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Zola, Émile, 1840-1902

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Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George Horace Lorimer

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George Horace Lorimer

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

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Upton Sinclair

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Upton Sinclair

President Roosevelt disagrees with the contents of a letter that a preacher sent to Upton Sinclair in which he compared him to Leo Tolstoy, Émile Zola, and Maksim Gorky. Roosevelt believes that if the type of socialism advocated in Sinclair’s book were implemented, one of the first efforts made would be to eliminate starvation. He sites a work by Walter A. Wyckoff in which Wyckoff traveled the country doing physical labor and found that in many cases, it is possible to quickly gain a position with steady work that allowed him to save. He agrees with Sinclair that radical action must be taken to end the “arrogant and selfish greed” of capitalists. However, he thinks that it is more important to develop the hearts and minds of the working class.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-03-15

The fearless toreador

The fearless toreador

Émile Zola, as a bullfighter holding a cape labeled “La Vérité” and a quill pen labeled “Zola,” faces a charging bull that is wearing a phrygian cap labeled “France” and has been stabbed in the back of the neck with a banderilla labeled “La Débâcle.” After a military investigation and trial acquitted Ferdinand Esterhazy of treason, placing the guilt on Alfred Dreyfus, Zola published an open letter to the president of France demanding that the truth be made known and that the miscarriage of justice, “La Débâcle,” that has come to be known as the Dreyfus Affair, be corrected.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-02-16

The peril of France – at the mercy of the octopus

The peril of France – at the mercy of the octopus

An octopus with the head of a French military officer (which may represent General Boisdeffre or General Gonse), wearing a plumed hat labeled “Militarism,” has settled over Paris, France, with its tentacles extending in all directions. The tentacles are labeled “Deception, Dishonor, Forgery, Assassination, Corruption, Falsehood, [and] Blackmail.” Caught in their grasp are military officers Georges “Picquart” and Alfred “Dreyfus,” two female figures labeled “Honor” and “Justice,” and the author Émile “Zola” holding a quill pen labeled “J’Accuse.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1898-10-26