April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Bomis: Can you conveniently wait until after the middle of May? Then any Friday that is convenient to you come in at 12 o'clock. It will be a real pleasure to see you. Faithfully yours, Mr. Edward W. Bomis, 106 Hamilton Avenue, New Brighton, N. Y. 1688991 Gist Blair April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Blair: It is a pleasure to hear from you. My connection with the Peabody Board was, as you know, purely official and due to my being President. It is not possible for me to be in Washington or take part in the work of the Board, cordially though I believe in what it has done. I hardly know how to advise yo[u] but it seems to me that it would be well for you to write to each of the gentlemen you name. No one can fail to appreciate your action in taking the position you have taken. Your name of course carries great weight, and I believe that any communication from you would receive respectful consideration of the men you have mentioned. My dear Mr. Blair, I am extremely sorry that I am not able to be of more practical service to you. Faithfully yours, Gist Blair, Esq. 3561 [inverted][*Boos*] April 28th, 1911. My dear Sir: With reference to the enclosed I beg to say that Mr. Kermit Roosevelt has no invoice which he can send to you regarding these sample marbles. They were found by Mr. Roosevelt in Italy and were left with a Mr. Warrington Dawson in Paris to be shipped to New York. He has been ill and consequently shipment has been delayed until now. I [presume] with this explanation you will be able to have them passed and the duties assessed and paid and the goods sent to Oyster Bay. If you will kindly have this done and send any account that you may have I will see that it is paid. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. B. F. Boos, United States Express Co., New York City. 2849April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Borden: It is a pleasure to hear from you, but I am afraid I cannot help you as you desire. Many friends of mine have asked me for personal letters to individuals abroad. It would be out of the question for me to give such letters if only for the reason that I have been President. What you should have is a letter from the Department of State to our representatives at the places you intend to visit asking tha[t] you be secured access to the stables you desire to see. I am confident you would have no difficulty whatever in gettin[g] such a letter. Indeed, I think that such explanations as General Wood or Senator Lodge would make to the State Department would make it feel that it would be advantageous to our country to have you receive such a letter. Hoping you will have a pleasant trip, Faithfully yours, Spencer Borden Esq. 2835 [inverted]April 28th, 1911. My dear Mrs. Boynton: I have never seen the articles in question. You are, however, mistaken in saying that I was the only person who saw you. A number of people were calling about the same time and I know that some of them saw you, because several of them spoke to me about you. I certainly thought you dressed in an entirely dignified and proper manner. I think you probably do not realize that all kinds of people dressed in all kinds of ways call upon me, and never think of their dresses. In your case the only thing that struck me , and so far as I remember the only thing I commented upon was your sandals, and those merely because you told me you had to wear sandals because you could not get shoes without heels. Sincerely yours, Mrs. C. E. Boynton, Alameda, Cal. 1324[*Ernest Bross*] April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Bross: That is a fine editorial of yours, and if you get anything from me that helped you I am more than pleased. You, upon my word! I am really enjoying swimming in the trough almost as much as I did when I was swimming on the crest. I will send you a copy of that California address. Let me see you if ever you come to New York. Faithfully yours, Ernest Bross Esq., The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Ind. 5184April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Brown: I feel under obligation to you personally and from the public standpoint for the admirable work you have done in the Bureau of Education. I am sincerely pleased you are now to become a Chancellor of the New York University. Faithfully yours, Elmer Ellsworth Brown, Esq., Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. 5286Geo. Lee Brown. April 28th 1911. My dear Colonel: I wish I could do as you ask, but it is not possible for me to write for any man to be appointed to office. Governor Johnson would merely resent my writing to him, and quite properly. When I was Governor, I would not have liked any man, even if a good friend of mine, from outside the State to write me about appointments. But I probably would have liked to hear his opinion of the man, and so if you see Governor Johnson you are quite welcome to show him this letter. I was intimately thrown with you. I know your work both in the Army and as agent among the Ogalala Sioux, and I consider you an exceptionally zealous and competent administrator, and a first-class officer. I should esteem myself fortunate to have you under me if I were in any position where I could use your services. Faithfully yours, Col. George Ler. Brown, Mount Tamalpais Military Academy, San Rafael, Cal. 5383 [inverted]5383 April 28th, 1911. My dear Mrs. Brown: I thank you for your letter and appreciate it. It is really an outrageous thing for the newspapers to circulate such a story because of course the denial is never seen by those who see the first statement. Faithfully yours, Mrs. Raymond Brown, 294 West 92nd Street, New York City. 5290 [inverted]April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Browne: I do not know whether to thank you most for showing me Captain Howland's really wonderfully able and conclusive address or for the information. I am mighty pleased about the latter. As for the former, if you get a chance to tell Captain Howland how I respect him for [?] the admirable work he did, I wish you would do so. With hearty thanks, Sincerely yours, Herbert J. Browne Esq., Washington, D. C. 5322[*Herbert J. Browne*] April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Browne: I do not know whether to thank you most for showing me Captain Howland's really wonderful able and conclusive address or for the information about the manatees. I am might pleased about the latter. As for the former, if you get a chance to tell Captain Howland how I respect him for the admirable work he did, I wish you would. With hearty thanks, Sincerely yours, 5321April 28th, 1911. Dear Mr. Clark: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and in reply he wishes me to say that he agrees to all that you suggest. He will gladly pay the $75 extra, and whenever the trophies are ready he would like to receive them. Faithfully yours, Secretary. Mr. James L. Clark, 949 Home Street, Bronx, N. Y. 8133April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Commons: I thank you and appreciate your sending me the memoranda. If you are in New York at any time, do give me a chance to see you. Faithfully yours, J. R. Commons, Esq., The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 7208April 28th, 1911. My dear Sir: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of those invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask us to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even t accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, The Secretary, Chamber of Commerce, Barnesville, Ga. 12131April 28th, 1911. My dear Miss Dupree: I regret that I cannot do as you wish. You have no idea of the multitude of requests made upon me, and it is a simple impossibility for me to do anything more than I am doing. Faithfully yours, Miss A. M. C. Dupree, 2111 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 12132April 28th, 1911. Dear Jim: Don't ask me to write such a foreword. I am bedevilled to write introductions for books dealing with worthy objects. I once wrote a letter to West and another to Thompson Seton about the Boy Scouts Movement. It is really absurd my making a new letter or statement of any kind. If what I wrote was worth anything six months ago, it is worth just as much now, and they can use it now. When you next come to New York of course you will come out here to Oyster Bay. I shall have a good deal to say to you about the political situation. As you say, Taft's appointment of Fisher, one of the "foul conspirators" whom at the moment he was denouncing in a public letter, has a deliciously humourous side to it. Poor Taft! If two years ago he had done some of the things he has done now, he would probably have saved himself from nine [tenths] of the blunders that he has made and is making. I am concerned over the Alaska terminals business, and also over the Mexican row. Taft's now wanting to throw the whole matter over to Congress is after all fundamentally what McKinley did with Congress in connection with the Cuban war. It helped McKinley although it was really an abandonment of 12133duty. Whether it will help Taft or not I do not know. Imagine Washington, or Lincoln, or Andrew Jackson taking such a position! The first duty of a leader is to lead. I refused the invitation to speak in Mexico on the fourth of July of course. Faithfully yours, The Hon. James R. Garfield, 931 Garfield Building, Cleveland, Ohio. 12134April 28th, 1911. My dear Madam: Your case may be exceptional, but I am sure on thinking it over you will see that Mr. Roosevelt can not possibly do as you wish. In the first place Mr. Roosevelt cannot introduce a bill into Congress as he is not a member of that body, and in the next place if he were to try to influence Congressmen to pass such a bill they would naturally resent his interference. Besides which if Mr. Roosevelt were to interfere in one case he would be [approached] in hundreds of similar cases and naturally these [applicants] would have legitimate grounds for complaint if he did not do the same for them as he did for you. I am very sorry this is the only reply to be sent. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Katherine E. Gunkle, Malvern, Pa. 12135April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Gill: In the first place let me say what a real pleasure it is to deal with a man of your feelings. I do not always have to deal with men with such a nice sense of propriety, and such a thorough understanding of my position. Then let me say I am sincerely glad to get the "Life of Sir William Butler". It is one of the books that I shall always keep in my library. How sorry I am I never saw him! Well! if you ever come to this side, I shall expect to see you without fail. Faithfully yours, T. P. Gill, Esq., Department of Agriculture, and Technical Instruction, Dublin, Ireland. 12136April 28th 1911. My dear Mrs Kennedy: You are almost the only person to whom I would venture to write this letter, but I feel in the first place that you will understand me, and in the next place that I understand your attitude toward great public works and needs. One of the excellent things done by Mr Pierpont Morgan has been his endowment of a publication fund for Princeton University, a fund which has enabled Princeton to produce not only in permanent form, but in a form which meets all the exacting requirements of both scientific and artistic taste which, if it were not for such a fund, would be produced of necessity in a rather shabby manner. He has thereby raised himself a monument of a very peculiar kind, a monument which will endure much longer than any monument of metal or marble could endure. The Smithsonian Institution at Washington, as you are of course aware, is at this time probably the leading scientific institution in the world. Certainly there is no other of the kind in any foreign country which comes up to it. It from time to time sends our expeditions, or makes collections, of far-reaching interest and value. At present it has no means of [commercializing?] these collections in volumes that would really be worthy of the work done. The great French, English and German 21372 scientific expeditions of the past, for instance, where they have achieved permanent and striking results, are commemorated in volumes which, because of the binding, the typography and the illustrations are to this day eagerly sought after not only by all scientific libraries, but by all private individuals who care for really valuable books. The Smithsonian Institution is very anxious to obtain a publication fund so that our American work may take the same lasting and beautiful form that in the best cases foreign work of the same kind has taken. For instance, as you doubtless know, I was head of the recent expedition which the Smithsonian sent to Africa. We brought back an extraordinary series of collections, zoological and botanical, collections which in value far surpass any others ever obtained by any similar expedition for even the greatest of the old-World museums. These collections will be mounted or otherwise preserved in accessible form in the National Museum, and will constitute an asset of value such as no other museum has. But of course to give them their full scientific value they must be adequately described and properly illustrated. It is very difficult to get Congress to see the value of first-rate scientific work of this kind, and to provide for its illustration and printing in proper form. Indeed the Smithsonian proper gets nothing whatever from Congress, although for the National Museum 121383 appropriations are made. In consequence, the Smithsonian publications are made purely from the proceeds of private endowment or subscription. I wonder whether you would feel like looking into the matter so as to make up your mind whether you should not endow, either in your own name or as a memorial to Mr Kenndy, a publication fund, the income of which should be used for producing publications of this nature. I do not believe that a finer monument could be erected to anyone's memory, and of course there would be a peculiar appropriateness for it in the case of my lamented and valued friend your husband, because of the great interest he always took in our two museums in this city - you may remember that he was associated with my father from the very beginning in working for them. I have asked the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Dr. Walcott, who is not only one of our foremost scientific men, and by far the greatest scientific administrator of the day, to call upon you and put the case before you, and if you care to I shall be delighted to call upon you myself. With assurances of my very warm regards, my dear Mrs Kennedy, I am, Very sincerely yours, Mrs. John S. Kennedy, 6 West 57th Street, New York. 12139April 28th, 1911. My dear Miss Krout: I hate to have to answer you as I must, but it is not possible for me to give such letters now. You have no conception of the multitude of similar requests made upon me. Now, have you not got a copy of the letter I gave you to Mr. Hay which you can send to me, and I will gladly endorse on it some memorandum showing that I am of the same opinion now. I am really concerned that I did not know who your sister was when I met her in Indiana. Naturally I had not the slightest idea, [who she was], and probably did not even catch her name. With regret, Sincerely yours, Miss Mary H. Krout, Crawfordsville, Ind. 12140April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Lessler: It was very good of you to send me that photograph. I congratulate you and especially Mrs. Lessler upon the fine family of children which you have. I wish well to all of you. Faithfully yours, Mr. J. Lessler, 234 West 121st Street, New York City. 12141April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. McCullough: It is evident that I shall not be able to leave here even to go on that attractive trip of yours. It is just fine of you to have asked me. Now remember the next time you are in New York you are to spend a night with me out at Oyster Bay. With heartiest thanks, Faithfully yours, Hiram R. McCullough, Esq., Chicago, Ill. 12142April 28th, 1911. My dear Governor: I am really pleased with your letter. Nothing could have gratified me more. Faithfully yours, The Hon. Charles S. Osborn, Governor of the State of Michigan, Lansing, Mich. 12143April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Phillips: I thank you for your editorial. It is just the kind of thing I like to see circulated in a paper of real influence. And, my dear Mr. Phillips, I am genuinely indebted to you for having called my attention to the Reno matter. Faithfully yours, Charles Phillips, Esq., The Monitor, San Francisco, Cal. 12144April 28th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to say that he will be pleased to see Mr. Leavell if he will call at this Office next Friday say at 12 o'clock. Faithfully yours, Secretary L. S. Rowe, Esq., American Academy of Political science, Philadelphia, Pa. 12145April 28th, 1911. Dear Mr. Robinson: Herewith I beg to send check for $163,24 received from the Century Company as per its account of sales of books up to March 31st last. Will you please pay this check into Mr. Roosevelt's account. herewith I am also sending you a chech from Mr. Wolfe for $1,60. I wish you would endorse it on behalf of Mr. Roosevelt and return it to me as I wish to have it paid into The Outlook account. It is for a book purchased from The Outlook and Mr. Wolfe evidently wishes to secure Mr. Roosevelt's autograph and so has made the check out to him instead of The Outlook. When you have endorsed it I will be glad if you will return it to me. Faithfully yours, Douglas Robinson, Esq., 