Writing

Raymond Lee Ditmars responds to President Roosevelt’s criticisms of his book. Ditmars intended to catalog reptiles for the purpose of identification and chose to explain the habits of a few important species. The book needed to be condensed, so he is writing another book that discusses the habits more. He responds to Roosevelt’s questions on the sea turtle, crocodile, and king snake.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-10

Robert Bridges encloses a check for $500 as payment for printing the serial “Small Country Neighbors.” He notifies President Roosevelt that proofs of the article were sent.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-07-13

John Burroughs sends a copy of the paper he referred to in his last letter to Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt will be able to suggest some additions. In Lyman Abbott’s reply to Burroughs’ letter to The Outlook, Abbott kept his ground in the “nature faker” controversy.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-28

John Burroughs has finished an article about President Roosevelt as a “nature lover and Observer.” He will send the article for Roosevelt’s suggestions or omissions. Burroughs appreciates the invitation to visit Pine Knot next spring.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-25

John Burroughs is glad that President Roosevelt has decided that his sighting of a passenger pigeon was correct. Burroughs recently investigated another sighting and concluded that a large flock of passenger pigeons had been seen. He has written to The Outlook regarding the legitimate use of imagination in nature writing. Burroughs directs Roosevelt to several periodicals where he comments on William J. Long and the nature fakers.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-13

John Burroughs writes to Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, to defend the remarks Theodore Roosevelt made about the “nature faker” controversy. Abbott wrote an editorial saying that Roosevelt made a “too sharp distinction between fiction and fact.” Burroughs believes that there is “a legitimate and an illegitimate use of the imagination in writing human history.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-06-11

William Seymour Edwards sends President Roosevelt a copy of his book, Through Scandinavia to Moscow. Edwards admires Roosevelt, especially how he wrote the Life of Oliver Cromwell while governor of New York. Edwards would like to introduce his son to Edith Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-11-28

Frederick Scott Oliver responds to criticisms and comments that both President Roosevelt and Senator Lodge have made regarding his book on Alexander Hamilton. Oliver discusses his motivations for writing the book and some of the questions and comments Roosevelt had. Oliver also appreciates Roosevelt’s assessment of the American Revolution in his writings.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-09-06

William Dean Howells writes to congratulate President Roosevelt on the stand he has taken in favor of the spelling suggested by the reformers. Howells thinks the proposed reforms are a step in the right direction. While they cannot come to a magical maturity in a year, Howells believes Roosevelt has “dropped seeds in the public mind.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-26

Robert Bridges thanks President Roosevelt for sending him a poem written by Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Bridges intends to print the poem in Scribner’s Magazine and offers critical feedback for later proofs.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-08

Richard Watson Gilder is in receipt of article, “Ancient Irish Sagas,” written by President Roosevelt and so is a grateful friend and editor. Gilder further requests that unless there are election complications, publication will be in December or January allowing time for adding an illustration. Gilder asks Roosevelt or William Loeb for a hint as to appropriate honorarium.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-28

Andrew Carnegie tells Secretary of State Root that he felt it was his duty to send Senator Francis G. Newlands “words of Wisdom.” He also mentions that Senator Jeff Davis is about to publish an article about the Pan-American Railroad.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-03-18

J. L. Underwood is writing a work on the history of the women of the Confederacy, and he asks President Roosevelt’s permission to include a portion on Roosevelt’s mother’s and grandmother’s involvement with the Confederacy. Another portion of the book will include tributes people have paid, and he will be pleased to include Roosevelt’s own words from a speech he gave at Richmond.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-11-16

Mr. Sheffield says Mr. Choate is unwilling to take up the work. If President Roosevelt is reluctant to write the letter, he should not write it.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-08-07

Mattie Griffith Satterie asks William Loeb if President Roosevelt has read the “little sketch of his noble father” that Satterie wrote in the school journal. Satterie loved and revered Roosevelt’s father to such an extent that a word from Roosevelt that he had read the sketch would make Satterie very happy.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-05-23

Secretary of War Taft writes to President Roosevelt, expressing negative thoughts about journalist Poultney Bigelow, who Taft claims does not speak the facts.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-05-18

William H. Rideing has read that Roosevelt is currently writing two articles for immediate publication, and hopes that Roosevelt will consider contributing again to the Youth’s Companion. Rideing considers it impressive that Roosevelt can find the time to write, but observes that with Roosevelt’s energy “nothing can be dismissed as impossible.” Rideing offers to pay Roosevelt an honorarium of $1,000 to write articles for the Companion, and asks if he can renew the proposition in the future if Roosevelt is not able to accept at this time.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-03-06

Maurice Francis Egan tells President Roosevelt about an article Egan wrote titled “Theodore Roosevelt as a Man of Letters” and its public reception.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-02-10

Vice President Roosevelt turns down the opportunity to publish an article, citing insufficient material in his speeches to produce such an article.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901-07-19

President Roosevelt sits at his desk at The Outlook as “associate editor” and starts to write with a “blue pencil.” “Federal patronage,” “nature fake story,” “too much White House in the campaign,” and “about the ex president” are all crossed out and on the floor. “The big stick” rests on Roosevelt’s desk.

comments and context

Comments and Context

Frank S. Bowers was a cousin of the legendary political cartoonist Homer Davenport and likewise hailed from Silverton, Oregon. He followed Davenport’s professional trail to draw political cartoons for William Randolph Hearst first in San Francisco, then in New York City. Davenport eventually left Hearst to draw for the New York Mail and Express; Bowers left for the Indianapolis News. He drew this cartoon there, a humorous forecast of Theodore Roosevelt as Editor of The Outlook magazine. Bowers drew for the News until 1913.