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ROOSEVELT, Theodore. Autograph letter signed ("Theodore Roosevelt"), as former President, to Alec Lambert, Sagamore Hill, 24 April 1918. 4 pages, 8vo, Sagamore Hill stationery.
"I ENVY THE MEN AT THE FRONT!" WHO "ARE ON THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE GREATEST OF ALL WARS"
A fine, long autograph letter to his long-time physician, showing T. R.'s concern for his wounded son Archie, and his outrage over the lack of preparedness of American forces in the great German offensive of 1918. "Altho we have received several accounts of Archie," Roosevelt writes, "your letter was of especial comfort to us. It reminded us of the many, many times when you had been called in to look after the children when they were little, and now you and the boys are on the battlefields of the greatest of all wars...Simmons, the Red Cross man...said that Archie would be sent home. Of course we hope so too. We believe that from the purely service standpoint it would be advantageous, because we think he would go back to the front in fine shape, absolutely recovered from the shock to body & nerves. We of course shall make no request if the authorities don't order him home; but if they do, we hope you will use your influence to prevent him from turning pig-headed and declining to come, on some inverted-Spartan theory."
"[Leonard] Wood came out here for three hours the other day...but his account of the complete lack of weapons of war at the front was not encouraging. It is a bitter thing that in this great German drive, a year after we entered the war, we should be almost negligible. I respect and admire and envy the men at the front...but I am deeply indignant at the lamentable slowness and mismanagement in getting enough men at the front, and guns and airplanes for them; not to speak of the proper training." Both sons Archie and Kermit were seriously wounded, but survived. His youngest son Quentin, however, was shot down and killed in July 1918. His father, devastated by the loss, died six months later in January 1919.
"I ENVY THE MEN AT THE FRONT!" WHO "ARE ON THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE GREATEST OF ALL WARS"
A fine, long autograph letter to his long-time physician, showing T. R.'s concern for his wounded son Archie, and his outrage over the lack of preparedness of American forces in the great German offensive of 1918. "Altho we have received several accounts of Archie," Roosevelt writes, "your letter was of especial comfort to us. It reminded us of the many, many times when you had been called in to look after the children when they were little, and now you and the boys are on the battlefields of the greatest of all wars...Simmons, the Red Cross man...said that Archie would be sent home. Of course we hope so too. We believe that from the purely service standpoint it would be advantageous, because we think he would go back to the front in fine shape, absolutely recovered from the shock to body & nerves. We of course shall make no request if the authorities don't order him home; but if they do, we hope you will use your influence to prevent him from turning pig-headed and declining to come, on some inverted-Spartan theory."
"[Leonard] Wood came out here for three hours the other day...but his account of the complete lack of weapons of war at the front was not encouraging. It is a bitter thing that in this great German drive, a year after we entered the war, we should be almost negligible. I respect and admire and envy the men at the front...but I am deeply indignant at the lamentable slowness and mismanagement in getting enough men at the front, and guns and airplanes for them; not to speak of the proper training." Both sons Archie and Kermit were seriously wounded, but survived. His youngest son Quentin, however, was shot down and killed in July 1918. His father, devastated by the loss, died six months later in January 1919.