146 Broadway, New York City. 12146 April 28th, 1911. My dear Mr. Small: I know nothing whatever of the case concerning which you speak, and so can give no information about it. I do not even know who the government officer that has power in the promises is. Sincerely yours, S. W. Small Esq., The Sun, Phoenix, Ariz. 12147April 28th, 1911. My dear Stewart: You must not ask me to make another speech. I would do it in your case if I could do it at all, but I simply cannot. Every time I yield to a request to a request I invite probably a hundred others. You have no conception of the multitude of requests I got which I would greatly like to accept and am simply unable to, requests from Institutions like that you are writing on behalf of which are doing admirable work and which I would like to help, and yet if I started to do as you ask me to do it would mean an absolute loss of all power to do useful work on my part. I am very sorry. Faithfully yours, John A. Stewart Esq., 50 Church Street, New York City. 12148April 28th 1911. My dear Miss Tarbell: I do not know quite how to reach those responsible for carrying on the American Magazine, and so I write you this letter, that you can show to them. I was really shocked and saddened to see in the American Magazine this month, side by side with the articles by you and Ray Stannard Baker in which you stand up for decency and elementary morality and fairdealing in American life, another article praising James Gordon Bennett, and giving his picture. Now Bennett represents more brazenly and shamelessly the forces of evil in the United States by far than anyone of the men you or Ray Stannard Baker have ever attacked. You have written much about the iniquities of the tariff. You have pointed out injustices and discriminations in the tariff, and spoken of the men responsible for them. With the solitary exception of Lorimer, there is not one man in either House of Congress whom you have mentioned, or whom you can mention, who is not a far more decent man and far less harmful to this country than Bennett is. Ray Stannard Baker has explained, as for instance in his article on Newark, the damage that can be done by the creation of a false and vicious sentiment in American life in any community. Well! the Herald represents the very nadir of such sentiment. It is one of the foremost 121492 examples, one of the most striking and vicious examples, of the influences that tend to produce just the evils which Ray Stannard Baker is attacking. My dear Miss Tarbell, as regards this number of the magazine, I feel that any influence you and Ray Stannard Baker exert for decency in the abstract by what you have written is much more than offset by the influence of the magazine, so far as this number is concerned, for vicious living in the concrete, by the praise it gives to James Gordon Bennett. What would you say of a religious magazine which printed sermons on behalf of decency in the abstract, and then published a eugelistic article with a picture about Lorimer describing how he always stayed at the Y.M.C.A. building when he was in Washington, and how regularly he was at church? You and Baker would both rightly be shocked at the conduct of such a religious magazine. Yet this is precisely what the American Magazine did in this issue. It is a real grief to me because the American Magazine is a magazine in which I believe, and I hate to see it put itself on a level with magazines of the type of Hampton's, Pearson's, the Cosmopolitan and the Metropolitan. Do tell Ray Stannard Baker, by the way, in connection with the article he just printed, that when he quotes Lorimer's paper, the InterOcean, as to my having said one thing about the Payne-Aldrich Law in New 121503 York, and another thing in the West, I think that, as a mere matter of justice to me, he should also have inserted a footnote stating that Mr. Lorimer's paper deliberately mis-stated the facts. In The Outlook for January 28th last I gave parallel quotations of what I said about the tariff in the East and in the West. Faithfully yours, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, The American Magazine, New York City. 2151April 28th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your very courteous letter. He much appreciates your writing to him. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Bela Tokaji, Progressive Republican League, New York City. 12152April 28th, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letters to The Outlook have been handed to me. I have spoken to Mr. Roosevelt concerning the deed which you have and he wishes me to say that he has no time to go into such matters and therefore he will not trouble you to show the deed to him. Mr. Roosevelt says there are quite a number of Townsends living at Oyster Bay although he cannot give you the information regarding the old Townsend house. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. F. R. Townsend, c/o P. R. Labouisse, Ruxton, Md. 12153 April 28th, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in sending him a copy of your recent novel. He greatly appreciates your courtesy, and looks forward with pleasure to reading it. It was very kind of you to write him. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Violet Tweedale, Balquholly, Turriff, Scotland. 12154April 26th, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. Unfortunately he has no photographs such as you desire and is therefore unable to send you one. He is very sorry as he would like to help you if he could. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. K. M. Viquesney, National Marble & Granite Co., Marietta, Ga. [*12154-A*]April 28th 1911. My dear Mrs Walford: Not only have I always shared with Mrs Roosevelt my fondness for your books, but I have long been a particular admirer of the "Moor and the Loch"; and I had no idea that John Colquhoun was your father until Mrs Roosevelt told me. I cannot deny myself the [pleasure] of sending you just a line to say that I set a very high value upon your father's book, not only because it is so delightfully written, but also because he takes so sane a view not merely of the use of sport but of its abuse. I could ask nothing better for my own boys than that they should take exactly the view of sport that your father sets forth in the first chapter under that title. With all good wishes, Sincerely yours, Mrs L. B. Walford, 17 Warsick Square, London, S. W., England. 12155April 28th, 1911. My dear Sir: I thank you for the little book and [appreciate] your sending it to me. It was extremely kind of you. Faithfully yours, Mr. James T. White, 31 East 22nd Street, New York City. 12156April 28th 1911. My dear Mr Willard: Not only is your letter very interesting, but I am touched by its sincerity and kindly frankness. I do not think you need be told how genuine my admiration for you is, nor what it means to me to have the chance of hearing from and working with one whose motives and purposes are so transparently high and fine, and who has done and is doing and will [be] doing such a quantity of invaluable work for the State. [Now] I want to make one thing a little clearer than I did. I judge by your letter that you think I am putting my chief stress upon the question as to how far it is "politic" and expedient for me to go in my advocacy of what you call democratic principles and popular rule legislation in view of [the] tremendous disapproval in the East. In the first place I ought to have made it more evident than I apparently did make it, that I was using the words "politic" and "expedient" only in the sense that I would use them in discussing Abraham Lincoln's attitude toward slavery, or Washingtons attitude toward [?]; and independence. When a very young man in the Illinois Legislature he fearlessly put himself on record as against slavery; but he resolutely declined to join the anti-slavery [parties] in '44 and '48 on the ground that the movements were so inexpedient that they did harm and not good to the 121572 cause; and in '56, 58, '60, and even well on into '62, he also resolutely declined to join the abolitionists, and to head a crusade for the total destruction of slavery, confining himself to opposition to the extension of slavery into new territory, until the time [became ripe] to move for its total abolition. I do not agree with you in your description of his statement in 1858 that the Union could not permanently endure half slavery and half free. He again and again sought to modify what he had said by words and phrases, and for over a year after the civil war had begun, in '61 and '62, when he was President, in his letter to Horace Greeley, in his answer to the deputation of ministers, and on many other occasions, including his first inaugural, he explicitly stated that his effort was to preserve the Union with or without slavery, and that if it could best be preserved by keeping slavery undisturbed in the Southern States, then he believed in keeping slavery - that is, he believed in the effort to keep the Union just as he said it could not permanently be kept. This, however, is a historic question merely, and with no real bearing upon what I wish to say to you; except that I do wish you to understand that according to my light, however dim they may be, I am endeavoring to work in the spirit in which Abraham Lincoln worked. I believe his success was due to the fact that he refused to be swerved out of the path of cautious and moderate advance by the denunciations of the fiery and sincere enthusiasts like Wendell 121583 Phillips, who, as you will remember, denounced him as "the slave-hound of Illinois". I do not think that these extremists were purer and better men than Lincoln, the head of the moderates, was; I think they were merely more foolish men, and that if they had had their way, instead of bringing about a better condition of affairs, they would have wrecked the Union and destroyed the anti-slavery cause. Just in the same way I believe that the French revolutionists, when, not content with what they had gained in 1789, pushed forward through the four years of red anarchy that culminated in the terror, and did more to damage democracy, ore to put back the cause of popular government, than any despot or oligarchy from that time to this. Remember that there the men who made a "religion" of democracy, who typified "liberty" as a goddess; and who prattled words like these while their hearts were black with murder committed in such names. Do read Acton's lectures on French Revolution. Now do not think I believe that to be moderate and to show wisdom and commonsense means ever to be half-hearted, or means that the "root and branch" policy is not sometimes the wisest and indeed the only wise policy. Lincoln was not half-hearted. His zeal was just as intense, his purpose as inflexible, as the zeal and purpose of the extremists who denounced him. And his policy of moderation did not mean weakness; on the contrary, when the time was ripe he struck with iron determination, and he saw the time when compromise would be fatal just as he saw the time when insistence upon no compromise would be fatal. My dear fellow, I absolutely agree with what you say as to the new 121594 conditions under which I am speaking. The only point on which I disagree with you is as to the importance of the new role. I do not believe that I have a very great role to play as advisor, but I do want to feel that whatever little effect I may have, yet that the effect shall be for good. I do want to be useful, and I thank you for seeing and saying that I want to be useful. Now all of this is preliminary to what you have said, and to what I wish to say as to what you call the concrete issue; as you put it, "your attitude toward democracy, and your method of expression in presenting the case to the public." Now I deeply err about my my own attitude if it is not that of a genuine democrat, and if my democracy does not represent not only reasoned conviction but intense sympathy, and, as I believe, deep understanding. I have always kept a cartoon that appeared about me while I was President. This cartoon was called "His Favorite Author". It represented a barely furnished room, and before a small fire, seated in a shabby old rocking-chair, shabbily dressed, was an old fellow, apparently a farmer, with furrowed chin and whiskered face. It was the picture of a man who worked hard, for whom life was not easy, who had had no unfair advantages in life - the face of a kindly, good, hard-working man - and the "Favorite Author's" work which he was reading was one of my [12160] 5 Presidential messages. That cartoon represented very much to me. That is the man I have tried to represent. That is the man with whom I deeply sympathize, whose welfare and beliefs and convictions I have ever before me, and with whom I feel absolute community of thought in the essential things of life, but news of war and hence of family life and business, of [?], of [j?] his and [?] of all the really [?] things are fundamentally the same, I am very fond of books and of study, of pictures and of [bronzes], just as I am fond of the woods and of watching wild birds and beasts, and I like to talk with scholars and literary men, and leaders of thought of all kinds. But the men with whom I feel genuine sympathy are not big business men, big corporation lawyers, big contractors of the ordinary [type]; the men of whom I am always thinking, and whose emotions and convictions I understand and represent, are men like those whom I meet at railway employees' conventions, or out on ranches, or down at the lodge, where I come in contact with the baymen, the oyster-sloop captain, the express agent, the brakeman, the farmer, the small storekeeper, the man who is my cousin's gardener, my own chauffeur, and others like them. But, my dear Willard, I think the very fact that I am a genuine democrat, and that I feel that these are men like me and I am like them, prevents my falling into what I feel is the dangerous frame of mind that has been as fatally attractive to the French and most of the Latin peoples in the past, the tendency to speak of democracy, for instance, as if it were a goddess, as if the mere name had a fetichistic or superstitious 121616 value. I thank you yourself in your letter unconsciously used "democracy" with two or three different significations, now, for instance, as a method of government, now, for instance, as expressing a social ideal. Take the first use for a moment, the use of the word "democracy" to mean a method of government. You speak as if the initiative, referendum and recall meant more genuine rule by the people than is obtained through representative government. Now this may or may not be so. If you tried to push matters to an extreme in this way, you would destroy all popular rule. If, for instance, you abolished the Legislature, and had all laws enacted by popular vote, you would as a matter of actual practice deprive ninety-nine per cent of the people of all real control over legislation, just as if New York City you, in the name of popular rule, attempted to elect by the people all the forty-five thousand employees of the city, it would merely result in depriving the people [absolutely] of all power over their representatives. I say this because I am one of the people, and I am reasoning about the rest of the people from my own experience. Where I have to hire and work with only four or five men, I of course hire them myself and work with them myself. But when I was colonel, I had to delegate the business of enlisting men into the regiment to a number of subordinates, and then I could carry on the business of the regiment only by dealing primarily not with each individual but with the various heads 121627 of various groups of individuals. So in civil life. As I am not a professional bread and butter politician, I find it enormously to my interest to choose some man whom I believe to be honest and competent, and to delegate to him the task of appointing governmental agents, or of passing the great majority of the laws that ought to be passed. This delegation of authority, so far from meaning the surrender of authority, is merely a method of making authority more efficient; and the question as to how far the delegation shall go is one of pure expediency, and the only way it can be tested is by its results. I was immensely impressed with the Wisconsin people, when I stopped at Madison on my return journey, just because they were not approaching the question of the initiative, referendum and recall in a fetichistic spirit, but in an entirely practical fashion, with the belief that it was an advantage rationally to apply the principles in governmental work, and that it would be a very great disadvantage if they were not applied under such conditions as made good result from them. In certain places in Switzerland, for instance, the initiative has had the unexpected result of giving a small and alert minority an altogether improper advantage over the majority, enabling them ceaselessly to worry the majority, and sometimes, when they caught the majority napping, to do them real damage. Under such conditions, the majority is bound in the end to protect itself without much regard to 12163 8 theory by facing facts as they are. Governor Bass of New Hampshire was here last evening, and I [took] the liberty of reading him part of your letter. He is as sincere a progressive as Governor Johnson is, but he has not endeavored to press the initiative, referendum and recall in New Hampshire any more than Governor Johnson has deemed it necessary to try to introduce the town meeting style of government into Los Angeles, The town meeting represents much more genuine democracy in the sense that you in part of your letter use the word "democracy" than