Your TR Source
Theodore Roosevelt never made any claim that he would assist Danish people who were unable to find work in America and is in no position to do so. Roosevelt apologizes but Ludvig Rosenberg was misled by the Danish papers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1912-06-08
Theodore Roosevelt declines to give American women’s suffrage activist Vira Boarman Whitehouse an interview. Roosevelt is taking a hiatus, of perhaps a year, from giving political speeches or interviews, although he will make an exception for cases like a benefit for the New York unemployed where he had spoken recently.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-03-05
Theodore Roosevelt regrets that he cannot accept Lyman P. Powell’s invitation to speak. Roosevelt has discovered he has to have an inflexible rule not to accept speaking engagements. The only speech he did was for the unemployed and that was more a “force of action to meet an immediate and pressing need.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-03-01
Theodore Roosevelt writes Mrs. E. G. N. Edwards and is glad to hear her husband is out doing his duty. Roosevelt wishes she had been in England when he was there.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-02-06
Theodore Roosevelt would normally send a card on Mary Phillips Riis’s behalf to Hector Munro Ferguson or Bishop of London Arthur F. Winnington Ingram, but both are busy with the troops. Roosevelt asks that when Riis visits she tell him in advance so he can be sure to see her. He has not heard of the man she mentions, thinks the incident with silk petticoats she mentions is “very pathetic,” and wishes there were something more practical he could do about unemployment.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-01-22
President Roosevelt discusses an upcoming lecture with John Purroy Mitchel. Roosevelt believes it is important to thoroughly discuss unemployment before he begins his hour-long lecture with slides.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-01-16
Theodore Roosevelt declines Walter S. Hackett’s invitation for a lecture tour. Roosevelt is only speaking on unemployment in his own city–a speech that he believes is his “duty.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915-01-04
Theodore Roosevelt congratulates Ernest H. Hedberg on his employment. Roosevelt also sends good wishes to Hedberg’s son, whom he named after Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1914-12-16
Theodore Roosevelt warns Judge Ransom not to be discouraged that people have lost interest in their reforms. They will come back to them in the end, and Roosevelt says that the fundamental thing this year was that the average man wanted a job. The average man wanted work and voted the way he thought would get him work.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1914-12-03
On behalf of Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, Isabella Hagner thanks Eliza Wilson for the gifts. However, she feels unable to accept the gifts and returns them. Hagner adds that Roosevelt is not in need of employees and suggests that Wilson visit her local unemployment agency.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-27
Charles T. Skellon has had a run of bad luck losing multiple jobs through no fault of his own, developing medical problems, and losing his money, and now finds himself in a dire situation. He asks if Theodore Roosevelt might be able to offer him any assistance to help him make it through the short-term future.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-22
Susan M. Theall recently heard Theodore Roosevelt speak, and while she agreed with everything he said, she feels that even more radical measures must be taken in order to help the people of the nation. Theall has suffered many hardships through her life, but she has been active in charity and public work. She wishes for him, “for justice and right to humanity to become a Christ Socialist.” Theall states “the good [he could] then do for the world [would] be unlimited.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-03-29
James J. Conway praises President Roosevelt and his accomplishments at length, recounting all the times he has seen the him speak or gotten close to him. He then details his extensive service as a steward on various ships and steamers and tells Roosevelt that he has been denied positions in the transport service due to his age. As an American citizen, Conway believes he should get priority for such positions over immigrants, and asks Roosevelt to take up the matter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-08
Ambassador Meyer explains in a memorandum that the Admiralty are laying down two battleships to be built in Russia. Meyer learned in a conversation with a Russian Admiral that they had begun building the ships since if they had waited until March it would have meant paying off 20,000 workmen and causing great unemployment. Meyer learned from another source that the plan was to have a fleet of four battleships and an English Company is offering to build a ship with ten or twelve 12-inch guns with speed similar to the “Dreadnought.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-12-06
Sheldon Liebman, winner of the 1975 Theodore Roosevelt Public Speaking Contest, looks at how Theodore Roosevelt addressed the issue of unemployment in a 1915 speech. He argues that some of the approaches taken to tackle this problem, such as unemployment offices, were first proposed by Roosevelt. Liebman quotes Roosevelt’s 1915 speech in his own address.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1975
The Central Textile Union is planning to organize a demonstration of many unemployed men in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to demand work at fair wages or unemployment relief. Such a demonstration has been delayed several times in the hopes that conditions would improve and it would not be necessary, but this has not come to pass. Many unions are cooperating to bring together demonstrators from different trades, including a number of different unions related to the textile industry. Organizers have stated that this will be a law-abiding demonstration.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-02-22
Margaret Sanger discusses birth control in terms of several issues including infant mortality, population growth through fertility and immigration, unemployment, charity, abortion, and sterilization. She presents a great number of statistics and research. Sanger also states that birth control is an important topic that is not discussed as it should be. When former President Roosevelt called the first White House Conference in 1912, he addressed these issues but did not discuss how birth control was a remedy to these problems. The two following White House Conferences in 1929 and 1930 did not discuss birth control either.
The Margaret Sanger Papers Project
1938-03-03
At top, a laborer daydreams he has the ears of a mule and carries a banner that states, “Strike! No Surrender! Down with Capital!” He is being led over barricades by a “Walking Delegate” who gestures toward a laborer standing with one foot on a prostrate industrialist. At the bottom is depicted the reality of an unemployed laborer’s waking life of familial discord, though he still has the ears of a mule. Caption: Same old day-dream. Same old awakening.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-03-20
A well-dressed union representative labeled “Walking Delegate” stands outside a prison cell, holding a paper that states “Law to Prohibit Convict Labor in State Prisons.” A dejected prisoner sits in the cell. Caption: But idleness, misery and insanity for the unfortunate convict.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1897-02-10.
A pamphlet from the Inter-Church Unemployment Committee of the New York Federation of Churches calling for churches to provide assistance to the poor during the coming winter. The pamphlet lists what the Committee will do and recommendations for how churches can provide assistance.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1915