47

Theodore Roosevelt

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,000.00 - 1,500.00 USD
Theodore Roosevelt

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2018 Dec 05 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
TLS, one page, 7.75 x 9.5, The Outlook letterhead, November 9, 1911. Marked “Private & Confidential,” a letter to Edwin Van Valkenburg, publisher of the Philadelphia North American, in full: “I did not answer the telegram from the North American because a long and rather unpleasant experience has taught me that the worst thing I can do is to yield to the requests of my good and staunch and real friends by writing such messages. It does not do them any permanent good, and it does me very considerable harm, because even they themselves, the people who ask me to write the messages in their own cases, feel impatient with me when I write exactly similar letters in other cases. I was of course overjoyed with your victory, and not only from the public standpoint, but from the personal standpoint. I felt that you had won a great triumph for civic righteousness, and moreover my personal experiences with Mr. Earle had given me a thorough and hearty contempt for him, and I felt personally that it was an advantage to the cause of decency that such a man should be defeated. Please treat this letter as purely private and confidential." In fine condition.

Roosevelt's letter contained his belated reply to a request for an endorsement in the Philadelphia mayoral campaign. Van Valkenburg and other reformers had backed Rudolph Blankenburgh, a distinguished educator who defeated G. H. Earle, the candidate of the Penrose machine. A few days after the election, Roosevelt wrote this explanation giving his reasons for not responding to Van Valkenburg's appeal.