the initiative and referendum, and I think it is the best possible government for the best type a small community; but I think it would be a complete failure in a big city, as one proved by the experience of Boston. If the New Hampshire Legislature does not prove responsive to the popular will, then New Hampshire will have to secure more direct governmental control by the people as a whole; but at present the people take no interest in such direct legislation, simply because they feel that their representatives are representing them. In Vermont, methods of legislation which I should like to see adopted in some other States are not necessary, simply because Vermont representatives do represent the people. Here in New York, while I think that much good could be accomplished by introducing certain features of the initiative, referendum and recall (and in New York State, 121649 curiously enough, I think the need for the recall [as] applied to the judiciary is far greater than in most States, although no greater than in California), yet the fundamental need is to have the people take the right view on public questions. Last year, for instance, the issue was perfectly clean-cut here in New York. Decent people and decent principles were on one side; the bosses of both parties, and the whole system of alliance between big business and big politics, and all else that was bad from the civic and social standpoints, were represented on the other side. The people of New York went by sixty thousand the wrong way. No initiative or referendum, or anything else, would have been of use in preventing them going wrong; and no good that the initiative, or the referendum, or the recall, or any other device, could have accomplished last year or this year could in any way compensate for the amount of damage the people did to themselves by trusting in and following bad leadership at the last election. In other words, as I have so often insisted, while governmental machinery is important, it is the spirit of the people behind the machinery that counts most. In our government the question of the rights of the people is not nearly as important as the question of the duties of the people. Here the people is sovereign. Let the sovereign beware of flatterers! If your son is to do well in any occupation it will be because you have instilled into him, or at least because he acts on, the belief that he needs to think of his duty ten times when he needs to think of his rights once; and what is true of each of us individually is true of all of us collectively, that is of the people. So much for democracy where you use the word as implying a preference for one system of popular government over another. Now for what you say about democracy in its larger respect. My dear fellow, you say "To us it seems the one thing in the whole scheme of human affairs that we can 1216510 believe in without limitation and without reservation, that "the people should rule." If you literally applied this without qualification and explanation in California, it would of course mean that the Chinese and Japanese should come in in unlimited quantities, and should rule you. Now you don't mean this any more than the Texan and Mississippian who use the same phraseology mean that the negroes of the black belt should rule. There is to be always something both pathetic and grimly ironic in the Socialist propaganda coupled with the fact that as a working theory no Socialist party in this country could endure for twenty-four hours if, not as a matter of theory, but as a matter of practice, it applied its doctrines to black men and yellow men. Every real democrat in this country, every democrat who tries to put his democracy into practice, and does not treat it either as a theory to be used for his selfish benefit, or as an agreeable abstraction not to be applied in real life; every such democrat acts on the perfectly sound (although unacknowledged, and often hotly contested) belief that only certain people are fit for democracy. When fact to face with facts no democrat would really contend [?] [?] or [?] Indians are fit for democracy - that is, no democrat who [?] among them would contend [?]. You say that you would rather have bad government with democracy than good government without it, because "government itself is only a means to an end to give a man a chance to be happy, and to develop the best that is in him. And that is just what democracy does it firsthand, directly. It's function as a maker of men is almost Godlike." If you take a people, a race that stand high enough, this is true, but if you 12166 [*Asuwini*] 11 seek to apply this doctrine to all men everywhere, it is lamentably and ludicrously false. [*Remember that a lie is just as much a lie if designed to batten up beautiful theory as under any other circumstances. As Emerson says, in the long run the most unpleasant truth is a safer hunting companion than the pleasantest falsehood.*] In Haiti, absolute democracy has been at work for over a century; and really, my dear Mr Willard, it is sad to think of your sentence of the function of democracy being "Godlike as a maker of men", and then think of what democracy has done in Haiti. It would be far truer to say that its function there had been "devil-like than that its function there had been "God-like". I firmly believe that the American people is so advanced that on the whole they can do better for themselves than any man or men could do for them, and also better than any man or men are able to do for any other people, because the best and highest government must necessarily be democracy, for the very reason that only the best and highest people can fully realize democracy. But those who expect the impossible from the adoption of democratic forms prepare for themselves the most bitter disappointment, and may do dreadful harm to the cause of popular freedom, to the cause of the elevation of the race. I believe that as a governmental expedient the rule of the majority is the only safe rule for us in America to adopt. But I hold that insistence that the majority is always right may be just as slavish and vicious as insistence upon the doctrine that the king can do no wrong. I suppose no-one seriously contends that during reconstruction days the negro majority in Mississippi and South Carolina acted wisely, or that it was 1216712 possible to continue the government in the hands of that majority. On the other hand, the whites of Mississippi and South Carolina, not merely by a majority but with substantial unanimity, decided in 1861 to leave the Union, decided to plunge the country into four years of dreadful war and to ruin their own State, with the purpose of breaking up the one great free republic on the face of the earth, and of enthroning slavery in perpetuity. The views of the majority of the these two States, and the sins of these two States at that time, were those of the Devil and not those of God; and that man deserved best of his fellows who fearlessly withstood the popular will. Then a State votes to repudiate its debts, it does not mean that it is right that the debts should be repudiated, it means that the majority is acting badly. Three centuries ago the rule of the majority in Scotland meant savage oppresion of Catholic and Episcopalian and frightful cruelty to witches and free- thinkers; and at the same time the rule of the majority in Spain meant an infinitely more hideous persecution of Protestant, Jew and Moslem. In both cases the ? of majority, of the people meant the negation of liberty; in Spain it meant the destruction of every thing that makes life worth living, and ultimately the destruction of the Spanish people At present the rule of the majority in Morocco means every varity of hideous cruelty, injustice and social and governmental abomination. It would be enormously to the benefit of the people of Morocco if the French took hold of them and did for them what they have done in Algiers. When the people of the Sudan ruled themselves, they were guilty of conduct which not figuratively but literally meant that it should be better that they should all die than 1216813 thus continue to rule themselves; as a matter of fact, two-thirds of them did die, and justice and liberty came only when the rule of an alien supplanted the rule which, by the action or with the acquiescence of the majority, had been established. All of this seems to me so elemental as to be trite. The rule of the majority is good only if the majority has the will and the morality and the intelligence to do right; and the majority of the peoples of mankind are not yet in such shape that they can prosper under the very kind of rule which it is essential for us here in America to have, and under which alone we can prosper and bring ourselves to the highest point of developed usefulness. My dear Mr Willard, read what Lincoln said in his answer to Douglas as to the real meaning of the Declaration of Independence, and in the comparison he makes in speaking of equality between himself and a negro, and you will get exactly the idea of what I regard as the proper temper in which to approach these subjects. I do not think that the most fervant zeal, the utmost earnestness, and the most resolute determination to help forward the cause of the people, ought to be permitted to mean that we are afraid to look facts in the face. I too am a dreamer or dreams; I hold the man worthles who is not a dreamer, who does not see visions; but I also hold him worthless unless in practical fashion he endeavors to shape his actions so that these dreams and visions can be partially realized, 1216914 and shall not remain mere dreams and visions, or, what is worse still, shall not be turned into will-o'-the-wisps to lead struggling mankind to destruction. Robespierre and Marat, and Danton and Barriers, and the other dreadful miscreants of the Terror used all the fine phrases known to lovers of mankind at the very time that they worked to France a damage almost as great as that which had been wrought by Louis XV and his predecessors and ministers and associates; and a damage from which France has never recovered and which each effect even tremendous good accomplished by overthrowing the majority of the old Regime. I shall be sorry indeed if I ever unwittingly use words which shall dampen the zeal and dim the burning vision of those who fight for the right and struggle toward it; but I shall be equally sorry if I ever use words which shall deceive good men for whom life is not easy into following wrong paths, or into preparing bitter disappointment for themselves, by trusting in promises that cannot be fulfilled. Are you ever coming to this side of the continent ? I ahould like to see you when we can talk over these matters face to face for a whole evening. Faithfully yours, Mr Charles Dwight Willard, 465 Del Rosa Drive, Pasadena, Cal. P.S. You say that I can never be admitted into your lodge by the use of words such as I have used. Friend, friend, in my lodge the masters of the best are Washington and Lincoln, and admission to it is not by words, or fine, futile phrases, but by service and achievement; and it is only by membership in this lodge that good can really be done by the lover of mankind.April 28th, 1911. Dear Billy: Many thanks for the Atlantic. I enjoyed seeing you the other day. I am sorry to say that during the next two or three weeks it is out of the question for me to make any other engagement. You see, I am getting up with the work left over from my Western trip. Will you not, be the middle of May, make a Friday appointment with me for the naturalization work. Faithfully yours, William J. Youngs Esq., United States Attorney, Brooklyn, N.Y. 12171April 29th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that unfortunately he will be unable to see you when you come to New York as he will not be in town at that time. I am very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. J. W. Battershall, Attleboro, Mass. 3291Beard April 29th, 1911. My dear Sirs: In reply to your letter to Mr. Roosevelt I do not know what article to which you refer. He has not written an article pertaining to the Sunday School, although when he was out in San Francisco a week or so ago he delivered a series of addresses at the University of California in which he referred to the work of the Sunday School. The one I particularly refer to is entitled "The Bible and the Life of the People", and it might be possible to obtain a copy of it by writing to the Pacific Theological Seminary, San Francisco. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. C.W. Beard, Oaktown, Ind. 2766 April 29th, 1911. My dear Sir: If you will state exactly what you wish to see Mr. Roosevelt about I will see if it is at all possible for h to make an appointment for you to call. He is so busy at the present time that it is physically impossible for him to see all the people who wish to make appointments, and it is necessary for him first of all to know exactly what they wish to call about. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Charles A. Euell, 237 West 142nd Street, New York City. 12172April 29th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to thank you for your kindness in sending the pictures. They will serve as a reminder of the very enjoyable, though short, visit he paid your city on his way through Texas. The reception be received really touched him. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. J. Friedlander, Young Mens Business League, Waco, Texas. 12173 April 29th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in sending him the booklet. He much appreciates your courtesy. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Byron W. Goodsell, 117 North Canal Street, Chicago, Ill. 12174April 29th, 1911. My dear Mr. Hapgood: Did you receive Mr. Roosevelt's letter of April 21st? He was asking yesterday as to whether it was sent all right as he had received no reply from you. Faithfully yours, Secretary Norman Hapgood Esq., Collier's New York City. 12175 April 29th, 1911. My dear Mr. Kellogg: There has been such a pressure of work since Mr. Roosevelt returned from the West that it has been physically impossible to attend to all the correspondence. For this reason no reply was sent to your letter of April 5th, asking Mr. Roosevelt for an expression of his views in regard to the New York Court ed Appeals' decision declaring the Workingmen's Compensation Law unconstitutional. He will probably write such an article as the one you suggest and it would be well for you to get into communication with Mr. Howland to see if it is possible for The Outlook to do as you desire and let you have an advance copy of the article. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Paul U. Kellogg, The Survey, 12176April 29th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to say that he does not believe a letter of thanks has been sent to you for the General Hubbard edition of "The North Pole", which you very kindly sent to him. He has placed this copy in his library, and he deeply appreciates your thoughtfulness in wishing him to have it. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Frederick A. Stokes, 443 Fourth Avenue, New York City. 12177April 29th, 1911. My dear Sir: I am very sorry to say that it is quite impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to help you to secure another position. He does not know to whom he could refer you, and in any event it would be quite impossible for him to give you a letter of introduction to any one as if he were to do so in your case he would be compelled in common fairness to do the same in the hundreds of similar cases which come to his attention. I am very sorry it is impossible for him to oblige. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. George L. Weeks Jr., Seaford, N.Y. 12178 April 29th, 1911. My dear Madam: I am sorry to tell you that it is quite impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to give you the information you desire, nor does he know to whom he could refer you. With regret, Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. Francis C. Williams, 226 W. Works Street, Sheridan, Wyoming. 12179April 30, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in sending him a copy of the book. He much appreciates your courtesy. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. T. Cushing Daniel Washington, D.C. 12180[*1911 Apr?*] MISS ANNE MORGAN, 219 MADISON AVENUE; NEW YORK CITY TUESDAY APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH ALL RIGHT. IN AFTERNOON SAY ABOUT FOUR O'CLOCK. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 12181[*Lee Brown*] May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes m to say tho he never gives his opinion upon public questions i letters to friends for quotation. The only way you can obtai his views upon the question you put to him is by referring to his published speeches. He feels sure on thinking it over yo will see how impossible it would be for him to answer in personal letters all the queries that are put to him by correspondents. If he were to try to do so, it would entail such a drain upon his time and energy that would be simply unbearable. He is very sorry that he cannot comply with your request. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Lee Brown, Chicago, Ill. 5294May 1st, 1911. My dear Dr. Brush: I have arranged for the Newark people to have their exercises commence at 11 o'clock on Memorial Day so that Mr. Roosevelt may get to the Claremont by 12.45. An automobile will be arranged by the Newark people to bring him from Newark to the Claremont and so you need not bother at all regarding this. The program you have arranged is all in order. Faithfully yours, Secretary Dr. George W. Brush, 463 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 5252May 1st, 1911. Dear Willie: Upon my word! I felt really indignant when I found that you had been in America and had never let me know. Be sure next time to give me a chance to see you, I want you to take lunch with me and I will show you two or three of my trophies, and we will talk over Africa and all kinds of other things. Faithfully yours, William Aster Chanler Esq., Travelers Club, Paris, France. 