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President Roosevelt asks Everett J. Lake if there is any truth to the enclosed story, which his Yale friends taunt him with. He asks if Lake can come to Washington for dinner or lunch to discuss several matters.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-12-14
President Roosevelt encloses materials from Paul Joseph Dashiell regarding controversy during the Harvard-Yale football game, which he refereed. Roosevelt would like Harvard coach William T. Reid to show the materials to Harvard President Charles William Eliot and then return them. Roosevelt notes that each team believes that the opposing team is in the wrong. He does not want to see football abandoned, and thinks that the hysteria surrounding the sport is as bad as the brutality in the sport. He asks Reid to tell Eliot in particular that Dashiell will make a good umpire “with a little of the proper spirit behind him.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-12-14
President Roosevelt tells William Roscoe Thayer that a recent article in Harvard Graduates’ Magazine about Yale’s attitude in athletics has done real damage. He believes articles like this one are “almost as responsible for the demoralization of sport as brutality on the field.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-12-04
President Roosevelt encloses for Paul Joseph Dashiell letters from Harvard President Charles William Eliot and Richard Henry Dana about brutality in football. Dana’s letter specifically discusses a recent game that Dashiell umpired, where Dashiell failed to properly penalize a brutal play. Roosevelt urges Dashiell to “take severe measures” against brutality in games in the future.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-12-05
President Roosevelt tells Harvard President Eliot that he has written Paul Joseph Dashiell to get his explanation of an incident that occurred in a football game he was umpiring. Roosevelt would like to discuss football with Eliot this winter. Three of his sons play football and he believes it has done them good, and he wants to save the sport and eliminate the brutality of it. He believes that officials should be hired who will not tolerate brutality, even if it is done under the rules. Finally, Roosevelt asks Eliot for facts about an alleged incident in the Harvard-Yale game.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-12-05
President Roosevelt asks Harvard University President Eliot to show the enclosed copy of Paul Joseph Dashiell’s letter to Harvard football coach William T. Reid, William Roscoe Thayer, and Mr. Dana. Roosevelt also includes a letter from a man from Buffalo that should be shown to the same people. It appears that the Yale football team believes just as much as Harvard that its team has “nearly a monopoly of the virtue.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-12-09
President Roosevelt believes that football should be saved and hopes that J. William White can contact Harvard and Yale about the matter.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-29
President Roosevelt tells Walter Camp that his son Ted wrote to both him and his mother that he was not unfairly targeted in the football game against Yale, and that the game was clean. In a postscript, Roosevelt describes his role in organizing a meeting between graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-24
President Roosevelt tells Alexander Lambert that his son Archie has his heart set on having either the picture of Skip on the snow or Skip on the horse. He asks whether it was Lambert or Philip Battell Stewart who took them. He also discusses the recent Harvard football game.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-27
Although he wishes that Harvard had won, President Roosevelt is pleased that his son Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt evidently got to play in the game against Yale. He praises Ted’s performance in the game, during which Yale directed “battering” plays against him because he was so small and light, and says that Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt and Ethel Roosevelt were “very indignant” about it. Roosevelt is very proud of his son’s football career, but glad that he is too small to try out for the varsity team. He hopes that now Ted can attend more to his studies and that he will be able to come to Pine Knot for Thanksgiving, as he is not bringing the Secret Service with him and Edith is worried about his being the only man in the house. He asks one more time what Ted would like Alexander Lambert to do about the moose horns.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-19
President Roosevelt tells his son Theodore Roosevelt that Dr. Alexander Lambert got the moose horns he wanted, but that mice ate the scalp. He advises Ted to take the horns without the scalp. He is glad that Ted went to see his brother Kermit Roosevelt at Groton. Kermit said that Ted was planning to visit Washington next weekend, and Roosevelt is concerned that this visit would interfere with Ted’s studies and football. He does not want Ted to miss out on a chance to play in the game against Yale.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-07
President Roosevelt is glad that his son Theodore Roosevelt visited Kermit Roosevelt at Groton School, and is glad that Kermit had a chance to play football this fall. He encourages him to “peg away” at his studies. He is having his “usual number of difficulties” that any President has, and has taken scramble walks in Rock Creek Park and gone riding with Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. Roosevelt discusses the books that Edith is reading to Archibald B. Roosevelt and Quentin Roosevelt, and the books that he plans to read them in her absence.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-12
President Roosevelt hopes that his son Theodore Roosevelt gets to play in the football game between Harvard and Yale. He asks about the athletic achievements of his classmates. There is nothing of interest to report from the White House, although Archibald Roosevelt went hunting with Presley Marion Rixey, took two shots at a rabbit, and missed. Robert Bacon is doing well under Secretary of State Elihu Root.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-06
President Roosevelt would like Judge Gray to attend an upcoming meeting at the White House. The meeting will include people from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, to address how to get football to be played “on a thoroughly clean basis.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-10-06
President Roosevelt will do his “level best” in the matter Groton School Rector Endicott Peabody wrote about. He will get Secretary of War William H. Taft, a Yale man, involved, and asks if Peabody happens to know of any distinguished men from Princeton. He discusses the Roosevelt family’s schedule at Oyster Bay in the coming weeks and asks when Peabody can visit. He also asks if the Groton rules will allow his son Kermit to eat lunch in his canoe with his mother Edith when she visits him.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-19
President Roosevelt thanks Baron Kentarō Kaneko for the letter and is interested in the abstract by the Yale faculty members. He has several matters to discuss at their next visit.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-02-11
President Roosevelt informs Anson Phelps Stokes the cabinet members cannot take part in a course of lectures for any one university, as they would receive a multitude of requests to do so at other universities as well.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-01-07
President Roosevelt sends greetings and best wishes for an enjoyable reunion to the Colorado Yale Association.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-29
President Roosevelt discusses his opinions about a Forest Museum and Library, suggesting that locating it at Yale’s forest school sounds like a good idea. He believes a museum of forest life would be of great value not only to the United States but also to every region in the world with trees.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-10
President Roosevelt wishes Ross Anderson Hickok had been with him in the regiment and mentions that William Walter Heffelfinger was a delegate for him at the National Convention.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-10-04