LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 Apr Books, Manuscripts & Autographs #658  / 

25165

Theodore Roosevelt Political Typed Letter Signed

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:1,500.00 USD Estimated At:6,000.00 - 7,000.00 USD
Theodore Roosevelt Political Typed Letter Signed
<B>Theodore Roosevelt Typed Letter Signed <I>"Theodore Roosevelt,"</B></I></B></I> 3.25 pages, 7.75" x 9.5", separate sheets. New York City, August 14, 1914. To Henry M. Wallace, Detroit, Michigan, who is a Progressive and objects to his party supporting Republicans or Democrats in New York or anywhere else as fusion candidates, a policy favored by the Progressive's 1912 presidential candidate, Theodore Roosevelt. Wallace wrote to Albert J. Beveridge who had chaired the 1912 Progressive National Convention. In this letter, Roosevelt mentions New York State party leaders William Barnes (Republican) and Charles F. Murphy (Democrat).<BR><BR>Roosevelt writes, in part, <I>"I have just been shown your letter to Beveridge in which you say that you desire that the entire National Committee of the Progressive party meet and 'censor' the action taken in the State of New York and also everybody connected with the same. You of course understand that I was more connected with this action than anyone else. You are entirely at liberty to go ahead with your proposal and censure me and the others. I shall certainly not alter my position in the matter. There is no man in this country who would be so pleased and so benefited by the action you suggest as Barnes. He and Murphy have for years been fighting every proposal for a fusion of decent citizens to secure good government in either the State or the City of New York. The present primary law was framed by the two machines with this end in view. The men like myself have for years in New York been endeavoring to make decent citizens understand that they ought not to be misled by machine talk of regularity into keeping the machines continually in power. Your proposal is to reinforce Messrs. Barnes and Murphy by having the Progressive Party in New York adopt the same attitude that the old parties have adopted, and ensure the domination of one of the old machines - doubtless at this time the Republican machine - in the State. You would play the game of the machine Republican leaders. I fear you would convince the best men in the State that we had already grown so machine ridden ourselves as to put party above principle…I wish it understood that I regard the attempt to lay down universal rules to be followed by the party everywhere in local affairs as both absurd and mischievous; and I wish it distinctly understood that I now hold and shall continue to hold that the position we took in New York was the only right and proper position to take. It is precisely the position that a year ago we took in the City of New York when we supported Mitchel, the Democrat, for Mayor…"</B></I> John Purroy Mitchell was elected Mayor in 1913.<BR><BR>Two weeks before he wrote this letter, on July 31, 1914, Roosevelt had said in an interview at his Sagamore Hill home, "I felt that in New York State our prime business was to fight against the two bosses and the two old machines, with their seesaw in the government of the State. I wanted to take the most effective method of doing it, and when a Republican like Harvey D. Hinman and a Democrat like John A. Hennessy would come out openly against these two machines I was glad to back them up, just as last year I backed the Democrat Mitchel for Mayor of New York…We appeal to the honest rank and file of the two parties, Republican and Democrat alike, and we will be delighted to fuse with them against the bosses, the machines, the Bourbons, and reactionaries of both politics and business." On September 28, 1914, Hinman lost the Republican primary for Governor to Charles Whitman and Hennessy lost the Democratic primary to incumbent Governor Martin H. Glynn who lost to Whitman in November.<BR><BR>Concluding this letter, Roosevelt writes, <I>"Apparently you and the gentlemen who feel as you do have absolutely forgotten how things were done in the early days of the Republican party. There was no attempt made to insist upon uniformity of action in every state. <B>During the war Massachusetts was an overwhelmingly Republican State and the Republicans were a unit against Slavery and for the Union.</B></I> In that state Republicans were run for Governor every year on a platform straight against Slavery and straight in favor of the Union. <B>Ohio was a very close state, very doubtful. It was lukewarm and possibly hostile as regards Slavery.</B></I> In that State the Republicans ran in succession for Governor two War Democrats, two men who had voted against Lincoln but who were for the Union, and they ran on a Union ticket</B></I> TR has added in holograph: <I>"not on an anti-slavery ticket."</B></I> <I><B>It would have been folly to have made Ohio do as Massachusetts did or Massachusetts do what Ohio did.</B></I> There were a very few extremists, Wendell Phillips, for instance, who took substantially the view that you now take and who frantically denounced Lincoln because he was not extreme enough and thorough-going enough for them. <B>Of course, I am no more to be compared to Lincoln than the present crisis is to be compared to the Civil War; but the principles are the same in the two cases.</B></I>"</B></I> A truly remarkable political letter in very fine condition with a superb, full signature of Roosevelt, Lincoln's neighbor on Mount Rushmore.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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