8257May 1st, 1911. My dear Madam: I am sorry to tell you that Mr. Roosevelt is unable to oblige you by sending a copy of his book plate. He never does this and if he were to begin to do it he would have so many calls upon him of this nature that it would become impossible for him to respond. I am very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Winifred M. Crawford, Lock Box 5, Ampere, N.J. 6333May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter has come to hand together with the enclosures. Unfortunately it is physically impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to add in any way to the work he is already doing, or to give you advice upon the subject of your letter. With regret, Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Robert Cronzbaur, Brooklyn, N. Y. 6334May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: I am sorry to tell you that it is quite impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to arrange for photographers to take his picture. It has already been taken tons of thousands of times and he really has not time to spare to have further pictures taken. I am very sorry to have to send you this reply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Ernest Cascioli, 166 Brown Place, Bronx, N.Y. 12182May 1st, 1911. My dear SIr: I am sorry to say that it is quite impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to do anything in the matter which you bring to his attention. He does not know to whom he could refer you, or in what way your idea could be put into practice. With regret, Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. E. Christinet, Donaldsonville, La. 12183May 1st, 1911. Dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that it is quite impossible for him to do as you desire. He is approached in hundreds of similar cases, and of course it would be physically impossible for him to respond favorably in each case, besides which it would be very undesirable for him to comment on all those he is asked to comment on. He is very sorry that he cannot do as you wish. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Ruth Helen Davis, 11 East 79th Street, New York City. 12184May 1st, 1911. My dear Mr. Downey: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. You know how deeply I sympathize with the work you are doing, and how heartily I wish success to the movement. Faithfully yours, Mr. Harry C. Downey, Fish and Game Protective Association, Springfield, Mass. 12185May 1st, 1911. My dear Mr. Ensor: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. John S. Ensor, Boy Scouts of America, Baltimore, Md. 12186May 1st, 1911. My dear Mr. Folks: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Homer Folks, State Charities Aid Association, 105 East 22nd Street, New York City. 12187May 1st, 1911. My dear Madam: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. I am sure your will understand what a deep sympathy Mr. Roosevelt feels for you in your trouble and he wishes it were possible for him to help you in some way to bring the trouble to an end so that you might continue to live happily. Unfortunately he does not know all the circumstances and he is therefore practically helpless in the matter, and it would be foolish for him to try to advise you. He hopes that you can find some friend in your town who can discuss the matter and who will be able to give you far better advice that Mr. Roosevelt could with his present knowledge of the case. He is sincerely sorry and wishes he could do something to help you out. With regret, Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. L. Gardner, Lebanon, Mo. 12188 May 1st, 1911. Dear Mr. Higgins: The enclosed was given to me this morning by Mrs. Roosevelt and she wishes to know if it will be possible to secure a refund of the $18 which she paid. You will remember that in some way the ticket between here and Chicago became mislaid and so it was necessary for her to pay the fare again. She said that the representative told her that the amount she had already paid would be refunded in New York. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. G.W. Higgins, 1216 Broadway, New York City. 12189May 1st, 1911. Dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in letting him see a copy of these verses. I am sorry to tell you, however, that it would be quite impossible for him to give you a few words for publication. I am sure on thinking it over you will see that if he did it in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do it in the hundreds of similar cases which came to him. I am very sorry it is impossible to oblige you. The enclosures are returned herewith. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. Sarah M. Joyce, Anson, Texas. 12190 May 1st, 1911. My dear Mr. Justice: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. William W. Justice, Republican Party, Philadelphia, Pa. 12191May 1st, 1911. My dear Mr. King: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Edwin B. King, Gilman County School, Baltimore, Md. 12192May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: I am sorry to tell you that Mr. Roosevelt is unable to oblige you by sending a copy of his book plate. He never does this and if he were to begin to do it he would have so many calls upon him of this nature that it would become impossible for him to respond. I am very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. D. Allen Knight, 1129 Mount Vernon Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 12193May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: If you will state exactly what you wish to see Mr. Roosevelt about I will see if it is at all possible for him to make an appointment for you to call. He is so busy at the present time that it is physically impossible for him to see all the people who wish to make appointments, and it is necessary for him first of all to know exactly what they wish to call about. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Fred A La Belle, 184 Grant Avenue, Grantwood, N.J. 12194May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages that if he were to comply in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on think it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Albert D. Liefield, 12195 May 1st, 1911. My dear Mr. Luscomb; It was fine to get your letter, and I appreciate your writing to me. I wish I could accept your very kind invitation to take the Scottish Rite Degrees at the next re-union, but unfortunately it will be quite impossible for me to be present. I already have several engagements at that time. In any event I have so much work on hand at present that it is physically impossible for me to make any further engagements of any kind or sort. I am sure you will understand how I appreciate your kindness and why I am unable to take advantage of your invitation. With all good wishes, Fraternally yours, Mr. Charles H. Luscomb, 120 Broadway, New York City. 12196 May 1st, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt has no photographs of himself and he has been nearly overwhelmed with requests for them. All that he can do is to promise that if you will send him one of his photographs, with stamps for return, he will gladly autograph and return it. He is obliged to make this answer to very many people, and regrets his inability to send each of them a photograph as desired. You could obtain one from Messrs Barris & Ewing, Washington, D. C. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. S. McNair, Brodhead, Wis. 12197May 1st, 1911. Dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes me to say that he would be very pleased to see you if you could call at this office on Friday next at three o'clock. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, 785 Madison Avenue, New York City. 12198 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in sending him the clipping and also a copy of the Bill introduced by Senator Houk. It was very kind of you to send them to him. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Edward P. Moses, 720 W Main Avenue, Knoxville, Tenn. 12199 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to say that since he left the White House he has not spoken on behalf of a single person with regard to securing an official position or promotion of any kind or sort. If he were to do so in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the others about which he is approached. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to help you. He is very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Patrick Murphy, 18 Abingdon Square, New York City. 12200 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: I am sorry to tell you that I do not know anything of the copy of the letter which you say you sent to Mr. Roosevelt. It is always very undesirable for people to send to Mr. Roosevelt any paper which they desire to have back, as he receives thousands of letters an it is quite impossible to keep trace of every paper which comes to him. I am sorry we are unable to find any trace of the one you say you sent. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. James H. Norton 353 Eight Street, San Francisco, Cal. 12201 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for sending him a copy of the Notes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. He much appreciates your courtesy. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. S. Spencer Page, Legislative Assembly, Saskatchewan, Canada. 12202 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: I am very sorry to tell you that it is quite impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to give sittings to any artist at the present time, or to arrange for them during the Summer. He has had his picture painted several times, and has no more time to spare for further pictures. I am sorry to have to send this reply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Albert Rosenthal, 1529 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 12203 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes me to say that he never gives his opinion upon public questions in letters to friends for quotation. The only way your can obtain his views upon the question you put to him is by referring to his published speeches. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it would be for him to answer in personal letters all the queries that are put to him by correspondents. If he were to try to do so, it would entail such a drain upon his time and energy that would be simply unbearable. He is very sorry that he cannot comply with your request. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. U. A. Rowe, Norman, Okla. 12204 May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter has come to hand, and in reply I beg to say that Mr. Roosevelt would not be able to see you on any matter of any kind at all unless he knew exactly what you wished to call and see him about. Will you therefore please write me a letter stating exactly what you wish to see him about. The subject as you name it in your present letter is too vague, and Mr. Roosevelt is far too busy a man to see all the people who wish to put propositions before him, and he would only be able to see you if he thought the circumstances warranted his making an appointment for you to call. I shall be glad therefore, if you still wish to see him, if you will state the full particulars. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. T. Gilbert Russell, Farnburn, Slough, England. 12205May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes me to say that he never gives his opinion upon public questions in letters to friends for quotation. The only way you can obtain his views upon the question you put to him is by referring to his published speeches. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it would be for him to answer in personal letters all the queries that are put to him by correspondents. If he were to try to do so, it would entail such a drain upon his time and energy that would be simply unbearable. He is very sorry that he cannot comply with your request. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Clarence A. Smith, Unionville, Missouri. 12206 May 1st, 1911. Gentlemen: Will you please have two hundred copies of Mr. Roosevelt's bookplare[sic] made. I enclose you a sample. I believe you already have the die. Faithfully yours, Secretary Messrs Tiffany & Co., Fifth Ave & 37th Street, New York City. 12207May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: Several months ago I promised to let you know when Mr. Roosevelt's article on the abandoned farm district of New York was published. You will find it in The Outlook for April 22nd. I hope it will give you the information you desire. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. F.E. Wadsworth, 1256 Jefferson Ave, Detroit, Mich. 12208May 1st, 1911. My dear Sir: If you will state exactly what you wish to see Mr. Roosevelt about I will see if it is possible for him to make an appointment for you to call. He is so busy at the present time that it is physically impossible for him to see all the people who wish to make appointments, and it is necessary for him to first of all to know exactly what they wish to call about. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. M.F. Willie, 346 Decatur Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 12209 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Billings: This is to introduce Mr. Charles R. Skinner, formerly Superintendent of Public Instruction when I was myself in public life in New York State. I was greatly impressed by what he did, and the spirit in which he approached his work. Among other things he organized the State Teachers' Library for the benefit of the teachers of the State. He wishes now to talk with you about a similar proposal. Commending him to your courtesy, Faithfully yours, Mr. John Shaw Billings, New Library, New York City.Salvation Army May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mrs. Booth: I remember that incident well, and I am genuinely pleased at the letter. As you know, my dear Mrs. Booth, I grew to feel great confidence not only in your devotion, but in your common-sense, and this case interested me extremely, and I felt it safe to do as you desired. Indeed, I cannot sufficiently congratulate you upon having the right to feel that you have accomplished in this case. Faithfully yours, Mrs. Ballington Booth, 34 West 28th Street, New York City.James Bryce May 2nd, 1911. Dear Mr. Ambassador: You were interested in Willard's letter the other night. Perhaps you may care to see the answer I wrote. Faithfully yours, The Hon. James Bryce, British Ambassador, Washington, D.C. May 2nd, 1911. My dear Judge Cloete: Your letter naturally gives me very real pleasure. I remember well meeting your two nephews. I am very pleased to get an account of your trip, which I have genuinely enjoyed. Is there any chance of your ever coming to the United States? If so, you must surely give me a chance to see you. Faithfully yours, The Hon. M.C. Cloete, Supreme Court, Johannesburg, South Africa. 8228 May 2nd, 1911. Dear Mr. Curtis: No, I have not volume five. I only have volumes one, two, three, and four. Indeed I shall greatly appreciate such a cabinet. Faithfully yours, Mr. Edward S. Curtis, 437 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 7405 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. I think the best plan is to send you extracts from the two speeches mentioned, and I therefore beg to enclose them. I hope this will give you the information you desire. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. D.B. Fairlay, Seattle, Wash. 12210 May 2nd, 1911. Dear Gilson: Mr. Roosevelt was very glad indeed and was very interested to get that clipping. As regards your umbrella, Mrs. Roosevelt selected it from a number of others that had been left at Oyster Bay and asked me to send it on to you as she thought it was yours. I hope when you go down there again you will be able to find a good one in the collection. Sincerely yours, Mr. Gilson Gardner, 611 Munsey Building, Washington, D.C. 12211 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Judge Hallam: I thank you for your very interesting letter. You are entirely right in all that you say. I probably ought to have made my statement a little clearer. I stated that it was usually assumed that Congress could pass upon the validity of its own acts, which means that the contrary is sometimes assumed. But I ought not to have said that no one at the time thought of turning to the Supreme Court as the arbiter, for you have shown that certain of the Northern Legislatures did announce that doctrine; but neither the President nor those in opposition to the resolutions in the National Congress took such a position, and when Patrick Henry opposed the motion in Virginia and threatened its adherents with being brought face to face with the armed men of the nation under Washington, he took totally different grounds. I am sincerely obliged to you. Faithfully yours, The Hon. Oscar Hallam, District Court, Saint Paul, Minn. 12May 2nd, 1911. Dear Mrs. McMillan: I was delighted to get your note, and to hear how things were going on in Africa. Well! I wish I could have been with you - that is, if Mrs. Roosevelt had been along. However, I am sure I never can make a trip again for Mrs. Roosevelt could not go, and if she did go she would be quite needlessly nervous when I was lion-hunting. I say "quite needlessly" because I have never had the slightest intention of being killed by a lion, if it could be avoided, and have always taken all possible precautions. I was very sorry about the death of poor George Grey. He was a good fellow. I congratulate you upon the rhino with the twenty inch horn. You have to go a good distance from the railway to get better horns now. Do remember that if ever you and Northrop again come to this side you must stay in New York long enough to come out here for a night. I so much want to see you both. Mrs. Roosevelt most cordially joins with me in the invitation. Faithfully yours, Mrs. W. N. McMillan, Bicton, Budleigh Salterton, Devonshire, England [*12213*]May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages to be read at meetings, that if he were to comply in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. J. C. McTavish, Edmonton, Ala. 12214May 2nd, 1911. My dear Governor: Thank you for that message. I shall read it with the utmost interest. