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PROPERTY FROM THE FORBES COLLECTION
ROOSEVELT, Theodore. Typed letter signed (“Theodore Roosevelt”), to E. A. Van Valkenburg, New York, 27 June 1911. 3 pages, 4to, The Outlook stationery. Several words and punctuation corrected in Roosevelt’s hand.
Details
ROOSEVELT, Theodore. Typed letter signed (“Theodore Roosevelt”), to E. A. Van Valkenburg, New York, 27 June 1911. 3 pages, 4to, The Outlook stationery. Several words and punctuation corrected in Roosevelt’s hand.
TR SWEARS HE WILL NOT BE A CANDIDATE IN 1912—SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE “THROWING HIS HAT INTO THE RING”
An angry Roosevelt denounces a story spread by two prominent newspapermen: “Mr. McClatchy states that Mr Noyes informed him...that ‘Mr Roosevelt had pledged himself to support Mr Taft for a second term.’” Noyes, the president of the Associated Press, reportedly told McClatchy, a newspaper magnate, that TR made this pledge to “a member of the Cabinet, and also to an Insurgent Senator.” Roosevelt asks Valkenburg to tell McClatchy and Noyes “that Noyes is absolutely and completely misinformed, and that there is not one particle of truth in the statement...I was not going to support any man for the nomination in 1912, neither Mr Taft nor anyone else. The Insurgent Senator of whom Mr Noyes speaks is as wholly mythical a character as is the cabinet Minister of whom he speaks…The simple fact is that these stories are not misunderstandings; they are deliberate inventions. Mr Noyes is entirely in error in stating that President Taft thinks he has assurance of support from me. Mr Taft thinks nothing of the kind.” TR reiterates what he has told to “Gifford Pinchot, Jim Garfield, and Congressman Madison, and Billy Loeb, and Secretary Meyer, and Secretary Stimson, all alike, just what I have always said, that I would not be a candidate in 1912 myself, and that I had no intention of taking any part in the nomination for or against any candidate.” While thundering in his assertions that he would not run, his neutrality was an implicit and damning rejection of Taft. Exasperation towards Taft ultimately caused Roosevelt to throw his hat in the ring, as he put it, in February 1912, and make an abortive run for the GOP nomination before running as a Progressive "Bull Mooser."
TR SWEARS HE WILL NOT BE A CANDIDATE IN 1912—SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE “THROWING HIS HAT INTO THE RING”
An angry Roosevelt denounces a story spread by two prominent newspapermen: “Mr. McClatchy states that Mr Noyes informed him...that ‘Mr Roosevelt had pledged himself to support Mr Taft for a second term.’” Noyes, the president of the Associated Press, reportedly told McClatchy, a newspaper magnate, that TR made this pledge to “a member of the Cabinet, and also to an Insurgent Senator.” Roosevelt asks Valkenburg to tell McClatchy and Noyes “that Noyes is absolutely and completely misinformed, and that there is not one particle of truth in the statement...I was not going to support any man for the nomination in 1912, neither Mr Taft nor anyone else. The Insurgent Senator of whom Mr Noyes speaks is as wholly mythical a character as is the cabinet Minister of whom he speaks…The simple fact is that these stories are not misunderstandings; they are deliberate inventions. Mr Noyes is entirely in error in stating that President Taft thinks he has assurance of support from me. Mr Taft thinks nothing of the kind.” TR reiterates what he has told to “Gifford Pinchot, Jim Garfield, and Congressman Madison, and Billy Loeb, and Secretary Meyer, and Secretary Stimson, all alike, just what I have always said, that I would not be a candidate in 1912 myself, and that I had no intention of taking any part in the nomination for or against any candidate.” While thundering in his assertions that he would not run, his neutrality was an implicit and damning rejection of Taft. Exasperation towards Taft ultimately caused Roosevelt to throw his hat in the ring, as he put it, in February 1912, and make an abortive run for the GOP nomination before running as a Progressive "Bull Mooser."