor job of making nominations to local offices and positions. Roosevelt asserts that where the Republican party is not strong in the South, he has had to appoint Democrats who were quality men, rather than incapable men who are Republicans. Where he believes the party has a chance to compete with Democrats, he does all he can to support it. Roosevelt also writes that he did not use his influence on officers to get William H. Taft the nomination, but rather Taft was nominated because Roosevelt’s policies were popular, and Taft is the man who will continue those policies. Roosevelt believes that Brown is either ignorant or willfully ignorant of a number of facts.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1908-11-16

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt describes his trip to Panama and Puerto Rico. He comments on the uniqueness of Panama and the canal project. He praises William Crawford Gorgas’s work regarding the health of the Americans working on the canal. Black workers from Jamaica have not been as healthy, and Roosevelt feels as though they may need to get Chinese laborers as Jamaican Governor James Alexander Swettenham has been disagreeable to work with. He describes the trip and some reading he has done, saying about John Milton, “What a radical republican, and what a stanch partisan, and what an intense protestant the fine old fellow was!” He plans to read more Greek and Roman literature.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-11-23

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt agrees with William Allen White about Octave Thanet, and comments that “she has always seemed to preach just the social and economic gospel that we as a people need.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-07-10

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

After talking with George Horace Lorimer, President Roosevelt went back and read The Plum Tree through all the way, after previously having read only half of it. The ending of the book reconciles Roosevelt to many of the problems he had with it throughout, but he still holds many issues with the book which he lays out for Lorimer. The author, David Graham Phillips, falls into the trap of overstating the sort of corruption that is present in politics, and while Roosevelt freely admits that corruption is present–which, he points out, he is working against–there are also many good people working in politics as well. In a postscript of several days later, Roosevelt comments on several of Phillips’s articles on the Senate, in which he acts similarly by taking “certain facts that are true in themselves, and […] ignoring utterly a very much large mass of facts that are just as true and just as important.” Roosevelt criticizes Phillips for working with William Randolph Hearst to achieve notoriety.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-12

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt praises Martha Baker Dunn’s essays and also thanks her for sending him the Walt Whitman poem, which he had never seen before. They seem to have similar taste in poetry. He has sent her work, along with that of William De Witt Hyde, to George Otto Trevelyan to “show him that there are Americans who write things worth reading.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-09

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

President Roosevelt relates to his son Theodore Roosevelt a humorous comment that Quentin made at breakfast. He praises Ted’s football performance so far in the season, but says that he and Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt are glad that he will be done after next Saturday. He reminds Ted to write him about how he wants the moose horns, so that he can tell Alexander Lambert.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-12

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Raymond J. Bischoff belatedly thanks Theodore Roosevelt for autographing his copy of African Game Trails, which helped him increase book orders for the agency he worked for. He is proud that his newly founded periodicals company counts many of Roosevelt’s local friends as its customers. Bischoff wants to give Roosevelt a quote on his magazine subscriptions.  

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-07

Creator(s)

Bischoff, Raymond J. (Raymond John), 1896-

Susan F. Stone discusses local efforts to preserve the riverfront of Muscatine, Iowa, as Theodore Roosevelt urged in his speech at St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite the civic outcry, the railroads plan to build a switchyard. Stone asks Roosevelt who to contact in the federal courts if the local efforts fail.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-08-09

Creator(s)

Stone, Susan F. (Susan Fitch), 1858-1930

Octave Thanet comments on reading Theodore Roosevelt’s addresses and state papers. Octave Thanet was the pseudonym of Alice French. Thanet is most struck by Roosevelt’s moderation.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-04-29

Creator(s)

Thanet, Octave, 1850-1934