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed seeing you. Faithfully yours, The Hon. Chase S. Osborn, Lansing, Mich. 12215May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Reid: I gladly send the photograph for your little son. But, my dear sir, I am not able to help you in the other matter. You have no conception of the number of requests made upon me. I am asked to help in innumerable worthy cases and it is impossible for me to do so in all cases. I cannot ask people for money. Faithfully yours, Mr. Gilbert Reid, c/o Messrs Brown, Bros. & Co., 59 Wall Street, New York City. 12216May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Ambassador: This is to present to you Mr. Bernard Goldsmith, formerly of our Consular Service, and one of the most esteemed residents of Milwaukee. He has long been personally known to me. Commending him to your courtesy, I am Sincerely yours, The Hon. Whitelaw Reid, American Ambassador, London, England. 12217May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt is approached by so many hundreds of people to read manuscripts and to give advice as to publication that if he were to respond favorably in each case it would become a burden too great for him to bear. As you will readily realize on thinking it over, if he granted one such request he would be compelled in common fairness to respond to all the others. He is very sorry that he cannot help you in the way you wish, though he much appreciates the circumstances. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. E. N. Rich, Chicago, Ill. 12218May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Yesterday Mr. Roosevelt wrote to you and addressed the letter to Oyster Bay. Evidently your letter crossed in the post. He wishes me to ask if you are to be at Oyster Bay during the next few days as he would like to see you sometime at Sagamore Hill. Will you please let me know? Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. D. B. Rintoul, 130 West 56th Street, New York City. 12219May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Rossiter: In the first place, I thank you heartily for the paper on Vermont, which I will read with real interest; and in the next place, it will be a real pleasure to me to have you write what you propose on race decadence. All the arguments that have been advanced against it have been of a kind to sadden one, for they have proceeded either from utter ignorance, or far more often have represented a purpose conscious or only semi-conscious, to cover up selfishness or viciousness by the use of fine names. Faithfully yours, Mr. W. S. Rossiter, Brookline, Mass. 12220May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Scherer: I am really pleased that you like my "Game Trails". Let me take this opportunity to thank you for my visit to Pasadena. It was delightful! I shall always remember it. Faithfully yours, President James A.B. Scherer, Throop Polytechnic Institute, Pasadena, Cal. 12221 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Stern: First let me say how glad I am to find that you are a fellow Harvard man. I am sincerely obliged to you for those Bills. They are most interesting. Faithfully yours, The Hon. Erich C. Stern, Assembly Chamber, Madison, Wis. 12222 May 2nd, 1911. Dear Mr. Stewart: I am so much obliged for the maple syrup. But, my dear fellow, I did not say I would write such a letter as you describe. I asked you whether I could send you the letter declining or not. One thing I don't want to do is to keep writing letters of the type you mention. Faithfully yours, Mr. John A. Stewart, 50 Church Street, New York City. 12223 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your very courteous letter and also for the enclosures. He wishes me to say that the matter will have his careful consideration. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. W.J. Tilghsan, Chicago, Ill. 12224 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr. Twichell: The paper has not come, but doubtless it will very shortly arrive. I shall go through it with deep interest and show it to The Outlook people. Let me tell you what I hope is unnecessary that there were few things that interested me and impressed me more than my talk with you gentlemen. Faithfully yours, Mr. Treadwell Twichell, Hillsboro, N.D. 12225 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. Unfortunately it is quite impossible for him either to do anything personally or to recommend you to anyone who could do anything in that matter. You have no conception of the demands made upon him, and of how impossible it is for him to comply with more than a very small fraction of them. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. C.H. Wetmore, Kirkwood, Mo. 12226 May 2nd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in sending him the statement in regard to industrial education as conducted by the Board of Education. He has already seen a photograph of the picture and he will not trouble you to arrange an appointment for him to see the original until the day he comes to he De Witt Clinton High School. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Egerton L. Winthrop, Board of Education, New York City. 12227May 2nd, 1911. My dear Mr Youngs: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. Mr. Roosevelt will be glad to come to the Court on Friday May 19th, and I shall be glad if you will let me know what time you would like him to be present. Faithfully yours, Secretary William J. Youngs, Esq., Brooklyn, N.Y. 12228May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: General Hamilton wrote a letter to Mr. Roosevelt saying that he would be in New York for forty-eight hours between May 8th and 10th. I have tried to find out what steamer he is coming on but up to the present have failed. I am keeping an eye on the sailing arrangements in order to try and get the information. I am enclosing a further letter for General Hamilton which perhaps you will kindly have handed to him with the other. Faithfully yours, Secretary[*2154*] May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Many thanks for your letter. You may fix the speech as you suggest and Mr. Roosevelt will speak on "Co-operation in Country Life". He is always very glad to have suggestions of this nature, and if there is anything in particular that you would like him to say, I hope you will let me have word. Will you please let me know exactly what time you will want Mr. Roosevelt to leave New York, what time he will arrive at White River Junction, what time he will leave there, and what time he will arrive in New York City. As regards your inquiry as to giving ample protection to Mr. Roosevelt, the railway people generally sends an agent along who is a kind of secret service man, and who keeps an eye on Mr. Roosevelt. Faithfully yours, Mr. Wallace Batchelder. 2154[*3220*] May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Blumenthal: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Charles Blumenthal, Prison Association of New York, New York City.[*4180*] [*Big Brother Movement N.Y.*] May 3rd, 1911. My dear Dr. Bogert: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Dr. Marston Taylor Bogert, Columbia University, New York City.May 3rd 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt was very pleased indeed to see that photograph, and he wishes me to thank you for your kindness in sending it to him. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. H.F. Bosquit, 621 Locust Street, St. Louis. Alfred J. Brown May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. Unfortunately it is quite impossible to give you the information you desire, but I am sure that if you wrote to the Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Ancen, Canal Zone, Panama, that he would be able to give you all the information you desire. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Alfred James Brown, Fremont, Neb.May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your letter and to say that it has been passed on to the Managing Editor of the Outlook. If he thinks it desirable to publish it of course he will do so, but he has all such matters in his hands. Faithfully yours, Secretary Rev. William Burgess, Illinois Vigilence Association, Chicago, Ill.May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: At the present time Mr. Roosevelt is so overwhelmed with work that it is impossible for him to make appointments except in the case of a small number of those asking for them. Will you please state exactly what you wish to see him about, and I will then see if it is possible for him to arrange an appointment with you. I am sure you will appreciate Mr. Roosevelt's difficulty in the matter. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. H.B. Duncan Clark, Ruthwell Lodge, Bloomfield, N.J. 8229May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your kindness in sending him a copy of the little book. He much appreciates your courtesy. I am returning it herewith as you may desire to have it back. Faithfully yours, Secretary Dr. S.W. Crosthwait, 1025 18th Avenue N, Nashville, Tenn. 6410May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: It was very kind of you to send Mr. Roosevelt that photograph, and he wishes me to tender to you his very cordial thanks. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. John M. Cruickshank, Brooklyn Daily Times, Brooklyn, N.Y. 6411May 3rd, 1911. Dear Colonel Dady: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Colonel Michael J Dady, 350 Fulton Street, New York City. 12229May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter. Unfortunately at the present time he cannot undertake anything further of any kind or sort, or make even a tentative promise regarding the future. He is almost overwhelmed with the work he already has on hand. He is very sorry to have to send you this reply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. W.S. Delano, Nebraska Farmers Congress, Wartewell, Nebraska. 12230 May 3rd, 1911. Dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. I think your best plan will be to write the United States Forester, Washington, D.C. telling him exactly what you wish. I am sure he will be able to send you some literature on the subject. If you also went to one of the public libraries you would probably find a number of books on the subject which you desire to study. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Kenneth Reed Dicke, 46 West 129th Street, New York City. 12231May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that it is quite impossible for him to do as you desire. He is approached in hundreds of similar cases, and of course it would be physically impossible for him to respond favorably in each such case, as he has not the time to read the books, besides which it would be very undesirable for him to comment on all those he is asked to comment on. He is very sorry that he cannot do as you wish. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. George H. Doran, 35 West 32nd Street, New York City. 12232May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for sending him copies of the two pamphlets. He much appreciates your courtesy and looks forward with pleasure to reading both of them. Faithfully yours, Secretary Vicente Echeverria, Esq., Consulado de Chile, London, England. 12233May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Edwards: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. T. R. Edwards, Shenandoah Choral Society, Shenandoah, Pa. 12234May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. At present he is so overwhelmed with work that it is physically impossible for him to make appointments for more than a very small proportion of the people who wish to call and see him. Will you not write him a letter stating exactly what you wish to see him about and I will then see if it is possible to arrange an early appointment for you to call. I am sure you will realize Mr. Roosevelt's difficulty in the matter as of course if he tried to see all the people who wish to come and talk with him he would be so overwhelmed that it would be impossible for him to do any other work of any kind or sort. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Ignatz J. Eliscu, Brooklyn, N.Y. 12235May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand and I am sure that if you got into communication with Messrs Newland, Tarlton & Co., Piccadilly, London, S.W. England, they would be able to give you all the information you desire regarding Mr. Roosevelt's trip in Africa. They are the people who equipped Mr. Roosevelt for his trip. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Harvey C. Evans, 703 Main street, Joplin, Mo. 12236May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Everett: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Charles D. Everett, Central Ohio Teachers Association Columbus, Ohio. 12237May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Ferguson: I wish I could come, but as I wrote to you sometime ago it really is not possible for me to undertake anything further of any kind or sort at the present time. You have no conception of the multitude of demands made upon me, and of how impossible it is for me to do anything more. I appreciate the circumstances in this particular case and if it were at all possible for me to re-consider my former decision and come to you nothing would give me greater pleasure. But I cannot go into anything more now. I am very sorry to have to send this reply. Faithfully yours, Mr. Huber Ferguson, Ohio Christian Endeavor Union, Mansfield, Ohio. 12238 May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Freeman: It was indeed good of you to send me your kind letter. I sincerely appreciate all that you say and thank you for writing. Faithfully yours, Mr. Miller Freeman, Seattle, Wash. 12239May 3rd, 1911. Dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to do as you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for sentences of various kinds, and to endorse all kinds of movements, that it is becoming almost physically impossible to reply to all the letters. I am sure you will understand Mr. Roosevelt's position in the matter and how useless it would be for him to endorse all the movements which are brought to his attention no matter how worthy they may be. It is with regret that Mr. Roosevelt has to send you this reply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Gladys C. Gilmore, Boston, Mass. 12240May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages to be read at meetings, that if he were to comply in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. E. Goodwillie, Detroit, Mich. 12241May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes he could do something for you in the matter which you bring to his attention, but unfortunately it is quite impossible. He does not know to whom he could recommend you, nor does he know of any way in which he can be of help. He is sincerely sorry as naturally he sympathizes with your position. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Albert Henry, 110 Sullivan Street, New York City. 12242 May 3rd, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another invitation of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept, but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Anna, M. Hill, Nature Study Club, Bronx, New York. 12243May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: When Mr. Roosevelt and myself were at Birmingham I obtained from one of the clerks in Blach's a duster for Mr. Roosevelt. I left three dollars at your Hotel with the Cashier to pay to Ellis Sinson when he called for it the morning after I left. I had arranged with him that I would leave this money if Mr. Roosevelt wanted the duster or if Mr. Roosevelt did not want the duster, return it to him. The young man now says that your clerk states that no money was left for him. Will you please look into this matter. I wrote you from San Francisco a short time ago but have had no reply. I shall be glad to hear from you soon. Faithfully yours, Secretary The Manager, Hotel Hillman, Birmingham. 12244 May 3rd, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages to be read at meetings, that if he were comply in one case, he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. J.T. Hinton, Memphis, Tenn. 12245 May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. I am sure that if you will write to the United States Forester, Washington, D.C., he will give you all the information you desire. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Roy L. Hogue, Jackson, Miss 12246May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. On his behalf I thank you for your kindness in submitting that letter from General Andrew Jackson to his wife, and am sorry to say that Mr. Roosevelt cannot do anything with it as he is not making a collection. I may add, as I am sure you will realize on thinking it over, it is a very dangerous plan to send valuable letters in the way which you sent the enclosed to Mr. Roosevelt. It is quite possible that such letters may be lost and of course you yourself would be the loser as you would have no claim against anyone. I am merely telling you this for your own protection. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Andrew Jackson, Knoxville, Tenn. 12247May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to thank you for your courtesy in sending him a copy of the verses. He appreciates very much all that you say and was really touched. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Andrew Johnston, Des Moines, Iowa. 12248 May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to thank you for your kindness in sending him that little book of poetry. It was very kind of you to do so, and he appreciates your thoughtfulness. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Edward Smyth Jones, Boston, Mass. 12249May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt was very pleased indeed to get those booklets, and he was even more pleased to read what you say in your letter. It was very kind of you to write him, and he appreciates your doing so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Adolph Kruhm, 125 Midland Ave, Columbus, Ohio. 12250 May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: I am sorry to tell you that it is quite impossible for Mr. Roosevelt to do anything in the matter which you bring to his attention. It is with regret that I have to send you this answer. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Charles C. Lander, 15 West 65th Street, New York City. 12251May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your very courteous letter and also for your kindness in letting him have a copy of the little book. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Richard W. Lewis, Cumberland, N.M. 12252FOREWARD---12-96 Lodge's Poems Vol I(underline) attach to letter of May 3, 1911 J 10-36-19 My intimate friendship with George Cabot Lodge lasted for a quarter of a century. It began when I first saw him, a handsome, striking-looking boy, of great promise, at Nahant in the Spring of 1884; it did not end when I last saw him, on the 4th of March, 1909, at Washington, when he came through the blizzard to say good bye. He was then in the still vigorously growing maturity of his powers, in the midst of a performance which more than made good his early promise and which was itself the promise of performance greater still. Of all the men with whom I have been intimately thrown he was the man to whom I would apply the rare name of genius. He was an extraordinary student and scholar; he walked forever through the arch of the past experience of all the great minds of the ages. Any language which he cared to study was his, and he studied every language which held anything he wished. I have never met another man with so thorough and intimate a knowledge of so many great literatures, nor another man who so revelled in enjoyment of the best that he read. He never read for any reason except to find out something he wished to know, or, far more frequently, to gratify his wonderful love, his passion, for high thought finely expressed. A great poem, a great passage in prose, kindled his soul like a flame. Yet he was unaffectedly modest about the well-nigh infinitely wide knowledge as deep as it was wide, in which his being was steeped. It seemed as if he did not realize how very much he knew. He never made any show of it; unless it came out incidentally and naturally no one ever knew of it; indeed he was really himble[sic]-minded in the eager simplicity with which he sought to learn from others who had not even a small fraction of his hoarded wealth of fact and thought. He was more than a book-man. He loved his friends, he loved the life of human interest, and the throbbing pulse-beat of cities. He loved also the breath of the open; and he knew the joy which comes in the strife of hardy adventure. As a boy and young man he was a bold and good rider; he was equally at home hunting alone 12253-2- on the vast western plains, and, also alone, wild fowl shooting in the [*K*] dangerous winter seas off the New England coast. His combination of idealism and bodily prowess made it inevitable that he should strain every nerve to get into the Spanish War. He came of fighting stock; his forefathers had fought in every great American War; kinsfolk of his were to be in this one; and he simply could not stay out. He went into the Navy as an ensign and served as captain of a guncrew. He made an admirable officer, training his men with unwearied care, and handling them with cool readiness under fire. He belonged to the gallant brotherhood of the men who have written and fought, the brotherhood whose foremost figures number, among many, many others, Cervantes at Lepanto, Sydney in the Low Countries, Koerner, the man of sword and song, in the war for German freedom. But here again what young Lodge did seemed to him so natural that, so far as his friends could tell, he never even thought of it afterwards. It was to him a matter of course, that he should serve when his country called, just as a generation before young Shaw and young Lowell went forth "to dare, and do, and die at need" when the nation girded her loins for triumph or ruin. To him was given the greatest of all blessings, the love of wife and of happy children; and his delight in the house where he was husband and father in no way dimmed his delight in the house where he was son. He cared little for the perfunctory part of social life; but no man was ever more beloved by his friends, by the men and women to whom his soul was open. It is not my province to more than touch on his writings. His first volume of poems showed extraordinary strength and originality, and an extraordinary wealth of thought and diction. Indeed at first there was almost too great strength and wealth; the depth and wide play of the thought were obscured by the very brilliance of the way in which it was set forth. But with each succeeding volume his mastery over his own strength grew. In his last volume, The Soul's Inheritance, he had fairly begun to come into his own. He had begun to find adequate expression for the teaming wealth of his mind, for his surging, thronging passions, for "the high and haughty yearning" that burned within his soul. He cared only to do his very best; he demanded only the right to be measured by the loftiest standards, to be judged 12254-3- L by the keenest and most serene minds; he could be swayed from the course he had marked out as little by love of general approval as by love of gain itself,-and in his case this is the strongest statement that can be made, for no man lived more incapable of mixing sordid alloy with the gold of his work. In abounding vigor, his task well begun and stretching far ahead, his veins thrilling with eager desire, his eyes fronting the future with dauntless and confident hope, he stood on life's crest; and then death smote him, lamentable, untimely. 8-36-10 He lived detached days; He served not for praise; For gold He was not sold; Deaf was he to world's tongue; He scorned for his song The loud Shouts of the crowd. Theodore Roosevelt. 12255May 3rd, 1911. My dear Madam: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand. It is very kind of you to offer to send the painting to him, but he wishes me to say that even if you were to do so he would be unable to express an opinion upon it. I am sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to do things of this kind, as if here to do it in one case he would be approached in hundreds of similar cases. I am very sorry to have to send you this reply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Beatrice H. Mackay, Jocko, Mont. 12256May 3rd, 1911. My dear Miss Marten: It was indeed good of you to send me your kind letter. I sincerely appreciate all that you say and thank you for writing. Faithfully yours, Miss Ethel Marten, 223 Westmoreland Avenue, Toronto, Canada. 12257 [*12257*]May 3rd, 1911. My dear Madam: In reply to your note to Mr. Roosevelt I beg to say that the way to pronounce Mr. Roosevelt's name is by dividing it into three syllables and pronouncing it like the flower rose, and then ending it with a slightly accented e before the velt. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Ethel Marten, 223 Westmoreland Avenue, Toronto, Canada. 12258 May 3rd, 1911. My dear McAdoo: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, William McAdoo, Esq., First Presbyterian Church, Kittanning, Pa. 12259May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mrs. Rice: One of the reasons why I was particularly glad to speak for the Derry School was because I was informed of your interest in it. Indeed, my dear Mrs. Rice, I need hardly say that you have the very strongest claim upon me. It was characteristically kind and thoughtful of you to write me. Faithfully yours, Mrs. W. B. Rice, 17 West 16th Street, New York City. 12260May 3rd, 1911. Dear Mr. Robinson: Herewith I beg to send you check for $120.00 received from the Astor Trust Company in payment of quarterly dividend. I also enclose a check for $48.45 received from the Adams Express Company. This amount was paid twice over on a shipment of natural history specimens from London. Will you please pay these checks into Mr. Roosevelt's account. Faithfully yours, Secretary Douglas Robinson, Esq., 146 Broadway, New York City. 12261May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Robinson: I wish I could accept but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. J. E. Robinson, St. Mark's Lyceum, New York City. 12262May 3rd, 1911. My dear Dr. Scherer: I did not take down Mr. Roosevelt's lecture on "A Zoological Trip Through Africa", and consequently I am unable to let you have the copy desired. I am very sorry. You certainly may reproduce Mr. Roosevelt's remarks about your Institute in your catalogue, and if you can secure any satisfactory report of the lecture I am sure it will give Mr. Roosevelt pleasure to have you use that also. Faithfully yours, Secretary Dr. James A. B. Scherer, Throop Polytechnic Institute, Pasadena, Cal. 12263May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Schmitt: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Gustav Schmitt, Baron Von Steuben Monument Association, Milwaukee, Wis. 12264May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to say that since he left the White House he has not spoken on behalf of a single person with regard to securing an official appointment or promotion of any kind or sort. If he were to do so in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do the same thing in hundreds of similar cases about which he is approached. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to help you. He is very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Charles R. Skinner, 641 Washington Street, New York City. 12265May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the letter which you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for similar letters that if he were to comply in all such cases the messages by reason of their being so numerous would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. Would not your best plan be to look up the public speeches of Mr. Roosevelt and to make extracts from them upon the subject you write about? I go sure that this would serve your purpose quite as well as the letter. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. H. C. Snead, Lynchburg, Va. 12266Secretary Mr. J. M. Spencer, New York City. May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes me to thank you for all you have written. He wishes he could go into the matter which you bring to his attention, but it is utterly impossible for him to make any further engagements of any kind or sort, or to add in any way to the work he already has on hand. You have no conception of the calls upon him and of his inability to comply with even the smallest proportion of them. If there is anything that is really important that you would like him to know, I am sure he would be glad if you would send him a letter setting out the matter fully. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. J. M. Spencer, New York City. 12267May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Spingarn: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. J. E. Spingarn, Troutbeck, Amenia, New York. 12268May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Hundreds and hundreds of books of various kinds come to Mr. Roosevelt and it is quite impossible for him to keep trace of all of them. For this reason he is unable to say whether or not he received the little book which you say you sent to him. In anu (sic) event it should have been acknowledged as soon as it arrived. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Frank L. Stehli, Maltimore, Md. 12269May 3rd, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages to be read at meetings, that if he were to comply in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. W. P. Toon, Wilmington, N. C. 2613May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Since writing you a day or two ago the long letter which you and Mr. Kingman have written has duly arrived and I will take it out to Oyster Bay to-morrow. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Treadwell Twichell, Mapleton, N.D. May 3rd, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to say that since he left the White House he has not spoken on behalf of a single person with regard to securing an official position or promotion of any kind or sort. If he were to do so in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do the same thing in hundreds of similar cases about which he is approached. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to help you. He is very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. C. C. Van Laningham, 61 Thomas Park, South Boston, Mass. 12270May 3rd, 1911. My dear Governor: I wish I could come to Yankton at the time of the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the opening of the Dakota Territory in June next, but unfortunately it is utterly impossible for me to do so. I have only just returned from a trip in the West, and I am sure, my dear Governor, that you will understand that I am quite unable at this time to make another trip of any kind or sort into the West. It is with real regret that I have to send this answer, as naturally I should like to visit my old friends again. Faithfully yours, The Hon. R. S. Vessey, Governor of the State of South Dakota, Pierre, S. D. 12272May 3rd, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another invitation of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept, but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Frances M. Weeks, 52 Boston Street, Somerville, Mass. 12272May 3rd, 1911. My dear Mr. Williams: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. George C. Williams, Laurel and Bethel Camp Ground Association, Laurel, Delaware. 12273May 3rd, 1911. My dear General Wingate: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, General George W. Wingate, Public Schools Athletic League, 20 Nassau Street, New York City. 12274[*P. H.*] [*Bristow*] May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages to be read at meetings, that if he were to comply in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages, by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. P. H. Bristow, Washington, D. C.May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another engagement of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. D. Berdon, 187 Duane Street, New York City. 12275May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another engagement of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. L. Canaday, 27 N. Pine Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 12276May 4th, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to say that since he left the White House he has not spoken on behalf of a single person with regard to securing an official position of any kind or sort. If he were to do so in one case he would be compelled to do the same thing in hundreds of similar cases about which he is approached. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to help you. He is very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Miss Mabel Ciscle, General Land Office, Washington, D. C. 12277May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter, and to say that since he left the White House he has not spoken on behalf of a single person with regard to securing an official position or promotion of any kind or sort. If he were to do so in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do the same thing in hundreds of similar cases about which he is approached. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to help you. He is very sorry. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. N. D. W. Jorgensen, 653 Bryant Avenue, Bronx, N. Y. 12278May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to send the message you desire. He is approached in so many hundreds of cases for messages to be read at meetings, that if he were to comply in one case he would be compelled in common fairness to do so in all the other cases, and this would mean such a drain upon his time and energy that it would become simply unbearable. Besides this, the messages by reason of their being so numerous, would utterly fail to achieve the object desired. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to comply. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. W. H. King, Parker, S. D. 12279May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your letter and to express his regret that it is quite impossible for him to take up any further matter of any kind or sort at the present time as he is almost overwhelmed with the work he already has on hand. He much appreciates the courtesy of your letter. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. John B. McFerran, Louisville, Ky. 12280May 4th, 1911. Dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that it is quite impossible for him to do as you desire. He is approached in hundreds of similar cases, and of course it would be physically impossible for him to respond favorably in each such case, as he has not the time to read the books, besides which it would be very undesirable for him to comment on all these he is asked to comment on. He is very sorry that he cannot do as you wish. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. James T. Minehart, 720 Stock Exchange Building, Chicago, Ill. 12281May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another invitation of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept, but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. George L. Newson, Lima, Ohio. 12282May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to acknowledge receipt of your letter and to express his regret that it is quite impossible for him to do as you desire. He is approached in hundreds of similar cases, and of course it would be physically impossible for him to respond favorably in each case, as he has not the time to read the books, besides which it would be very undesirably for him to comment on all those he is asked to comment on. He is very sorry that he cannot do as you wish. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. F. Oviett, Marshalltown, Iowa. 12283May 4th, 1911. My dear Mr. Rathburn: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Benjamin Rathburn, Amherst Chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi, Amherst, Mass. 12284May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another invitation of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of similar invitations, some of which he would really like to accept, but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. C. F. Rotzler, 346 East 79th Street, New York City. 12285May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to say that he thoroughly appreciates the kindness which prompts you to confer honorary membership of your association upon him, but he wishes me to say that he would much prefer if you did not press him to accept. He is already a member of thousands of societies, and as his is now a private citizen, he wishes as far as possible to withdraw from such memberships. He wishes me to add, however, that this is not because he does not approve of what you are trying to do, but simply for personal reasons. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. F. Seinecke, 558 7th Street, Brooklyn N. Y. 12286May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to thank you for your letter and to express his regret that it is quite impossible for him to take up any further matter of any kind at the present time as he is almost overwhelmed with the work he already has on hand. He much appreciates the courtesy of your letter. Faithfully yours, Secretary T. A. A. Siegfriedt, State Bank Building, Edmonds, Wash. 12287May 4th, 1911. My dear Mr. Stokes: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Alfred Stokes, Y. M. C. A. Brooklyn, N. Y. 12288Mr. Roosevelt presents his compliments and thanks to the United States Association for their very kind invitation for Friday evening May 5th, and regrets that on account of a previous engagement he is unable to attend. May 4th, 1911. 12289May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another invitation of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept, but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. G. L. Whitcomb, Milford, Conn. 12299May 4th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes me to say that he never gives his opinion upon public questions in letters to friends for quotation. The only way you can obtain his views upon the question you put to him is by referring to his publishes (sic) speeches. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it is for him to answer in personal letters all the queries that come to him. If he were to try to do so, it would entail such a drain upon his time and energy that it would be simply unbearable. He is very sorry that he cannot comply with your request. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Ralph B. Yewdale, 717 Langdon Street, Madison, Wis. 12291[*Belmont*] May 5th, 1911. Dear Augy: I do not know the address of the English pole players, and I am anxious to get Captain Barrett, whom I know, out to lunch or to spend a night at my house. Would it bother you to give me his address? I shall see the first game in Tommy Hitchcock's party, and the second in Henry Bull's. Do you think the English polo players would care to come out to lunch at my house? They may be overburdened with invitations, but of course at my house the reception would be of an exceedingly simple character! But if they cared to come I should be delighted to have them, and of course I should be especially pleased if you cared to bring them over with or without Mrs Belmont or anyone else you choose. Always yours, August Belmont, Esq., 44 East 34th Street, New York City.May 5th, 1911. Dear Senator: That is an interesting poll, and some of the figures really puzzle me. I hope you will be in New York sometime not too long hence. I should like you to take lunch with me at The Outlook, or else at my own place. Faithfully yours, The Hon. Joseph L. Bristow, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. 5185May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to say that he would be very glad if you could lunch with him at Oyster Bay on Monday next May 8th. He hopes this will be quite convenient. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Henry W. Bull, Sweetwater Farm, Hauppauge, L. I. 4376May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt would be very glad if you and Mrs. Bull would give him the pleasure of your company at lunch on Monday next May 8th. He trusts that this day will be quite convenient for you both, and that you will be able to get over to his house at Oyster Bay between 1 and 1.15. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Henry W. Bull, Hauppauge, L. I. 4375May 5th, 1911. Dear Clark: I thank you for your note, and am interested in it. As you say, I of course cannot give a letter to Grey. The only ornithologist I happen to know is Cherry Kearton, of whose address I am entirely ignorant. I suppose you could find him in the London directory however. He has done remarkable work in photographing birds, and he I am sure could advise you where to go to. Do let me see you as soon as you come back. Faithfully yours, Mr. Edward B. Clark, c/o International Mercantile Marine Co., London, England. 8120May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Curtis: No, I have not volume five. I have only volume one, two, three, and four. I look forward eagerly to receiving the others. Now, my dear fellow, you are more than kind about the cabinet, and I very sincerely appreciate your offer. But there is simply no room in the house for it. Mrs. Roosevelt and I went all over this floor last night to see if there was a place to put it, but there is not. I shall change the gun case in the hall so that I can put the folios therein, or at least other folios so as to put yours in place of these folios. With hearty thanks, Faithfully yours, Mr. Edward S. Curtis, 437 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 7916May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Carden: I wish I could come. You don't know how hard it is for me to refuse, but my experience with the flood of invitations that I have received has finally made me understand that it is a simple impossibility for me to speak at any given single school, no matter how good. It means heart-break and anger for scores of other first class institutions. A long delayed promise, made when I was in the White House in connection with the Berry School has been instance in point. Now I would love to stop some day while in the city, not to talk to Miss Pascal's School, but to see her and to say literally two words of greeting to the pupils. But I cannot do this on any set date, nor can I do it unless it is understood that I am to stay literally for five minutes, and that no newspaper men are to know that I have come. I believe in Miss Pascal with all my heart. Would Friday May 19th do? Faithfully yours, Mr. Richard Carden, 225 West 71st Street, New York City. 12292May 5th, 1911. My dear young friend: I receive many letter such as your, and of these letters quite a number of them come from your countrymen. It is not possible for me to write special letters in each case. A little book of mine called "The Strenuous Life", was translated into Japanese, and in that I give my philosophy of life. Faithfully yours, K. Chiba, No. 5936, 1 Chome, Katsuya, Ma-dori, Tenneji, Minamiku, Osaka, Japan 12293May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand and in reply I beg to say that he will have no objection whatever to your publishing his lecture entitled "The Strenuous Life" in booklet form and similar to the booklet you enclosed. It will however be necessary to have the permission of as they have all rights of publication. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Sydney J. Endacott, 14 Cumming Street, Monee Vale, Victoria, Australia. 12294May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Howard: It is a pleasure to hear from you, but please do not quote me. It requires every effort on my part to prevent myself being quoted on all conceivable subjects. There are a great number of matters in which I am genuinely interested, and if I were to permit myself to be quoted on all of them, I would lose influence as regards any of them. I am heartily against Spring shooting and I believe it should be prohibited nationally if possible. I have not thought of the pump gun question, but I am inclined to feel that the need is not to try to keep the weapons from being the best, but on insisting upon a moderate use of all weapons. I only wish I did know something of fish, but I have never studied them. Faithfully yours, Mr. C. B. Howard, Chicago Record-Herald. 12295May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Kearton: This will introduce Mr. Edward B. Clark, one of our ornithologists and a newspaper man. He is a fine fellow. He wishes to know where to go to see the different birds in England, and perhaps you can advise him. Will you tell your brother that I was more highly pleased than I can well say about those African pictures of his. In addition to having them in cinematograph form I do wish they could be produced in some permanent book form, just as Dugmore's have been. If they are, do let me know as I should like to do anything I could to call attention to the extraordinary quality of the work. Sincerely yours, Mr. Cherry Kearton. 12296May 5th, 1911. Dear Knox: It is a pleasure to hear from you. But, my dear follow, pay heed to what I have told you as to my candidacy. I think that it would be, from every standpoint, and particularly from my own standpoint, a very great and real misfortune to have me nominated in 1912; and I count upon you to help me in such a movement. Faithfully yours, The Hon. Frank Knox, Sault Ste Marie, Mich. 12297May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Herewith I beg to return to you corrected proof of Mr. Roosevelt's lecture on "Applied Ethics". Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. C. Chester Lane, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 12298May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Littleton: I am pleased to receive your letter. Of course you were quite right in thinking I was not responsible for any such preposterous statement. I did not myself deny it simply because I was afraid my denial would merely call attention to it. The only thing I did in connection with your candidacy was to favor it, that is, when Thomas Nelson Page wrote me about you, I wrote him that while I was not a member of the Metropolitan Club, and therefore had no influence in the matter, yet I took the opportunity of saying that if I were a member I should certainly vote for your admission. Again thanking you, Sincerely yours, The Hon. M. W. Littleton, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. 12299May 5th, 1911. Dear Mr. Mitchell: The last census showed that about three immigrants arrived for every two children born here, the worst showing about our natural increase rate that has been made in any census. Faithfully yours, Mr. William N. Mitchell, Atlanta, Ga. 12300May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter an also the clippings, and he wishes me to say that he would very much like to have a talk with you. Would it be possible for you to lunch with him at Oyster Bay on Monday next? He hopes this day will be quite convenient to you, and that you will let him know if you can come. Mr. Roosevelt has asked Mr. and Mrs. Perkins to come too. Faithfully yours, Secretary Frank A. Munsey, Esq., New York City. 12301May 5th, 1911. Dear Needham: Mr. Roosevelt was very glad to see that letter from Mr. Winship, and also the article from Everybody's. He had already seen the clipping from the Pennsylvania Record. He looks forward with pleasure to seeing you whenever you whenever you[sic] are in New York. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Henry Beach Needham, 1567 Oak Avenue, Evanston, Ill. 12302 May 5th, 1911. My dear Mrs. Needham: I am concerned at your letter, and I am far more concerned at the trouble that it depicts. When I met you and your husband first I had supposed that yours was a very happy marriage. I remember well seeing your little child, and meeting you also in company with your father-in-law. I was shocked and distressed when, on coming home from Africa, I heard of the difficulties that had arisen; and of course I received very conflicting stories from your friends and from your husband's. But as it did not seem to me that I could be of service in any way I simply forebore any attempt at inquiry or interference. I need hardly say to you that meeting as I do many thousands of men, it would be a very difficult matter for me to refuse to have professional relations with any man against whom accusations were made as to his private conduct, unless I look into that private conduct myself. I shall consider your letter carefully. With very great regret, Yours truly, Sincerely yours, Mrs. M. A. Needham, 301 West Green Street, Ithaca, NY. 03May 5th 1911. Dear Cotty: I was really pleased to get your letter, and I need hardly say how hearty my agreement is with the position you take. Of course I know that you would feel as I did as regards the matters discussed in the article on "Race Decadence". In that article I merely spoke of certain moralities so elementary as to be self-evident, and called attention to certain tendencies which everyone admits exists, and pointed out as a mere mathematical truth what those tendencies, if unchecked, would inevitably bring us to. It has been rather saddening to read some of the comments upon the article. Intelligent and unscrupulous men, in commenting upon it, have deliberately misrepresented the facts, or misrepresented what I have said, or have thought it a sufficient answer to attack me as an alarmist and sensationalist, or to ridicule what they could not answer. Unintelligent people are sometimes quite honestly unable to see even the simplest point raised, and these unintelligent people will make some irrelevant protest about quality being better than quantity - they themselves being apparently unable to understand that quality counts for nothing if the quantity is so small that there is finally no product at all. I loathe and detest a brutal or selfish or dissolute man even more than I do a bad and foolish woman; but many of the women who announce 123042 themselves as leaders in movements on behalf of women, and who have spoken about my article, have shown a folly and a fundamental lack of morality that has been simply appalling. However, I suppose that we are more apt to hear from the fools and the vicious people in a case like this than from the good people who are fundamentally sound. Of course, personally, I simply cannot understand any person feeling that there is any kind of happiness which comes from ease and luxury and the avoidance of endeavor, that in any way compensates for such a family life as you and I and our wives had. I will gladly come up next fall as you ask; but I am afraid I am aged a good deal, Cotty, and I won't be at all a companion, athletically, for you now. The African trip was my final burst, so to speak. When I come, I will have much to go over with you. I am amused at what you tell me as to the letters of advise and warning you receive. Yes, they are just such as I often receive, and have so often received. My own view has been that a man in [?????] such as you hold, or in any of the places that I have held, can be greatly benefitted by expert advice on any special branch of his work, but that very little good comes from the entirely well-meaning friend who wishes to advise him as to the general scheme of running his work. If the man is fit for his job at all, then inasmuch as he has the inestimable advantage of being right in the center of things, 123053 with his hands on the levers, he must know better than any outsider the general course to follow. He can be helped by a great many men as regards a great many different details, and he is wise to welcome advice upon them. But little good can be done him as a rule by the men who wishes to tell him how to run his work as a whole; and nineteen times out of twenty even the most well-meant advice, if generalized, is of little use save in giving an insight into some curious lacks on the part of the man who has proffered it. It may possibly amuse you to know that this Winter it has happened that Ted, Kermit and Archie - all three - have casually mentioned to me, but with the utmost emphasis, that their experience convinces them of the fact that you are much the biggest master of any school that there is? This Summer Ted expects a new arrival in his family, and he and Eleanor are already arranging that if it is a boy it is to be instantly put down for Groton. You have certainly impressed all of your boys with the belief that there is no-one like you, and this belief grows stronger instead of weaker when they are away from the school. With love to Fannie, Always yours, The Rev. Endicott Peabody, c/o Coutts & Co. Strand, London.May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to say that he would be very glad if you and Mrs. Perkins could take lunch with him at Oyster Bay on Monday next. He hopes both of you will be able to come as he has asked Mr. Munsey to meet you there, and he wishes to talk about many things with you. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. George W. Perkins. 12307May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Pollard: I thank you for your letter and the papers, and the request that I visit Richmond is investigate conditions. I do not believe that at present it will be possible for me to go away from New York. Are you ever to be in New York? I should like to see you and discuss the matters you raise. Faithfully yours, H. R. Pollard Esq., Richmond, Va. 12308May 5th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt is very sorry, but he is quite unable to give you the information you wish. The scheme you draw his attention to was under the auspices of the Street Cleaning Department, and Mr. Roosevelt does not know where he could refer you to. Faithfully yours, Secretary Messrs Smith, Hutton & Kirk Co., New Castle, Pa. 12309 May 5th, 1911. Dear Mr. Stimson: Mr. Roosevelt has asked me to send you the enclosed letter from Charles Dwight Willard to him, and a copy of his reply. When you have read them he would like to have them back. Faithfully yours, Secretary The Hon. Henry L. Stimson, 32 Liberty Street, New York City. 12310May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Welch: I have received these volumes, and thoroughly appreciate the gift. I am sorry to say, however, that it is not possible for me to do as you request. I cannot give expressions about books; I wish I could. With regret, Sincerely yours, Mr. J. A. Welch, 120 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. 12311May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Welch: You are exceedingly kind. I have received the beautiful twelve volumes of the Oriental Series. I am sure I shall find them interesting, and I greatly appreciate your sending them. Faithfully yours, Mr. Charles Welsh, 917 Delaware Street, Scranton, Pa. 12312May 5th, 1911. My dear Mr. Whitney: I thank you for those clippings, and for your letter. It was a very unpopular thing to write the letter that I did on behalf of the Mormons, but I did not feel at liberty to take any other course because I believe the assaults were of a peculiarly outrageous and untruthful character; and I should have been as [????] of myself if I had not stood up for people who were being falsely and untruthfully assailed. Faithfully yours, Mr. H. G. Whitney, The Waldorf Astoria, New York City. 12313[*Harvard Clubs*] May 6th, 1911. My dear Mr. Bard: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. C. M. Bard, c/o Plymouth Fur Co., Minneapolis, Minn. 12314May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand and in reply I beg to say that he does not contemplate making any such lecture tour. He already has as much on hand as he can well manage. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Gerald Christy, The Lecture Agency, Strand, London, England. 12315May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: About two weeks ago I sent $1.25 addressed to Sylvester Bell, Miles City, Montana, and it should have reached him long ago. I hope it has now come to hand all right. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. M. L. Dooley, Western Union Telegraph Company, Niles City, Mont. 12316May 6th, 1911. My dear Senator Gamble: I wish I could accept the invitation from the citizen of Yankton, South Dakota, to visit them at the time of the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the organization of the Territory of Dakota, but it is quite impossible for me to undertake anything further of any kind or sort. My dear Senator, any invitation coming from you, and especially to address the citizens of your home town, is one which I sincerely appreciate and if I could come nothing would give me more pleasure. But I cannot go into anything more now. I am sorry to have to send this unfavorable reply Faithfully yours, The Hon. Robert J. Gamble, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. 12317May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt has received your letter and he wishes me to say that he never gives his opinion upon public questions in letters to friends for quotation. The only way you can obtain his view upon the question you put to him is by referring to his published speeches. He feels sure on thinking it over you will see how impossible it would be for him to answer in personal letters all the queries that are put to him by correspondents. If he were to try to do so, it would entail such a drain upon his time and energy that would be simply unbearable. He is very sorry that he cannot comply with your request. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. L. S. Gillette, Ames, Iowa. 12318May 6th, 1911. My dear Miss Gilman: If it were at all possible of course it would give me the greatest pleasure to accept the invitation of the Headmaster of the Gilman Country School, but unfortunately it is impossible for me to undertake anything further of any kind or sort. It is with real regret that I have to send you this reply. Faithfully yours, Miss Elizabeth Gilman, 513 Park Avenue, Baltimore, Md. 12319May 6th, 1911. My dear Mr. Heard: I appreciate more than I can say your kindness in sending me these pictures. They will always serve as a very pleasant remembrance of what was perhaps the most enjoyable part of a very enjoyable trip through the West. Mr. Roosevelt also wishes me to say how very much he appreciates the pictures you sent to him. Both he and Mrs. Roosevelt were greatly interested and amused in looking over them, and Archie got quite excited when he saw one or two of them. He declares that they are better than any he took with his camera. If you are over in New York, I hope you will call at this office. With kind regards, Faithfully yours, Mr. Dwight B. Heard, Phoenix, Arizona. 12320May 6th, 1911. My dear Colonel Kerrick: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Lt. Colonel Felis [or Felix ?] Kerrick, Headquarters First Kenyucky Infantry, Louisville, Ky. 12321May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to thank you for your letter and to say that he is very sorry the Boy Scouts did not have the opportunity of participating in the welcome at Portland. Of course he had nothing to do with the local arrangements and probably it was not possible for the local people to arrange such a reception as would have given the Boy Scouts an opportunity to be present. As regards the message which you ask for, I am sure you will understand how impossible it is for Mr. Roosevelt continually to give out messages to the various divisions of the Boy Scouts. He has already given one or two messages to those at the headquarters. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. W. H. Lindsay, Portland, Oregon. 12322May 6th, 1911. My dear Mr. Manning: It was indeed good of you to send me your kind letter. I sincerely appreciate all that you say and thank you for visiting. Faithfully yours, Mr. W. J. Manning, The Public Printer, Washington, D. C. 12323May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to thank you for sending him that very interesting photograph. It is a wonderful group. If ever you are in New York on a Tuesday or Friday, Mr. Roosevelt hopes you will call at The Outlook office in order that he may have the pleasure of shaking hands with you. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. B. A. Newland, Tennessee Railway Co., Oneida, Tenn. 12324May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt desires me to express his regret that unfortunately it is utterly impossible for him to accept another invitation of any kind, sort, or description. During the past few months he has been compelled to decline literally thousands of invitations, some of which he would really like to accept but is physically unable to do so. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. Maurice Hitke, Press Club, 21 Spruce Street, New York City. 12325May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to express his regret that unfortunately he is unable to furnish the picture you wish. He has not one which he could send you. Faithfully yours, Secretary Col. Ralph Earl Prime, Governor General, Order of the Founders and Patriots, New York City. 12326May 6th, 1911. My dear Dr. Rice: It was very kind of you to send me a copy of that little book, and I appreciate your courtesy in doing so. Faithfully yours, Dr. Charles E. Rice, Mount Union College, Alliance, Ohio. 12327May 6th, 1911. My dear Mr. Smith: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of these invitations. I deeply appreciate the courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. Payson Smith, American Institute of Instruction, Augusta, Maine, 12328May 6th, 1911. My dear Madam: Mr. Roosevelt wishes me to thank you for your courtesy in sending him that very interesting picture. It is a fine family, and Mr. Roosevelt hopes that you will tender to the father and especially to the mother his hearty congratulations and his best wishes for the future of them all. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mrs. F. L. Spaulding, 2606 Dwight Way, Berkeley, Cal. 12329May 6th, 1911. My dear Sir: Your letter to Mr. Roosevelt has come to hand, and in reply I beg to say that Mr. Roosevelt does not now recall the details of the matter to which you call his attention. Doubtless the State Department has on record the votes and if you got into communication with them they would probably be able to give you the information you desire. Faithfully yours, Secretary Mr. B. S. Steadwell, American Purity Association, La Crosse, Wis. 12330May 5th 1911. Oh! Miss Turbell, Miss Tarbell! How can you take the view you do of the Herald! You compare it with the Tribune. It is perfectly legitimate to compare the Tribune with Mr Watterson's paper, the Courier-Journal. Honest people could agree or disagree about those two papers. Personally I think that during the last thirty or forty years the Tribune has been infinitely more helpful to good causes than the Courier-Journal, but, as I say, people can differ on such a subject; and I should be very glad to meet at any time either Henry Watterson or Whitelaw Reid. But to compare either one of them with the Herald is literally and precisely as if I should compare either the American Magazine or The Outlook with Town Topics. As you know, I believe the American Magazine has done, on the whole, great and real good; and I am associated with The Outlook because, as the result of a number of years close observation, I became convinced that I had far more sympathy with their ideals and purposes than with [??????] almost any body of men that I had every encountered in any walk of [???????]. Now people can differ about The Outlook or the American Magazine; but when any person compares either of them with Town Topics, or the Police Gazette, the comparison is of interest only as affecting my judgment of the person making it; and my dear Miss Tarbell, you must permit me to say that the same thing applies 123312 to a comparison of either The Tribune or the Louisville Courier-Journal with the Herald. Now as for what you say about The Outlook's publishing "The Truth about X". In the first place, I admit at once that the title, the type, and the placing of this advertisement did make it look to many readers like an editorial article. We need the same title, type and placing that had been used for similar articles for twenty years; but our attention was called to the fact, to which you now call my attention, i.e. that some people were misled in the matter; and in consequence as at once abandon this twenty years' custom. From now on, every article of the kind will appear under the heading of "Advertising Department" or "Advertising Section", so that there cannot be any possible mistake in the future. As for the publication of the article itself, I most emphatically think that it was not only justifiable, but commendable. The Outlook publishes continually letters from people upholding policies or views with which The Outlook diametrically disagrees. (For example, The Outlook has on several different occasions published letters taking a very dark view of my character and achievements, whether at San Juan Hill or elsewhere.) This particular article by Spencer I should have been glad to see published as putting forth his side of the case, just as I am now trying to secure publication in The Outlook of an article from the North Western farmers 123323 giving their side of the case against Canadian reciprocity. Spencer's article, however, was too long, and such being the case, as I say, I was not merely willing but glad to see it put in (I did not know it had been put in, of course, until long after it had appeared; but when I did see it, I was glad it was put in.) Probably you know that on April 8th The Outlook editorially took up this question, stated that the American Woolen [?] Company was entirely justified in printing their article as an advertisement, and that The Outlook violated in no degree the ethics of journalism in admitting the advertisement to its pages. I would have gone further than this and stated that The Outlook did not violate the ethics of journalism, but rendered a great and needed service and an example in showing its willingness to accept the statement of a case with which it did not agree, to put it in exactly as it was written, and then itself to comment with absolute freedom as it has done upon the arguments made in the advertisement. Let me repeat that if The Outlook had had space, which it unfortunately did not have, I should have been glad to see Spencer's article inserted, not as an advertisement, but as a communication signed by Spencer, and avowedly stating his side of the case. We have even gone further on certain occasions. We have actually sent out a member of our own staff to write up the Standard Oil Company, and show the good it was doing; and this notwithstanding the fact that, as you doubtless know, we 123334 have been among the bitterest opponents of the Standard Oil Company when it has done wrong. There is not a trust in the United States for which I have a more contemptuous abhorrence than the Sugar Trust, but if the Sugar Trust desired to state certain facts in its defence, I should do my best to have them published in the editorial columns; and if the article was too long and was not of sufficient interest to warrant putting it in the editors' section, I should be entirely willing to have it go in the advertising section, and then I should answer it or not just according as I did or did not think it necessary to do so. My dear Miss Tarbell, The Outlook and I do not agree on certain vital points. For instance, I very strongly believe in a ship subsidy for South American and Australian lines. The Outlook does not, but The Outlook would not in the least object to my publishing articles or my side of the question, if, as happens not to be the case, I wished to do so. On the contrary, I think that in a dine sporting spirit The Outlook would welcome my doing so, and then writing withering editorials in the same number to answer mine. There are convinced Free Traders who regard Protection as immoral, and convinced Protectionists who regard Free Trade as immoral. Personally I think one class just exactly as foolish as the other, but I think it desirable that each side shall have every opportunity fully and fairly to state its case. Sincerely yours, Miss Ida N. Tarbell. 12334May 6th, 1911. My dear Mr. Whitelock: I wish I could accept, but it is a simple impossibility. I have received literally thousands of similar requests and with the best wishes in the world it has proved impossible for me to accept one in a hundred of those invitations. I deeply appreciate the co courtesy and kindness of those who ask me to speak, but you have no conception of the drain it is upon me even to accept the very limited proportion that I am physically able to accept and I could not greatly increase this proportion or accept more of the invitations that come to me without absolutely abandoning all thought of any other work. Faithfully yours, Mr. W. M. E. Whitelock, The Harvard Union, Cambridge, Mass. 12335